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To: mosesdapoet
“After a weeks long journey of 100 miles skirting the Chna coast the crew was picked up by an American plane”

WOW! Now that is the other half of their story and a movie that was never made.

Actually, this half of the story was told as part of a movie plot --in 1944.

The movie was 'Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo" starring Spencer Tracy, Van Johnson, Robert Walker, Don Defore and a very young, Robert Mitchum.

Van Johnson's character in the movie (Ted Lawson) looks like it was based on what happened to Edward Saylor.

17 posted on 04/13/2012 3:34:30 PM PDT by Ol' Dan Tucker (People should not be afraid of the government. Government should be afraid of the people)
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To: Ol' Dan Tucker

Yea I saw the movie when it first came out. It covered part of the story but not what was (logistics n stuff like that)behind the rescue missions plus the flight out. Those emergency airfields, like the ones in Yugoslavia were secret at the time . .


19 posted on 04/13/2012 4:51:20 PM PDT by mosesdapoet (The best way to punish a - country is let professors run it. Fredrick the Great p/p)
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To: Ol' Dan Tucker

Great movie!!..Very stirring theme music, and the shot when they fly the plane UNDER the Bay Bridge is a classic...


20 posted on 04/13/2012 6:10:02 PM PDT by ken5050 (The ONLY reason to support Mitt: The Mormon Tabernacle Choir will appear at the WH each Christmas)
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To: Ol' Dan Tucker
Van Johnson's character in the movie (Ted Lawson) looks like it was based on what happened to Edward Saylor.

Ted Lawson was the actual Pilot of Plane #7 ("The Ruptured Duck) and 30 Seconds is a pretty accurate presentation of what happened.

David Thatcher, one of the last five, was his flight engineer/turret gunner. Despite what the WashTimes article says, the other crew of The Ruptured Duck did not suffer "minor injuries" but were seriously wounded. Lawson and Davenport (the Co-Pilot) were attempting a wheels-down landing on a beach when both engines cut out due to fuel-starvation. The plane hit the water with the gear down. Lawson and Davenport were catapulted, still in their seats, through the cockpit glass. In 30-Seconds Lawson describes in detail having to unbuckle himself from the seat - now outside the aircraft and under water. Lawson lost all of his front teeth and tore his leg up (it caught on the hook for the pilot's headset) to the point where it had to be amputated. He also broke his back in the "ejection", something that wasn't learned until much later and he spent the rest of his life (died in the early 1990s) in serious pain.

McClure, the navigator, was kneeling behind Lawson and Davenport in the cockpit. The force of his shoulders hitting the back of their seats helped propel them - with Lawson and Davenport still in them - out through the canopy. Both his shoulders were dislocated in the process.

Clever, the bombardier, was crawling back into the main part of the aircraft through the "tunnel" from the greenhouse nose. He was shot, backside first, out the front of the aircraft.

Thatcher, in the back of the plane, was well-protected.

While the WashTimes article is a nice tribute, it's unfortunately rife with inaccuracies. For instance, Plane #8 didn't crash-land in Russia. It landed intact and operational at an aerodrome outside of Vladivostok (in recent years post-raid pictures of it have emerged from the old Soviet archives), where it was interred and pressed into service with the Red Air Force. It apparently survived until the early 1950s, when it was consumed in a fire (*sob*). Here's a picture of the plane taken outside Vladivostok the day after the Raid:



As an aside: note the heavy exhaust staining caused by the specially-tuned engines of the plane. The Raider aircrafts' engines had been tuned to boost fuel efficiency - apparently had the other planes survives their engines would have been pretty burned out and needed to be swapped out/overhauled following the Raid.

Additionally, contrary to the article the Raiders got an ENORMOUS amount of press attention after the Raid. All were awarded the DFC and Doolittle was awarded the Medal of Honor. There was a big LIFE magazine spread on the Raid (with pictures of all the Raiders), followed by Lawson's book ... which led to the movie with Spencer Tracey and Van Johnson.
21 posted on 04/14/2012 11:07:15 AM PDT by tanknetter
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