The Final Toast.
On Tuesday, in Fort Walton Beach , Florida , the surviving
Doolittle Raiders gathered publicly for the last time.
Once among the most universally admired and revered men in the United States and originally 80 in number, the Raiders carried out one of the most courageous military operations in April 1942, and now only four survive.
After Japan 's sneak attack on Pearl Harbor, the United States needed to hit back with force.
There were no friendly airfields close enough to Japan for the United States to launch a retaliation, so a daring plan was devised. Sixteen B-25s were modified so that they could take off from the deck of an aircraft carrier. Never before had an attempt been made to launch heavy bombers from a carrier.
The 16 five-man crews, under the command of Lt. Col. James Doolittle, who himself flew the lead plane off the USS Hornet, knew that they would not be able to return to the carrier. They would have to hit Japan and then hope to make it to China for a safe landing.
On the day of the raid, Japanese military caught wind of the plan. The Raiders were told that they would have to take off from much farther out in the Pacific Ocean than they had counted on and as a consequence they would not have enough fuel to make it to safety and with this knowledge all crews went anyway.
After bombing Tokyo they then flew as far as they could. Four planes crash-landed; 11 more crews bailed out, and three of the Raiders died. Eight more were captured; three were executed and another died of starvation in a Japanese prison camp. One crew made it to Russia .
The Doolittle Raid sent a message from the United States to its enemies and the rest of the world: We will fight and, no matter what it takes, we will win.
Of the 80 Raiders, 62 survived the war then to be celebrated as National heroes. Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer produced a motion picture based on the raid; "Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo," starring Spencer Tracy and Van Johnson. The film was a patriotic and emotional box-office hit, and the phrase became part of the National lexicon. In the movie-theater previews for the film, MGM proclaimed that it was presenting the story "with supreme pride."
Beginning in 1946, the surviving Raiders have held a reunion each April, to commemorate the mission. The reunion is in a different city each year. In 1959, the city of Tucson , Arizona , as a gesture of respect and gratitude, presented the Doolittle Raiders with a set of 80 silver goblets. Each goblet was engraved with the name of a Raider.
Every year, a wooden display case bearing all 80 goblets is transported to the reunion city. Each time a Raider passes away his goblet is turned upside down in the case at the next reunion, as his old friends bear solemn witness.
Also in the wooden case is a bottle of 1896 Hennessy Very Special cognac. The year is not happenstance: 1896 was when Jimmy Doolittle was born.
There has always been a plan: When there are only two surviving Raiders, they would open the bottle, at last drink from it, and toast their comrades who preceded them in death.
As 2013 began, there were five living Raiders; then, in February, Tom Griffin passed away at age 96.
What a man he was. After bailing out of his plane over a
mountainous Chinese forest after the Tokyo raid, he became ill with malaria, and almost died. When he recovered, he was sent to Europe to fly more combat missions. He was shot down, captured, and spent 22 months in a German prisoner of war camp.
A passage in the Cincinnati Enquirer obituary for Mr. Griffin noted that when his wife became ill and needed to go into a nursing home, he visited her every day. He walked from his house to the nursing home, fed his wife and at the end of the day brought home her clothes. At night, he washed and ironed her clothes. Then he walked them up to her room the next morning. He did that for three years until her death in 2005.
Now only four Raiders remain from the original 80 - Dick
Cole (Doolittle's co-pilot on the Tokyo raid), Robert Hite,
Edward Saylor and David Thatcher.
As all four are in their 90's they have decided that there are too few of them for the public reunions to continue, so the events in Fort Walton Beach this week will mark the end.
Florida's nearby Eglin Field was where the Raiders trained in secrecy for the Tokyo mission. The town is planning to do all it can to honor the men: a six-day celebration of their valor, including luncheons, a dinner and a parade.
The men have decided that after this final public reunion they will wait until a later date some time this year to get
together once more, informally and in absolute privacy and that is when they will open the bottle of brandy. The years are flowing by too swiftly now so they decided not to wait until only two remain.
They will fill the four remaining upturned goblets and raise them in a toast to those who are gone.
Their 70th Anniversary Photo
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