James H. Doolittle and the Tokyo Raiders James H. Jimmy Doolittle (14 December 1896 – 27 September 1993), champion of the calculated risk, aircraft racer, test pilot and aeronautical scientist. First man to fly across the United States in less than 24 hours, also the first to do it in less than 12 hours. First to fly an outside loop and first pilot to take off, fly a set course and land without seeing the ground and so became the pioneer of blind flying. Doolittle won the Schneider, Bendix, Thompson, Mackay, Harmon, Guggenheim and Wright Brothers trophies including several foreign awards and he earned a Ph. D. in Aeronautical Engineering from Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1924. He was the most famous pilot in the world. He was a little too young to fight in World War One. Doolittle enlisted for flight training in November 1917 and became a U.S. Army flight instructor. He stayed with the U.S. Army Air Corps until 1930 when he left to pursue a career in commercial aviation. When war broke out again in Europe in 1939, Doolittle traveled to see the growing Luftwaffe first hand. On his return to the states, he contacted his old friend Henry Harley Hap Arnold (25 June 1886 – 15 January 1950) and asked to be recalled to active military duty and his orders to return to the U.S. Army as a Major were issued on 1 July 1940 U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt wanted to make America an Arsenal of Democracy so Doolittle was sent by the military to Detroit to work with the retooling of American industry. General Arnold knew that Doolittle had the engineering expertise and a winning way of tact and finesse to work with industry leaders. After 7 December 1941, the day which will live in infamy, the entire U.S. automotive industry agreed on terminal quotas -- no more private cars for the duration of the war -- as war production went into full swing. One day not long after the Pearl Harbor attack, while watching aircraft practice short field take offs, Captain Francis S. Low, a submariner and operations officer on the staff of U.S. Navy Admiral Ernest J. King, got a brilliant idea. Low was in Norfolk and had gone to the docks to check on the readiness of the U.S. Navys newest aircraft carrier, the USS Hornet. While at Norfolk he saw the outline of an aircraft carrier painted on the naval airfield which allowed the pilots to practice carrier landings and take offs. Low realized the United States could revenge the 7th of December with an aircraft carrier attack of their own and the seeds for the Tokyo Raid were sown. The call went out for volunteers and the choice of bomber that was capable of taking off from a 500 foot runway with a 2,000 pound bomb load was the Mitchell B-25. Doolittle was promoted to Lieutenant Colonel on 2 January 1942 and assigned to U.S. Army Air Force Headquarters to plan the raid on Japan. He volunteered and received General Arnolds permission to lead the top secret attack of 16 medium bombers from the aircraft carrier USS Hornet, with targets in Tokyo, Kobe, Yokohama, Osaka and Nagoya. The crews trained at Eglin Field and Wagner Field in northwest Florida and then Doolittle, the airplanes and the flight crews proceeded to McClellan Field, California for aircraft modifications and then a short final flight to Naval Air Station Alameda, California for embarkation aboard USS Hornet. On 18 April 1942, all 16 B-25 bombers took off from the Hornet, reached Japan and bombed their targets. Fifteen of the planes then headed for their recovery airfield in China while one crew chose to land in Russia. Most of the crews bailed out over China, some elected to crash land and most survived and reached the safety of friendly Chinese. Four crew members were executed after being captured by the Japanese and three died in crash landings or parachute accidents. Jimmy Doolittle had been promoted to Brigadier General on 18 April and was awarded the Medal of Honor for leading the Tokyo raid. All the crew received the Distinguished Flying Cross. The Tokyo Raid is considered by historians as a major moral booster for the American public and the U.S. war effort. The raid made the Japanese feel their homeland was vulnerable to air attack. The Japs withdrew several front line fighter units from Pacific war zones for homeland defense. In order to expand their defensive perimeter from which America could not attack them, the Japanese high command planned and approved the assault on Midway Island. The Battle of Midway in June 1942 would result in a huge defeat for the Imperial Japanese Navy and Japanese Empire and would become the turning point of World War Two in the Pacific. In September 1942, Doolittle became commanding general of the Twelfth Air Force and continued to fly combat mission in North Africa. He was promoted to Major General in November 1942 and in March 1943 became commanding general of the Northwest African Strategic Air Force, a unified command of U.S. Army Air Force and Royal Air Force units. Major General Doolittle took command of the Fifteenth Air Force in the Mediterranean Theater of Operations in November 1943 and flew in more combat. From January 1944 to September 1945, he held his largest command, the Eighth Air Force in England, as a Lieutenant General, his promotion date being 13 March 1944 and he held the highest rank ever by a reserve officer in modern times. Gregan Wortmann
Posted on: Sat, 24 Jan 2015 17:53:31 +0000
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