The year was 1942

• World War II (WWII): Historic battles rage across Europe, Africa and Asia
• The motion picture classic Casablanca, starring Humphrey Bogart, premiers
• The Alaska Highway is completed

Meanwhile . . .

It lives in history as one of the most daring exploits of WWII. And Diebold was there.

The vibration from the engines of 16 bombers poised on the flight deck of the USS Hornet made sailors’ teeth chatter in sync with their racing pulses and pounding hearts. They knew they were witnessing history.

It was April 18, 1942, barely four months after the Japanese sneak attack on America’s Pacific Fleet anchored at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. The United States now stood ready to trigger its own surprise – an improbable retaliatory attack on the Japanese mainland. A Navy task force avoided detection and slipped to within 600 miles of Japan.

For the first time in military history, bombers were now to be launched from the deck of an aircraft carrier. Their mission: to attack major Japanese cities, to inflict whatever damage they could in order to show that nation that its claims of invulnerability were fiction.

The historic raid was led by Lt. Col. James H. “Jimmy” Doolittle, an acclaimed aviator and aeronautical engineer from civilian life. He knew his North American B-25 Mitchell aircraft lacked the range to both attack its targets and return safely. So, the plan was to keep flying west after bomb runs and try to land inside mainland China. Some crews and planes, he feared, wouldn’t make it. He was right. All 16 aircraft were lost on the mission. Eleven of 79 crewmen were either killed or captured. The crews of 14 aircraft, however, were recovered and returned to the United States by 1943.

Because of the bomb loads carried and the distances to be flown, every pound of weight that could be shed from the bombers needed to be stripped away. But what apparently could not be sacrificed was the face-hardened armor plating that protected the pilots’ seats and other vital plane parts. Diebold provided that protection on a variety of aircraft during the war, but it is believed no Diebold associate then knew that their work also flew aboard this fabled raid.

Why? The answer lies tucked away in the pages of Diebold’s 1941 annual report (produced in 1942). As then Chairman Ralph K. Rex wrote to shareholders and associates: “We could give you some very interesting information (about the uses being made of our armor plate), but these are war times and the transactions with our Army and Navy must be treated confidentially – and therefore restricted.”

But one man lifted the restriction long enough to let Diebold associates learn what they had done. His name: Jimmy Doolittle. He had survived the raid he led, returned home, was raised two grades in rank and awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor.

On May 21, 1942, he wrote this letter to Diebold associates:

“To the associates of Diebold Safe and Lock Co., Canton, Ohio. Now it can be told officially: We bombed Tokio (Tokyo) in the North American bombers you helped build. Each plane performed magnificently, racing to its objective just over the housetops, then shooting up a few hundred feet to drop its bombs. Flames poured from enemy installations and one salvo made a direct hit on a new warship under construction. We flew low enough at times to see the surprised look on faces in Tokio and other Japanese cities. Every one of the 79 men on the flight joins me in praising the B-25. The enemy couldn’t do a thing to stop us. They will never stop us if you keep up your great work.” James H. Doolitte, Brigadier General, U.S. Army Air Forces.”

And great work is what Diebold associates were all about during the war. Bill Wilson, a Diebold associate and editor of The Diebold Warriors, a newsletter devoted to covering the company’s war-time efforts, wrote in a letter to an associate on leave in the service in 1943: “Of course our efforts are all devoted to the production of armor plate. It seems every month our produce of aircraft armor is boosted. The aircraft armor seems to get more difficult each day in peculiar shapes and sizes. The fellows have to tear their hair, but they seem to be able to take it in their stride and keep pushing it out.”

The front page of the October 1943 issue of The Diebold Warriors featured a shot up B-26 bomber, along with this information: “ The amazing records compiled by American planes on all battlefronts, their ability to take plenty of punishment is due in part to the protection afforded crewmen by some of your aircraft armor plate. Better and better aircraft armor is our aim. We want all those swell young fellows back after Hitler and Tokio have been eliminated.”