Doolittle Raid

The Doolittle Raid was an air raid by the United States on the Japanese capital of Tokyo and other places in Honshu during World War II. Launched on 18 April 1942, it was the first American air operation to strike the Japanese archipelago. Although the raid caused comparatively minor damage, it demonstrated that the Japanese mainland was vulnerable to American air attacks. It served as an initial retaliation for the attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941 and provided an important boost to American morale. The raid was named after Lieutenant Colonel James Doolittle, who planned and led the attack. It was one of six American carrier raids against Japan and Japanese-held territories conducted in the first half of 1942.
Under the final plan, 16 B-25B Mitchell medium bombers, each with a crew of five, were launched from the US Navy aircraft carrier, in the Pacific Ocean. There were no fighter escorts. After bombing the military and industrial targets, the crews were to continue westward to land in China.
On the ground, the raid killed around 50 people and injured 400. Damage to Japanese military and industrial targets was minimal, but the raid had major psychological effects. In the United States, it raised morale. In Japan, it raised fear and doubt about the ability of military leaders to defend the home islands, but the bombing and strafing of civilians created a desire for retribution—this was exploited for propaganda purposes. The raid also pushed forward Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto's plans to attack Midway Island in the Central Pacific—an attack that turned into a decisive defeat of the Imperial Japanese Navy by the US Navy in the Battle of Midway. The consequences of the Doolittle Raid were most severely felt in China: in reprisal for the raid, the Japanese launched the Zhejiang-Jiangxi campaign, killing 250,000 civilians and 70,000 soldiers.
Of the 16 crews involved, 14 returned to the United States or reached the safety of American forces, though one man was killed while bailing out. Eight men were captured by Japanese forces in eastern China, and three of them were later executed. All but one of the 16 B-25s were destroyed in crashes, while one of the planes landed at Vladivostok in the Soviet Union.
Because the Soviet Union was not officially at war with Japan, it was required, under international law, to intern the crew for the duration of the war. The crew's B-25 was also confiscated. However, within a year, the crew was secretly allowed to leave the Soviet Union, under the guise of an escape—they returned to the United States or to American units elsewhere by way of Allied-occupied Iran and North Africa.
Doolittle initially believed that he would be court-martialed for missing his primary targets. Instead, he received the Medal of Honor and was promoted two ranks to brigadier general.

Background

President Franklin D. Roosevelt spoke to the Joint Chiefs of Staff in a meeting at the White House on 21 December 1941 and said that Japan should be bombed as soon as possible to boost public morale after Pearl Harbor. Doolittle recounted in his autobiography that the raid was intended to bolster American morale and to cause the Japanese to begin doubting their leadership: "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. ... Americans badly needed a morale boost."
The concept for the attack came from Navy Captain Francis S. Low, Assistant Chief of Staff for antisubmarine warfare. He reported to Admiral Ernest J. King on 10 January 1942 that he thought that twin-engined Army bombers could be launched from an aircraft carrier, after observing several at Naval Station Norfolk Chambers Field in Norfolk, where the runway was painted with the outline of a carrier deck for landing practice. Doolittle, a famous military test pilot, civilian aviator, and aeronautical engineer before the war, was assigned to Army Air Forces Headquarters to plan the raid. The aircraft to be used would need a cruising range of with a bomb load. Doolittle considered the B-25B Mitchell, Martin B-26 Marauder, Douglas B-18 Bolo, and Douglas B-23 Dragon. The B-26 had questionable takeoff characteristics from a carrier deck. The wingspans of the B-18 and B-23 were larger than that of the B-25, reducing the number that could be taken aboard a carrier and posing risks to the ship's superstructure. The B-25 had yet to see combat and had a range of about 1,300 miles, but tests indicated that it could fulfill the mission's requirements if it were modified to hold nearly twice as much fuel.
Doolittle's first report on the plan suggested that the bombers fly to Vladivostok after their attack, where they could be handed to the Soviet Union under the Lend-Lease program. This stratagem was intended to circumvent Moscow's April 1941 neutrality pact with Japan, but Soviet officials refused. Instead, planners looked to China, adding some 600 nautical miles to the flight. Despite concerns about Japanese reprisals, Chiang Kai-shek agreed to provide five refueling sites and a final destination: Chongqing.
No fighter escort was possible, for no fighter aircraft with the required range were available.

Preparation

After planning indicated that the B-25 best met the mission's requirements, two were loaded aboard the aircraft carrier at Norfolk and were flown off the deck without difficulty on 3 February 1942. The raid was immediately approved. The crews would be drawn from the 17th Bombardment Group, which had been the first group to receive B-25s and had become the most experienced B-25 unit in the service; all four of its squadrons flew the bomber by September 1941. Its first assignment after the United States entered the war was to the U.S. Eighth Air Force.
The 17th BG, then flying antisubmarine patrols from Pendleton, Oregon, was immediately moved cross-country to Columbia Army Air Base at West Columbia, South Carolina, ostensibly to fly similar patrols off the East Coast of the United States, but in actuality to prepare for the mission against Japan. The group officially transferred effective 9 February 1942 to Columbia, where its combat crews were offered the opportunity to volunteer for an "extremely hazardous", but unspecified mission. On 19 February, the group was detached from the Eighth Air Force and assigned to III Bomber Command.
Initial planning called for 20 aircraft to fly the mission, and 24 of the group's B-25B Mitchell bombers were diverted to the Mid-Continent Airlines modification center in Minneapolis, Minnesota. With support provided by two senior airline managers, Wold-Chamberlain Field's maintenance hangar was the first modification center to become operational. From nearby Fort Snelling, the 710th Military Police Battalion provided tight security around this hangar. B-25B aircraft modifications included:

Removal of the lower gun turret.
Installation of de-icers and anti-icers.
Mounting of steel blast plates on the fuselage around the upper turret.
Removal of the liaison radio set to save weight.
Installation of a collapsible neoprene auxiliary fuel tank, fixed to the top of the bomb bay, and installation of support mounts for additional fuel cells in the bomb bay, crawlway, and lower turret area, to increase fuel capacity from 646 to 1,141 U.S. gallons.
Installation of broomsticks as mock gun barrels in the tail cone.
Replacement of the Norden bombsight with a makeshift aiming sight devised by pilot Capt. C. Ross Greening. Dubbed the "Mark Twain", its materials cost just 20 cents.

Two bombers also had cameras mounted to record the results of the bombing.
The 24 crews were selected and picked up the modified bombers in Minneapolis and flew them to Eglin Field, Florida, beginning 1 March 1942. There, the crews received concentrated training for three weeks in simulated carrier deck takeoffs, low-level and night flying, low-altitude bombing, and over-water navigation, operating primarily out of Eglin Auxiliary Field #1, a more secluded site. Lieutenant Henry L. Miller, a U.S. Navy flight instructor from nearby Naval Air Station Pensacola, supervised their takeoff training and accompanied the crews to the launch. For his efforts, Miller is considered an honorary member of the Raider group.
Doolittle stated in his after-action report that the crews reached a "safely operational" level of training, despite several days when flying was not possible because of rain and fog. One aircraft was written off in a landing accident on 10 March and another was heavily damaged in a takeoff accident on 23 March, while a third was removed from the mission because of a nose wheel shimmy that could not be repaired in time.
On 25 March 1942, the remaining 22 B-25s took off from Eglin for McClellan Field, California. They arrived two days later at the Sacramento Air Depot for inspection and final modifications. Five crews did extra training on March 30 and 31 at the Willows-Glenn County Airport. A total of 16 B-25s were flown to Naval Air Station Alameda on 31 March. Fifteen made up the mission force and the 16th, by last-minute agreement with the Navy, was loaded so that it could be launched shortly after departure from San Francisco to demonstrate to the Army pilots that there was sufficient deck space for a safe takeoff. Instead, that bomber was made part of the mission force.

Participating aircraft

In order of launching, the 16 aircraft were:

AAF serial number	Nickname	Sqdn	Bomber crew image	Target	Pilot	Disposition
40-2344				Tokyo	Lt. Col. James H. Doolittle	crashed N Quzhou, China
40-2292		37th BS		Tokyo	1st Lt. Travis Hoover	crashed Ningbo, China
40-2270	Whiskey Pete	95th BS		Tokyo	1st Lt. Robert M. Gray	crashed SE Quzhou, China
40-2282		95th BS		Tokyo	1st Lt. Everett W. Holstrom	crashed SE Shangrao, China
40-2283		95th BS		Tokyo	Capt. David M. Jones	crashed SW Quzhou, China
40-2298	The Green Hornet	95th BS		Tokyo	1st Lt. Dean E. Hallmark	ditched at sea Wenzhou, China
40-2261	The Ruptured Duck	95th BS		Tokyo	1st Lt. Ted W. Lawson	ditched at sea Changshu, China
40-2242		95th BS		Tokyo	Capt. Edward J. York	interned Primorsky Krai, USSR
40-2303	Whirling Dervish	34th BS		Tokyo	1st Lt. Harold F. Watson	crashed S Nanchang, China
40-2250		89th RS		Tokyo	1st Lt. Richard O. Joyce	crashed NE Quzhou, China
40-2249	Hari Kari-er	89th RS		Yokohama	Capt. C. Ross Greening	crashed NE Quzhou, China
40-2278	Fickle Finger of Fate	37th BS		Yokohama	1st Lt. William M. Bower	crashed NE Quzhou, China
40-2247	The Avenger	37th BS		Yokosuka	1st Lt. Edgar E. McElroy	crashed N Nanchang, China
40-2297		89th RS		Nagoya	Maj. John A. Hilger	crashed SE Shangrao, China
40-2267	TNT	89th RS		Kobe	1st Lt. Donald G. Smith	ditched at sea Changshu, China
40-2268	Bat Out of Hell	34th BS		Nagoya	1st Lt. William G. Farrow	crashed S Ningbo, China