April 18, 1942: Over Tokyo!

[Texas Star]

Lest we forget, this is the day in 1942 when Lt. Col. (later Gen.) James H. Doolittle led 16 B-25 bombers off the USS Hornet and bombed Tokyo, Kobe, Nagoya, and other Japanese cities in America's first revenge strike on the Jap homeland.

It earned Doolittle the Medal of Honor and no doubt was a prime cause of his soon becoming a general.

Has anyone got any good photos of Doolittle or the other raiders, or of B-25B bombers?

Contrary to wide belief, Doolittle did not think of the plan. That was the idea of a Navy officer who saw B-25's practicing landing at an air field where someone had drawn in the outline of a Navy carrier deck.

Doolittle's autobiography, "I Could Never Be So Lucky Again" tells the story in great detail, naming names and dates.

The disgusting part of the tale is the crude way that civilian mechanics treated his planes that had been carefully tuned for that mission, with special modifications. Capt. Ted Lawson commented on that in his splendid, "Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo", and Doolittle reproduced that portion of the book in his own. He had to get Gen. Arnold to personally intervene to keep sloppy mechanics away from his planes!

Both books mentioned are warmly recommended.

By the way, did you know that Doolitle held a doctorate in Aeronautics from MIT, and also was instrumental in learning new ways to land the temperamental B-26, which also needed longer wings? Many had crashed before he found the cure. Pilots were making grim jokes about the B-26, saying that it was a prostitute, a plane that had no visible means of support!

T-Star

 

[Texas Star]

Lest we forget, this is the day in 1942 when Lt. Col. (later Gen.) James H. Doolittle led 16 B-25 bombers off the USS Hornet and bombed Tokyo, Kobe, Nagoya, and other Japanese cities in America's first revenge strike on the Jap homeland.

It earned Doolittle the Medal of Honor and no doubt was a prime cause of his soon becoming a general.

Has anyone got any good photos of Doolittle or the other raiders, or of B-25B bombers?

Contrary to wide belief, Doolittle did not think of the plan. That was the idea of a Navy officer who saw B-25's practicing landing at an air field where someone had drawn in the outline of a Navy carrier deck.

Doolittle's autobiography, "I Could Never Be So Lucky Again" tells the story in great detail, naming names and dates.

The disgusting part of the tale is the crude way that civilian mechanics treated his planes that had been carefully tuned for that mission, with special modifications. Capt. Ted Lawson commented on that in his splendid, "Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo", and Doolittle reproduced that portion of the book in his own. He had to get Gen. Arnold to personally intervene to keep sloppy mechanics away from his planes!

Both books mentioned are warmly recommended.

By the way, did you know that Doolitle held a doctorate in Aeronautics from MIT, and also was instrumental in learning new ways to land the temperamental B-26, which also needed longer wings? Many had crashed before he found the cure. Pilots were making grim jokes about the B-26, saying that it was a prostitute, a plane that had no visible means of support!

T-Star

 

[Texas Star]

http://india.smashits.com/wikipedia/Doolittle_Raid

Wikipedia entry about this event, detailed and good.

 

[Spotteddog]

It's a shame they're probably all gone now? The flying sequences in the MGM movie starring Spencer Tracy were quite impressive by 1942'-1943' standards. Hell of a tale! And every word of it true!

 

[Texas Star]

http://www.percongrp.com/pelikan/aircraft/b25b_ms.htm

See detailed models of Ted Lawson's plane, The Ruptured Duck, pilot, Navy handlers, etc. Scroll down for all photos.

 

[Herknav]

I haven't been to Arnold Hall in a while, but the Air Force Academy has a small Doolittle exhibit there. It consists of a single bottle of 1896 Hennessey cognac (the year of Doolittle's birth) and a silver cup for each raider. At the annual reunion, they toast their fallen comrades and invert the cups of the deceased. When only two remain, they'll share the cognac. Last I saw, there were only about men 9 left.

 

[Spotteddog]

Thanks Herknav!
I had no idea of that?

 

[Texas Star]

That cognac story is well known, and is included in the Wikipedia entry cited above. It's really a good summary of the mission and the aftermath. But I bet that cognac tastes awful after being open for so long.

Doolittle got the Medal of Honor for planning and leading the mission. Does anyone here know what medals other members on the raid received?

Too many certainly received the Purple Heart. Ted Lawson lost a leg to a surgeon after landing the Ruptured Duck after it ran out of fuel over China. I know that some others in hs crew were also injured.

 

[586L-Frame]

Here is a trailer from the movie,
'30 Seconds Over Tokyo'.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tEXPwHrViqg

586L-Frame

 

[586L-Frame]

Actual war clip of the Doolittle Raid
and B25's taking off from their Carrier.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v...YCas&feature=related

Version in color.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iyeAj1Ik2Bw&NR=1

586L-Frame

 

[haggis]

The I-26 interchange with SC-302 is called the Doolittle Raiders Interchange in honor of those men who trained for carrier takeoffs at the nearby Columbia, SC air base (now the Columbia Municipal Airport). The term "heroes" gets overused a lot these days, but that's what these men were, to a man. The mission was considered to be perhaps barely survivable, but if it had meant certain death, I think all these guys would have gone anyway.

The physical impact of the raid was not much, but the psychological impact was enormous. The effect was a statement writ large and unmistakable, "You have messed with the wrong nation, and you will pay dearly!", as Admiral Yamamoto had correctly feared.

Buck

 

[Spotteddog]

I screwed the pooch earlier fella's, not mentioning the title OF the movie! DUH!
Thanks for all of those links! I remembered the movie correctly. That wasn't Star Wars, it was real! Where do you think the later day directors got their inspiration from?
They didn't call them "The Greatest Generation" for nothin'!

 

[Spotteddog]

OK,
I plead guilty to posting this ONLY, to bump it to the top!

 

[Big Cholla]

My father-in-law Joseph A. Lopez was a crew member on one of the Doolittle Raider Bombers. He was a gunner. On the morning of the takeoff LC Doolittle became afraid of the planes being overweight for the takeoff and that they were going to have to fly much further than originally planned. He ordered the EMs in each crew to draw straws for one to stay behind. My FIL drew the short straw. He raised hell and protested that since he was the lightest in weight EM on his crew that someone heavier should be the one to stay. LC Doolittle himself had to intervene and order my FIL to stay on board the carrier. Every airplane flew one short on the crew that day.

My FIL regretted getting that short straw until his dying day. ........... Big Cholla

 

[Spotteddog]

That's WHY they call it the short straw B/C!
I'll bet he was just the kind of dude it WOULD rancor to no end! I'll bet it was a pleasure to have known him...

 

[Jim in Wisconsin]

There is a 'Last Mans Club' of the Doolittle raiders. 80 goblets were made, one for each crew member. As they pass on, the goblet is turned over, and the last two open the bottle of brandy. It was kept at the air Force Academy, but it now has a new home
http://www.defenselink.mil/new...rticle.aspx?id=15406

 

[Big Cholla]

Spotted Dog: You have no idea what a great guy he was. He was born onboard a ship from Spain to NYC. He was orphaned at the age of 9 by a Cholera epidemic in Spanish Harlem. He was sent to a Catholic orphanage run by Irish Nuns. He never did learn to like to eat any spiced food after that! He ran away so many times that the Nuns lied to the Army and let him enlist at the age of 15 1/2. He was sent to Texas and became an actual Cavalryman on actual horses. He later transferred into the US Army Air Force when the Army Cavalry was disbanded. There he became a crew chief on many, many different airplanes. He was a tailgunner on B-17s in Europe after the Doolittle Raid. He retired after 32 years as the crew chief on F-105s. To go from horses to F-105s in a military career is a story unto itself. .......... Big Cholla

 

[Spotteddog]

Nag's to "Thuds"!
Now that boys and girls, is what I call a resume'!

 

[7.62foryou]

There is no overstating the courge and integrity of the men from that generation who fought for this country during WWII. I don't mean to diminish anyone who served later but the times were so much different than. Europe the Pacific might as well have been on the moon back than. Alot of those guys had barely ever been off their farms and out of their neighborhoods, then one day their half way round the world in places they probably had never even seen pictures of. Fighting enemeies who's brutality they couldn't have imagined in their worst nightmares. When my father talked about the war it was always funny stories. He only once referred to the horrors when one day there was a program about Arlington National Cemetary and as the camara panned across a sea of white crosses he turn to me and said "that is war, that is what war is about". I was about 12 then and he never said another word about it, only the amusing tales were ever mentioned. As time went by I realized there was damned few of them. He's gone now as are almost all of them. They were so different from so many of us. They did what thay had to do and lived with the memories without complaining or feeling sorry for themselves. They really are the greatest generation. God Bless them all.

 

[Spotteddog]

A soliloquy that would make Doc Savage proud 7.62! (Noting you ARE from the San Francisco area?) But maybe, it was because all of us were at least turned into decent people, by having been able to rub shoulders with good examples coming up. I'll confess that I was not as good a role model, as I had had!