18 APRIL 1942 - DOOLITTLE RAID ON TOKYO - World War II
On 18 April 1942, Lieutenant Colonel James H. Doolittle led sixteen U.S. Army Air Forces B-25 in the first air raid against mainland Japan. The Army planes took off from the U.S. Navy aircraft carrier USS HORNET and flew 668 miles to the target, the Japanese capital of Tokyo.
Of the sixteen Army bombers that took off from HORNET, thirteen arrived over Tokyo at about noon. Having achieved surprise, they encountered little opposition from Japanese interceptors and anti-aircraft artillery. The raiders attacked military and industrial targets, which inflicted only minor damage, but also hit some civilians, before heading towards China. The other three bombers struck targets in Yokohama and Yokosuka before they too flew toward China.
DID YOU KNOW
With their aircraft running low on fuel, several the B-25 crews bailed out or crash landed along the Chinese coast with the loss of three airmen killed.
One bomber landed in the Soviet Union. Its crew was interned for over a year for violating Soviet neutrality since that nation was not at war with Japan.
Of the airmen who landed in China, eight were captured by the Japanese. Of these, the Japanese executed three and a fourth died while in captivity.
The Japanese army launched a massive sweep of the area to find the downed airmen, and many civilians who lived in the area suffered cruel treatment from the Japanese reaction. At great risk of retaliation, many Chinese civilians aided the Americans to escape and evade capture.
Although a limited tactical success, the raid was a great boost to U.S. morale in the wake of the disasters at Pearl Harbor, the Philippines and elsewhere in the Pacific.
Captain Ted Lawson wrote an account of the raid in "Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo." Published in 1943, the book was adapted to a screenplay for a movie of the same title released the following year.
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