Doolittle Raid

Doolittle Raid
	Part of World War II, Pacific War
	; A B-25 taking off from Hornet for the raid
Date	18 April 1942
Location	Tokyo, Japan
Result	Tactically Indecisive, U.S. Morale Victory, First attack on Japanese Home Islands
Belligerents
United States	File:Flag of Japan - variant.svg Empire of Japan
Commanders and leaders
James H. Doolittle	Hideki Tojo
Strength
16 B-25 Mitchells	Unknown number of troops and homeland defense
Casualties and losses
3 dead,; 8 POWs (4 would die in captivity);; 5 interned in USSR	About 50 dead, 400 injured

File:Doolittle LtCol i02457.jpg

Lt. Col. Doolittle wires a Japanese medal to a bomb, for "return" to its originators.

The Doolittle Raid of 18 April 1942, was the first air raid by the United States to strike the Japanese home islands during World War II. The mission was notable in that, for the only time in US military history, United States Army Air Forces bombers launched from a US Navy aircraft carrier on a combat mission. The Doolittle Raid demonstrated that the Japanese home islands were vulnerable to Allied air attack, and it provided an expedient outlet for US retaliation for Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor on 7 December 1941.

The raid was planned and led by Lieutenant Colonel Jimmy Doolittle, already a famous civilian aviator and aeronautical engineer before the war. The raid, however, had its roots in the mind of Navy Captain Francis Low, who early in the war predicted that, under the right conditions, twin-engined Army bombers could be successfully launched from an aircraft carrier. Subsequent calculations by Doolittle indicated that the B-25 Mitchell could be launched from a carrier with a reasonable bomb load, hit military targets in Japan, and fly on to land in China.

Flying the Raid

On 1 April 1942, following two months of intensive training, 16 highly modified North American Aviation B-25B Mitchell medium bombers, plus their five-man volunteer crews and maintenance personnel, were loaded onto the USS Hornet at Alameda, California. Each plane carried four 500-pound bombs (three high-explosive and one incendiary), extra fuel tanks, and a reduced suite of defensive machine guns, consisting of two .50-caliber guns in an upper turret, and a .30-caliber machine gun in the nose. At least some of the B-25s were also fitted with two dummy wooden machine gun barrels, fashioned from broomsticks, mounted in the tail cone to discourage Japanese air attacks from that direction.^{[citation needed]} The planes were arranged and tied down on the Hornet's flight deck in the order of their expected launch. The Hornet left the port of Alameda on 2 April, and a few days later joined up with the carrier USS Enterprise and its escort of cruisers and destroyers in the mid-Pacific Ocean north of Hawaii. The Enterprise's fighters and scout planes would provide protection for the entire task force in the event of a Japanese air attack, since the Hornet's fighters were stowed below decks to allow the B-25s to use the flight deck. The two carriers and their escorting ships then proceeded, in radio silence, towards their intended launch point in enemy-controlled waters east of Japan.

On the morning of 18 April, at a distance of about 650 miles (1,050 km) from Japan, the task force was sighted by a Japanese picket boat which radioed an attack warning to Japan. Although the boat was quickly destroyed by gunfire from an American cruiser, Doolittle and Hornet skipper Captain Marc Mitscher decided to launch the B-25s immediately—a day early and 170 miles (320 km) farther from Japan than planned. Despite the fact that none of the B-25 pilots, including Doolittle, had ever taken off from a carrier before, all 16 planes made it off the Hornet safely. They then flew single-file towards Japan at wavetop level to avoid detection. The planes began arriving over Japan about noon and bombed military targets in Tokyo, Yokohama, Kobe, Osaka, and Nagoya, also hitting civil targets. Although some B-25s encountered light anti-aircraft fire and a few enemy fighters over Japan, no bomber was shot down or severely damaged. Fifteen of the 16 planes then proceeded southwest along the southern coast of Japan and across the East China Sea towards eastern China, where recovery bases supposedly awaited them. One B-25, extremely low on fuel, headed instead for the closer land mass of Russia.

The raiders faced several unforeseen challenges during their flight to China: night was approaching, the planes were running low on fuel, and the weather was rapidly deteriorating. As a result of these problems, the crews realized they would probably not be able to reach their intended bases in China, leaving them the option of either bailing out over eastern China or crash landing along the Chinese coast. Fifteen planes crash landed; the crew who flew to Russia landed near Vladivostok, where their B-25 was confiscated and the crew interned until they managed to escape through Iran in 1943. It was the longest combat mission ever flown by the B-25 Mitchell medium bomber.

Doolittle and his crew, after safely parachuting into China, received assistance from John Birch, an American missionary in China. As did the others who participated in the mission, Doolittle had to bail out, but fortunately landed in a heap of dung (saving a previously injured ankle from breaking) in a rice paddy in China near Chaozhou. Doolittle subsequently recommended Birch for intelligence work with General Claire Chennault's Flying Tigers.

Aftermath

Following the Doolittle Raid, most of the B-25 crews that came down in China eventually made it to safety with the help of Chinese civilians. But the Chinese paid dearly for sheltering the Americans. The Japanese began the Zhejiang-Jiangxi Campaign to intimidate the Chinese from helping downed American airmen. The Japanese slaughtered an estimated 250,000 civilians while searching for Doolittle’s men [1]. The crews of two planes (10 men total) were unaccounted for. On 15 August 1942, the United States learned from the Swiss Consulate General in Shanghai that eight of the missing crew members were prisoners of the Japanese at Police Headquarters in that city (two crewmen had died in the crash landing of their plane). On 19 October 1942, the Japanese announced that they had tried the eight men and sentenced them to death but that several of them had received commutation of their sentences to life imprisonment. No names or details were included in the broadcast. Japanese propaganda ridiculed the raid, calling it the "Do-nothing Raid", and boasted that several B-25s had been shot down. In fact, none had been lost to enemy action.

After the war, the complete story of the two missing crews was uncovered in a war crimes trial held at Shanghai. The trial opened in February 1946 to try four Japanese officers for mistreatment of the eight captured crewmen. Two of the original ten men in the two planes, Dieter and Fitzmaurice, had died when their B-25 crashed off the coast of China. The other eight, Hallmark, Meder, Chase Nielsen, Farrow, Bob Hite, George Barr, Spatz, and Jake DeShazer were captured. In addition to being tortured and starved, these men contracted dysentery and beriberi as a result of the poor conditions under which they were confined. On 28 August 1942, pilot Hallmark, pilot Farrow, and gunner Spatz were given a mock trial by the Japanese, although the airmen were never told the charges against them. On 14 October 1942, these three crewmen were advised that they were to be executed the next day. At 16:30 on 15 October 1942, the three were brought by truck to Public Cemetery No. 1 outside Shanghai and shot.

The other five captured airmen remained in military confinement on a starvation diet, their health rapidly deteriorating. In April 1943, they were moved to Nanking where, on 1 December 1943, Meder died. The remaining four men (Nielsen, Hite, Barr, and DeShazer) eventually began receiving slightly better treatment from their captors and were even given a copy of the Bible and a few other books. They survived until they were freed by American troops in August 1945. The four Japanese officers who were tried for war crimes against the eight Doolittle Raiders were found guilty. Three were sentenced to hard labor for five years and the fourth to a nine-year sentence. Survivor DeShazer eventually became a missionary and returned to Japan in 1948, where he served in that capacity for over 30 years.

One other Doolittle Raid crewman was lost on the mission. Corporal Leland Faktor was killed during his bailout attempt over China, the only man on his crew to be lost.

Immediately following the raid, Doolittle told his crew that he believed the loss of all 16 aircraft, coupled with the relatively minor damage the planes had inflicted on their targets, had rendered the attack a failure, and that he expected a court martial upon his return to the United States. Instead, the raid bolstered American morale to such an extent that Doolittle was awarded the Medal of Honor by President Roosevelt and was promoted two grades to Brigadier General, skipping the rank of colonel. He went on to command the 12th Air Force in North Africa, the 15th Air Force in the Mediterranean, and the 8th Air Force in England during the next three years.

In addition to Doolittle's award of the Medal of Honor, Corporal Dave Thatcher (an engineer- gunner) and Lieutenant Thomas White (flight surgeon/gunner) each received the Silver Star for their brave efforts in helping several wounded crew members evade Japanese troops in China. All the remaining Raiders (including Thatcher and White) were awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross and those who were killed, wounded, or injured as a result of the raid also received the Purple Heart. In addition, every Doolittle Raider received a decoration from the Chinese government.

The Doolittle Raiders have held an annual reunion almost every year since the late 1940s. The high point of each reunion is a solemn, private ceremony in which the surviving Raiders perform a roll call, then toast their fellow Raiders who passed away during the previous year. Specially-engraved silver goblets, one for each of the 80 Raiders, are used for this toast. The goblets of those who have died are inverted. When only two Raiders remain alive, they will drink a final toast using the vintage 1896 bottle of Hennessy cognac which has accompanied the goblets to each Raider reunion since 1960. Only 14 Raiders are still alive, and only eight were able to attend the 64th anniversary reunion held in Dayton, Ohio on 18-20 April 2006. Seven were able to attend the 65th anniversary 18-21 April 2007 in San Antonio, Texas. The oldest Raider is now 95 and the youngest is 85. The bottle of cognac and the goblets had been maintained by the United States Air Force Academy on display in Arnold Hall, the cadet social center. On 19 April 2006, the memorablia were transfered to the National Museum of the United States Air Force [2].

The Effect of the raid

Compared to the devastating B-29 Superfortress attacks against Japan later in the war, the Doolittle raid did little material damage. Nevertheless, when the news of the raid was released, American morale soared from the depths to which it had plunged following the Pearl Harbor attack and Japan's subsequent territorial gains. It was important for Americans to know that a military response had been undertaken.

The raid also had a strategic impact, in that it caused the Japanese to recall some fighter units back to the home islands for defense. They did not understand how American planes could attack from such a distance, and assumed that America had developed a new, extremely long-range airplane, when in reality, American forces knew it would essentially be a one-way trip. These reassignments subsequently weakened Japan's air capabilities against the Allies at the Battle of Midway and later Pacific Theater campaigns.

Legacy

The United States Navy named one of its aircraft carriers after the fictional location, USS Shangri-La, as an obvious reference to the Doolittle Raid. The name referred to the recently lost Hornet (CV-8). President Roosevelt had answered a reporter's question by saying that the raid had come from "Shangri-La"[3], which was the name of the place of perpetual youth in the Himalayas in the popular book and movie of the time, Lost Horizon.

Books and movies

The Doolittle Raid was the subject of two 1944 feature films. Thirty Seconds over Tokyo was based on a book of the same title by Doolittle Raider pilot Captain Ted W. Lawson, who lost a leg and suffered other serious injuries as a result of his crash landing off the coast of China. In this movie, Spencer Tracy played Doolittle and Van Johnson portrayed Lawson. The Purple Heart, starring Dana Andrews, was a largely fictional depiction of the trial of the captured Doolittle Raiders.

The 2001 film Pearl Harbor presented an extremely fictionalized view of the raid, with the attack portrayed as having destroyed an entire industrial area against astonishing antiaircraft gunfire and with many other major technical inaccuracies. A few movies about the Doolittle Raid were also made in Taiwan in the 1960s and 1970s, describing the efforts of Chinese civilians saving the American pilots^{[citation needed]}.

A highly fictionalized film in 1943, Destination Tokyo starring Cary Grant, tangentially involved the raid, concentrating on the fictional submarine USS Copperfin. The submarine's mission is to enter Tokyo Bay undetected and place a landing party ashore to obtain weather information vital to the upcoming Doolittle raid. The film suggests the raid didn't launch until up-to-the-minute data was received.

Many books were written about the Doolittle Raid after the war. Doolittle's Tokyo Raiders, by C.V. Glines, tells the complete story of the raid, including the unique experiences of each B-25 crew. Guests of the Kremlin, written by copilot Bob Emmens, describes his crew's adventures as internees in Russia after their landing in that country following the raid. Four Came Home, also by C.V.Glines, tells the story of Nielsen, Hite, Barr, and DeShazer, the Raiders who were held in POW camps for over three years. The First Heroes, by Craig Nelson, goes into great detail of the events leading up to the raid and the aftermath for all the pilots and their families.

A related VHS video with some excellent old clips of Doolittle and the flight preparations, and the B-25s launching, is DeShazer, the story of missionary Sgt. Jake DeShazer of B-25 #16 (the last to launch from the Hornet). The video is based on "The Amazing Story of Sergeant Jacob De Shazer: The Doolittle Raider Who Turned Missionary by C. Hoyt Watson. At the end of both the video and the book, DeShazer after the end of the war meets Mitsuo Fuchida, the commander and lead pilot of the Pearl Harbor raid.

Doolittle Raiders exhibit

The most complete display of Doolittle Raid memorabilia can be seen at the National Museum of the United States Air Force (on Wright-Patterson Air Force Base) in Dayton, Ohio. The centerpiece is a like-new B-25, which is painted and marked as Doolittle's plane (although it is actually a B-25D). The bomber, which North American Aviation presented to the Raiders in 1958, rests on a reproduction of the USS Hornet's flight deck. The scene is made even more realistic through the use of several authentically-dressed mannequins surrounding the aircraft; these include representations of Doolittle, USS Hornet skipper Captain Marc Mitscher, and groups of Army and Navy personnel loading the plane's bombs and ammunition. Other highlights of the exhibit are the silver goblets used by the Raiders at each of their annual reunions; pieces of flight clothing and personal equipment; a parachute used by one of the Raiders in his bailout over China; and group photographs of all 16 crews. Many other interesting items are also included in this unique collection.

A fragment of the wreckage of one of the planes, as well as the medals awarded to Doolittle are on display at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C.

References

Glines, Carroll V. The Doolittle Raid: America's Daring First Strike Against Japan. New York: Orion Books, 1988. ISBN 0-88740-347-6.
Glover, Charles E. "Jimmy Doolittle’s One Moment in Time." The Palm Beach Post, 18 April 1992.
Hasley, Edward. War Stories: Heroism in the Pacific. War Stories: Heroism in the Pacific Access date: 18 February 1996.
Hayostek, Cindy. Exploits of a Doolittle Raider.Exploits of a Doolittle Raider Access date: 21 July 1998.
Oxford, Edward. "Against All Odds: B-25 Bombers Strike Japan in 1942." American History Illustrated, March-April 1992.
Watson, Charles Hoyt. DeShazer: The Doolittle Raider Who Turned Missionary. Winona Lake, Indiana: The Light and Life Press, 1950.
We Were Guests of the Kremlin. ISBN 0-923891-81-1

External links