
Last Doolittle Raiders make final toast - pwg
http://www.daytondailynews.com/news/news/local/last-doolittle-raiders-make-final-toast/nbnpF/
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rmason
It totally amazes me that Hollywood has never remade the movie about
Doolittle's Raiders. It has all the elements of a great movie:

1\. A crazy idea by a White House staffer leads to the mission

2\. Doolittle needs clearance by FDR to be allowed to fly

3\. Doolittle's search for the best pilots leads him to recruit some total
misfits

4\. They're forced to launch early after being sighted by the Japanese picket
boat

5\. The raid over Tokyo so shocks the Japanese that it leads them to overreact
to the threat, pull a carrier group back to defend the home island and the
disaster of a decision by Admiral Yamamoto to attack Midway

6\. Japan kills 250,000 Chinese civilians looking for the Raiders

Its probably the best story about America's greatest generation in WWII yet is
unknown to many young people.

Here's some actual footage of the raid:

[https://archive.org/details/Doolittle_Raid_Launch_Footage_19...](https://archive.org/details/Doolittle_Raid_Launch_Footage_1942)

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pchristensen
I first heard about the Doolittle raid from the movie Pearl Harbor. Despite
that movie's, ahem, flaws, it was an impressive story of fearlessness,
ingenuity, and focus.

Fast forward a decade, I visited the USS Hornet ([http://www.uss-
hornet.org/](http://www.uss-hornet.org/)) in Alameda, CA, a decommissioned
aircraft carrier that's now a museum, and found out that the Doolittle raid
launched from the Hornet! (They also picked up and quarantined the Apollo 11
capsule and crew). Very, very worth a visit.

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tosseraccount
There were two U.S.S. Hornets in WWII: CV-8 and CV-12 The Doolittle raid was
launched from CV-8 a Yorktown class carrier. CV-8 was sunk at the Battle of
Santa Cruz Islands in 1942. The name was resurrected for CV-12 in 1943. CV-12
served until 1970.

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emp_zealoth
Just trying to imagine how it must have felt to be in one of the B-25's, just
before the launch straight into the heart of an enemy - it boggles my mind

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sirkneeland
I am very glad we did. And yet I also hope we may never have to again.

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gadders
I can't help feeling that as these events "close down" and things like the
death of Harry Patch [1] that it really is the End of an Era. I realise that
phrase is completely overused but there will be a time during my lifetime when
there are no WWII veterans alive, and a lot of knowledge will pass out of the
world.

[1]
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_Patch](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_Patch)

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leokun
Those guys are and were courageous and competent and deserve recognition, but
I have to ponder at making such a spectacle of celebrating people who dropped
explosives on people, people who are now our allies. We are an incredibly
militaristic society.

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aaronem
If you're looking for examples of "an incredibly militaristic society", you
might want to start with, say, Prussia under Frederick the Great, or Imperial
Japan circa 1942. Once you've familiarized yourself with at least those two,
you'll be better equipped than you are now to recognize the risibility of
using that phrase to describe the United States in 2013.

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leokun
Better equipped than I am now? You assume to know quite a bit about me from a
simple sentence.

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aaronem
Not at all, and no assumption is required; from the sentence in question, I
conclude merely that you don't know what "an incredibly militaristic society"
looks like. Otherwise, you wouldn't have mistaken the United States in 2013
for anything of the sort.

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leokun
Maybe we don't all go around wearing uniforms or worshipping the emperor, but
our police is becoming more militarized, and we definitely are people who
celebrate war. Finding me "risible" based on a harmless observation probably
means you are quite emotional on the topic so I'm not inclined to respond to
you any more.

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aaronem
It was (and is) the observation I found risible, not the person who made it.
And of course we celebrate war! Who, having examined the public reaction to
our recent outings in Afghanistan and Iraq, could possibly draw any other
conclusion?

