The Doolittle Raid saw 16 US B-25 bombers hit Tokyo and other targets in Japan on 18 April 1942. This was the first time that Japan's home islands had been bombed since Japan's infamous attack on Pearl Harbor the previous December, an act of aggression which had brought the United States into the Second World War (1939-45). Although the damage of the Doolittle Raid was slight in the grand scheme of the Pacific War, it had demonstrated a feature common to most theatres of a conflict already three years old: that no cities and no civilians anywhere were safe from air attacks.
Revenge for Pearl Harbor
Japan launched a devastating surprise attack on the US Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbor on 7 December 1941. A few hours later, Japan declared war on the US. The next day, another Japanese raid destroyed the majority of the 35 B-17 Flying Fortress aircraft belonging to the USAAF on Luzon Island in the Philippines. The US declared war on Japan in response, but with its Pacific Fleet in tatters, launching a counterattack was out of the question for the moment. President Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882-1945), though, pushed for some sort of military reaction. The US Joint Chiefs of Staff came up with a plan to attack Japan directly. Although Roosevelt was later credited with the idea, the Doolittle Raid was, according to Admiral Ernest J. King (1878-1956), Commander-in-Chief of the US Navy, dreamt up by one of his operations officers, Captain Francis S. 'Frog' Low.
The idea of the Doolittle Raid was a surprise attack on Japan. Only one aircraft carrier needed to be committed, but by using specially adapted bombers, the ship would not have to get so close to Japan that the carrier itself could be threatened by enemy patrols. The Doolittle Raid, later named after its leader, Lt-Colonel James H. Doolittle (1896-1993), but initially simply called Special Aviation Project No. 1, would involve 16 North American B-25 Mitchell medium bombers which would take off from the aircraft carrier Hornet and strike Tokyo, then the third largest city in the world, as well as certain other targets. The strategic value of the raid would be very limited given the small number of aircraft involved, but it would demonstrate both to Japan and the US public that the US armed forces were capable of striking at the very heart of the enemy. Just like the attack on Pearl Harbor, shock value would far outweigh possible material damage.
The Bombers
On 1 April 1942, the Hornet sailed from San Francisco, later linking up with a protective task force from Pearl Harbor commanded by Admiral William 'Bull' Halsey (1882-1959). This task force included the aircraft carrier Enterprise. The group of US ships headed towards Japan, but on 18 April radar detected Japanese patrol boats. Halsey first changed course in an attempt to avoid detection, but one of the boats relayed the sighting to Tokyo. The Japanese ships were attacked and sunk, but it was too late. The bombers would have to take off immediately if the raid was to maintain its secrecy. The Hornet was still 700 miles (1,100 km) from Tokyo, around 170 miles (273 km) further than planned for the takeoff of the B-25s. The planes would have to take off in daylight when the original plan had been to set off under the cover of darkness and fly over Japan at night.
All of the bomber pilots were volunteers, and they came from the 17th Bombardment Group, Pendleton Field, Ore. Doolittle had spent months training the pilots in taking off from an airstrip measured to the exact size of the Hornet's flight deck – less than 300 feet (91.4 m) – and taking off with the unfamiliar technique of keeping the aircraft's tail down. The crews also practised night-flying and navigating without visual aids or radio references. There was no opportunity to practice take-offs from an actual carrier at sea. Aircraft carriers were designed to carry short-range fighters, not bomber planes. Consequently, it was impossible for such large aircraft to land again on an aircraft carrier, and so the B-25 bombers, after hitting Tokyo, would have to land at the Chuchow airfield in allied China, a distance of around 1,000 miles (1,600 km) from the Japanese capital.
The B-25 Mitchell was a two-engined bomber with defensive machine guns in the nose, tail, dorsal, and underbelly of the aircraft. The Doolittle B-25s carried several adaptations. An autopilot was added, and the ventral gun turret was removed. The usual Norden bombsight was also removed, since it was not reliable at low altitudes. Instead, a custom-made bombsight was fitted that would allow the bombardier to send light signals to the pilot, thus maintaining radio silence.
The B-25s were unusually heavy since each carried 1,141 gallons (4,319 litres) of fuel, around 60% more than the usual capacity. Each bomber carried four 500 lb (225 kg) bombs, or three such bombs and a cluster of smaller incendiary bombs. The desire for revenge for Pearl Harbor was evidenced in the fact that many US servicemen sent their war medals to Doolittle's team so that they could be tied to the bombs that would be dropped on the Japanese.
Getting off the Hornet's flight deck was the first and perhaps the biggest challenge of the operation. Fortunately, the weather conditions helped, as explained here by Doolittle:
We had only one real worry and that would have been a dead calm. The carrier would have been able to make perhaps thirty knots; under those conditions taking off from the carrier deck would have been, at best, precarious. In the event there was a thirty knot wind, the carrier was able to make twenty knots into this wind so we had an effective wind of fifty knots across the deck.
(Holmes, 208)
The bombers took off from the Hornet starting at 8:24 a.m., Doolittle in the lead bomber, and each aircraft following every four minutes. The practice had paid off, and all the bombers succeeded in making the hair-raising take-off. The planes grouped around 9:20 a.m. and flew in formation until they broke off to head towards their respective targets. One bomber headed for Kobe, another for Nagoya, and one went to Osaka. 13 bombers headed for Tokyo. The bombers had been given targets important to Japan's war effort, such as an oil refinery, ironworks, shipyard, and factories. Cultural sites such as the Imperial Palace were off limits.
The Attack
Nagoya and Kobe were hit, but the bomber destined for Osaka instead hit the Yokosuka naval yard and then Yokohama, Japan's most important port. The 13 other bombers, having met no or only light fighter resistance, arrived over Tokyo just after noon on 18 April. As it happened, just one hour before the city had completed an air raid drill which included real aircraft. This fact "lessened the psychological impact of the raid on the local population but helped the bombers escape" (Dear, 240). All 13 bombers dropped their loads and escaped unscathed despite hostile fire from the anti-aircraft ground defences and fighter attacks.
As a whole, the raids killed around 50 people (including women and children), damaged 100 buildings, and seriously damaged a submarine tender, the Taigei. This was actually more than expected, since bombing by all air forces at this stage of the war remained frustratingly inaccurate, and even with direct hits, one or two 500-lb bombs would not have obliterated a factory. It was hoped the incendiary bombs might have started a fire that grew out of control, but here the air-raid drill came to the rescue, since most of the Tokyo Fire Department was still on alert and so able to quickly deal with fires that did break out.
Four of the bombers landed (actually crash-landed) in China. One aircraft experienced technical problems and was obliged to land at the Russian port of Vladivostok. The other crews were obliged to abandon their aircraft as their fuel ran out.
Three servicemen were captured after they ditched their plane near Ningpo and five more were captured after parachuting out near Nanchang. These men were subjected to torture and a show trial for war crimes because the raid had hit (albeit unintentionally) civilian targets. Three airmen were executed by the Japanese authorities: Dean E. Hallmark, William G. Farrow, and Harold A. Spatz. A fourth airman, Robert J. Meder, died in terrible prison conditions where diseases were rife. The remaining four airmen, interned in Shanghai, were only released at the end of the war in August 1945.
The crew that had been obliged to land at Vladivostok was also interned (since the USSR was not formally at war with Japan and had no wish to be), but they managed to escape 13 months later and make their way to Persia (Iran). In all, 71 of the 80 US servicemen involved, including Doolittle, survived the raid. The US fleet with the Hornet and Enterprise arrived unscathed at Pearl Harbour on 25 April.
Consequences
The raid was certainly a boost to morale in the United States. Another significant effect of the raid was that the Japanese military government could no longer claim Japan was immune to attacks. As Toshikazu Kase, Principal Secretary to the Foreign Minister, noted:
When the Doolittle raid was conducted that produced a consternation because the military repeatedly assured the public that the Japanese sky was impenetrable. When this alleged impenetrability failed it naturally produced a reaction of discrediting the capability of the military command.
(Holmes, 208)
Doolittle points out another consequence of his raid:
Most important of all, it caused the retention of aircraft for the protection of the home islands that would have been much more effective had they been able to go south, where the fighting was going on.
(Holmes, 209)
Another consequence of the raid was that opposition to the idea that the Japanese Navy should engage the US Pacific Fleet in direct battle largely evaporated. To minimise the possibility of future raids, Japanese forces first attacked and occupied the Chuchow airfield and others in China. In addition, an unsuccessful attempt was made to capture the Aleutian Islands in order to prevent any US carriers getting too close to Japan and being able to launch a repeat of the Doolittle Raid. The two navies did indeed clash the next month in the Battle of the Coral Sea and then in June 1942 in the much more significant Battle of Midway, an engagement that dealt Japan its first major defeat in the Pacific and which destroyed four of its aircraft carriers.
The Doolittle Raid had been a shock even if, for the people of Tokyo, US bombers would not darken their skies again for another 31 months. When the US bombers did finally come again, the intensive campaign against the city would cause massive destruction and loss of life. Direct attacks on Japan had become possible once the US armed forces captured the Mariana Islands in June 1944, although even then, the only aircraft capable of hitting Japan was the long-range and high-altitude B-29 Superfortress bomber.
Doolittle received the Medal of Honor and was promoted to the rank of brigadier general. The story of the raid, written by one of the pilots involved, Ted W. Lawson, was published in the 1943 book Thirty Seconds over Tokyo. This book was used as a basis for the 1944 film of the same name starring Spencer Tracy. The raid also features prominently in the 2001 film Pearl Harbor starring Ben Affleck.