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Jaw Dropping World War II Stories that Deserve to be in the History Books

Khalid Elhassan August 25, 2021 37 min

Skeeter Vaughan's knife throwing feat earned him a place in history — Skeeter Vaughan. Film Web

Francis Stuart Low, whose great feat of intuition led to the Tokyo Raid. Wikimedia

25. A Sailor’s Brainstorm Kicks Off a Great Feat of Arms

Striking back at Japan seemed beyond reach until US Navy Captain Francis Stuart Low happened to look down as he flew over Chambers Field at Norfolk Naval Station in Virginia. Below was a runway painted with the outline of an aircraft carrier’s deck. That was not unusual in itself: carrier pilots routinely practiced takeoffs and landings on such simulated decks on the ground. That day, however, there were some twin-engine Army bombers parked nearby. In one of those sudden insights that occasionally strike gifted military men, Low linked the Army bombers to the adjacent painted carrier deck outline. Why, he thought, not meld the assets of two services to launch long-range Army bombers from a Navy carrier’s deck?

Jimmy Doolittle, pictured here aboard his Curtis RC32 racing plane, with which he won the Schneider Cup trophy in 1925, accomplished many an aviation feat before WWII — Jimmy Doolittle aboard his Curtis RC32 racing plane, with which he won the Schneider Cup trophy in 1925. Disciples of Flight

On January 10, 1942, Captain Low, Assistant Chief of Staff for antisubmarine warfare, took his idea to Admiral Ernest J. King, Commander in Chief of the US Fleet. King thought the idea had potential, so he ran it by Henry “Hap” Arnold, the US Army Air Forces head honcho. Arnold liked the idea, and planning began for a top-secret mission to launch long-range Army bombers from an aircraft carrier to hit Japan. To organize the raid, Arnold picked Lieutenant Colonel James Harold “Jimmy” Doolittle, who had been a famous airplane racer, test pilot, and aeronautical engineer who had pulled off many an extraordinary aviation feat before the war.

Written by

Khalid Elhassan

A lifelong history buff, I developed a particular passion for WW2 history as a child, when I spent hours listening to my grandfather, enraptured, as he recounted his wartime experiences in the British East African Campaign and with the British 8th Army in North Africa.

I graduated with a history BA from George Mason University, then went on to get a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law. After lawyering for a decade, I moved to sunny Rio de Janeiro and a less demanding career, opening a tourism agency in Copacabana.

A big chunk of my free time is spent blogging (you can follow me on Quora https://www.quora.com/profile/Khalid-Elhassan ) or freelance writing, mostly about my favorite subject, history.