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Last Doolittle Raider to toast to his comrades Tuesday (Today)
The State ^ | April 18, 2017 | Jeff Wilkinson

Posted on 04/18/2017 4:41:46 AM PDT by Zakeet

On April 18, 1942 - 75 years ago Tuesday - 80 incredibly brave men in 16 bombers took off from the aircraft carrier USS Hornet to bomb Tokyo and other Japanese cities in retaliation for the sneak attack on Pearl Harbor.

It was called the Doolittle Raid, after the group’s charismatic leader, Lt. Col. Jimmy Doolittle, a renowned avaiator even before the war.

Doolittle’s B-25 was the first to take off from the Hornet. Sitting beside him was a quiet, lanky young man from Dayton, Ohio, named Dick Cole.

On Tuesday, the 101-year-old will be at the National Museum of the U.S. Air Force in Dayton , Ohio. There, he will complete a decades-long tradition and turn over the goblet of his friend and fellow Raider David Thatcher, who died last year on June 22.

The tradition was that the Raiders would meet each year and drink a toast to those who had fallen. Each had their own goblet, and after each Raider died, his goblet would be turned upside down in its case. Cole, 101, will offer the toast this year by himself - he’s the last surviving Raider.

(Excerpt) Read more at thestate.com ...


TOPICS: Foreign Affairs; Front Page News; Japan; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: armyaircorps; doolittle; doolittleraid; heroism; ww2
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To: Zakeet

I’m reading “Target Tokyo” right now. What an incredible story of initiative, audacity, daring and courage.


21 posted on 04/18/2017 6:04:57 AM PDT by ProtectOurFreedom
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To: momincombatboots

The military doesn’t keep losing. It is the bleeding heart diplomatic and political second guessing and micro managing from Washington that causes perceived “losses.”
Thankfully, FINALLY, we have a president who is letting the military do their job without feckless idiots who have never seen a battlefield telling them what to do.
GO TRUMP!!


22 posted on 04/18/2017 6:18:31 AM PDT by Mollypitcher1 (I have not yet begun to fight....John Paul Jones)
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To: momincombatboots

We keep losing because we have agreed to rules that do not allow us to win.
Instead of simply killing the enemy without pity, we make all sorts of stupid rules about not harming the civilians (who are feeding the enemy, providing him cover, intel, etc.). We feed these ‘civilians’ and end up feeding the enemy. We don’t hit the enemy’s logistics either; might hurt ‘civilians.’


23 posted on 04/18/2017 6:21:09 AM PDT by Little Ray (Freedom Before Security!)
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To: Zakeet

Respect.


24 posted on 04/18/2017 6:50:06 AM PDT by baltimorepoet
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To: Zakeet

Two really good films were made about that raid. The well known “Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo” and the lesser known “The Purple Heart”.


25 posted on 04/18/2017 7:23:45 AM PDT by fella ("As it was before Noah so shall it be again,")
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To: 4yearlurker

It wasn’t by accident! WWII was America’s last YHWH approved war.


26 posted on 04/18/2017 7:28:17 AM PDT by SubMareener (Save us from Quarterly Freepathons! Become a MONTHLY DONOR)
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To: Zakeet

http://www.schistoricaviation.org/

link at site


27 posted on 04/18/2017 7:30:36 AM PDT by headstamp 2 (Ignorance is reparable, stupid is forever)
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To: Zakeet

They didn’t give his story, but we know from Doolittle’s biography that his and Cole’s plane crash-landed in Quzhou, in Zhejiang Province, Southwest of Shanghai. All of Doolittle’s crew parachuted out safely, I believe, and with the help of locals, were not captured by the Japanese.


28 posted on 04/18/2017 7:57:28 AM PDT by PGR88
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To: ProtectOurFreedom

I read it last year, It is a stirring account of the raid and the aftermath. I highly recommend it.


29 posted on 04/18/2017 8:17:44 AM PDT by Captain Peter Blood
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To: corkoman

This is also the 242nd anniversary of Paul Revere’s ride.


30 posted on 04/18/2017 8:21:07 AM PDT by Laslo Fripp (The Sybil of Free Republic)
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To: corkoman
Guts. They had guts. How many today would volunteer for a similar perilous mission?

Everyday, men and women police, firefighters and all members of the military do that very thing. We are blessed.

31 posted on 04/18/2017 8:23:34 AM PDT by Don Corleone (.leave the gun, take the canolis, take it to the mattress.)
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To: Captain Peter Blood

I’m just over half way through where the raiders have crash landed and are either getting away into the interior of China or getting captured and tortured by the Japanese. The descriptions of their injuries, infections, gangrene; the lack of any basic medical care in rural China and even in their hospitals — yikes. What those men endured is unbelievable. You never hear much about the aftermath.

How unfortunate that they had to launch prematurely several hundred miles west of their planned launch point after getting discovered by the Japanese. I can’t imagine the thoughts and terror the crews experienced knowing that they were not going to reach the destination airfields in the interior of China.

Indeed - highly recommended!


32 posted on 04/18/2017 8:56:00 AM PDT by ProtectOurFreedom
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To: joesbucks
It’s so sad that so few of that generation remain.

I'm fortunate enough to still be playing softball with one. Marv turned 90 this winter and is still going strong, playing ball 4 mornings a week.......

33 posted on 04/18/2017 9:55:58 AM PDT by Hot Tabasco
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To: Zakeet

After reading that article I feel like I was punched in the stomach.

RIP Brave Warriors.


34 posted on 04/18/2017 10:02:33 AM PDT by Gamecock (Twitter: What a real democracy looks like.)
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bookmark


35 posted on 04/18/2017 10:30:33 AM PDT by freds6girlies (many that are first shall be last; and the last shall be first. Mt. 19:30. R.I.P. G & J)
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To: VanDeKoik

I wonder if they had known about nitrous back then and would it have made a difference?


36 posted on 04/18/2017 11:26:51 AM PDT by infool7 (The ugly Truth is just a big lie.)
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To: Little Ray

You are right. ISIS didn’t start losing in IRAQ until we started eliminating their oil revenues by bombing civilian truck drivers delivering the oil.


37 posted on 04/18/2017 11:40:06 AM PDT by Sertorius (A hayseed with no Greek and dam^ proud of it)
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To: infool7

Nitrous was known, but they could not have safely used it. The tanks available then could not have been jettisoned and the amount of additional fuel used while under nitrous power and hauling the heavy bottles afterwards would have meant failure. They had to remove most of the B-25s’ guns and the remaining few guns had almost no ammo aboard - that’s how desperately they had stripped the aircraft to get it to complete the mission. Given that no few of them barely made the Chinese coast, it turned out the margin really was so thin that a few pounds might have made the difference.

Same thing for water injection, which was also known at the time and was more common. And then there’s the reliability aspect.


38 posted on 04/18/2017 11:41:16 AM PDT by Spktyr (Overwhelmingly superior firepower and the willingness to use it is the only proven peace solution.)
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To: Zakeet

Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo is long overdue for a high-quality re-make.


39 posted on 04/18/2017 11:42:41 AM PDT by Mr. Jeeves ([CTRL]-[GALT]-[DELETE])
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To: Mr. Jeeves

I might agree on that. But who would play the roles and would some sort of Leftist agenda be inserted? Also we now have to have the obligatory Gay subplot put in, I leave that one to the imagination.

If you have seen Brad Pitt’s film “Allied”, they somehow managed to add into the story line that Pitt’s character’s sister was a open lesbian and it was just accepted by everyone.


40 posted on 04/18/2017 12:20:09 PM PDT by Captain Peter Blood
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