Landings

Of the sixteen Raider B-25s, only York's in Russia landed safely at an airfield, but the USSR treated his crew more like prisoners than internees. After over thirteen months in virtual captivity, a smuggler helped them escape through Iran.

The other Raider aircrews winging toward China dropped flares into the night, but clouds engulfed their light. Although unsure whether they were still over the East China Sea or Japanese-controlled territory, most pilots chose to continue west toward Chuchow until they ran out of gas, then bail out or attempt crash landings.

As fuel-starved engines began to sputter, pilots of eleven planes switched controls to automatic pilot, then ordered their crews to jump. At 9:30 PM, Doolittle did just that, then followed his men out of their bomber.

Of the 55 Raiders bailing out of their B-25s over the dark, mountainous, possibly hostile continent, only engineer/gunner Corporal Leland Faktor from Lieutenant Robert Gray's Plane Number Three, "Whiskey Pete," was killed in the leap onto a treacherous hillside.

The airmen in Lieutenant William Farrow's Plane Number Sixteen, "Bat Out of Hell," were less fortunate than the other ten crews which bailed out. Farrow flew two hundred miles into China before ordering his men to jump around enemy-occupied Nanchang. By morning, pilot Farrow, copilot Robert Hite, navigator George Barr, bombardier Jacob DeShazer and engineer/gunner Harold Spatz were rounded up by Chinese troops of the Japanese puppet regime.

Four bombers made forced landings along the China coast. Lieutenant Trav Hoover's Number Two B-25 ran out of fuel near Japanese-held territory. Hoover belly-landed the plane on a hillside rice paddy. The unhurt crew set fire to the bomber and scrambled westward into the hills.

The engines of Lieutenant Dean Hallmark's Plane Number Six, "Green Hornet," failed four minutes short of shore. Hallmark brought the bomber down in the stormy sea; the impact tore off a wing and launched Hallmark through the windshield. After more than three hours in pounding waves, Hallmark, copilot Lt. Robert Meder and navigator Lt. Chase Nielsen made it to the rocky beach, bleeding and exhausted. Bombardier Sergeant William Dieter and flight engineer/gunner Corporal Donald Fitzmaurice, both seriously injured in the crash, drowned. Local Chinese fishermen tried to hide the survivors, but three days later, all three men fell into Japanese hands.

Lieutenant Donald Smith's Plane Number Fifteen, "TNT," also ditched in the East China Sea. The five crew members climbed into a life raft which capsized three times, but finally brought them safely ashore.

Lieutenant Ted Lawson's Number Seven B-25, "Ruptured Duck," attempted a beach landing. But as the plane made its approach, both engines suddenly lost power. The B-25 crashed in six feet of water at 110 miles per hour. The terrific impact drove Lawson, his copilot and the navigator out through the top of the cockpit. The bombardier flew headfirst through the Plexiglas nose. Engineer/gunner Sergeant David Thatcher was knocked out, but regained consciousness soon enough to help his grievously wounded crewmates. Lawson crawled out of the surf barely alive, with blood pouring into his eyes, deep gashes on his arms, head and chin, most of his front teeth gone and flesh stripped from much of his left leg, exposing bone around the knee.

In the windy, rainy night, peasants, villagers and soldiers in two rugged Chinese provinces heard engines overhead, then airplanes crashing. Whether allied or enemy, local people didn't know.

Raiders settled securely to earth or, in the dark, plummeted down mountainsides and riverbeds. One gunner, his parachute snagged in a tree, dangled until daylight atop a cliff. Doolittle came down in a rice paddy, splashing chest-deep into "night soil." In the morning, he convinced Chinese guerrillas that he was an American flier. Within days, Doolittle was reunited with his four fellow crewmembers. At the site of their wrecked bomber, he felt sure that he'd be court-martialed and sent to Leavenworth.