Hite was a co-pilot on the last of 16 B-25 Mitchell bombers to lift off the flight deck of the USS Hornet, one of 80 airmen led by then Lt. Col. Jimmy Doolittle flying the first bombing raid against Japan nearly five months after the attack on Pearl Harbor. Hite was captured by the Japanese in China, where he and four other crewmen bailed out before the plane ran out of fuel. Under enemy fire, their B-25 had dropped bombs on oil storage tanks and an aircraft factory.
He remained a prisoner of war until liberated by U.S. troops at the end of World War II.
“He and the other Raiders had a line that they would say with each other and it was, ‘Just doing my job,’ ” his son, Wallace Hite, said Monday. “They viewed that it was not an act of heroism, it was an act of responsibility. We are responsible, we are accountable for preserving and maintaining the freedom of this country.”
His death comes just weeks before the Raiders were to receive the Congressional Gold Medal in an April 15 ceremony on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., and at a ceremony at the National Museum of the Air Force on April 18, the 73rd anniversary of the raid.
The last two surviving Raiders, former Lt. Col. Richard E. Cole, 99, a Dayton native of Comfort, Texas, and retired Staff Sgt. David Thatcher, 93, of Missoula, Mont., will be at the medal ceremony at the museum, organizers said. The Air Force Museum Foundation has set aside 400 tickets for the public. More information is available at http://www.afmuseum.com/doolittle.
“Any man who was on that raid will be remembered for what they did,” said Jeff Underwood, a historian at the Air Force museum at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base. “They literally turned the tide of war in the Pacific.”
Hite’s fellow Doolittle Raider, retired Lt. Col. Edward J. Saylor, died in January at age 94 at his home near Seattle. Saylor sipped cognac with Cole and Thatcher at the Raiders’ final toast at the museum in November 2013.
“We’ve lost two Raiders (within weeks), which is kind of tough,” said Tom Casey, long-time business manager for the Doolittle Raiders and an honorary member of the group. “Now we’re down to two.”
When Cole and Thatcher arrive in Dayton next month, the deaths of Hite and Saylor will be commemorated in a private ceremony. Each Raider has his name inscribed on one of 80 silver goblets displayed at the museum. Those with the names of Saylor and Hite will be turned upside, joining 76 others already turned over.
Two will remain upright.
Hite’s appearance at Doolittle Raider reunions, until declining health kept him from gatherings in recent years, was welcomed by his fellow Raiders, Casey said. Despite being tortured in captivity, the former airman never expressed a grudge or resentment over the years toward his captors, Casey said. Hite later served in the Korean war, and he was a former Holiday Inn franchise owner in civilian life.
“He was a big man with a big heart and just as loving a person as you could meet,” Casey said. “You walk into a room and you just knew Bob was there. He just had a great smile and he had this wonderful feeling towards everybody.”
Wallace Hite said his father, who was beaten as a POW, relied on his religious faith while imprisoned by the Japanese. He lost 80 pounds in captivity and was bitten by bugs, rats and lice, and had water poured down his nose, according to a website on the history of the Raiders.
His captors “brutalized them in every way, shape or form, but I think the reason he lived to be 95 was he just didn’t give up,” said Hite, 66. “He nearly died in there. He told me that he said, ‘Lord, if you want to take me, that’s OK. But if you want to bring me home, that’s OK, too.’”
The last time he went to sleep, Hite told a nurse caring for him he was going to see his deceased wife, Wallace Hite said. His father died peacefully.
“He was ready,” he said. “He got himself ready to meet his maker and now he’s home.”
Funeral services were scheduled for 11 a.m. Thursday, April 2, at St. John’s Episcopal Church in Camden, Arkansas. Hite, who had a son and a daughter, had five grandchildren, seven great-grandchildren, and two great-great-grandchildren.
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