Salute!
Have you ever thought just how
important that wines are in our lives? Every great occasion that we experience
is shared with a glass of wine. With our wine goblet in hand we toast each
other’s health. Graduations, promotions,
birthdays, weddings and great triumphs are memorialized by raising our wine
glass in salute!
With your permission, with this
month’s Blog, we’re going to vary off course from our normal discussion of
wines. Instead, we’re going to raise our wine glasses in a toast to a group of
fellow Americans that fought to protect and preserve our precious freedoms.
This month, the last survivors of “Doolittle’s
Raid” will meet for the last time. More than 70 years has passed since
these brave men flew into the pages of history. Without them, and the countless
other warriors of WWII, we would not enjoy all that we have today. So, it’s
only fitting that we glance back into our past and remember a moment that
changed the world!
Lest we forget, on the morning of
April 18, 1942, at about 8:00 in the morning, sixteen B-25B Mitchell medium
bombers lifted off the deck of the American aircraft carrier…Hornet! They were
approximately 600 miles from the shores of Imperial Japan. Led by Lieutenant
Colonel James (“Jimmy”) H. Doolittle the planes of this group of 80 volunteers lifted
one by one from the rolling deck of the carrier. Still reeling from the
devastating attack on Pearl Harbor by Japan on December 7, 1941, the United
States and its allies needed something to boost the morale of its soldiers and
of their citizens back home. This bold and daring venture by “Jimmy” Doolittle
and his brave men became the catalyst for the change of the momentum of the war
from the Axis powers to America and her allies. Due the embarrassment of the
“Doolittle Raid”, the Japanese high command resolved to prevent this from ever
happening again by destroying America’s aircraft carriers. A month and a half
later, japan suffered its greatest disaster of the war at…the “Battle of Midway”.
”Thank
You, Salute and Happy Days”!
