General Doolittle & the Unchosen Pilot, by Dave Ford
Our guest speaker for September 11, 2025 was Dave Ford, whose topic was “General Doolittle & the Unchosen Pilot Who Did a Lot of Damage.” Dave was raised in Sonoma County and graduated from Santa Rosa High School and USC’s Marshall School of Business. He spent 6 years in the U.S. Army Reserves and learned to fly at a young age. He is a Past President of the Conejo Valley Rotary Club in Southern California. He, like most of his family, is still a pilot and aviation aficionado. He’s a former president of the Pacific Coast Air Museum and is still active with the museum.
Dave’s presentation was about the involvement of his uncle, Bob Ford, in WWII and with General Doolittle, who led the famous raid on Tokyo during WWII. General Doolittle led the attack very early in the war using land-based B-24 bombers converted to fly off aircraft carriers. The raid was not a strategic military success but showed the Japanese armed forces that the island could be attacked by the U.S. and potentially drawing Japanese naval forces closer to the island itself and thus paving the way for early U.S. successes against the Japanese fleet, including in the Battle of Midway. Bob Ford, who had been a member of the 17th Bombardment Group from which the pilots and crews of the Doolittle raid were selected, was not chosen to participate in the raid but his own exploits during the war were impressive.
Bob’s unit was stationed in Oregon when the war started. They sank a German U-Boat near the mouth of the Columbia River! After the Doolittle crew was selected and started training, Bob’s group was transferred to Florida, where they also sank a U-Boat off the coast. Bob then flew to China to join the Flying Tigers. He flew 53 combat missions against the Japanese from China in 16 months! Bob received the Distinguished Flying Cross and the Silver Star for his service in the war. After the war Bob became a test pilot working on a variety of new and experimental aircraft. He also joined the Air Force Reserves and worked with the Strategic Air Command. He was recalled to active duty during the Korean War. Dave also told us his own story about meeting General Doolittle at a reunion at the Nut Tree in Vacaville in 1981. Dave, himself a pilot, flew up to the Nut Tree from the Los Angeles area to participate in the reunion and met General Doolittle and his wife.
Many thanks to Dave for his wonderful presentation and insights into some of the most famous events of WWII’s aviation war in the Pacific theater.
