Doolittle, James, born on 14-12-1896 in Alameda, California,
spent his youth in Nome, Alaska, where he earned a reputation as a boxer and was a troublemaker
. Doolittle received his Reserve Military Aviator rating and during World War I, he stayed in the United States as a flight instructor and performed his war service at Camp John Dick Aviation Concentration Center, ”Camp Dick”, Texas.
He returned to duty 01-07-1940, as a major and assistant district supervisor of the Central Air Corps Procurement District at Indianapolis, Shortly after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on 07-12-1941 and America’s entry into World War II, Doolittle was recalled to active duty. He was promoted to Lieutenant Colonel on 02-01-1942 and assigned to Army Air Forces Headquarters
to plan the first retaliatory air raid on the Japanese homeland. He volunteered for and received General Henry “Happy” Arnold
approval to lead the top-secret attack of 16 B-25 medium bombers from the aircraft carrier USS Hornet,



















Doolittle married Josephine “Joe” Elise Daniels
on 24-12-1917. At a dinner celebration after Jimmy Doolittle’s first all-instrument flight in 1929, Josephine Doolittle asked her guests to sign her white damask tablecloth. Later, she embroidered the names in black. She continued this tradition, collecting hundreds of signatures from the aviation world. The tablecloth was donated to the Smithsonian Institution. Married for over 70 years, Josephine Doolittle died in 1988, age 92, five years before her husband.The Doolittles had two sons,
James Harold Jr.
, and John Prescott. Both became military officers and pilots. James H Jr. was an A-26 Invader pilot in the U.S. Army Air Forces during World War II and later a fighter pilot in the U.S. Air Force in the late 1940s through the late 1950s. He died by suicide at the age of thirty-eight in 1958. At the time of his death, James Jr. was a Major and commander of the 524th Fighter-Bomber Squadron,
piloting the F-101 Voodoo.His other son, John P. Doolittle, retired from the Air Force as a Colonel, and his grandson, Colonel James H. Doolittle III,
was the vice commander of the Air Force Flight Test Center at Edwards Air Force Base, California.







Death and burial ground of Doolittle, James Harold “Jimmy”.
James H. “Jimmy” Doolittle died at the age of 96 in Pebble Beach, California on 27-09-1993, and is buried at Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia,



Section 7 A, next to his wife Josephine. In his honor at the funeral, there was also a flyover of Miss Mitchell, a lone B-25 Mitchell, and USAF Eighth Air Force bombers from Barksdale Air Force Base, Louisiana. After a brief graveside service, Doolittle’s great-grandson played Taps flawlessly.
Close by in Section 7 A, the 101st Airborne
General Maxwell Taylor and the Marine Corps private Lee Marvin, technical sergeant, and world box champ, Joe “Barrow” Louis, Flying Ace Lieutenant colonel, “Pappy” Boyington
and General, Commander Combat B 7th Armored Division, nickname “Lucky Seventh”
Bruce Clarke. This division lost 5.799 men in 172 days of combat. Enemy vehicles destroyed and prisoners captured, armored vehicles destroyed: 621; armored vehicles captured: 89; miscellaneous vehicles destroyed: 2.653; miscellaneous vehicles captured: 3.517; armament destroyed: 583 pieces; armament captured (only pieces larger than 50mm included): 361; and prisoners taken: 113.041. Close by also the grave of most decorated American soldier, Infantry Major
Audie Murphy .








