JIMMY DOOLITTLE

[OLDNAVYMCPO]

Seventy-five years ago today, Jimmy Doolittle, led a flight of 16 heavily modified B-25's off the tossing carrier deck of the USS Hornet to bomb Japan. The US forces were taking loss after loss in the south Pacific. The American public was in desperate need of some good news. The flight dropped bombs on five Jap cities with minimal damage but the propaganda effect was tremendous. 15 planes of the flight flew on to China where they ran out of fuel and crashed. One flight landed in Vladivostok where the crew were interned by the Soviets. Three crew members died in crashes and eight were captured by the Japs.

Militarily, the attack was ineffective but it was a psychological blow to the Japanese people and a much needed morale boost to the American public.

Doolittle was awarded the Medal of Honor and promoted two ranks to Brig Gen.

In today's time, it is hard to imagine how big a deal this was. Japan had bombed Pearl Harbor, Wake Island ,Guam, the Philippines.The Pacific fleet was darn near wiped out. There seemed to be no stopping the Japs. They were kicking butt all over the Pacific and the US hadn't scored the first point. Things were looking pretty dim, then along comes a bunch of heroes who risk it all to pull off a seemingly impossible suicide mission and succeed when everyone else is failing.

 

[the ringo kid]

My old laptop died years ago, but I found a photo for sale on the internet. It was a pix of my dad-who by that time had tansferred from the 8th AF, to the 5th. He was standing in tropical uniform-eaning against a Mitchell bomber-with his left hand touching the girly-art--on the butt. The guy with him was a friend from Kingsville-who joined the Air Corps at the same time as my dad and 6 others from there did. I have it saved to that computer somehow-and if I can ever get it fixed? id love getting that photo here.

 

[THE PILGRIM]

As I posted before - my FIL met Jimmy over in West Africa.
Jimmy was coming home via the Western route.

 

[Lee in Quartzsite]

Thanks for the reminder of this historic day. Here is a video made by his granddaughter about that day in history.

[ame]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RjbRL1rid7E[/ame]

 

[onebadvet]

Here is the official website:

Doolittle Tokyo Raiders - Official Web Site of the Raiders

Doolittle Raider remembers on 75th anniversary - CNN.com

 

[jimmyj]

The eight plane crew members captured by the Japs-what became of them ?

 

[bigwheelzip]

My old laptop died years ago... pix of my dad... I'd love getting that photo here.

You don't need to fix the old computer, you only need to yank the old hard drive and attach an adapter to it, and plug it into a functional computer. Here is an inexpensive drive adapter that should handle your legacy drive.

https://www.walmart.com/ip/NEW-USB-...61964&wl11=online&wl12=49645278&wl13=&veh=sem

Plan a Cloud backup, like Dropbox, for stuff you want to keep.

 

[Watchdog]

The eight plane crew members captured by the Japs-what became of them ?

One starved to death in a Japanese prison camp and three were executed by firing squad.

The executed Raiders were Dean Hallmark, First Lieutenant; Bill Farrow, First Lieutenant; and Harold Spatz, engineer/gunner.

Lt. Col. Robert Hite was one of eight Doolittle Raiders captured by Japanese forces. After 40 months in captivity, Hite was freed in 1945.

Robert Hite (shown in the photograph below) was the last surviving member of the Doolittle Raiders. He died in March of 2015 at the age of ninety-five.

 

[Absalom]

.....
Lt. Col. Robert Hite was one of eight Doolittle Raiders captured by Japanese forces. After 40 months in captivity, Hite was freed in 1945.

Robert Hite (shown in the photograph below) was the last surviving member of the Doolittle Raiders. He died in March of 2015 at the age of ninety-five.
.......

Through the invitation of a friend who was a Air Force veteran, I had the honor to attend one of the Raiders' reunions back in the 1980s when quite a few of them were still able to attend, although General Doolittle himself was represented by his son.

We were able to share tables with, converse, and get autographs from the attending surviving raiders in our copies of Carroll Glines' book on the raid which had recently been published and was sold at the event.

A very profound experience.

In the attached photo, Robert Hite's signature is the second to last in the right column.

 

[armenius]

The Tokyo raid was only a small part of this outstanding American's life. Read his autobiography "I Could Never Be So Lucky Again " and be amazed at what a full, productive, and risky life he led,and yet lived to old age. He was a truly great man.
I was fortunate to be working with the Air Force Association when we hosted the Raiders in Charleston for a couple of days in the late 1970's and got to spend time with all of them. I realized I was in the midst of Giants. Bless 'em All !

 

[DWalt]

You don't need to fix the old computer, you only need to yank the old hard drive and attach an adapter to it, and plug it into a functional computer. Here is an inexpensive drive adapter that should handle your legacy drive.

Yep, I have kept ALL the old hard drive I have ever owned just in case. Look on eBay, lots of things there you can plug your old hard drives into to recover any user-created or downloaded files - photos, word processing documents, spreadsheets, PDF files, etc.

 

[DWalt]

Most are probably aware there are at least two movies about the Doolittle raid, namely the WWII picture "30 Seconds Over Tokyo" with Van Johnson which may be on TCM right now, and the more recent "Pearl Harbor" with Ben Affleck. The first one is better.

 

[Lee in Quartzsite]

This just came out today on Military.com news. Color photos of each Crew.

Newly Colorized Photos Mark 75th Anniversary of Doolittle Raid | Military.com

 

[Targets Guy]

What a mission. What heroes they were.

free image hostingcertificity.com

 

[rwsmith]

At one time I thought....

At one time I thought the whole thing was a failure, but I hadn't realized the psychological victory that it won. I've changed my mind since then but I'd NEVER take anything from the men that carried out the mission. Guts and self sacrifice won the day.

 

[vonn]

The only problem I have with the story is that everyone of the raiders should have been awarded the same medals for an act that would be called suicidal in today's world.

 

[31FordA]

There is still one Raider left, Lt.Col Dick Cole. He is 101 years old, and flew as co-pilot for Doolittle on Plane #1. I had the privilege of meeting Dick Cole and the late Bob Hite several years ago.

I have been fascinated by the Doolittle Raid since I saw "Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo" when I was 8 years old. Over the years I have accumulated numerous books about the Raid, and the fantastic North American B-25 Mitchell. I still have the Revell model kit B-25B I built as a kid. One of these days I'll get the money together to go for a ride in a B-25.

As impressive as the raid was, it was only one chapter in the incredibley busy life of Jimmy Doolittle. I highly recommend his autobiography, "I Could Never Be So Lucky Again".

 

[Absalom]

..... and the fantastic North American B-25 Mitchell. I still have the Revell model kit B-25B I built as a kid. One of these days I'll get the money together to go for a ride in a B-25.
......

As for the B-25, I seem to recall having posted this here before, but the Erickson Aircraft Collection at Madras here in Oregon has the B-25J "Heavenly Body" on display. Obviously it did not fly on the Doolittle mission, but to commemorate the event, it took off, together with another B-25, from the deck of the USS Ranger in 1992 for the Raid's 50th anniversary celebration.

 

[gtoppcop]

I have always enjoyed watching the videos of the B-25s taking off from the pitching deck of the Hornet (CV-8). They said that the deck was pitching violently as she was at full steam with 13-16 foot swells into a 25+ knot wind.

The B-25s look like they're barely moving, but in reality they had 65+ knot winds under their wings.

Incredible men!

 

[bushmaster1313]

30 Seconds Over Tokyo was one of my favorite books in grammar school
[ame]https://www.amazon.com/Thirty-Seconds-Over-Tokyo-Lawson/dp/0743474333[/ame]