Us Official Photographs

Doolittle Raid plaque at Miami Beach

SOUVENIR OF TOKYO RAID. This plaque was presented to Lt. Gen. James H. Doolittle, Friday night, April 19, 1947, at Miami Beach, Florida during the 5th Anniversary reunion of members of the Doolittle raid on Tokyo. The plaque contains a fragment of "Whirling Dervish", one of the North American B-25 Mitchells which crashed in China after the crew had bailed out. The piece of wreckage, identified as a part of the right nacelle, was recovered by the Rev. Charles L. Meeus, a missionary, and presented to Bishop Paul Yu Pin, D.D. Vicar Apostolic of Nanking in Washington. The fragment was given to Mrs. Franklin D. Roosevelt by Bishop Yu Pin. She, in turn, presented it to the Treasury Department, suggested that it might prove of value in promoting war bond sales. The War Finance Division of the Treasury Department later presented the fragment to North American Aircraft Corporation, and the presentation to General Doolittle was made by Alexander T. Burton, Eastern Representative of the North American Company. The plaque will be offered to the Smithsonian Institute in Washington by General Doolittle for display in its division of aeronautics. "Whirling Dervish" was piloted by Major Harold F. Watson, then a lieutenant. Many Chinese who sheltered the raiders were slain in retaliation by the Japanese. When they found the Chinese who hid Major Watson, they wrapped his body in blankets, poured oil on the blankets, and forced his wife to set fire to the bundle. Of thirty-one American church missions in the vicinity, twenty-nine were destroyed.