Doolittle Raid Training Crack Up

TonyM · **Posted:** Sun Mar 11, 2012 1:21 am

Photos of Doolittle Raider Training Crack Up 10 March 1942 uncovered after seventy years.

http://usaircraft.proboards.com/index.c ... hread=3482

TonyM

tex-fan · **Posted:** Sun Mar 11, 2012 6:32 am

i always knew those guys were traning on the edge, but i never knew they actually had any problems. learn something new every day. thanks for the link!

Ken · **Posted:** Sun Mar 11, 2012 10:18 am

The various Raider books mention one or two airplanes damaged during training but I can't recall the details without referencing the book(s). This incident, however, may not be significant to their training. The accident report, included in the web link, quotes Joyce as saying that he accomplished a normal landing and suffered a shimmy damper failure. The landing was at Ellington Field and, according to Lawson's book, etc, Doolittle forbade anyone to practice special maneuvers anywhere outside the Aux field(s) at Eglin. Unless someone has other details, I'd take the accident report at face value as just that - an accident.

A quick check of a Raider website shows that serial did not fly on the Raid and that Joyce instead flew 40-2250.

The pix are cool and may give modelers and historians insight into the paint scheme details and other nuances of that group of modified B-25B's (and the sequence of those mods as of March 10). The report also mentions damage to "the bomb sight". Wonder which one they had installed ...

Ken

Pathfinder · **Joined:** Tue Nov 10, 2009 7:35 pm **Posts:** 587

Seems to me there was a line in TSOT to the effect, "...every time a guy does a nose over on this field it's a crack-up...."

Ken · **Posted:** Sun Mar 11, 2012 12:16 pm

I believe Todd Joyce runs one of the Raider sites, maybe he will chime in.

TonyM · **Posted:** Thu Mar 22, 2012 10:45 am

If I remember correctly, this airplane had just completed a low-level, long-range, over-water flight when this mishap occurred.

So I guess it is not too much of a leap to believe that this crew was training for the mission.

The flight ain't over until the prop stops and the engine shut down.

TM

wingman1 · **Posted:** Thu Mar 22, 2012 12:27 pm

what about the one that was just pulled out of the lake in SC a few years ago?

pjpahs · **Posted:** Thu Mar 22, 2012 4:28 pm

The B-25 that was pulled from Lake Murray in South Carolina went in when they lost their left engine power while practicing Skip bombing over the island targets on April 4,1943. I read that the Raiders had the Norden bombsite removed as the attack height was to be at 1500 feet, and the site would be almost worthless. I read where they rigged up a sight for a couple bucks worth of material, I haven't read a description of this crude sight but look what the British dam busters used, a couple of sticks and pins and converging lights. KISS principle at it's best. The Doolittle Raiders were volunteers from the 17th bomb group that was transferred to South Carolina and did some training there and in Florida. The Lake Murray B-25 is now at the Southern Museum Of Flight in Birmingham ,Alabama.

pjpahs · **Posted:** Thu Mar 22, 2012 5:08 pm

Found a picture of the Doolittle bombsight or as I found it to be called the "Mark Twain bombsight". Googled up Doolittle bombsight and found it under flikr referring to the Mid-Atlantic Air Museum in their collection. Tried to access the website for MAAM but was denied by the computor demons, but still got a good look thru the flikr link. Really very simple and cost 20 cents according to the link.

wingman1 · **Posted:** Thu Mar 22, 2012 5:55 pm

pjpahs wrote:

The B-25 that was pulled from Lake Murray in South Carolina went in when they lost their left engine power while practicing Skip bombing over the island targets on April 4,1943. I read that the Raiders had the Norden bombsite removed as the attack height was to be at 1500 feet, and the site would be almost worthless. I read where they rigged up a sight for a couple bucks worth of material, I haven't read a description of this crude sight but look what the British dam busters used, a couple of sticks and pins and converging lights. KISS principle at it's best. The Doolittle Raiders were volunteers from the 17th bomb group that was transferred to South Carolina and did some training there and in Florida. The Lake Murray B-25 is now at the Southern Museum Of Flight in Birmingham ,Alabama.

wow, i was down with a week long cold when about the time it was raised, i was living in Ware Shoals, at the time and i have been fishing over that spot many times. i knew about the aircraft of course, but had no idea that was the spot. i wonder if anybody is going to go after any of the other aircraft in Lake Murray? (oh Yes the are some more still in the lake, i know more went down back in the day.)

Dan Jones · **Posted:** Fri Mar 23, 2012 6:41 am

I remember reading somewhere that when the movie "Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo" came out in 1944(?) there was suddenly a rash of B-25 take-off accidents throughout the air force. Not sure if that's a myth or not but I could see it happening.

Dan

TonyM · **Posted:** Sat Mar 24, 2012 12:19 pm

Dan Jones wrote:

I remember reading somewhere that when the movie "Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo" came out in 1944(?) there was suddenly a rash of B-25 take-off accidents throughout the air force. Not sure if that's a myth or not but I could see it happening.

Dan

A quick look at the accident record--I am not seeing an uptick in take-off accidents involving B-25 aircraft in late 1944.

There was a fatal B-25 accident during the filming of the movie.

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