B-25 youtube Google search
Posted on 08/24/2025 5:32:05 AM PDT by Rummyfan
That’s wild.
I also like the real footage shot on the camera carried by one of Lawson’s crew of them flying low level from Florida to California, chasing an antelope, racing a train, flying under the Golden Gate Bridge (though he didn’t capture that because he forgot to load film)
Hahahaha...can you imagine being on a car and seeing that B-25 dive right underneath you!
Oops, that was the Bay Bridge, not the Golden Gate Bridge!
“He pulled up in a wingover”
If he did a wingover you would be eating your dust.
“Japan, which had begun its war of conquest against China in 1931, killed some quarter-million Chinese in reprisal for helping the raiders.”
Unsettled History: What Happened in China After the Doolittle Raid
https://www.historynet.com/unsettled-history-review-what-happened-in-china-after-the-doolittle-raid/
B-25 youtube Google search
More testimony that they can keep a good man down !
The good man only gets resurrected by the asshats in a dire emergency.
What if’s are enumerable…
Hmmm
“ On the American side, the Doolittle raid meant the aircraft carriers Hornet and Enterprise were not available for the Battle of the Coral Sea in the south Pacific. Had the Americans had four carriers at that first carrier-to-carrier battle, it’s interesting to imagine what could have resulted.”
But the reverse is also true. What effect did the raid have on Japanese fleet positions for Coral Sea.
I just got to the scene where the Japanese fishing boats were waving at the raiders. I seem to recall that detail in the book, which I read about the age of 11 in my sparsely populated Catholic school library (a book about JFK was next, likely PT-109 but I can’t verify).
It then occurred to me:
Doolittle Raid April 18, 1942
and this
“In January, the national insignia was added to both wings, top and bottom. The red dot in the center of the star was removed in the Pacific theater to eliminate confusion over the Japanese red disc which served as their insignia. The tail rudder stripes were also removed. These last two changes were accomplished throughout American forces...
... by May of 1942.”
https://wwiisquadronpatches.com/NationalInsigniaHistoryUSAircraft.html
https://www.aircorpsart.com/blog/timeline-for-the-us-air-force-national-star-insignia/
I’m left to wonder if the Raiders’ debrief contributed to the decision to change the insignia.
There was a whole series of books like this in our school and town library. I devoured every one of them as a kid carrying one just about all the time to read in any spare time. Our library was a Carnegie Library at the top of a long set of steps on Grand Avenue in McAlester, Oklahoma. The library is gone now. What a terrible shame.
Crashing in the surf at night was the most memorable part of the book for me.
DVD is $11 on Amazon ...
Yes...that had a lasting effect on me as well. His teeth pushed back in his mouth, the huge gash on his leg...the movie did not do that horror the justice the book did, that is for sure.
The first two books I checked out were “Thirty Seconds over Tokyo” and “The Mercury Seven”! I remember how exciting it was to check out what I wanted...:)
Could be...allied gunners had twitchy fingers at that time.
That said, I don’t remember the Doolittle Raiders having the rudder stripes...but I could be wrong. All those Revell models I built didn’t have them that I remember!
The ending was perfect.
For a film made in 1944, I expected more of a rallying, propaganda film.
It was very well done, but I’d have been satisfied with the latter, too. It’s very hard to recall the book, but my memory was that I had quite a different reaction to the book than the movie. That stated, I was merely a child when I read the book...
Here’s an excellent animated analysis of the Dolittle Raid from Operations Room.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q4je9fRpShA
Civilians and non Air Defense people rarely ID aircraft correctly. At that time and location no one, save those in on the alert system, was expecting American bombers there or then. And, there was a Japanese bomber that was easily mistaken for the B 25. The Nell, if I recall . . .
I would have loved to be along for the ride. I rode on a B-25 back in the late 70’s when it was called The Confederate Air Force. I couldn’t even hear myself talk due to it being so loud.
I took a tour inside a B-17 some years ago. From a distance that thing looked huge but inside I couldn’t believe how cramped it was! There was no place you could stand upright and I’m only 5’8.
How in the world those kids were ever able to bail out of those things was simply amazing.
God bless them.
Just unbelievable what the Japs did and still refuse to atone for their crimes. Ms Chang sadly committed suicide some years after writing her book.
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