Jimmy Doolittle

American aviator

• Born: December 14, 1896
• Birthplace: Alameda, California
• Died: September 27, 1993
• Place of death: Pebble Beach, California

Doolittle was a pioneer in American aviation, establishing numerous records and gathering data vital to aviation history. His defining accomplishment as a military pilot was an air raid on Tokyo in 1942 that shocked Japan during World War II. Also, as an aviation researcher, Doolittle combined test-flight information with laboratory data to prove that pilots needed visual aids to know wind and direction information. This was a major contribution to the knowledge of instruments and their use, making flying more precise and less dangerous.

Early Life

Jimmy Doolittle was born in Alameda, California. He was the only child of Frank Doolittle and Rosa Doolittle. While he was still an infant, his father left the family for Alaska in search of gold. After three years, the family was reunited in Nome, Alaska. The next eight years, in the most lawless town in Alaska, taught Doolittle independence and self-defense. A difficult relationship with his father, plus his mother’s insistence that her son have better educational opportunities than those offered in Alaska, led to a return to California in 1908. Now eleven years old, Doolittle lived with his mother in Los Angeles.

Reaching college age, Jimmy enrolled in the University of California, Berkeley, as a mine engineering major. His self-defense skills led him to amateur boxing. Although only five feet four inches tall, he became a West Coast bantamweight and middleweight champion. To earn extra money he briefly turned to professional boxing.

Jimmy was a college junior in 1917 when the United States entered World War I. Having already developed a strong interest in aviation, he enlisted in the U.S. Army’s Signal Enlisted Reserve Corps as a flying cadet. Quickly earning his pilot’s license, he became a second lieutenant in the Army Air Corps. He served in the Air Corps until 1930, leaving as a major.

During these early years, Doolittle served as an instructor pilot and engaged in air aerobatics, with the goal of breaking aviation records. His first record came in 1922 when he crossed the North American continent from Florida to California, becoming the first to do so in less than twenty-four hours. He finished his bachelor’s degree at Berkeley the same year.

Life’s Work

In 1923, Doolittle, with a two-year leave of absence from the military, enrolled at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. By 1925 he had earned both a master’s degree and a Ph.D. in aeronautical engineering. His doctoral dissertation, “Wind Velocity Gradient and Its Effect on Flying Characteristics,” disproved the assumption that pilots knew instinctively the direction and speed of the wind, as well as the direction in which their plane was flying. Doolittle combined test-flight information with laboratory data to prove that pilots needed visual aids to know wind and direction information. This was a major contribution to the knowledge of instruments and their use, making flying more precise and less dangerous.

Doolittle’s daredevil feats reached their peak in the last half of the 1920’s. By 1925 he had won all major racing trophies, including the Schneider Trophy for winning a seaplane race and flying his Curtiss Navy seaplane an average of 232 miles per hour. This feat earned Doolittle the nickname Lone Pilot. Taking another leave of absence from the Air Corps in April, 1926, he did demonstration flights in South America. On one occasion, after breaking his ankles in an accident unrelated to flying, he flew with his ankles strapped to the plane’s rudders, leaving his parachute behind since he could not have bailed out in an emergency.

In 1927, after recovering from his injuries, Doolittle, at Wright Field in Dayton, Ohio, accomplished a feat previously thought impossible. In what was called an “outside loop,” he dived in his Curtiss fighter plane from 10,000 feet, reached a speed of 280 miles per hour, bottomed out upside down, then climbed to complete the loop.

Major Doolittle left the Air Corps in 1930, but continued his record-setting exploits as a civilian. Working for Shell Oil Company in 1931, he established a new speed record, flying from Burbank, California, to Cleveland, Ohio. He set a new cross-county record the same year. In 1932 he averaged 252 miles per hour, with a top speed of 406 miles per hour, in winning the Thompson Trophy race in Cleveland.

Doolittle, despite his risky aerobatics, was dedicated to improving aviation safety. Based on the ideas of his doctoral dissertation, he became the first pilot to fly with total reliance on instruments, sometimes called “flying blind.”

Following the German invasion of Poland in September, 1939, Doolittle reentered the Army Air Corps. Although the United States was not yet directly involved in the war, it was obvious that the nation would soon need experienced pilots. After the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Doolittle was promoted to lieutenant colonel.

Just nineteen weeks after Pearl Harbor, Doolittle successfully carried out the plan that made his name a household word in the United States. His mission is best summarized by the headline that ran in newspapers across the country, “Tokyo bombed! Doolittle dood it!”

Early in 1942, Doolittle was chosen to lead a retaliatory, post-Pearl Harbor raid on Japan. The Seventeenth Bombardment Group was formed and began special and top-secret training. Sixteen specially equipped B-25 bombers, each with a five-person volunteer crew, were soon assigned to the mission. Two aircraft carriers also were involved: The USS Hornet was modified to carry and launch the bombers, and the USS Enterprise led a task force to provide support. Because of the large distance between the Hornet and the island of Japan, the plan was for the bombers, after dropping their bombs, to continue on and land in an area of China unoccupied by Japan instead of returning to the Hornet at sea.

On April 18, without the element of surprise because the Japanese unexpectedly sighted the Enterprise, the bombers were launched; they hit their military targets. Thirteen bombs were dropped around Tokyo, and three were dropped on as many Japanese cities. Although the physical damage was minimal, the psychological blow to Japan was tremendous. However, the planes failed to reach the safe airfields of China. Most crash-landed in the China Sea or in Japanese-occupied China. One landed in the Soviet Union. Five crew members were killed and eight were captured by the Japanese, who executed three. Another captured crew member died of his injuries. In total, seventy-one of the eighty men involved in the operation, including Doolittle, survived; most were saved by the Chinese, but some returned with life-altering injuries.

Shortly after the raid, Doolittle was promoted to brigadier general, skipping the rank of colonel. In May, 1942, President Franklin D. Roosevelt presented General Doolittle with the Congressional Medal of Honor.

During the remainder of the war, Doolittle commanded the Twelfth Air Force in North Africa and the Eighth Air Force in Europe and in the Pacific. He retired from active duty as a lieutenant general in 1959. He gave up action flying in 1961. Curiosity, however, led him to test-fly several new military aircraft, including the F-100, which was the first supersonic fighter, and the huge B-52 bomber. These were his last flights as first pilot, and, surprisingly, he said later that he never missed it.

As a civilian Doolittle was chair of the board of Space Technology Laboratories. He enjoyed his retirement years with Joe, his wife of more than seventy years. The two eventually took a trip to Alaska, a visit Doolittle had promised her long before. He died at the age of ninety-six in 1993.

Significance

The bombing of Tokyo and other cities in Japan caused the Japanese to accelerate their plans of expansion. A premature attack on Midway Island in June, 1942, designed to cripple the U.S. aircraft carrier fleet, ended with the loss of four of their own carriers and none from the U.S. Navy.

Doolittle’s accomplishments in early aviation technology alone were enough to rank him as a legend, especially given his innovative idea that instrument flying was safe. His wartime activities led to honors by Great Britain, France, China, Belgium, Poland, and Ecuador.

His military service to his own country, before, during, and after World War II, led to numerous honors. The culmination of those honors came in 1985, when President Ronald Reagan presented him with an honorary promotion to the elite rank of four-star general.

Bibliography

Larson, Ted W. Thirty Seconds over Tokyo. New York: Random House, 1943. Written by the pilot of plane seven of Doolittle’s raid, who lost both of his legs crashing into the China Sea. Provides the most detailed account of the raid and the experiences of the crew after the raid, including those captured by the Japanese.

Murray, Williamson. War in the Air, 1914-1945. London: Cassell, Wellington House, 1999. Places Doolittle, the raid, and Doolittle’s later World War II leadership in the context of early military aviation history. Reveals his impact on the bombing missions that became a vital part of World War II.

Nelson, Craig. The First Heroes: The Extraordinary Story of the Doolittle Raid, America’s First World War II Victory. New York: Viking Press, 2002. Based on original accounts of aging survivors. Excellent photos of war leaders and events, including the listing and photos of all crew members of all planes involved in the raid.

Thomas, Lowell, and Edward Jablonski. Doolittle: A Biography. Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1976. Perhaps the best of several biographies of Doolittle, all of which repeat the same basic information, including Doolittle’s autobiography I Could Never Be So Lucky Again, written with Carroll Glines in 1991.

Wilson, William R. “Jimmy Doolittle Reminisces About World War II.” American History, August, 1997. Based on comments by Doolittle in about 1980. The author first met Doolittle about six months after the raid. Includes biographical and autobiographical information.