They all looked/sounded very frail, but still alert. They're having a reunion if anyone is interested in attending.
Ticket Info.
The planes lacked fuel to reach safe bases after dropping their bombs. Griffin parachuted over China after the attack, eluded Japanese capture, and returned to action in bombing runs from North Africa before being shot down in 1943 and spending nearly two years in a German prison camp.
Another goblet turned.
RIP
The US Army produced the toughest pilots and crews that American aviation has ever known, they still do.
Me and a friend were just talking about the raiders and the goblet this morning and wondering when the bottle would be opened at Wright Patterson AFB.
RIP
I'm going by my memory so I apologize if I'm confusing this bombing run with another.
RIP, Tom Griffin.
Though he and many others shunned the title of ‘Hero’ they sacrificed and did there jobs well for us all.
RIP ....he was usually the lead talker on the Military Channels bio of the Doolittle Raiders...shame, but he led a full life and was admired by many...RIP indeed.
They don’t make em’ like they used to... at least not to the numerical degree of yore. Thanks for the post Chaplain. Caught the story in USA Today, earlier this morning. Just the same, glad to see it told here at my favorite source of good news, with bona fides I might add!
In his book, Saburo Sakai made some interesting observations.
He said the American pilots when the war started were extremely good as were the Japanese pilots. The American planes were much inferior which gave the Japs an advantage.
As the war went on the American planes equaled then exceeded the Japanese ones. By 1944 most of the pre-war Japanese veterans were dead and their replacements inferior.
He said the American pilots also declined but their far superior planes made the difference.
RIP.
My scoutmaster when I was a boy was a survivor of a POW camp in Japan. He went down after a B-29 bombing raid the same week we dropped the bomb. He spent every bit of his captivity inches from execution as the Atomic Bomb aftermath made those late captured POWs great targets for those holding them.
He had a self published account in AF archives, “Behind the Blindfold”.
He told me of this all after I was grown, and never mentioned it when he was a scout leader, but the other Dads knew of it and held him in the highest regard.
You served your country well!
It isn’t often you can call someone a hero and it be true, but these guys were truly heroes in every sense of the word!(and probably a little crazy too)
What those men did was remarkable at the time, pulling off what could easily be considered a ‘suicide mission’.
I have his autoraph, which I received at an air show. What a brave patriot.
R.I.P. Mr. Griffin. Thanks and gratitude.
I met both Col. Cole and Hite, Hite’s son was a cadet with me at military school. My roommate’s father was a flyer with VF229 on the Canal.
Rest in peace now Tom Griffin. You served with honor.