View Full Version : 65 years ago today
Today 18April07, marks the 65th anniversary of the "Doolittle Raid".
http://www.history.navy.mil/photos/events/wwii-pac/misc-42/dooltl.htm
Here's to the men who flew against the home Island of Japan, to boost the morale of a nation that was still reeling, from the Surprise, Sneak Attack against us at Pearl Harbor.
Their daring and intestinal fortitude, raised the spirit of this nation, and paved the way to the ultimate goal.....Total Victory.
Least We Forget.
The Reaper
04-18-2007, 20:55
Thanks for your service, sacrifice, and bravery, gents.
There is a great display on the Doolittle Raid on the USS Yorktown in Charleston, SC. Also a B-25 hanging beside it.
I have walked the part of Duke Field, in Florida where I was told they practiced take-offs.
TR
Thank you Gentlemen, our Country owes a debt of gratitude.
There's a display case in Arnold Hall at the USAFA on Doolittle's Raid. Every man has a silver cup in a named cubbyhole in the case, and there's a bottle of liquor (I think bourbon, but I can't remember) in with them. Each man that has died during or since the raid has his cup turned upside down, and survivors are right side up. I believe the last two survivors are supposed to open the bottle and drink a toast to their departed comrades. My description doesn't do the display justice...its pretty moving to see in real life.
shadowwalker
04-18-2007, 22:26
No sacrifice should ever be forgotten. Heros should always be remembered. Many of the children of today, (thanks to the liberal public school systems), know very little of our history. These were brave men who fought and died for their country. May they live on in our thoughts and prayers and always be remembered, as well as many of you who have done the same. Thank you for your service and welcome home.
There's a display case in Arnold Hall at the USAFA on Doolittle's Raid. Every man has a silver cup in a named cubbyhole in the case, and there's a bottle of liquor (I think bourbon, but I can't remember) in with them. Each man that has died during or since the raid has his cup turned upside down, and survivors are right side up. I believe the last two survivors are supposed to open the bottle and drink a toast to their departed comrades. My description doesn't do the display justice...its pretty moving to see in real life.
It's a bottle of Hennessy Cognac, dated 1896. The year of Gen. Doolittle's birth.
http://www.ghspaulding.com/doolittle_raid.htm
Still the Doolittle spirit lives on, embodied in a special glass-enclosed cabinet kept on display in Arnold Hall at the U.S. Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs. The cabinet contains 80 silver goblets and a bottle of Hennessy cognac. Each goblet is engraved with the name of a Raider and is turned upside down when that member of the group passes away.
As dawn broke over Pearl Harbor on December 7, 2001—60 years after the attack that launched WWII and 131 days before the 60th anniversary of the Doolittle Raid—only 23 Raiders were still living. Of the dwindling number of goblets that staunchly remain upright in their display case, only four (Bill Bower’s among them) represent surviving pilots while four more represent surviving copilots.
A special detail of Air Force cadets carries the goblets in a portable display case to annual Raider reunions, where attending members toast those who have preceded them in death and retire their goblets. Tradition holds that the last two survivors will open the brandy and drink a final toast to their departed brothers. Only then will the saga of the Doolittle Raiders come to a close. The legend is likely to endure forever.
The Doolittle Goblets and the Mystery of the Missing Brandy
The silver goblets were a gift to the Raiders from the city of Tucson, Arizona, presented to Doolittle during the Raider reunion in that city in 1959. In October of that year, during halftime of the Air Force-Colorado University football game, Doolittle turned them over to the superintendent of the Academy for safekeeping.
The portable display case currently used to transport them to annual Raider reunions was built in 1973 by Richard E. "Dick" Cole, Doolittle’s copilot during the 1942 raid.
At some point, the president of the Hennessy Company gave Doolittle a bottle of Very Special cognac, vintage 1896, the year of Doolittle’s birth. Doolittle, in turn, donated the cognac to the goblet collection with the stipulation that the last two surviving Raiders would open it to drink a final toast to their departed comrades.
The brandy and goblets, in their original gift case, were put on display at the old AFA Visitor Center. One night circa 1970, the vintage bottle of cognac disappeared. A subsequent investigation failed to identify the culprit(s). Nor has anyone ever stepped forward, even anonymously, to claim credit or accept blame.
The Hennessy Company later donated a replacement bottle of cognac, also vintage 1896, which remains in the possession of the surviving Raiders. Authorities at the Academy have been unable to produce any record as to the origin of the bottle currently on display in Arnold Hall.