Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
Available On Air Stations
Watch Live

Arts & Culture

Doolittle's Raiders: A Final Toast

(L-R): Lt. Col. Dick Cole, engineer gunner David Thatcher, one of Doolittle's Raiders and navigator Tom Griffin were four of the 80 Raiders who bombed Japan in April 1942.
Courtesy of American Public Television
(L-R): Lt. Col. Dick Cole, engineer gunner David Thatcher, one of Doolittle's Raiders and navigator Tom Griffin were four of the 80 Raiders who bombed Japan in April 1942.

Airs Tuesday, Dec. 3, 2019 at 10 p.m. on KPBS TV

The bottle of 1896 Hennessy Cognac was uncorked in front of hundreds of people. The surviving World War II veterans from one of history’s greatest military missions were about to raise their silver goblets one last time ending a decades long tradition. It was time for the veterans to hold this final toast.

They could wait no longer. Their numbers had dwindled to just a few.

Many of the names of the 80 flyers who took part in the April 18, 1942 raid on Japan may not be familiar to most, but collectively they will always be known in history as the Doolittle Tokyo Raiders.

Advertisement
Doolittle's Raiders: A Final Toast: Film Open

Long ago these American flyers, aboard 16 B-25 bombers, had accomplished a daring mission that changed the morale of an entire nation. The aviators, led by famed commander Lt. Col. James Harold Doolittle, had taken the fight directly to the enemy for the first time in the war and delivered retribution for Japan’s sneak attack on Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941.

Related Video: Col. Dick Cole, Jimmy Doolittle's co-pilot on 1942 Tokyo Raid

Credits:

Produced by Tim Gray Media and World War II Foundation. Distributed by American Public Television.