Eagle Biography
James H. Doolittle
"Jimmy" Doolittle, who was born in 1896, has repeatedly pushed back the
frontiers of aviation technology while making his mark as a pioneer, record setter, and
war hero. Caught in the excitement of World War I, he entered flight training and earned
his pilot wings in early 1918. Doolittle first served as a fighter pilot instructor and
then as a border patrol pilot at Eagle Pass, Texas. Soon after transitioning into DH-4s,
he participated in General Billy Mitchell's 1921 airpower test off the Virginia coast.
In September 1922, he made national headlines and won the Distinguished Flying Cross for
piloting a modified DH-4 for over 22 hours from Florida to San Diego, California--the
first time the continent had been crossed in less than a day.
Three years later,
Doolittle set two world seaplane speed records and won the 1925 Shneider Cup--the "
world series" of seaplane racing. In the late 1920s, he went on to complete the
first outside loop and made the world's first "blind" instrument flight. After
resigning his regular army commission in 1930, he entered the Reserves and continued as
an aviation pioneer while working for Shell Oil Company. In 1931, he won the first
Bendix Trophy race and set a new transcontinental speed record of 11 1/4 hours in his
Laird Super-Solution. The following year, he flew the powerful Gee Bee racer to gain
another speed record and victory at the 1932 National Air Races.
With war on the
horizon, Doolittle returned to the Army Air Corps in 1940. Following Pearl Harbor, he
planned and carried out the first retaliatory strike against the Japanese mainland. On
18 April 1942, he personally led 16 B-25 bombers from the aircraft carrier Hornet and
bombed Tokyo. This daring one-way mission provided a tremendous boost to American
morale and won him the Medal of Honor. He later commanded the 8th, 12th, and 15th Air
Forces in Europe and rose to the rank of lieutenant general--the highest ranking reserve
officer in Air Force history. Following the war, he returned to Shell Oil and served on
many top civilian and military boards and was inducted into the International Aerospace
Hall of Fame.
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| More About The Eagle: |
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| Honored as an Eagle In: |
| 1982
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1984
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In 1928, the Daniel Guggenheim Fund was established to study flight under
adverse weather conditions. With "Jimmy" Doolittle in charge of the project's
Full Flight Laboratory at Long Island's Mitchel Field, a converted navy
seaplane, the Consolidated Wright NY-2, was outfitted to be a "fog flying"
experimental aircraft. Specially developed cockpit instruments included the
Sperry artificial horizon and directional gyro, a primitive radio beacon
receiver, and a Kollsman barometric altimeter. On 24 September 1929,
Lieutenant "Jimmy" Doolittle took off in the weather and completed a 15-mile
round trip and landed while "under the hood"--the world's first flight made
solely with the aid of instruments. This historic flight led to the
development of an "all-weather" capability for military and civilian aviation.
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