Thank all of you gentlemen. Your courage and sacrifices helped keep our nation strong and free. It's an honor to honor you.
On Saturday, April 20, 2013, 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.
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 goblets 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 -- sometime 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.
It is funny..
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