Remembering Jimmy Doolittle’s Raiders: With amazing courage, these intrepid airmen gave a big boost to the nation's wartime morale

This time of year, I'm remembering the late Jimmy Doolittle and his Raiders, a group of World War II superheroes I was privileged to meet 43 years ago this month in Columbus, Ohio, where I worked as a reporter for the morning daily newspaper. 

All these years later, I'm still in awe of their extraordinary courage. It seems to me they must have been the 1942 version of SEAL Team Six. Meeting them was a great honor, and I appreciate the chance to share their story again here. 

Something extraordinary and unprecedented

I wasn't around back then, but historic reports say that, four months after the surprise attack on Pearl Harbor by the Japanese on Dec. 7, 1941, America's mood was despondent. The Air Force website afhistory.af.mil describes it like this: 

"In the beginning of 1942, gloom was descending over the United States like a winter twilight. On all fronts, the United States and its allies were reeling from the blows of the Axis powers. In the Pacific, Japan had taken Malaya, Singapore, Java, Guam and Wake Island and was threatening the lifeline with Australia. On April 9, 1942, [the Philippines fell]. In the Atlantic, German U-boats were sinking American ships within sight of the U.S. coast. Britain was being strangled, and the German Wehrmacht was in the suburbs of Moscow. The Axis powers looked invincible."

Then, in those dark days, some remarkable news gave America back her old confidence. Jimmy Doolittle's Raiders had done something extraordinary and unprecedented. Something most war planners thought was impossible: In big, twin-engine bombers that were so heavy it seemed like a miracle when they took off from long, land-based runways, 16 five-member crews took off instead from a 500-foot-long carrier deck and flew an incredible distance over Japanese-controlled seas to deliver a "Take that!" retaliatory message to the enemy. 

'Cap'n, we don't have enough fuel'

Thirty-nine years after those intrepid men took off on what probably felt like a suicide mission, 28 of them, including Doolittle himself, held a reunion in April 1981 in Columbus. I was the lucky reporter who got the assignment. 

Here's how we told the Raiders' story in the Columbus Citizen-Journal (with a few edits added here):

"The plan was daring enough before the complication occurred: 16 B-25M bombers, previously thought to be too big to launch from a carrier, were to take off from the U.S.S. Hornet. They would fly hundreds of miles to Tokyo and other Japanese cities, drop their bombs in America's first raid on its World War II enemy, then fly hundreds more miles to land in China (occupied by the Japanese at the time).

"While the Hornet was still 200 miles away from the point where the planes were to take off, the ship was spotted by the Japanese.

"There was no time to think of the penalty, no time to think of wives and children left behind. The planes took off immediately, even though the extra 200 miles meant they would not have enough fuel to land safely in China.

"They dropped their bombs. Then they flew on, until all but one of the planes crashed; their crews bailed out. Seven men died in crashes or were executed by their captors. The 16th plane landed in Russia, where its crew was held 13 months before escaping.

"We [the pilots] knew where we were when the order came to man the planes. So we knew we weren't going to make it. But none of the pilots said anything. No one asked," Gen. David Jones, one of those pilots, recalled during the annual reunion of Jimmy Doolittle's Raiders. 

"When we were about an hour off the ship, Joe Manske, the gunner, called up on the radio. 'Cap'n,' he said, 'we don't have enough fuel. We're not going to make it.'

"I just said, 'That's right.' You could hear his microphone click off. That was all,' Jones recalled.

"They dropped their bombs on Tokyo, and when the fuel was gone and just one engine was sputtering and coughing to its end, the five-man crew bailed out. Jones went last. It was his first jump.

"'I hung through the hatch, and the air pulled my body up toward the fuselage. And when my last fingernail broke, I fell off and pulled the ripcord,' he said, only half joking.

"He landed on the side of a mountain. It was very dark and very quiet – and he was totally alone.

"The next day, he found a group of farmers.

"'They had told us on the ship, if you meet some people and you smile and they don't smile back, they're Japanese. If they do smile back, they're Chinese. So I smiled like hell and stuck out my cigarettes.'

"The farmers smiled back."

Americans have done the impossible

Eventually Jones managed to meet up with his four crew members, and they were able to find and rejoin Doolittle and the surviving raiders in Chu Chow, China. They hid in a cave during the day to avoid Japanese searchers, until Chinese patriots helped them return to the American forces.

Meanwhile, news of the Raiders' daring mission trickled back to America and lit a spark that helped lift the nation's dark mood. 

In the April 30, 1942, edition of the Ozark County Times, a syndicated Weekly News Analysis column reported, "America's spring tonic has been the sensational report, from Japanese sources but undenied by the Allies, . . . that American planes, probably carrier-based, had wreaked havoc and destruction on Tokyo and three other great Nipponese centers, including vital Kobe. . . . The attack had been as much of a surprise to Japan and as much of a mystery as had been the attack on Pearl Harbor. . . . Most of them believed it had been from two U.S. carriers and might have comprised as many as 100 navy bombing planes."

In short, the stunning message our parents, grandparents and great-grandparents were getting after the Raiders' daring April 18, 1942, mission was this: Americans have bombed Japan. 

And the message they heard in their heads and hearts was this: Americans have done the impossible. And we can do it again. 

It's now known that the American bombs didn't actually do a great deal of damage in Japan. But the raid's impact on America's war effort was historic. Years later, the Airmen Memorial Museum published a pamphlet about Jimmy Doolittle's Raiders. The pamphlet's subtitle succinctly describes what happened next as America ramped up its war effort: "The Giant Begins to Stir."

Recognition and honors

Of course, alongside this growing feeling of confidence was also Americans' anxiety over loved ones who served in the war – and grief over the lives that would be lost. The 29 World War II names listed on Ozark County's War Memorial bear witness to that heartbreaking loss. 

And while we still celebrate what Doolittle's Raiders did, we also need to acknowledge the bravery of those brave men and women who hid and helped them. The AirForceTimes.com website says, "It has been widely reported that the Japanese killed 250,000 Chinese in retaliation for helping the Doolittle Raiders." 

A month after the raid, Doolittle received the Medal of Honor from President Franklin Roosevelt in a White House ceremony. He accepted the medal on behalf of all his Raiders.

Two years after the raid, a popular movie about the raid, "Thirty Seconds over Tokyo," was released, starring some of Hollywood's names. (It's available to rent or buy on streaming services.) The Oscar-winning film's story includes how Doolittle trained his Raiders, all volunteers, in night-flying, low-level bomb runs, and taking off in the big B-25M bombers on a short carrier deck instead of their usual 3,000-foot-long runway. Other films and documentaries have also described Doolittle's raid during the last 70-plus years. 

And here in Missouri, in 1946, the Phelps County community that had been unofficially known as Centertown became the incorporated town of Doolittle in honor of the hero, who, according to internet sources, flew his own B-25 into a nearby airport for the town's dedication ceremony. 

Telling their story

Before their too-early takeoff from the Hornet that day in 1942, Doolittle told his 80 volunteers, "Men, if we get through this, we're gonna have a helluva party."

They held the first of those "helluva parties" in Miami in 1945. I met General Doolittle at the 34th edition of their annual party-reunion when they gathered in 1981 in Columbus. At the time, 51 of the Raiders were still alive; 28 attended that year's reunion. A local restaurant owner and admirer brought in a B-25 bomber for the event. When I was invited to climb aboard, the newspaper photographer snapped a picture I still cherish. 

Doolittle died in 1993 at the age of 96. The last four living Raiders held their final reunion in November 2013. In 2014, President Barack Obama awarded all 80 Doolittle's Raiders the Congressional Gold Medal.

The last Raider, Doolittle's co-pilot, Dick Cole, died in 2019 at the age of 103.

Jimmy Doolittle and his Raiders are all dead now, but their daring courage will live on as long as their amazing story is told. I'm doing my part.