SEVENTY-FIVE YEARS AGO THIS MONTH, 80 AIRMEN DELIVERED A MUCH-NEEDED THE STRIKE AGAINST JAPAN. DOOLITTLE RAIDBy Robert B. Kane n April 18, 1942, at approxi- Franklin D. Roosevelt asked the Chiefs At Low’s direction, troops loaded mately 8:20 a.m., 16 B-25 of the Army, Navy, and Army Air Forces two Army B-25s onto Hornet, the bombers under the command (AAF) to plan a retaliatory strike on Navy’s newest carrier, at Norfolk. The of Lt. Col. James H. “Jimmy” Japan to boost American morale. He carrier sailed about 100 miles into the ODoolittle began taking off from USS repeated that request over the following Atlantic and launched the two aircraft Hornet, about 750 miles east of Japan. weeks. Since the bulk of the US Pacific from its deck without difficulty. About noon, local time, they struck Fleet’s battleships lay on the bottom of Meanwhile, Doolittle, a military factories and other industrial targets Pearl Harbor and American aircraft of test pilot, famed civilian aviator, and in six Japanese cities. the time could not reach Japan from the aeronautical engineer of the interwar The attack had minimal effect on closest American land base, the service years, was now special assistant to Lt. Japan’s military or industrial capa- Chiefs wondered how they could carry Gen. Henry H. “Hap” Arnold, Chief bilities and was carried out at the cost out the President’s request. of the Army Air Forces. Doolittle was of all the bombers in the raid. Seven On Jan. 10, 1942, Navy Capt. Fran- already trying to figure out which airmen died or were killed after being cis S. Low, assistant chief of staff for bombers could carry out an attack captured. Four spent the duration of anti-submarine warfare on the staff on Japan. the war as POWs. of Adm. Ernest J. King—head of the The needed aircraft had to have Still, the mission had a profound US Fleet and soon to become Chief a 2,400-mile cruising range, a effect on Americans, Japanese military of Naval Operations—watched two 2,000-pound bomb load, and be small leaders, and the Japanese people dur- Army pilots conducting mock bomb- enough that a reasonable number would ing the ensuing months. Seventy-five ing passes on an outline of a carrier fit on an aircraft carrier deck. Doolittle years later, the Doolittle Raid still has deck painted on the airfield at Norfolk decided on the B-25B, then the Army’s important lessons to teach. Naval Base, Va. The drill gave him the newest aircraft. It would be modified Two weeks after Japan’s Dec. 7, idea to launch Army bombers from an to carry double its normal fuel load 1941, attack on Pearl Harbor, President aircraft carrier. and, thus, extend its range. A B-25, piloted by Lt. Col. James Doolittle, takes off from the deck of USS Hornet on April 18, 1942, for a daring raid against mainland Japan. US Navy photo 78 APRIL / MAY 2017 H WWW.AIRFORCEMAG.COM DOOLITTLE RAIDBy Robert B. Kane Once Roosevelt and the service Chiefs approved the concept for the retaliatory raid, Doolittle chose the 17th Bomb Group (Medium), assigned to Pendleton AAF, Ore., to provide aircraft and crews. He picked the unit because it was the first group to fly B-25s. On Feb. 3, the War Department or- dered the 17th BG to Columbia Army Air Base, near Columbia, S.C., osten- sibly to conduct anti-submarine patrols off the American East Coast. Doolittle diverted 24 of the group’s aircraft to Mid-Continent Airlines of Minneapolis, where they would get additional fuel tanks and other modifications. The 17th Bomb Group began arriv- ing at Columbia on Feb. 9, followed by Doolittle himself a few days later. He informed only Lt. Col. William C. Mills, the group commander, about the upcoming mission. Addressing the crews, Doolittle said he was looking for volunteers for a highly dangerous and US Navy photo APRIL / MAY 2017 H WWW.AIRFORCEMAG.COM 79 THE RAID CRACKED THE SENSE OF INVULNERABILITY THAT JAPANESE LEADERS HAD ENCOURAGED AMONG THE JAPANESE PEOPLE SINCE THE 13TH CENTURY. Top: Doolittle’s aircraft launches from USS secret mission that would contribute to “The Raiders at Eglin,” April 2015, p. 71.) Hornet’s flight deck. America’s war effort, but he gave no Between training missions, the bomb other details. When the entire group group’s enlisted men and Eglin techni- Below: The deck of Hornet lined with B-25 volunteered, Doolittle and the group’s cians made additional changes to the bombers on the way to the mission’s launching point. In the distance is USS squadron commanders selected the best aircraft. They installed a collapsible Vincennes. The bombers were modified for 24 crews for the mission. fuel tank and more fuel cells in the the special mission, including the removal The chosen men picked up the modi- fuselage, de-icers and anti-icers in the of the belly turret and a tactical radio and the addition of a collapsible fuel tank. fied B-25s at Minneapolis and flew them wings, steel blast plates around the to Eglin Field, Fla., arriving between upper turret, and mock gun barrels in Feb. 27 and March 1. With them came the tail. They removed the belly turret 60 enlisted personnel. During the next and a heavy tactical radio. The mechan- three weeks, the crews practiced carrier ics also fine-tuned new carburetors takeoffs, low-level and night flying, for the aircraft engines to obtain the over-water navigation, and low-altitude best possible engine performance and bombing at various Eglin auxiliary fields fuel consumption rate for low-altitude and over the Gulf of Mexico. The Navy cruising. provided Lt. Henry L. Miller, a flight Doolittle had the top-secret Norden instructor from nearby NAS Pensacola, to bombsights on the aircraft removed. supervise the short-takeoff training. (See They wouldn’t be of much value at the medium altitudes from which the raiders would strike, and it was too great a risk that they would fall into enemy hands. US Naval History and Heritage Command photo Command and Heritage Naval History US 80 APRIL / MAY 2017 H WWW.AIRFORCEMAG.COM US Navy photo Navy US Instead, Capt. Charles R. Greening, the combined task force was about 750 The pilot of the 16th aircraft, Capt. pilot and armament officer, created an miles east of Japan. Edward J. York, realized within hours of aiming sight dubbed the “Mark Twain.” At about that moment, Navy scout launching from Hornet that his engines The sights were built in Eglin’s sheet- planes detected a Japanese picket boat, were burning fuel at an unexpectedly metal workshops for about 20 cents each, and USS Nashville sank it by gunfire. high rate. (Civilian technicians at Mc- and Doolittle later said that they were The picket boat had sent Japan a mes- Clellan Field had incorrectly changed relatively accurate in the actual attack. sage of the sighting but didn’t confirm the settings of his aircraft’s carburetors.) Early on March 23, Arnold called the message before it was sunk. Faced York, realizing that his aircraft would Doolittle at Eglin Field and informed with the potential loss of surprise, Doo- not reach China, turned northwesterly him that it was time to move the secret little and Mitscher decided to launch toward Vladivostok, in the Soviet Union. operation to McClellan Field, Calif., the B-25s immediately, fully 10 hours The Soviet Union, allied with the US for final inspections and modifications and some 250 miles farther east than against Nazi Germany, was not at war to the aircraft. They would then fly to they had planned. All 16 aircraft took with Japan, however, and it imprisoned NAS Alameda for loading onto Hornet. to the air safely, but a sailor lost an arm the crew and confiscated the aircraft. It Though bad weather and installation when he stepped back into the prop took 13 months of persistent US gov- of the modifications had reduced the wash of an aircraft. ernment efforts and three relocations planned training time (about 50 hours Wave-hopping as they approached to get the crew to Ashgabat, 20 miles total) by 50 percent, Doolittle said in his the coast, the planes were seen by north of the Iranian border. There, the postraid report to Arnold that the crews Japanese fishing boats. Six hours after Soviet secret police arranged to smuggle had attained a “safely operational” level. takeoff, the B-25s arrived over Japan. York’s crew into Iran. Between March 31 and April 1 Climbing to 1,500 feet, the American Back in China, Chinese soldiers at Alameda, the Navy loaded 16 of bombers started their runs on targets in and guerrillas—and Japanese sol- Doolittle’s B-25s onto Hornet’s flight Tokyo, Yokohama, Yokosuka, Nagoya, diers—searched for the Americans. deck. This left about 450 feet of deck Kobe, and Osaka. Two Doolittle Raiders drowned when for the aircraft to make their takeoffs. None of the B-25s were lost to enemy their aircraft crashed off the Chinese Commanded by Navy Capt. Marc A. anti-aircraft fire or fighters, and two of coast, and one died after bailing out. Mitscher, Hornet left San Francisco on the crews shot down three Japanese Most of the raiders found their way into the morning of April 1, with 71 Army aircraft between them. friendly hands, but the Japanese army Air Forces officers and 130 enlisted- After dropping their bombs, 15 B-25s captured eight of them and executed men aboard, escorted by supply ships.