December 2014 MAINE COASTAL NEWS Page 21. UNITED STATES NAVY NEWS Continued from Page 8.
ed a luncheon Nov. 7 celebrating the fi rst offensive operation against the Japanese homeland when a raid of Army B-25s was launched from an aircraft carrier. Naval History and Heritage Command (NHHC) joined the celebration at Washing- ton D.C.’s Army-Navy Club sending Robert Cressman, NHHC historian and WWII ex- pert, to speak with the raiders and audience members at the luncheon. The luncheon featured Cole’s son giving a brief history of the raid and a question and answer session between the two “Doolittle Raiders” and the audience. A chance observation that it was pos-
sible to launch Army twin-engine bombers from an aircraft carrier, was the seed of what would be called the “Doolittle Raid.” The B-25B “Mitchell” medium bomber was se- lected as the delivery vehicle after research showed it could fl y off a carrier with a useful bomb load and enough fuel to hit Japan and continue on to airfi elds in China. The April 1942 air attack on Japan, launched from the aircraft carrier Hornet and led by Lt. Col. James H. Doolittle, was the most daring operation yet undertaken by the U.S. in the early days of the war in the Pacifi c. Conceived as a diversion that would also boost American and allied morale, the raid generated strategic benefi ts that far outweighed its limited tactical objectives. The new carrier Hornet was sent to the
Pacifi c to undertake the Navy’s part of the mission. So secret was the operation that her Commanding Offi cer, Capt. Marc A. Mitscher, had no idea of his ship’s upcom- ing employment until shortly before sixteen B-25s were loaded onto her fl ight deck. Rich Cole, son of Dick Cole, retold a story of Saylor during the Doolittle Raider’s time with Hornet. One of the engines on
Saylor’s plane wasn’t working and if they couldn’t get it running, the plane would have to be pushed over the side of the ship. “Saylor decided he was going to take
the engine off the aircraft, fi x it and put it back on,” Rich Cole told the audience. “They were in forty foot swells and anything you put on the deck was going to go over the side. He and the Navy guys that were helping him took the engine off and took it below, disassembling it completely. The Navy folks in the machine shop fi xed the sprocket that was acting up. Saylor put it back together and put it on the aircraft. When he was asked whether he thought it would work, he uttered a phrase I don’t think any man has ever uttered in the history of the world. ‘Well, there weren’t any parts left over.’” Hornet was joined mid-ocean by Vice
Adm. William F. Halsey’s fl agship Enter- prise, which would provide air cover during the approach. However, the task force was discovered by Japanese scouts, forcing the mission to begin early with the B-25s taking off April 18 at around 8 a.m., more than 600 miles out.
“I believe all the crews were 100 per-
cent confi dent in the ability of the B-25s to take off the Hornet,” Cole said. “We were fortunate enough that the Navy assigned a young lieutenant, Henry Miller, to come from Pensacola and teach us how to make a carrier takeoff.”
Most of the sixteen B-25s, each with
a fi ve-man crew, attacked the Tokyo area, with a few hitting Nagoya. Damage to the intended military targets was modest, and none of the planes reached the Chinese airfi elds (though all but a few of their crew- men survived). However, the Japanese high command was deeply embarrassed leading the execution of three of the eight American airmen captured in the wake of the attack. Spurred by the Japanese combined fl eet
MISC. COMMERCIAL FISHING NEWS Continued from Page 20.
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mhawk@asmfc.org by 5 p.m. EST, No- vember 13, 2014. The Request for Proposals can be obtained at (
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borggaard@noaa.gov).
Learn more about recent International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas (ICCAT) meeting in Genoa, Italy.
Special Session of the Interna- tional Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas (ICCAT) ended today, with some of the U.S. goals approved. “We made important steps towards im- proving the sustainable management of our fi sheries,” said Russell Smith, U.S. ICCAT Commissioner. “Unfortunately, there were also a number of important issues that we weren’t able to reach agreement on.” Management of the two stocks of blue-
The 19th
fi n tuna in the Atlantic Ocean dominated the discussion at this year’s meeting. This year ICCAT members increased the total allowable catch for the western Atlantic stock, on which the U.S. fl eet fi shes, by 250 tons to 2000 tons. The new catch level takes into account the increased population, while allowing the stock to continue to grow. Scientists say allowing for stock growth will help answer important questions about the population and improve management advice
commander, Adm. Isoroku Yamamoto, the Japanese also resolved to eliminate the risk of any more such raids by attempting to de- stroy as many American aircraft carriers as possible, a decision that led them to disaster at the Battle of Midway a month and a half later.
According to the Doolittle Raiders offi - cial website, Doolittle’s #1 bomber, of which Cole was co-pilot, was the fi rst over Japan and the fi rst to drop its bomb load. Four incendiaries fell at 12:30 p.m. (Tokyo time) to incinerate a large factory. The aircraft then fl ew west to reach the coast of China after dark.
It was that part of the mission Cole found the scariest. “We were on our instruments, it was night and we were at 9,000 feet,” Dick Cole said. “We hit the Chinese coast. At that time the gas gauges were beginning to get close to empty. The airplane, carrying the homing station we were supposed to use to land, had crashed on the way there. Once in a while we could see lights, but the Chinese thinking we were the Japanese, immediately closed off most of their lights. That was the scariest time, looking down at that black hole and not knowing where you were or how you were going to land.”
in the future. ICCAT members also decided to increase the total allowable catch for the bluefi n tuna stock in the eastern Atlantic Ocean and Mediterranean Sea. Notably, the increase, about 73% during a three-year pe- riod, is signifi cantly greater than the increase adopted for the western stock. “We are very concerned that the level of the increase agreed to for the eastern Atlantic and Mediterranean stock could set back efforts to rebuild the stock,” said Mr. Smith.
In addition to adopting measures for the management of skipjack tuna in the eastern Atlantic, ICCAT also adopted a number of measures that will allow for better monitoring to combat Illegal, Unreported, and Unregulated fi shing. These included U.S.-sponsored measures that will require large vessels to report their location more frequently and provide capacity building support for developing countries imple- menting ICCAT measures for port inspec- tion. ICCAT also continued to improve the process under which compliance with the various management measures adopted by the Commission is evaluated. Unfortunately, U.S.-supported mea- sures to protect porbeagle sharks, combat shark fi nning, and protect marine mammals from harm caused by fi shing gear and practices were not approved. However, one adopted measure will allow the Commission to gather more information on shortfi n mako sharks to support development of manage- ment measures for their future protection. ICCAT will meet in Malta in November
2015.
By 9:30 p.m. fuel was low and, unable to fi nd an airfield in the heavy fog, Doolittle ordered his crew to bail out over the mountains in Haotianguan, China. Doo- little followed his crew into the night, his B-25 crashing on a nearby mountainside. Cole spent the night in a tree that his parachute had caught before he landed. The only injury sustained by any of the crew was a sprained an- kle. Local Chinese escorted the Americans to Chuchow and they were eventually returned safely. Saylor, the engineer gunner for the #15 “TNT” bomber, was part of a crew assigned to bomb targets in Kobe, southwest of Tokyo. This is when Saylor said he knew the mission would be successful.
“Our part was successful as soon as we dropped the
bombs,” Saylor said. “We went and got away with it. Later on all the talk started coming out about how important our mission was. Now I can understand a little better, but at the time, it was just what you did.” They dropped their bombs on a large aircraft factory and a dock yard before fl ying on towards China. By the time they reached China visibility was near zero in the dark rainy night. The pilot, Lt. Donald Smith, fi nally spotted the mountains of the Chinese coastline and tried in vain to gain altitude to pass over the mountains. With fuel running out, Smith was forced to ditch the aircraft in the water about 500 meters off shore. All crew members safely exited the aircraft before it sank, and paddled to shore in a life raft. For days the Japanese hunted the area for the American raiders, but the Americans evaded them in a Chinese junk. En route to Chuchow, Smith learned that the pilot of an- other bomber, “The Ruptured Duck” Bomb- er #7, Lt. Ted Lawson was seriously injured when his plane landed. Smith and his crew evaded enemy troops and eventually met up with Lawson allowing their fl ight surgeon, Lt. Thomas White, to render medical aid. The last public meeting of four sur-
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