World War II Database

1.  Bill says:
19 Nov 2010 08:37:47 PM

EIGHTY AGAINST THE JAPANESE EMPIRE:

As of 2010 six men out of the eighty who took
part in the raid are still alive.

2.  David Stubblebine says:
9 Aug 2015 05:15:58 PM

This is the seventh bomber to take off from Hornet that day. The plane was named ‘Ruptured Duck’ and was piloted by Lt Ted W Lawson. As Lawson waited for his turn, the 50 MPH winds across the wet deck started to slowly slide the plane backward. To regain his grip on the deck, Lawson directed his co-pilot, Lt Dean Davenport, to reduce the amount of flaps that were extended. When their turn came to launch, both Lawson and Davenport were focused on other things and never re-extended the flaps. The take-off was a bit more labored than the other planes but Lawson got his plane into the air. They delivered their bombs and crashed along the Chinese coast with all five surviving, although one of Lawson’s legs had to be amputated by a Chinese doctor. All five survived the war and Lawson wrote the popular book *Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo* that also became a movie. Lawson’s flight engineer, Sgt David J Thatcher, is one of only three surviving Doolittle Raiders (as of Aug 2015).