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And then there were three 10 years 8 months ago #244206

Husky Dog
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Lt. Col. Edward Saylor, one of the last four surviving Doolittle Raiders has passed away.

www.oregonlive.com/obituaries/index.ssf/...aylor_among_the.html

Training at Eglin Field continued until 25 March 1942 when sixteen B-25Bs with eighty crew members flew to Alameda Naval Air Station, San Francisco, CA, On 1 April 1942 Hornet docked at Alameda; the sixteen B-25s and 134 men were loaded, including the Army Air Corps crews. Also aboard was Naval Lt. Henry L. Miller, the officer who helped train the air crews in short takeoffs. On 2 April 1942 Hornet put to sea and headed westward. For the next two weeks, while steaming across the Pacific, the air crews continued to train, study their targets, maintain the planes, and learn Japanese culture from an intelligence officer who had been Naval attache in Tokyo. Halsey's and Mitscher's forces met in mid-ocean on 13 April.

In hindsight, the plan for the Doolittle Raid seems matter of fact. Not so. At the time it was daring, risky and unprecedented. The takeoff of a heavily loaded bomber from an aircraft carrier was difficult enough, requiring the ultimate in pilot skill and courage. The Doolittle plan made it much more so by crowding sixteen bombers onto the Hornet deck, leaving even less room for runway. Then to travel over enemy-controlled seas to heavily defended targets, never reached before, and to continue to China at the limit of the aircraft range, there to rendezvous at fields that had never been used by American planes. It was an insanely risky and difficult plan, therefore magnificently bold and courageous for the crews. Doolittle's own audacity, internalized by the magnificent Raider force volunteers, made the near-impossible plan a fact of history.