Read More. Cole was remembered across social media, with actor Gary Sinise, who has long championed military veterans, calling the aviator an "extraordinary man. The Doolittle mission called for crews to bomb five Japanese cities and fly on to China, where the men would connect with friendly forces who would help them get home. On April 18, , Lt. Doolittle, commander of the mission, and his co-pilot Cole sat in the cockpit of their B going over a preflight checklist with the engines running.
Photos: The daring flight of the Doolittle Raiders. James "Jimmy" Doolittle performed a daring one-way mission to bomb Japan in Click through the gallery to see more images of the raid. Hide Caption. The crew of the lead aircraft included from left : navigator Lt. Henry "Hank" Potter, pilot Lt. James "Jimmy" Doolittle, bombardier Staff Sgt. Fred Braemer, co-pilot Lt. Paul Leonard. As the Hornet steamed toward Japan, the B bombers, left, shared the deck with Navy Wildcat fighter planes, right.
The Bs had "tricycle" landing gear different from so-called "tail-draggers," like the Wildcats, which had small wheels that supported the tail. It "was used for high- and low-level bombing, strafing, photo reconnaissance, submarine patrol, and even as a fighter," according to Boeing.
They were also known for their loud engine noise inside the cockpit and crew cabin. In a way, it was a little bit scary. Cole and Doolittle made one circle over the Hornet and then pointed the airplane toward Japan. They were followed by the 15 remaining planes. Their grueling mission had begun. The Bs targeted five Japanese cities. Doolittle's bomber was the first to fly over Japan. It dropped four incendiary bombs on a Tokyo factory area. After hitting their targets, Doolittle and 14 other Bs flew west toward China, which was fighting off a Japanese invasion.
One crew flew to the Soviet Union. When Doolittle and Cole reached China, their plane was low on fuel. Unable to find an airfield for a safe landing at night in a thunderstorm, the crew bailed out, allowing the B to crash into a nearby mountainside. Eleven of the 16 crews bailed out. Four planes crash landed. The crew that flew to the Soviet Union landed safely. Of the 80 raiders, three were killed in action.
Eight were captured; one starved to death in a Japanese prison camp and three were executed. York, was extremely low on fuel, and headed instead for the closer Soviet Union. The raiders faced several unforeseen challenges during their flight to China: night was approaching, the aircraft were running low on fuel and the weather was rapidly deteriorating. The crews realized they would probably not be able to reach their intended bases in China, leaving them the option of either bailing out over eastern China or crash-landing along the Chinese coast.
Fifteen aircraft reached the Chinese coast after 13 hours of flight and crash-landed or the crews bailed out; the crew who flew to the Soviet Union landed 40 miles 65 km beyond Vladivostok, where their B was confiscated and the crew interned. It was the longest combat mission ever flown by the B Mitchell medium bomber, averaging approximately 2, nautical miles 4, km.
Although York and his crew were well-treated, diplomatic attempts to return them to the United States ultimately failed. Eventually they were relocated to Ashgabat, 20 miles 32 km from the Iranian border, and York managed to "bribe" a smuggler, who helped them cross the border and reach a nearby British consulate on 11 May The smuggling was actually staged by the NKVD, according to declassified Soviet archives, because the Soviet government was unable to repatriate them legally in the face of the neutrality pact with Japan.
Doolittle and his crew, after parachuting into China, received assistance from Chinese soldiers and civilians as well as John Birch, an American missionary in China. As did the others who participated in the mission, Doolittle had to bail out but fortunately landed in a heap of dung saving a previously injured ankle from breaking in a paddy in China near Quzhou.
Doolittle felt the raid had been a terrible failure because all the aircraft were lost, and he expected to be court-martialed on his return. One crewman, Corporal Leland D. Two crews 10 men were missing. Following the Doolittle Raid, most of the B crews who had reached China eventually achieved safety with the help of Chinese civilians and soldiers.
Of the sixteen planes and 80 airmen who participated in the raid with the single exception of Capt. Edward York and his crew eighth off—AC , which landed in Russia and the crew interned , all either crash-landed, were ditched or crashed after their crews bailed-out. Nevertheless, 69 escaped capture or death, with only three KIA Killed in Action as a result of the loss of their aircraft.
When the Chinese helped the Americans escape, the grateful Americans in turn gave them whatever they had on hand. The people who helped them paid dearly for sheltering the Americans. Eight Raiders were captured POW , but their fate was not fully known until Accounted for as KIA shortly after the raid was Cpl.
Leland D. Robert M. Gray's crew, third off—AC The citation for his posthumous DFC reported that after Faktor successfully bailed-out with the rest of his crew over mountainous terrain near Sui-Chang, Chekiang Province, China, he was killed shortly afterwards when he fell down a cliff. The crews of two aircraft ten men in total were unaccounted for: Hallmark's crew sixth off and Farrow's crew last off.
On 15 August , the United States learned from the Swiss Consulate General in Shanghai that eight of the missing crew members were prisoners of the Japanese at the city's Police Headquarters. Two crewmen drowned after crash-landing in the ocean. On 19 October , the Japanese announced that they had tried the eight prisoners and sentenced them all to death, but said several had received commutation of their sentences to life imprisonment.
No names or details were given. The story of the missing crews was revealed in February during a war crimes trial held in Shanghai to try four Japanese officers charged with mistreating the eight captured crewmen. It was learned that two of the missing crewmen, Staff Sgt. William J. Dieter and Sgt. Donald E. Fitzmaurice, drowned when their B crashed into the sea. The other eight were captured: Lieutenants Dean E. Hallmark, Robert J. Meder, Chase Nielsen, William G.
Farrow, Robert L. Spatz and Jacob DeShazer. On 28 August , pilot Hallmark, pilot Farrow, and gunner Spatz faced a war crimes trial by a Japanese court for strafing and murdering Japanese civilians. At on 15 October , they were taken by truck to Public Cemetery Number 1, and executed by firing squad. The other captured airmen remained in military confinement on a starvation diet, their health rapidly deteriorating. In April , they were moved to Nanking, where Meder died on 1 December The remaining men, Nielsen, Hite, Barr and DeShazer, eventually began receiving slightly better treatment and were given a copy of the Bible and a few other books.
They were freed by American troops in August Four Japanese officers were tried for war crimes against the captured Doolittle Raiders, found guilty, and sentenced to hard labor, three for five years and one for nine years. DeShazer graduated from Seattle Pacific University in and returned to Japan as a missionary, where he served for over 30 years.
Hite, died March 29, Immediately following the raid, Doolittle told his crew that he believed the loss of all 16 aircraft, coupled with the relatively minor damage to targets, had rendered the attack a failure, and that he expected a court-martial upon his return to the United States. Instead, the raid bolstered American morale to such an extent that Doolittle was awarded the Medal of Honor by President Roosevelt, and was promoted two grades to brigadier General, skipping the rank of colonel.
Grandison Gardner, the local paper of record the Okaloosa News-Journal, Crestview, Florida , while reporting his presence, made no mention of his still-secret recent training at Eglin. Corporal David J. Thomas R. Lawson's crew to evade Japanese troops in China. All 80 Raiders received the Distinguished Flying Cross, and those who were killed or wounded during the raid also received the Purple Heart.
Every Doolittle Raider received a decoration from the Chinese government. Twenty-eight of the crewmen remained in the China Burma India theater, flying missions, most for more than a year.
Five were killed in action. Nineteen crew members flew combat missions from North Africa after returning to the United States, four of whom were killed in action and four becoming prisoners of war. Nine crew members served in the European Theater of Operations; one was killed in action. Altogether 12 of the survivors died in air crashes within 15 months of the raid.
In November it deployed overseas to North Africa, where it operated in the Mediterranean Theater of Operations with the Twelfth Air Force for the remainder of the war. After the raid, the Japanese Imperial Army began the Zhejiang-Jiangxi Campaign in order to prevent these eastern coastal provinces of China from being used again for an attack on Japan. The daring raid stunned Japan and is credited with boosting U. After bombing targets in northwest Tokyo, Cole's plane turned toward China with plans to land at an airfield.
But things went awry when authorities at the airfield heard their engines, assumed it was Japanese and turned off the lights. Cole and Doolittle couldn't find a place to land at night. Shortly before running out of fuel, everyone bailed out; Cole gave himself a black eye when he pulled his parachute ripcord.
He landed in a tree where he spent the night, climbing down in the morning, and walking the whole day before finding a couple of Chinese students who eventually took him to Doolittle, who said, "Boy, am I glad to see you. Richard Cole: Last Doolittle Raider remembers historic mission 75 years ago. David Thatcher: 79th Doolittle Raider dies in Montana.
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