SciTech Tuesday: The 75th Anniversary of the Doolittle Raid

Seventy-five years ago today, on April 18, 1942, Lieutenant Colonel James Doolittle led a group of 16 B-25s filled with 79 men (in addition to himself) on the first bombing run of Japanese territory in World War II.

Medium bombers had not been launched from a carrier before—carriers had only 467 feet of takeoff space. The idea for the mission came from Navy Captain Francis Low, who saw planes landing and taking off from an airstrip in Norfolk, Virginia, where a carrier’s outline had been painted on the runway for practice. He noticed that the medium bombers could often take off before crossing the carrier’s outline. Doolittle was put in charge of planning a mission to boost American morale and to damage Japanese confidence.

The B-25 was chosen, even though it was new and untested, because of all the two-engine bombers it was the most capable of taking off from an aircraft carrier. Other planes had longer ranges, but their wingspan was longer and would limit the number of planes that a carrier could fit. The aircraft were modified so that they could complete the 2,400-mile mission with a payload of 2,000 pounds of bombs. The normal range of the B-25 was 1,300 miles. To extend their range they were equipped with extra fuel tanks, most of their defensive guns were removed, and their Norden bomb sights were removed, too.

The 15 planes took off from the carrier Hornet in the western Pacific, flew over Honshu to target military installations in Tokyo and other cities, and then headed for mainland China. The planes each carried three high-explosive bombs and one incendiary bomb. The planes had to take off hours sooner and hundreds of miles farther from Japan than expected when Japanese airplanes were spotted from the Hornet. The Hornet was accompanied by the Enterprise and her escort ships, which comprised Task Force 16 under the command of Admiral William Halsey. Landing in Vladivostok would have made a shorter trip, but the Soviets had signed a neutrality pact with Japan in 1941.

The planes flew over Honshu at about 1,500 feet, receiving little resistance, about six hours after their launch. They dropped several bombs around Tokyo, and others near Yokohama, Nagoya, Kobe, and Osaka. After dropping their bombs, all but one plane turned southwest toward eastern China. One B-25 was low on fuel and headed toward Vladivostok. That plane landed on a base at Vozdvizhenka, where the plane was captured and the crew interned. Aided by a strong tailwind of about 29 miles per hour, the remainder of the B-25s reached the Chinese coast about 13 hours after launch. Without that tailwind, they probably would not have made it to China. Over land, the pilots crash-landed or bailed out. Three men died while bailing out, two perished at sea, and one over land. Three men were executed after capture by the Japanese, and another five were held as POWs. Of those, four survived to the end of the war and were liberated in August 1945. The remainder were rescued, often aided by Chinese, who suffered severe retribution afterward.

Doolittle feared that his loss of all 16 planes would lead to a court-martial. Instead, he was promoted to brigadier general while still in China, and awarded the Medal of Honor by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt upon his return home.

The raid caused little material damage to Japan. However, it did have its intended effects—to boost morale in the United States and to dent Japan’s confidence. It also led to the Japanese military’s determination to hold the central Pacific, leading to the Battle of Midway and the overextension of Japanese naval forces in that direction.

The last surviving Doolittle Raider is retired Lieutenant Colonel Richard Cole, who was Doolittle’s copilot. He is now 101 years old.

Cole’s Museum oral history is here.

: The nose glass of this B-25 was broken in training when the plane crashed into a large bird while aloft.

: A crew in training outside their B-25.

: An aerial view of B-25s flying over New Guinea.

All images from the collection of The National WWII Museum.

Learn more here about the Museum’s B-25.

Posted by Rob Wallace, STEM Education Coordinator at The National WWII Museum

Posted : April 18th, 2017
Post Category :

Doolittle’s Daring Raiders Lift the Gloom that Descended After Pearl Harbor

Lieutenant Colonel Jimmy Doolittle was first to take off from the Hornet.

April 18, 2017, marks the 75th anniversary of the Doolittle Raid. Below is an essay by Keith Huxen, PhD, the Museum’s senior director of research and history, that frames the importance of the daring raid to the Allied cause in World War II. The essay appeared in the spring 2017 issue of V-Mail, the Museum’s quarterly newsletter for Members. Visit the links below the essay to explore more about the Doolittle Raid via the Museum’s Digital Collections. Learn more about the benefits of Museum membership here.

In December 1941, Americans were reeling after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor and military onslaught across Asia and the Pacific. Emotionally, the nation was in shock, and a deep, consuming anger quickly set in as the people came to comprehend the enormity of the damage in Hawaii. Americans resolved to fight, and thirsted for revenge. However, despite their newfound determination, Americans would find that they would have to travel through a long, dark valley of war.

The emotions of the time were perhaps best encapsulated in the experience of USMC Captain Henry T. Elrod, who flew with VMF-211 to Wake Island only days before the Japanese attacked. Fighting valiantly and repeatedly against the odds in the following days, Elrod distinguished himself on several occasions, once conducting a solo attack against 22 enemy planes and downing two Zeroes, and on another occasion sinking the Japanese destroyer Kisaragi from his fighter aircraft with small-caliber bombs. After all American aircraft were inoperable, Elrod organized beach defenses to meet the enemy. It was during combat with invading Japanese forces on the beach that Elrod was killed on December 23, 1941. Wake Island surrendered that day.

For his heroism, Elrod would be posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor, but his personal trial was symbolic of the desperate situation the Allies faced as 1942 dawned. On Christmas Day 1941, Hong Kong was taken. The Japanese overwhelmed Australian forces on Rabaul, a key base, in late January. In February, the United Kingdom was stunned as Singapore surrendered, and then the Japanese bombed ports in Australia. In March, the Dutch East Indies, with its vital supplies of oil, rubber, and tin, fell to the Japanese.

The biggest American domino in the chain was conquered next. The Japanese had attacked the Philippines as part of their sweeping attacks on December 7–8, 1941. Now, after five months of fighting, Filipino and American troops on the Bataan peninsula surrendered on April 9. A small group of stout American and Filipino forces continued to resist from the island of Corregidor in Manila Bay. Unbeknownst to the American public at the time, however, the captured troops were then subjected to the brutal Bataan Death March.

At last, the first thin ray of light pierced the dark valley of continuous defeat. On April 18, 1942, American air forces under the command of Lieutenant Colonel James Doolittle conducted a surprise raid against Japan. The raid was daringly launched with stripped-down B-25 bombers launched from carriers too far away for the crews to safely return. The bombing damage done in Tokyo and other sites was actually insignificant, but the jolt of finally striking back at the enemy, coupled with the courage of Doolittle’s aviators embarking upon a one-way mission to China (three captured Raiders were eventually executed), spurred a massive psychological lift for Americans weary of bad news.

Doolittle’s Raiders provided a flicker of hope for the future, but the valley of war still had dark pathways ahead. On May 6, 1942, Corregidor fell to the Japanese, sealing Allied defeat in the Philippines for the time being (guerrilla groups would continue to fight on throughout the war).

With many battleships sunk in Pearl Harbor, the US Navy was forced to rely upon submarines and aircraft carriers in a new naval warfare. Beginning the day following Corregidor’s fall, on May 7–8, 1942, the US Navy and Imperial Japanese Navy fought the Battle of Coral Sea. It was indecisive in that both sides scored against each other’s all-important assets—the United States sank the Japanese light carrier Shoho but lost its own carrier Lexington—in the first battle in naval history in which the fleets did not sight each other and combat was conducted solely through the air.

Halfway through 1942, the United States was still without a significant victory on the battlefield, and Americans were wondering how long this situation could be endured. Our enemies were growing stronger every day. They could not know it at the time, but the terrain of the dark valley of war was about to take a dramatically different shape when US forces next engaged the enemy off a small island in the Pacific, a place called Midway.

Links:

Watch eyewitness accounts of the Doolittle Raid from the Museum’s collection of oral histories here.

Watch a panel discussion about the raid from the Museum’s 2011 International Conference on World War II here.

A multimedia journey into the post-Pearl Harbor darkness, with videos, photos, and Museum artifacts, is here.

Posted : April 17th, 2017
Post Category :

Next Stop, Nationals!

This past Saturday, April 8, over 200 middle and high school students from across Louisiana visited The National WWII Museum to compete and take part in the annual Louisiana National History Day State Contest. National History Day is a national student research contest in which students, working as either individuals or in groups, create projects relating to an annual theme which are evaluated and critiqued at school and regional level contests. This year’s contest theme was “Taking A Stand In History,” with students completing projects on figures ranging from Susan B. Anthony to Whitney Houston.

Having already advanced from one of five regional contests in Monroe, Baton Rouge, Shreveport, or New Orleans, these students and their projects represented the best student work Louisiana had to offer. Competition was fierce and exciting throughout the day with over 120 projects in 18 different categories seeking an opportunity to advance to the National History Day National Contest in Washington, DC. The judges deliberated throughout the day and ultimately selected 68 middle and high school students to represent Louisiana at the National Contest the week of June 11–15, 2017.

Also awarded were three full scholarships for the Museum’s Normandy Academy Student Travel Program, a 12-day journey that allows students to follow in the footsteps of the Greatest Generation across the beaches and battlefields of northern France.

The National WWII Museum is proud to serve as the state sponsor for National History Day in Louisiana and we are expecting great things from this year’s student delegation. Congratulations to all the winners and to all the students and teachers who participated!

This post by Collin Makamson, Student Programs Coordinator @ The National WWII Museum

Posted : April 14th, 2017
Post Category :
- Education
- National History Day

Women’s History Month and WWII WASPs

Home Front Friday is a regular series that highlights the can do spirit on the Home Front during World War II and illustrates how that spirit is still alive today!

WASP pilots. Photo courtesy of National Public Radio website.

In light of how March was Women’s History Month and how March 8th was the recent celebration of International Women’s Day, the history of women supporting the war effort during WWII is particularly relevant. The role women played in WWII was a significant part of the American Home Front, which this blog highlights. Today’s topic will focus on the efforts of the WASP unit made up of civilian women for the original purpose of ferrying newly built air crafts to flight schools around the U.S. Yet, these women are now acknowledged as official veterans of WWII and for the often dangerous missions they undertook to help on the Home Front.

WASPs, otherwise known as Women Airforce Service Pilots, was first organized as a squadron in the summer of 1943. The squadron was actually the result of a merging of two separate women pilot programs within the U.S. that were already in place as a response to the U.S. entering the war. The WAFS, Women’s Auxiliary Ferrying Squadron, commanded by Nancy Harkness Love combined with the WFTD, Women’s Flying Training Detachment, which was led by Jacqueline Cochran by August of 1943. By the end of WWII, over 1,000 women were trained as pilots for WASP.

Nancy Harkness Love. Photo courtesy of the Library of Congress online collections.

Nancy Harkness Love. Photo courtesy of World War Two Database.

Nancy Harkness Love. Photo courtesy of World War II Database website.

Jacqueline Cochran. Photo courtesy of World War II Database website.

Jacqueline Cochran with an F-51 “Mustang” airplane. Photo courtesy of the Library of Congress online collections.

Some of the duties of the brave women who served as WASPs included transporting equipment and personnel vital to military operations and the dangerous job of flight testing repaired aircrafts before they were sent to men in combat.

One testimonial by Margaret Phelan Taylor, who served as a WASP, describes the time she was transporting a plane suffering from technical issues due to faulty parts burning out. Taylor did not have an adequate parachute fitted for a woman though and had to decide whether to jump and take her chances with the parachute or try to continue flying and hope she made it to her destination. She ended up completing the flight despite the smoking cockpit.

Margaret Phelan Taylor, WASP pilot. Photo courtesy of npr.org.

Margaret Phelan Taylor, WASP pilot. Photo courtesy of National Public Radio website.

To learn more about the experiences of actual WASPs, check out this oral recording of Geraldine Nyman’s time as a WASP found in the digital collections at the National WWII Museum. Her account can be found at this link.

However, despite the danger these women faced in serving their country and their contributions to the military during the war, WASP was only designated a civil service program, and its pilots, were seen as civilians rather than veterans until 1977, when they were recognized as veterans finally. Prior to their having veteran privileges, WASPs could not receive veteran burials. Not even the thirty-eight women who died during service were able to have veteran honors for their funerals. Furthermore, these women and their families were not rewarded with benefits normally awarded to those who served.

In 2009, President Obama signed the bill for WASPs to be awarded the Congressional Gold Medal, the highest honor a civilian can receive from Congress. The award ceremony took place in March 2010 and about 200 former WASPs attended the event.

President Obama signing the bill for WASPs to be awarded the Congressional Gold Medal. Photo courtesy of U.S. Army website.

Deanie Parrish, former WASP pilot, accepting her Congressional Gold Medal. Photo courtesy of National Public Radio website.

To honor these women and those like them during not just Women’s History month but throughout the whole year, here’s a few suggestions:

Educate yourself about critical women in history, women important to you locally, and women in your family
Consume art by women and support them. Films, literature, art pieces…
Volunteer for an organization dedicated to helping women
Shadow a woman for a day
Change your profile picture on Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter to a notable woman in history or your life
Show your support for an organization or business run by a woman
Google what modern inventions we have to thank women for. Coffee filters for your cup of joe, wifi, and dishwashers are just some.

Posted by Savannah Bamburg, Education Intern and Lauren Handley, Assistant Director of Education for Public Programs at The National WWII Museum.

Posted : April 14th, 2017
Post Category :
- Education
- Home Front Friday

All Roads Lead To Louisiana History Day 2017

On March 25, 2017, The National WWII Museum hosted its Greater New Orleans National History Day regional contest: the last of five regional contests to determine which students move on to the Louisiana History Day State Contest to be held on Saturday, April 8 at The National WWII Museum. National History Day is a nationwide student research competition in which students, grades 6 – 12, either as individuals or in groups, conduct research and construct a project on a historical topic of their choice. Projects in this year’s contest focused on the theme of “Taking A Stand In History” with student-selected topics ranging from Muhammad Ali’s protest of the Vietnam War to First Lady Betty Ford’s fight to raise awareness about the dangers of alcoholism and substance abuse.

At this year’s Greater New Orleans regional contest, over 250 middle and high school students with over 100 projects in 18 different categories competed throughout the day for a chance to advance their work to the State Contest, where they will not be competing solely with local students, but also with the winning students advanced from the Lafayette, Monroe, Shreveport and Baton Rouge regional contests as well. The winners from the Louisiana History Day State competition will then travel on to represent the state of Louisiana at the NHD National Contest held each year in June in Washington D.C..

For these students, the regional contest is an important step and the result of many months of researching, writing and perfecting their work.

As the state sponsor for National History Day in Louisiana, The National WWII Museum congratulates all the winners and all the students in Louisiana who participated in our contests!

Next stop: STATE!

Learn more about National History Day

This post by Collin Makamson, Student Programs Coordinator @ The National WWII Museum

Posted : March 31st, 2017
Post Category :
- Education
- National History Day

SciTech Tuesday: Operation Outward

Last autumn my neighbors were having a birthday party in their front yard. The highlight of the decorations was a bundle of helium-filled mylar balloons. It was windy, and they worked themselves free. I was working in my yard, and looked over when I heard sounds of dismay, and I watched the balloons slowly drift towards the power pole across the street. The balloons contacted the transformer, there was a very loud bang, and all the lights on our block went out.

In England during WWII they had barrage balloons along the coast and over cities and military installations. They were large, tethered blimps, designed to make enemy aerial navigation difficult by placing obstacles in the way. Their long cables threatened to entangle encroaching aircraft. The barrage balloons occasionally broke loose, like the mylar balloons I witnessed. But the defensive blimps, being anchored by heavy metal cables, caused much worse damage to electrical infrastructure.

In September of 1940 a large storm knocked loose a number of barrage balloons, which glided across the North Sea and caused considerable damage to power lines and radio antennas in Denmark and Sweden. After that, Churchill ordered that the possibility of using ballons like these as weapons be investigated. The Royal Air Force responded with a negative report, believing it to be too costly at a low likelihood of effect. The Navy responded enthusiastically.

Winds at high altitudes (>15,000 feet) tend to move from East to West over the North Sea and Europe, so the conditions were favorable, and the Royal Navy had a surplus of 100,000 weather balloons. Tests were conducted, and plans made.

These balloons were designed to be inflated to 8 ft in diameter. At launch a slow burning fuse was lit, and the balloons ascended rapidly, stopping at 25,000 ft as an internal band stopped further expansion. As the hydrogen used to inflate the balloons slowly leaked away they descended. The fuse would eventually release a small opening in a bucket of mineral oil, and as it leaked away the balloon descended faster.

About half the balloons carried a wire payload. The same fuse that released the mineral oil would also release a coil of wire held by hemp rope to the balloon. The balloon was calculated to maintain an altitude of at least 1,000 feet so that it would keep moving (below that the air can become very calm). In theory, the wire could short circuit high voltage lines, or break transformers.

The other half the balloons carried an incendiary payload. This was either cans of incendiary jelly, bottles of phosphorus grenades, or canvas tubes filled with explosive and fuses. These were all designed to create small fires. These also were items already on hand and easily and cheaply made.

There is a kind of genius in turning an accident, with knowledge, existing supplies, and some creativity, into a weapon.

In the latter half of 1942 the British launched between 1,000 and 1,800 balloons a day from a golf course in Felixstowe and a bay near Dover. All releases were clustered over 3 or 4 hours of a given day. Over 99,000 balloons were launched, and caused a great deal of havoc, confusion, and cost for the Germans. The biggest impact was from a balloon that hit a power line near Leipzig, and caused a fire that burned down the electrical station.

Launches were suspended during Allied bombing raids, for fear they would interfere with aircraft. In mid 1944, because of the great frequency of bombing raids, the release schedule was changed to single releases every 10 minutes during daylight hours. The last balloon was launched in September of 1944.

: Barrage balloons defending London during WWII.

: Release of weather balloons with offensive payloads from Felixstowe, some time between 1942 and 1944.

Posted by Rob Wallace, STEM Education Coordinator at The National WWII Museum

Posted : March 21st, 2017
Post Category :
- Education
- STEM

How PT-305 Got Her Custom Portholes

PT-305: Note the porthole next to the nickname.

Patrol-torpedo boats designed by Higgins Industries were not equipped with portholes. They also did not have air conditioning, meaning summer nights in the crew’s quarters were hot and stuffy. In September 1944, PT-305 briefly operated out of Saint-Tropez, France, but that short time was long enough for the crew to transform the boat. Torpedoman’s Mate Jim Nerison wrote about the change he made to PT-305:

“Squadron 22 was moved to Saint-Tropez in southern France. We took over an upscale marina and hotel on the French Rivera. Close to the marina was an abandoned boatyard containing quite a few damaged yachts. A buddy and I were nosing around the yard and noticed some brightly polished bronze portholes on one of the vessels. We went back to our boat, got some tools, returned, and removed two of the ports.

“On the condition that the ports would be sealed during night operations, I got permission from the skipper to install them on each side of the hull of our boat. To obtain better ventilation, I mounted one next to my bunk in the crew’s quarters and one on the opposite side of the boat.

“Almost 60 years later, in the ‘All Hands’ section of a publication distributed by PT Boats Inc., I came across a picture of a boat claiming to be PT-305. The boat was being used as an oyster scow in the Chesapeake Bay. It had very little resemblance to the boat that I remembered, except the general hull design and the configuration of the wood planking on its sides. Then I noticed the porthole on the starboard side up near the bow. Yes indeed, that was PT-305! She didn’t look like the fast, powerful and daring vessel originally commissioned in New Orleans, but then, neither do the two surviving members of her original crew.”

Portholes were also installed in the officer’s quarters of PT-305, and several other PT boats in Squadron 22 installed portholes as well. All of the original portholes were still installed in PT-305 when The National WWII Museum acquired the boat in 2007. In 2015, they were restored and returned to their wartime locations on the hull.

Read more about PT-305 here. Read more about PT-305’s nickname U.S.S. Sudden Jerk here.

PT-305: A service-era photo showing a custom porthole.

PT-305: A service-era photo showing one of the custom portholes.

Posted : March 17th, 2017
Post Category :
- Featured Artifacts
- PT-305 Update

March Classroom of the Month — Get In the Scrap!

Each month the Museum will feature a standout classroom participating in Get in the Scrap!. Get in the Scrap! is a national service learning project about recycling and energy conservation, inspired by the scrapping efforts of students during World War II. Each featured class does stellar work to make a difference in their school, home, community and even the planet!

For March, we’re featuring students from the Monroe Elementary group in Enid, Oklahoma, who are using Get in the Scrap! to help learn more about kids like them and their role in WWII. The students and their teacher, Amanda Purdy, sat down to answer a few questions for us about their work with Get in the Scrap!

Monroe Elementary students proudly display their recycling box.

Team Name: The Energies

Number of Get in the Scrap! points thus far: 57

How has Get in the Scrap! been a good fit for your curriculum? Please explain:

“Our interest in WWII began with a book that we read by Kirby Larson called Dash. My students wanted to know more about kids their age during WWII, so Get in the Scrap! was a perfect way to answer their questions and give them hands-on learning activities to participate in throughout the program.”

What has been your favorite activity? Why?

“Our favorite project so far has been the scrap catchers! We were very surprised with the answers to some of the questions we researched. My students created a recycling box for our room after doing this project. They have been reminding each other (and me!) that paper goes in the recycling box not the trash.”

This is just one of the many amazing classrooms participating in the Get in the Scrap! national service learning project. You can learn more and sign up your classroom today at getinthescrap.org!

Post by Savannah Bamburg, Education Intern @ The National WWII Museum

Posted : March 16th, 2017
Post Category :
- Education

WWII Quiz Bowl Finals Telecast Set for March 30 on Cox Communications

Teams from 23 high schools competed in the Museum’s 13th annual WWII Quiz Bowl on Saturday, March 11.

Teams from 23 high schools competed in The National WWII Museum’s 13th annual WWII Quiz Bowl on Saturday, March 11, with the St. Thomas High School Chindits of Houston and the Jesuit High School Enola Jays of New Orleans emerging as finalists. Congratulations to all who participated!

The finals will be televised live by Cox Communications at 6:00 p.m. March 30 on YurView (Channel 4 in New Orleans). The action will also stream live everywhere at YurView.com. Follow the Museum on Twitter (@WWIIMuseum) to receive start-time prompts. YurView replays of the March 11 event have aired in New Orleans, Baton Rouge, and Lafayette, Louisiana; Roanoke, Virginia; Pensacola, Florida; and Fort Smith, Arkansas; among other markets.

To find the live stream, visit the above address and enter “Quiz Bowl” in the search box. There, at 6 p.m. Thursday, you’ll find the St. Thomas High School Chindits of Houston and the Jesuit High School Enola Jays of New Orleans battling for the crown of 2017 WWII Quiz Bowl champs. Good luck to both teams!

The WWII Quiz Bowl is sponsored by The New Orleans Advocate.

Quiz Bowl finalists: Tyler McStravick, Nate Belcher, and Nicholas Kurzy of St. Thomas High School; quizmaster and Museum Director of Education Kenneth Hoffman; Matthew Granier, Ethan Lagrand, and Preston Warwick of Jesuit High School.

Watch the 2016 finals here.

Posted : March 13th, 2017
Post Category :
- Education

The Story Behind PT-305’s Nickname, ‘U.S.S. Sudden Jerk’

Patrol-torpedo boats were only given a numerical hull designation, unlike their larger counterparts. Crews were allowed to give their boats a nickname, and often got creative. Nicknames for some of PT-305’s squadron mates were USS Cherry (PT-304), La-Dee-Da (PT-308), Oh Frankie (PT-309), and Sea-wolf (PT-313). PT-305 was given two confirmed nicknames during the war, the first coming from a crew mishap, as told by Baker First Class Benedict Bronder, from Minnesota. Bronder came aboard PT-305 with the first crew in 1943.

“The one we had was Sudden Jerk,” he said. “And the way they got that (was) they were backing in to park it and they sped up a little bit too much and when it come back, it hit where it was tied up. And they said ‘That was a sudden jerk!’ and then they said, ‘That’s a good name!’ It didn’t ruin anything on the boat, but that’s where it got the name Sudden Jerk.” She carried that name throughout 1944 and into 1945, when a new crew renamed her. Stay tuned for the story of the Half Hitch!

Service-era photo: Lieutenant William Borsdorff, from New York, served as the first commanding officer aboard PT-305 from November 1943 until June 1944. He then took a squadron command position and directed patrols. He is shown here in late 1944, aboard the USS Sudden Jerk in Leghorn, Italy. Photo gift of Mitch Cirlot 2014.445.086.