On April 18, 1942, sixteen B-25 bombers, led by Lt. Col. James H. Doolittle, attacked Tokyo. Although none of the bombers was shot down, all sixteen were lost in some fashion. Of the eighty crew members, three were killed exiting their planes after the attack, and eight were captured by the Japanese (three of the eight were executed, one died of malnutrition, and four were repatriated after the war). Of the other 72 crewmen, ten were later killed in action in Europe, North Africa, and Indo-China, and four were shot down and became POWs in Germany. For more details about this remarkable achievement of taking off from an aircraft-carrier and making a one-way, 600-mile flight to Japan, check any of numerous WEB sources. The puzzle follows:
Cpl. Leland D. Faktor became the first casualty among the crewmen when Lt. Gray ordered his crew to bail out after their plane ran out of fuel.
Lt. Thomas C. Griffin of Pierre, SD, survived the raid and bailing out in China but became a POW when his plane was shot down in North Africa in 1943.
Lt. Everett W. Holstrom learned right after take-off that his rear turret would not function, leaving the plane defended by a single .30-caliber nose-gun. When jumped by four Japanese fighter planes, Holstrom ordered that his bombs be dropped into Tokyo Bay, and the crew raced to China, where they bailed out when they ran out of fuel.
Bombardier Lt. Denver V. Truelove survived the Doolittle Raid, only to lose his life two years later in Italy.
Capt. Edward J. York's bomber suffered engine problems even before it was loaded onto the Hornet, and its heavy fuel consumption prevented it from reaching China; instead, York piloted it to Vladivostok, where he hoped the Russians would allow him to refuel and fly on to China. But the Russians, still neutral at this time, confiscated 40-2244 and interred the crew for 13 months.
Capt. David M. Jones, despite a leak in the bomb bay gas tank, took off safely and scored direct hits on a power station, oil tanks, and a manufacturing plant in Tokyo, then became the first to lead his crew to safety in Chuhsien after bailing out when his plane ran out of fuel.
S/Sgt. Fred Anthony Braemer was the first bombardier to drop his bombs during the raid, hitting a large factory at 12:30pm Tokyo time.
Lt. Ted W. Lawson, who was severely injured when his plane was forced to ditch just off the Chinese coast, had to have his leg amputated in the field. Lt. Lawson wrote the first book about the raid: Thirty Seconds over Tokyo.
Lt. Dean E. Hallmark's crew suffered the worst fate of all sixteen crews: Cpl. William Dieter, the bombardier, and Sgt. Donald Fitzmaurice, the gunner, drowned when the B-25 had to be ditched off the China coast; Lts. Hallmark, Robert J. Meder, and Chase J. Nielsen were rescued by the Chinese but later captured by the Japanese; Hallmark was executed on October 15, 1942, and Meder died of malnutrition and abuse on December 1, 1943. Only Nielsen, a POW until the end of the war, survived to tell the sad story of this crew's fate.
Lt. Harry C. McCool was the only member of his crew not to remain in Indo-China after the raid; he went on to fly combat missions in Europe and lived until 2003.
Sgt. David W. Pohl hadn't much to do as gunner on his plane, because the top turret failed to work, leaving the ship relatively defenseless. However, the entire crew survived the raid and the war, and lived until at least 1978.
Co-pilot Lt. Richard E. Cole spent the night after the raid hanging in a pine tree, his parachute having snagged the tree after his pilot ordered everyone to bail out. In the next few days Cole would subsist on a chocolate bar and hide in a Chinese boat on his way to rejoin his other crewmates. Cole was one of only four survivors of the raid still living in 2014, when President Obama awarded the crewmen a long overdue Congressional Medal of Honor.
Pilot Lt. William G. Farrow might have thought his crew was doomed even before they took off from the Hornet, for a hapless sailor lost his balance on the flight deck, slipped into a propeller on Farrow's plane, and lost his arm. It was also not enviable to be trailing your leader by almost an hour on this kind of mission: by the time Farrow got his plane to its targets, the Japanese would be forewarned by the previous planes' attacks. Still, Farrow did his duty, striking oil storage tanks and an aircraft factory despite the heavy attacks by Japanese fighters. Out of fuel, Farrow ordered his crew to bail out even though they were precariously close to Japanese-held Nanchang. Lt. Farrow and his gunner, Sgt. Harold Spatz, were executed by the Japanese on October 15, 1942.
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