Quote:
Originally Posted by dilbert firestorm
non of the b-25 landed on the carrier.
the c-130 landed and took off from a carrier.
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No. they were loaded onto the Hornet by crane. regardless, it was still considered impossible for a B-25 to take off from that short of runway. Doolittle proved it could be done by holding the brakes and revving up the engines to full throttle then letting the brakes off. Doolittle went first and had less than 500 feet to make it and he did. the last few planes had it easy .. sort of.
the surviving raiders which was most of them held a reunion almost every year after the war until 2013
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doolittle_Raid
Last surviving airmen
Col.
Bill Bower, the last surviving Doolittle raider aircraft commander, died on 10 January 2011 at age 93 in
Boulder, Colorado.
[85][86]
Lt. Col.
Edward Saylor, the then-enlisted engineer/gunner of aircraft No. 15 during the raid, died 28 January 2015 of natural causes at his home in
Sumner, Washington, at the age of 94.
[87]
Lt. Col. Robert L. Hite, co-pilot of aircraft No. 16, died at a nursing home in
Nashville, Tennessee, at the age of 95 on 29 March 2015.
[88][89][90] Hite was the last living prisoner of the Doolittle Raid.
S/Sgt. David J. Thatcher, gunner of aircraft No. 7, died on 22 June 2016 in
Missoula, Montana, at the age of 94.
Lt Col.
Richard E. Cole, Doolittle's copilot in aircraft No. 1, was the last surviving Doolittle Raider
[91] and the only one to live to an older age than Doolittle, who died in 1993 at age 96.
[92] Cole was the only Raider still alive when the wreckage of
Hornet was found in late January 2019 by the
research vessel Petrel at a depth of more than 17,000 feet (5,200 m) off the Solomon Islands.
[93] Cole died 9 April 2019, at the age of 103.
[94]
1992 the Navy did a reenactment on the USS Ranger. Gen Doolittle was there to watch a flyby afterward by 8 B-25's.
Doolittle Raiders re-enactment
On 21 April 1992, in conjunction with other Department of Defense World War II 50th-Anniversary Commemorative Events, two B-25 Mitchell bombers, B-25J
Heavenly Body and B-25J
In The Mood, were hoisted aboard
USS Ranger. The bombers participated in a commemorative re-enactment of the Doolittle Raid on Tokyo, taking off from
Ranger's flight deck before over 1,500 guests.
[97] The launch took place off the coast of San Diego.
[98] Four B-25s were approved by the US Navy for the reenactment with two selected. The other two participants were B-25J
Executive Sweet and B-25J
Pacific Princess. Following the launch, eight B-25s flew up the coast where General Doolittle and his son John P. Doolittle watched as each B-25 came in for a low pass, dropping 250 red, white, and blue carnations into the surf, concluding the event.
c-130 hercules lands on aircraft carrier
