By Doug Rozendaal
I was in a semi-conscience state waiting for my wife to finish her shower when Paula Zahn reported that General Jimmy Doolittle had gone west. I sat up in bed to see the remainder of the report, there was little. It is an unfortunate commentary on our society, that the loss of a great American hero received less mention than the baseball scores. As I showered I thought that he would be buried in California and hopefully a group of the West Coast B-25's would get together and fly a missing man. What a great honor it would be to fly over the burial of Jimmy Doolittle in a B-25, I thought...
The following evening I was watching the news when the phone rang. Larry Mullaly, our Confederate Air Force, Southern Minnesota Wing, Operations Officer called and asked if I could fly our B-25 "Miss Mitchell" to Washington D.C. with him to fly over the burial of General Doolittle at Arlington National Cemetery. I assured him that I could. I was overwhelmed with honor and disbelief. I slept little that night.
The plan developed as follows, Larry and Bruce Oberman, one of our co-pilots, would fly to Andrews Air Force Base Thursday. I would jumpseat out on an overnite freighter, fly the mission and fly back with Larry. I arrived at Andrews Base Operations at 07:30 Friday morning having not slept since the previous morning. Briefing was at 08:30.
A Colonel stood up and thanked us all for being there. He addressed us in terms that all present could understand. He spoke of the importance of this mission and made it clear the consequences of a screwup would involve anatomical alteration. No one had questions. Never before had a non-active military aircraft participated in a fly-over at the national cemetery. It was obvious the Air Force was more than just a little concerned about a 50 year old airplane flown by civilians involved in this high visibility operation.
A Lt. Col. who was to lead the flight took over the operational portion of the briefing. He described a scenario where 4 F-16s, 4 F-15s, a C-141, a B-1B, and a B-25 would fly over the gravesite (target) in 12 second intervals. The turbine equipment would be traveling at 300 knots ground speed. The B-25 will not travel at 300 knots ground speed. This problem was to be solved by having the jets fly a longer, dog-leg, course and the B-25 fly at 180 knots directly to the target. At the last moment we would fall in trail of the jets. The holding fix was 18 nautical from the target so we would be leaving much earlier than the jets.
The F-16 would load the coordinates in to its navigation system and it would give the lead pilot an airspeed to fly to be on time. For spacing the F-15 would use tactical radar, The C-141, air to air TACAN, The B-1 would also use tactical radar, The briefer turned to us and said, "what will you use?" Mullaly replied, "a stopwatch and a sectional." There was to be no practice. It was a one shot deal. One of the F-16 pilots had a hand held GPS which he offered to us. We accepted. As we discussed the mission it became apparent this was not going to be an easy one. The F-16's had another fly-over to do in the morning. They shot gun camera video so we would at least see the area from the air once.
Tension, Terror, and about 32 hours without sleep were beginning to take a toll on me when we cranked up at 13:50 on time. Taxiing out Andrew's tower advised that National approach was unable to deliver the airspace for our 14:00 launch. Our engine temperatures were getting close to limits when we cleared for take-off at 14:10. We anticipated the time over target (TOT) at 14:45 to 15:00 so time was not an issue. The plan was to go to holding, get settled in, figure out the winds aloft and be ready for the call.
Moments after we entered the hold at 14:18 the controller advised us that the TOT was 14:30. No time to settle in. Turn inbound, descend to 1000 AGL and get started with time, speed and distance problems. At about 5 miles from the target we picked up the jet stream at 5 o'clock and closing fast, it was apparent however that we were a little early. I told Larry to do some turns, I meant "S" turns and half way around I realized that he thought I meant 360s. Now we were going to be late and not much time to catch up. "Tighten up the turn, METO (maximum except takeoff) power" I called.
We put the B-1 on the right 45 line and cut the angle off. As we rolled out in trail of the jet stream, 1 mile from the target, perfectly in position, the tension, terror and fear of anatomical alteration, gave way to an overall feeling of pride, satisfaction and a big lump in my throat. Larry rocked the wings and broadcast "So long Jimmy."
In our violent and seemingly lawless society we need more honor and more heroes. Jimmy Doolittle never asked what was in the raid for him, everyone new, nearly certain death. That is a hero, a real hero. When we fly these old birds, whether at a funeral or a flight breakfast, we must never forget we fly them to honor our heroes. Those here, and those gone west. As I went to bed that night I thought, What an honor... "So long Jimmy"
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