American Heroes- Doolittle Raiders

You can go back 500 years. You cannot find a more audacious plan.
--VP Joe Biden on Bin Laden Raid.

Sorry, that's not so, Joe…. Here’s one that was more audacious. 70 Years ago today.

"The Japanese had been told they were invulnerable. An attack on the Japanese homeland would cause confusion in the minds of the Japanese people and sow doubt about the reliability of their leaders. There was a second; equally important, psychological reason for this attack . . . Americans badly needed a moral boost."
--Col. James Doolittle

The story is a fascinating chapter in World War II American History. The men who flew this mission were volunteers.

Doolittle Raid on Japan, 18 April 1942
The April 1942 air attack on Japan, launched from the aircraft carrier Hornet and led by Lieutenant Colonel James H. Doolittle, was the most daring operation yet undertaken by the United States in the young Pacific War. Though conceived as a diversion that would also boost American and allied morale, the raid generated strategic benefits that far outweighed its limited goals.
The raid had its roots in a chance observation that it was possible to launch Army twin-engined bombers from an aircraft carrier, making feasible an early air attack on Japan. Appraised of the idea in January 1942, U.S. Fleet commander Admiral Ernest J. King and Air Forces leader General Henry H. Arnold greeted it with enthusiasm. Arnold assigned the technically-astute Doolittle to organize and lead a suitable air group. The modern, but relatively well-tested B-25B "Mitchell" medium bomber was selected as the delivery vehicle and tests showed that it could fly off a carrier with a useful bomb load and enough fuel to hit Japan and continue on to airfields in China.
Gathering volunteer air crews for an unspecified, but admittedly dangerous mission, Doolittle embarked on a vigorous program of special training for his men and modifications to their planes. On March 1, 1942, volunteer crews began training at Eglin Field, Florida. They had to learn low-altitude bombing, night flying, over-water navigation and simulated carrier deck takeoffs. The aircraft received immense modifications including the removal of the lower gun turret and installation of extra fuel tanks. The new carrier Hornet was sent to the Pacific to undertake the Navy's part of the mission. So secret was the operation that her Commanding Officer, Captain Marc A. Mitscher, had no idea of his ship's upcoming employment until shortly before the sixteen bombers and their crews were loaded onto the USS Hornet on April 1. On April 2, they headed across the Pacific towards the "Land of the Rising Sun". Each bomber would carry four 500-pound bombs and enough fuel to reach China. Joined in mid-ocean by Admiral Halsey's task force, they steamed ahead towards the planned launching point (approximately 400 miles from the Japanese coast).

Joined in mid-ocean on 13 April by Vice Admiral William F. Halsey's flagship Enterprise, which would provide air cover during the approach, Hornet steamed toward a planned 18 April afternoon launching point some 400 miles from Japan. However, before dawn on 18 April, enemy picket boats were encountered much further east than expected. These were evaded or sunk, but got off radio warnings, forcing the planes to take off around 8 AM, while still more than 600 miles out.
Most of the sixteen B-25s, each with a five-man crew, attacked the Tokyo area, with a few hitting Nagoya. Damage to the intended military targets was modest, and none of the planes reached the Chinese airfields (though all but a few of their crewmen survived). Fifteen of the crews crashed in China. Thirteen reached safety, two were captured by the Japanese. One crew, running low on fuel, did not crash in China but headed for Russia, landed in Siberia and were interned there. The Japanese high command was deeply embarrassed. Three of the eight American airmen they had captured were executed. The others were tortured, interrogated and starved.
Spurred by Combined Fleet commander Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto, they also resolved to eliminate the risk of any more such raids by the early destruction of America's aircraft carriers, a decision that led them to disaster at the Battle of Midway a month and a half later.


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