Lightning in the Sky by Carl Mann

Author:Carl Mann [Mann, Carl]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: History, Military, United States, Europe, General, Germany, Asia, Japan
ISBN: 9781787203327
Google: VkOCDQAAQBAJ
Publisher: Pickle Partners Publishing
Published: 2016-11-11T15:54:48+00:00

CHAPTER 15—The Outside Loop

LIEUTENANT JAMES H. DOOLITTLE acquired a host of friends in South America on that first trip. But he could acquire a host of friends in any country in six months. His trip was highly successful. He had sold a record lot of planes. However, back in the United States a fortnight later, it was a pretty badly crippled aviator who reported for duty. When the Army flyers in the States had heard of Jimmy’s misfortune in the two-point landing from the balcony of that Santiago club, many shook their heads. No man in the Air Service wanted to see Jimmy grounded from an accident like that one after he had won worldwide acclaim for the Air Service by his bold-hearted ventures in the air.

Army doctors are thorough. And in no other branch of the service do they give a man the going over they do in the Air Force. When the Army physicians took one look at Jimmy after his return from South America they handed him an ultimatum. This time he was headed for Walter Reed Hospital in Washington, D. C., and there would be no hack-sawing of plaster casts and no escapades in the air. At first the physicians thought perhaps a year would be the least Doolittle could expect in the hospital. There was much work to be done on his legs, for they would have to undo what Jimmy had done in his amazing swing through South America, and the project looked complicated.

On December 14 Jimmy passed his thirtieth birthday under the careful eyes of Army doctors. Meanwhile Jo Doolittle had found a difficult problem on her hands. Her energetic husband was bound to Walter Reed Hospital and she had two youngsters in hand. James, Jr., was nearly nine and young John was about seven. She went to Washington, took an apartment to be near James senior, and the family settled down for the duration of Jimmy’s period of recovery. To a man who loved being on the wing as Doolittle did, these months in the hospital were agony, but he stuck it out through the winter and early spring.

In the meantime, commercial aviation was taking on growth. There were several spectacular flights while Jimmy was at Walter Reed, and these achievements by flyers across the country made Jimmy more restless than ever. He was anxious to get out and join this great parade of aerial events. Jimmy had heard of a young airmail pilot named Charles Lindbergh who was planning a flight to Paris. There were other flyers, too, working like mad to get off on ocean hops that spring. A whole rash of endurance flights and ocean-hopping ventures was breaking out over the country.

The best of medical attention at the Army’s famous hospital had Jimmy ready for duty again by April, 1927. It had taken six months for his injured legs to knit. During this period of convalescence he had had a great deal of time to think and plan. He

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