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Jimmy Doolittle

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In the United States military, a general is the most senior general -grade officer; it is the highest achievable commissioned officer rank (or echelon) that may be attained in the United States Armed Forces , with exception of the Navy and Coast Guard , which have the equivalent rank of admiral instead. The official and formal insignia of "general" is defined by its four stars (commonly silver and in a row).

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98-591: James Harold Doolittle (December 14, 1896 – September 27, 1993) was an American military general and aviation pioneer who received the Medal of Honor for his raid on Japan during World War II , known as the Doolittle Raid in his honor. He made early coast-to-coast flights and record-breaking speed flights, won many flying races, and helped develop flight-test instrument flying . Doolittle grew up in Nome, Alaska . He attended

196-696: A Bachelor of Arts from the University of California, Berkeley in 1922, and joined the Lambda Chi Alpha fraternity. Doolittle was one of the most famous pilots during the inter-war period. On September 4, 1922, he made the first of many pioneering flights, flying a de Havilland DH-4 —which was equipped with early navigational instruments—in the first cross-country flight, from Pablo Beach (now Jacksonville Beach ), Florida , to Rockwell Field, San Diego , California, in 21 hours and 19 minutes, making only one refueling stop at Kelly Field. The U.S. Army awarded him

294-729: A Laird Super Solution biplane. In 1932, Doolittle set the world's high-speed record for land planes at 296 miles per hour (476 km/h) in the Shell Speed Dash. Later, he took the Thompson Trophy race at Cleveland in the notorious Gee Bee R-1 racer with a speed averaging 252 miles per hour (406 km/h). After having won the three big air racing trophies of the time, the Schneider, Bendix, and Thompson, he officially retired from air racing, stating, "I have yet to hear anyone engaged in this work dying of old age." In April 1934, Doolittle

392-795: A test pilot and aeronautical engineer at McCook Field, Doolittle entered the Massachusetts Institute of Technology . In March 1924, he conducted aircraft acceleration tests at McCook Field, which became the basis of his master's thesis and led to his second Distinguished Flying Cross. He received his SM degree in Aeronautics from MIT in June 1924. Because the Army had given him two years to get his degree and he had done it in just one, he immediately started working on his Sc.D. in Aeronautics, which he received in June 1925. His doctorate in aeronautical engineering

490-442: A Regular Army commission as a 1st Lieutenant, Air Service, on July 1, 1920. On May 10, 1921, he was engineering officer and pilot for an expedition recovering a plane that had force-landed in a Mexican canyon on February 10 during a transcontinental flight attempt by Alexander Pearson Jr. Doolittle reached the plane on May 3 and found it serviceable, then returned May 8 with a replacement motor and four mechanics. The oil pressure of

588-463: A building as a library, for instance, may without inconsistency rejoice in all the sumptuous glories of Roman architecture or the Renaissance; the tradition of the world leads on naturally enough in this direction. But ... such delicate and highly organized motives find little place in a Mining Building, which demands a treatment, while no less beautiful, much more primitive, less elaborately developed in

686-540: A fatal aerobatic maneuver , and two years later, in 1929, pioneered the use of "blind flying", where a pilot relies on flight instruments alone, which later won him the Harmon Trophy and made all-weather airline operations practical. Doolittle was a flying instructor during World War I and a reserve officer in the United States Army Air Corps , but was recalled to active duty during World War II. He

784-523: A flight leader and gunnery instructor. At Kelly Field, he served with the 104th Aero Squadron and with the 90th Aero Squadron of the 1st Surveillance Group . His detachment of the 90th Aero Squadron was based at Eagle Pass , patrolling the Mexican border. Recommended by three officers for retention in the Air Service during demobilization at the end of the war, Doolittle qualified by examination and received

882-647: A joking message: "You're slipping Jimmy. There's one crabapple tree and one stable still standing." Maj. Gen. Doolittle took command of the Fifteenth Air Force in the Mediterranean Theater of Operations in November 1943. On June 10, he flew as co-pilot with Jack Sims, fellow Tokyo Raider, in a B-26 Marauder of the 320th Bombardment Group , 442nd Bombardment Squadron on a mission to attack gun emplacements at Pantelleria . Doolittle continued to fly, despite

980-479: A more modern design were used in the new construction. The Lawson Adit - a horizontal mining tunnel - is directly to the east of the building. Construction of the Hearst Memorial Mining Building began in 1902, and the building was completed in 1907, with a dedication ceremony held on August 23 of that year. The $ 1.065 million construction cost was a gift of Phoebe Apperson Hearst , dedicated to

1078-464: A nominee deemed to serve national interests. The nominee must be confirmed by the United States Senate before the appointee can take office and assume the rank. General ranks may also be given by act of Congress but this is extremely rare. The standard tour for most general/flag officers is a two-year term with the possibility of being renominated for an additional term(s). Note: Chairman of

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1176-442: A plain honest man and good miner. The stature and mould of his life bespoke the pioneers who gave their strength to riskful search in the hard places of the earth. He had warm heart toward his fellow men and his hand was ready to kindly deed. Taking his wealth from the hills he filched from no man's store and lessened no man's opportunity. The rooms to the south and west of the vestibule were originally administrative offices, including

1274-522: A reign of terror so horrendous that missionaries would later dub it 'the Rape of Nancheng.' " evoking memories of the infamous Rape of Nanjing five years before. Less than a month later, the Japanese forces put what remained of the city to the torch. "This planned burning was carried on for three days," one Chinese newspaper reported, "and the city of Nancheng became charred earth." When Japanese troops moved out of

1372-409: A scale that nobody needed since no aircraft existed that required a fuel that nobody made. Some fellow employees would call his effort "Doolittle's million-dollar blunder" but time would prove him correct. Before this the Army had considered 100-octane tests using pure octane but at $ 25 a gallon it did not happen. By 1936 tests at Wright Field using a cheaper alternative to pure octane proved the value of

1470-574: A string of three air crashes in two months at Elizabeth, New Jersey , the President of the United States, Harry S. Truman , appointed him to lead a presidential commission examining the safety of urban airports. The report "Airports and Their Neighbors" led to zoning requirements for buildings near approaches, early noise control requirements, and initial work on "super airports" with 10,000-foot (3,000 m) runways, suited to 150 ton aircraft. Doolittle

1568-515: A vice president, and later as a director. In the summer of 1946, Doolittle went to Stockholm where he consulted about the " ghost rockets " that had been observed over Scandinavia . In 1947, Doolittle became the first president of the Air Force Association , an organization which he helped create. In 1948, Doolittle advocated the desegregation of the US military. He wrote, "I am convinced that

1666-553: Is designated as part of California Historical Landmark #946. It was designed by John Galen Howard , with the assistance of architect and Berkeley alumna Julia Morgan and the Dean of the College of Mines at that time, Samuel B. Christy. It was the first building on that campus designed by Howard. Construction began in 1902 as part of the Phoebe Hearst campus development plan . The building

1764-512: Is of the classical tradition. The roof tiles are reminiscent of Spanish roofing tiles used in late (post-1790) California mission architecture. As the building's centerpiece, the center vestibule was made notable from the exterior by being made the highest point of the building's facade. Howard unified the exterior facade not by the classical elements of symmetry and hierarchy, but rather filled in voids with ornamental details. Six granite corbel sculptures created by Robert Ingersoll Aitken support

1862-424: Is temporary; the active rank of general can only be held for so long- though upon retirement, if satisfactory service requirements are met, the general or admiral is normally allowed to hold that rank in retirement, rather than reverting to a lower position, as was formerly the usual case. Their active rank expires with the expiration of their term of office, which is usually set by statute. Generals are nominated for

1960-553: The 1910 Los Angeles International Air Meet at Dominguez Field , Doolittle saw his first airplane. He attended Los Angeles City College after graduating from Manual Arts High School , together with later film director Frank Capra , in Los Angeles . He entered the University of California, Berkeley , where he studied at the College of Mines . He was a member of Theta Kappa Nu fraternity, which later merged into Lambda Chi Alpha during

2058-500: The Battle of Midway in June 1942. When asked from where the Tokyo raid was launched, President Roosevelt coyly said its base was Shangri-La , a fictional paradise from the popular novel and film Lost Horizon . In the same vein, the U.S. Navy named one of its Essex -class fleet carriers USS  Shangri-La . In July 1942, as a brigadier general —he had been promoted by two grades on

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2156-569: The Beaux-Arts style that defined Howard's vision for the Hearst campus plan. In order to help them realize this vision, Hearst funded a trip for Howard and Christy to visit mining schools throughout the United States and Europe so that they could study standardized architectural forms for mining schools, as libraries and hospitals had realized in their own architectural evolution. Howard and Christy did not find many examples of mining colleges—the majority of

2254-672: The Distinguished Flying Cross . Within days after the transcontinental flight, he was at the Air Service Engineering School (a precursor to the Air Force Institute of Technology ) at McCook Field, Dayton, Ohio. For Doolittle, the school assignment had special significance: "I had applied for the Engineering School because I thought there should be a better rapport between the aeronautical engineer and

2352-676: The Harmon Trophy for conducting the experiments. These accomplishments made all-weather airline operations practical. In January 1930, Doolittle advised the Army on the construction of Floyd Bennett Field in New York City. Doolittle resigned his regular commission on February 15, 1930, and was commissioned a Major in the Air Reserve Corps a month later, being named manager of the Aviation Department of Shell Oil Company , in which capacity he conducted numerous aviation tests. While in

2450-725: The Twelfth Air Force , soon to be operating in North Africa. He was promoted to major general in November 1942, and in March 1943 became commanding general of the Northwest African Strategic Air Force , a unified command of U.S. Army Air Force and Royal Air Force units. In September, he commanded a raid against the Italian town of Battipaglia that was so thorough in its destruction that General Carl Andrew Spaatz sent him

2548-501: The University of California, Berkeley , is home to the university's Materials Science and Engineering Department, with research and teaching spaces for the subdisciplines of biomaterials ; chemical and electrochemical materials; computational materials; electronic, magnetic, and optical materials; and structural materials. The Beaux-Arts -style Classical Revival building is listed in the National Register of Historic Places and

2646-406: The University of California, Berkeley , where he graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in 1922. That year, he made the first cross-country flight in an Airco DH.4 , and in 1925, was awarded a doctorate in aeronautics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology , the first such doctorate degree issued in the United States. In 1927, he performed the first outside loop , thought at the time to be

2744-669: The Zhejiang-Jiangxi campaign (also known as Operation Sei-go) to prevent these eastern coastal provinces of China from being used again for an attack on Japan and to take revenge on the Chinese people. An area of some 20,000 sq mi (50,000 km) was laid waste. "Like a swarm of locusts, they left behind nothing but destruction and chaos," eyewitness Father Wendelin Dunker wrote. The Japanese killed an estimated 10,000 Chinese civilians during their search for Doolittle's men. People who aided

2842-586: The 12th, 15th and 8th Air Forces in Europe. The other surviving members of the Doolittle raid also went on to new assignments. Doolittle received the Medal of Honor from President Franklin D. Roosevelt at the White House for planning and leading his raid on Japan. His citation reads: "For conspicuous leadership above and beyond the call of duty, involving personal valor and intrepidity at an extreme hazard to life. With

2940-551: The 1930s when I met Robert H. Goddard , who laid the foundation [in the US]. ... While with Shell [Oil] I worked with him on the development of a type of [rocket] fuel. ... " Harry Guggenheim , whose foundation sponsored Goddard's work, and Charles Lindbergh , who encouraged Goddard's efforts, arranged for (then Major) Doolittle to discuss with Goddard a special blend of gasoline. Doolittle piloted himself to Roswell, New Mexico in October 1938 and

3038-491: The 51 Heroes of Aviation. He died in 1993 at the age of 96, and was buried at Arlington National Cemetery . Doolittle was born December 14, 1896, in Alameda, California . He spent his youth in Nome, Alaska , where he earned a reputation as a boxer. His parents were Frank Henry Doolittle and Rosa (Rose) Cerenah Doolittle ( née  Shephard ). By 1910, Jimmy Doolittle was attending school in Los Angeles . When his school attended

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3136-540: The Air Corps Reserve. During this time, in 1927 he was the first to perform an outside loop , previously thought to be a fatal maneuver. Carried out in a Curtiss fighter at Wright Field in Ohio, Doolittle executed the dive from 10,000 feet (3,000 m), reached 280 miles per hour (450 km/h), bottomed out upside down, then climbed and completed the loop. Doolittle's most important contribution to aeronautical technology

3234-590: The Army Air Forces in the grade of lieutenant general, a rarity in those days when reserve officers were usually limited to the rank of major general or rear admiral, a restriction that would not end in the US armed forces until the 21st century. He retired from the United States Army on 10 May 1946. On 18 September 1947, his reserve commission as a general officer was transferred to the newly established United States Air Force . Doolittle returned to Shell Oil as

3332-837: The Army the Chief of Staff and the Vice Chief of Staff are generals; for the Marine Corps, the Commandant and the Assistant Commandant are both generals; for the Air Force, the Chief of Staff and Vice Chief of Staff are generals; and for the Space Force, the Chief of Space Operations , and the Vice Chief of Space Operations are generals. In addition, for the National Guard, the Chief of

3430-607: The European air war occurred late in 1943—and primarily after he took command of the Eighth Air Force on January 6, 1944—when he changed the policy of requiring escorting fighters to remain with their bombers at all times. Instead, he permitted escort fighters to fly far ahead of the bombers' combat box formations, allowing them to freely engage the German fighters lying in wait for the bombers. Throughout most of 1944, this tactic negated

3528-543: The JCS, Vice Chairman of the JCS and Service chiefs, to include the Chief of the National Guard Bureau are usually renominated for a second two-year term. Appointment of general/flag officers (3-star or above) is a temporary promotion lasting only for the duration of the job assignment. Upon retirement general/flag officers revert to their permanent two-star rank of Major General or Rear Admiral unless they are nominated by

3626-401: The National Guard Bureau is a general under active duty in the Army or Air Force. There are several exceptions to these limits allowing more than allotted within the statute: Finally, all statutory limits may be waived at the President's discretion during time of war or national emergency. Four-star grades go hand-in-hand with the positions of office to which they are linked, so the rank

3724-598: The New York area. He won the Schneider Cup race in a Curtiss R3C in 1925 with an average speed of 232 miles per hour (373 km/h). For that feat, Doolittle was awarded the Mackay Trophy in 1926. In April 1926, Doolittle was given a leave of absence to go to South America to perform demonstration flights for Curtiss Aircraft. In Chile , he broke both ankles while demonstrating his acrobatic abilities in an incident that

3822-482: The Office of the Dean. Lecture halls and the museum curator's office were on the south and east sides, respectively. In the central court to the north of the vestibule was the mining laboratory, and on the east and west ends of the laboratory were the metallurgic and research labs, a library, offices and lecture space. The 3-story-tall tower at the north end of the building was used for the crushing of dry ore. Adjacent east of

3920-544: The President to retire at a higher rank (which has become the normal practice in recent years.) Extensions of the standard tour length can be approved, within statutory limits but these are rare, as they block other officers from being promoted. Some statutory limits can be waived in times of national emergency or war. Other than voluntary retirement, statute sets a number of mandates for retirement. A general must retire after 40 years of service unless they are reappointed to serve longer. Otherwise all general officers must retire

4018-463: The Reserve, he also returned to temporary active duty with the Army frequently to conduct tests. Doolittle helped influence Shell Oil Company to produce the first quantities of 100 octane aviation gasoline. High octane fuel was crucial to the high-performance planes that were developed in the late 1930s. In 1931, Doolittle won the first Bendix Trophy race from Burbank, California , to Cleveland , in

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4116-564: The United States in 1881, earning notability for his work in the Boston Public Library vaults in the 1890s. Howard and the Guastavino Company kept a professional correspondence prior to the construction of the mining building, and Howard hired Guastavino's workers to install the tilework. A plaque dedicated to George Hearst was placed on the north wall of the entryway, reading: This building stands as memorial to George Hearst,

4214-485: The Zhejiang and Jiangxi areas in mid-August, they left behind a trail of devastation. Chinese estimates put the civilian death toll at 250,000. The Imperial Japanese Army had also spread cholera , typhoid , plague infected fleas and dysentery pathogens. The Japanese biological warfare Unit 731 brought almost 300 pounds (140 kg) of paratyphoid and anthrax to be left in contaminated food and contaminated wells with

4312-621: The aircraft carrier USS Hornet . On April 18, Doolittle and his 16 B-25 crews took off from Hornet , reached Japan, and bombed their targets. Fifteen of the planes then headed for their recovery airfield in China, while one crew chose to land in Russia due to their bomber's unusually high fuel consumption. As did most of the other crewmen who participated in the one-way mission, Doolittle and his crew bailed out safely over China when their B-25 ran out of fuel. By then, they had been flying for about 12 hours, it

4410-591: The aircraft carrier USS  Hornet , with targets in Tokyo , Kobe , Yokohama , Osaka and Nagoya . After training at Eglin Field and Wagner Field in northwest Florida, Doolittle, his aircraft, and volunteer flight crews proceeded to McClellan Field , California for aircraft modifications at the Sacramento Air Depot, followed by a short final flight to Naval Air Station Alameda , California for embarkation aboard

4508-437: The airmen were tortured before they were killed. Father Dunker wrote of the destruction of the town of Ihwang: "They shot any man, woman, child, cow, hog, or just about anything that moved, They raped any woman from the ages of 10–65, and before burning the town they thoroughly looted it ... None of the humans shot were buried either ..." The Japanese entered Nancheng ( Jiangxi ), population 50,000 on June 11, "beginning

4606-429: The apparent certainty of being forced to land in enemy territory or to perish at sea, Lt. Col. Doolittle personally led a squadron of Army bombers, manned by volunteer crews, in a highly destructive raid on the Japanese mainland." He was also promoted to brigadier general. The Doolittle Raid is viewed by historians as a major morale-building victory for the United States. Although the damage done to Japanese war industry

4704-634: The appointment by the President from any eligible officers holding the rank of brigadier general or above who meet the requirements for the position, with the advice of the Secretary of Defense , service secretary ( Secretary of the Army , Secretary of the Navy , or Secretary of the Air Force ), and if applicable the Joint Chiefs of Staff . For some positions, statute allows the President to waive those requirements for

4802-432: The buildings they visited were originally built for other purposes. Howard feared that the scant number examples to study would make his design prone to the mistakes of an architectural form early in its evolution. This problem is what inspired Howard to create an "elastic" design—the building's exterior shell would be built separate from the interior, so that the interior could be modified in the future without having to scrap

4900-537: The day after the Tokyo attack, bypassing the rank of full colonel —Doolittle was assigned to the nascent Eighth Air Force . This followed his rejection by General Douglas MacArthur as commander of the South West Pacific Area to replace Major General George Brett . Major General Frank Andrews first turned down the position and offered a choice between George Kenney and Doolittle, MacArthur chose Kenney. In September, Doolittle became commanding general of

4998-624: The effectiveness of the twin-engined Zerstörergeschwader heavy fighter wings and single-engined Sturmgruppen of heavily armed Fw 190As by clearing the Luftwaffe 's bomber destroyers from ahead of the bomber formations. After the bombers had hit their targets, the American fighters were free to strafe German airfields, transportation, and other "targets of opportunity" on their return flight to base. These tasks were initially performed with Lockheed P-38 Lightnings and Republic P-47 Thunderbolts through

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5096-411: The end of 1943. They were progressively replaced with the long-ranged North American P-51 Mustangs as the spring of 1944 wore on. Secretary of War Robert P. Patterson asked Doolittle on March 27, 1946, to head a commission on the relationships between officers and enlisted men in the Army called the "Doolittle Board" or the "GI Gripes Board". The Army implemented many of the board's recommendations in

5194-426: The first pilot to take off, fly and land an airplane using instruments alone, without a view outside the cockpit. Having returned to Mitchell Field that September, he helped develop blind-flying equipment. He helped develop, and was then the first to test, the now universally used artificial horizon and directional gyroscope . He attracted wide newspaper attention with this feat of "blind" flying and later received

5292-433: The fuel and both Shell and Standard Oil of New Jersey would win the contract to supply test quantities for the Army. By 1938 the price was down to 17.5 cents a gallon, only 2.5 cents more than 87 octane fuel. By the end of WW II, the price would be down to 16 cents a gallon and the U.S. armed forces would be consuming 20 million gallons a day. Doolittle returned to active duty in the U.S. Army Air Corps on July 1, 1940, with

5390-501: The function of the building. In an interview with the University of California Magazine in 1902, 5 years before the building's dedication ceremony, Howard reflects: The aim has been to give expression to the character of a College of Mining Engineering as distinguished from one of Art, Letters, or of Natural Science. The expression of belles-lettres in architecture demands a more purely classic character than that of scientific studies. Such

5488-484: The help of friendly Chinese. Seven crew members lost their lives, four as a result of being captured and murdered by the Japanese and three due to an aircraft crash or while parachuting. Doolittle thought he would be court martialed due to having to launch the raid ahead of schedule after being spotted by a Japanese patrol boat and the loss of all the aircraft. After the raid, the Japanese Imperial Army began

5586-494: The internal structure are composed of steel beams, and continue through two floors of balconies lined with blue-green cast-iron railings housed upon steel lattice trusses. Construction details such as its bricks are intentionally exposed to communicate a brusk aesthetic. The Guastavino tiles were a proprietary feature to the domed structural system. They were designed by the Valencian architect Rafael Guastavino , who had immigrated to

5684-568: The later stages of the Great Depression . Doolittle took a leave of absence in October 1917 to enlist in the Signal Corps Reserve as a flying cadet; he received ground training at the School of Military Aeronautics (an Army school) on the campus of the University of California , and flight-trained at Rockwell Field , California. Doolittle received his Reserve Military Aviator rating and

5782-475: The matter of detail, less influenced by the extreme classic tradition either as a canon of proportion or as an architectonic schema. The profession of mining has to do with the very body and bone of the earth; its process is a ruthless assault upon the bowels of the world, a contest with the crudest and most rudimentary forces. There is about it something essentially elementary, something primordial; and its expression in architecture must, to be true, have something of

5880-400: The memory of her late husband, Senator George Hearst , who had made much of his fortune in mining. When construction began in 1903, the College of Mines, with its 247 students (or 11% of the total student population at the university) was the largest of its kind in the world. The college did not have a dedicated building, and due to the size of the college, the Hearst Memorial Mining Building

5978-464: The month after their 64th birthday. However, the Secretary of Defense can defer a general's retirement until the officer's 66th birthday and the President can defer it until the officer's 68th birthday. To retire at four-star grade, an officer must accumulate at least three years of satisfactory active duty service in that grade, as certified by the Secretary of Defense. Hearst Memorial Mining Building The Hearst Memorial Mining Building at

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6076-518: The new motor was inadequate, and Doolittle requested two pressure gauges, using carrier pigeons to communicate. The additional parts were dropped by air and installed, and Doolittle flew the plane to Del Rio, Texas , himself, taking off from a 400-yard (370 m) airstrip hacked out of the canyon floor. Subsequently, he attended the Air Service Mechanical School at Kelly Field and the Aeronautical Engineering Course at McCook Field, Ohio . Having at last returned to complete his college degree, he earned

6174-420: The pilot's own possibly convoluted motion sense inputs. Even at this early stage, the ability to control aircraft was getting beyond the motion sense capability of the pilot. That is, as aircraft became faster and more maneuverable, pilots could become seriously disoriented without visual cues from outside the cockpit, because aircraft could move in ways that pilots' senses could not accurately decipher. Doolittle

6272-618: The pilot. It seemed to me that the engineers felt pilots were all a little crazy or else they wouldn't be pilots. The pilots felt the engineers as a group were, if not incompetent, at least not thoroughly acquainted with the pilot's viewpoint—that all the engineers did was zip slide rules back and forth and come out with erroneous results and bad aircraft. I thought from a philosophical point of view that it would be good to have engineers and pilots understand one another better. It seemed desirable to marry these two capabilities in one person—and I wanted to be that person." In July 1923, after serving as

6370-509: The postwar volunteer Army, though many professional officers and noncommissioned officers thought that the Board "destroyed the discipline of the Army". Columnist Hanson Baldwin said that the Doolittle Board "caused severe damage to service effectiveness by recommendations intended to 'democratize' the Army—a concept that is self-contradictory". Doolittle became acquainted with the field of space science in its infancy. He wrote in his autobiography, "I became interested in rocket development in

6468-427: The rank of Major. He was assigned as the assistant district supervisor of the Central Air Corps Procurement District at Indianapolis and Detroit , where he worked with large auto manufacturers on the conversion of their plants to aircraft production. The following August, he went to England as a member of a special mission and brought back information about other countries' air forces and military build-ups. Following

6566-436: The ranks of General of the Army and General of the Air Force are reserved for wartime use only, the rank of general is the highest general officer rank in peacetime. Formally, the term "General" is always used when referring to a four-star general. However, a number of different terms may refer to them informally, since lower-ranking generals may also be referred to as simply "General". The United States Code explicitly limits

6664-417: The reorganization of the Army Air Corps into the USAAF in June 1941 , Doolittle was promoted to lieutenant colonel on January 2, 1942, and assigned to Army Air Forces Headquarters to plan the first retaliatory air raid on the Japanese homeland following the attack on Pearl Harbor . He volunteered for and received General H.H. Arnold's approval to lead the top-secret attack of 16 B-25 medium bombers from

6762-554: The requirements of a national space program and what additions were needed to NACA technology. Doolittle, Dr. Hugh Dryden and Stever selected committee members including Dr. Wernher von Braun from the Army Ballistic Missile Agency , Sam Hoffman of Rocketdyne , Abe Hyatt of the Office of Naval Research and Colonel Norman Appold from the USAF missile program, considering their potential contributions to US space programs and ability to educate NACA people in space science. On 5 January 1946, Doolittle reverted to inactive reserve status in

6860-423: The risk of capture, while being privy to the Ultra secret, which was that the German encryption systems had been broken by the British. From January 1944 to September 1945, he held his largest command, the Eighth Air Force (8 AF) in England as a lieutenant general , his promotion date being March 13, 1944, and the highest rank ever held by an active reserve officer in modern times. Doolittle's major influence on

6958-402: The shell or compromise the building's strength. Vents and chimneys were also built independent of the shell, as these architectural features were expected to have shorter lifespans than the exterior structure. California Hall , another Howard-designed building on the Berkeley campus was also constructed with an "elastic" interior form. Howard, reflecting upon their work after the construction

7056-484: The solution to the situation is to forget that they are colored." Industry was in the process of integrating, Doolittle said, "and it is going to be forced on the military. You are merely postponing the inevitable and you might as well take it gracefully." In March 1951, Doolittle was appointed a special assistant to the Chief of Staff of the Air Force , serving as a civilian in scientific matters which led to Air Force ballistic missile and space programs. In 1952, following

7154-429: The special wartime five-star ranks of General of the Army or General of the Air Force . The Marine Corps and Space Force do not have an established grade above general. The pay grade of general is O-10. It is equivalent to the rank of admiral in the other United States uniformed services which use naval ranks . It is abbreviated as GEN in the Army and Gen in the Marine Corps, Air Force, and Space Force. Since

7252-410: The total number of four-star officers allowed in each service. This is set at eight Army generals, two Marine generals, nine Air Force generals, two Space Force generals, six Navy admirals, and two Coast Guard admirals. Several of these slots are reserved by statute. For example, the two highest-ranking members of each service (the service chief and deputy service chief) are designated as generals. For

7350-411: The total number of general officers (termed flag officers in the Navy and Coast Guard) that may be on active duty at any given time. The total number of active duty general officers is capped at 231 for the Army, 62 for the Marine Corps, 198 for the Air Force, and 162 for the Navy. No more than about 25% of a service's active duty general or flag officers may have more than two stars, and statute sets

7448-516: The tower was the copper and lead smelting laboratory, and adjacent west a gold and silver mill. Howard gave the building a brusque, industrial aesthetic as a complement to the softer aesthetic of the other buildings in the Hearst Plan. Howard referred to the Mining Building as " the kind, bluff brother amid a bevy of lovely sisters ". These architectural features were also intended to communicate

7546-564: The tremendous potential of rocketry. In 1956, Doolittle was appointed chairman of the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA) because the previous chairman, Jerome C. Hunsaker , thought Doolittle to be more sympathetic to the rocket, which was increasing in importance as a scientific tool as well as a weapon. The NACA Special Committee on Space Technology was organized in January 1958 and chaired by Guy Stever to determine

7644-400: The withdrawal of the army from areas around Yushan, Kinhwa and Futsin. Around 1,700 Japanese troops died out of a total 10,000 Japanese soldiers who fell ill with disease when their biological weapons attack rebounded on their own forces. Doolittle went on to fly more combat missions as commander of the 12th Air Force in North Africa, for which he was awarded four Air Medals. He later commanded

7742-416: The wooden roof brackets. According to Howard, the two male sculptures on the west signified " primal elements ", and the two on the east " eternal forces ", representative of the character of mining. The two central female sculptures provided a balancing presence, representing " the ideal art, the final flower of life--fresh, mysterious, pure--emerging from the void of chaos ". The central entrance vestibule

7840-478: Was chairman of the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA). This period was during the events of Sputnik , Vanguard and Explorer . He was the last person to hold this position, as the NACA was superseded by NASA . Doolittle was asked to serve as the first NASA administrator, but he turned it down. General (United States) The rank of general ranks above a three-star lieutenant general and below

7938-558: Was a major morale booster for the United States and Doolittle was celebrated as a hero, making him one of the most important national figures of the war. Doolittle was promoted to lieutenant general and commanded the Twelfth Air Force over North Africa, the Fifteenth Air Force over the Mediterranean, and the Eighth Air Force over Europe. He retired from the Air Force in 1959 but remained active in many technical fields. Doolittle

8036-560: Was also the first to recognize these psycho-physiological limitations of the human senses (particularly the motion sense inputs, i.e., up, down, left, right). He initiated the study of the relationships between the psychological effects of visual cues and motion senses. His research resulted in programs that trained pilots to read and understand navigational instruments. A pilot learned to "trust his instruments," not his senses, as visual cues and his motion sense inputs (what he sensed and "felt") could be incorrect or unreliable. In 1929, he became

8134-607: Was appointed a life member of the MIT Corporation , the university's board of trustees, an uncommon permanent appointment, and served as an MIT Corporation Member for 40 years. In 1954, President Dwight D. Eisenhower asked Doolittle to perform a study of the Central Intelligence Agency ; the resulting work was known as the Doolittle Report, 1954 , and was classified for a number of years. From 1957 to 1958, he

8232-465: Was awarded the Medal of Honor for personal valor and leadership as commander of the Doolittle Raid , a bold long-range retaliatory air raid on some of the Japanese main islands on April 18, 1942, four months after the attack on Pearl Harbor . The raid used 16 B-25B Mitchell medium bombers with reduced armament to decrease weight and increase range, each with a crew of five and no escort fighter aircraft. It

8330-489: Was chosen as the first building under the Hearst Plan to be constructed. University architect John Galen Howard designed the building with the assistance of the Dean of the College of Mines, Professor Samuel B. Christy and Berkeley -educated architect Julia Morgan . The architects set out to create a building that harmonized classical elements with architectural innovation, building off prior examples of European and American mining building architecture, and staying true to

8428-530: Was commissioned a second lieutenant in the Signal Officers Reserve Corps of the U.S. Army on March 11, 1918. During World War I , Doolittle stayed in the United States as a flight instructor and performed his war service at Camp John Dick Aviation Concentration Center ("Camp Dick"), Texas ; Wright Field, Ohio ; Gerstner Field, Louisiana ; Rockwell Field, California; Kelly Field, Texas , and Eagle Pass, Texas . Doolittle served at Rockwell as

8526-410: Was complete, said: We have sought to secure beauty not by easy masquerade and putting on of architectural stuff, but by organic composition, working from within out, and letting the heart of the thing speak ... If the expression be true, no matter how strange it may seem at first, in the end it must be seen to be inevitable. The roof of the building is tiled, brackets made of timber, and ornamentation

8624-528: Was dedicated to Senator Hearst, and was also to serve as a space for the mining museum. It was designed to recall Henri Labrouste 's Reading Room in the Bibliothèque Nationale de France (1858–68). The golden oak doors that open into it from the building's exterior were intended to create a dramatic entrance into an equally dramatic, high-ceilinged space where domes 50 feet in the air are covered in buff-toned Guastavino tiles . The columns that support

8722-441: Was dedicated to the memory of her husband George Hearst , who had been a successful miner . From 1998 to 2003, the building underwent a massive renovation, expansion, and seismic retrofit , in which a platform was built underneath the building, and a suspension system capable of up to 1 meter lateral travel was installed. To keep the expansion distinct from the historic building, shot peened aluminium (rather than stone) and

8820-449: Was given a tour of Goddard's workshop and a "short course" in rocketry and space travel. He then wrote a memo, including a rather detailed description of Goddard's rocket. In closing he said, "interplanetary transportation is probably a dream of the very distant future, but with the moon only a quarter of a million miles away—who knows!" In July 1941 he wrote Goddard that he was still interested in rocket propulsion research. The Army, however,

8918-515: Was his early advancement of instrument flying . He was the first to recognize that true operational freedom in the air could not be achieved until pilots developed the ability to control and navigate aircraft in flight from takeoff run to landing rollout, regardless of the range of vision from the cockpit. Doolittle was the first to envision that a pilot could be trained to use instruments to fly through fog, clouds, precipitation of all forms, darkness, or any other impediment to visibility, and in spite of

9016-620: Was inducted into the National Aviation Hall of Fame in 1967, eight years after retirement and only five years after the Hall was founded. He was eventually promoted to general in 1985, presented to him by President Ronald Reagan 43 years after the Doolittle Raid. In 2003, he topped Air & Space/Smithsonian magazine's list of the greatest pilots of all time, and ten years later, Flying magazine ranked Doolittle sixth on its list of

9114-478: Was interested only in JATO at this point. Doolittle was concerned about the state of rocketry in the US and remained in touch with Goddard. Shortly after World War II, Doolittle spoke to an American Rocket Society conference at which a large number interested in rocketry attended. The topic was Robert Goddard's work. He later stated that at that time "... we [the aeronautics field in the US] had not given much credence to

9212-470: Was known as Night of the Pisco Sours. Despite having both ankles in casts, Doolittle put his Curtiss P-1 Hawk through aerial maneuvers that outdid the competition. He returned to the United States and was confined to Walter Reed Army Hospital for his injuries until April 1927. He was then assigned to McCook Field for experimental work, with additional duty as an instructor pilot to the 385th Bomb Squadron of

9310-405: Was minor, the raid showed the Japanese that their homeland was vulnerable to air attack, and forced them to withdraw several front-line fighter units from Pacific war zones for homeland defense. More significantly, Japanese commanders considered the raid deeply embarrassing, and their attempt to close the perceived gap in their Pacific defense perimeter led directly to the decisive American victory at

9408-421: Was nighttime, the weather was stormy, and Doolittle was unable to locate their landing field. Doolittle came down in a rice paddy (saving a previously injured ankle from breaking) near Quzhou . He and his crew linked up after the bailout and were helped through Japanese lines by Chinese guerrillas and American missionary John Birch . Other aircrews were not so fortunate, although most eventually reached safety with

9506-663: Was selected to be a member of the Baker Board. Chaired by former Secretary of War Newton D. Baker , the board was convened during the Air Mail scandal to study Air Corps organization. In 1940, he became president of the Institute of Aeronautical Science. The development of 100-octane aviation gasoline on an economic scale was due in part to Doolittle, who had become aviation manager of Shell Oil Company. Around 1935 he convinced Shell to invest in refining capacity to produce 100-octane fuel on

9604-520: Was the first issued in the United States. He said that he considered his master's work more significant than his doctorate. Following graduation, Doolittle attended special training in high-speed seaplanes at Naval Air Station Anacostia in Washington, D.C. He also served with the Naval Test Board at Mitchel Field , Long Island , New York , and was a familiar figure in air speed record attempts in

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