James “Jimmy” H. Doolittle

In 2003, celebrating the 100th anniversary of manned-flight, Aviation Week published a list of the top 100 international luminaries in aviation and aerospace, based on a poll of industry professionals. The list, headed by Wilbur and Orville Wright, features familiar names such as Glenn Curtiss, William Boeing, Igor Sikorsky and Donald Douglas. Included in that collection of important and influential aerospace individuals is James “Jimmy” H. Doolittle. Doolittle’s career spanned most of aviation’s first century and he is recognized as a record setting aviator, an accomplished scholar and engineer, a leader in industry, an air force commander and a war hero. The story of Jimmy Doolittle’s life and his contributions to the development of aviation is summarized in this note.

The Early Years
James “Jimmy” Harold Doolittle was born in Alameda, Calif., on December 14, 1896. Soon after his birth, his father, Frank Doolittle, a carpenter by trade, heard that gold was discovered near Nome, Alaska. Frank left his wife and son in California and moved to Western Alaska hoping to find his share of the rare metal. At the age of three and a half, Jimmy‘s mother brought him to Alaska to join his father. Jimmy spent his youth in Nome, where, being small in stature, he often had to defend himself from the local bullies. Feisty Jimmy Doolittle soon earned a reputation as a capable brawler and boxer. Because of the basic living conditions and the limited educational opportunities in Nome, Jimmy’s mother brought him back to Los Angeles, Calif., when he was 11 years old to enable him to get a proper education and to experience “modern living.”

In 1910 Jimmy’s Manual Arts High School class attended the Los Angeles International Air Meet at Dominguez Field (present day Carson, Calif.). That event was the first major airshow in the United States and it left Doolittle with a fascination for aviation.

He continued to hone his boxing skills under the guidance of a high school boxing instructor and won the West Coast high school amateur flyweight championship in 1912.

After graduating from high school in 1914 he went to Alaska to reunite with his father, but returned to California the following year where he was admitted to the University of California School of Mines at Berkeley with the goal of getting a degree in mining engineering. During his time at Berkeley, Doolittle continued to box and became the middleweight champion, even though he was only a lightweight boxer (the University’s lightweight and welterweight positions were filled so Doolittle competed in the middleweight category).

Army Aviator
In October 1917, six months after America entered the Great War, Doolittle took a leave of absence from his studies to enlist in the U.S. Army Signal Corps Reserve as a flying cadet. His aviation ground school training was conducted on the campus of the University of California and flight training was performed at Rockwell Field near Coronado, California.

With the prospect of receiving a steady pay check from the Army, Doolittle persuaded his girlfriend Josephine “Joe” Daniels to marry him and they were wed on Christmas Eve 1917, while Jimmy was still a flying cadet.

On March 11, 1918, Jimmy Doolittle received his Reserve Military Aviator rating and was commissioned a second lieutenant in the Signal Officers Reserve Corps of the U.S. Army.

Although he requested to be transferred to the European theater to contribute to the war effort as a fighter pilot, Doolittle was ordered to stay in the United States as a flight and gunnery . . .