Lt. Col. Chase J. Nielsen, a Utah man and member of the famed "Doolittle Raiders" who bombed Japan in 1942 -- in a retaliation attack from Pearl Harbor -- passed away on Friday at the age of 90.Should be "for" Pearl Harbor but even that is misleading, since so much had happened in the intervening 5 months, including the Bataan Death March.
Nielsen was a navigator in one of the most daring air raids in American history, when 16 B-25 bombers took off from an aircraft carrier and bombed Tokyo on April 18, 1942.
Nielsen and his crew -- named "Crew 6," because of the order in which they left the aircraft carrier -- ditched the plane off the coast of China after it ran out of fuel. He then spent more than three years as a Japanese prisoner of war. Nielsen was the only member of "Crew 6" to survive the war.
The raid, planned by Lt. Col. Jimmy Doolittle as a retaliation attack from Japan's assault on Pearl Harbor four months earlier, was the subject of the book and movie "Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo" and the book "Four Came Home," which chronicled the story of Nielsen and the three other survivors. (Click Here to see pictures of the raid)
Nielsen, who returned to China to testify at Japanese war crimes trials just months after he was released, was known for telling his story to anyone who asked.
"They were always after him to tell his war stories," Nielsen's wife, Phyllis, told the Ogden Standard-Examiner. "He was a very well-thought-of man because he was just a nice person. He loved to help anybody that needed help."
Nielsen's death leaves 14 surviving "Doolittle Raiders," according to researchers.
In 1935, Nielsen graduated from South Cache High School in Hyrum before attending Utah State University between 1935 and 1938, where he received a degree in civil engineering. Nielsen enlisted at Fort Douglas in Salt Lake City as a flying cadet in 1939. He retired from military service in 1961 after receiving several honors including the Distinguished Flying Cross and the Purple Heart.
Doolittle Raiders--Official Website
The video for this story is a mishmash of WW2 archive shots, obviously assembled by someone who knows nothing of aircraft and little of history. It includes no authentic Doolittle raid footage, though plenty is available, but it does show B-26s, A B-29, and a B-17, as well as a couple of B-25s, and a shot of the liberation of Dutch PoWs. Disgraceful.
| Moved story here because it didn't fit "Lurid Crime Tales. |