Chapter 4

Courageous Strikes Against the Axis

General Jimmy Doolittle – Leader of Doolittle’s Raiders

General Knut Haukelid – Norwegian Commando -- Operation Gunnerside

Euripedes wrote that a coward turns away but a brave man’s choice is danger. For Jimmy Doolittle and Knut Haukelid danger was the only choice. These are the stories of two men honored by their countries with the highest military honors for bravery during military operations against the Triple Axis that were considered impossible but completed with exceptional courage and determination.

An explication of Doolittle’s Tokyo Raid is compared to Knut Haukelid’s team of Norwegian commandos who successfully crippled the Nazis effort to develop the atomic bomb by sabotaging the Nazi heavy water plant at Vemork, Norway.

Doolittle’s famous raid in response to the Japanese’s surprise attack at Pearl Harbor has been considered as one of the most impressive military strikes in American history. Doolittle’s relationships with numerous men of war are examined, which include George Marshall, President Roosevelt, and all the Raiders who survived the experience. This chapter studies the remarkable relationship between the Pearl Harbor-attack Commander Mitsui Fuchida and one of Doolittle’s men Cpl. Jacob DeShazer. Also analyzed is the theory that the execution of three of Doolittle’s men by the Japanese deeply affected President Roosevelt and may have been a major force in his refusal in rejecting Hirohito’s offer of a conditional surrender as early as 1943.

Haukelid’s role in Operation Gunnerside and the role of various other operations and men are investigated, which include atomic scientists Werner Heisenberg and Niles Bohr, MI6 Director Stewart Menzies, Leif Tronstad, the disaster of Operation Freshman, the hunt for the Nazi atomic bomb (the Alsos Mission), the unlikely OSS agent and American professional baseball player Moe Berg, and the legendary Vemork Raid itself.