On Tuesday, in Fort Walton Beach, Florida, the surviving Doolittle
Raiders gathered publicly for the last time.
They once were among the most universally admired and revered men
in the United States. There were 80 of the Raiders in April 1942,
when they carried out one of the most courageous and
heart-stirring military operations in this nation's history. The
mere mention of their unit's name, in those years, would bring
tears to the eyes of grateful Americans.
Now only four survive.
After Japan's sneak attack on Pearl Harbor, with the United States
reeling and wounded, something dramatic was needed to turn the war
effort around.
Even though there were no friendly airfields close enough to Japan
for the United States to launch a retaliation, a daring plan was
devised. Sixteen B-25s were modified so that they could take off
from the deck of an aircraft carrier. This had never before been
tried -- sending such big, heavy bombers from a carrier.
The 16 five-man crews, under the command of Lt. Col. James
Doolittle, who himself flew the lead plane off the USS Hornet,
knew that they would not be able to return to the carrier. They
would have to hit Japan and then hope to make it to China for a
safe landing.
But on the day of the raid, the Japanese military caught wind of
the plan. The Raiders were told that they would have to take off
from much farther out in the Pacific Ocean than they had counted
on. They were told that because of this they would not have enough
fuel to make it to safety.
And those men went anyway.
They bombed Tokyo, and then flew as far as they could. Four planes
crash-landed; 11 more crews bailed out, and three of the Raiders
died. Eight more were captured; three were executed. Another died
of starvation in a Japanese prison camp. One crew made it to
Russia.
The Doolittle Raid sent a message from the United States to its
enemies, and to the rest of the world: We will fight. And, no
matter what it takes, we will win.
Of the 80 Raiders, 62 survived the war. They were celebrated as
national heroes, models of bravery. Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer produced a
motion picture based on the raid; "Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo,"
starring Spencer Tracy and Van Johnson, was a patriotic and
emotional box-office hit, and the phrase became part of the
national lexicon. In the movie-theater previews for the film, MGM
proclaimed that it was presenting the story "with supreme pride."
Beginning in 1946, the surviving Raiders have held a reunion each
April, to commemorate the mission. The reunion is in a different
city each year. In 1959, the city of Tucson, Arizona, as a gesture
of respect and gratitude, presented the Doolittle Raiders with a
set of 80 silver goblets. Each goblet was engraved with the name
of a Raider.
Every year, a wooden display case bearing all 80 g oblets is
transported to the reunion city. Each time a Raider passes away,
his goblet is turned upside down in the case at the next reunion,
as his old friends bear solemn witness.
Also in the wooden case is a bottle of 1896 Hennessy Very Special
cognac. The year is not happenstance: 1896 was when Jimmy
Doolittle was born.
There has always been a plan: When there are only two surviving
Raiders, they would open the bottle, at last drink from it, and
toast their comrades who preceded them in death.
As 2013 began, there were five living Raiders; then, in February,
Tom Griffin passed away at age 96. What a man he was. After
bailing out of his plane over a mountainous Chinese forest after
the Tokyo raid, he became ill with malaria, and almost died. When
he recovered, he was sent to Europe to fly more combat missions.
He was shot down, captured, and spent 22 months in a German
prisoner of war camp.
The selflessness of these men, the sheer guts ... there was a
passage in the Cincinnati Enquirer obituary for Mr. Griffin that,
on the surface, had nothing to do with the war, but that
emblematizes the depth of his sense of duty and devotion:"When his
wife became ill and needed to go into a nursing home, he visited
her every day. He walked from his house to the nursing home, fed
his wife and at the end of the day brought home her clothes. At
night, he washed and ironed her clothes. Then he walked them up to
her room the next morning. He did that for three years until her
death in 2005."
So now, out of the original 80, only four Raiders remain: Dick
Cole (Doolittle's co-pilot on the Tokyo raid), Robert Hite, Edward
Saylor and David Thatcher. All are in their 90s. They have decided
that there are too few of them for the public reunions to
continue.
The events in Fort Walton Beach this week will mark the end. It
has come full circle; Florida's nearby Eglin Field was where the
Raiders trained in secrecy for the Tokyo mission. The town is
planning to do all it can to honor the men: a six-day celebration
of their valor, including luncheons, a dinner and a parade.
Do the men ever wonder if those of us for whom they helped save
the country have tended to it in a way that is worthy of their
sacrifice? They don't talk about that, at least not around other
people. But if you find yourself near Fort Walton Beach this week,
and if you should encounter any of the Raiders, you might want to
offer them a word of thanks. I can tell you from first hand
observation that they appreciate hearing that they are remembered.
The men have decided that after this final public reunion they
will wait until a later date -- some time this year -- to get
together once more, informally and in absolute privacy. That is
when they will open the bottle of brandy. The years are flowing by
too swiftly now; they are not going to wait until there are only
two of them. They will fill the four remaining upturned goblets.
And raise them in a toast to those who are gone.
