(2 of 2)
California-born, Doolittle spent his boyhood in Alaska, where his father was prospecting for gold. At school in rough-&-tumble Nome, young Jimmy was the smallest in his class, but his fists earned him the schoolboy title of "Pride of Nome." Back at Los Angeles Manual Arts High School, he became good friends with an aspiring baritone named Lawrence Tibbett, has kept up a solid interest in music ever since.
At his side when he got his country's highest decoration was his wife Josephine, mother of his two sons. Tall Jo Doolittle has prematurely white hair, partly from waiting at home for Jimmy to return from flights, partly from keeping up with Jimmy's buoyancy. Once, when a friend telephoned that Jimmy had bailed out at 200 feet from a speeding plane at St. Louis' old Curtiss-Steinberg Airport, she wearily said thanks, hung up the phone with no questions. She flew with him when he set a transcontinental speed record for transport planes in 1935, pronounced it the worst flight she ever had. One strain on her has been watching the regular friendly prize fights between the Jimmy Doolittles, father & son. Son Jimmy, promised a pony whenever he could floor his Papa, never quite hit Papa on the button: James Sr. was once an amateur bantamweight champion.
Last month, when the Japs reported that the bombing had been done by American B-25s, Jo Doolittle had a pretty good idea that Jimmy was in on it. But she found out for sure when she saw his grinning face in the President's office.
Second Lieutenant James H. Doolittle Jr., training at Dayton in the Air Corps, saw the headlines, told reporters: "I'm pretty cocky about my old man." Said second son John, 19, now headed for West Point: "Yippee!"