THE FINAL TOAST! - JIMMY DOOLITTLE'S TOKYO RAIDERS ~ In December 2014, my long time Christian brother, Harvey Greenhalgh, sent me the article "Doolittle Raiders Drink a Final Toast" by C.V. Glines, posted 1/3/2014 on HistoryNet dot com - Aviation History, Aviation History Briefing, Personalities page.
That stirred a fantastic memory - for in the early 1960s I was blessed to be able to attend the Doolittle Tokyo Raiders' 20th Anniversary Reunion at the Del Mar Beach Club in Santa Monica, California.
The following is my response to Harvey's e-mail:
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In the early 1960s, just by chance, I had the honor of attending the Reunion of the Tokyo Raiders at the Del Mar Beach Club in Santa Monica. I was a young computer field engineer living in Southern California, working for Ramo Wooldridge (later TRW), and making good money. And what is a young man with plenty of money, living in Southern California in the early 1960s - the decadent decade - to do but party every night? After a while I realized that I could not continue to party and drink seven night a week. I had to find another outlet for my energy.
I had always thought it would be cool to an actor, so why not go to acting school? I found an ad in the newspaper for the Theatre of Arts which was housed in the Del Mar Beach Club in Santa Monica. I called and the lady told me to come to their facility on the second floor of the club. So, on that fateful Wednesday night I went to the Theatre of Arts where I met another young man, Jim Anthony, as we both appeared at the door of the acting school. But that night there was a note on the door telling us, "School closed. Come down the hall to the right, to the Blue Room."
Jim and I became good friends during our acting school days. Later he changed his name to Anthony James and appeared as a character actor in just about every western and detective television series that aired in the 1970s and 80s. I first saw him in the movie "In The Heat Of The Night" where he was the killer - and later that same week he was a nutty mountain man in an episode of "The Big Valley." He has retired now and is living in the Boston area doing his thing as an artist, creating art through his paintings.
That night when Jim and I arrived at the Blue Room we found that Doolittle's Tokyo Raiders were having a reunion and had invited the acting school to attend, I suppose to add some color to their celebration. So the acting school I joined to stop partying and drinking seven days a week - led me into a week long Tokyo Raiders Reunion party with an open free bar. Oh well, I decided I could postpone my party slowdown for one more week.
At that time, most of the Raiders were still alive. It was exciting to be able to mix with those heroes and hear their personal stories. Did you realize that all of the planes crashed except one? They had a strict weight limit for those stripped down B-25s and had the gallons of on board fuel calculated carefully. One crew chief snuck an extra can of fuel on his plane, which could have killed his crew - but did not. They were able to take off, finish the mission, and while all the other planes crashed in China - they were able to make it back to what they thought was an allied air base, a Russian air base. The Russians held them captive for one year - and we never got the plane back.
That was a week of party, great stories, and celebration. And, on Saturday night, at the closing dinner, Bob Hope was the guest speaker and then General Doolittle spoke. Bob Hope was a sight for he got caught up in traffic trying to get to Santa Monica that evening and evidently did not have time to change. When he was standing on stage, his pants were inches too short (high water pants) and he had on white socks. Yet, he was still funny. And he was doing what he did so well, entertaining our troops.
The man in charge of the reunion that year was a very suave, handsome, peppered-haired Colonel from the Pentagon - and the lady who then owned the acting school, Madame Valmar Oleska, chased that poor Colonel the full week.
Another thing I remember so well was the center piece of their reunion ceremony - the "Last Man Standing" bottle of 1896 cognac they kept in a special silver display case. I recently read that three of the last four survivors (all in their mid-to-late 90s) were honored in 2013 at what was the Final Reunion and they opened the cognac and drank a toast to their fallen comrades from the special silver goblets. The fourth survivor was not able to attend because of his health. There was a silver goblet in the case for each man who flew that mission. For those no longer with us, their goblets were turned upside down.
I feel very fortunate that, for whatever reason, God allowed me to meet and spend time with those men when there was still a large number of them alive. And, for that, I thank Him.
This is the article which my Friend, Harvey Greenhalgh, sent to me:
God bless, have a wonderful, blessed day,
Bill
That stirred a fantastic memory - for in the early 1960s I was blessed to be able to attend the Doolittle Tokyo Raiders' 20th Anniversary Reunion at the Del Mar Beach Club in Santa Monica, California.
The following is my response to Harvey's e-mail:
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
In the early 1960s, just by chance, I had the honor of attending the Reunion of the Tokyo Raiders at the Del Mar Beach Club in Santa Monica. I was a young computer field engineer living in Southern California, working for Ramo Wooldridge (later TRW), and making good money. And what is a young man with plenty of money, living in Southern California in the early 1960s - the decadent decade - to do but party every night? After a while I realized that I could not continue to party and drink seven night a week. I had to find another outlet for my energy.
I had always thought it would be cool to an actor, so why not go to acting school? I found an ad in the newspaper for the Theatre of Arts which was housed in the Del Mar Beach Club in Santa Monica. I called and the lady told me to come to their facility on the second floor of the club. So, on that fateful Wednesday night I went to the Theatre of Arts where I met another young man, Jim Anthony, as we both appeared at the door of the acting school. But that night there was a note on the door telling us, "School closed. Come down the hall to the right, to the Blue Room."
Jim and I became good friends during our acting school days. Later he changed his name to Anthony James and appeared as a character actor in just about every western and detective television series that aired in the 1970s and 80s. I first saw him in the movie "In The Heat Of The Night" where he was the killer - and later that same week he was a nutty mountain man in an episode of "The Big Valley." He has retired now and is living in the Boston area doing his thing as an artist, creating art through his paintings.
That night when Jim and I arrived at the Blue Room we found that Doolittle's Tokyo Raiders were having a reunion and had invited the acting school to attend, I suppose to add some color to their celebration. So the acting school I joined to stop partying and drinking seven days a week - led me into a week long Tokyo Raiders Reunion party with an open free bar. Oh well, I decided I could postpone my party slowdown for one more week.
At that time, most of the Raiders were still alive. It was exciting to be able to mix with those heroes and hear their personal stories. Did you realize that all of the planes crashed except one? They had a strict weight limit for those stripped down B-25s and had the gallons of on board fuel calculated carefully. One crew chief snuck an extra can of fuel on his plane, which could have killed his crew - but did not. They were able to take off, finish the mission, and while all the other planes crashed in China - they were able to make it back to what they thought was an allied air base, a Russian air base. The Russians held them captive for one year - and we never got the plane back.
That was a week of party, great stories, and celebration. And, on Saturday night, at the closing dinner, Bob Hope was the guest speaker and then General Doolittle spoke. Bob Hope was a sight for he got caught up in traffic trying to get to Santa Monica that evening and evidently did not have time to change. When he was standing on stage, his pants were inches too short (high water pants) and he had on white socks. Yet, he was still funny. And he was doing what he did so well, entertaining our troops.
The man in charge of the reunion that year was a very suave, handsome, peppered-haired Colonel from the Pentagon - and the lady who then owned the acting school, Madame Valmar Oleska, chased that poor Colonel the full week.
Another thing I remember so well was the center piece of their reunion ceremony - the "Last Man Standing" bottle of 1896 cognac they kept in a special silver display case. I recently read that three of the last four survivors (all in their mid-to-late 90s) were honored in 2013 at what was the Final Reunion and they opened the cognac and drank a toast to their fallen comrades from the special silver goblets. The fourth survivor was not able to attend because of his health. There was a silver goblet in the case for each man who flew that mission. For those no longer with us, their goblets were turned upside down.
I feel very fortunate that, for whatever reason, God allowed me to meet and spend time with those men when there was still a large number of them alive. And, for that, I thank Him.
This is the article which my Friend, Harvey Greenhalgh, sent to me:
Doolittle Raiders Drink a Final Toast
http://www.historynet.com/doolittle-raiders-drink-a-final-toast.htm
God bless, have a wonderful, blessed day,
Bill
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