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.
