Doolittle's Raiders: A Final Toast

The bottle of 1896 Hennessy Cognac was uncorked in front of hundreds of people. The surviving World War II veterans from one of history’s greatest military missions were about to raise their silver goblets one last time ending a decades long tradition. It was time for the veterans to hold this final toast.

They could wait no longer. Their numbers had dwindled to just a few.

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Lt. Col. James Harold Doolittle and Admiral Marc A. Mitscher in April 1942.

Courtesy of American Public Television

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Lt. Col. James Harold Doolittle (second from left) and Lt. Col. Dick Cole (to his left) before the April 1942 raid.

Courtesy of the USAF

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A B-25 Mitchell bomber takes off to carry out an air raid on Japan as part of The Doolittle Raid on April18, 1942.

Courtesy of American Public Television

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(L-R): Lt. Col. Dick Cole, engineer gunner David Thatcher, one of Doolittle's Raiders and navigator Tom Griffin were four of the 80 Raiders who bombed Japan in April 1942.

Courtesy of American Public Television

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Doolittle Raider's poster.

Courtesy of American Public Television

Many of the names of the 80 flyers who took part in the April 18, 1942 raid on Japan may not be familiar to most, but collectively they will always be known in history as the Doolittle Tokyo Raiders.

Long ago these American flyers, aboard 16 B-25 bombers, had accomplished a daring mission that changed the morale of an entire nation. The aviators, led by famed commander Lt. Col. James Harold Doolittle, had taken the fight directly to the enemy for the first time in the war and delivered retribution for Japan’s sneak attack on Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941.

Credits:

Produced by Tim Gray Media and World War II Foundation. Distributed by American Public Television.