Fifty years after Col. James Doolittle's bombers made their historic raid on Japan, eight of the surviving airmen will be reunited with the Chinese who rescued them.
Five of the rescuers - including two from villages with no running water or electricity - will be flown to Minnesota on Friday for the reunion, to be followed by a White House reception."It's just something that needs to be done, and it's now or never," said Bryan Moon of Frontenac, an artist and history buff who organized the event.
"I don't think America has ever said, `Thank you,' to the people of China, bearing in mind that thousands of Chinese people were killed in World War II. I think we need to thank the people who are left," Moon said.
Doolittle's desperate raid on Tokyo came four months after Pearl Harbor, when American morale badly needed a boost.
His 16 B-25B bombers took off April 18, 1942, from the USS Hornet, the first fully-loaded bombers ever to take off from an aircraft carrier.
The crew members planned to unload their bombs over Japan, then land in China. But the planes crash-landed in bad weather.
All 80 airmen survived the crash landing. Eight were captured by the Japanese; of those, three were executed, one died in prison and four were released when the war ended, U.S. officials said.
The reunion grew out of a 1990 expedition to China led by Moon to search for parts of the bombers. The expedition recovered parts from three of the bombers, including Doolittle's.
While searching, Moon met the peasants and workers who had rescued the airmen, setting the wheels in motion for the reunion.
Forty-two of the 80 airmen are still alive, and like the Chinese are mostly in their 70s and 80s. Doolittle, 95, lives in Carmel, Calif., and has sent a message to be read to the Chinese.
The rescuers coming to the United States include fisherman's wife Zhao Xiaobao; postal inspector Zeng Jianpei; physician Chen Shenyan; farmer Liu Frangchiao; and school teacher Zhu Xuesan. They will be accompanied by a Chinese official and an interpreter.