http://www.npr.org/2013/11/11/244452...dle-in-numbers
When asked where they flew from to get to Japan, Roosevelt exclaimed from Shangri La.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Shangri-La_(CV-38)
http://militaryhistory.about.com/od/...littleraid.htm
When my dad joined the US Navy - CVA 38 was the very first carrier he was assigned to.
Dad said that they were offloading the F4U Corsair - prop aircraft and were replacing it with the first true jets.
My dad went on to become a crew chief for the Blue Angels...
Dad said they were 3 days away from Korea in 54 when tensions flared and the US was called back to quell the flare up.
Everyone thinks that the war ended in 53' - but anyone that was in the military knows that it never ended.
They were also near the Bikini Atol - standing on the deck as human guinea pigs when the US blew up the Bikini Atol while doing nuclear tests...
My Uncle Walt was a B-25 pilot in WW II, flew 27 missions over the hump and flew another 16 combat missions in Europe.
Stayed in, flew for Strategic Air Command in the 50's and then flew KC 135 - basically a gutted out 707 air refueling wing in the Vietnam conflict and at the air bases in Colorado and California into the 1970's.
3 more years and he would have been a full Colonel, but his wife died of cancer in 1976 and he had to return home to take care of his children.
After 33 years in the Army Air Corps / US Air Force - he was very well known in the flying circles. My Uncle knew many of the Doolittle guys, but said that they were in such demand in the 80's and 90's that you couldn't even get close to them when they spoke at reunions....
We tend to honor some people because of one thing they did 70 years ago and we tend to forget those that did this stuff on a twice daily basis for years.
Had it not been for those that did the refueling for the bombers and strike aircraft in the Vietnam conflict, many of those guys never would have made it home... The stories of the guys in the KC 135 towing them back to safety with the refueling boom was a common story, and the story that the guys flying those planes that couldn't buy a drink in a base officers club during the war was very true!