A Hero’s Journey – Part 1

The Castle Report

Darrell Castle pays tribute to the Tokyo Raiders and their leader, Lt. Col. Jimmy Doolittle and explains why it is important to remember them as we approach Memorial Day. Transcript / Notes A HERO’S JOURNEY—PART ONE Hello, this is Darrell Castle with today’s Castle Report. Today is Friday, May 17, 2019, and on this Report I will begin the first part of a two part Report as a lead in to Memorial Day coming up on Monday May 27th. The two part series will concentrate on the stories of those who fought World War ll; one, because those men deserve it; and 2, because history is vitally important and the stories of what those men did unfortunately often die with them. It’s a different world now than the world of the World War ll veterans. It was simpler then because we knew who we were and we knew that we had something worth killing and dying for. In mythology, the hero’s journey, involves the tales of a hero who goes on an adventure, and in a decisive crises wins a victory and comes home changed by it. That is certainly the tale of the men we are going to talk about today except that many of them missed out on the coming home part of the adventure. In the early days of the war, the U.S. Navy had almost ceased to exist in the Pacific due to the Japanese attack on the naval base at Pearl Harbor. Fortunately, the only three aircraft carriers in the Pacific were at sea that day and thereby survived the attack. American industry had to be rebuilt and retooled almost overnight to completely rebuild the Navy to fight a world war. President Roosevelt wanted some way to lift the morale of the American people who were enduring the news of one Japanese victory after another, culminating in the surrender of the Philippines, along with 70,000 Filipino and American troops. The President told his military commanders that he wanted to strike at the mainland of Japan itself, but none of them believed it could be done because no land-based bombers had the range to reach Japan. Well then, what about a carrier based attack? No as well, because Japanese anti-ship and anti-air defenses would not allow a carrier to approach close enough to launch an attack. The President told them to find someone who believed it could be done and who was willing to do it. That man turned out to be Lt. Col. James (Jimmy) Doolittle, an officer who had been in the Army Air Corps, as it was known then. Since 1917. Lt. Col. Doolittle had been an accomplished flyer, having tested many types of aircraft and holding the cross country speed record as well. He was one of the pioneers in the early days of military aviation. In addition, he was an intelligent, educated man, with a PHD in Aeronautics from MIT. Lt. Col. Doolittle thought it could be done, and he set about the task of building a team of 80 men to do it. He asked for volunteers for an extremely dangerous mission and he soon had more than enough volunteers to select from. He needed 16 crews of five men to a crew or 80 men. They were tasked with something never before attempted, launching a twin engine land-based bomber, the B-25, from the deck of a carrier at sea, bombing the Japanese capitol and flying to China, knowing they could not make it and could not return to the carrier. The purpose of this Report is not to talk about airplanes, ships, or their ordinance but to tell the stories of the men who flew in them and who served on them so let’s look at what happened to those 80 men. The aircraft carrier USS Hornet was selected for the mission and the 16 B-25’s were loaded aboard and chained down on the deck. The ship and its battle group set sail for the coast of Japan intending to launch the raid 400 miles from the coast. That would leave them just enough fuel to complete their bomb runs and just make the coast of China where the Chinese would hopefully help them. However, when they were 600 miles from Japan the task force encountered a Japanese fishing vessel and the captain of the Hornet knew they had been di...