The Doolittle Raiders : 77 Years Since The Doolittle Raid

The Doolittle Raiders 

The Doolittle Raiders the day of April 18, 1942 –delivered the first blow to Japan after the attack on Pearl Harbor.

Under the command of then Lt. Col. Jimmy Doolittle, 80 volunteers flew 16 aircraft off a carrier in the Pacific, dropping bombs on oil storage facilities, factory areas and military installations. Never before had such big loaded bombers been loaded from a carrier at sea. Doolittles plane is first down the runway, the Commander leading the flight.

“Approaching target,” the airman told his bombardier.

Doolittle pulled back on the yoke, climbing to 1,200 feet. The B-25’s bomb bay doors yawned.

“All ready, Colonel,” the bombardier said.

Amid antiaircraft fire from startled gunners on the ground, Doolittle leveled off over northern Tokyo. At 1:15 p.m. the red light on his instrument panel blinked as his first bomb plummeted. The light flashed again.

Then again.

And again.

Four bombs—each packed with 128 four-pound incendiary bomblets—tumbled onto Tokyo as Doolittle dove to rooftop level and turned south, back toward the Pacific. The veteran airman had accomplished what four months earlier had seemed impossible.

THE 16 BOMBERS ROARED OFF the Hornet’s deck on the morning of April 18, 1942. All bombed targets but one, whose pilot had to ditch his ordnance in the sea to outrun fighters. According to materials only lately brought to light, the raid obliterated 112 buildings and damaged 53, killing 87 men, women, and children. Among 151 civilians seriously injured, one was a woman shot through the face and thigh while gathering shellfish near Nagoya. At least 311 others suffered minor injuries.

In Tokyo, the raiders burned the Communication Ministry transformer station, as well as more than 50 buildings around the Asahi Electrical Manufacturing Corporation factory and 13 adjoining the National Hemp and Dressing Company. In Kanagawa Prefecture, just south of Tokyo, raiders targeted foundries, factories, and warehouses of the Japanese Steel Corporation and Showa Electric as well as the Yokosuka Naval Base. Robert Bourgeois, bombardier of the 13th plane, which attacked Yokosuka, later commented on the intensity of his preparation. “I had looked at the pictures on board the carrier so much that I knew where every shop was located at this naval base,” he recalled. “It was as if it were my own backyard.”

ALL 16 CREWS made it out of Japan. Low on fuel, one pilot flew northwest across the Japanese mainland to Vladivostok, Russia, where authorities interned him and his crew for 13 months. The rest flew south along the Japanese coast, rounding Kyushu before crossing the East China Sea to mainland Asia. Aircrews bailed out or crash-landed along the Chinese coast, getting help from locals and missionaries. Bent on preventing further strikes, furious Japanese leaders tried in June to extend the nation’s defensive perimeter with a grab for Midway, triggering a disastrous naval battle that cost them four carriers and shifted the balance of power in the Pacific in favor of America.

B-21 bomber will be named the “Raider,” in honor of the Doolittle Raiders of World War II

Read More of the Story at http://www.historynet.com/aftermath-doolittle-raid-reexamined.htm