Doolittle, James Harold

▪ 1994

      general (ret.), U.S. Army Air Force (b. Dec. 14, 1896, Alameda, Calif.—d. Sept. 27, 1993, Pebble Beach, Calif.), was a lieutenant colonel when he commanded the strike force of B-25 bombers that on April 18, 1942, conducted a daring daylight air raid on Japan. Even though the secret mission, the first counterattack of the war, inflicted negligible damage on Tokyo, Yokohama, and other cities, it helped bolster U.S. morale following the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor and illustrated to Japan that the U.S. was in air-striking distance. Doolittle, who had established an unparalleled string of aviation records in the 1920s and '30s as an army pilot and as an employee of the Shell Oil Co., practiced flying B-25s on a short takeoff run in Florida before he led "Doolittle's Raiders" on their special mission. Sixteen B-25s carrying 80 aviators flew from the deck of the aircraft carrier Hornet and traveled westward. Though most of the crew had to bail out over mainland China or the Soviet Far East, 69 of them safely reached friendly lines on the Chinese mainland. Doolittle received the Medal of Honor for his execution of the mission and was soon promoted to brigadier general. His feat was the subject of the 1944 film Thirty Seconds over Tokyo, starring Spencer Tracy. Doolittle later commanded the 12th Air Force in Britain, the 15th Air Force in North Africa and Italy, and the 8th Air Force in attacks on Germany. After the war Doolittle returned to Shell Oil and remained active in both public- and private-sector aeronautical advisory committees. In 1989 Doolittle was the recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

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