The raid was more of a crazy scheme. Navy brass cooked up a plan for a surprise air attack on Japan and entrusted it to one of modern aviation’s founding fathers, Jimmy Doolittle. With America still reeling after Pearl Harbor, the Philippines crumbling under Japanese might and Europe surrendering to the Nazi’s lightning advance, any sort of win was needed, and not just a tactical one. We needed something to rally our national spirit for the battles to come. Cole was on point as Doolittle’s co-pilot, leading the improbable charge.

The world was a bigger place in 1942 and its oceans stretched like outer space with incredible distances too intimidating to consider conquering by air. This idea of bombing Tokyo was on the frayed edge of possibility, pushing pilots and their modified, land loving, B-25 Mitchell bombers past their limits and into the skies off the short wooden deck of an aircraft carrier sneaking close enough to Japan for a fighting chance of success.

Bomb load was reduced to a token to allow extra fuel. Engines were tweaked for the 13 hour 2,250 mile marathon run. And pilots were trained in creative use of their craft to get it “flying” in 300 feet of takeoff roll, barely hitting 25 knots ground speed before their full flaps and a headwind fluttered them tentatively aloft. Return was never in the cards. The all-volunteer Doolittle Raiders would try to make fields in China, crash land, bail-out or ditch.

They knew the long odds had grown even longer when their aircraft carrier Hornet turned into the wind earlier than hoped after getting spotted. Pilots timed their takeoffs to catch the pitching deck, rattled by rough seas, in an upswing. Surely not a man aboard those 16 planes was thinking of a world past tomorrow.

Even though all but one B-25 would crash after the bombing run, 71 crewmen would survive the mission, most by parachuting out over China as their planes starved for fuel. 6 months later, the Hornet would lie at the bottom of the South Pacific.

It has been a blessing having these heroes around for so long and as long as we remember our world’s most trying time we will remember them. Happy landings, Lt. Cole.