Sentimental General
Tough, stocky, sentimental James Harold Doolittle, Sc.D., man of culture
and scrappy legend of U.S. aviation, received a present from the White
House last week. The present: the star of a Brigadier General in the
U.S. Army Air Forces. To Jimmy Doolittle, onetime crack amateur boxer,
who turned his back on a fat job in commercial aviation to get a shot
at the Jap, this came at an appropriate time: within the week of the
bombing of Tokyo.He deserved it. Aeronautical engineer, speed flyer, nerveless
experimenter in anything aeronautical, Doolittle had contributed as
much as any, more than most, to the advancement of commercial and
military flying. As a professional soldier he was the first to take
off, fly and land by instruments. He set distance records, tested
wings, engines, anything. He once flew across the Andes, his legs in
plaster casts, to demonstrate a U.S. plane.Doolittle was not merely the ace of aces in sky stunting. He was not
only air-minded; he had an air mind. He alone dissented from the Baker
Board findings in 1934 when other committee members scoffed at a
separate air force.In 1930 Doolittle quit speed flying in the Army, went to work for Shell
Petroleum Corp. In July 1940 he heard the drone of warplanes, pulled on
his harness again and went back to the Air Corps.
He needled the
Allison engine plant for production, got results. He studied
manufacturing techniques to boost plane output. Once he took time off
to pin newly won wings on the uniform of Jimmy Jr., at a Texas training
field.”In the excitement,” said sentimentalist Doolittle later,
“I forgot to return my son's salute. I felt like a heel.”
