Lt. Col. Thadd Harrison Blanton
Narrative of Thadd H. Blanton
Context
On December 21, 1941, President Roosevelt asked the military to come up with a plan for a retaliatory air raid on Japan to avenge the December 7, 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor. (1) Americans needed a morale boost. Second-lieutenant Thadd H. Blanton, an airman from Gainesville, Texas, was one of one-hundred and forty men who volunteered for a dangerous and secret mission against Japan. That mission would be a dramatic air raid over Tokyo and vicinity which would become known as the “Jimmy Doolittle Raid.”
This raid put a crack in the Japanese sense of invincibility and did indeed boost American morale.
Overview
Thadd Blanton was born on February 25, 1919 in Windthorst, Texas (Archer County) to Roderick Wayne and Millie Harrison Blanton, who were both born and raised in Cooke County. (2) His parents soon separated and at one year of age Thadd and his mother returned to her hometown of Myra, Texas. Millie was an English teacher. (3) Thadd attended school in Myra until his freshman year. He attended one year of high school in Valley View. (4) Blanton moved ten miles north to Gainesville where he graduated from Newsome Dougherty Memorial High School in May of 1936. (5) He attended Gainesville Junior College from 1936-1939. (6) Blanton transferred to North Texas State Teachers College in Denton in the fall of 1939. (7)
On November 25, 1940 he joined the U.S. Army Air Corps as an aviation cadet and trained as a pilot at the West Coast Army Air Corps Training Center at Sunnyvale, California. He received his wings and was commissioned as a 2nd Lieutenant in the U.S. Army Air Force at Moffett Field, California on July l1, 1941. (8)
In September of 1941, Thadd was assigned to Pendleton Field, Oregon as a B-25B Bomber Pilot for the 37th Bomb Squadron, 17th Bombardment Group. (9) The 37th was on large scale maneuvers with U.S. Army Ground Forces in California, Mississippi and Georgia.
On January 1, 1942, Lieutenant Blanton’s 37th Bomb Squadron was reassigned to Pendleton Field to patrol for Japanese submarines off the coast of Oregon and Washington. Every airman who was asked to volunteer for a dangerous and secret mission did so. (10) The Group Commander and four squadron leaders chose 140 men for the twenty-four planes, with twenty of the volunteers being mechanics, radio operators, maintenance personnel, etc.
On March 3, 1942, the volunteers were transferred to Eglin Field, Florida. (11)
Eglin Field was a remote airbase with seven satellite airfields located in a mosquito-laden swamp surrounded by palm trees. (12) The airmen were isolated, living in tents and had their own mess hall. On March 24, 1942, all of the volunteers and the remaining twenty-two flyable airplanes were sent to McClellan Field, Sacramento, California for final mission preparations. (13)
On April 1, 1942, the planes, crews and volunteers flew to the Alameda Naval Air Station. (14) Sixteen planes were hoisted onto the USS Hornet which had recently arrived via the Panama Canal from Norfolk, Virginia. Every mission volunteer came aboard (to prevent “loose lips”).
On April 2, 1942, Task Force “Mike,” consisting of eight ships (the Hornet, two cruisers, four destroyers and an oiler), left San Francisco Harbor to meet Task Force “Howe” (with its eight ships), departing from Pearl Harbor. (15)
Soon after the Hornet left the harbor, Jimmy Doolittle gathered his crews together and told them they were on their way to bomb Japan. (16) He, once again, offered each man the opportunity to back out – no one did. He had replacement crews on the ship if needed.
The Mission: Each plane was to drop its four 500 lb. bombs on one of the following cities: Tokyo, Yokohama, Nagoya, Osaka, and Kobe, a 120-mile stretch of cities. (17) They were to select steel, iron, aluminum and magnesium factories as well as aircraft plants, shipyards and oil refineries. The aviators were instructed not to attack civilians, schools, hospitals or the Imperial Palace.
On April 10, Admiral Halsey’s transmission from the aircraft carrier USS Enterprise to the Hornet had been intercepted by Japanese combined fleet radio scanners. (18) Unknown to the U.S. Task Force, the Japanese knew the location of both convoys and knew exactly where the Americans were headed- straight for Japan.
The Task Force was 800 miles out, 150-400 miles further than Doolittle wished, but it was now time for the raiders to lift off. While Doolittle was preparing his crews, the Hornet, moving at twenty knots, turned into a headwind of twenty-seven knots, ideal for takeoff. (19) None of the Army pilots had ever flown off an aircraft carrier. The flight deck length was 467 feet. All sixteen bombers were airborne by 9:21 a. m. (20)
Blanton was co-pilot of “The Fickle Finger of Fate,” the twelfth bomber to leave the Hornet. The other crew members included Lt. William M. Bower, pilot; Lt. William R. Pound, navigator; Sergeant Waldo J. Bither, bombardier; and Staff Sergeant Omer Adelard Duquette, engineer/gunner. Their plane reached the coast of Japan north of Chosi, a city due east of Tokyo. (21)
“The Fickle Finger” flew south along the coast a few miles inland east of Yokohama. Flying a few feet above the ground, several Japanese fighters tailed, but never came close. Nearing the Yokohama dock yards, they saw five barrage balloons floating between 1500-2500 feet, protecting the target area. Bower quickly asked his crew for another target as anti-aircraftshells were exploding all around them. Bower raised the aircraft to 1100 feet to reduce the shock wave of the bomb blasts and targeted what he thought to be the Ogura Oil Refinery. Post war analysis revealed the target was actually Japan Oil. Six underground gas pipes and a steel reinforced wall were destroyed.
The other two demolition bombs hit the Showa Electric Factory, hitting a road inside the compound, leaving a crater 8 ft. deep and 40 ft. wide. A 16 ft. piece of rail line was hurled 200 feet through the roof of a factory. Shrapnel penetrated a hydrogen tank, starting a fire. The incendiary bomb with its 128 four-pound bomblets fell across the Showa Electric Factory and the neighboring Japan Steel Piping Factory, destroying a two-story building. Bower’s attack had destroyed two buildings and damaged a third. No one was killed. (22)
Following the bombing, Bower dove back down hedge-hopping over roof tops towards the East China Sea. The crew was well aware that they did not have enough fuel to get to Free China. They did have a five-man rubber raft on board. They soon discovered they were being assisted by an unexpected 25 mph tail wind, thus improving their odds to making it to Chuchow, China, which was 1200 miles from the Japanese Coast. Unknown to the raiders, Chuchow was not prepared for their landing and refueling to continue the 800 mile flight to Chungking. They would have to abandon the aircraft in flight. (23)
Cruising at 9000 feet with 20 minutes of fuel left, Bill Bower had everyone assemble in the navigation compartment to discuss the bailout procedure as none of them had ever parachuted from an airplane. They jumped in the dark into a cold rain. Blanton was the next to last to leave the plane, pilot Bower, the last. After landing, Blanton slept during the night using his parachute for warmth. The next day he met up with Bill Pound. They followed a stream until they found a trail. They walked through a small village. Seeing no one, they kept on walking. Thirty minutes later Sgt. Bither joined them. He had come through a friendly village, so they went back to it, where they were shown maps. They found they were forty miles northwest of their intended destination. They took off walking again. That night they found a village that welcomed them. Bower had arrived earlier and was given a message via sign language by one of the Chinese that Sgt. Duquette was going to be brought in with a broken foot. Their airplane crew would soon be together again. (24) That night they slept on wooden tables.
The Chinese made sedan chairs out of the parachute harnesses and the next day they made it to Chuchow where the Chinese housed the aviators at barracks ten miles from the airfield, complete with a bomb shelter chipped out of rock. They spent six days hiding in the cave during the daily Japanese retaliatory bombing raids. Chinese bodies were stacked like cord wood along the roadsides. On April 25, twenty raiders left by train, then bus and finally by a C-47, arriving in Chungking, the Nationalist Capital on the 29th. After resting for 4 days and receiving awards from the USA and China, they shipped out for India on the same C-47 that had just delivered Doolittle, Hilger and nineteen more raiders. (25)
Lt. Blanton remained in the China Burma India Theatre. His first assignment was as a B-17 Flying Fortress pilot with the 7th bomb group in Karachi, India from April to September 1942, followed by service as a B-25 pilot with the 341st bomb group at Chakulia, India from September 1942 to July 1943. (26) He flew 35 missions, escaping from enemy territory after his airplane crashed in Burma. (27)
In July 1943, Thadd Blanton was removed from combat and returned stateside for other duties. On September 15, 1945, he married Sarah Helen Weed of Ariton, Alabama. (28)
Thadd Blanton’s further service duty
1943-1946 Pinecastle Field, Florida
1946-1949 Eglin Field, Florida
1949-1955 Patrick AFB, Florida
1955-Grand Bahama Auxiliary AFB, Bahamas
1955-1956 Patient at Patrick AFB Hospital, Florida
1956-1958 Patrick AFB, Florida
1958-1960 Clark AFB, Philippines
1960-Clark AFB Hospital, Philippines and Lackland AFB Hospital, TX
1960-Medically retired, November 15, 1960 (29)
On September 27, 1961, he died at the Orlando Base Hospital, Florida. He was survived by his wife Helen, daughter Cassandra, son Thadd Jr., mother Millie, stepfather J.M. Russell and several relatives in the Gainesville area
Buried at Fairview Cemetery, Gainesville, TX (30)
Thadd Blanton’s Medals
Distinguished Flying Cross
Air Medal
Chinese Army, Navy and Air Corps Medal Class A, 1st Grade
Chinese Order of the Cloud Banner, 5th Class (31)
Thadd Blanton’s Awards
Distinguished Alum by the Gainesville High School Alumni Association Sept. 2009
Historical Significance
Thadd Blanton as a co-pilot of one of sixteen American bombers to be the first to attack the homeland of Japan in World War II, given their dramatic success against extreme odds, certainly makes him an American hero. Having to bail out in China, occupied by Japan, added to the uncertainty of his fate. This episode in World War II was a morale boost for the American war in the Pacific. Lieutenant Blanton did not rest on his laurels, but continued his career as aviator despite his combat injuries.
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