| Wreckage of United States Army Air Force (USAAF) North American B-25 Mitchell 40-2344 medium twin-engined bomber at Haotianguan, where Zhejiang Province meets Anhui Province, China. The 1st to take off from USS Hornet (CV-8), they reached Tokyo and dropped 4 incendiaries on a factory at 1230 Hours. Doolittle then flew west to reach the coast of China after dark. By 1730 Hours, fuel was running low. Unable to find an airfield in the heavy fog, Doolittle ordered his crew to bail out among the mountains of China. He then followed them into the night, his B-25 crashing on a nearby mountainside. The only injury sustained by any of the crew was a sprained ankle. Crew Number 1 consisted of Pilot Lieutenant Colonel James H. Doolittle, Alameda, California (December 14, 1896 – September 27, 1993); Co-Pilot Lieutenant Richard E. “Dick” Cole, Dayton, Ohio (September 7, 1915 – April 9, 2019); Navigator Lieutenant Henry A. “Hank” Potter, Pierre, South Dakota (September 22, 1918 – May 27, 2002); Bombardier Staff Sergeant Fred A. Braemer, Seattle, Washington (January 31, 1918 – February 2, 1989); and Engineer Gunner Staff Sergeant Paul J. Leonard, Roswell, New Mexico (June 19, 1912 – January 5, 1943) Local Chinese escorted the Americans to Chuchow. 5 pilots parachuted and landed in the Tianmushan area in Lin’an County, Zhejiang Province. Doolittle stayed overnight hiding in a water mill in a paddy field until he was found by several young Chinese students the next day, who escorted him to the Kuomintang’s Western Zhejiang Administration outpost. The Chinese troops took Doolittle to the wreckage of 40-2344, where Doolittle believed his mission was a failure, since he had not delivered the bombers to the Chinese airfields. Little did he know about the value of the morale boost to the United States at the time. At the Kuomintang outpost, he was joined by his fellow crewmen, who were escorted there by Zhang Gengrong, village leader, Zhu Xuesan, a primary school teacher who could speak some English, and other villagers. The entire crew eventually returned home safely. Doolittle went on to become commanding general of the 15th Air Force in the Mediterranean Theater. From January 1944 to September 1945, Doolittle commanded the 8th Air Force in Europe. Cole, Braemer, and Leonard remained in the China-Burma-India Theatre for several months or longer, operating C-47s. Leonard transferred to Doolittle’s Crew Chief in the Mediterranean and was killed in action in a Nazi air raid at Youks-Les-Bains, Algeria. In 2017, Dick Cole recalled: “That was the best landing in that situation. The terrain was very mountainous, so I was pretty lucky and waited until morning to cut myself loose. Just a few scratches. Although I found out later the Army doesn’t hand out Purple Hearts for self-inflected injuries. I was luckier than Doolittle though, he landed neck-deep in a pile of manure. Six of us went to the CBI Theatre (China-India-Burma). I got checked out on a C-47 and flew them for about fourteen months, including the Hump (flying across the Himalayan Mountains).” Dick Cole was the last of the 80 raiders to die in 2019 at age 103. | |
| Image Filename | wwii1672.jpg |
| Image Size | 223.21 KB |
| Image Dimensions | 1578 x 911 |
| Photographer | |
| Photographer Title | United States Navy |
| Caption Author | Written or Adapted by Jason McDonald |
| Date Photographed | April 19, 1942 |
| Location | |
| City | Haotianguan |
| State or Province | Anhui |
| Country | China |
| Archive | National Archives and Records Administration |
| Record Number | 80-G- 063594 |
| Status | Caption ©2026 MFA Productions LLC Please Do Not Duplicate or Distribute Without Permission; Image in the Public Domain |
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