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World War II's Last Surviving Doolittle Raiders Make Their Final Toast

Posted by samzenpus on from the last-call dept.

Hugh Pickens DOT Com writes "As we come up on Veteran's Day, Barrie Barber reports for the Dayton Daily News that the last Doolittle Raiders symbolically said goodbye to a decades-old tradition and to a history that changed the course of the Pacific war in World War II. Gathering from across the country together one last time, three surviving Raiders sipped from silver goblets engraved with their names and filled with 1896 Hennessy cognac in a once-private ceremony webcast to the world at the National Museum of the U.S. Air Force. Robert E. Cole, 98, led the final toast to the 80 members of 'the Greatest Generation' who took off in 16 B-25 Mitchell bombers April 18, 1942, from the deck of the USS Hornet to bomb Japan four months after a Japanese surprise naval and air attack on Pearl Harbor. 'Gentleman, I propose a toast,' said Cole, as about 700 spectators watched one final time, 'to those we lost on the mission and those that passed away since. Thank you very much and may they rest in peace.' Acting Secretary of the Air Force Eric Fanning said the raid showed the courage and innovation of the World War II airmen flying from a carrier in a bomber that had never seen combat to attack a heavily defended nation and to attempt to land at unseen airfields in China in a country occupied by Japanese troops. More than 70 years after the attack, Edward J. Saylor, 93, remembered ditching at sea once he and his crew dropped their bombs and several close calls with being discovered by the Japanese Army while making his way through China. 'This may be the last time I see them together,' said the 92-year-old raider who has attended Raider reunions since 1962. 'It's a little sad for me because I've known them so long and know the story of what they did in 1942.'"

23 of 211 comments (clear)

  1. What about the Japanese casualties? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

    May the Japanese casualties rest in peace as well.

    1. Re:What about the Japanese casualties? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Such sympathy does not apply to the side that starts a war and loses. Food for thought, when America remembers all the wars it has started and lost.

    2. Re:What about the Japanese casualties? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Chill, dude, WWII is over. Quit holding a grudge.

    3. Re:What about the Japanese casualties? by shikaisi · · Score: 5, Insightful

      More to the point, what about the Chinese casualties? The often ignored result of the raid was that the Japanese, in reprisals against any family, village or town that they thought might have helped the escaping Doolittle raiders, murdered about 250,000 men, women and children. That number is not a typo. It is not a mistake or an exaggeration. Two hundred and fifty thousand Chinese were slaughtered by the Imperial Japanese Army during the search for Doolittle's men.

      Now please remind me again why I should care about the Japanese casualties.

      --
      No left turn unstoned.
    4. Re:What about the Japanese casualties? by Drethon · · Score: 3, Insightful

      IMHO such sympathy does not apply to the leaders who started the war but the innocent casualties still have my sympathies.

      Not so sure about those who blindly followed those leaders without thought or due to political brainwashing and my brain isn't working well enough on a Monday morning to get that deep into philosophy...

    5. Re:What about the Japanese casualties? by jalopezp · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Dead citizens in Tokyo were for certain not involved in massacring the Chinese. Why should you care about Japanese casualties? For the same reason you care about anyone that dies needlessly in a war.

    6. Re:What about the Japanese casualties? by ebno-10db · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I don't agree. For all that I've no use for people who don't realize that, unlike many recent ventures, the US fought WWII for very good reasons, and probably saved millions of lives by doing so, I'm not completely averse to the Japanese remembering their civilians lost in the war. Personally I have little use for Japanese sanctimony about the use of the A-bombs, but commemorating the dead is another matter. Even remembering, if not commemorating, their rank-and-file war dead, while a touchy subject, doesn't seem completely unreasonable to me. Many of the rank-and-file had little choice but to "serve".

    7. Re:What about the Japanese casualties? by ebno-10db · · Score: 2, Insightful

      May the Japanese casualties rest in peace as well.

      Quoting the PP not because I agree with him, but because moderating him to -1 is censorship. That's ironic considering that one of the freedoms veterans fought to defend is freedom of speech. Don't bother me with "Slashdot is a privately owned forum, it's not the government censoring it", blah, blah, blah. This case isn't going to the Supreme Court. Nevertheless, modding down somebody who made a controversial, but not needlessly inflammatory or insulting remark, is stifling debate. That isn't how things are supposed to work in this country.

    8. Re:What about the Japanese casualties? by Goaway · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Remind me again what you are doing to stop the American military from killing innocents in its wars?

      Also, to which extent do you feel you deserve death for what they are doing?

    9. Re:What about the Japanese casualties? by quacking+duck · · Score: 3, Insightful

      I don't agree. For all that I've no use for people who don't realize that, unlike many recent ventures, the US fought WWII for very good reasons, and probably saved millions of lives by doing so

      Since you seem a bit confused about the reason the United States of America joined the war effort let me educate you. The USA practised an isolationist policy and refused to join World War II to defeat Germany and its allies until Japan carried out an attack on Pearl Harbor. The entire attack would not have happened except for a delay by some US political figure whose name I forget at the moment to see the Japanese Ambassador. When the Japanese Ambassador and his aid heard of the attack from the person they were meeting they were gravely disappointed. There is a fact-based movie about the events leading up to the attack on Pearl Harbor; not the crap movie made of recent vintage.

      (Bold emphasis mine.)

      Not the poster you're responding to, but if this fact-based movie you speak of is Tora! Tora! Tora!, you're forgetting key details.

      In that movie it's made quite clear that the entire attack would happen whether or not the Japanese ambassador saw the US official. That delay was also secondary to another delay caused by a Japanese security directive that meant the regular typist(s) couldn't type up the last of the 14-part message, and a much slower hunt-and-peck non-typist with enough security clearance had to be used instead.

      Whether that part of the movie is accurate is also largely irrelevant, since in reality the 14-part message was neither a declaration of war nor severed diplomatic relations (though combined with intercepted Japanese instruction to their embassy to destroy their decoding gear, it was taken as a strong indicator that either would've happened shortly afterward). Documents revealed in 1999 also strongly suggest the Japanese military convinced the government not to do so before their surprise attack happened.

    10. Re:What about the Japanese casualties? by jythie · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Given how easy it is to get normally good people to do terrible things with a surprisingly small amount of peer pressure, I am comfortable extending sympathies even to those who one might call 'brainwashed'. While we like to think of ourselves as strong, it has been shown a disturbing number of times just how easy it is tweak someone into such behavior.

    11. Re:What about the Japanese casualties? by Drethon · · Score: 4, Insightful

      You make an excellent point. Reminds me of the experiments where a person was made to think they were executing someone in the name of science. While a part of me keeps saying the brainwashed are weak, I need to remember I'm probably not any stronger and am deluding myself to think otherwise.

    12. Re:What about the Japanese casualties? by ebno-10db · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Pop quiz: Who sold the Nazis fuel and metal so that they could run around killing

      Pop quiz: were all 150 millions Americans of a like mind and did they act in perfect concert during WWII?

      As for for FDR's cynical, but perhaps justified, treatment of such actions during the war, perhaps you'd like to read the descriptions of the very people whose research uncovered this treason. You can start here. Should the "business people" responsible been tried for treason after the war? Hell yes.

      We fueled the war deliberately

      You mean by things like the Lend Lease Act? Ask the British if they objected to US aid prior to our entry into the war.

      then entered the war

      You mean an America with a strong isolationist sentiment, and a desire not to get hundreds of thousands of her own people killed, didn't enter the war until after we were attacked by Japan, and then a few days later, Nazi Germany declared war on us? That's true.

      It permitted us to reduce a bunch of our excess population

      You mean the population that people were concerned had a declining birth rate, due to the Great Depression? At any rate, it wasn't a very effective policy for reducing our population. As horrific as our losses of over 400,000 Americans were, it reduced the population by only 0.27%. Then the whole thing was undone by the millions born in the post-war baby boom. A seriously failed policy.

      One other minor problem: there is absolutely no evidence for the absurd notion that we wanted to "reduce a bunch of our excess population".

      You always have a choice.

      Technically that's true. If somebody puts a gun to your head and tells you to either join the military or be shot now, and you choose the bullet now, your heirs will be free to praise you morality. Until and unless that happens to you, shove your sanctimony.

  2. Godspeed and thank you by Drethon · · Score: 4, Insightful

    ...

  3. Re:Why must we celebrate violence? by wonkey_monkey · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Perhaps you should learn the difference between celebration and commemoration.

    --
    systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
  4. Imagine Japan doing the same by Opportunist · · Score: 1, Insightful

    Just imagine Japan doing a celebration of pilots raiding Pearl Harbor. Or how about Germany holding annual celebrations for pilots of the Blitz?

    --
    We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
    1. Re:Imagine Japan doing the same by Ogive17 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Have you ever gone to Pearl Harbor? It's a hotspot for Japanese tourism. Americans also go to Hiroshima when site seeing in Japan.

      Remembering historic events does not indicate rubbing it in the face of your former enemy.

      --
      "Action without philosophy is a lethal weapon; philosophy without action is worthless."
  5. Thank You Veterans by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    On this Veterans Day, I would like to thank all veterans for serving our country for protecting our freedoms and way of life.
    Without these brave men and women, we would not be the mightiest, richest, most powerful nation on Earth.
    God Bless America.

  6. Re:Who paid the price. by Drethon · · Score: 4, Insightful

    The short of it is the Doolittle raid led to the battle of Midway which is considered a major turning point of the war.

    http://www.angelo.edu/content/news/1466-doolittle-raid-remembered-for-impact

  7. Re:Why must we celebrate violence? by GenieGenieGenie · · Score: 3, Insightful

    The US fight in the Pacific probably saved many lives elsewhere in Asia, the surrounding archipelagos, and Australia. We were allied with just about every other country fighting Japan.

    If everyone had just surrendered to the Japanese, there would have been much fewer deaths in the Pacific theater in WWII. The point of fighting that war was not about saving the quantity of lives, but the quality of them.

  8. Can't a bunch of old farts get together and drink by PolygamousRanchKid+ · · Score: 4, Insightful

    . . . without everyone making a international political fuss about it? War is terrible for all . . . and these lucky few just want to celebrate that they managed to get their hairy asses out of that shit alive.

    Leave 'em alone.

    --
    Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
  9. Re:Why must we celebrate violence? by cold+fjord · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I am quite content to both commemorate and celebrate the victory of the allied powers over:

    Imperial Japan
    Nazi Germany
    Fascist Italy

    I am quite happy to welcome the friendship of, and cheer for, democratic Japan, Germany, and Italy.

    The world would be a very dark place indeed had the former regimes not been defeated.

    Now their peoples and nations are shining examples to the world - long may they live and prosper.

    --
    much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
  10. Re:Jingoism by rubycodez · · Score: 1, Insightful

    You are the ignorant one. So the Soviet Union was bad, that justifies warring on a SE asian country? and using a defoliant on the crops of *our allies* in that war to drive people to cities more under our propoganda, so that hundreds of thousands (again of *our allies*) starved and had horrible birth defects

    As for Korea, look at the real history, where the U.S. took part part in war crimes including a slaughter of 100,000 "leftists", innocents and political prisoners.

    First gulf war, we caim to aide of ally. That I'll agree is justifiable.

    Why do you reference a fictional novel as justification for warring against people who *did not* attack us on 9/11. On 9/11 we were attacked by a group of Saudis who were formerly U.S. agents/mercenaries in Afghanistan.