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About Cottage Grove sentinel. (Cottage Grove, Or.) 1909-current | View Entire Issue (April 29, 2015)
4A COTTAGE GROVE SENTINEL April 29, 2015 O PINION Offbeat Oregon History Famous ‘Doolittle Raid’ had roots in Pendleton air base BY FINN J.D. JOHN For the Sentinel W hen Imperial Japanese aviator Nobuo Fujita hatched his plans to bomb the United States with a submarine- launched seaplane, he had retalia- tion in mind. The Americans had just sent 16 twin-engine bombers over the Japanese homeland — the famous Doolittle Raid of early 1942. Fu- jita burned with desire to return the favor, and he knew just how it could be done. When he was given the go-ahead to do it, the target he was given seemed like a very odd one: The small, sparsely populated West Coast state of Oregon. It may have been odd — but it was not entirely inappropriate. Or- egon, and Oregonians, had played a really outsize part in the Doo- little Raid. Nearly 10 percent of the men fl ying over Japan on that fateful April day were either from Or- egon, or had lived there — not counting the time in which their bomber group had been stationed at the Pendleton Army Air Force base. And, to put the icing on the cake, there’s an unconfi rmed but persistent account that one of the Doolittle raiders, Oregonian Ever- ett W. Holstrom, bombed and sank a big Japanese sub off the mouth of the Columbia in 1941. The details of the Doolittle raid have gone down in the rolls of American military legend. Looking for a way to strike back at Japan after the Pearl Harbor raid, President Roosevelt put the word out that he wanted someone to come up with a plan. It was a Navy captain, Francis Low, who hatched the scheme to modify Army bombers so they could take off from an aircraft carrier. They soon settled on the North American Aircraft B-25 Mitchell, a new and highly promising de- sign. Under the command of Lieu- tenant Colonel Jimmy Doolittle, the big things were loaded onto the U.S.S. Hornet and headed off toward Japan, accompanied by two carrier task forces, observing strict radio silence along the way. The plan was for them to take off about 500 miles off the coast of Ja- pan, fl y just above the wavetops to their targets, drop bombs and turn southward, making for friendly airfi elds in China. But 200 miles shy of their desti- nation, the carrier group ran across a Japanese picket boat. It was, of course, immediately sunk; but it takes minutes to sink a ship, and only seconds to send out an alarm via ship-to-shore radio. They were busted. They had to assume that the Imperial Japanese Navy was even now sending out the call to move in on them. When it did, it would bring a lot more force than two carrier task forces could handle, especially in those dark days early in the war before the U.S. had developed any fi ghter planes good enough to fend off the world-class Japanese ones of the day. The longer they lingered, the greater the danger that four or fi ve aircraft carriers stocked with Ze- roes would show up and wipe out a quarter of the U.S. carrier fl eet. So the bombers were launched early, their crews knowing full well that they wouldn’t have enough fuel to reach their desig- nated landing fi elds; and the car- rier task forces turned and raced back to safer waters. After bombing their targets in Japan, the planes turned and winged south into China, where one by one they ran out of fuel and their crews bailed out. One fl ew to Russia, where its crew was in- terned for a year (Russia was not yet at war with Japan); the rest barely reached China. Two crews were taken as prisoners of war by occupying Japanese troops, and the others (those who survived) managed to make their way south to safety. The Japanese military govern- ment, when it learned the other fl ight crews had slipped from their grasp, began a series of brutal re- prisals against the local Chinese populace. Estimates of the num- ber of civilian deaths range from 10,000 all the way up to the highly unlikely fi gure of 250,000. They also put the captured fl ight crew on trial; sentenced all to death for war crimes; shot three; and com- muted the sentences of the rest to life in prison, where they slowly starved until the end of the war. (One of these was Jacob DeShazer of Stayton, whom we will hear more about next week.) The Japanese military govern- ment’s fury was certainly under- standable. The whole affair had been a near-total humiliation for them. Warned of the presence of aircraft carriers within range of their coastline, they still managed to be caught by surprise when the bombers showed up. Of the few aircraft they managed to scramble, three were shot down, but not one of the marauding bombers was knocked out or even badly dam- aged. The Imperial Navy, racing to intercept the two American car- rier task forces, found only open Please see OFFBEAT, Page 5A Know the cost before you sign the petition I t seems that the arguments about a plan for our Historic Downtown are still not over. For almost two years now, there has been a tremendous amount of discussion, study and public testimony about the Main Street Refi nement Plan. The city has gone through an exhaustive process to ensure that anyone who wants to give an opinion about the plan could do so. First, an advisory committee was formed to work with professional con- sultants, followed by a series of public meetings to gather as much local input as possible. After multiple extensions to the public input process, along with amendments to the plan to accommodate people’s opin- ions, the plan went to the Planning Com- mission, where it was again examined in great detail. Another series of meetings was held which included adding more time to allow for public testimony. The Planning Commission further amended the plan to accommodate more concerns and then approved it for consideration and adoption by the City Council. The City Council repeated the same lengthy process of studying the plan and the recommendations from the Advisory Committee, Planning Commission and professional consultants. Once again, the process included public testimony and extending the time well beyond nor- mal limits so everyone could be heard. After all of this time and examination, the Council voted (twice) to adopt the plan. Sadly, after all of the time, grant money, research and effort expended to adopt a plan, there is a group of people who still think the process was not good enough and are now collecting signa- tures to force the city into a special elec- tion to put the plan to a vote. I urge citi- zens to carefully consider the full cost of signing that petition. First, a special election is EXTREME- LY EXPENSIVE, to the tune of around $10,000 of taxpayer money that I think most people would rather see spent on library books, fi xing potholes or delay- ing the next increase to our water bills. The potential waste of tax dollars is bad enough, but this is also a slap in the face to everyone who gave countless hours of their time to thoroughly examine the mountains of data that show this is a comprehensive plan with good reasons, backed by sound research to explain the recommendations within it. Worse yet, this would also be a com- plete waste of over $100,000 of grant money that was awarded to the city to cover the cost of hiring seasoned con- sultants who specialize in planning revi- talization projects for communities like ours. Last of all, a referendum will take an issue that has been thoroughly re- searched through an exhaustive public process and take it away from the very people that were elected and appointed to make these important decisions. The process doesn’t include a public vote for a reason. The general pub- lic can’t possibly be expected to know things like the odds of pedestrian versus vehicle collisions on varying widths of travel lanes, or how the width of a side- walk impacts the perception of how liv- able and walkable a community is, or how far from the curb planters should be to make them least likely to be a hazard for people with disabilities or shoppers trying to park their cars. There were literally thousands of de- tails discussed and questions asked along the way to come up with a plan that our community leaders have approved be- cause they put in the time and did the research through the public process. The time has come to say openly and loudly, ENOUGH IS ENOUGH! Just because you didn’t get everything that you wanted doesn’t mean your voice wasn’t heard and accounted for. Please consider the consequences before sign- ing a petition to hold a special election that will waste tax dollars and time. It’s time to start listening to our paid, elected, appointed and volunteer profes- sionals, who have done the research and taken the time to examine this plan with the careful attention that is required. As Benjamin Franklin said, “If you fail to plan, you are planning to fail!” TRAVIS PALMER EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, COTTAGE GROVE CHAMBER OF COMMERCE Preventing Parkinson’s Disease: Diet and its links to risk BY JOEL FUHRMAN, MD For the Sentinel E ach year, about 60,000 Americans are diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease (PD), which is second only to Al- zheimer’s as the most common neurodegenerative condition. Alzheimer’s disease primarily affects memory, and PD primar- ily affects movement. There is a $ PUUBHF ( SPWF 4 FOUJOFM 116 N. Sixth Street · P.O. Box 35 · Cottage Grove, OR 97424 ADMINISTRATION: JOHN BARTLETT, Regional Publisher.............................. GARY MANLY, General Manager................942-3325 Ext. 207 • publisher@cgsentinel.com ROBIN REISER, Sales Repersentative...............942-3325 Ext. 203 • robin@cgsentinel.com E. 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In foreign countries, postage extra. No subscription for less than Ten Weeks. Subscription rates are subject to change upon 30 days’ notice. All subscritptions must be paid prior to beginning the subscription and are non-refundable. Periodicals postage paid at Cottage Grove, Oregon. Postmaster: Send address changes to P.O. Box 35, Cottage Grove, OR 97424. Local Mail Service: If you don’t receive your Cottage Grove Sentinel on the Wednesday of publication, please let us know. Call 942-3325 between 8:30 a.m. and 5 p.m. Advertising ownership: All advertising copy and illustrations prepared by the Cottage Grove Sentinel become the property of the Cottage Grove Sentinel and may not be reproduced for any other use without explicit written prior approval. Copyright Notice: Entire contents ©2015 Cottage Grove Sentinel. devastating loss of inde- pendence, as slow and impaired physical movement interferes with daily activities. Fortunately, risk for PD is pri- marily environmental and can be greatly reduced with excel- lent nutrition and lifestyle hab- its. Limit pesticide exposure: A large number of epidemiologi- cal studies have concluded that pesticide exposure is a major risk factor for PD. To limit your exposure, buy organic produce when possible, avoid household insecticide products, do not drink well water, and minimize your consumption of dairy, meat, and fi sh (since agricultur- al pesticides accumulate in the fatty tissues of animals). Supplement with DHA and Vitamin D: Maintaining ade- quate levels of the omega-3 fatty acid DHA in the brain is an im- portant measure for preventing neurodegeneration in later life. In my experience with patients, I have observed a signifi cant, severe defi ciency of DHA in el- derly vegan males, and a num- ber of these elderly vegan males developed Parkinson’s disease. Plus, studies in animals clearly show that supplementation of DHA can alter brain DHA con- centrations and produce protec- tive effects in the brain that can reduce the risk of PD. Vitamin D defi ciency and osteoporosis are prevalent in patients with PD. Researchers have not yet studied whether vitamin D defi ciency is a con- tributor to or a consequence of PD, but vitamin D adequacy has many vital functions in the hu- man body, and careful attention should be paid to maintaining suffi cient vitamin D levels. Base your diet on high-nu- trient plant foods: In a recent large prospective study, subjects whose diets included the great- est amounts of fruits, vegetables, legumes, nuts, and whole grains had a 22 percent decreased risk of PD over the 16-year follow- up period. Natural plant foods provide countless benefi cial phytochemicals that work to- gether to support the health of the entire body, including the brain. Plus, oxidative damage plays a signifi cant role in the progression of PD, so eating plenty of high antioxidant, nu- trient-dense foods like berries and leafy greens is another im- portant preventive measure. Minimize animal foods: In addition to pesticide exposure, animal products are also a con- cern because individuals with high intakes of total fat, total calories, saturated fat, choles- terol, and iron have been found to be at increased risk of PD. Dairy consumption in particular is associated PD — men who eat large amounts of dairy prod- ucts have an 80 percent increase in risk of PD. To protect your brain, keep meat and dairy con- sumption to a minimum. Exercise: Physical activ- ity has favorable effects on the brain, and high levels of physi- cal activity are associated with a signifi cant reduction in risk for PD. Dr. Fuhrman is a #1 New York Times best-selling author and a family physician special- izing in lifestyle and nutritional medicine. Visit his informative website at DrFuhrman.com. Letters to the Editor policy The Cottage Grove Sentinel receives many letters to the editor. In order to ensure that your letter will be printed, letters must be under 300 words and submitted by Friday at 5 p.m. Letters must be signed and must include an address, city and phone number or e-mail address for verifi cation purposes. No anonymous letters will be printed. Letters must be of interest to local readers. Personal attacks and name calling in response to letters are uncalled for and unnecessary. If you would like to submit an opinion piece, Another View must be no longer than 600 words. To avoid transcription errors, the Sentinel would prefer editorial and news content be sent electronically via email or electronic media. Hand written submissions will be accepted, but we may need to call to verify spelling, which could delay the publishing of the submission.
