The Doolittle Raid (also known as Doolittle's Raid or the Tokyo Raid) was an air raid by the United States Army Air Forces on the Japanese capital of Tokyo and other places in Honshu during World War II. Launched on April 18, 1942, it was the first American air operation to strike the Japanese archipelago. Although the raid caused comparatively minor damage, it demonstrated that the Japanese mainland was vulnerable to American air attacks. It served as an initial retaliation for the attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, and provided an important boost to American morale. The raid was named for Lieutenant Colonel James Doolittle, who planned and led the attack. It was one of six American carrier raids against Japan and Japanese-held territories conducted in the first half of 1942.
Under the final plan, 16 B-25B Mitchell medium bombers, each with a crew of five, were launched from the US Navy aircraft carrier USS Hornet, in the Pacific Ocean. There were no fighter escorts. After bombing military and industrial targets, the crews were to continue westward to land in China.
On the ground, the raid killed around 50 people and injured 400. The physical damage was minimal, but the raid had major psychological effects. In the United States, it raised morale. In Japan, it raised fear and doubt about the ability of military leaders to defend the home islands, but the bombing and strafing of civilians created a desire for retribution—this was exploited for propaganda purposes. The raid also pushed forward Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto's plans to attack Midway Island in the Central Pacific—an attack that turned into a decisive defeat of the Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN) by the US Navy in the Battle of Midway in June 1942. The consequences of the Doolittle Raid were most severely felt in China: in reprisal for the raid, the Japanese launched the Zhejiang-Jiangxi campaign.
Of the 16 crews involved, 14 returned to the United States or reached the safety of American forces, though one man was killed while bailing out. Eight men were captured by Japanese forces in eastern China (the other two crew members having drowned in the sea), and three of them were later executed. All but one of the 16 B-25s were destroyed in crashes, while one of the planes landed at Vladivostok in the Soviet Union.
Because the Soviet Union was not officially at war with Japan, it was required, under international law, to intern the crew for the duration of the war. The crew's B-25 was also confiscated. However, within a year, the crew was secretly allowed to leave the Soviet Union, under the guise of an escape—they returned to the United States or to American units elsewhere by way of Allied-occupied Iran and North Africa.
Doolittle initially believed that he would be court-martialed for missing his primary targets. Instead, he received the Medal of Honor and was promoted two ranks to brigadier general.
Background
President Franklin D. Roosevelt spoke to the Joint Chiefs of Staff in a meeting at the White House on December 21, 1941 and said that Japan should be bombed as soon as possible to boost public morale after Pearl Harbor. Doolittle recounted in his autobiography that the raid was intended to bolster American morale and to cause the Japanese to begin doubting their leadership: "An attack on the Japanese homeland would cause confusion in the minds of the Japanese people and sow doubt about the reliability of their leaders. ... Americans badly needed a morale boost."
The concept for the attack came from Navy Captain Francis S. Low, Assistant Chief of Staff for antisubmarine warfare. He reported to Admiral Ernest J. King on January 10, 1942 that he thought that twin-engined Army bombers could be launched from an aircraft carrier, after observing several at Naval Station Norfolk Chambers Field in Norfolk, where the runway was painted with the outline of a carrier deck for landing practice. Doolittle, a famous military test pilot, civilian aviator, and aeronautical engineer before the war, was assigned to Army Air Forces Headquarters to plan the raid. The aircraft to be used would need a cruising range of 2,400 nautical miles (4,400 km) with a 2,000-pound (910 kg) bomb load. Doolittle considered the B-25B Mitchell, Martin B-26 Marauder, Douglas B-18 Bolo, and Douglas B-23 Dragon. The B-26 had questionable takeoff characteristics from a carrier deck. The wingspans of the B-18 and B-23 were larger than that of the B-25, reducing the number that could be taken aboard a carrier and posing risks to the ship's superstructure. The B-25 had yet to see combat and had a range of about 1,300 miles, but tests indicated that it could fulfill the mission's requirements if it were modified to hold nearly twice as much fuel.
Doolittle's first report on the plan suggested that the bombers fly to Vladivostok after their attack, where they could be handed to the Soviet Union under the Lend-Lease program. This stratagem was intended to circumvent Moscow's April 1941 neutrality pact with Japan, but Soviet officials refused. Instead, planners looked to China, adding some 600 nautical miles (1,100 km) to the flight. Despite concerns about Japanese reprisals, Chiang Kai-shek agreed to provide five refueling sites and a final destination: Chongqing.
No fighter escort was possible, for no fighter aircraft with the required range were available.
Preparation
After planning indicated that the B-25 best met the mission's requirements, two were loaded aboard the aircraft carrier USS Hornet at Norfolk and were flown off the deck without difficulty on February 3, 1942. The raid was immediately approved. The crews would be drawn from the 17th Bombardment Group (Medium), which had been the first group to receive B-25s and had become the most experienced B-25 unit in the service; all four of its squadrons flew the bomber by September 1941. Its first assignment after the United States entered the war was to the U.S. Eighth Air Force.
The 17th BG, then flying antisubmarine patrols from Pendleton, Oregon, was immediately moved cross-country to Columbia Army Air Base at West Columbia, South Carolina, ostensibly to fly similar patrols off the East Coast of the United States, but in actuality to prepare for the mission against Japan. The group officially transferred on February 9, 1942, to Columbia, where its combat crews were offered the opportunity to volunteer for an "extremely hazardous", but unspecified mission. On February 19, the group was detached from the Eighth Air Force and assigned to III Bomber Command.
Initial planning called for 20 aircraft to fly the mission, and 24 of the group's B-25B Mitchell bombers were sent to Mid-Continent Airlines' modification center in Minneapolis, Minnesota. With support from two senior airline managers, Wold-Chamberlain Field's maintenance hangar was the first modification center to become operational. The 710th Military Police Battalion from nearby Fort Snelling provided tight security around this hangar. B-25B aircraft modifications included:
- Remove the lower gun turret.
- Install de-icers and anti-icers.
- Mount steel blast plates on the fuselage around the upper turret.
- Remove the liaison radio set to save weight.
- Install a 160-US-gallon (610 L; 130 imp gal) collapsible neoprene auxiliary fuel tank, fixed to the top of the bomb bay.
- Install mounts for more fuel cells in the bomb bay, crawlway, and lower turret area, to increase fuel capacity from 646 to 1,141 U.S. gallons (538 to 950 imperial gallons, or 2,445 to 4,319 L).
- Install broomsticks as mock gun barrels in the tail cone.
- Replace the Norden bombsight with a makeshift aiming sight devised by pilot Capt. C. Ross Greening. Dubbed the "Mark Twain", its materials cost just 20 cents.
Cameras were installed in two bombers to record the results of the bombing.
The 24 crews were selected and picked up the modified bombers in Minneapolis and flew them to Eglin Field, Florida, beginning March 1, 1942. There, the crews received concentrated training for three weeks in simulated carrier deck takeoffs, low-level and night flying, low-altitude bombing, and over-water navigation, operating primarily out of Eglin Auxiliary Field #1, a more secluded site. Lieutenant Henry L. Miller, a U.S. Navy flight instructor from nearby Naval Air Station Pensacola, supervised their takeoff training and accompanied the crews to the launch. For his efforts, Miller is considered an honorary member of the Raider group.
Doolittle stated in his after-action report that the crews reached a "safely operational" level of training, despite several days when flying was not possible because of rain and fog. One aircraft was written off in a landing accident on March 10th and another was heavily damaged in a takeoff accident on 23 March, while a third was removed from the mission because of a nose wheel shimmy that could not be repaired in time.
On March 25, 1942, the remaining 22 B-25s took off from Eglin for McClellan Field, California. They arrived two days later at the Sacramento Air Depot for inspection and final modifications. Five crews did extra training on March 30 and 31 at the Willows-Glenn County Airport. A total of 16 B-25s were flown to Naval Air Station Alameda on 31 March. Fifteen made up the mission force and the 16th, by last-minute agreement with the Navy, was loaded so that it could be launched shortly after departure from San Francisco to demonstrate to the Army pilots that there was sufficient deck space for a safe takeoff. Instead, that bomber was made part of the mission force.
Participating aircraft
In order of launching, the 16 aircraft were:
Mission
On April 1, 1942, the 16 modified bombers, their five-man crews, and Army maintenance personnel, totaling 71 officers and 130 enlisted men, were loaded onto Hornet at Naval Air Station Alameda in California. Each aircraft carried four specially constructed 500-pound (230 kg) bombs. Three of these were high-explosive munitions and one was a bundle of incendiaries. The incendiaries were long tubes, wrapped together to be carried in the bomb bay, but designed to separate and scatter over a wide area after release. Five bombs had Japanese "friendship" medals wired to them—medals awarded by the Japanese government to U.S. servicemen before the war.
The bombers' armament was reduced to increase range by decreasing weight. Each bomber launched with two .50-caliber (12.7 mm) machine guns in an upper turret and a .30-caliber (7.62 mm) machine gun in the nose. The aircraft were clustered closely and tied down on Hornet's flight deck in the order of launch.
Hornet and Task Force 18 got underway from San Francisco Bay at 08:48 on April 2nd, with the 16 bombers in clear view. At noon the next day, parts to complete modifications that had not been finished at McClellan were lowered to the forward deck of Hornet by Navy blimp L-8. A few days later, the carrier met with Vice Admiral William Halsey Jr.'s Task Force 16: the carrier USS Enterprise and her escort of cruisers and destroyers in the mid-Pacific Ocean north of Hawaii. If the Japanese attacked, Enterprise's fighters and scout planes would protect the task force, since Hornet's fighters were stowed below decks to make space for the B-25s.
The combined force was two carriers (Hornet and Enterprise), three heavy cruisers (Salt Lake City, Northampton, Vincennes), one light cruiser (Nashville), eight destroyers (Balch, Fanning, Benham, Ellet, Gwin, Meredith, Grayson, Monssen), and two fleet oilers (Cimarron and Sabine). The ships proceeded in radio silence. On the afternoon of April 17th, the slow oilers refueled the task force, then withdrew with the destroyers to the east while the carriers and cruisers dashed west at 20 knots (37 km/h; 23 mph) toward their intended launch point in enemy-controlled waters east of Japan.
At 07:38 on the morning of April 18th, while the task force was still about 650 nautical miles (1,200 km; 750 mi) from Japan (around 35°N 154°E / 35°N 154°E), it was sighted by the Japanese picket boat No. 23 Nittō Maru, a 70-ton patrol craft, which radioed an attack warning to Japan. The boat was sunk by gunfire from Nashville. The chief petty officer who captained the boat killed himself rather than be captured, but five of the 11 crew were picked up by Nashville.
Doolittle and Hornet skipper Captain Marc Mitscher decided to launch the B-25s immediately—10 hours early and 170 nautical miles (310 km; 200 mi) farther from Japan than planned. After respotting to allow for engine start and runups, Doolittle's aircraft had 467 feet (142 m) of takeoff distance. Although none of the B-25 pilots, including Doolittle, had ever taken off from a carrier before, all 16 aircraft launched safely between 08:20 and 09:19, though Doolittle's bomber was witnessed to have almost hit the water before pulling up at the last second. The B-25s then flew toward Japan, most in groups of two to four aircraft, before flying singly at wave-top level to avoid detection.
The aircraft began arriving over Japan about noon Tokyo time, six hours after launch, climbed to 1,500 feet (460 m) and bombed 10 military and industrial targets in Tokyo, two in Yokohama, and one each in Yokosuka, Nagoya, Kobe, and Osaka. Although some B-25s encountered light antiaircraft fire and a few enemy fighters (made up of Ki-45s and prototype Ki-61s, the latter being mistaken for Bf 109s) over Japan, no bomber was shot down. Only the B-25 of 1st Lt. Richard O. Joyce received any battle damage, minor hits from antiaircraft fire. B-25 No. 4, piloted by 1st Lt. Everett W. Holstrom, jettisoned its bombs before reaching its target when it came under attack by fighters after its gun turret malfunctioned.
The Americans claimed to have shot down three Japanese fighters—one by the gunners of the Whirling Dervish, piloted by 1st Lt. Harold Watson, and two by the gunners of the Hari Kari-er, piloted by 1st Lt. Ross Greening. Many targets were strafed by the bombers' nose gunners. The subterfuge of the simulated gun barrels mounted in the tail cones was described afterwards by Doolittle as effective, in that no airplane was attacked directly from behind.
Fifteen of the 16 aircraft then proceeded southwest off the southeastern coast of Japan and across the East China Sea toward eastern China. One B-25, piloted by Captain Edward J. York, was extremely low on fuel, and headed instead for the Soviet Union rather than be forced to ditch in the middle of the East China Sea. Several fields in Zhejiang province were supposed to be ready to guide them in using homing beacons, then recover and refuel them for continuing on to Chongqing, the wartime Kuomintang capital. The primary base was at Zhuzhou, toward which all the aircraft navigated, but Halsey never sent the planned signal to alert them, apparently because of a possible threat to the task force.