Final Toast of the Doolittle Raiders

Saturday, November 9 will be the final reunion of the last four remaining veterans of the Doolittle Raid. There are numerous activities for the public to attend during the reunion, which will take place at the National Museum of the United States Air Force in Dayton, Ohio. For more info, visit http://www.nationalmuseum.af.mil/new...p?id=123368299.

There is a great op-ed on CNN about the Raiders here: http://www.cnn.com/2013/11/03/opinio...dal/index.html

If you plan on attending, please post here. There are five of us EAA staffers that are driving down to attend - maybe we can have a little EAA member meetup or something while there.

Zack

Thought the final toast was going to be a low-key, private event.

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Originally Posted by JimRice85

Thought the final toast was going to be a low-key, private event.

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I hope it is not.

These guys deserve to go out in a blaze of glory.

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Originally Posted by JimRice85

Thought the final toast was going to be a low-key, private event.

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From the NMUSAF website: Although the final toast ceremony is not open to the public, a LIVE feed of the event will be broadcast on The Pentagon Channel at 6 p.m. EST. A link to the LIVE stream will also be available on the day of the event at www.nationalmuseum.af.mil and www.af.mil.

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Originally Posted by Zack Baughman

Saturday, November 9 will be the final reunion of the last four remaining veterans of the Doolittle Raid. There are numerous activities for the public to attend during the reunion, which will take place at the National Museum of the United States Air Force in Dayton, Ohio. For more info, visit http://www.nationalmuseum.af.mil/new...p?id=123368299.

There is a great op-ed on CNN about the Raiders here: http://www.cnn.com/2013/11/03/opinio...dal/index.html

If you plan on attending, please post here. There are five of us EAA staffers that are driving down to attend - maybe we can have a little EAA member meetup or something while there.

Zack

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The event this saturday is the final gathering of the Raiders to toast "those that have gone". The Raiders decided over a year ago, that the 71st reunion at Ft Walton Beach (Eglin) would be the last "Reunion" . As we all know, the long standing tradition was that when there was only two Raiders remaining, they agreed that the 1896 Hennesy would be opened for a "final toast" to "Those that have gone" (Doolittle's words). After Tom Griffin passed last February, the surviving raiders gathered in private and decided that due to the difficulties with travel and health they were beginning to experience, they would not risk waiting till there was only two left and possibly be in too poor of health to get together for the final toast. They decided to do it while they could still travel and at least three attend. Bob Hite's health will make his presence impossible. Long ago the Raiders made a promise to the National Museum of the United States Air Force that when the time came for the "final toast" they would come back to the museum, where the goblets are displayed (on loan from the Raiders) .

Only once in the history of the goblets and the raiders, have they let anyone into to the room for their toast "to those that have gone". I was fortunate enough to be one of those back in 2002 in Columbia SC. I sat in my chair in silence afterwards for quite a while. I had never witnessed anything as solemn and emotional. The Raiders themselves decided this final toast would be with family and invited guests and for history's sake, allow it to be recorded.

There will be an outdoor pubic memorial service at the Raider's monument outside the National Museum at 2pm on the 9th. Bring a small flag and welcome the Raiders when they arrive. I was honored to again be asked to lead a flight of B-25's for a missing man salute flight over that ceremony. this will be the last time the Raiders plan on being together publicly. This is the final page in the final chapter of one of our country's greatest military missions and traditions. After Saturday, it will be up to all of us to not let the memory of the Raiders and their famous mission pass into obscurity.

Larry Kelley
Owner/pilot/mechanic
B25 Panchito

Larry - THANK YOU for all that you have done to make the last few Raiders reunions so special and all that you do to keep the memory alive!

Zack

I've heard of their reunions. It's so sad to here that there are only a few of the Raiders left. Those men are heroes. They are an inspiration. I hope that they will never be forgotten.

I'm privileged to have met GEN Doolittle when he was awarded the Thayer Award at West Point. I met Bob Cole, his co-pilot several years later in San Antonio. Great men.

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Originally Posted by Zack Baughman

If you plan on attending, please post here. There are five of us EAA staffers that are driving down to attend - maybe we can have a little EAA member meetup or something while there.

Zack

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Zack, I'll be flying down to Dayton from Wisconsin to attend the ceremony with a writer friend. We'll look for you EAA folks. We'll be in a Fairchild 24 if the weather holds.

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Originally Posted by Weeds1

Zack, I'll be flying down to Dayton from Wisconsin to attend the ceremony with a writer friend. We'll look for you EAA folks. We'll be in a Fairchild 24 if the weather holds.

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I'm not entirely sure what our exact schedule will be, but I know for sure we'll be at the "Grand Arrival" on Saturday with a large EAA banner thanking the veterans.

Just look for this banner and you'll find us!

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I will be there with my hat on! And then hat off to all who served in World War ll.

Since it was such a beautiful day, my son and grandson helped me relocate the Kolb in preparation for my Christmas lights to music at my office located a mile down the road. Good help is sometimes hard to find.

We had a great trip to Dayton! Staffers Andy Ovans (Membership), Chris Henry (Membership), Max Platts (Vintage), Tom Charpentier (Government) and myself (Museum) all drove down together on Friday, arriving in Dayton late that night. Chris, our friend and fellow EAA member Eric Rood, and I had attended the 2010 and 2012 Doolittle Raider Reunions in Dayton, so we knew that whatever special swag was on sale in the NMUSAF gift shop for the event would sell out quickly, so first thing Saturday morning we all headed over the museum. Before the doors could open, we took a moment to visit the Doolittle Raiders monument in the memorial gardens where we took this group photo with our great banner made for us by EAA graphic artist Jeff Benedict (thanks Jeff!).
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After that we headed into the museum, where we each picked up a souvenir challenge coin and glass goblet.
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We spent the bulk of the day visiting the museum, until about 12:30pm when we headed outside with many hundreds of other visitors to line the museum driveway for the Raiders' Grand Arrival at 1:00pm. It was a fantastic display of support and patriotism for these heroes. We were thrilled to be a small part of it!

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Dick Cole
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Ed Saylor
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David Thatcher
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From there we gathered in the memorial garden for the official wreath laying. There were probably a couple of thousand people there, including nearly all the senior brass of the USAF! It was a very touching event, with a drum and pipes corps and everything. Our buddy Eric was able to take some pretty nice photos of the Raiders from his viewpoint:

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Shortly after the wreath laying, five B-25s performed a missing man flyover that was just perfect. I had chills up and down my spine as they flew over. It was beautiful! Apologies for these photos as I was using my phone and looking into the sun:

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The last toast itself was a VIP affair, but was broadcast live over the internet and on the Pentagon channel. We picked up our own bottle of Hennessy and had our own toast the Raiders with some friends. As always, the NMUSAF put on a superb event for the Raiders. It was very bittersweet knowing that this was it...probably the last time the survivors would be meeting publicly. I am grateful to them for what they did during the war, and for their generosity in sharing this moment with the public. I'll never forget it!

Zack

Nice trip report, Zack. Here's mine.


A friend of mine, Dan Wegmueller is a features writer for a local newspaper and radio station group in Monroe, Wis. He called me several weeks ago and asked if I wanted to go see the Final Toast ceremony in Dayton. It was closed to the public but we could apply for media passes through his newspaper, he as a writer and me as a photographer since I had done work for them in the past. I had been reading about the Doolittle Raiders since Junior High School in the early 80s, so I gave an emphatic "Yes!" response. As a long time WWII aviation history buff, I couldn't pass this up.


The newspaper agreed to send us and our media request was approved by the Air Force Museum, so we set out planning the trip. Dan has a sweet Ranger-powered 1939 Fairchild 24 and we figured we could fly to Dayton from our southern Wisconsin base. Just before sunrise on Saturday, November 9, we took off from Dan's home base at Albany (54W) and made a quick fuel stop at Brodhead (C37), then off to Dayton. A direct route would've take us right over the top of Chicago O'Hare, but flying an old airplane over the biggest metropolitan area in the Midwest wasn't anything we wanted to do. The fact that this airplane was older than the Doolittle B-25s was not lost on us, so we dog-legged around the Class B for the 300 nm trip. We picked up a 30-40 knot tail wind and made it to Dayton in 2.5 hours. Not bad for an airplane that cruises at 100 knots.

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Navigating old-school around Chicago.

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Dan's Fairchild dresses up the ramp at Wright Bros. Aviation.

First stop was the Grand Arrival at the Air Force Museum. The three attending Raiders would be driven in with a police escort and the city had asked people to line the streets as a show of appreciation. There was a good crowd along the drive into the museum so we took up a position and cheered them on as they came in.

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The drive in to the museum is lined with well-wishers.

Next was a wreath laying ceremony outside the museum at the memorial marker for the Doolittle Raiders. This is where I discovered how big a deal this day was going to be. There was more Air Force and Navy brass walking in than I had ever seen in one place. Generals, colonels, majors and some other ranks I didn't recognize. Dan and I were marshaled in to the media pen, which was right behind the brass.

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Surprisingly, there weren't many media folks there besides the local TV stations, at least not that I saw. The Raiders were brought in by escorts, seated, and the ceremony began. We started to feel like we were in somewhat of a hallowed place. There were some speeches, an honor guard, invocations, the national anthem and the wreath laying, followed by a five-ship B-25 flyover performing the missing man formation. That was quite a sight and the crowd roared its approval. Sadly, I didn't get a decent picture of the flyover.


We media folks were then brought inside the museum and up to the second level "Arnold Room" where we had exclusive access to the three Raiders for interviews. Dan and I had discussed on the flight out, what exactly do you ask these guys that they haven't been asked a thousand times before. Dan kept it timely and asked a few brief questions while I snapped some pictures. We sincerely thanked them for what they had done back in 1942 and in the years since. Again, Dan and I had a sense that we were in a very special place of honor among these men and took time to appreciate where were and what we were witnessing. The Final Toast would be the end of a very long mission for these guys, and here we were taking it all in. There were perhaps a dozen other reporters quietly doing interviews when the local TV news crews rolled in.

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I'll get on my soapbox here for bit...it was at this point that I was embarrassed to be part of the "media" and all that word has come to represent in certain circumstances. Many of the news crews and especially the photographers were dressed in their Saturday morning yard work best, even though we were told to wear business attire. They talked loudly among themselves and largely seemed disinterested in what was probably just another news assignment. It was clear they had little respect for what they witnessing. I kept thinking that there were many people who would have given anything to be in that room among those men, yet it was reserved for these TV clowns. I heard one reporter sit down in front of one of the men and say, "Please state your name and spell it for me exactly how you would like it to appear on TV tonight." Do your homework, pal...and show some respect! We left the room at this point, feeling somewhat out of place.

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The cameraman is busy texting while the reporter asks C.V. Glines some uninteresting questions.

We had a couple hours to kill before the Final Toast ceremony, so we did a whirlwind tour of the museum. If you haven't been to the National Museum of the Air Force, it is well worth the trip to Dayton. Plan on an entire day or more. I was last there in 1982 and it was a completely different place this time. Go here: http://www.nationalmuseum.af.mil


We were told to be in the media area at 5:30 for seating. We had use of a small riser behind the seated guests and were told to stay out of the aisles, away from the stage, no interviews and no interruptions. We could use flash photography but no tripods. This was to be a dignified and formal ceremony and it was obvious the organizers had planned out every step of the next hour.

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The three Raiders listen to the speakers.

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The crowd listens intently.

Speeches were made by some Air Force officials, a Vice-President of Hennesey USA, the make of the cognac to be used for the toast, and a very good speech by C.V. Glines, the official historian of the Doolittle Raiders. He is considered to be a honorary member of the group, going back to the 1950s. Mr. Glines called the roll of all 80 Raiders, with the three in attendance shouting "Here!" when their name was called. Hearing all those names, knowing some had died in the raid, and hearing only three in attendance put a lump in my throat.

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The goblets and bottle of cognac. Each goblet is engraved with one of the 80 Raiders' names and is turned upside down when they pass away.

Then the toast itself. Its worth watching the video linked below to see it. (Jump ahead to about the 48-minute mark.) Colonel Cole, Jimmy Doolittle's co-pilot on the raid, opened the 1896 bottle of cognac that had been held by the group since the 50's for just this occasion. A brief word by Cole, a sip, and that was it, followed by a long round of applause that had palpable sincerity by everybody in attendance.

Video of the full ceremony is HERE.

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We stuck around for some final pictures, Dan went off to interview the acting Secretary of the Air Force and I just sat in the museum and took it all in. It was quite a feeling.


The next morning, we took off from Dayton and paid dearly for our tail wind the day before. It took nearly four hours to go the 300 miles home. It was a quiet trip as I think we were both lost in our thoughts of the previous day. I felt very privileged to be a part of it.

Pat Weeden, EAA Chapter 431

...and if you're bored, you can watch the video of our flight to Dayton HERE.

Thank you Both for sharing the experience. It is a great feeling that they are still honored in a way that we all can take a least a small part in. Greatest Generation,..........Roll Models,..............Heroes.

Pat, Great job.
Bob

FLYOVER: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cFCRKsXfvU4

Really enjoyed seeing the B-25 flyover that day. Stood by the memorial for an hour with the kids before the Raiders arrived to get a good spot and unfortunately the press filled in in front of us and we couldn't see anything. Oh well, just glad to hear the ceremony and see the flyover -- be a part of it all.