Nancy Mayborn Peterson

Bill Mauldin was only twenty when the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor, but he quickly found his place in the chaos of war, a place that made him probably the bet-known and best-loved enlisted man in the US Army.

Sergeant Mauldin’s job was to draw cartoons for the soldiers’ newspaper, Stars and Stripes. He served beside them and knew how things were. Soon sad-faced Willie and Joe, muddy, bedraggled, often with a cigarette hanging from a lip, were personifying the woes of combat infantrymen. The cartoonist never hesitated to tweak officers’ tails, but when some officers objected, Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower, Supreme Commander of Allied Forces in Europe, put a stop to complaints. “Mauldin draws what Mauldin wants,” he declared.

Uncomfortable with praise, Mauldin was always an ordinary Joe, his impish grin still in place as he returned to civilian life and cartooned for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. In 1945, he won his first of two Pulitzer Prizes, this one for "Distinguished service as a cartoonist." His Willie made the cover of Time magazine. His book, Up Front, was No. 1 best-seller in the country.

When word got out in 2002 that Mauldin was lying, alone, in a California nursing home, enlisted men from all over the country sent 10,000 cards and letters to tell him they hadn’t forgotten. So many wanted to visit it necessitated a waiting list. They came all summer and fall, bringing mementos of their days in the service, needing to say “Thank you.”

”You had to be reading a soaking wet Stars and Stripes in a water-filled fox hole and then see one of his cartoons,” one veteran explained. Mauldin’s cartoons had given them what they needed most when things got tough: the priceless gift of laughter.

Mauldin died on Jan. 23, 2003, and is buried in Arlington Cemetery. In 2010, he – and Willie and Joe – were honored on a US postage stamp, all three pictured as they were when they were buddies in 1943. Read More 

The war news was all bad. Japanese forces were taking Pacific islands at will. The American public, frightened and discouraged,was hearing nothing but retreat and loss. Then came word 16 U.S. bombers had reached Tokyo. The Japanese capital was burning, just like Pearl Harbor had. Finally, something to cheer about!

Sixteen B-25's, stripped down to bare necessities and each crewed by only five men, finally learned what their dangerous, secret mission involved. They launched their planes from the USS Hornet and headed for Japan, 600 miles across the waters. Unexpected, undetected by the Japanese, they met only token resistance and all successfully bombed their targets.

Then, without sufficient fuel to reach any friendly base, they continued west, hoping to land in part of China free of Japanese occupation. One plane crash-landed in waters off the China coast; two men drowned; one man was killed bailing out. The rest were captured and held in Japan. One plane landed in Russia. Fourteen Liberators crash-landed in China; many airmen were helped by villagers who paid a terrible price. It is estimated the Japanese killed 250,00 civilians during their search for the Doolittle Raiders.

Eight Raiders were held in Japan; all were sentenced to death, but several sentences were commuted. Three were executed; one died in prison. Survivors in China were returned to the U.S., later flying missions in Burma, North Africa and Europe. Twelve eventually died in battle.

The Doolittle raid did little material damage to Japan, but raised American morale and forced the Japanese to shift resources to defend their homeland, weakening the navy that would face Americans two months later in the decisive Battle of Midway.  Read More