The 70th anniversary reunion of the 1942 Doolittle Tokyo Raid also commemorates the role of the Chinese people who not only welcomed the American Raiders as heroes but helped save their lives‚ often at great peril.
“They were very important to us,” said David Thatcher, 90, of Missoula, Mont. “If not for them, the Japanese surely would have captured us.”
Eight Raiders were taken prisoner after the raid. Three were executed and another died in captivity. Historians recorded that tens of thousands of Chinese people were killed by Japanese soldiers for helping the other survivors.
The Raiders are in their 90s now, as are the villagers who helped them. But a Chinese delegation coming to their Dayton, Ohio, reunion will include at least two children of key benefactors, as well as officials in southeast China where the Raiders crash-landed or parachuted from planes.
According to delegation spokeswoman Liang Yonghong, among the items they are bringing with them is the journal of the late He Yangling, a leader of the province at the time. His daughter He Shaoying, a professor who was then 7 years old, has translated the journal into English.
His journal recounts that she asked her father who the strange people were. “They are coming from the sky,” he told her. He wrote that later, Doolittle lifted his daughter up into the air.
Also coming is Liao Mingfa, who was also 7, the son of village leader Liao Shiyuan, who helped carry injured Raiders to safety. Surviving Raiders recall communicating with villagers through drawings and sign language, unsure whether they were friendly. One account reports with amusement that the Raiders told rescuers said they were helped by “weird people” who smeared their wounds with herbs. They were villagers in remote areas, and the herbs they used were Chinese medicine.