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James H. "Jimmie" Doolittle
- Outstanding Man of Aviation
James "Jimmie" Doolittle is today most famous for
his audacious B-25 bombing raid on Tokyo in the opening months
of America's entry into World War II, an attack featured in
the 2001 movie Pearl Harbor. But Doolittle's aviation legacy
is much greater than this military attack. Doolittle was a
true renaissance man of aviation, a daredevil aviator and
racing pilot, an aviation executive, a military commander,
a scientist, and a presidential advisor. He was also an inspirational
figure to many young people in the early days of aviation.
James Harold Doolittle was born in Alameda, California, on
December 14, 1896. His father was a carpenter and set off
to Alaska in search of gold. Doolittle's mother brought Jimmie
with her to join his father in Nome, Alaska, when he was three-and-a-half
years old. When he was 11, he moved with his mother to Los
Angeles, California, where he developed an interest in flying.
He became a professional boxer and entered the University
of California's School of Mines in 1915. In 1917 he enlisted
in the Army Signal Enlisted Reserve Corps to train as a pilot
and was soon promoted to lieutenant. Doolittle served in the
United States Army Air Corps from 1917 until 1930, when he
became a major in the Army Air Corps Reserve, where he served
for the next ten years.
After he learned to fly, Doolittle served as an instructor
pilot and began engaging in aerobatics. He started thinking
of breaking aviation records. In 1922 he made the first cross-continental
crossing in less than 24 hours, taking 21 hours and 19 minutes
to fly in his De Havilland DH-4 plane from Pablo Beach, Florida,
to San Diego, California, with only one refueling stop.
In 1923 Doolittle enrolled in the Massachusetts Institute
of Technology (MIT) to obtain a master's degree and then a
Ph.D. in aeronautical engineering. When he received his degrees
in June of 1925, fewer than 100 people in the world held comparable
advanced degrees. In his doctoral dissertation, "Wind
Velocity Gradient and Its Effect on Flying Characteristics,"
he combined laboratory data with test flight data to determine
that a pilot needed visual aids or instruments to know the
direction and speed of the wind and the direction in which
the plane was flying. His dissertation countered the theory
that many contemporary pilots held that they could "know"
this information instinctually.
Flying a Curtiss P-1B Hawk biplane, Jimmy
Doolittle performed the first outside loop in 1927.
Over the next several years Doolittle continued his flying
exploits. In 1927 he was the first person to execute an outside
loop, where the cockpit (and pilot) remain on the outside
of the loop (previously thought to be a fatal maneuver because
of the stresses encountered). Carried out in a Curtiss fighter
at Wright Field in Ohio, Doolittle executed the dive from
10,000 feet (3,048 meters), reached 280 miles per hour (451
kilometers per hour), bottomed out upside down, then climbed
and completed the loop.
Doolittle was the first person to win all major aviation racing
trophies. He won the Schneider Trophy in 1925 for flying a
Curtiss Navy racer seaplane equipped with pontoons the fastest
it had ever been flown, averaging 232 miles per hour (373
kilometers per hour). In 1931, after leaving the military
and going to work for Shell Oil Corporation, he won the Bendix
Trophy, flying from Burbank, California, to Cleveland, Ohio,
and establishing a new record with his Laird "Super Solution."
He crossed the country in 11 hours, 16 minutes, and 10 seconds,
beating the record set earlier that year by 1 hour and 8 minutes.
In 1932 he won the Thompson Trophy race at Cleveland in a
Granville Gee Bee R-1 racer, averaging 252 miles per hour
(406 miles per hour) and established the world landplane speed
record. In the early 1930s, he also conducted tests for the
Army.
His academic credentials, combined with his aviation exploits
and military experience, enabled him to serve as a go-between
for scientists and aviators and military officers. He also
participated in numerous aviation design contests for youngsters
and inspired many of them to pursue careers in aviation engineering.
During this period, he worked with the Guggenheim Flight Laboratory
in developing instruments for flight in poor weather. On September
24, 1929, he was the first person to take off, fly and land
an airplane entirely by instruments. Also while at Shell,
he urged the company to greatly increase its ability to manufacture
high-octane aviation gas, which proved to be extremely important
for high performance airplane engines.
In 1940, Doolittle returned to active duty as a major in
the Army Air Corps. He was quickly promoted to lieutenant
colonel. Soon after the bombing of Pearl Harbor in December
1941, Doolittle hatched a bold and dangerous plan to launch
Army Air Corps B-25 twin-engine bombers from an aircraft carrier
to bomb Japan.
On April 18, 1942, the aircraft carrier USS Hornet sailed
toward the Japanese coast. Doolittle's plan was to move to
within 450 miles (724 kilometers) of the coast, but a radio-equipped
Japanese fishing boat discovered the task force, forcing Doolittle
and his men to launch earlier than planned. Shortly after
noon, Tokyo time, Doolittle arrived over Tokyo and dropped
his bombs. The other planes followed at staggered intervals
and also dropped their bombs. Then they all headed individually
for China, but because they had been forced to launch early,
they were low on fuel when they finally reached the mainland
and were unable to find their designated airfields. One plane
landed in Vladivostok, Russia, where its crew was arrested
and held prisoner for 13 months. Four other planes crash-landed.
The crews of the other eleven planes all parachuted out. Of
the 80 men on the 16 planes, three had died, four were badly
injured, and eight were captured by the Japanese, who later
executed three of them and starved a fourth to death. Roosevelt
promoted Doolittle from lieutenant colonel to brigadier general,
skipping the rank of colonel, and presented him with the United
States' highest military award, the Congressional Medal of
Honor. He also received the Silver Star and the Distinguished
Flying Cross.
Doolittle was soon promoted to major general and then lieutenant
general. He was the commanding general of the Twelfth Air
Force in North Africa, the Fifteenth Air Force in Italy, and
then the Eighth Air Force in England and then again on Okinawa.
After the war, Doolittle returned to civilian life and became
a vice president at Shell Oil, where he served from 1946 until
1958. He left to become director of the Space Technology Laboratories
and then a director of TRW Inc. Doolittle also served as a
director at Shell Oil until 1967.
Although Doolittle's Tokyo raid and his prewar aviation exploits
are well known, what is less widely known is his post-war
service as an advisor to the Air Force, intelligence agencies
like the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), and presidents.
From 1955 until 1958 he served as Chairman of the Air Force
Scientific Advisory Board (SAB), advising the U.S. Air Force
on future aviation and space technologies. From 1955 until
1965 he was a member of the President's Foreign Intelligence
Advisory Board, evaluating intelligence operations. In 1958
he was offered the position of first administrator of the
National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), which
he declined. His scientific knowledge, combined with his military
record, meant that he could bring together fellow scientists
and military leaders to develop new aviation technology, and
he had unique insights because of his work in both these communities.
At one point in the 1960s, while visiting a top-secret CIA
facility, photo-interpreters showed Doolittle a spy satellite
image taken over the Soviet Union that had been stumping them
for quite a while. Doolittle took one look at the picture
of the large, odd-looking seaplane and identified it as a
"wing-in-ground effect" vehicle, a type of airplane
that stayed close to the surface, riding on the cushion of
air that built up between its wing and the ground. Doolittle's
extensive aviation experience and scientific training had
allowed him to recognize the unusual aircraft.
An avid sportsman, fisherman, and hiker, he went on frequent
hiking trips with his fellow scientists. In 1985, although
long retired from active duty, he was promoted to four-star
general.
Doolittle died in September
1993. After his death, Howard W. Johnson, former chairman
of the MIT Corporation, remembered: "Once when he was
asked to sum up his philosophy, he said it was simply a matter
of trying to leave the earth a better place than he found
it. He certainly did that, and he did it with grace and good
humor."
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