The Doolittle Raid: Giving America a needed lift
By Bob Ford
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On the afternoon of April 18, 1942, skies over Japan cleared. Air Force pilots flying their B-25’s could look back at the destruction they delivered as the planes scampered West.
Explosions, flames and fireballs dotted the landscape, but it was now time for the brave and triumphant Doolittle Raiders to concentrate on their own survival.
Early in 1942 there was little good world news for the home front.
Post-Pearl Harbor, the Japanese had put together a string of impressive conquests in Asia: Hong Kong, Singapore, Malaysia and soon the Philippines.
Germany was having similar success like the Battle of the North Atlantic, where Nazi U-Boats sunk U.S. merchant ships almost at will. German Gen. Erwin Rommel was barreling through North Africa, German Armies were on the doorstep of Moscow and even London had been under aerial bombardment. Allies were retreating almost everywhere.
My mother came to dread family radio hour.
“There was never any good news, we were losing, it seemed on all fronts!” Famed radio broadcaster Edward R. Murrow, in his baritone voice, would deliver the nightly unfathomable news that the world as we knew it, was coming apart.
She recalled infrequently listening to, “The Voice of Canada,” Loren Greene, later to play Ben Cartwright of Bonanza fame, with his own smooth deep voice delivering our neighbors war news.
It was customary in Canada for Greene to convey each individual’s name who had been killed in action. Heart wrenching, soon Greene received the moniker “The Voice of Doom!”
Once Doolittle’s raid leaked out, it was a ray of much needed national hope.
As the bombers left Japanese air space after the raid, none of the B-25’s had been brought down, several took hits but all stayed aloft. Now back over the water, pilots flew above the Sea of Japan and East China Sea, heading in the direction of friendly, but occupied China.
Only one plane, Captain York’s No. 8, veered off course, landing in a field on Russian soil.
York and his crew wanted to refuel and join the others in China, but the Russians held them due to their non-aggression agreement with Japan, sometimes treating the Americans as pampered guests and other days as prisoners.
Quietly, 13 months later, through a clandestine operation, York and his mates were snuck over the border to join British troops in Iran, unbeknownst to the Japanese, as their captors “turned away.”
Doolittle and the other 14 crews parachuted out and ditched their planes as planned. Most hit safely on land, a few crashed into the surf, suffering a variety of injuries but predictably, eight of the airmen were captured.
Many of the flyers were helped by stunned Chinese civilians, others by confused guerrilla fighters. Japan had invaded this part of China years ago. After the Doolittle Raid, the Japanese would take revenge on the region for aiding the raiders. It’s reported as many as 300,000 civilians and military personnel were killed, women raped and cities destroyed, brutal actions were demanded by embarrassed enemy commanders.
Several Japanese military officers committed suicide, fulfilling their bizarre code, following dishonor or a failure.
Survivors left trinkets for those that gave them shelter like cigarettes, buttons, badges and coins. If evidence was found by the Japanese or pieces of a parachute, the town would be razed. After three months of their savagery the soldiers left, only to turn their wrath over to new biological warfare efforts on the inhabitants, delivering malaria bacteria, mustard gas and other carcinogens murdering and infecting everyone.
Doolittle was quickly brought back to Washington and presented the Congressional Medal of Honor by President Roosevelt, a honor he wasn’t sure he deserved but accepted in the name of his men. The lieutenant colonel had no idea how badly the nation craved a military success. Many of the raiders were still in harm’s way recuperating in China, along with those eight that were POW’s.
Separated from the five others, three men were picked out and tortured, Lt. Farrow, Lt. Hallmark, and our man Sgt. Harold “Skinny” Spatz, whose family now lived in Lebo, Kansas. These men suffered through numerous mock executions. Physically forced to sign letters under extreme circumstances “admitting” to targeting civilians in the raid.
It is believed because of those signed extracted statements, they were executed.
Spatz has several places honoring him in Lebo, including the local VFW Hall and a municipal park.
The full effect of the Doolittle Raid on Japan will never truly be known. Japan however had to change its strategies, bringing back several squadrons of fighters to the mainland defending what they thought would never come under direct attack.
The Navy also hurried their movements in the Pacific, bringing on the decisive Battle of Midway before the Japanese Navy was fully prepared.
What the raid did to American spirits can be measured ... we won! It galvanized the country and gave us back our swagger and confidence, reminding us who we were, what we stood for and the sacrifices we were willing to make in blood, to win.
The Japanese started this war but with sheer determination, unity and bravery, we by God, would finish it!
The USS Hornet, who delivered the B-25’s to the fight, was a marked ship. It was in service for just one year, fighting at Midway before being sunk at the Battle of Santa Cruz Islands a few months later. She remains the last U.S. aircraft carrier to be sunk by enemy fire. Of the 2,200 sailors aboard, 140 were killed in the battle.
The Hornet suffered nine torpedo strikes with numerous air bomber attacks; she rests three miles down in the Pacific Ocean just off the Solomon Islands.
Eight ships in U.S. history have been named Hornet. After her sinking in the Pacific, the USS Kearsarge was renamed in honor of the Hornet, later rescuing the Apollo 11 astronauts following splashdown. They had just been the first to walk on the moon. That Hornet is now a museum and on display in Alameda, California.
Lt. Ted Lawson, pilot of No. 7, crash landed and had to have his leg amputated in China. He went on to write the book, “30 Seconds over Tokyo.” His story was turned into a patriotic 1944 movie with Spencer Tracy playing Lt. Colonel James Doolittle.
I must also salute Kevin Drewelow of the Combat Air Museum in Topeka and veteran/historian Keith Fulton for his interview and dedication in preserving this pivotal American story about the courageous Doolittle Raid.
