WW2 Doolittle Raiders Share Stories
There has been a recent movie that ended with this scene of the Doolittle raiders taking off to bomb Tokyo, on what they all knew was a suicide
mission. Well some survived... Hero's indeed..
http://theday.com/eng/web/n...
History You Won't Find In A Book
The history books recount how eight Doolittle Raiders were taken captive by the Japanese and how four were released at the end of the war. But they don't talk about the conditions the airmen endured, locked alone in tiny cells, their only contact with the outside world the tray of slop that was shoved through the door every day.
Nielsen disclosed another secret to the students: lacking most of his cockpit electronics, which had been removed for security and to give his bomber greater range, he honed in on a commercial radio signal to find his target in Tokyo, which enraged his captors when they found out.
Retired Army Maj. William Weber, a Junior Reserve Officer Training Corps instructor at Westhill High School in Stamford, said he bused his students almost two hours so they could hear details like that.
When the Raiders' historian, C.V. Glines, gave a pop quiz on Raider trivia, students clamored for a chance to answer a question and earn a copy of a book about the group.
said Jesse Craddock, a junior at East Lyme High School who was waving his arms on every question, and was picked for
the last one: What was Gen. James H. Doolittle's middle name (Harold).
We should show respect for everyone who's fought for our country, realize that they put their lives on the line to stand up for our nation Craddock said, clutching his prize, a copy of Doolittle's autobiography.
Alicia Sheppard, a high school senior from Meriden, brought a copy of her painting of a B-25 bomber for the Raiders to autograph.
I love World War II airplanes, and I love history,Sheppard said as she waited her turn.These guys influenced everything.
Nine of the surviving 17 Raiders sat on the stage as students waited in a long line for an opportunity to ask them a question.
Rear Adm. Robert C. Olsen Jr., the superintendent of the academy, welcomed the high schoolers to Leamy Hall and instructed them to pay close attention.
Glines kicked off the session with a short documentary with black-and-white footage from the decks of the USS Hornet, which carried the Raiders to a spot 650 miles off Japan where they launched their attack on April 18, 1942.
We came in on the deck, Doolittle said in an interview filmed in 1980, 13 years before he died. He acknowledged the raid was insignificant tactically 16 bombers each carrying a ton of bombs, compared to hundreds of planes each carrying 10 times that ordnance a couple of years later.
But the strategic implications were incalculable, Doolittle said, because the raid buoyed the spirits of the American people, who were weary of news about defeats in the Pacific, and convinced the Japanese that they were not invulnerable.
The enemy pulled many of its forces back to defend the homeland, making U.S. defense of the Pacific possible, and moved up the schedule of an attack at Midway Island, which many believe contributed to the U.S. victory.
The Japanese never really got over the humiliation of that attack, Glines said.
Liu, who became a U.S. citizen in June 1954, is an honorary Raider and shared the stage with the group. He recounted how it took 10 or 11 days to travel 100 miles over mountain trails.
How did it feel, another student asked, taking off from the aircraft carrier knowing that they would not have enough fuel to return, or even to make it to a safe landing strip in China?
Nielsen said most of the airmen focused just on the next step: how to get the bomber safely into the air, because no one had ever flown a B-25 mission off an aircraft carrier before; then how to find Japan, given their poor maps and dead-reckoning navigation; then how to find their target in the clutter of Japanese cities, and avoid anti-aircraft artillery and Japanese fighters; then how to find the China coast.
By netchicken:
posted on 17-4-2005
http://theday.com/eng/web/n...
History You Won't Find In A Book
The history books recount how eight Doolittle Raiders were taken captive by the Japanese and how four were released at the end of the war. But they don't talk about the conditions the airmen endured, locked alone in tiny cells, their only contact with the outside world the tray of slop that was shoved through the door every day.
... Quote:
If you want a sense of what it was like, lock yourself in
your bathroom for two years and nine months. You eat like a pig, and you live like one. retired Lt. Col. Chase J. Nielsen told about 1,000 high school
students who gathered Friday in Leamy Hall at the Coast Guard Academy
Nielsen disclosed another secret to the students: lacking most of his cockpit electronics, which had been removed for security and to give his bomber greater range, he honed in on a commercial radio signal to find his target in Tokyo, which enraged his captors when they found out.
Retired Army Maj. William Weber, a Junior Reserve Officer Training Corps instructor at Westhill High School in Stamford, said he bused his students almost two hours so they could hear details like that.
... Quote:
It was a golden opportunity instead of reading it from a
history book, they could get it directly from the people who made history Weber said.
When the Raiders' historian, C.V. Glines, gave a pop quiz on Raider trivia, students clamored for a chance to answer a question and earn a copy of a book about the group.
... Quote:
We've been studying World War II in history, and I have a
great history teacher,
We should show respect for everyone who's fought for our country, realize that they put their lives on the line to stand up for our nation Craddock said, clutching his prize, a copy of Doolittle's autobiography.
Alicia Sheppard, a high school senior from Meriden, brought a copy of her painting of a B-25 bomber for the Raiders to autograph.
I love World War II airplanes, and I love history,Sheppard said as she waited her turn.These guys influenced everything.
Nine of the surviving 17 Raiders sat on the stage as students waited in a long line for an opportunity to ask them a question.
Rear Adm. Robert C. Olsen Jr., the superintendent of the academy, welcomed the high schoolers to Leamy Hall and instructed them to pay close attention.
... Quote:
You're going to meet some real heroes, Olsen said.
They're not cartoon characters, these are genuine heroes. I would ask that you think, as you're listening to them, what that means.
Glines kicked off the session with a short documentary with black-and-white footage from the decks of the USS Hornet, which carried the Raiders to a spot 650 miles off Japan where they launched their attack on April 18, 1942.
We came in on the deck, Doolittle said in an interview filmed in 1980, 13 years before he died. He acknowledged the raid was insignificant tactically 16 bombers each carrying a ton of bombs, compared to hundreds of planes each carrying 10 times that ordnance a couple of years later.
But the strategic implications were incalculable, Doolittle said, because the raid buoyed the spirits of the American people, who were weary of news about defeats in the Pacific, and convinced the Japanese that they were not invulnerable.
The enemy pulled many of its forces back to defend the homeland, making U.S. defense of the Pacific possible, and moved up the schedule of an attack at Midway Island, which many believe contributed to the U.S. victory.
The Japanese never really got over the humiliation of that attack, Glines said.
... Quote:
Several of the students seemed fascinated by the story of
Tung-Sheng Liu, a China native who helped several Raider crews escape at the risk of his own life Japanese forces killed an estimated 250,000 Chinese
as reprisal, including entire villages that they suspected harbored the Raiders.
Liu, who became a U.S. citizen in June 1954, is an honorary Raider and shared the stage with the group. He recounted how it took 10 or 11 days to travel 100 miles over mountain trails.
How did it feel, another student asked, taking off from the aircraft carrier knowing that they would not have enough fuel to return, or even to make it to a safe landing strip in China?
Nielsen said most of the airmen focused just on the next step: how to get the bomber safely into the air, because no one had ever flown a B-25 mission off an aircraft carrier before; then how to find Japan, given their poor maps and dead-reckoning navigation; then how to find their target in the clutter of Japanese cities, and avoid anti-aircraft artillery and Japanese fighters; then how to find the China coast.
... Quote:
You don't really think too much about tomorrow, Nielsen
told the student. I don't think we were planning more than 100 miles in front of the aircraft anywhere on the route.