a330pilotcanada
4th Apr 2015, 15:23
Good Morning All:
Sadly another chapter from World War Two is now closed as Robert Hite has Flown West.
As one who has not known conflict it is with heart felt thanks for your service and for all that serve and keep us from harm.
SAM ROBERTS
The New York Times News Service
Published Friday, Apr. 03 2015, 6:24 PM EDT
Last updated Friday, Apr. 03 2015, 6:47 PM EDT
http://static.theglobeandmail.ca/1ce/news/world/article23794037.ece/ALTERNATES/w620/w-hite-ob02.JPG
Robert Hite, the last survivor among eight American crewmen who were captured by the Japanese when U.S. bombers attacked Japan in a daring 1942 raid, has died at the age of 95.
The top-secret raid, led by Lieutenant-Colonel Jimmy Doolittle, became the basis for the 1944 movie Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo, adapted from the book of the same title by Captain Ted Lawson, a pilot who took part in the attack.
The raid inflicted relatively light damage on Japanese military and industrial targets, but it delivered a moral victory to Americans, disconsolate since the sneak attack on Pearl Harbor less than five months earlier, and was a stunning psychological blow to the Japanese.
Lieutenant-Colonel Hite, who died of heart failure on March 29 in Nashville, almost missed the mission, whose members became known as the Doolittle Raiders. He had volunteered for it and was assigned to pilot one of its B-25 bombers, but was bumped when all the planes could not fit on the aircraft carrier USS Hornet. At the last minute he replaced the co-pilot of another crew. He was 22.
Sixteen planes and 80 airmen took part in the mission, flown low to the ground in daylight by pilots who had never taken off from a carrier. They left the Hornet on April 18, 1942, their targets 1,300 kilometres away.
After completing their bombing runs, the planes were to land at airstrips in China that had not fallen to the Japanese. But the planes encountered a storm and ran low on fuel, forcing crash landings and bailouts that killed three of the 80 crewmen. Eight crewmen, including Lt.-Col. Hite, were captured by the Japanese. Three, including the pilot and the gunner of Lt.-Col. Hite’s plane, were shot by a firing squad. Another died from disease.
Lt.-Col. Hite was imprisoned for 40 months, 38 of them in solitary confinement. By the time the war ended, his weight had dropped to 76 pounds from 180.
Robert Lowell Hite was born in Odell, Tex., on March 3, 1920, the son of tenant cotton farmers. After three years at a teachers college, he enlisted as an aviation cadet in 1940 and was certified an Army Air Corps pilot in 1941.
He was gung-ho to volunteer for the Doolittle mission, even more so once the target was identified. “After I accepted to go … I had people offering me $500 for my place. I said, ‘No way,’” he later recalled.
His plane, carrying four 225-kilogram bombs and nicknamed Bat Out of Hell, survived anti-aircraft fire by flying as low as 150 metres as it struck a fuel depot and aircraft factory in Nagoya, southwest of Tokyo.
Short of fuel, the crew bailed out near Nanchang, China, where they were captured by Japanese soldiers. Lt.-Col. Hite and the others were flown to Japan and subjected to water torture. They were then imprisoned in China, tried as war criminals for strafing civilians, and sentenced to death.
“We were war criminals according to the Japanese because we had attacked their homeland,” he recalled. “To save face, they had to designate someone responsible and execute them. So they designated the first pilots and the gunners.” After three were executed, he and four others were granted a reprieve, though they were told they would be shot if Japan lost the war. He remained in prison until Japan’s surrender in August, 1945, and then released, which he termed a miracle.
After returning home, he married Portia Wallace, who died in 1999. He leaves his son, Wallace; daughter, Catherine Landers; and extended family.
Recalled to service during the Korean War, Lt.-Col. Hite trained pilots until he left active duty in 1955. Afterward, he operated hotels in Oklahoma, Arkansas and Texas. He retired at 51, his son said, “because of the wear and tear of the 40 months he was a prisoner.”
Sadly another chapter from World War Two is now closed as Robert Hite has Flown West.
As one who has not known conflict it is with heart felt thanks for your service and for all that serve and keep us from harm.
SAM ROBERTS
The New York Times News Service
Published Friday, Apr. 03 2015, 6:24 PM EDT
Last updated Friday, Apr. 03 2015, 6:47 PM EDT
http://static.theglobeandmail.ca/1ce/news/world/article23794037.ece/ALTERNATES/w620/w-hite-ob02.JPG
Robert Hite, the last survivor among eight American crewmen who were captured by the Japanese when U.S. bombers attacked Japan in a daring 1942 raid, has died at the age of 95.
The top-secret raid, led by Lieutenant-Colonel Jimmy Doolittle, became the basis for the 1944 movie Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo, adapted from the book of the same title by Captain Ted Lawson, a pilot who took part in the attack.
The raid inflicted relatively light damage on Japanese military and industrial targets, but it delivered a moral victory to Americans, disconsolate since the sneak attack on Pearl Harbor less than five months earlier, and was a stunning psychological blow to the Japanese.
Lieutenant-Colonel Hite, who died of heart failure on March 29 in Nashville, almost missed the mission, whose members became known as the Doolittle Raiders. He had volunteered for it and was assigned to pilot one of its B-25 bombers, but was bumped when all the planes could not fit on the aircraft carrier USS Hornet. At the last minute he replaced the co-pilot of another crew. He was 22.
Sixteen planes and 80 airmen took part in the mission, flown low to the ground in daylight by pilots who had never taken off from a carrier. They left the Hornet on April 18, 1942, their targets 1,300 kilometres away.
After completing their bombing runs, the planes were to land at airstrips in China that had not fallen to the Japanese. But the planes encountered a storm and ran low on fuel, forcing crash landings and bailouts that killed three of the 80 crewmen. Eight crewmen, including Lt.-Col. Hite, were captured by the Japanese. Three, including the pilot and the gunner of Lt.-Col. Hite’s plane, were shot by a firing squad. Another died from disease.
Lt.-Col. Hite was imprisoned for 40 months, 38 of them in solitary confinement. By the time the war ended, his weight had dropped to 76 pounds from 180.
Robert Lowell Hite was born in Odell, Tex., on March 3, 1920, the son of tenant cotton farmers. After three years at a teachers college, he enlisted as an aviation cadet in 1940 and was certified an Army Air Corps pilot in 1941.
He was gung-ho to volunteer for the Doolittle mission, even more so once the target was identified. “After I accepted to go … I had people offering me $500 for my place. I said, ‘No way,’” he later recalled.
His plane, carrying four 225-kilogram bombs and nicknamed Bat Out of Hell, survived anti-aircraft fire by flying as low as 150 metres as it struck a fuel depot and aircraft factory in Nagoya, southwest of Tokyo.
Short of fuel, the crew bailed out near Nanchang, China, where they were captured by Japanese soldiers. Lt.-Col. Hite and the others were flown to Japan and subjected to water torture. They were then imprisoned in China, tried as war criminals for strafing civilians, and sentenced to death.
“We were war criminals according to the Japanese because we had attacked their homeland,” he recalled. “To save face, they had to designate someone responsible and execute them. So they designated the first pilots and the gunners.” After three were executed, he and four others were granted a reprieve, though they were told they would be shot if Japan lost the war. He remained in prison until Japan’s surrender in August, 1945, and then released, which he termed a miracle.
After returning home, he married Portia Wallace, who died in 1999. He leaves his son, Wallace; daughter, Catherine Landers; and extended family.
Recalled to service during the Korean War, Lt.-Col. Hite trained pilots until he left active duty in 1955. Afterward, he operated hotels in Oklahoma, Arkansas and Texas. He retired at 51, his son said, “because of the wear and tear of the 40 months he was a prisoner.”