USS Hornet<\/em> using specially-trained Army Air Corps crews flying B-25 medium bombers.<\/p>\nIt was also a true \u201cone-way\u201d mission. While the B-25 could take off from a carrier under favorable conditions, it could not land on one. The mission plan was to fly on to China after bombing Tokyo, and land there afterwards in airfields controlled by friendly Chinese forces.<\/p>\n
However, the task force was spotted by a Japanese patrol boat approximately 200 miles farther east than the planned launch point; the raid was executed immediately afterwards.\u00a0 This meant the originally planned landing fields in China would almost certainly be unreachable before the aircraft ran out of fuel.<\/p>\n
They went anyway.<\/p>\n
Three US personnel were KIA during the raid; eight US personnel were captured and became a POWs afterwards.\u00a0 Hite was one of these unfortunate eight.\u00a0 He was held in captivity by the Japanese for 40 months.<\/p>\n
Of those eight individuals captured by the Japanese, 4 died while POWs \u2013 three were executed, and one died of other causes. Hite was the last remaining living POW from the Doolittle Raid.<\/p>\n
Hite left the service after World War II. However, during the Korean War Hite returned to duty from 1951 to 1955.<\/p>\n
Hite was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross for his participation in the Doolittle Raid.\u00a0\u00a0 He also earned the Purple Heart during his captivity.\u00a0 Last year, Congress authorized a Congressional Gold Medal in honor of the Doolittle Raiders. Unfortunately, it is not scheduled to be formally presented until the raid\u2019s 73rd anniversary \u2013 less than 3 weeks from now.<\/p>\n
Hite\u2019s death leaves alive only two of the Doolittle Raiders – Lt. Col. Richard “Dick” Cole and SSgt. David Thatcher.<\/p>\n
Rest in peace, my elder brother-in-arms. You\u2019ve certainly earned that.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
One of the last 3 surviving Doolittle Raiders has passed. Lt. Col. Robert Hite passed away … Another Bit of US History Passes<\/span>Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":623,"featured_media":59039,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[187,232,75,119],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-59024","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-air-force","category-army-news","category-blue-skies","category-navy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59024","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/623"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=59024"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59024\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/59039"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=59024"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=59024"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=59024"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"Robert](\"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/04\/Robert-Hite-300x169.jpg\")
<\/a><\/center>One of the last 3 surviving Doolittle Raiders has passed<\/a>.<\/p>\n