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| Sgt. George Larkin was one of the Doolittle Raiders and later served in India. https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/3782367 https://www.flyingmag.com/photo-gallery/photos/doolittle-raid-remembered https://www.military.com/daily-news/2017/04/18/newly-colorized-photos-mark-75th-anniversary-doolittle-raid.html |
George E. Larkin, Jr. never had a chance to reach 100 years old today. Instead, he sacrificed his life for our freedom.
He was born on November 26, 1918 in Kentucky. His parents George and Sarrah were also both born in Kentucky. His father worked as a steam railroad laborer and later as a fireman. George had one older sister. George completed high school where he played on the football team. By 1940 had joined the Army Air Corps and was undergoing training in Kentucky.
When the war started he was a sergeant and trained flight engineer on B-25s. In February 1942 he volunteered for a secret mission which turned out to be the Doolittle raid on Japan. He was the flight engineer on the 10th plane to take off from the USS Hornet on April 18, 1942. His plane bombed the Japan Special Steel Company factory in Tokyo and, evading multiple Japanese fighter planes and safely made it to China where the crew all bailed out, landing in Chinese territory. For this mission Sgt. Larkin was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross.
Sgt. Larkin was next assigned to the 11th Bombardment Squadron, 341st Bombardment Group which was based in India. It was equipped with B-25 Mitchells and began operations in September 1942. He was killed in action when his plane crashed by accident near Assam, India on October 18, 1942.
His grave is at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific in Honolulu.
Last year on this date I profiled B-17 pilot Harry Cook. You can read about Harry here.
On behalf of the fallen, if you would like to see more people become aware of this project to honor the WW2 fallen, be sure to share with others on Twitter, Facebook, etc. Thanks for your interest!
I created this video to explain why I started this project: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vXt8QA481lY.
Please consider joining the public Facebook group to increase the exposure of this project. Go to: WW2 Fallen 100
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