Before there were ‘30 seconds over Toyko,’
there were...
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Minnesota Legionnaire
February 2013
Two weeks in
Minneapolis
By Al Zdon
s a newsman for KMSP Fox 9 in the Twin Cities
for the past nine years, Timothy Blotz has told a
lot of stories about a lot of people.
But a story about Minnesota’s little-known connection to
the famous Doolittle Raid in World War II had a special
meaning for Blotz.
It was a story about his grandfather.
“It’s just a little slice of Minnesota’s history, but it was
top secret at the time,” Blotz said. “No one knew what they
were working on.”
In secret, 24 B-25 bombers were flown into WoldChamberlain Field in early 1942, just weeks after the devastating attack on Pearl Harbor by the Japanese. The planes
were parked at the Mid-Continent Hangar, and a small crew
of men began to make changes to the planes.
One of those men was Philip Blotz, a ramp chief for
A
A B-25 is parked outside of Mid-Continent Airlines.
Note that the lower turret has been removed.
As a television newsman,
Timothy Blotz has dug out a lot
of stories. But this World War II
story was a little special. It was
about his grandfather.
Northwest Airlines.
His grandson Tim had heard of the B-25 conversions for
years through family lore, but had never considered doing a
story. “But I was talking with Randal Dietrich of
the70years.org project, and he convinced me that I should
tell that story. He told me that Minnesotans need to know
what happened there.”
So Blotz dug in and began doing research. His grandfather had died in the 1980s, but Blotz was able to talk to
other family members and get the beginnings of a story
together.
Much research was done through the internet. He also
contacted the Air Force History Center at Wright-Patterson
Field in Dayton, Ohio. They were able to connect him with
official Army Air Corps records including Doolittle’s after
action report. What was missing, though, were any pictures
that documented the B-25s coming to Minnesota and being
worked on.
“Those pictures were the Holy Grail. I checked with the
Minnesota Historical Society, but they had nothing. I talked
with Wayne Snyder at the Northwest Airlines History
Center, and he said he’d get back to me.”
Sometime later, Snyder did call. “He said, ‘You’re not
going to believe what I just got.’ When he told me, I
screamed out loud.”
The Northwest museum had come into possession of
five pictures of the work being done on the B-25s at the
Mid-Continent Airlines hangar.
Blotz’ research provided some historical background to
the Minnesota connection. After Pearl Harbor, President
Franklin Roosevelt was seeking a morale booster for the
American public. A Naval aide suggested a bomber attack
on the Japanese homeland using aircraft carriers.
But could bombers take off from the deck of a carrier?
On Feb. 2, 1942, two fully loaded B-25 bombers took off
from the deck on the USS Hornet just off the East Coast. It
TIM BLOTZ
Philip Blotz’ identification card when he was working
at Patterson Field in Dayton, Ohio, in 1943.
A B-25 is parked at Mid-Continent Airlines Hangar at Wold-Chamberlain Field in Minneapolis in early 1942.
Twenty-four bombers were flown in from Portland to have modifications made that would allow them to fly off
the deck of an aircraft carrier, drop bombs on Japan, and then fly to China where they hoped to land.
Part of the family heirlooms is Philip Blotz’ union card
for the Air Line Mechancis Assn. International 5407 in
Minneapolis.
February 2013
Minnesota Legionnaire
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proved that the B-25s could use such a short runway.
Lt. Col. Jimmy Doolittle was assigned the planning and
leadership of the project, and he knew a critical factor
would be to get more gas tanks aboard bombers so they
could reach their target and then fly on to friendly airfields
in China.
his is where Minnesota comes in. A company
called McQuay Manufacturing was an expert in
airborne gas tanks. Eighteen B-25s were flown in
from the 17th Bomb Group in Portland, Ore.
The Northwest crews, sub-contracted by Mid-Continent
Airlines, got busy installing the new equipment. A 225-gallon gas tank was installed in the top of the B-25’s bomb bay.
Because it took up room that had previously been used by
bomb racks, new bomb racks had to be fabricated and that
work was also done.
Another gas tank, this time a 160-gallon rubber bladder,
was installed in the narrow crawlway tunnel between the
front and back of the aircraft. When the first bladder was
found to leak, another had to be brought in from a company in Indiana.
Once the gas in the rubber tank was used, the bladder
would be rolled up and disposed of. The crew would then
have access to the entire plane again.
The top-secret Norden Bomb Sites, partially developed
at Minneapolis Honeywell, were taken out of the planes
and replaced by a 20-cent “Mark Twain” bomb site that was
made up of two pieces of metal.
Other modifications included the removal of the lower
gun turret, installation of de-icers and anti-icers, removal of
a radio set, and the installation of two painted broomsticks
in the rear of the plane to simulate machine guns.
“When it was all done, it was basically a flying gas
tank,” Blotz said. The B-25s fuel capacity had been
increased to 1,141 gallons, an increase of nearly 500 gallons.
While the B-25 crews were in the state, they were gathered in a hotel room in Minneapolis. “Captain Davey gathered the men together and told them a very dangerous mission was being planned, and that only volunteers would
make the mission. The entire crew volunteered,” Blotz said.
More refitting was done at Eglin Airfield in Florida,
where the crews trained on short takeoffs.
The planes were then moved to the West Coast
On April 18, 1942, 16 bombers were launched from the
USS Hornet. In addition to all the fuel enhancement done in
Minneapolis, the planes would each carrier 10 five-gallon
gas cans that would be disposed of after they had been
poured into the bomber’s gas tank.
As usual in military operations, it didn’t go quite according to plan. A Japanese patrol boat was encountered, and
Doolittle and Hornet Skipper Marc Mitscher decided to do
an immediate launch, 10 hours earlier and 170 miles farther
away than had been planned. The additional gas tanks
installed in Minneapolis were now even more critical.
The raid did some damage to targets in Japan, but the
main element of the attack, a morale boost for the United
States, was hugely successful. Newspapers trumpeted the
derring-do of the raid, and a book and movie, “30 Seconds
Over Tokyo” followed during the war.
All the planes except one crash landed in China or off the
coast. One landed in Siberia. Of the 80 crew members on
the 16 planes, 67 were rescued by Chinese civilians. Some
crew were captured and shot and other survived the war in
prison camps. The Japanese were so determined to find the
crews, that they killed 250,000 Chinese civilians as a retribution for the attack.
“My grandfather didn’t realize until after the raid was
over what their work was for. He was always very proud of
that. He used to say, ‘Yeah, I worked on Jimmy Doolittle’s
planes.’”
As the war progressed, Blotz was sent by Northwest
Airlines to the Patterson airfield in Dayton, Ohio, to work
on Army planes. Later he joined the Navy and became a
mechanic in Florida for such planes as the Corsair, the
Wildcat, the Bearcat and the Hellcat.
Blotz said his grandfather had plenty of stories about his
work during the war. “I remember one he told about one of
his fellow mechanics. A plane had clipped off the tip of its
wing, and the mechanic decided to weld it back on. The
problem was, the wing tip was made of magnesium. He
nearly burned the hangar down. I remember my grandpa sitting on the coach, chuckling about that.”
Blotz has told the story of his grandfather on Fox 9 and
also at the World War II History Round Table.
“What these men did here in town was a small part of the
mission, but without it Doolittle and the other crews would
never have made it to Tokyo. It was the first bit of good
news and a real morale booster for the U.S. It was a very
small role, but in the grander scheme of the raid, it was
huge.”
A link to Tim Blotz’s story is at 70years.org.
T
Philip Blotz, after working for Northwest Airlines in
Minneapolis, later joined the Navy where he was a
mechanic for Navy planes.
A view of Miss Mitchell, a restored B-25 that is kept at
Fleming Field in St. Paul, shows the upper part of the
bomb bay where an extra fuel tank was installed.
The St. Cloud Times, along with every newspaper in America, trumpeted the attack on the Japanese homeland
on April 18, 1942. (Photo courtesy the 70years.org project. The website shows newspapers from World War II.)
The deck of the USS Hornet in April 1942 was crowded with B-25 bombers en route to the attack on Japan.