"The Bombing of Tokyo"
Doolittle's Raiders
http://sandysq.gcinet.net/uss_salt_l...5/dolittle.htm
President Franklin D. Roosevelt secretly authorized an extremely dangerous mission to retaliate against the Japanese Empire. This Expeditionary Mission was to bomb major industrial targets in Tokyo and other large cities on the Japanese homeland.
One obstacle was how to place heavy Army bombers in range of Tokyo,to accomplish this, the aircraft carrier USS HORNET was used.On April 1, 1942, 16 Army B-25 bombers were towed to the dock alongside the HORNET and hoisted aboard in Alameda Naval Air Station in San Francisco Bay.
On April 2, the HORNET sailed under sealed orders, with its screen of Cruisers and Destroyers.
That afternoon Captain Marc A. Mitscher revealed our destination over the loudspeaker system. We were going to span the Pacific Ocean, over 5000 miles, to bring Lt. Col. Jimmy Doolittle's bombers and crews within striking distance of Tokyo. The HORNET's job was to get the bombers within 400 miles of Japan, then streak from there as fast as possible.
The fleet crossed the 180th Meridian on Friday, April 17, in a latitude considerably higher than Tokyo and following the same route that the Japanese took to bomb Pearl Harbor. At 2 P.M. that day we heard "Tokyo Rose" speaking from the Japanese Radio Station JOAK, telling her listeners why it was impossible that Tokyo would ever feel the sting of bombs.
At 2:10 A.M. that morning 18th April, we picked up two blips on the Radar Screen showing enemy ships dead ahead. We altered course to avoid them, and at dawn we launched reconnaissance planes from the ENTERPRISE. At 5:00 A.M. the ENTERPRISE pilots reported a picket boat 42 miles ahead, and an hour later a third vessel was sighted visually from the HORNET. Within ten minutes our cruisers and dive bombers were blasting them from the water, but there could be no assurance that they had not successfully sounded a warning.
Lt. Col. Jimmy Doolittle conferred with Admiral "Bull" Halsey and they decided to launch the aircraft as soon as they could be made ready. Gasoline tanks were topped off and extra fuel in five gallon cans were stowed aboard each airplane, as every ounce of fuel was needed to help the fliers reach their final destination.
The wind and seas were so strong that morning that sea water broke over the HORNET's flight deck. Lt. Col. Doolittle, in the first plane to be launched, charged off the deck at 8:24 A.M. on its way to Tokyo. The Flight Deck Launching Officer had to time each takeoff to coincide with the rise and fall of the bow to give the planes as much of a boost as possible when they left the fight deck. All planes were airborne by 9:20 A.M. But not without cost, one sailor in the flight deck handling crew lost his arm after being struck by a propeller.
Tokyo had been alerted for a large air raid with Japanese planes conducting a mock air raid. The real raid by the American planes followed so closely that the Japanese public never knew of our attack until it was over. No air raid sirens sounded for at least 15 to 20 minutes after Doolittle's Raiders were over the cities. The actual damage inflicted by our bombers on the enemy cities was not great by later bombing standards, but the Japanese officials had a difficult time explaining how such an attack could have happened and they suffered considerable "Loss of Face." The news of the attack on Tokyo gave a great boost to American and allied morale.
None of our attacking bombers were lost over Japan; one landed in Russia, fifteen others in China. Seventy-one of the 80 pilots and crewmen, including Lt. Col. Doolittle, survived the raid. One crewman was killed when he bailed out, two were killed in crash landings, five were interned in Russia, eight were captured by the Japanese and the rest managed to reach Free China and safety. Of the eight that were captured, three were executed, one died and four were freed at the end of the war.
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Ah, the story behind kamikaze...??
Their kamikaze mystique constituted a spiritual fortress around the Japanese homeland. No foreign attacker had seriously threatened Japan's sacred soil since Kublai Khan in 1281. And on that occasion a violent storm had turned back and devastated the Mongol invader's fleet; the Japanese called the magical occurrence kamikaze--"divine wind."
http://history1900s.about.com/librar...doolittle1.htm
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http://www.grunts.net/wars/20thcentu...doolittle.html
The first plane off the Hornet was, of course, flown by Doolittle, and left at 0820 hrs.
Lead Aircraft
Pilot Lt.Col. James Doolittle
Co Pilot Lt Richard Cole
Navigator Lt Henry Potter
Bombardier S/Sgt Fred Braemer
Engineer/gunner S/Sgt Paul Leonard
Other planes bombed Tokyo except:
Plane no 11:bombed a factory between Tokyo and Yokohoma.
Plane No 12: bombed a refinery in Yokohoma and strafed a power station.
Plane 14: to Nagoya and bombed military targets before heading after the others to China.
Plane No 15: them to Kobe where they bombed an industrial complex.
Plane No 16: bombed their target in Japan
( Tokyo? or somewhere else? Not said here)
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This historic painting was made from an original scetch created in those early dawn hours.
http://www.navyart.com/bidpages/hornet.htm
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