The April 1942 Doolittle Raid on Tokyo

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(the above link is provided to Doolittle Raiders, where I got info for a lot of this story. Also from "The Final Toast!" from His Light shining)

In April of this year, it will be the 73rd anniversary of the Doolittle Raid on Tokyo. The men who took part in that raid were among the most universally admired and revered men in the United States. There were eighty of them who took to the air as Jimmy Doolittle's Raiders in April 1942, when they carried out one of the most courageous and heart-stirring military operations in this nation’s history. The mere mention of their unit’s name back in the 1940s after the event was likely to bring tears to the eyes of grateful Americans.

After Japan’s surprise attack on Pearl Harbor, with the United States reeling and wounded,

Something dramatic was needed to help turn the war effort around, and encourage Americans. It was only four moths since the surprise attack...and to that point, all of the news had been bad.

Even though there were no friendly airfields close enough to Japan for the United States to launch a retaliation strike with its bombers, a daring plan was devised to retaliate just the same.

What if the US could use B-25 Mitchell bombers? What if the bombers could be taken aboard an aircraft carrier and launched? The thought seemed impossible.

Those bombers were too heavy. They took far too long to take-off and get into the air.

Enter one Lt. Colonel Jimmy Doolittle.

He believed it could be done and he set about preparing to do it.

The nation's Commander in Chief, President Roosevelt, and its military leadership believed in him. They knew that the United states had to make a statement. They new they needed a victory, and they were willing to take an audacious risk to make it happen. And they chose Colonel Doolittle to lead the force.

After World War I, where he was a flight instructor in the United States, Doolittle became famous as a pilot and aeronautical engineer with an MS from MIT. He developed a reputation showing that he believed in things that others felt could not be done, or were not ready to be done.

In May 1921, as an engineering officer and pilot, when a US aircraft crash landed in a Mexican canyon on a tans-continental flight attempt, Doolittle was sent to retrieve it. His team reached the plane on May 3rd and found it serviceable. They returned on May 8th with a replacement motor and four mechanics. After installing, they found that the oil pressure of the new motor was inadequate, Using carrier pigeons, Doolittle requested two pressure gauges. The additional parts were dropped by air and installed, and Doolittle himself then flew the plane to Del Rio, Texas himself, taking off from a 400-yard airstrip hacked out of the canyon floor.

He was a pioneer in navigation, instrument flight and landing, aircraft fueling, and flight maneuvers. Some of the firsts he had accomplished included:

- 1st cross-country flight, in September 1922, from Pablo Beach (later renamed Jacksonville Beach), FL, to Rockwell Field, San Diego, CA, in 21 hours and 19 minutes, with just one refueling stop en route.

- 1st to perform an outside loop, which previously was thought to be a universally fatal maneuver, with a Curtiss fighter at Wright Field in Ohio in 1927.

- 1st pilot, in 1929, to take off, fly and land an airplane using instruments alone, without a view of the outside of the aircraft.

- 1st pilot to use artificial horizon and directional gyroscope, equipment.

- 1st quantities of 100 octane aviation gasoline produced with Doolittle's help for high performance aircraft.

- Set the world high speed record for land planes in 1932 at 296 miles per hour.

This is the man the President of the United states and the military leaders called on to lead the force in the audacious attempt to retaliate against Japan.

They chose the B-25 Mitchell medium bomber. Although it was untested in combat, he believed it could be modified to make the mission. A big part of that modification was to reduce their weight and so anything unnecessary to the bombing mission and flight was removed...including many of the aircraft's self defense guns.

The 17th Bomb Group in the 8th Air Force was chosen to provide the pool of crews from which volunteers would be recruited. The 17th BG had been the first group to receive B-25s, with all of its squadrons equipped by September 1941. The 17th was the first medium bomb group of the U.S. Army Air Corps. In early 1942, it also had the most experienced B-25 crews flying antisubmarine patrols from Pendleton, Oregon.

As a result of the decision to use the B-25, and to use tis group, the 17th BG was immediately moved cross-country to Lexington County Army Air Base at Columbia, South Carolina to prepare for the mission against Japan. On February 9th, only two months after Pearl Harbor, ts combat crews were offered the opportunity to volunteer for an "extremely hazardous" but unspecified mission. By February 17th, they had their men and this group was detached from the Eighth Air Force.

Twenty bombers were diverted to the Mid-Continent Airlines modification center in Minneapolis, Minnesota. The 710th Military Police Battalion from Fort Snelling, provided tight security around the
modification process. Modifications to the aircraft included:

- Removal of the lower gun turret
- Remove tail guns.
- Installation of de-icers and anti-icers.
- New Steel blast plates mounted on the fuselage around the upper turret
- Removal of the liaison radio set.
- Install additional 160-gallon auxiliary fuel tank & support mounts for additional tanks to increase capacity to 1,141 gallons
- Install Mock gun barrels in the tail cone, and
- Replace Norden bombsight with a makeshift aiming sight so the top secret Norton bombsight would not fall into enemy hands

The B-25s were modified. This resulted in their being able to reliably take take off from the deck of an aircraft carrier and perform their long range mission...which was a one way mission...to bomb Tokyo.

photos don't seem to work Jeff.
The Doolittle raid at first glance by historians would seem accurately named but in truth it caused the Japanese Command to fail. Doolittle turned the Japanese Commands promise to it's people into lies and Directly lead The Japanese to move on Midway in the hope of cutting the US off from any future attacks. Of course as we should all know Midway was the end of the Japanese Carrier force.

The selected crews retrieved the modified aircraft in Minneapolis and then flew them to Eglin Field, Florida. There, beginning March 1st, 1942, these crews received intensive training in simulated carrier deck takeoffs, low-level and night flying, low-altitude bombing and over-water navigation. For three weeks they operated out of Wagner Field, Auxiliary Field 1.

These crews had to practice...and practice...and practice again, until in the right wind conditions, they could lift off from their practice airfields before the markers that indicated the end of the carrier deck.


On March 25, 1942, the B-25s flew to the Sacramento Air Depot for final modifications. They were then flown to Alameda Naval Air Station, on the 31st of March. Fifteen aircraft were actually to be the attack force at first, with the 16th to be flown off shortly after departure from San Francisco to provide feedback to Army pilots. But, the 16th bomber was made part of the attack force after departure instead.


On April 1st, 1942, the 16 bombers, their five-man crews and Army maintenance personnel, totaling 71 officers and 130 enlisted men, were loaded onto the USS Hornet at Naval Air Station Alameda. Each aircraft carried four specially constructed 500-pound (225 kg) bombs.

Three of these were high-explosive munitions and the fourth was incendiaries.

All of the Army Air Corps personnel were under the command of Colonel Doolittle himself, who would fly the lead plane. They would take off from the Hornet. The Hornet would be accompanied by the US Navy aircraft carrier, USS Enterprise, which would provide the fighter aircraft carrier coverage for the task force as they sailed towards Japan., The two carriers would be escorted by four cruisers and eight destroyers.

The Hornet and her escorts made up Task Force 18, and they departed Alameda at 10:00 on April 2, 1942. A few days later they rendezvoused with Task Force 16, commanded by Vice Admiral William F. Halsey, Jr. and the Enterprise and her escorts in the mid-Pacific Ocean north of Hawaii, and proceeded towards Japan in high secrecy and conducting radio silence.

It was a mammoth undertaking for the US Navy Pacific fleet at the time, which had been baldy damaged at Honolulu...there were no battleships available to the Pacific fleet because they had all been either sunk or damaged on December 7, 1941. This was half of the aircraft carriers available at the time. Losing these vessels could have spelled a near fatal blow to the US Navy...which was already reeling from the Pearl Harbor attack and other defeats.
En route the personnel maintained their aircraft, and also marked up the ordinance for deliver to Tojo in Japan. They met often to discuss the mission.
At 07:38 on the morning of April 18th, over two weeks after leaving California, and while still 650 nautical miles from Japan, the Task force was sighted by a Japanese picket boat. It was the Nittō Maru, a 70-ton patrol craft. The Nittō Maru radioed a warning to Japan. This boat was sunk by gunfire from one of the Hornet's escorts, the USS Nashville. The chief petty officer commanding the Japanese boat committed suicide but five of the crew survived and were picked up by Nashville.

Doolittle and the Hornet skipper, Captain Marc Mitscher, decided to launch the B-25s immediately...10 hours early and 170 nautical miles farther from Japan than planned. They knew that they would now not have enough fuel to make it to safety in China as they had planned.

...but they went anyway.


The bombers flew to Japan in groups of two to four aircraft. As they approached the coast, they dropped to wave top level and flew in single file. They crossed the coast and then gained altitude and began arriving over Tokyo about noon Tokyo time, six hours after launch.

They caught the Japanese by complete surprise and bombed 10 military and industrial targets in Tokyo, two in Yokohama and one each in Yokosuka, Nagoya, Kobe and Osaka. As they flew on, a few encountered light antiaircraft fire, but no aircraft were shot down.
Only one aircraft, that of Lt. Richard O. Joyce received any battle damage, and these were minor hits from antiaircraft fire.

One aircraft, piloted by Lt. Everett W. Holstrom, had to jettison its bombs early when it came under attack by a fighter. Other fighters ultimately took off to try and catch the bombers and at least one was shot down by the gunners of the Whirling Dervish, piloted by Lieutenant Harold Watson. Two other fighters were shot down by the gunners of the Hari Kari-er, piloted by Ross Greening.

Many military targets were strafed by the bombers' nose gunners.

Fifteen of the aircraft flew southwest along the southern coast of Japan and across the East China Sea to eastern China. There were several air fileds in Zhejiang province which were supposedly ready and would be using using homing beacons. The p;lan was for the aircraft to recover and refuel at those fields and then continue on to Chongqing, the wartime capital.

Because of the early sighting buy the Japanese, Halsey was unable to send the arranged for singal to alert the Chinese fields, due to the threat to the entire task force. In addition, becauxe of the early take-off...the aircraft began running out of fuel.

One B-25, piloted by Capt. Edward J. York, was extremely low on fuel, and flew towards the Soviet Union because it was closer.

The United States had attempted to negotiate with the Soviet Unbion beofre the attack to allow all aircraft to land on its filed. They were closer and the idea was to then give the bombers to the Soviets as Land-lease material and have the crews recovered to the United States. ut Stalin and his negotiators, who wanted to maximize their ability to gain land from the Japanese, decided to remain neutral to Japan, and the deal was never made.

As a result of all of this, four aircraft had to crash land short of any airfield at all. Eleven more crews bailed out, short on fuel and parachuted to the gorund. The one aircraft did make it to the Soviet Union, where they were interred by the Soviets.

Three personnel died while landing or parachuting. Eight personnel were captured by the Japanese. Three of those captured were executed. Another one of those captured died of starvation in a Japanese prison camp.

The rest were helped by the Chinese people and Chinese soldiers and escaped the Japanese. The Japanese extracted a horrible retribution on the Chinese for helping the American crews to scape. it is estimated that thousands were rounded up and killed in the effort to find the Americans, or punish the Chinese for helping them.


Twenty-eight of them stayed in China after the attack, flying missions for more than a year. Five of these were killed in action.

Nineteen crew members went on to flew combat missions from North Africa after returning to the United States, Four of these were killed in action and four more became prisoners of war after being shot down and captured.

Nine crew members served in Europe after returning to the United States. One of these was killed in action.

Altogether 12 of the survivors died in air crashes within 15 months of the raid.
Two survivors were separated from the Army Air Coprs in 1944 due to the severity of their injuries.

Colonel Doolittle, because he lost all 16 aircraft, and because of not being able to get all of his personnel back, thought that the mission was a failure and expected to be court martialed when he returned
home.

However, the mission was, in reality an unqualified success. The Japanese were taken completely by surprise and had to divert m many more squadrons of their aircraft to defend the home islands against potential future raids. in addition, when the news of the attack was published back in the United states and to US military personnel, the impact on moral and attitude ere instantaneous.


The United States sent an unqualified message to its enemies with the Doolittle Raid, one of commitment, one of audacity, one of doing whatever it took to strike back at the enemy and win the war. The Japanese received the message loud and clear.

Colonel Doolittle received the Medal of Honor for the mission, Several other received th3e Silver Sta. Doolittle was promoted two full levels to Brigadier General. He along with many of the others, as previously stated, went on to serve their nation in combat throughout the remainder of the war.

Of the 80 Raiders, 62 survived the war. They were celebrated as national heroes, models of bravery. A motion picture based on the raid called, “Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo,” was produced starring Spencer Tracy and Van Johnson. That movie, released during the war in 1944, was a patriotic and emotional box-office hit.

Beginning in 1946, the surviving Raiders have held a reunion each April, to commemorate the mission. The reunion was in a different city each year. In 1959, the city of Tucson, Arizona, as a gesture of respect and gratitude, presented the Doolittle Raiders with a set of 80 silver goblets. Each goblet was engraved with the name of a Raider. In addition, within the wooden case a bottle of 1896 Hennessy cognac was included. From that year because 1896 was when Jimmy Doolittle was born.

As for Doolittle, his decorations ultimately included the Medal of Honor, Distinguished Flying Service Cross with one Oak leaf Cluster, Silver Star, Distinguished Flying Cross with two Oak Leaf Clusters, Bronze Star, Air Medal with three Oak Leaf Clusters, the Chinese Order of Yung Hui, 3rd Class and eight other foreign decorations.

He retired from the U.S. Air Force Reserve as a Lieutenant General...the only Reserve officer to ever retire in that rank. He was promoted to Major General in 1985 by special act of Congress, and he died in 1993, just short of his 97th birthday.

After the 1959 Gobles and Cognac presentation to the group, the Raiders devised a plan for it. The plan was to toast their fallen comrades each year from the goblets, but as for the Cognac itself, they planned to wait until there are only two of them left...only then they would open the bottle of 1896 Hennessy Cognac and use it to toast their comrades who preceded them in death.

The 70th anniversary of the mission was in 2012.

In 2013 in February, Tom Griffin passed away at age 96. What a man he was. After the raid, he bailed out of his plane over a mountainous Chinese forest. He became ill with malaria, and almost died. When he recovered, he was sent to Europe to fly more combat missions.

He was shot down, captured, and spent 22 months in a German prisoner of war camp.


The commitment and selflessness of these men, the sheer guts!

There was a passage in the Cincinnati Enquirer obituary for Mr. Griffin that, on the surface, had nothing to do with the war, but that was emblematic of the depth of his sense of duty and devotion:

“When his wife became ill and needed to go into a nursing home, he visited her every day. He walked from his house to the nursing home, fed his wife and at the end of the day brought home her clothes. At night, he washed and ironed her clothes. Then he walked them up to her room the next morning. He did that for three years until her death in 2005.”

Later in 2013, only four out of the original 80 remained. Dick Cole (Doolittle’s co-pilot on the Tokyo raid), Robert Hite, Edward Saylor and David Thatcher. All were in their 90s. They decided that there were too few left to continue the public reunions. They decided to hold their last public reunion at Fort Walton Beach, Florida, not far from Eglin Air Force Base, where they trained for the original mission.


The events that year in Fort Walton Beach marked the end.

It had come full circle...back to Florida’s nearby Eglin Field where they trained in secrecy for the mission. The town did all it could to honor the men. It was a six-day celebration of their valor, including a parade in their honor. They decided, after that last reunion, to wait until a later date to get together once more, informally and in privacy to open the bottle of brandy.

With the years flowing by so swiftly, and with their health failing, the remaining men decided not to wait until there were only two of them before they filled the four remaining upturned goblets, and raise them in a toast to those who are gone.

That final toast "to fallen comrades," by three surviving raiders took place at the NMUSAF on 9 November 2013, preceded by a B-25 flyover. Richard Cole, Edward Saylor, and David Thatcher attended.

Did these men ever wonder if the rest of us, whom they sacrificed so much for, have taken care of the country in a way worthy of their sacrifice?

Well, if they did, they didn’t talk about it...at least not around others.

As to the bottle and the goblets? Well, they were maintained by the United States Air Force Academy and displayed in Arnold Hall until 2006, taken out each year for the celebration and reunion. Then in April 2006, they were transferred to the National Museum of the United States Air Force at Wright-Patterson AFB, Ohio, where they were taken out each year until that final toast in 2013.


Sadly, Edward Saylor, the engineer/gunner of aircraft No. 15, died January 28th, 2015 at his home in Sumner, Washington. Having been born in March 1920, he was 94 years old at the time, just less than three months short of his 95th birthday.

God bless them all...and God grant that we, in our turn, can be as committed to, and willing to stand up for liberty, as they were.

awesome! thanks Jeff