Sunday, April 29, 2007

Doolittle 65 years.

In 1942 there was no Henry Waxman to complain

Doolittle Raiders 65th anniversary
(Left to right) Doolittle Raiders Robert Hite, Tom Griffin, Dave Thatcher and Dick Cole stand for the national anthem during a ceremony honoring the raiders and celebrating the 65th Anniversary of the raid April 17 at Randolph Air Force Base, Texas. (U.S. Air Force photo by SSgt Brian Ferguson)

MarkM sent me this reminder.  The anniversary was 11 days ago (April 18th).  In order, I thought of three things when I opened the e-mail.
  1. If the Doolittle raid had been flown today, Henry Waxman would hold hearings on the waste of lives from this insignificant "Do Nothing Grandstand"  (I'm quite serious).
  2. The very first full length motion picture broadcast on the new Saturday Night Movie in Chicago was "Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo"  The ratings were through the roof,  but unfortunately (if I remember correctly) the last reel was inadvertently locked in the station's film vault, with a timing mechanism that kept it from being opened until the next day.  It caused a NY JETS/Heidi scale earthquake.  The headline on the Sunday Tribune bannered the story. The station (channel 5, I think) promised to show the last reel on Monday, which they did around 4:00 in the afternoon while all the adult men were still at work.  More howls. 
  3. The first thing I did when I got a 28K modem was watch training films at Zeno's Warbird Video.  I still do go there and just love it.  You can watch training films on any number of old war birds, including the B-25 used by the Doolittle Raiders.  [How to fly the B-25] Bottoms up Boys!

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Ooooooo, went to Zeno,s, checked out the P-38 Lightning (one of my favs)that is so cool. Thanks for the heads up!

Anonymous said...

Got a kick outta seeing the P-51 a favorite of mine.I like the story that goes with its development and improvement as well.

Bob Hawkins said...

The Japanese massacred about 200,000 civilians in occupied China in retaliation for the Doolittle raid. Today, Harry Reid would demand a war crime trial of the US President.

Rodger the Real King of France said...

The P-51 and B-17 are my own favorites. What a resource for anyone writing WWII novels.

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