
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: WEDNESDAY, September 29, 1993                   TAG: 9309290070
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A-5   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE: SAN JOSE, CALIF.                                LENGTH: Short

AIR POWER PIONEER DOOLITTLE DIES

Four months after Pearl Harbor, Jimmy Doolittle put Japan on notice that its cities were within reach of U.S. air power.

The attack by "Doolittle's Raiders" on Tokyo and five other cities inflicted no major damage, and the Naval War College later found "no serious strategical reason" for it. But the first World War II raid on Japan rekindled American morale in the dark days after Pearl Harbor, secured a place in military history and made Doolittle a national hero.

Retired Gen. James H. Doolittle - "the master of the calculated risk," in the words of fellow World War II aviator George Bush - died late Monday at his son's home in Pebble Beach. He was 96 and had suffered a stroke two weeks earlier.

"His philosophy was a very good one, that we were put on this Earth for a purpose: to, within our capabilities, make the Earth a better place to live," son John Doolittle said Tuesday. "He was a very modest man. He was not one to blow his own whistle at all."

- Associated Press

by CNB