Texan Nolan Herndon served as navigator on this B-25 during the Doolittle Raid over Tokyo, April 18, 1942. After he and fellow crewmembers left Tokyo, they headed to Russia for safety. Unfortunately the Russians confiscated the plane and would not release the crew for 13 months when the Americans escaped to Persia. That’s a long way from Vladivostok.
This month much has been written about a fairly unknown event in World War II. Nineteen weeks after the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor, a squadron of sixteen B-25 bombers raided Tokyo. Led by then Lt. Col. James Doolittle, the event became known as Doolittle’s Raid and the eighty young pilots and crewmembers are even today remembered as Doolittle’s Raiders. While the raid did little physical damage to Japan, it did send a strong message that the island nation was not invincible.
After weeks of Japanese victories throughout the Pacific, and Americans becoming more and more discouraged, the attack alerted the world to the fact the U. S. Navy was not destroyed. President Roosevelt was anxious to score an American victory. The aircraft carrier USS Hornet was rigged to hold B-25s that normally took off from land. As the ship moved toward the designated site of takeoff, a fleet of Japanese fishing boats spotted the Hornet with rows of B-25s on the deck. On April 18, 1942 Doolittle and his Raiders took off before their pre-determined starting point, adding more miles to the flight but no more fuel. All planes made their targets, dropped their bombs and heading toward China.
Each plane carried a pilot, co-pilot, navigator, bombardier, and engineer gunner. Of the eighty members of the Doolittle Raiders, 16% or 13 members were native Texans. Astonishingly, the majority was from small North Texas towns. The men and their hometowns were:
William N. Fitzhugh Temple
Douglas V. Radney Mineola
Robert M. Gray Killeen
Lucian N. Youngblood Pampa
Rodney R. “Hoss” Wilder Taylor
James M. Parker, Jr. Houston
Kenneth E. Reddy Bowie
Thadd H. Blanton Archer City
Edgar E. McElroy Ennis
John A. Hilger Sherman
Robert L. Hite Odell
Dean Hallmark Greenville
Nolan Herndon Greenville
All of the Texas men survived the Tokyo Raid except Dean Hallmark. Gray and Reddy died later in 1942 in unrelated plane crashes.
Hallmark and his men ran out of fuel and crashed near the Chinese coast in an area full of Japanese soldiers. They killed many of the Chinese who rescued the American crew. The Japanese executed Dean Hallmark. Herndon and his fellow crewmembers found themselves with an inoperable top turret causing them to head for the nearest safe place: Vladivostok, Russia. Russian authorities immediately confiscated the aircraft. The five-crew members were interred for thirteen months before they managed to escape through Persia. Nolan Herndon and many of the Doolittle Raiders survived and lived very long lives.
This month the Doolittle Raiders received Congressional Gold Medals. The two surviving members were present at the ceremony. What a final tribute to a great bunch of guys.