The Aviators: Eddie Rickenbacker, Jimmy Doolittle, Charles Lindbergh (32 page)

Responding to the public’s outrage, a committee was convened in Washington to investigate why the Army Air Service was in such bad condition. (In 1934, out of the three thousand aircraft that the Air Service owned, only three hundred had been suitable and serviceable for airmail duty.) Known as the Baker Board after its chairman, Newton D. Baker, who had been U.S. secretary of war during World War I, only four of the twelve members were active pilots. Lindbergh had been asked to serve but declined after his feud with Roosevelt, but Doolittle jumped at the chance to accomplish something constructive.

In the end he came away deeply disappointed. The majority report was openly antagonistic to the aviators, declaring that the notion that airpower could produce “decisive results” in war was “visionary”—in other words, unrealistic—and heaped scorn on those sounding alarms about the Air Service, stating, “The fear that has been cultivated in this country by various zealots that American aviation is inferior to that of the rest of the world is, as a whole, unfounded.”
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It went on to accuse those officers—presumably, Doolittle included—who wanted an air corps separate from the army, or even a separate budget, as “continuing agitation” and disturbing “harmonious development.”
¹³

Doolittle wrote an incisive, even eloquent, dissent or “minority statement,” and said afterward that he was “disgusted” with the conclusion of the Baker Board. He told the newspapers, “The country will someday pay for the stupidities of those who were in the majority of this commission. They know as much about the future of aviation as they do about the sign writing of the Aztecs.”

T
HE MID-1930S WAS A TENSE
and unpleasant era for most Americans. The country remained in the grip of the Great Depression, which had dramatically lowered the living standard for all but a privileged few. By mid-decade it began to seem as if the paralytic malaise would linger forever. Money was tight; getting and keeping a job was difficult, impossible even, for some 15 to 20 percent of the working population. This of course had reduced government revenues, and President Roosevelt was putting so much money into relief and jobs programs there was relatively little left for the military, most especially the Air Service.

Meanwhile, in Germany, things had begun to brighten up, at least most Germans thought so. Adolf Hitler, an Aryan racist and odious provocateur against Jews and Slavs, had taken power as chancellor and imposed his Nazi brand of socialism on the nation.

At first it seemed to work. Germany suffered terribly following World War I and during the 1920s had undergone a period of hyperinflation that left the German mark virtually worthless. Hitler made numerous vague promises and exuded an almost mystical confidence in himself, and in Germany’s destiny, which proved irresistible to beleaguered voters. The fact that the Nazis were largely thugs did not seem to bother most Germans and, in a political contest that could almost be used as an argument against the concept of democracy, they voted Hitler into power, thereby unleashing a twelve-year-long reign of terror across Europe.

Hitler began by putting Germans back to work. A network of autobahns, or superhighways, was built throughout the country; the Germans built plants, mills, and car factories; they farmed, they exercised, they gave each other the
Heil Hitler
Nazi salute. But most of all they made weapons, because the leaders knew that the only way to pay for all that building was to conquer and rob their neighbors. Originally, Hitler’s plan was to absorb Austria and a large part of Czechoslovakia, to occupy Poland and exile or exterminate the Poles, then turn on the Soviet Union, which at the time was plunged into the dark miseries of communism.

This was in order to provide Germany with what Hitler called lebensraum, or “living space,” a dream of many Germans since the Middle Ages. Hitler had explained all these hostile ideas carefully in his book
Mein Kampf
, which he had written while in prison for treason, but few Germans had taken the time to read it carefully or understand its implications.

For the time being, most Germans were happy, possibly the happiest people in Europe, except perhaps for the Italians, whose trains were at last running on time thanks to Mussolini and his fascist Blackshirts. The Germans, at this point, had no idea that their great dream would become a national nightmare. All they knew was that Hitler had pulled them up from poverty and despair and eliminated the menace of communism.

Hitler took a keen military interest in airpower, because it now offered the threat of destroying entire cites from the air without the enormous casualties of a ground attack. He surrounded himself with such fops as Hermann Göring, a shrewd and often amusing World War I ace who had flown with the Richthofen bunch and was now a full field marshal in charge of the German air force. Having grown immensely fat since his flying days, Göring was fond of wearing ridiculous uniforms right out of
The Student Prince
but had in turn surrounded himself with stellar airmen such as Ernst Udet, another ace in the Great War, who had remained a staunch supporter of German aviation.

Under the terms of the Treaty of Versailles that ended World War I, Germany had been required to surrender some twenty thousand aircraft that it possessed at the end of the fighting, along with all other armaments and military equipment, the intention being that Germany would pose no further threat to the peace of Europe.

However, in the 1920s, a group of former German war pilots had secretly organized themselves into various “flying clubs” in which they not only trained young men how to operate their seemingly harmless civilian planes but also schooled them in military tactics, including simulated gunnery, pursuit, evasion, dive bombing, and other maneuvers. Thus, by the mid-1930s Hitler and Göring had a solid corps of trained aviators.

Though it was in flagrant violation of the terms of the peace treaty, the Germans began cranking out fighters and bombers at an estimated rate of three hundred per month. In 1933 Udet arrived in America to purchase two Curtiss Hawk fighter planes, which he said he intended to use to perform stunts at air shows.

Udet was a happy-go-lucky continental playboy who had been known during the war as the “wasp” for his habit of striking down at Allied planes alone and from above, but he had become known in social sets as the “flea,” Doolittle said, “because of his habit of hopping gaily all over Europe.” Udet was also one of the world’s greatest fliers, fully in the league of Doolittle, Lindbergh, and Rickenbacker, and would soon be working hand-in-glove with Göring’s Luftwaffe, designing and test flying warplanes and consulting at the highest levels, presently with the rank of full colonel.

He asked to test fly one of the planes before the purchase was closed, but Curtiss-Wright refused on grounds that the planes cost $15,000 apiece and couldn’t risk a crack-up. The impasse was solved when Doolittle appeared on the scene and took one of the Hawks up for a spin. He performed some sleek aerobatics before putting the Hawk into a terrifyingly steep dive straight into the ground then zooming up at the last possible moment. That not only satisfied Udet, but the two men, who were about the same size and build, and born in the same year, quickly became fast friends.

In 1937 Doolittle went to Germany on Shell Oil business and was amazed to see troops of young boys in Nazi-like uniforms marching all over town singing Nazi songs. In Berlin he looked up Udet first thing and was given the royal treatment by the high-ranking Luftwaffe officer. Not only did Udet arrange for Doolittle to visit the large German aircraft plants, such as Junkers,
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Heinkel, Dornier, Messerschmitt, and Focke-Wulf, he offered him a military aide and the use of his personal plane.

Doolittle was astounded by what he saw. The Germans were cranking out top-of-the-line fighters and bombers at an alarming rate. He was thoroughly impressed by the quality of the engines and airframes, which were decidedly better than those being manufactured in the United States. At least at that level, Hitler’s socialism ensured a quality control and economy of labor that was superior to the more or less catch-as-catch-can American method of building planes. It was obvious to Doolittle that the manufacturing of so many warplanes could mean but one thing, that Germany was planning for war. But with whom and when?

Though he spent his days inspecting aircraft factories, Doolittle’s evenings were spent with Udet, who remained an amusing bon vivant and daring pilot who looked on the Nazis with disdain, particularly Hitler and Göring. He was a kind of Renaissance man who spoke fluent English, recited poetry, sang well, and was an accomplished cartoonist. He was also a renowned marksman.

One night while they were drinking champagne in Udet’s eclectically decorated apartment, Udet challenged Jimmy to a shooting match. When Doolittle asked where, Udet produced a steel box filled with sand that had a curved top, which deflected bullets down into the sand. He set it on the mantelpiece over the fireplace, and over it Udet hung up a paper target, handing Doolittle a powerful air pistol.

They both “had some pretty good shooting,” Doolittle recalled, which apparently improved in direct relation to the amount of champagne they drank. As the night wore on, Udet decided that a greater challenge was needed. He handed Jimmy a huge .455-caliber pistol, much larger and more powerful than the U.S. standard-issue .45 automatics. Doolittle fired it with a terrific roar but, owing to its weight, shot low and into a stack of classified Luftwaffe papers that Udet had brought home to study.

Instead of being upset that the documents were blown all over the room, Udet seemed delighted, and he took the weapon from Doolittle to show him how it was done. But Udet himself misaimed, high, putting a hole in the wall that went all the way through to the next apartment, whose terrified occupants “could look right through at us,” Doolittle remembered, “but they never said a word.” Udet proceeded to fire another round, hitting the bull’s-eye, and with that the shooting match was ended.

D
OOLITTLE RETURNED TO THE
S
TATES
disturbed by what he had seen in Germany. It was obvious that Hitler should not be taken lightly, and that Germany must someday be reckoned with, but everywhere he went an odd air of complacency appeared to him to have affected political opinion. The unsatisfactory outcome of the previous war, with its horrendous casualties and destruction, had soured everyone except Hitler on the notion of further armed conflict. A League of Nations existed that was supposed to resolve international disagreements, and Britain and France, in particular, remained exhausted from the effects of World War I.

In early 1939 Jimmy again returned to Germany on Shell Oil business. By then Hitler had accomplished the opening acts of his new world order. He had absorbed Austria. He’d taken all of Czechoslovakia after persuading the British prime minister Neville Chamberlain at the Munich Conference that he had intended only to occupy a small, German-speaking portion of that nation. Chamberlain had returned to London and famously predicted “peace in our time,” only to find himself now, a year later, grumbling that Hitler “was not keeping his word.”

In the midst of this tense and disagreeable situation, Doolittle arrived in Frankfurt to find a marked change in the city, with “hundreds of uniformed men with swastika armbands and civilians with unsmiling faces on the streets and in the shops.” There was an “ominous air of impending catastrophe,” he said.

He stayed only a few days and did not go to Berlin, but he did find time to look up his good friend Ernst Udet, who by this time was a full major general in the Luftwaffe. Udet had likewise changed. “The old ebullience and grin and laugh were gone,” Doolittle said. “He had difficulty remembering English words, and seemed much subdued.” Udet did not offer him an escort this time, or allow him into military facilities, but he did take Doolittle to an air show in Frankfurt, Jimmy recalled, where he seemed “embarrassed to have me around.” The show was confined entirely to military aircraft and tactics.

There was a grim sense of urgency everywhere Doolittle went. He managed to meet a few German pilots but their conversations, he said, were always “one-way.” They asked questions about U.S. aircraft production, Doolittle remembered, with “an impudence bordering on rudeness,” and “talked openly about a war in Europe.”

Udet invited Jimmy to join him on a vacation he was taking in Munich, but “something told me,” Doolittle said, “it was not the right thing to do.” It was the last time he would see his old friend.

Doolittle stopped in London on his way home and visited the American embassy where he looked up the air attaché, Major Martin “Mike” Scanlon, whose lackadaisical attitude regarding the possibility of war was recorded by more than one observer. Scanlon was completely uninterested in hearing about the vast changes in Germany. “There’s nothing I can do about it,” Scanlon told him, suggesting to Jimmy that he tell his story to Hap Arnold when he got home, which is precisely what Doolittle did.

Arnold early on had been Jimmy’s commanding officer at Rockwell Field and Doolittle had an extensive relationship with him. He was now the chief of the Air Corps with the rank of major general. Instead of going home to St. Louis, Jimmy went immediately to Washington when his ship landed in New York. He told Arnold he believed war in Europe was “inevitable” and offered to return to the service. Arnold knew it would mean a huge pay cut for Doolittle and the two agreed to leave the offer open.

Not long after, on September 1, 1939, Hitler attacked Poland with planes, tanks, and infantry. Two days after that Britain and France declared war on Germany. World War II had begun.

*
A device that tells the pilot whether the plane is flying level, banking, climbing, or diving.

†
Reader’s effort, later known in military jargon as FIDO, for “Fog, Intense Dispersal of,” was actually used effectively both in Los Angeles and in England during World War II. Enormous heat-dispensing devices were set up on runways to heat the air directly above the runway to the dew point. Doolittle, who was commanding the Eighth Air Force then, said some twenty-five hundred bombers and fighters returning to England’s pea soup fogs were saved.