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Air Force Commander: James Doolittle in World War II
From: Columbia University
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Kenneth Leish |
EDITOR'S INTRODUCTION |
Renowned Army General James H. Doolittle (right) led a debilitating air raid on Tokyo after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor and was then appointed major general of the Twelfth Air Force during World War II. But Doolittle always wanted to fly and not to command. In this excerpt of an interview conducted by Kenneth W. Leish on behalf of Columbia University's Oral History Research Office, Doolittle describes several successful United States invasions made during World War II and his contributions to these US Air Force victories. |
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An unabridged transcript of the 1960 oral-history interview with James H. Doolittle from which this excerpt was taken. |
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James H. Doolittle: After I came back from Japan, General Arnold said that there was to be an invasion of North Africa. "General Patton is in charge of it. He's looking for an airman. Would you like to do it?" |
"Then go and talk to General Patton." General Patton and I had a good talk and hit it off very well together. We reported to General Arnold and General Marshall that we would like to work together, and Arnold and Marshall said, "Both of you go over and see General Eisenhower," who was then in charge at London. We went over and saw General Eisenhower, and the operation grew. Instead of being just a small operation on the west coast of North Africa, it became a large joint British-American operation with landings in the Mediterranean and on the west coast. General Eisenhower was then chosen to command the whole thing, and I ended up as his senior American airman for the North African campaign. |
Question: Did you and General Eisenhower fail to see eye to eye at one point? |
Doolittle: General Eisenhower, of course, was very anxious that I should be his staff officer, and I was much more interested in running a command and also in doing a little flying. On one occasion he called me in and said that he had tried to get me the day before: "Where were you?" |
"I was up flying," I told him. |
He said, "It takes a major general to command the Twelfth Air Force. Any second lieutenant can go up and fly and shoot down Germans. You can either be in command of my Twelfth Air Force or you can be a second lieutenant and shoot down Germans, whichever you want to do." |
I think after that we had a perfect understanding. |
Preparations for the North African invasion were routine. We got together in England the aircraft and equipment that we needed. We got many of the aircraft and trained crews from the Eighth Air Force. General Spaatz was in command of the Eighth Air Force, and General Eaker was in command of the Eighth Bomber Command. General Hunter was in command of the Eighth Fighter Command. We were obliged to get a large number of our aircraft and crews from the Eighth, which seriously depleted the Eighth but did give us a trained force. |
After North Africa, I was put in command of the Fifteenth Air Force in North Africa, and moved in over to Italy. Then in January 1944 I was sent back to England to take the Eighth Air Force. General Eaker, who then had the Eighth Air Force, came down to take over the Mediterranean Air Command. General Spaatz, who was in charge of the Mediterranean, was sent up to be Eisenhower's senior American airman. General Twining came down and took over the Fifteenth Air Force, which I had commanded. From then on till the end of the war in Europe I commanded the Eighth Air Force. |
From the overall point of view, we had in the early days a very difficult time making deep penetrations with the heavy bombers. They were able to fight off some of the fighters with their own guns, but the Germans then began to develop rockets, and the German fighters would then stay outside of range of the bombers and lob rockets at them. So the bombers then had no way of protecting themselves. |
Fortunately, about that time we began to get more and more fighters, long-range fighters. The long-range fighters were able to follow the bombers in, and the fighters not only shot down the German aircraft in the air but made a practice of coming back on the deck and shooting them up on the ground. |
So about the time that we were doing real well and losses were getting very low, due to the fact that our long-range fighters had pretty well taken over the air from the German fighters, the Germans then came up with their jet fighters and rocket fighters. This caused us considerable trouble. |
It would have caused us a great deal more trouble had not Hitler made the decision to utilize these jets for ground strafing--something for which they were entirely unsuited, and of course that took them off our backs. So Hitler made a command decision that greatly reduced our losses and facilitated the strategic bombing of Germany. |
Q: When the first invasion of Europe came, the German Air Force was not as much in evidence as expected, and this was credited to your raids before the invasion. |
Doolittle: By the time of the invasion, the German Air Force was short of aircraft but even shorter of fuel. They could stage an air operation only periodically. Still, at the time of the invasion they were able to come up and hit us occasionally, but rarely. This was largely due to the destruction of German aircraft in the air and on the ground and to the destruction of their refineries and their supplies of oil. |
The British, the RAF Bomber Command, the Fifteenth Air Force in Italy and the Eighth Air Force in England all joined together to knock out the oil depots and their oil refineries. Of course, the Eighth and the Fifteenth with their long-range fighters worked over the German fighters in the air and on the ground. The RAF with their shorter-range fighters were able to reach only a short way in and were not as effective in destruction of the German fighters, although they did a magnificent job--the RAF Bomber Command--in taking out cities. |
One of the long-range fighter problems we had was weather. Our second greatest problem was enemy fighters and our third enemy flak, but the weather was really our worst enemy. We'd go out on a flight and wouldn't be able to get to target. In that case, it was customary to have an alternate target. Sometimes our alternate target also was fogged in, and sometimes the weather was so bad that even with radar bombing it was difficult to get through. |
Towards the latter part of the war, a chap named Colonel Bud Peasley conceived the idea of having our long-range fighters go out and make a reconnaissance before the bombers went out, and be there at the time the bombers took off, so they could tell the bombers exactly what targets were open, exactly what the weather was, what was the best route and so forth. So we had our own little fact-finder force of fighters, and they were of tremendous help to the bombers. I think organizing and authorizing this was one of the useful things I did after taking command of the Eighth Air Force. |
The other useful thing I did was to insist that the enemy-fighters policy was put into effect--it happened to be in effect when I came because conditions were more serious, losses were much greater and we had very few fighters. At that time, the policy was that the first duty of the fighters was to protect the bombers. By the time I took over the Eighth Air Force, the losses were less, and I changed that policy to "The first duty of our fighters is to shoot down enemy fighters." |
So instead of our fighters following the bombers and protecting them, from that time on our fighters went out and sought out the enemy fighters and shot them down. |
At first, the bombers were very worried about this, but very shortly they came to learn that this was by far the better way, and that, even if our losses were severe from time to time, this was the only way we would ever begin to get anywhere near a free ride, which we were approaching towards the end of the war. |
This is not any criticism of my predecessor, because when he started out conditions were much more difficult and he had very few fighters, so the few he had, he had to put on the bombers. But by the time I got there, there were more fighters, and I changed that policy. That and the utilization of the fighters for reconnaissance and checking where the bombers should go were two of the innovations for which I was responsible and in which I take pride. |
Before going to Europe, I had flown a great many missions in North Africa and Italy. Unfortunately, after going to Europe I was briefed on the invasion plans and promptly taken off of flying (the fear being that I might fall into enemy hands). As a result of that, I flew no missions in Europe, no bombing missions. |
I did have an opportunity to fly a few interesting fighter missions. General Partridge and I flew two fighters with the bombers over the invasion forces on the 6th of June, and after the bombers had dropped their bombs General Partridge and I came back under the overcast, flew up and down the beaches, and saw the very difficult time the boys were having at Omaha Beach. By 9:30 or 10 that morning I was back in the senior headquarters with the first eyewitness account of what was going on in the beaches. |
The impression I had was that everything was going relatively smoothly every place except at Omaha, and at Omaha Beach I saw landing craft after landing craft suffer a direct hit and blow up right in front of my face. Both General Partridge and I flew P-38s, which were very distinctive Lockheed-type aircraft with two tails and two engines, because we didn't want to fly over our troops and be mistaken for enemies. |
Q: Did you have any close calls? |
Doolittle: I got shot up quite a few times, but never shot down. I came back. The only time I had a crewman hurt was flying down to Gibraltar from England, in a B-17 that was attacked by JU-88s, and the copilot was shot through the arm. I went up and took over the copilot's seat after we got him as comfortable as we could. |
In North Africa, as in Europe, the greatest difficulties were not the enemy but the weather. We had very severe weather and considerable casualties due to weather. We not only canceled flights because of weather but would sometimes recall a flight after it was halfway to target. |
The weather came in from the west in England, and it usually came in at a fairly even rate. We had aircraft to the west following it in, and as the weather approached England--sometimes dense fog, our most serious enemy--we could anticipate, if it kept at exactly that rate, that it would cover the bases by a certain time. If aircraft were not back at that time, then you would suffer very, very high operational losses as a result of your airplane crashing on landing. |
However, the actual rate of progress of the storm might change when it reached the coast of England. It might speed up, it might stand still, it might slow down. As a result of that, it was customary to recall if you felt that there was a chance of weather closing your bases so that you jeopardized your entire force. |
On two different occasions I recalled, on the 5th and 11th of January, when the weather after I recalled slowed down, and the bases remained open, this caused me to be criticized as a timid person. |
"The Reminiscences of James Harold Doolittle," in the Aviation Project collection of the Columbia University Oral History Research Office. Interview by Kenneth W. Leish, 1960 (28 leaves). Copyright 2000 by The Trustees of Columbia University in the City of New York. |
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