A Small Strike With Huge Consequences: The Doolittle Raid That Changed WWII in the Pacific

13. A Demoralizing Sense of Helplessness Against an Enemy’s Onslaught

In short order, Japanese forces conquered Hong Kong, forced the surrender of Wake Island’s US Marine garrison, seized the Malay Peninsula and Singapore, took the Dutch East Indies, overran the Philippines, and chased the British out of Burma. At sea, they shocked Britain’s Royal Navy by effortlessly sinking the battleship HMS Prince of Wales and battlecruiser HMS Repulse, and dealt an allied fleet a humiliating defeat at the Battle of Java Sea. That drumbeat of defeats was infuriating, as well as unnerving. Most of all, it was demoralizing to seem so helpless against Japan’s depredations. Until Pearl Harbor, the Japanese were seen as second-rate mediocrities who would never dare take on America, which would swiftly thrash them if they were ever dumb enough to pick a fight. Yet, here were the Japanese, dishing blow after unanswered blow and making the US look like a giant with feet of clay.

12. A Desperate Need to Hit Back

America’s leadership realized that it was vital for the US to hit back – and be seen to hit back – at Japan, and soon. It would take time before sufficient forces were gathered to take the offensive. Until then, however, couldn’t American warplanes at least bomb Japan? Indeed, on December 21^st, 1941, just two weeks after Pearl Harbor, President Roosevelt told the Joint Chiefs of Staff that Japan should be bombed as soon as possible to boost public morale. The problem though was just how to bomb Japan? The US Navy had bombers that could be launched from aircraft carriers, but their range was short. So carriers would have to come within two hundred or so miles of Japan, putting them within range of Japanese land-based bombers. The risk to scarce carriers – the linchpin of America’s war effort in the Pacific – was too high for what was ultimately a symbolic strike.

11. A Sudden Stroke of Genius

The US Army Air Forces had long range twin and four engine bombers. However, it had no airbases close enough to Japan for them to take off, bomb Japan, and return. It seemed like an insoluble conundrum. Then one day, US Navy Captain Francis S. Low flew over Chambers Field at Norfolk Naval Station in Virginia, and looked down. Below was a runway painted with the outline of an aircraft carrier’s deck. In of itself, that was not unusual: carrier pilots routinely practiced takeoffs and landings on such simulated decks on the ground. That day, however, there were some twin-engine Army bombers parked nearby. In one of those sudden insights that strike military men from time to time, Low linked the Army bombers to the nearby painted carrier deck outline. Why, he thought, not meld the assets of two services to launch long-range Army bombers from a Navy carrier’s deck?

10. Turning to an Aviation Pioneer

On January 10^th, 1942, Captain Low, Assistant Chief of Staff for antisubmarine warfare, took his idea to Admiral Ernest J. King, Commander in Chief of the US Fleet. King thought that the idea had some potential, so he ran it by Henry “Hap” Arnold, Commanding General of the US Army Air Forces. Arnold liked the idea, so plans were begun for a top secret mission to launch long-range Army bombers from an aircraft carrier to hit Japan. To organize the raid, Arnold picked Lieutenant Colonel James Harold “Jimmy” Doolittle, who had been a famous test pilot, airplane racer, and aeronautical engineer before the war. Among other things, Doolittle had revolutionized aviation when he pioneered instrument flying, which allowed pilots to takeoff, fly, and land airplanes regardless of visibility.

9. Picking the Right Bomber

Doolittle had some strikes against him, however. Not only was he a reservist instead of an active duty officer, Doolittle had no combat experience: in World War I, he had been kept behind in the US as a flight instructor. That Hap Arnold selected him to organize such a vital mission despite such perceived drawbacks bespoke high confidence in the man. Doolittle immediately set out to demonstrate that the trust of the USAAF’s commanding general in him was not misplaced. The first task was to pick the right bomber for the job. It needed to have a range of roughly 2400 nautical miles, while carrying a 2000-pound bomb load. Among tested airplanes, the options included the Douglas B-18 Bolo, the Douglas B-23 Dragon, and the Martin B-26 Marauder.

8. The B-25 Mitchell Medium Bomber

Far as picking the most suitable bomber, the great wingspan of the B-18 and B-23 bombers was problematic for carrier operations. The risk of hitting the carrier’s superstructure was high, and they took up plenty of space, so the number that could be taken aboard a carrier was low. B-26s did not have those problems, but their takeoff characteristics were not well suited for a carrier deck. So Doolittle considered an untested airplane, the North American B-25 Mitchell. The twin-engine B-25 had been designed in response to a 1939 US Army Air Corps solicitation, which sought an airplane that could carry a 2400-pound bomb load for 1200 miles, at a speed of 300 miles per hour. North American Aviation came back with a plane that exceeded the bomb load and range requirements, with 3000 pounds for 1350 miles, and came close to the solicited speed at 272 miles per hour.

7. Finding the Men to Fly an Exceptionally Dangerous Mission

B-25s first flew in 1940, and entered service in 1941. They had not been tried in combat, but on paper, they seemed like they just might suit Doolittle’s needs. So he set out to test the bomber and see whether it was as good in practice for the mission as it seemed to be in theory. Two B-25s were loaded aboard the aircraft carrier USS Hornet, and flew off its deck on February 3^rd, 1942, with no problem. With proof of concept out of the way, Doolittle next had to find and train aircrews for the raid. He found them in the 17^th Bombardment Group, which was flying B-25Bs on antisubmarine patrols off Oregon’s coast. The 17^th was transferred to South Carolina, under cover of flying similar missions on the East Coast. When they arrived, Doolittle asked for volunteers for an “extremely hazardous” mission. Nearly the entire Group stepped forward.

6. An Intense Crash Course to Prepare for the Raid

Doolittle picked twenty four volunteer crews. He also sent two dozen of the 17^th Bombardment’s Group B-25s to a modification center in Minneapolis, to make some changes. The most important modification was the addition of auxiliary fuel tanks and cells to increase capacity from 646 to 1,141 gallons. To make space and compensate for the added fuel weight, the lower gun turret was removed, as well as a radio, while the standard Norden bombsight was replaced with an improvised and lighter makeshift. When the planes were ready, the crews were sent to pick them up and fly to Eglin Field in western Florida. There, starting on March 1^st, 1942, Doolittle’s volunteers underwent an intense three week crash course to prepare them for the raid. It focused on simulated carrier deck takeoffs, ocean navigation, low-level and night flying, and low-level bombing.

5. Loading Air Force Bombers Aboard Navy Carriers

Two B-25s were destroyed in accidents during the course of training, and a third had to be written off because of mechanical problems. The rest of the bombers flew to California, and arrived at Sacramento Air Depot on March 27^th. There, they underwent final modifications and inspections, and the best sixteen B-25Bs were flown to Alameda Naval Air Station on March 31^st. The following day, the airplanes, each with four 500-pound bombs, three high explosive and one incendiary, along with their five-man crews and maintenance personnel, were loaded aboard the USS Hornet. The carrier and her escorts, Task Force 18, sailed from San Francisco on April 2^nd. North of Hawaii on the 12^th, they linked up with the USS Enterprise and Task Force 16, commanded by Vice Admiral William F. “Bull” Halsey.

4. Aboard the USS Hornet, Doolittle and His Men Went From Zeroes to Heroes

At first, the Hornet’s crew had resented their USAAF passengers, assuming that they were just ferrying them and their bombers. However, when Halsey finally informed the task forces that they were headed to Tokyo, the sailors’ cheering shook the deck, and the airmen immediately went from zeroes to heroes. On the morning of April 18^th, 1942, the task force was sighted by an enemy picket boat 750 miles from Japan. It was quickly sunk, but not before sending a radio message. That created a problem. Fearing loss of the element of the surprise, the decision was made to launch the bombers immediately, 10 hours earlier and 170 miles further from Japan than initially planned. At 08:20, Doolittle flew the first B-25B off the Hornet’s deck. By 09:19, the other 15 bombers had followed him into the air. The raiders flew low to avoid detection, and winged their way to Japan.

3. Taking the War Directly to the Japanese Home Islands

The B-25s arrived around noon, and bombed and strafed targets in Tokyo, Yokohama, Yokosuka, Kobe, Nagoya, and Osaka. In of itself, the raid’s physical impact was minor by WWII standards. Damage to military and industrial targets was minimal, as was the human cost in Japan: around 50 people were killed, and about 400 were wounded. The psychological impact in both Japan and America, however, was out of all proportion to the physical damage inflicted by Doolittle and his men. The raid demonstrated that Japan was vulnerable to aerial attacks, and many Japanese began to doubt their military’s ability to protect the home islands. In the US, news of the Doolittle Raid, as it came to be known, raised morale. It was the first symbolic retaliation for the attack on Pearl Harbor, and a public demonstration and proof of concept that America could take the war directly to Japan’s heartland.

2. A Relatively Small Raid …

The American B-25s could take off from a carrier, but could not land on one. So according to plan, fifteen bombers continued westward, and made it to China, where they crash-landed. The sixteenth B-25 made its way to Vladivostok in the USSR, where it and its crew were interred by the Soviets. Three of eighty crewmen were killed. Eight were captured by the Japanese, of whom three were executed, and one died in captivity. The raid’s physical damage was slight, but the psychological impact was huge on both sides of the Pacific. It boosted American morale by demonstrating the country’s ability to hit back, and Doolittle was awarded a well-earned Medal of Honor. In Japan, the country’s high command lost considerable face. However, the raiders had bombed and strafed civilians, so Japanese authorities exploited and amplified for propaganda purposes, which fueled a desire for payback and retribution.

1.     … With Huge Consequences

To calm jittery civilians and guard against a repeat, four fighter groups were retained in Japan in 1942 and 1943, even though they were desperately needed in the South Pacific and elsewhere. As to payback, the Japanese could not avenge the bombing of their capital with a retaliatory raid on Washington, DC. So they worked off their frustration with a collective punishment campaign against the part of China where Doolittle’s B-25s had crash-landed, and the crews had been helped by the locals. In an orgy of rapine and murder known as Operation Sei-Go, the Japanese killed an estimated quarter million Chinese civilians, plus an estimated seventy thousand Chinese soldiers. They also sought to regain face with an attempt to capture Midway Island a few weeks later. It backfired spectacularly, and ended in a catastrophic Japanese defeat at the Battle of Midway, which turned the tide of war in the Pacific.

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Where Did We Find This Stuff? Some Sources and Further Reading

Doolittle, James H. – I Could Never Be So Lucky Again: An Autobiography (1991)

Encyclopedia Britannica – Doolittle Raid

Groom, Winston – The Aviators: Eddie Rickenbacker, Jimmy Doolittle, Charles Lindbergh, and the Epic Age of Flight (2013)

History Collection – Historic Air Raids That Rained Fury From the Skies

Lawson, Ted, W. – Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo (2003 Edition)

Naval History and Heritage Command – Doolittle Raid, 18 April, 1942

Scott, James M. – Target Tokyo: Jimmy Doolittle and the Raid That Avenged Pearl Harbor (2015)

Smithsonian Magazine, April 15^th, 2015 – The Untold Story of the Vengeful Japanese Attack After the Doolittle Raid