Talk:Jimmy Doolittle

Picture of Doolittle receiving 4th star.

The caption under the picture of Reagan & Goldwater pinning a 4th star on Gen. Doolittle states Doolittle is "the first Airman to wear 4 stars". This is most certainly incorrect as many Air Force officers were 4 star generals long before Doolittle received his 4th star. (Such as Curtis LeMay & Hoyt Vandenberg jsut to name 2 of many. This should be removed from the caption. (I'm not 100% sure how to do it myself) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.0.149.250 (talk) 04:15, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

Bachelor's degree

The article argues with itself in regard to Doolittle's Bachelor's degree:

Having at last returned to complete his college degree, he earned the Bachelor of Arts from the University of California, Berkeley in 1922.

Doolittle was awarded a Bachelor of Arts degree by the University of California, even though he had never finished his studies after leaving to enlist during World War I.

Did he actually finish his studies, or was the degree simply granted by the University of California?68.117.97.62 (talk) 04:30, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

JIMMY DOLITTLE HAD A DOCTORAL degree from MIT IN Areonautical Engineering according to a program on the doolittle raid. someone should look into this. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Libertybear2 (talk • contribs) 15:19, 14 February 2014 (UTC)

Picture of Doolittle and Lemay

The picture states that it is a photo of Dolittle and "Colonel" LeMay taken in 1944. LeMay was at least a brigadier general and most likely major general in 1944.

65.122.111.70 (talk) 15:32, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

My father took that picture, and at the time of the photo LeMay was a Colonel. Googie man (talk) 16:19, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

Doolittle's service as chairman of NACA (National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics)

NACA was the predecessor to NASA, and Doolittle was it's chairman for 2 years i believe. some mention and discussion should be added to include this service.

Other Civilian Contributions

At one time, Gen. Doolittle was chairman of the President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board

He also served as a trustee of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, becoming in time the Chairman of the MIT Corporation board. I believe that he had a number of different research-related activities regarding his MIT alumna mater.

These are both significant contributions to the nation and to higher education and research. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 216.67.43.60 (talk) 00:41, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

You can verify this information at the MIT web site/ —Preceding unsigned comment added by 209.112.221.238 (talk) 08:22, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

Doolittle air-racing career

How strange. Only a dozen words about Doolittle the racer and not a mention of the GeeBee, one of the most notorious airplanes he ever flew. There were three legs to the Doolittle stool: Doolittle the test pilot/technologist/engineer, Doolittle the war hero and Doolittle the air racer. The last is barely acknowledged, though it could be argued that the advances he helped to foster through his racing were if not as important as his other aviation activities, at least significant.---- — Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.62.39.145 (talk) 15:27, 16 January 2012 (UTC)

"A single reference suggests ..."

I propose the deletion of this paragraph. It's prejudicial, in a sense any American court would recognize; it comes from an acknowledged unreliable source; and it is inconsistent with Doolittle's character as established by more reliable sources. If it was a notable claim, it would warrant inclusion in spite of its dubiousness, but it's not even a particularly notable claim. --Yaush (talk) 16:39, 21 January 2014 (UTC)

Doolittle court martial that he himself suggested.

Doolittle, given all the credit for his aviation skills should have been courtmartialed for allowing the group of B-25's to continue the operation given that the aircraft were so terribly unprepared for the mission resulting in a botched mission and un-necessary loss of crews and loss of all 16 aircraft. Auxilliary fuel tanks were a given but the aircraft were fitted with homemade, rectangular tanks that leaked. Professional, built-for-purpose tanks were available off the shelf and could have provided at least enough extra fuel to drop bombs on Japan and carry on to inland China. All the navigational devices were useless. Couldn't they find a compass that showed direction? Since the carrier made takeoff questionable because of the limited length of "runway' why did they not consider JATO that was well proven by 1942? Far from being decorated, he should have been discharged and grounded. How may more lives of airmen after Tokyo was he responsible for? David Laker ( with a little flight deck experience) 71.30.206.171 (talk) 19:23, 10 March 2024 (UTC)

Picture of Doolittle at Surrender of Japan

Doolittle in top-left corner of Japan's Surrender

I have a brochure from the American Aviation Historical Society that Gen. Doolittle autographed in Dec. 1976 pertaining to his 80th birthday. It includes an alternate-angle photo similar to this one (apparently made from a motion-picture film of the event), which identifies him standing leftmost in the front row of Americans. Is there any problem or argument against adding this to the article's "World War II, post-raid" or "Postwar" section?--Funhistory (talk) 03:25, 30 March 2024 (UTC)

Ultra

Not sure how best to put it right, but the article's claim that Doolittle irresponsibly flew over enemy territory in the Mediterranean and North-West Europe while cleared Ultra is extremely dubious. The cited online article is not reliable and also claims that Patton was cleared Ultra, which he certainly wasn't. (When warned by a British 'Phantom' signals liaison officer in August 1944 about the imminent German counter-attack at Mortain, Patton was very put out and demanded to know how long this unknown officer had been attached to his headquarters and what authority he had. And even 'Phantom' officers, being liable to capture, did not know the source of the intelligence they were passing on.) You could be allowed to receive the disguised results of Ultra intelligence, but the number of officers in the field who knew the source -- cleared Ultras -- was very small. In Normandy, the only Ultras were Generals Montgomery, Bradley and Dempsey. When Doolittle commanded Eighth Air Force at High Wycombe in 1944-5, his neighbour Sir Arthur Harris of RAF Bomber Command was not an Ultra -- he was aware of a special intelligence source of that name, and even that knowledge was a rare privilege, but he did not know what the source was. There was no need for Doolittle to know either, so he presumably didn't, especially as he was given to flying over enemy territory on occasion. Khamba Tendal (talk) 18:26, 8 August 2024 (UTC)