Existing comment:
Doolittle Raid: The War Comes to Japan
Pearl Harbor was followed swiftly by Japanese attacks across the breadth of the Pacific. Defeat after defeat beset American forces. Wake Island, the Philippines – one by one the forward outposts fell. Something had to be done to shatter the Japanese sense of invincibility, but with the enormous distances across the Pacific, compiling a plan was difficult. What was produced was a child of necessity, where Army medium bombers intended for use on land would take off from a U.S. Navy aircraft carrier. Bomb key Japanese cities and head on to land in China. The mission itself faced tough decisions and harsh consequences, but went down in the history books as a spectacular triumph.
Featured Aircraft: North American B-25 Mitchell
Named for Maj. Gen. Billy Mitchell, a galvanizing force in the history of the Air Force, the B-25 would gouge its way onto history book pages at the hands of another such man – Gen. Jimmy Doolittle, then a Lieutenant Colonel. Doolittle himself chose to lead the first Retaliatory strike on the Japanese Home Islands. On April 18, 1942 Doolittle was the first to take off the USS Hornet, his 15 B-25s in tail behind him. While the damage they inflicted was superficial in their targeted cities, the bravery of the men who performed the raid, and the sudden appearance of Allied bombers over their major cities shattered Japanese feelings of invincibility – the first event to foreshadow their ultimate downfall. |