Raider Griffin dies just short of 71st reunion

摘要

Doolittle Raider Maj Thomas Griffin died on February 26 in a nursing home in northern Kentucky on at the age of 96, just weeks before the 71st, and final Doolittle Raiders reunion at Fort Walton Beach, Florida, reports Richard Mallory Allnutt. The passing of Griffin - who was the navigator aboard the Whirling Dervish, the ninth North American B-25 Mitchell to launch from the USS Hornet for the attack on Tokyo - leaves just four veterans of the audacious, April 1942 raid on Tokyo (see The Greatest Gathering, July 2010 Aeroplane). The Whirling Dervish, flown by Lt Harold Watson, bombed Tokyo, but afterwards the aircraft ran out of fuel and the crew was forced to bail out over Chinese territory. Griffin and his crewmates then spent several weeks on the run, hopping from one villager's house to the next as the enemy pursued them relentlessly.