Posted on 03/01/2013 9:43:41 AM PST by xzins
Now, hes flying with the angels.
Tom Griffin, one of just five surviving Doolittle Raiders, died Tuesday night in his sleep at the Fort Thomas VA hospital in Kentucky. He navigated one of 16 North American B-25 Mitchell bombers from an aircraft carrier in the middle of the Pacific during the early dark days of World War II to launch a surprise daylight attack on Tokyo, lifting American morale. The longtime Green Township, Ohio, resident was 96.
By his own count, Mr. Griffin cheated death eight times during World War II. The first time was when he took off in a land-based bomber from the deck of the USS Hornet at 9 a.m. April 18, 1942. The mid-ocean takeoff made history. No land-based bomber had ever taken off from an aircraft carrier in combat. The Raiders made history later that day when they bombed Tokyo in partial payback for Japans Dec. 7, 1941, surprise attack on Pearl Harbor.
Mr. Griffins plane, which he named the Whirling Dervish, knocked the lights out in Tokyo. The Whirling Dervishs bombs flattened the Tokyo Gas & Electric plant.
TODAY....Our President won’t us a Carrier because of a sequester of 85 billion a year when we are printing 85 EVERY DANG MONTH!
Good observations about the US policy of bringing top pilots (often Aces), back home to teach trainees how it was in real combat (as opposed to just reading about it).
A couple comments: At the National Archives in College Park, Md., some of the military record collections, esp. those of the Navy, have what are collectively called “After Action Reports”, but more specifically are intelligence debriefings of hundreds of pilots, navigators, ship crewmen, etc. on what happened during a battle(s) and how American equipment stood up against that of the Japanese, as well as which tactics worked or didn’t work.
There is one printed/mimeographed collection of such reports which I recently looked through with a friend who is gathering them for an article/book he is working on. Among the pilots was Major Pappy Boyington.
There are other pilot reports scattered in the Army Air Force records (Record Group 18), which have similar intelligence debriefings and talks. The P-38 was held by their pilots to be the equal of the Jap Zero if the pilots knew how to fly it properly. Other American fliers loved the P-40 Flying Tiger WarHawk (The Russians loved the P-39 Aerocobra as a tank destroyer).
Then came the “Flying Tank” P-47 and later the P-51 Mustang, probably the best all around aerial combat plane in the war. British actor Christopher Lee once flew in the Royal Air Corps, flying Spitfires and then, later, American Mustangs, which he loved. (”Chistopher Lee: Tall, Dark and Gruesome”, about 1999).
Our training programs, as noted, got better by the year, esp. when the new trainees worked with seasoned combat veterans on strategy and tactics.
At the end of the war, we had the best Air Force in the world. A salute to all of them and their mechanics and armorers. They did one helluva job.
Rest in peace now Tom Griffin. You served with honor.
I would trust Sakai’s word on the quality of American pilots over some historian any day.
I agree.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.