Jim Scanlon (deceased)
Senior Staff
FORUM CHAPLAIN
Commander South Texas outpost of the County Sligo Squadron
Currently: Offline
Posts: 5,075
Location:
Joined: July 2007
Retired: USAF NBA: Spurs NFL: Niners MLB: Giants NHL: Penguins
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Post by Jim Scanlon (deceased) on Jan 6, 2010 10:02:26 GMT 9
:salute :patriotic-flagwaver :salute
Doolittle Raider Dies Doolittle Raider Dies: Retired Col. James H. Macia Jr., one of the famed Doolittle Raiders, passed away Dec. 20 in Philadelphia. His family informed us of the loss. According to Monday's San Antonio Express-News obituary, he was 93 and died of complications from Alzheimer's disease. Macia, then a lieutenant, was the navigator-bombardier in one of the 16 B-25s that took off from the USS Hornet on April 18, 1942, in the daring bombing raid on the Japanese home island. Led by then-Lt. Col. Jimmy Doolittle, the raid was a huge psychological lift to the US, coming less than five months after Pearl Harbor. The crew of Macia's aircraft bailed out over China after the raid; he made it to safety. (Click here for post-raid photo of Macia posted at Doolittle Raiders, the raiders' official Web site.) (For more, read Doolittle's Raid from the April 2009 issue of Air Force Magazine.)
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Jim Scanlon (deceased)
Senior Staff
FORUM CHAPLAIN
Commander South Texas outpost of the County Sligo Squadron
Currently: Offline
Posts: 5,075
Location:
Joined: July 2007
Retired: USAF NBA: Spurs NFL: Niners MLB: Giants NHL: Penguins
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Post by Jim Scanlon (deceased) on Mar 1, 2013 0:15:53 GMT 9
Doolittle Raider Thomas Griffin Dies: Retired Maj. Thomas C. Griffin, one of the Doolittle Raiders who, along with 79 other airmen, carried out a daring bombing attack on Tokyo on April 18, 1942, died in his sleep in a veterans' hospital in Cincinnati on Feb. 26, reported Cincinnati.com. He was 96. Griffin, a native of Green Bay, Wisc., served as navigator on aircraft No. 9, one of the 16 B-25 bombers under the command of then-Lt. Col. Jimmy Doolittle that took off from the deck of the carrier USS Hornet in the Pacific Ocean to bomb Tokyo on that spring day in 1942, just four months after Japan's strike on Pearl Harbor. Griffin, then a lieutenant, bailed out with his crewmates over China after the raid and made his way back to allied lines. Eventually returning to combat, he later spent 22 months as a prisoner of war in Germany after his airplane was shot down in July 1943. Griffin's death leaves four surviving Doolittle Raiders: retired Lt. Col. Richard Cole, co-pilot on aircraft No. 1; retired Lt. Col. Bob Hite, co-pilot on aircraft No. 16; retired Lt. Col. Edward Saylor, engineer on aircraft No. 15; and retired MSgt. David Thatcher, engineer-gunner on aircraft No. 7. Those four are scheduled to gather in mid-April in Fort Walton Beach, Fla., for the Doolittle Raiders' 71st reunion. (For more on the historic mission, read Doolittle's Raid from Air Force Magazine's archives.) (See also National Museum of the US Air Force's Facebook posting on Griffin.)
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