You know about the Doolittle Raid – or at least, you should. On April 18, 1942 – just over four months after the Pearl Harbor attack – sixteen B-25B Mitchell medium bombers took off from an American aircraft carrier, and bombed Tokyo. They did this without any fighter escort, and with no way of getting back to their ship.
It didn’t damage Japan to any great extent. It certainly didn’t compare in that regard to the U.S. firebombing missions of 1945 – or what American A-bombs did to Hiroshima and Nagasaki. But the Doolittle Raid immediately took on the sheen of legend, because its main accomplishment was boosting American morale. Of course, as with most legendary historical occurrences, some of what we “know” about it is less than perfectly accurate.
Whatever you know or think you know about the mission, you should come to hear a free lecture at the Richland Library main location on Assembly Street in Columbia at noon on April 18. Bruce Cotner will deliver an informative program he calls, “The Doolittle Raid and Midlands Myths.” The lecture is part of the South Carolina Confederate Relic Room and Military Museum’s regular Noon Debrief program.
The “Midlands” part of his title arises from a fact of which folks in the Columbia area are justly proud. The Midlands played host to the Doolittle Raiders for a time during the preparation for their mission. In fact, they flew their B-25s over Lake Murray while stationed at Columbia Army Air Base (a site now known as Columbia Metropolitan Airport).
After the war, the survivors of the mission gathered for annual reunions, and several of those were held in Columbia before the last of those heroes died in 2019, at the age of 103.
As for the “myths” part of the title, Cotner has no intention of in any way diminishing the pride that Columbians cherish regarding their community’s role in the Raid. There’s nothing mythical about the heroic mission, or Columbia’s share in the story. But he wants to make sure we remember it all correctly. Some of the jumbled “facts” that we think we know, and Cotner will address, include these:
- Col. Jimmy Doolittle “dreamed up” the raid all on his own.
- Doolittle personally selected the volunteers for the raid, while here at Columbia Army Air Base.
- From the beginning of the planning, Doolittle would lead and fly the mission.
There are several others, none of which undermine the glory of the achievement, the pride cherished by Americans (including Columbians), or the shock the raid was to the Japanese.
Come hear the whole story at the library on April 18.
Orders in hand, Capt. Marc A. Mitscher, U.S.N., skipper of the U.S.S. Hornet (CU-8) chats with Maj. Gen. James Doolittle, U.S. Army. Some of the 80 Army fliers who took part in the historic Japanese raid are pictured behind the two senior officers.
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