The Good Old Days
Lane makes time with the remaining "Doolittle Raiders" of 1942's famous B-25 raid of Tokyo.
By Lane Wallace
August 2001
At first
glance, I don't even recognize him. Nine years ago, Hank Potter
was a vibrant, jolly soul, full of laughter, fire and stories of
being Jimmy Doolittle's navigator on the famous B-25 raid of Tokyo
in 1942. Today, he and the 11 other "Doolittle Raiders"
who were able to make the event marking the 59th anniversary of
the raid are a different group. The youngest of them is now 80,
and time has taken its toll. Several need wheelchairs, and none
of them are moving very fast. How did this happen? I don't feel
as if I've aged in the past nine years—how could they have
aged so much?
The
fire is actually still there, somewhere inside them. Twelve B-25
bombers had flown to the event to give what might be a final homage
to the Army Air Corps crews who took on the high-risk challenge
of bombing Japan in the dark, early days of World War II. As the
bombers' powerful radial engines simultaneously came to life with
a smoky, bone-vibrating sound and rumble, the Raiders leapt to
their feet with a yell, fists raised in exultation and tears watering
in fierce, young-again eyes. For a moment, they were their 22-year-old
selves again, taking on adventure and adversity on the deck of
a carrier in the windswept Pacific seas.
But
if their hearts still hold the fire, their bodies are slowly failing
them. When organizers began planning the anniversary event, there
were 22 Raiders fit enough to make the party. By the time the
event happened, there were only 12. Time waits for no one—not
lovers, not children, not even pilots who wish for one more moment
with the sun on their wings. And those who took to the air by
the thousands in the last great battle for the world are leaving
us—1,100 of them every day, according to recent reports.
Like
a child watching a dying parent, I want to ask them to linger;
to tell me one more story, give me one more insight into the world
they knew and the lessons it taught them before they go. But time
presses, their transport is taxiing out, and I cannot stop its
movement. Soon they will all be gone, leaving only the planes
that they flew to remind us of their story. And one day, those
planes may be gone from the skies, as well.
Fifty
years from now, when there are perhaps only a few B-25s left in
the world, will we still fly them? The World War I planes rarely
fly anymore. They're too rare; too rickety. We've repaired and
rebuilt the WWII planes several times over already, but I can
imagine the day when spare engine parts can no longer be found,
fuel itself is too hard to come by, or the hazards of losing the
last remaining example become simply too high. Perhaps one day
a crowd of people will even gather at Oshkosh to watch the last
radial engine puff to life on a stand, like they did for the Wright
Flyer engine at AirVenture last year. Indeed, our children and
grandchildren may very well look upon WWII as an event as ancient
and distant as the Civil War is to us, its planes unrecognizable
relics from a time too long ago to seem real.
Discuss this article in our forums
|
Copyright @ 2009 Bonnier Corp. All Rights Reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part without permission is prohibited.
