Larry's Column

By Larry R. Matthews


TED LAWSON, DOOLITTLE RAIDER

In 1979 I worked for an agency in Chico where I counseled Veterans about their benefits.

One afternoon a well dressed, middle aged lady came to my office. She had some questions regarding her husband's VA benefits and I went over them with her. After she left, my boss said, "Do you know that you just spoke to a war hero's wife? That is Ellen Lawson, Ted Lawson's wife".

I remembered the story of Ellen and Ted. Most all of us baby boomers justifiably regarded the World War II veterans as heroes and we watched a lot of war movies. I remembered their story from the movie, "Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo". Ted Lawson was a Doolittle Raider.
Less than 4 months after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, due to President Roosevelt's order, General Jimmy Doolittle lead an attack by 16 B-25 Mitchell bombers on Tokyo and several other major Japanese cities.
President Roosevelt wanted to strike back against the Japanese. Even though any damage would be minimal, he wanted an action taken that would boost American morale and damage Japanese morale.
For months the crews had trained at Eglin airfield in Florida. As they would be launching from an aircraft carrier, the USS Hornet, they had to practice short take offs. As they could not land back on the carrier and had to find landing sites in China, their mission was considered extremely hazardous.

It turned out that the mission became even more dangerous. Prior to the USS Hornet reaching its planned location for launch, a Japanese ship located the small fleet. The Japanese ship was sunk but it was possible that the ship had sent a message indicating the Hornet's location. Therefore, the B-25's were launched 170 miles further away than planned. That made it probable that the planes would run out of gas prior to reaching the friendly airfields in China.
Lieutenant Lawson was the pilot of the bomber, "The Ruptured Duck". He and his crew successfully bombed their targets in Tokyo on April 18, 1942 and flew on to China. While attempting to land along a beach their plane crashed. Lawson and two other officers were thrown through the front plexiglass of the plane. All except one of the crew were badly injured.
Ted had facial injuries and major damage to his left leg. It was so bad that his leg had to be amputated under primitive conditions while in China. During their ordeal, his crew came close to being captured several times. Thanks to the assistance of the Chinese civilians and other American crews, Ted returned to the U.S. on June 16th after a journey that included transportation by stretcher, flat-boat, junk, sedan chair, truck, bus, station wagon, train and plane.
Amazingly, of the 80 men who participated in the raid, 69 escaped death or capture and came back safely. Three crewmen were killed in the raid and 8 became prisoners of war. Of the POW's, one died of disease and three were executed by the Japanese. The other four POW's were repatriated at the end of the war.
In early 1943, Ted wrote his account of the raid in the successful book, "Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo".
In 1944, the book was made into a movie with Van Johnson playing Ted and Phyllis Thaxter playing Ellen. Also in the movie are Robert Walker and Robert Mitchum with Spencer Tracy playing General Doolittle.
The movie won an Academy Award for Best Special Effects for 1945.
The special effects are great but there is one scene that was filmed for the movie that I have to smile at. As the B-25 is making landfall in Japan you can see the plane flying over rice paddies with a small mountain range appearing in the background. If you see the movie you will recognize that this portion of the film was filmed west of Yuba City. Those are local rice fields and the Sutter Buttes.
After the war Ted worked for Reynolds Metals and owned and operated a machine shop in Southern California. They later settled in Chico, California.
Ted passed away in 1992 at age 74. Ellen followed in 2009 at age 89. They are buried together in Chico Cemetery.

FDR's hopes were realized by the raid; American morale soared and the Japanese kept much of its air power close to home to alleviate any future attacks. Japanese morale sagged as they now knew that they were no longer immune to attacks.
This year we'll see the 70th anniversary of the end of World War II. Sixteen million Americans served in that war. As of now there are just over a million still alive. Their average age is around 93. If you know any World War II veterans, please thank them for their service.
If you have comments about any past article you can contact Larry R. Matthews at writerlarry@hotmail.com.
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