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EDGEFIELD, S.C. -- Nolan Herndon, a member of the famed Doolittle Raiders who bombed Japan in 1942, has died. He was 88.

Herndon died Sunday of pneumonia, Edgefield Mercantile Funeral Home director David Burnett told The Associated Press on Monday.

Herndon, a Greenville, Texas, native, enlisted in Dallas on July 27, 1940, after attending two years of college, according to the Web site http://www.doolittleraider.com.

He was commissioned as a second lieutenant about a year later. He also graduated from navigator training and completed bombardier training.

Herndon participated in one of the most daring air raids in American history, when 16 B-25 bombers took off from an aircraft carrier and bombed Tokyo on April 18, 1942.

"When you are that young, you usually don't think about getting hurt or getting killed," Herndon said in a 1985 interview with The Augusta (Ga.) Chronicle.

The planes each had a five-man crew and were to fly 650 miles over the Pacific Ocean to bomb their targets, then continue 1,600 miles in hopes of reaching airfields in China.

Although the planes completed their bombing missions, most ditched at sea or crashed in China. Herndon's plane landed in Russia, where he and his crew were captured in the then-neutral country.

"We knew when we took off that there was no way we could get back to the carrier," Herndon told the newspaper. "The plan was to fly on to China, but my plane didn't have enough fuel to get there, so we turned toward Vladivosktok. We made it to an airfield there."

Herndon was interned for about a year in Russia.

The raid, planned by Lt. Col. Jimmy Doolittle, was the subject of the book and movie "Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo" and the book "Four Came Home."

Herndon returned to the United States in May 1943, where he held several assignments until the end of World War II, according to the Web site.

Herndon retired from active duty Nov. 4, 1945.

A phone number for Herndon in Edgefield was unlisted.

Funeral services were scheduled for Wednesday at Edgefield United Methodist Church, Burnett said.

Herndon will be buried at Travis Park Cemetery in Saluda.