Ol' Jimmy Doolittle. Now there's an example of a real American: adventurous, daring, innovative, a true leader, pioneering, successful, focused, driven, influential and enduring. A famed aviator, Jimmy's fame in the skies went back long before WW II as he was a successful air racer. He won the 1925 Schneider Trophy with his R3C-2 seaplace racer. I remember looking at a photograph of him standing on one of the pylons of that winning plance and then years later finally getting to see it in the Smithsonian's Air & Space Museum in DC--that was a wow moment for me as I imagined him standing on that same pylon in front of me there that day.
His exploits in putting together and leading the subsequently called "Doolittle Raid" on Japan in April 1942, hurtling B-25 medium bombers off the Hornet's carrier deck of all things has to be his career zenith, and Jimmy at his most heroic. Knowing you might not come back from a mission as this, and by design knowing that you would either be bailing out or crash landing in China after mission completion (if you made it that far) is sobering, and possesses the Tuff Stuff most of us are not made of. A few did not make it back; Doolittle did.
The 'Raid' did wonders at the time for US morale in punctuating and validating the thought that the Japanese could indeed be gotten to in their own backyard. That wasn't lost on the Japanese populace either as they no longer thought of themselves as invulnerable. We'd soon be winning the turning point of the Pacific war at Midway Island, a battle possibly not won by the US if the 'Raid' never happened or wasn't successful. After Doolittle's daring raid the Japanese felt they had to divert crucial naval strength to protect their homeland and therefore present fewer resources elsewhere---including the Battle of Midway.
A grandest of scales Jimmy operated on yes, but, it shows us that some sincere and intelligent ambition can have far-reaching victorious and positive effects not merely for those immediately around us, but well beyond our own consciousness and scope.
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