Travel to Historic Locations with History or Drive.

Jenn visited Arlington National Cemetery to honor two World War II legacies: General James Doolittle, who led the April 1942 Doolittle Raid; and the five Sullivan brothers of Waterloo, Iowa, who enlisted into the Navy together.

00:00 Doolittle and the Sullivan brothers

00:02 Arlington Opening

00:33 Meet the Hosts

01:30 Podcast Reviews

02:55 App Membership Update

05:01 Pearl Harbor Context

08:22 Planning the Doolittle Raid

11:49 Raid Execution and Impact

13:20 Doolittle at Arlington

15:46 Who Were the Sullivans

18:36 USS Juneau Tragedy

20:30 Legacy and Sole Survivor Policy

21:45 Arlington Memorial Section

24:15 Final Reflections

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History or Drive App annoucnement add

Imagine walking through the quiet rolling hills of Arlington National Cemetery.

Every white headstone tells a story of service, but today we are stopping at

two grave sites that represent the very heart of the American spirit during

the darkest days of World War II.

One is the resting place of a pioneer, a man who proved that no

target was out of reach even when the world felt like it was crumbling.

The other is a site that honors the sacrifice of five brothers.

Welcome to Talk With History.

One filmmaker, one historian leading history-inspired world travels

for the curious, the explorers, and the history lovers out there.

I'm your host Scott, here with my wife and historian Jenn.

Hello.

Today, we're taking you to the hallowed ground of Arlington to

honor some of the most recognizable names from the Greatest Generation.

We're visiting the grave of General James Doolittle, the mastermind behind the

daring 1942 raid on Tokyo that lifted a nation's spirits when we needed it most.

We'll talk about the legacy of the Sullivan brothers, five siblings

from Waterloo, Iowa, who insisted on serving together on the USS Juneau.

Their background, their bond, and their ultimate sacrifice was so

profound that it changed the way our military operates forever.

Today, we are paying our respects to the legends of Arlington National Cemetery.

All right, Jenn, so before... Yes, you don't recognize me now.

Before we get into our main topic here, I do wanna get some shouts because we got

some five-star reviews on Apple Podcasts.

Thank you.

So after our, our last couple calls out, we, I saw our, our, our review jump up.

So if you're listening on Apple Podcasts, keep it up, folks.

My goal, I would love to get to 100 reviews by the end of the year.

We're in the mid-50s, l- uh, higher 50s now.

But- We have to catch

the History Channel

... we gotta catch the History Channel that's got a couple million.

So, but we had some five-star reviews.

Two folks who left us five-star reviews, um, wrote us a little review.

This, so this one is from Sandra Dee.

There's four Es in that, if you're listening.

So the S- Sandra Dee wrote, "History is great. Great topics and great narration.

I just found you and can't wait to binge the backlog." Great to have you, Sandra.

Thank you so much for, for the five-star review.

And then this one is from Sub Vet Steve.

Walk and talk- the mes- the title is Walk and Talk with History.

"I have been following you, following your videos on YouTube for a while now.

I just started watching your podcast.

I find them very interesting and inform- formative.

I find your take unique as a Navy submarine vet." Mm. So thank

you so much, Sub Vet Steve- Yeah

um, for that.

It was, that was, uh, super fun to kinda get those reviews directly from, from our

listeners, so we really appreciate it.

Also, we're getting enough lifetime members now.

Remember, you can go check that out at thehistoryroadtrip.com.

We're getting a left- enough lifetime members now that, uh, my outro is getting

too long to read everybody's name.

I think we've got, gosh, over 20 now, if you're counting some of our legacy folks.

Thank you.

So we've got a bunch of new folks on board that are lifetime members largely because

we launched our History Road Trip app.

So if you wanna get a lifetime membership, that includes lifetime access to our

History Road Trip app, and you can check that out over at historyordrive.com.

So our outro is getting so long with all these lifetime members that we

have, so I'm, I'm not gonna read everybody's name at the very end

now 'cause it would take forever.

But I am gonna shout out any new lifetime members in each of our podcast episodes.

For other folks, if you're interested in a lifetime membership, again,

you get lifetime access to our new app that we just launched.

Uh, we've got a b- couple videos out.

I'll put, make sure I put, uh, video links in the, in the description to those.

We got on livestream with JD from History Underground, History

or Drive, historyordrive.com.

If you're interested in that, the price will go up for that lifetime

membership because this app was a fair amount, was a pretty hefty undertaking.

And so that will, that lifetime membership price will probably go up

sometime in the next couple months.

I was gonna do it in June, but because it's America 250, maybe

I'll wait till after 4th of July.

But if you're interested, it's $99 right now.

We are gonna increase that price because it helps the channel, and

that's gonna get you lifetime access.

Yeah.

Um-

And it's just a one-time cost.

Yeah, one, one time cost.

So just $99 for the rest of your life.

Yeah.

Period.

You never pay again, which is great because there's no reoccurring monthly

cost, and we just didn't want to do, like, a Patreon kind of thing.

We just wanted it to be one time, easy-

For our lifetime members, yeah

... and you're in.

So the advantage-

And if, and if that's not for you and you wanna pay 30 cents a month to check

out the History Road Trip app, that's the price right now that is a crazy deal

but we wanna give this to you guys.

We wanna help you get out there and travel because that's our mission.

That's our goal.

Yeah.

So

Jenn, World War II history.

Yes.

People love World War II history.

Well, it was a huge war, and it, it saved the world, but-

It was

... when we talk about the two areas of history we're gonna talk about,

the Doolittle Raid and the Sullivan Brothers, both of these events are

precipitated because of Pearl Harbor.

Right.

So when you think of December 7th, 1941, the day that lives in infamy,

it was when America came under attack from the Imperial Empire of Japan.

And so many men were killed, and in such a vast amount of

time, and entombed in ships.

Think of the Arizona, right?

It was just a huge shock to America, the US Navy.

So Doolittle Raid is gonna be in response to that, and the Sullivan Brothers,

when we talk about them, they have a sister who has a boyfriend named

Bill Ball, who was on the Arizona.

And so they all join up because of their sister's boyfriend, and and Doolittle

Raid is a response to Pearl Harbor.

So let's talk about the Doolittle Raid.

Yeah, and, and I, and I wanna remember our, our younger listeners and

watchers, 'cause we do get some folks commenting, we had not pulled, been,

been pulled into the war yet, right?

No.

We had- we hadn't really been, been pulled in, right?

We were kinda doing this we were staying out of it type thing, and then

when we got struck at Pearl Harbor, gloves were off and we were all in.

Yes.

We were helping the British, so you f- you know, Americans were going

over and fighting with the British.

They were becoming, I wouldn't say British subjects, but they were flying

for England, and we were helping with supplies and things like that to England,

but we were not entering the war.

Yeah.

We were really trying to take a stance of neutrality, and because at the time

we didn't w- know exactly how bad the, um, the Socialist Party of Germany, the

Nazis, had, had gotten, we didn't know what they were doing there at the time.

And really, all of that doesn't really come out- Until the end of the war

Yeah.

So I, I just wanna remind our, our younger listeners, our you- younger

viewers of that, is that is, that is why these two that we're about to talk

about, General Doolittle and the Sullivan brothers that is why Pearl Harbor really

was kind of the, the spark that lit the fire that s- you know, got kinda

Doolittle his fame and then what brought the Sullivan brothers into the war.

But know that the war has been raging in- Yep ... Europe for years now.

Yep.

And Poland's been taken over, France has been taken over.

So it's been, it's been raging for years, but America has tried to stay out of it.

Now, you also have to bear in mind, we talk about this, the

technology of the wars, Germany was at the peak of it right now.

Germany and Japan are at the top of their game right now.

America is not.

When it comes to world powers, we're like seventh at the time.

We're not making warships, we're not making planes, we're not doing any of

that, and we're just kind of maintaining.

And so Germany, tip of the spear, they are turning out

diesel subs.

So they're, they're at the pin- the pinnacle of their-

Yeah

... technology, and so is Japan with their Zero aircraft.

And, and that's, and that's why what Doolittle did was pretty incredible.

So December 7th happens, America is decimated, and they are fearful that

the Japanese are gonna go further east.

They're worried that the Japanese now are, uh, Pearl H- Hawaii was

just a, a, a, a stopping point.

Yeah, just kind of a stopping point.

Yeah.

'Cause if, if people don't know, it's only like a week-long ship ride, right?

It's only about seven days from Hawaii to the coast of California.

Yeah ... but folks need to remember, right, and from our Navy days, we

know it's only a, it's only a one-week kinda boat ride, right, on the ship-

Mm-hmm

from Hawaii to the coast of California.

That is, in Navy terms, that is spitting distance.

Nothing.

And so when you think about that these- Planes were launched

from aircraft carriers, Japanese aircraft carriers to Hawaii.

The, the fear was, oh my gosh, they're gonna attack the western part

of the continental United States.

So that's what Doolittle is in response to.

Doolittle is trying to take the war to the Pacific, and if you know anything

about history, he's successful at that.

But that, that's what he's trying to do, and that's what the

success of it is trying to do.

But how do you do this?

We are not the Navy that we are today.

We are not this aviation Navy at the time.

I would say because of Pearl Harbor, we become a big aviation Navy because

what is out to sea during the attack on Pearl Harbor is the aircraft carriers.

That's why you don't hear of aircraft carriers being sunk at Pearl Harbor.

Yeah.

It's all battleships because the Navy at the time was a battleship navy.

That's what we thought of the Navy, big guns, big battleships,

get up close and just fire.

It wasn't so much getting planes on the, the ships and getting 'em close.

That is all necessity after Pearl Harbor.

So that's where this idea of bombers on an aircraft carrier comes from.

We hadn't really been experimenting with that yet.

We hadn't been trying that yet.

So Doolittle Lieutenant Colonel James Doolittle, he's gonna plan this attack.

He's gonna lead this attack.

He's gonna take the B-25 bomber.

It is a lighter aircraft even then.

He makes it even lighter by taking off all of its guns and extra fuel

tanks, and trying to get as close as they can to Japan to fire on Tokyo.

But unfortunately, Pearl Harbor happens December 7th.

Not only are they trying to reconstruct, but they're trying, what's the response?

So Doolittle says, "Let's try this response.

Let's get these medium weight bombers.

Let's launch 'em off a carrier, and let's bomb them, and- Whatever damage

we can do, whether or not it'll scare them enough to know that we

can respond to this kind of attack.

And so they practice.

They draw the lines on runways, they're taking all the weight off, and they're

seeing if they can get these planes off the ground from the marks on the

ground the size of an aircraft carrier.

I didn't know they did that.

That's cool

... they, they, and they c- they kept trying and kept trying.

And so much so, like, this happens in April of 1942, so- The D-

the Doolittle

Raid ... the Doolittle Raid.

So this is how quick they mount this response and they practice this.

Uh, they get their best pilots, they fly 16 of these aircraft off, five

crew in a B-25, and again, they're, they're taking off any weight that

they can, all the guns that they have.

They take them off and put broomsticks in there- Yeah ... to

look like they have guns.

Their whole idea is, "We're gonna be fast enough to hit them, we won't need defense.

We'll be on the offense the whole time, and then we'll get out of there." And

like Scott said, the plan was to make it back, but when they're spotted early on-

By the Japanese

by the Japanese, they have to quickly decide, "We have just

enough fuel to make it there.

Who still wants to do this?

You'll have to end up ditching.

You could try to fly to China, who will be friendly at the

time, and maybe make it home.

But it's up to you." In the end, they really go, "It's up to you what you do.

These are what you can do, but you have basically enough fuel to make it to Tokyo.

Who wants out?" And nobody wants out.

Yeah.

Everybody wants to do this.

Doolittle will fly in the very first plane off the carrier, so, um, the

number one B-25 off is Doolittle.

He flies it.

And then 16 others will go after.

And they are successful.

They do bring an attack to Tokyo.

Now, some will go to China, one will go to Russia, uh, one will actually,

uh, ditch into the, to the ocean.

But because they are successful, because they launch this counterattack, Ja-

the Japanese pull back their offensive, and that was, that's what makes this

so successful, is now the Japanese, the war is taken to the Pacific.

And as you know, the two fronts will be, you know, Germany and and the Pacific.

But that's, it's because of this Doolittle Raid that the, the front

gets pulled back to the Pacific, and it's because of the success of this.

And so we were in Arlington, and we came upon James Doolittle's grave, and what's

so interesting- is I was there April 18th.

Yeah.

And I did not even realize- Like the day

of the

raid ... the day of the raid.

I did not even realize I was there that day, came upon his grave,

and wanted to tell his story.

So, the raid's named for him because he's the one who thinks of it all.

he gets the Medal of Honor for this raid.

Yeah, and one interesting anecdote that I found when I was making a video

was I guess they, the targets that they hit when they finally flew over

Japan and dropped the bombs weren't the exact targets that they had planned on.

And so Doolittle actually thought he was gonna get fired by the

time he got back because he didn't hit the intended targets.

But the success of the bombing run was so great publicly, and what it caused

Japan to do, like you said, to kind of pull back, so they had, they knew now

all of a sudden they had to defend their home front, that he didn't get fired.

He got promoted.

I think he skipped colonel and went straight to brigadier general

or something like that, one star.

And, and then he got awarded the Medal of Honor.

So it's kind of funny that you, you, you carry out this, this daring mission

that's, you know, lives in history now, thinks he's gonna get fired,

and then, then he gets promoted.

Well, it's, it's so funny because they, they're launching

this experiment anyway, right?

And Doolittle is, is, he's all in.

Like we're gonna, we're gonna launch these bombers off an aircraft carrier.

We're gonna make it work.

Then they get spotted.

Yeah.

Right?

The Hornet gets spotted, and so they gotta launch early.

He's gonna launch these bombers off a carrier, but he's gonna do it further

out than they thought they were gonna be.

They don't quite make it to their point, their destinations.

He's, doesn't stop him from bombing.

He's still gonna bomb Japan- Yeah ... and give them an awakening, a response,

and then he's gonna try to survive.

So he actually does survive.

Doolittle is one of the people who make it to China, and the Chinese

actually hide him and help him, and the Chinese Will pay for this.

They have a lot of people who will come under attack from the Japanese

because of their help to the Americans.

Um, and he actually makes it back relatively early and is able to

fight w- in the rest of the war.

, and it was, it was neat for you able to see his gravesite at Arlington 'cause

we've been to Arlington, if you guys have been following us for a while, we've

been to Arlington a whole bunch of times.

So if you guys are curious you know, search the Talk With History website.

But, uh, it was cool for you to be able to go and visit his gravesite while you're

there with, with John Kiriakou- Mm-hmm ... who we'll, we'll talk about our, our

videos that we did with him, you know, in future episodes here coming up soon.

Now, I had only learned about the Sullivan brothers because you had bought this World

War II poster, and you had - we, there's a flea market close by, and Jenn loves

her history stuff, like as anybody will know, and there was kind of, it came out

after all of this stuff happened with the brothers, and there, but it be- kind

of became like a rallying cry, right?

They did their part- Mm-hmm ... I think is what the- Yeah ... poster says.

Mm-hmm.

And so tell us a little bit about the Sullivan brothers, and there's

actually a movie that came out a couple years after this happened as well.

Like a year.

Yeah.

It's so funny.

They, they capitalized quickly on the brothers and their story.

Yeah.

Right?

So the brothers are responding to Pearl Harbor, and then

they, they're lost in 1942.

The poster comes out in 1943.

The movie comes out in 1944.

Yeah.

Right?

So they have five brothers from Waterloo, Iowa, and all with the

last name Sullivan, so that's why when you hear the Sullivan brothers.

Um, George is 27, Francis, Frank, is 26, Jo- Joseph, Joe, is 24, Madison,

Matt, is 23, and Albert, Al, is 20.

So five brothers.

Now, in between these brothers is a sister Genevieve.

She's born in 1917, so uh, she has a boyfriend named Bill Ball who dies

on the Arizona, and that prompts all of her brothers to avenge him.

Okay, so, so her boyfriend died in the Pearl Harbor attack.

Yes.

Okay.

And so they all wanna join up.

Now, two of the brothers, George, the two oldest ones, George and

Frank, had already been in the Navy.

They were discharged in 1941, early in 1941, uh, before war, and so it was

easier for them to just re-up, basically.

But they brought their three younger brothers with them.

Only one of the brothers was married.

Al was married, uh, and had a wife and a child named Jimmy.

And so when you hear of grandchildren of the Sullivan brothers, it's

Al's descendants because none of the other brothers were married.

Two of them were engaged, but no one had married or had children.

And so they all join up, and their whole premise was they wanted to serve together.

Yeah.

And at first the Navy was very reluctant for that because they had

a stipulation where, um, they, they didn't want siblings to serve together.

It was not, but it wasn't strictly enforced.

It was just kinda like, we prefer they don't.

But it, it, it came when they went onto the Juneau, there were other

sets of brothers on the Juneau.

Yeah, so, so they, so they got their way.

They got their way.

And it, it, you know, there were sets of brothers on the Arizona too, so it wasn't

like this was a strictly enforced policy.

So it was easier for them to go, "Okay, we- you can all serve together on

the Juneau." So, uh, they enlist on January 3rd, 1942, so again, right after

Pearl Harbor, right after Christmas.

And, uh, they are all sent to the Juneau.

It pa- and it participates in the Guadalcanal campaign,

begins in August of 1942.

We- ear- early in the morning of November 13th, um, during the Battle

of Guadalcanal, the Juneau will exchange fire with Japanese destroyers.

It's hit by a destroyer, and then it's actually sunk by a torpedo

and what happens is all five of the brothers will perish.

Now, they don't all perish that same day.

So the re- the survivors report that Frank, Joe, and

Matt are all killed instantly.

Al, the one with the son and the wife, he's drowns the next day.

And George, the oldest, survives for four or five days, but he starts to suffer

from delirium and hypothermia, and he is just grieving his four brothers.

Uh, he climbs off the side of the lifeboat, of the raft.

He waves goodbye, and he's never seen or heard from again.

Oh, wow.

So all five of them went down with the Juneau, and so that's why the poster,

the five Sullivan brothers missing in action in the Solomons, is what it

would say, and it has the five stars.

And if you know anything about the stars on a flag, they would be blue

on a flag with a white background and a red stripe around it.

If you're lost during war, those stars turn to gold, and that's when you hear

gold star widow or the Sullivan brothers' mother became a gold star mother.

And so the poster comes out after that.

The Sullivan brothers' parents go on, uh, war bond drives and things like that.

When they actually christen the first Sullivan ship, it will be their mother who

christens it with the champagne bottle.

Yeah.

Their sister, in response to this, will join the Waves, and

she will serve out the rest of the time in the military as the Wave.

She will survive.

So they have, they have their one daughter, and of course, they have

their grandson in Jimmy, and then Jimmy will go on to have other children.

But this Turns into an act, and you've seen Saving Private Ryan, and you've

seen what kind of happens when you hear a lot of siblings from one family have,

uh, paid the ultimate price for freedom.

They try to make sure a mother doesn't lose all their children, and it's called

the Sole Survivor Policy now in the Navy.

Uh, and it, actually every service has a variation of it.

Yep.

And it has been enacted.

It has been enacted a couple times.

I was looking at, uh, the Niland brothers is kind of who Saving

Private Ryan is based off of, and if you've seen our video to Normandy,

we see two of the Niland brothers.

Same thing happened in Afghanistan.

A Navy Seal, there were three brothers.

A Navy Seal was killed, and then a special armed forces combat medic

was killed in Afghanistan, and they found his, their brother, who was

a, a Marine, and sent him home.

So this happens today.

They never want a mother or a family to have lost all of their children- Yep

in conflict.

And so it, it's a, it's an, uh, it's a regulation, the Sole Survivor Policy.

If you know you're serving with your family members, if something

like that were to happen, you're, you're immediately discharged

from the military and sent back.

Now, now one thing I would encourage folks to, to check out our video.

One, uh, the video on location, because they have a, they have a

headstone for each of the brothers.

Mm-hmm.

Right?

So there's five headstones in Arlington even though they,

they were never, never found.

But you said they were in the same section as other folks who their

bodies were never found, like, um

Glenn Miller.

Glenn Miller, right, in, in sim- in, in that similar section.

But also the movie, which came out in 1944, a lot of people would recognize

some of the actors in the movie.

And so it was actually kinda neat as I, as I pulled up the movie.

You can find it on YouTube, and I think it's free.

Yeah, The

Fighting

Sullivans.

Um, The Fighting Sullivans.

So if you go onto YouTube and you look up The Fighting Sullivans,

they spend the majority of the movie focusing on their lives, right?

Kind of as kids, and then, a- as they're growing up, and

then as they go off to the war.

But you'll recognize the Sullivans' father, he was in the S- the

Sullivans' father was- Gone With the

Wind

well, the Sullivans' father was, uh, wasn't he the uncle

from It's a Wonderful Life?

Yeah, he's also in Gone With the Wind.

Gone With the Wind.

He plays her father.

Um, but Ward Bond plays a Navy officer when- Also

in It's a Wonderful Life.

Also in I- It's a Wonderful Life.

So you'll recognize some of the actors i- in the movie, uh, The Fighting Sullivans.

Mm-hmm.

So it's kinda fun to go see.

That's black and white.

Yes, and it's, again, these movies came out relatively, the poster

comes out relatively quickly.

The movie comes out relatively quickly because this is all a part

of the war fighting effort to re- People didn't die in vain, right?

They're answering the call of freedom.

They're answering the call of what happened to Pearl Harbor.

It was nominated for a now discontinued Academy Award for Best Story.

Oh, I didn't know

that.

I guess they used to give out for Best Story.

Yeah.

And because it's the story of the Sullivan brothers.

But it's really great to see the five brothers, and it kinda

gives them a good depiction-

Yeah

of their lives.

And like I said, I have the poster, and I think of the Sullivan brothers.

The f- the shipwreck was found in 2007, but again, all the

brothers went down with the ship.

They treat it as a graveyard, so they don't go down there

and excavate anything from it.

But, uh, but they have found that shipwreck.

Yeah.

And i- and if you're in Arlington, right, and, and you're kinda doing, you're l-

using the Arlington National Cemetery app, which that's a great app, uh, if

you wanna look up graves, you can look these, look these up relatively easily.

Yeah, and they have that whole memorial section.

The gravestones are closer together, 'cause as you can imagine, they

don't really bury anybody there.

But they're just in memory, so you can visit someone like Glenn

Miller, who was also lost at sea, and the Sullivan brothers.

It's just a place you can go and leave something and remember them

and, uh, and tell their story.

As we walk back down the hill from the markers of the Doolittle and the Sullivan

families, the silence of Arlington feels heavier, but also more profound.

We've stood at the grave of a man who looked at an impossible mission and said,

"We can do this." And we've honored the five brothers who looked at a world in

crisis and said, "We must go together."

The Doolittle Raid proved that courage could change the course of a

war, but the story of the Sullivans reminds us of the devastating cost

that often comes with that courage.

From the skies over Tokyo to the depths of the Pacific, these men represent the

absolute best of what it means to serve.

Their stories aren't just etched in stone there in Arlington, they are woven into

the very fabric of our national identity.

Whether you are visiting the Doolittle grave to find inspiration for your own

impossible tasks, or paying respects to the Sullivans to remember the

weight of family and sacrifice, these are stops that stay with you long

after you leave the cemetery gates.

We'll talk to you next time.

Thank you.

Okay.

This has been a Walk With History production.

Talk With History is created and hosted by me, Scott Bennie.

Episode researched by Jennifer Bennie.

Check out the show notes for links and references mentioned in this episode.

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