Crew #2
Crew of 2nd Aircraft - Plane # 40-2292 - Crew from 37th Squadron, 17th Group - (Crash landing - China)
Lieutenant Hoover lifted off five minutes behind Jimmy Doolittle and caught up to the lead aircraft en route to Japan. His B-25 followed Doolittle's until it reached the shoreline, at which time Hoover veered off to bomb his own targets, two factory buildings and storehouses. He then trailed Doolittle most of the way to China where he managed to make a wheels-up crash-landing in a soft rice paddy. The crew was uninjured and walked for three days before friendly local guerilla fighters found them. On April 22 they went by boat to Sungyao, then traveled by train and by foot to arrive in Chunking on May 14.
This plane, flown by Hoover, closely followed Doolittle into Tokyo and dropped their bombs from only 900 feet. (also on a factory). They then headed to China with Doolittle's plane in sight. After losing sight of plane #1 in the darkness over the Chinese mainland, Hoover landed the plane safely in a rice paddy near the port city of Ningbo, Zhejiang Province, which was then an area occupied by the Japanese army. They set fire to the plane before evacuating westward with what they might need on the plane. The crewmen stayed overnight in a valley. Like the crew ahead of them this crew was also picked up by Chinese guerrillas and escorted to the Western Zhejiang Administration.
- Pilot Lt. T. Hoover
- Co-Pilot Lt. W.N. Fitzhugh
- Navigator Lt. C.R. Wildner
- Bombardier Lt. R.E. Miller
- Engineer Gunner SSgt. D.V. Radney
Fitzhugh
William N. Fitzhugh, 0-421067, Major
Hoover
Travis Hoover, 0-421149, Colonel
Miller
Richard Ewing Miller, 0-432352, Captain
Radney
Douglas V. Radney, 6266909, Major