Robert John Meder (August 23, 1917 – December 1, 1943) was a lieutenant in the United States Army Air Forces who participated in the Doolittle Raid. In February 1942, he volunteered to participate in the raid, which took place on April 18 that year. Meder and his bomber crew was captured by the Japanese after the completion of his bombing mission. He died while in Japanese captivity on 1943. Early life Meder was born on 1917 in Cleveland, Ohio, to Martin and Rose Meder. He graduated from Lakewood High School where he was a cheerleader and in 1935, he entered Miami University where he was a member of Phi Kappa Tau Fraternity. He graduated in 1939 and worked as a salesperson. Military career On November 22, 1940, he enlisted in the Aviation Cadet Program of the U.S. Army Air Corps and was commissioned a second lieutenant and awarded his pilot wings on July 12, 1941. After receiving his pilot wings, he was assigned as a B-25 Mitchell pilot with the 95th Bomb Squadron of the 17th Bomb Group at Pendleton Army Airfield in Oregon, on July 1941. Following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, the 17th BG immediately began anti-submarine patrols off the coast of Oregon and Washington. Doolittle Raid In February 1942, Meder volunteered for a "secret mission", which ended up being the critical Doolittle Raid. Led by Lieutenant Colonel Jimmy Doolittle, the raid was daring not only because of the intended targets, the Japanese homeland, but because the pilots trained to take-off in a B-25 bomber from the deck of an aircraft carrier, something neither the designers of the B-25, nor the aircraft carrier, ever envisioned. Meder was the navigator for sixth bomber, plane# 40-2298 nicknamed "The Green Hornet", to depart the deck of the USS Hornet during the mission. On April 18, 1942, Meder and his B-25's four crewmembers, took off from the Hornet and reached Tokyo, Japan. They bombed their target; a steel mill in the north of the city. They then headed for their recovery airfield in China. Running low on fuel due to the early launch of the raid, the B-25s failed to reach any of the designated safety zones in China. The pilot of Meder's bomber, First Lieutenant Dean E. Hallmark, was forced to ditch at sea off the coast of Wenzhou, China. Second Lieutenant William J. Dieter (bombardier)