13. A President’s Desire to Boost Public Morale Led to a Daring Air Raid
Seamen aboard the aircraft carrier USS Enterprise and her escorting taskforce saw something startling on the morning of April 12, 1942. They had had just linked up with the carrier USS Hornet north of Hawaii, and to their amazement, the Hornet’s flight deck was crammed with strange airplanes, bigger than anything seen before on a carrier. They were North American B-25 Mitchell medium bombers, chosen to carry out a daring raid that was to be their first major combat operation.
After the devastating Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, President Roosevelt wanted to boost public morale by bombing Japan as soon as possible. However, America had no airbases close enough to Japan. So a plan was hatched to bring an improvised airbase, an aircraft carrier, close enough for modified B-25 bombers to strike Japan. Execution was entrusted to US Army Air Forces Lieutenant Colonel James “Jimmy” Doolittle, who began training select aircrews on short takeoffs. It was a lot of pressure. Taking off from aircraft carriers was a stretch for the medium bombers, and landing back on them was impossible. So after dropping their munitions, the bombers were to continue westward to land in China.
