Brigadier General James H. Doolittle, U.S. Army Air Corps at Tennessee Museum of Aviation. Photo by June Stoyer

Brigadier General James H. Doolittle, U.S. Army Air Corps at Tennessee Museum of Aviation. Photo by June Stoyer

The Medal of Honor to Brigadier General James H. Doolittle, U.S. Army Air Corps at the Tennessee Museum of Aviation, Sevierville, Tennessee.

Rank and organization: Brigadier General, U.S. Army. Air Corps. Place and date: Over Japan. Entered service at: Berkeley, California.

Born at Alameda, California, on December 14, 1896, Doolittle was a junior at the University of California when the United States entered World War I. He enlisted as a flying cadet in the Army Signal Corps, which gave him a commission. he spent the war as a flying instructor in the United States.

Remaining in the Army after the war, he earned a B.A. degree in 1922 and then studied aeronautical engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, from which he received both a Masters and Doctors degree in science. He took a leave of absence from the Army in the period before World War II,but returned to active duty when the war began.

He was awarded the Medal of Honor, and was promoted from Colonel to Brigadier General for leading the first carrier-based bomber attack on mainland Japan in 1942. His citation, presented personally by President Franklin D. Roosevelt, reads,in part: "With the apparent certainty of being forced to land in enemy territory or perish at sea, Colonel Doolittle personally led a squadron of Army bombers, manned by volunteer crews, in a highly destructive raid on the Japanese mainland."

General Doolittle died in California on September 27, 1993 and was buried in Section 7-A of Arlington National Cemetery, with his high school sweetheart, Josephine Daniels Doolittle (May 24, 1895-December 24, 1988). (description from http://www.arlingtoncemetery.net/jdoolitt.htm)

To learn more about this medal, please visit http://tnairmuseum.com/exhibits

Tennessee Museum of Aviation
135 Air Museum Way
Sevierville, TN 37862
(866)-286-8738