Here's to You, Fred! Here's to You, Jimmy Doolittle!

Picture 1: Internment group---Erich Braemer is first row, second from right Dad, Karl Vogt, is last row, second from right.
Picture 2: Doolittle crew and related article.

It happened on April 18, 1942. General James Doolittle led sixteen B-25 bombers, which had been modified to enable them to take off from the deck of the U.S.S. Hornet, to a very risky attack on Tokyo. The Doolittle Raid was a huge deal for Americans. The mission was designed to be a small pay back for Pearl Harbor. Those who planned the mission realized that the mission’s hoped for effect would be more a psychological victory than a military one. If successful, it would prove to the Japanese that we indeed could reach Japan with our war planes, and it would give the American people hope. However, the risks to the men involved would be enormous. Would the re-fitted airplanes make it off the carrier? Would the secrecy of the mission be maintained until the airplanes reached Tokyo? Would they be able to hit planned targets and make it to safe territory before their fuel tanks emptied? As it turned out, the bombing mission was successful, but the aftermath was indicative of the extreme dangers faced. All 16 aircraft were lost and 11 crewmen were either killed or captured. However, the complete crews of 14 aircraft made it to safety. The members of the crew of Jimmy Doolittle’s lead airplane were among the lucky ones.
67 years later there are 9 of the original 80 Raiders still living. April 18, 2009 is the date of the 67th reunion of the Doolittle Raiders, to be held in Columbia, S.C.---a fitting place because this is where it all started.
Richard Cole, co-pilot for Jimmy Doolittle, will be one of the attendees. I wonder if he remembers Fred Braemer, the bombardier on his plane for this historic mission? I’m willing to bet anything that he remembers Fred very well. Those Raiders were a close knit bunch back at the beginning and continued to keep in touch over the years. Fred died in 1989, so at the next Raider reunion, his comrades must have toasted him, because that is one of the ceremonial events the Raiders have at their reunions---they toast the original fallen comrades and those who passed away during the previous year. Jimmy Doolittle passed away in 1993. Before his death he asked the group to keep meeting until only two are left. The final two will uncork a bottle of cognac from 1896, the year of Doolittle’s birth, and make one last toast.
If you have read the previous posts on this blog, you will understand why I am so fascinated with this part of military history. The lives of Jimmy Doolittle and Fred Braemer have touched my life in a small way through my dad and my dad’s friend, Erich Braemer. Dad and Erich were interned together for a short time at Ft. Lincoln, Bismarck, North Dakota. Right before Christmas in 1941, they rode the “internment train” together which took them from freedom in Washington State to incarceration in North Dakota. Erich was soon sent home---his son was a potential war hero after all---while Dad and many others languished in internment camps for much longer.