“When he’d been graduated from High School Jimmie went on to the University of California, same college that Hawks had attended. He went on fighting, still in the bantamweight class. But one day down in the gymnasium, the boxing coach put him in the ring with a middleweight for some practice. Jimmie knocked him out. And he knocked out the second middleweight, and the third middleweight. So the coach, seeing that he had struck gold, entered Jimmie in the match with Stanford, but in the middleweight class. The crowd roared when they saw the little bantam getting into the ring with a pretty husky middle. The middleweight thought that it was a joke on him, and was careful not to hit hard. But he needn’t have been so kind. Jimmy Doolittle retaliated by knocking him stiff and cold in a few minutes. “Jimmie didn’t graduate. In 1917 he married Jo, and settled down to serious things, such as going out to Nevada and becoming a gold miner, and later a mining engineer. I might say a word about Jim and Jo. They’re known as the inseparables. They’re always together. They’ve got two kids, who are thirteen and eleven years old, and who can fly in their daddy’s footsteps. The family leads a gypsy life, flying from one army field to another, but they have a great time. “Well, I’m getting ahead of my story. Let’s get back to the War. Because the war broke out then, you know, and Jimmie joined the air service. His first lesson, they turned him over to an instructor by the name of Todd. They were still on the ground, when they heard a crash, then another crash. Two planes had collided in the air. First one dropped, then the other, close to Jimmie’s plane. One of the pilots was killed; the other pilot and his passenger were badly hurt. Doolittle helped them out, and went back for his first lesson. “Jimmie, like Hawks, was just too good. They didn’t send him to France at all, but made him an instructor at Rockwell Field, San Diego, where he became known as one of the star aviators in the air service. He was pretty angry when he found that he couldn’t go to France. He went out to relieve his feelings. He picked out an innocent soldier walking down the road, and made for him. He didn’t have any grudge against that soldier, just against the world. But that soldier had to bear the brunt. Jimmie swooped down on him. The soldier wouldn’t move out of the way or flatten out. Jimmie swooped closer and closer. The soldier stood his ground. Finally Jimmy came so close that his wheels nicked the soldier, and down he went. And away flew Jimmie, but so low that he couldn’t rise again in time to clear a barbed wire fence at the side of the road. He got caught in the fence and smashed up. They gave him a month in the barracks to think over how smart-aleck he’d been, and then Jimmie was out again. The soldier had a bump on the head to remind him that he’d been in the way when Jimmie Doolittle was mad.