Photo Gallery

The making of

HONORING HEROES:

The 67th Doolittle Raiders Reunion

a Morgan Adams/Mark Adams film

            The Doolittle Raiders held their 67^th reunion in Columbia, South Carolina and ETV was there on April 17^th, 2009 filming for the program IN OUR SCHOOLS, as well as a special CELEBRATE FREEDOM EDUCATION DAY program directed by David Moore .

            Mark Adams was the camera operator for ETV, and his daughter, Morgan, came with her own video camera to shoot for a  student video she wanted to make about the Doolittle Raiders, that eventually became her National History Day Competition documentary project. Shooting along side her father with the ETV crew, Morgan had unparalleled access to events and the Doolittle Raiders themselves, recording insightful interviews and experienced up-front views of the School Ed Day and Hand-Over Ceremony. This special ceremony marked the “passing of the baton” of the Doolittle Raiders name and patch from the original airmen to the current 34^th Bomb Squadron in front of the Flagship B-1 Lancer Bomber.

            In 2009 only nine of the original 80 Raiders were still alive, with only six still able to travel. Only four of the Raiders were able to make it to Columbia , South Carolina – which was one of the early training sites for the raid.

Doolittle Raiders at the 67^th Reunion :

S/Sgt. David J. Thatcher

Lt. Col. Richard E. Cole

Lt. Col. Robert L. Hite

Maj. Thomas C. Griffin

    On April 18^th, 2009 Mark and Morgan returned to the Columbia Metropolitan Airport to continue shooting for her project, recording more interviews and footage of the historic event. In August 10, 2009 ETV’s Bette Jamison interviewed Morgan about her National History Day project for IN OUR SCHOOLS, and Mark and Morgan began editing a five minute overview of Morgan’s video to be shown in the program (since the final version would not be edited for another four or five months). After the five minute overview was completed, Mark decided to use both Morgan’s footage and the 16x9 footage he shot for ETV to create a 30-minute documentary to be a more complete look at the reunion, and called it "HONORING HEROES: The 67^th Doolittle Raiders Reunion" (2009).  

    Bette Jamison of ITV was so impressed with "HONORING HEROES" she wanted to include it as an educational program distributed to all South Carolina schools in November of 2009. The following is the program description from the ITV Update November-December 2009; "Produced by ETV's Mark Adams, a talented videographer, director and editor, this program was developed by Mark and his daughter Morgan, a student at Crayton Middle School. Their experience at Celebrate Freedom Education Day 2009 meeting the remaining Doolittle Raiders is captured in this interesting program."

    Morgan started editing her National History Day documentary when her advisor at Crayton Middle School, Mrs. Odom, suggested she enter it into the Richland One School District's Visual Literacy Festival for Computer/Video. Creating essentially a 'rough cut' of the National History Day video, Morgan named this version "Making The Impossible Possible" (2010) and entered it into the festival. On February 1st, 2010, Morgan won not only 1st place in her category, but won the Grand Prize of the festival beating high school senior projects.

    The final version of the video called "The Doolittle Raiders: Wartime Innovation" (2010) won 3rd place and the Jimmy Doolittle Award for Outstanding Entry in Military History at the National History Day State Competition at the South Carolina Archives & History Center on April 24, 2010. Unfortunately only the 1st & 2nd place winners were able to go to the National Competition in Washington, D.C., but Morgan created a wonderful documentary about an important chapter in history, and a fitting tribute to the heroes known as The Doolittle Raiders.