This auction is for a rare, Frank Kappeler, (Navigator Crew #11) "Doolittle Tokyo Raiders" autographed 8X10 glossy picture. The winner will receive a lifetime guarantee certificate from "The Autograph House".. The autograph is guaranteed to pass any authentication service!!!
After bombing their targets during the Doolittle raid they had to get away, all the way down the home islands of Japan, across the East China Sea, and then to the interior of China. It became clear they would never make the Chinese landing field that was their destination. The territory below was like patchwork: part of it was in Japanese hands, part not. The crews did not know which was which.
At midnight, in clouds, 10,000 feet over China, the crew bailed out. "I had no idea where we were," Kappeler said. "I couldn't see anything. We all said our prayers." Kappeler's plane was still short of its assigned targets in Yokohama when it dropped its bombs on what appeared to be an oil refinery, then continued on to China. Than the entire crew bailed out in darkness when the fuel ran out, then went in search of friendly Chinese willing to help them avoid Japanese troops.
Frank A. Kappeler (second from left) in China after bombing Japan and bailing with his crew above China.
He landed all right, and in the morning, he saw someone he took to be a Chinese soldier. "I said 'I am an American' to him," using the only Chinese phrase the flyer had been taught. Kappeler demonstrated. It sounds bit like "Lushu hoo megwa fugi."
"It worked, I think," he said. "Sometimes even now, I try it out at a Chinese restaurant."
The people in the area - he had landed near Chuhsien in Chekiang province - helped him out. The crew of his plane had bailed out one by one, and were spread over 20 miles, but the Chinese came to the rescue, helped Kappeler and the others, and took them by mountain trails to areas not controlled by the Japanese. They fed him, put him up in their houses. They were wonderful, he said. "They took good care of me."
Second Sino-Japanese WarCrew No. 1 in front of B-25 #40-2344 on the deck of Hornet, 18 April 1942. From left to right: (front row) Lt. Col. Doolittle, pilot; Lt. Richard E. Cole, copilot; (back row) Lt. Henry A. Potter, navigator; SSgt. Fred A. Braemer, bombardier; SSgt. Paul J. Leonard, flight engineer/gunner. (U.S. Air Force photo)The Doolittle Raid, also known as the Tokyo Raid, on Saturday, April 18, 1942, was an air raid by the United States of America on the Japanese capital Tokyo and other places on the island of Honshu during World War II, the first air strike to strike the Japanese Home Islands. It demonstrated that Japan itself was vulnerable to American air attack, served as retaliation for the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on Sunday, December 7, 1941, and provided an important boost to American morale. The raid was planned and led by Lieutenant ColonelJames "Jimmy" Doolittle of the United States Army Air Forces.
Sixteen B-25B Mitchell medium bombers were launched without fighter escort from the U.S. Navy's aircraft carrierUSS Hornet (CV-8) deep in the Western Pacific Ocean, each with a crew of five men. The plan called for them to bomb military targets in Japan, and to continue westward to land in China—landing a medium bomber on Hornetwas impossible. Fifteen aircraft reached China, but all crashed, while the 16th landed at Vladivostok in the Soviet Union. All but three of the 80 crew members initially survived the mission. Eight airmen were captured by theJapanese Army in China; three of those were later executed. The B-25 that landed in the Soviet Union was confiscated and its crew interned for more than a year. Fourteen complete crews, except for one crewman who was killed in action, returned either to the United States or to American forces.[1][2]
After the raid, the Japanese Imperial Army conducted a massive sweep through the eastern coastal provinces of China, in an operation now known as the Zhejiang-Jiangxi campaign, searching for the surviving American airmen and inflicting retribution on the Chinese who aided them, in an effort to prevent this part of China from being used again for an attack on Japan.
The raid caused negligible material damage to Japan, but it achieved its goal of raising American morale and casting doubt in Japan on the ability of its military leaders to defend their home islands. It also contributed to Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto's decision to attack Midway Island in the Central Pacific—an attack that turned into a decisive strategic defeat of the Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN) by the U.S. Navy in the Battle of Midway. Doolittle, who initially believed that the loss of all his aircraft would lead to his court-martial, received the Medal of Honorand was promoted two ranks to brigadier general.
On Oct-06-10 at 21:33:07 PDT, seller added the following information:
ALL AUTOGRAPHED PHOTOS COME WITH A LIFETIME GUARANTEE CERTIFICATE FROM "THE AUTOGRAPH HOUSE"