OKALOOSA ISLAND — To the delight and admiration of manyhundredsof people gathered along and near the beaches of Okaloosa Island, a massive flyover featuring a long succession of military aircraft filled the skies Monday evening.
The flyover simultaneously honored the Doolittle Raiders, 80 Army Air Force airmen who conducted a daring World War II bombing raid on Japan on April 18, 1942,after training at what was then Eglin Field, and the 75th anniversary year of the U.S. Air Force, which was established on Sept. 18, 1947.
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Among the younger viewers of the air extravaganza were local teen twin brothers Jacoband Alex Bollenbach. They were there with theirfather,Doug, an Air Force Special Operations veteran who worked on the electronics aboard AC-130U gunships at Hurlburt Field, from which Monday's flyover originated.
Both young men said their father's Air Force career got them interested in military aviation, but their personal preferences among aircraft were widely divergent.
For Jacob, the two World War II-era B-25s in theair show —like the 16 aircraft flown by the Doolittle Raiders —were the hit of the event.
Alex had a decidedly more modern interest: the F-22 Raptor fighter jet thatscreamed by overheadas necks craned and cellphone cameras followed its path.
"I've always loved planes from World War II," Jacob said, while Alex wasimpressed with the "very powerful" F-22.
Air Force aircraft in the flyover included anMC-130H from the 15th Special Operations Squadron at Hurlburt, an AC-130J from Hurlburt's 4th Special Operations Squadron and a CV-22 Osprey from the 8th Special Operations Squadron at Hurlburt.
TheF-22 fighter was from the 43rd Fighter Squadron at Tyndall Air Force Base. Otherjets included an F-15E and an F-16, both from the 85th Test and Evaluation Squadron at Eglin Air Force Base.
Other Air Force jets inthe flyover were an A-10 close air support aircraft, an F-35 from the 33rd Fighter Wing at Eglin, aB-52 bomber, and a B-1 bomber.
Two Air Force helicopters, both HH-60 combat search and rescue aircraft, rounded out the military aircraft.
In addition to the two B-25s, other privately held aircraft in the flyover included T-6 Texan military training aircraft,T-34 military training aircraftand an assortment of other planesflown by the Black Ducks, a group of military retirees and Civil Air Patrol members who fly World War II-era liaison aircraft —aircraft that fly in support, rather than combat, roles —out of McCutchan Field in Holt.
The throngs of people lining the beach in front of The Boardwalk on Okaloosa Island and stretching along the Okaloosa Island Fishing Pier included Mark Edens, a 20-year veteran of the AirForce, and his wife,Dorothy.
Edens, who enlisted in the Air Force and then moved intoits officer ranks, had a varied career, serving as a gunship crew chief and alsoworking with nuclear missiles.
It was an air show at Florida's Homestead Air Force Base that helped sparkhis interest in military aviation and his military career, he said. At 10 years old, he saw the Air Force Thunderbirds perform at the Homesteadshow, "and that prettymuch convinced me" to follow that career path, he said.
Nearby on the beach, Tim Clements, who served as an Army combat medic from 1980 to 1992, eagerly awaited the start of the flyover. During his time in the Army, he saidhe flew aboard a number of aircraft, from C-130s to helicopters.
"Whatever Uncle Sam told me to get into," he joked.
That experience gave Clements a lifelong interest in military aircraft.
"As much as I can get out to see them, I'm out," he said.
The Doolittle Raiders, named for then-Army Air Forces Lt. Col. James Doolittle, who led the mission, are credited with boosting the morale of military and the American public with their raid on Japan.
The crews flew 16 B-25 Mitchell bombers offthe aircraft carrier USSHornet in the Pacific Ocean more than 800 miles to Japan, where they struck military and industrial targets before they either ditched their aircraft or bailed out before their planes crashed in China. One of the B-25s landed safely in Russia, then a U.S. ally.
Two of the 80 airmen drowned when their bombers ditched, and a third died while parachuting from his bomber.
Eight of the Doolittle Raiders were captured by the Japanese. Three were executed, one died of starvation and disease while in captivity, and four were subjected to more than three years of solitary confinement and brutality.
The raid came just four months after the Japanese surprise attack on Pearl Harbor that devastated the U.S. Navy and pulled the United States into World War II. With the raid, the Doolittle Raiders proved that U.S. forces could strike Japan by air, something that Japanese leaders had said would not happen.
Establishment of the U.S. Air Force came just five years after the Doolittle raidand 36 years after Congress approved the first allocation to military aviation in 1911.
A few short years after that initial allocation, World War I proved the importance of air power, and a move to create an air force separate from other military services began to take hold.
By World War II, the Army Air Forces had become an autonomous operation within the U.S.defense structure, with an understanding that, after the war, those forces would become an independent service known as the Air Force.
