1966 FOUR CAME HOME, SIGNED by 1 of the 4! 1942 Doolittle Raid WWII Glines Utah

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Four Came Home

by Carroll V Glines

Published by D Van Nostrand (1966)

Signed by Chase Jay Nielson, One of the Four Who Came Home from the Doolittle Raid in 1942.

Condition:

Excellent 1st Edition Hardcover Book with Dust Jacket! The binding is tight and all 223 pages within are bright white with NO WRITING, UNDERLINING, HIGH-LIGHTING, RIPS, TEARS, BENDS OR FOLDS with the exception of the original owner's name stamp on the inside front cover and (of course) the signature and note from Lt Col. USAF, Retired Chase Jay Nielson. The covers look perfect! The dust jacket is in excellent condition but does have some minimal wear, as can be seen in my photos. The dust jacket has been repaired and is now inside of a Mylar cover to keep this beautiful gem in awesome condition for generations to come. You will be happy with this one! Always handled and packaged with care!  Buy with confidence from a seller who takes the time to show you the details and not use just stock photos. Please check out all my pictures and email with any questions! Thanks for looking!

SIGNATURE IN FRONT BY CHASE JAY NIELSON (Hyrum, Utah):

Chase Jay Nielsen (January 14, 1917 – March 23, 2007) was a career officer in the U.S. Air Force. He participated in the Doolittle Raid in 1942 and was one of the four surviving prisoners of war from that raid.

Early life:

Born in Hyrum, Utah to Floyd Nielsen and Carrie Miller Nielsen, who were of Danish, Swedish, Prussian, and Welsh descent. He was one of six children born to the family and was a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. In 1935, he graduated from South Cache High School in Hyrum, Utah and then attended Utah State University, where he graduated in 1939 with a Bachelor of Science degree in civil engineering.

World War II:

After the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, the 17th BG immediately began anti-submarine patrols off the coast of Oregon and Washington.

Doolittle Raid:

In February 1942, Nielsen volunteered for a "secret mission", even though he did not know what duties were involved or any other details. This mission ended up being the critical Doolittle Raid, which was led by Lieutenant Colonel Jimmy Doolittle. The raid was daring not only because of the intended targets, the Japanese homeland, but because the pilots trained to take-off in a B-25 bomber from the deck of an aircraft carrier, something neither the designers of the B-25, nor the aircraft carrier, ever envisioned.

Nielsen was the navigator for sixth bomber, plane# 40-2298 nicknamed "The Green Hornet", to depart the deck of the USS Hornet during the mission. On April 18, 1942, Nielsen and his B-25's four crewmembers, took off from the Hornet and reached Tokyo, Japan. They bombed their target; a steel mill in the northern part of the city. They then headed for their recovery airfield in China. Running low on fuel due to the early launch of the raid, the B-25s failed to reach any of the designated safety zones in China. The pilot of Meder's bomber, First Lieutenant Dean E. Hallmark, was forced to ditch at sea off the coast of Wenzhou, China. Second Lieutenant William J. Dieter (bombardier) and Sergeant Donald E. Fitzmaurice (gunner) drowned when the aircraft ditched into the sea, while Nielsen, Hallmark and co-pilot Robert J. Meder managed to swim ashore. The next day, they buried the bodies of Fitzmaurice and Dieter.

On April 27, as they tried to reach safety with the help of friendly local Chinese, all three men were captured by Japanese troops and interred as POWs in Shanghai, along with crew of the sixteenth bomber. Nielsen and other American prisoners were held in solitary confinement, where they were threatened and tortured by the Japanese, but resisted weeks of interrogation. The Japanese government sentenced all the eight prisoners to death and after a mock trial on October 14, 1942, Hallmark, Second Lieutenant William G. Farrow (pilot of bomber#16) and Sergeant Harold A. Spatz (gunner of bomber#16) were selected for execution, while the Japanese commuted others to life in prison. The three men were executed on October 15, 1942, at Shanghai's Public Cemetery No. 1.

Nielsen and other prisoners of the raid were placed in solitary confinement and on the anniversary of the Doolittle Raid in 1943, the prisoners were transferred to a military prison at Nanking, where Meder died in December 1943, due to malnutrition and beri-beri. Meder's death resulted in the improvement of conditions for Nielsen and the remaining prisoners of the raid. On August 20, 1945, Nielsen and other prisoners were rescued at the end of the war by an Office of Strategic Services para-rescue team and brought back to the U.S. He returned to Shanghai in January 1946 to testify in the trials against his former captors, who had tortured him with waterboarding, then called the "water cure." Extracts from his testimony were later presented at the Tokyo Trial.

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