The straight scoop on the Doolittle Raid – Friday, April 17
April 6, 2026
Sometimes, when a nation’s outlook seems darkest, men put their lives in critical danger to boost the spirits of the folks back home.
Not that the pilots and crews who braved fearsome odds in the Doolittle Raid in 1942 saw it necessarily as a “suicide mission,” but they took a shocking risk to accomplish something that would feel like payback after the Pearl Harbor attack and the fall of the Philippines, Wake Island and Guam. Several were killed or died in captivity, and every one of their 16 B-25s was lost.
At the South Carolina Confederate Relic Room and Military Museum, Bruce Cotner deliver a free lecture at noon on Friday, April 17. The program he calls “The Doolittle Raid and Midlands Myths” is part of the museum’s regular Noon Debrief program.
The “Midlands” part arises from this region’s proud association with the legendary mission. The Midlands played host to the Doolittle Raiders for a time during the preparation for their mission. They flew their B-25s over Lake Murray while stationed at Columbia Army Air Base (a site now known as Columbia Metropolitan Airport).
After the war, the survivors of the mission gathered for annual reunions, and several of those were held in Columbia before the last of those heroes died in 2019, at the age of 103.
As for the “myths” part of the title, Cotner does not seek in any way to diminish the pride that Columbians cherish regarding their community’s role in the Raid. There’s nothing mythical about the heroic mission, or Columbia’s share in the story. But he wants to make sure we remember it all correctly. Some of the jumbled “facts” that Cotner will address include these:
• Col. Jimmy Doolittle “dreamed up” the raid all on his own.
• Doolittle personally selected the volunteers for the raid, while here at Columbia Army Air Base.
• From the beginning of the planning, Doolittle was set to lead and fly in the mission.
Bruce Cotner is a proud graduate of the University of South Carolina, and has lived in Columbia all of his adult life. He recently retired after a 40-year career in local law enforcement. He is a life member of the South Carolina Arms Collectors Association, and a founding member of the Celebrate Freedom Foundation, the South Carolina Historic Aviation Foundation and a military living history group: Military Timeline Impressions. He has been fascinated by military history since he was six years old.
He’s also a regular friend of the Noon Debriefs. Last year, he delivered his Doolittle talk to a record crowd at Richland Library.
About the South Carolina Confederate Relic Room and Military Museum
Founded in 1896, the South Carolina Confederate Relic Room and Military Museum is an accredited museum focusing on South Carolina’s distinguished martial tradition through the Revolutionary War, Mexican War, Civil War, Spanish-American War, World Wars I and II, Vietnam, the War on Terror, and other American conflicts. It serves as the state’s military history museum by collecting, preserving, and exhibiting South Carolina’s military heritage from the colonial era to the present, and by providing superior educational experiences and programming. It recently opened a major new exhibit, “A War With No Front Lines: South Carolina and the Vietnam War, 1965-1973.” The museum is located at 301 Gervais St. in Columbia, sharing the Columbia Mills building with the State Museum. For more information, go to https://crr.sc.gov/.
