Seventy-three years ago, 80 men flew B-25 bombers off of an aircraft carrier in a daring air raid of Tokyo and four other Japanese cities.
Sixteen B-25s flew that mission, manned with five crewmen each. After striking their targets, 15 B-25s flew to China where they either crashed or crashed landed, while the final plane landed in the Soviet Union. Eight crewmen were captured by the Japanese Army in China, and three were executed.
Although the raid caused little damage, it was an electrifying jolt to American morale, which had been battered by the Japanese air attack on Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941, where the Japanese destroyed the U.S. battleships Arizona and Oklahoma, while the battleships West Virginia and California sank in shallow water and later raised.
As a U.S. Army chorus sang "America the Beautiful," Lt. Col. Richard Cole, one of two surviving members of the mission delivered a video-taped message of thanks to Congress who awarded the Congressional Gold Medal to the Doolittle Raiders Wednesday.
In the spacious and ornamental Emancipation Hall below the U.S. Capitol, lawmakers from both parties presented the medal to retired Lt. Gen. John L. “Jack" Hudson, director of the National Museum of the United States at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base.
The medal, the nation’s highest civilian medal, will be given to the museum Saturday, the 73rd anniversary of the raid. The two surviving members of the raid, Cole and Staff Sgt. David J. Thatcher, are planning to attend.
In his video-taped message, Cole said “on behalf of the 78 fallen raiders who we proudly served with on that famous raid, we are honored to accept this prestigious” award.
Cole, who lives in Texas and turns 100 years old this fall, served as co-pilot of the B-25 flown by squadron commander Lt. Col. James Doolittle. Hollywood film director John Ford filmed Doolittle ‘s plane as it roared down the rain-swept decks of the Hornet. Cole and Doolittle and their crew flew to China, where they bailed out and survived. Doolittle died in 1993.
In the five months since Pearl Harbor, the Japanese had scored one victory after another – forcing the surrender of the American garrison at Wake Island to the destruction of the combined U.S., British and Dutch fleet in the Java Sea, and the capture of 72,000 American and Filipino troops on the Bataan peninsula in the Philippines.
Others who have received the honor in the past include Winston Churchill, George Washington, Mother Teresa and, more recently, astronauts Neil Armstrong and John Glenn.
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