Thousands Honor Doolittle Raiders at 67th Reunion

DOOLITTLE RAIDERS – Retired Lt. Col. Chase Nelson, a Doolittle Raider, joins two cadets from the Air Force Academy Cadet Wing in placing a wreath to commemorate those raiders who lost their lives in the line of duty. The Doolittle Raiders held a reunion at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Dayton, Ohio, April 18, 2006. Defense Dept. photo by William D. Moss More Photos Multimedia Presentation (Source: U.S. Department of Defense Website, www.defenselink.mil/home)

Thousands honor Doolittle Raiders at 67th reunion

By Navy Lt. Jennifer Cragg
Special to American Forces Press Service

WASHINGTON (AFRNS) -- Thousands of people, young and old, gathered to honor five of the nine surviving Doolittle Raiders at the 67th Reunion in Columbia, S.C., April 16 to 18.

On April 18, 1942, the Doolittle Raiders, led by then-Lt. Col. Jimmy Doolittle, became the first to bombard Japan following the attack on Pearl Harbor.

"Early on, everybody thought leaving the flight deck of the carrier was the biggest challenge of the trip," said retired Lt. Col. Richard E. Cole, the late General Doolittle's co-pilot. "As it turned out, it was the easiest thing, and I had a special advantage because I was sitting next to the best pilot in the world. I admire all of the guys; I especially admire the man I was sitting next to, a fine man and a great pilot."

Colonel Cole said he grew up idolizing General Doolittle. As a teenager, he added, he watched General Doolittle conduct flight testing, and was amazed at his luck to fly with him.

"I was amazed, dumbfounded and proud," Colonel Cole said. "I was born and raised in Dayton, Ohio, where they had the first test base. I used to watch Colonel Doolittle."

Colonel Cole said he does not consider himself a hero, but rather was "just doing my job" when he participated in the raid on Japan.

Of the thousands who gathered during the three-day reunion, many came to pay their respects for the Raiders' symbolic act only a few months after the attack on Pearl Harbor. Some of the attendees commented that this would probably be the last time the raiders would participate in a reunion in Columbia. Previous reunions of the Doolittle Raiders in Columbia were organized by the Celebrate Freedom Foundation.

"We consider Columbia the home of the Doolittle Raiders," said Ken Breivik, public affairs director for the Celebrate Freedom Foundation, who coordinated both the Doolittle Raiders' 67th "Where Victory Began" reunion, as well as the group's 60th reunion.

To pay tribute to the raiders, a visible reminder of the length of the USS Hornet's flight deck was displayed from the mouth of Columbia's Aeronautics Commission Hangar doors adjacent to a U.S. Air Force B-1 bomber, which displayed the official Doolittle Raider crest and the inscription, "Toujours au Danger" -- "Always into Danger."

As hundreds of spectators gathered at the hangar, four Doolittle Raiders – Colonel Cole, retired Maj. Thomas C. Griffin, retired Lt. Col. Robert L. Hite, retired Lt. Col. Edward Saylor and retired Staff Sgt. David J. Thatcher -- passed the official Doolittle Raider crest to the 34th Bomb Squadron's flagship B-1 bomber's crew April 17 at the hangar.

Participating in the official passing of the crest was Brig. Gen. James Kowowski, commander of the provisional Air Force Global Strike Command.

"President [John F.] Kennedy was quoted as saying that you can tell the character of the nation not only by the men that it produces, but by the men that it honors," General Kowowski said.

For their raid 67 years ago, the Doolittle Raiders were drawn from the World War II versions of the 95th, 34th, 37th and the 89th reconnaissance squadrons of the 17th Bomb Group. Col. Carl "Buck" Shawhan, 28th Operations Group commander at Nellis Air Force Base, Nev., oversees the present-day 37th and the 34th bomb squadrons.

"As airmen, we understand the significance of the original acts the Doolittle Raiders performed in World War II, and the original Doolittle Raiders were the first Airmen to strike against Japan in World War II, flying their B-25 in a surprise attack against the Japanese mainland," Colonel Shawhan said. While it was a different time and era, the colonel said, he is awed by their ability to carry out such a bold raid 67 years ago.

"When they took off, they had no idea they would ever see their families again," he said. "They had no idea what kind of impact they would have." The attack had a substantial impact strategically on Japan's defenses, Colonel Shawhan said, and was an uplifting moment in U.S. history.

"Zoom forward to the future: 2001, after 9/11, when the United States was attacked, people were ... wondering about our ability to defend ourselves," Colonel Shawhan said.

He added that the modern day Doolittle Raiders were one of the first to attack against the Taliban in Afghanistan a month after the Sept. 11 attacks.

U.S. Air Force Academy Cadet Helen "Meg" Wildner, granddaughter of Doolittle Raider Lt. Carl Wildner, navigator of the raid's second B-25, will graduate from the academy in 2010, and reflected on the importance of the raid.

"Personally, the Doolitte Raid is definitely important to our history" she said. "It was a huge morale boost. Even after Pearl Harbor, it was an encouraging fact that we could stand up for ourselves and persevere. When you talk to the Doolittle Raiders, they don't necessarily consider themselves these huge heroes. They were just doing their jobs." (Navy Lt. Jennifer Cragg serves in the Defense Media Activity's emerging media directorate.)


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Photo Correction

Fellow WWII historian Marilyn Walton informs me that I have used the incorrect photo of the late Nolan Herndon's crew from the Dootlittle Raid. The correct photo is found here.

My apologies.

Blog Reader Remembers Doolittle and USS Hornet Sinking

My friend in Colorado, Jay Buckley, had this to write after reading my post on the passing of Doolittle Raider Nolan Herndon. It just goes to show this is a small world, as Jay has a direct link to both the Doolittle Raid and the USS Hornet.

Jay writes:

"Thanks for the story about the Doolittle raid. It brings back some very fond memories and stories.

My uncle graduated in the rush class of 1942 on December 8, 1941 from the Naval Academy. He was assigned to the USS Hornet as gunner officer. He was aboard the Hornet when they took on the B-25's and sailed for the seas off Japan to launch the raid.

After the Hornet was sunk, he came home on leave. I was able to persuade the principal of the grade school to let him give a talk about the raid. Well, the idea caught on and all the schools had him give a talk. I had the honor of introducing my uncle Bob, Lt. Robert Thum as a survivor of the USS Hornet. Pretty heady stuff for a young second grader.

Gunners on board the Hornet fire at aircraft during battle. This scene would have been a familiar one to Jay's Uncle Bob.

An interesting story happened during the sinking of the Hornet. The day it was sunk, which was in the evening in Rock Springs, Wyoming, my Aunt had a feeling not all was right with her son. There was a large portrait hanging in their music room. She went in there and looked at the portrait of her son. In the background of the picture, the artist had painted a carrier with planes taking off. My aunt sat there through the night just looking at the portrait and praying. She later told us, a voice said, "Mom, I am alright, I will survive". Of course, there was a black out of the news and the sinking of the Hornet was not made public for several months. But she knew the Hornet had been sunk and her son did survive. The date this happened coincided with the date of the sinking of the Hornet.

The Hornet, already mortally wounded, is about to be hit by a damaged Japanese bomber, above left. The ship sank shortly after this. The ship was lost on October 7, 1942 during the Battle of Santa Cruz.

Doolittle Raider Nolan Herndon Passes Away

Crew No. 8 (Plane #40-2242, target Tokyo): 95th Bombardment Squadron, Capt. Edward J. York, pilot; Lt. Robert G. Emmens, copilot; Lt. Nolan A. Herndon, navigator/bombardier; SSgt. Theodore H. Laban, flight engineer; Sgt. David W. Pohl, gunner.

Source of Obituary: Boston Globe

Nolan Herndon, bomber in WWII Doolittle raid on Japan

Richard Goldstein
October 15, 2007

NEW YORK - Nolan Herndon, a navigator-bombardier in the storied Doolittle raid over Japan in World War II who spent more than a year interned in the Soviet Union after his plane made an emergency landing in Russia, died yesterday in Columbia, S.C.

Mr. Herndon, who lived in Edgefield, S.C., was 88.

The cause was pneumonia, said his son Nolan Jr.

On April 18, 1942, a group of 16 Army Air Forces B-25 bombers, commanded by Lieutenant Colonel James H. Doolittle, took off from the carrier Hornet on a daylight bombing raid that carried the war to Japan for the first time.

The raid resulted in only light damage to military and industrial targets, but it buoyed morale on an American home front stunned by the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor four months earlier, and Doolittle was awarded the Medal of Honor.

After completing their bombing runs, the planes were to land at airstrips in China that had not fallen to the Japanese. But they ran into a storm, forcing crash-landings and bailouts that killed three of the 80 crewmen. Eight others were captured by Japanese troops, with three of them later being executed and one who died of malnutrition while in captivity.

Mr. Herndon's plane, the eighth one off the Hornet, was the only bomber that never made it to China. It quickly ran low on fuel, evidently a result of carburetor adjustments during flight preparations in California. The plane bombed a factory and strafed an airfield, and then the pilot, Captain Edward York, headed toward Russia's Pacific port of Vladivostok as his only alternative to landing in Japan.

The bomber touched down at a small airport near Vladivostok, the crew hoping that it would receive gasoline and continue on to China. But the Soviet Union was not fighting Japan. As a neutral nation in the war between the United States and the Japanese, it interned the five crewmen.

While detained in European Russia, the crew members braved temperatures plunging to 50 degrees below zero, and they subsisted on cabbage, black bread, and tea.

"I can't blame the Russian people," Mr. Herndon told The State newspaper of Columbia, S.C., in 2002. "They were starving, too."

The airmen wrote a letter to Stalin, asking for their release, and while the note did not win their freedom, it did reach high-level Soviet authorities, who transferred them to a warm-weather area, a town about 15 miles north of the border with Iran, where they were assigned to work in a factory repairing trainer planes.

On May 26, 1943, the five airmen made their escape, paying a smuggler $250 to take them by truck to Iran. They found a British Consulate just across the border.

Mr. Herndon, a native of Greenville, Texas, raised cattle and ran a wholesale grocery business in South Carolina after the war.

In an interview with The State, in 2001, Mr. Herndon theorized that Captain York and his copilot, Lieutenant Robert Emmens, had received secret orders to fly to Vladivostok to test the willingness of Stalin's government to cooperate in the war against Japan. But Mr. Herndon had no direct evidence, and there has been no corroboration of his suspicions.

In addition to his son Nolan Jr., of West Columbia, S.C., Mr. Herndon leaves his wife, Julia; his son James, of Pawleys Island, S.C.; five grandchildren; and five great-grandchildren.

History of the Doolittle Raid

Eighty men in five-man crews piloted the 16 B-25 bombers that bombed Japan on April 18, 1942. None of the bombers was shot down but all sixteen were lost:

The crews of 11 bombers bailed out over China
One crew make a wheels-up crash landing in a rice paddy
Three bombers ditched in the waters off the China coast
One bomber landed in the Soviet Union where it was confiscated
Of the 80 men who flew with Lieutenant Colonel Doolittle:
3 were killed exiting their aircraft on the night of the raid8 were captured by the Japanese
3 POWs were executed by their captors on October 15, 19421 POW died of malnutrition and mistreatment while confined4 POWs were repatriated at the end of WWII after 40 months of captivity
Following the mission most of the raiders went on to fly other combat missions. Before the war ended:

10 raiders were killed in action in Europe, North Africa, and Indo-China 4 were shot down and interred as German prisoners of war

As of October 14, 2007 only twelve of the raiders are still living. They are:
William Bower
Thomas Griffin
David Jones
Charles Ozuk
Richard Cole
Robert Hite
Frank Kappeler
Edward Saylor
Jacob DeShazer
Edwin Horton
James Macia
David Thatcher