After Pearl Harbor, he led America’s flight to victory General Doolittle is a giant of the twentieth century. He did it all. As a stunt pilot, he thrilled the world with his aerial acrobatics. As a scientist, he pioneered the development of modern aviation technology. During World War II, he served his country as a fearless and innovative air warrior, organizing and leading the devastating raid against Japan immortalized in the film Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo . Now, for the first time, here is his life story — modest, revealing, and candid as only Doolittle himself can tell it. From the Paperback edition. Octogenarian Doolittle, with coauthor Glines ( The Doolittle Raid , LJ 10/15/88) uncovers no scandals and reveals no skeletons in telling the story of his life. What emerges is a portrait of a thoroughly decent human being whose relative unconcern for his military reputation is especially refreshing in this genre. Doolittle's proudest memories come not from his years in high command but from the cockpit. A brilliant pilot and a trained aeronautical engineer, he contributed significantly to the development of American aviation prior to 1941. Doolittle clearly regards the high point of his wartime service as preparing and leading the 1942 raid against Tokyo. Otherwise he presents himself as a man who had the good fortune consistently to be in the right places at the right times. Doolittle's account underplays his own energy and ambition, qualities without which no one reaches senior rank in the armed forces. Nevertheless, his modesty, his pride of craft, and his sense of duty are admirable. - Dennis E. Showalter, Colorado Coll., Colorado Springs Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc. The reminiscences of an authentic American hero who, while best known for leading a bold airstrike against Japan early in WW II, has made his mark in a wealth of other endeavors. If the memoirs at hand read more like a bare-bones flight log than a reflective autobiography, they at least afford an engrossing record of a remarkable and eventful life. With editorial assistance from Glines (Attack on Yamamoto, Four Came Home, etc.), Doolittle (who turns 95 in October) looks back on seven decades of conspicuous accomplishment as a pilot, military officer, scholar, and businessman. Raised in gold-rush Alaska, the diminutive author earned spending money as a teenaged prizefighter and hard-rock miner. Attracted by the adventure of aviation, he left college in 1917 (one semester shy of a degree) to enlist in the US Army's Air Service. Doolittle won his wings but did not get overseas. After the Armistice, he stayed on to gain renown for the fledgling Air Corps and for himself as a daredevil stunt pilot and racer. The author also earned a Ph.D. at MIT, making substantive contributions to the emergent science of aeronautics. With a growing family to support, however, he resigned his commission in 1930 to accept a lucrative position with Shell Petroleum. Doolittle's corporate post kept him in the limelight, but his greatest acclaim lay ahead. Having rejoined the Army after war broke out in Europe, he organized and led the so-called ``Doolittle Raid'' that helped stem steady reverses in the Pacific theater and that won the author a general's stars and the Congressional Medal of Honor. Since WW II, Doolittle, an outspoken crusader for air power, has served on high-profile commissions and fared well in private enterprise. Doolittle makes a fine job of recalling his public triumphs and setbacks; beyond pro-forma tributes to his wife, though, he acknowledges or dramatizes almost no personal joys or sorrows (even the 1955 suicide of the author's son is dealt with in summary fashion). This cavil apart, a captivating account of a genuinely inspiring career. (Three 16-page photo inserts--not seen.) -- Copyright ©1991, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved. Pearl Harbor, he led America s flight to victory General Doolittle is a giant of the twentieth century. He did it all. As a stunt pilot, he thrilled the world with his aerial acrobatics. As a scientist, he pioneered the development of modern aviation technology. During World War II, he served his country as a fearless and innovative air warrior, organizing and leading the devastating raid against Japan immortalized in the film Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo . Now, for the first time, here is his life story modest, revealing, and candid as only Doolittle himself can tell it. From the Paperback edition. April 18, 1942 The 16-ship Navy task force centered around the aircraft carriers Hornet and Enterprise had been steaming westward toward Japan all night. I had given my final briefing to the B-25 bomber crews on the Hornet the day before. Our job was to do what we could to put a crimp in the Japanese war effort with the 16 tons of bombs from our 16 B-25s. The bombs could do only a fraction of the damage the Japanese had inflicted on us at Pearl Harbor, but the