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
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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.
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