| |
| |
World War II Congressional Medal of Honor Recipient General James Harold ("Jimmy") Doolittle
Dec 14, 1896 - Sep 27, 1993
Perhaps the best known American airman has been James H. ("Jimmy") Doolittle . This was due not only to his racing plane exploits and his "30 seconds over Tokyo," but also because he lived well into his nineties. Several biographies have been written about him, including several by Carroll Glines, and indeed it was Glines who ghosted Doolittle's autobiography near the end of his life. Nevertheless, despite the copious amount of ink spilled on the general, there is yet to appear a serious study that looks closely at his career and its effect on American airpower. Doolittle was one of the pioneers of instrument flying and of advanced technology, while also being an outstanding combat leader, commanding the Twelfth, Fifteenth, and Eighth Air Forces during World War II. Yet no one has addressed the issue of Doolittle's beliefs on the proper employment of airpower other than to simply state that it should not be used as a tactical weapon. Surely, Doolittle must have held some strong ideas on what German target system was most important and vulnerable to Allied attack. Even the issue of Doolittle's stand regarding the 1944 oilplan versus railplan controversy-an issue of enormous strategic importance-has not been examined. In short, the definitive biography of Doolittle's life has yet to be written. Those attempted include: Lowell Thomas and Edward Jablonski, Doolittle: A Biography (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1976); Carroll V. Glines, Jimmy Doolittle: Daredevil Aviator and Scientist (New York: Macmillan, 1972); Glines again, Jimmy Doolittle: Master of the Calculated Risk (New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold Co., 1980); Carl Mann, Lightning in the Sky: The Story of Jimmy Doolittle (New York: McBride, 1943); and Quentin Reynolds, The Amazing Mr. Doolittle: A Biography of Lieutenant General James H. Doolittle (New York: AppletonCenturyCrofts, 1953).
Unfortunately, his autobiography, I Could Never Be So Lucky Again (New York: Bantam, 1991
Born on December 14, 1896, in Alameda, California, Doolittle grew up there and in Nome, Alaska. In October 1917 he enlisted in the army reserve. Assigned to the Signal Corps, he served as a flying instructor during World War I, was commissioned first lieutenant in the Air Service, regular army, in July 1920, and became deeply involved in the development of military aviation. On September 24, 1922, he made the first transcontinental flight in under 24 hours. He was sent by the army to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology for advanced engineering studies. Assigned to test-facility stations, he spent five more years in diverse phases of aviation, winning a number of trophy races, demonstrating aircraft in South America, and in September 1929 making the first successful test of blind, instrument-controlled landing techniques. He left the Army but continued to race, winning the Harmon trophy in 1930 and the Bendix in 1931 and setting a world speed record in 1932. He served on various government and military consultative boards during this period.
September 4, 1922--Lieutenant James H. "Jimmy" Doolittle piloted a U.S. Army Air Service de Havilland DH-4B on the first coast-to-coast flight in less than 24 hours. At an average speed exceeding 100 mph, Doolittle flew 2,163 miles from Pablo Beach, Fla., to San Diego, Calif., in 21 hours and 20 minutes, making a brief refueling stop at Kelly Field, Texas. Doolittle's groundbreaking journey was one of many undertaken by pilots under Assistant Chief of the Air Service Brig. Gen. William ("Billy") Mitchell to demonstrate the practical applications of aviation to anti-airplane "battleship admirals" and isolationist Congresses of the early 1920s.
 Shortly before US entry into World War II, he returned to active duty as a major with the Army Air Corps. After a tour of industrial plants then converting to war production, he joined A.A.C. headquarters for an extended period of planning that bore spectacular results on April 18, 1942. from the deck of the carrier Hornet, Doolittle, then a lieutenant, led a flight of 16 B-25 bombers on a daring raid over Japan, hitting targets in Tokyo, Yokohama, and other cities, scoring a moral huge victory.
On April 18, 1942, under the leadership of Lieutenant Colonel Jimmy Doolittle, a small force of B-25 Mitchell light bombers set forth on one of the most audacious air raids of World War II. Launching in a rough sea from the heaving deck of the carrier USS Hornet, the crews knew that even if they achieved success, they were not to return. Their mission to bomb Tokyo and other industrial targets some 800 miles distant would leave them barely enough fuel to fly onto crash-land in China. The planes were actually launched earlier than had been the original plan. The group was sighted by a Japanese ship earlier in the morning, but the ship was unable to radio their presence to the mainland. Nine aircraft were attacked by enemy fighters, every one made it to the target, all but one aircraft were lost. Buthe raid was a triumph. The Japanese High Command were so alarmed by the American's ability to strike at their homeland they attempted to expand the perimeter of activity in the central and southern Pacific - with disastrous results. Lt. Col. Doolittle was awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor in recognition of the extraordinary feat he and his gallant crews performed. Miraculously most survived to fly and fight again later in the war, Jimmy Doolittle going onto command the Eighth Air Force in Europe at the time of the Normandy invasion.
From January 1944 to September 1945, he directed intensive strategic bombing of Germany. In 1945, when air operations ended in the European theater, he moved with the Eighth Air Force to Okinawa in the Pacific. In May 1946 he returned to reserve status and civilian life. He served on the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics from 1948 to 1958, the Air Force Science Advisory Board, and the President's Science Advisory Committee. Gen. Doolittle retired from both the Air Force and civilian life in 1959, but remained active in the aerospace industry. He continued to serve on a great many advisory boards and committees on aerospace, intelligence and national security.
DOOLITTLE, JAMES H. (Air Mission)
Rank and organization: Brigadier General, U.S. Army. Air Corps. Place and date: Over Japan. Entered service at: Berkeley, California. Birth: Alameda, California. G.O. No.: 29, 9 June 1942.
Citation:
For conspicuous leadership above the call of duty, involving personal valor and intrepidity at an extreme hazard to life. With the apparent certainty of being forced to land in enemy territory or to perish at sea, General Doolittle personally led a squadron of Army bombers, manned by volunteer crews, in a highly destructive raid on the Japanese mainland.
B-25 War World 2 bomber named after Billy Mitchell.
Used in the Doolittle Tokyo raid.
Lt. Jimmy Doolittle - 1925
PREPARATION
CAUGHT IN THE ACT
EMERGENCY LANDINGS
CONCLUSION
DOOLITTLE RAID: PREPARATION
Lt. Col. James Doolittle, who had been a U.S. Army flight instructor in World War I, was already famous as a racing pilot when he was recalled to active duty in 1940. Early in 1942 he was given a secret mission: Train volunteer Army Air Forces flight crews to take off from an aircraft carrier to bomb Japan.
Doolittle didnt say much, but what he said was the truth, and you believed it, remembers Royden Stork, one of the volunteers for the secret mission. There was an old slogan: There was never an airplane built that Doolittle couldnt or wouldnt fly.
After a while Stork and the other volunteers guessed that their secret mission probably involved an aircraft carrier. They were taking off their B-25B Mitchell bombers on runways of only 450 feet (137 meters), compared to the normal B-25 runway takeoff of 1,200 to 1,500 feet (360 to 450 meters).
The training got us to thinking about short takeoffs, he remembers. Carrier? No, that couldnt be.
Yes, it could.
Following the raid on Tokyo, General Henry "Hap" Arnold, chief of the U.S. Army Air Corps was present, along with Doolittle's wife, Joe, and General George C. Marshall, when President Franklin D. Roosevelt presented Jimmy with the Medal of Honor in April 1942.
|
|
|
|
|
Articles & Briefings
