At the Nimitz Pacific Museum in Fredericksburg, TX, there is a full scale mockup of part of the Hornet’s flight deck, with an actual B-25B and a mural of others lined up behind. There is a sound track of a Wright engine, cranking . . over . . and over, but it never catches. If that had been true to 1942 there were guys with tractors to push the crate over the side to give room for the others to take off. Fortunately that didn’t happen. Apparently there was plenty of wind over the deck to make the takeoffs successful also.
A few years ago at the University of Texas Dallas, there was a sort of Doolittle memorial gathering where we had a signalman from Hornet, who dropped the flag to signal the start of the takeoffs, and a gunner from the No. 4 B-25. These guys met there for the first time in 52 years. Very touching experience.
The next Doolittle reunion is mid-April at the USAF Museum in Dayton. They’re trying to have the largest gathering of B-25s since right after WWII ended, over 25 of them.
Also, the B-25 at the nimitz museum isn’t a B model. There’s only one of those in existence and it’s in pieces out at Aerotrader in Cali. Awaiting someone with $$$ to restore it, it’s only 3 S/Ns off Doolittles bird. All the other Doolittle-representative Mitchells out there are vizmodded back dates from later models. NMUSAF’s is either a D or an F-10, Pacific Museum in Pearl’s is a J.