Target: Tokyo!

In the bleak early months of World War II, Japan looked invincible. But then Jimmy Doolittle led a daring raid on Tokyo that changed the course of the war.

The warm, shallow waters of the Gulf of Thailand lapped darkly at the shore of the Malay Peninsula. In the inky gloom, no moonlight danced on the sea's gentle swells. A cloudy sky saw to that. On shore, a few lights were visible, from towns and villages with names like Kota Bharu, Tak Baj, and Kampong. The residents there slept peacefully, not knowing that just offshore, hidden in the night, three Japanese transports crowded with troops were moving into position. More than 6,000 miles to the east, at Pearl Harbor, it was nearing 5 in the morning. The date: December 7, 1941.

Back along the Malay coast, where it was already December 8th, other Japanese ships approached the shore. North of Kota Bharu, three more transports brimming with troops approached the coast near Pattani. Still further north, the main Japanese invasion force of 14 ships neared Singora. But it was the ships off Kota Bharu that were the first to reach their destination. At shortly after 1 a.m., the roar and flash of naval gunfire ripped apart the silence of the Malaysian night as the transports' naval escort opened fire on the coast. The bombardment was the signal for the landing. It was not yet 6 n.m. in Hawaii and the U.S. Pacific Fleet still lay peacefully at anchor, unaware for the moment that, half a world away, war had finally come to the Pacific.

Hours later, as Japanese troops poured ashore in Malaysia and Pearl Harbor reeled from the carnage unleashed by the Japanese sneak attack, U.S. and Filipino forces under the command of General Douglas MacArthur waited nervously on the big island of Luzon in the Philippines. They would not have long to wait. Shortly after noon, Japanese high-level bombers roared overhead, en route to Clark Field, the major U.S. air base in the region. Stationed there, along with fighters and medium bombers, were 16 shiny, unpainted B-17 Flying Fortress heavy bombers. Together, these planes made up the bulk of MacArthur's air assets in the region.

While ground crews loaded bombs aboard the big B-17s for a hastily ordered attack on Japanese installations in Formosa and fighter pilots sat on alert in the cockpits of their parked P-40 Tomahawk fighters, confused reports of Japanese planes -- fighters and bombers -- began to be heard over the radio. In the mess hall, a radio was tuned to station KMZH when the announcer said, "there is an unconfirmed report that they're bombing Clark Field." The report was premature, but not by much. The pilots in the Japanese bombers already had the American planes in their sights. Just as they had done hours earlier at Pearl Harbor, Japanese aircraft rained death and destruction on Clark Field. Buildings exploded and the air was filled with shrapnel. Three American P-40s were able to get airborne to give chase to the Japanese attackers, but to little avail. The Japanese Zero fighter was far more maneuverable than the sturdier but heavier Curtiss-built American plane.

Miraculously, the initial Japanese bombing run had left the gigantic Flying For-tresses largely unscathed. But the attack wasn't over. Now, with little opposition, Japanese fighter pilots turned their Zeros toward the parked American planes and unleashed a ferocious strafing attack. A veritable hail of lead sliced through the air and into the defenseless planes of MacArthur's air force. When it was over, 13 Flying Fortresses had been destroyed, all of the fighter aircraft had been wiped out, and wreckage from 30 destroyed medium bombers and observation planes littered the scorched earth of Clark Field. In only a few hours, at Pearl Harbor and in the Philippines, the main American deterrents to Japanese expansion had been demolished.

The only Allied strike force still capable of standing in the way of Japanese conquest was the British Force Z in Singapore. On December 9th, Force Z, composed of the new battleship Prince of Wales and the renowned veteran battlecruiser Repulse, sailed north to oppose the Japanese landings in Malaysia. By the end of the next day, both ships had been sent to the bottom. It was a disturbing loss. "In all the war," said Churchill, who had heard the news of the sinkings by telephone, "I never received a more direct shock."

Having largely gutted U.S. and British offensive capabilities in the region, Japan was now poised to complete her conquest. In Malaysia, troops under General Yamashita Tomoyuki raced down the peninsula toward fortress Singapore, effortlessly driving from the field the more numerous British, Indian, and Malaysian defenders. By January 31, 1942, Singapore alone remained in British hands. The next morning, to the haunting sound of bagpipes, the last defenders of Malaysia -- the tattered remnants of the proud Argyll battalion -- crossed Johore Bahru, the channel separating Singapore from the mainland. Now, 85,000 defenders prepared for the final Japanese assault. Perhaps if they had known that Yamashita could muster only 35,000 men for the attack, Singapore's defenders would have stood more resolutely in the face of invasion. They didn't. Singapore fell on February 15th. In the end, 60,000 men under Yamashita bad crushed a defending force numbering 139,000 in only 70 days. It was the worst military defeat in Bri tish history.

In the Philippines, MacArthur's forces would hold out longer, giving a better account of themselves while bloodying the noses of the invaders. But the American grip on Luzon's Bataan Peninsula was precarious at best. It couldn't hold, and in the end the Japanese were successful there too. Everywhere the Japanese triumphed. To Malaysia, the Philippines, and Pearl Harbor could be added Guam, Wake, and Hong Kong. The War Department even wondered if Japan might attack in Panama and California. Some wondered if defensive positions should be established in the Rocky Mountains. Was anywhere safe from the Japanese Blitzkrieg?

A Plan of Attack

Two weeks after the attack on Pearl Harbor, while the British beat a hasty retreat down the Malay Peninsula and MacArthur pained over the developing Japanese pincer's movement on the Philippine island of Luzon, President Franklin D. Roosevelt met in the White House with his advisors and leading U.S. military officials. The president, whose duplicitous diplomacy had brought down Japanese wrath upon the unsuspecting Pacific Fleet as it lay at anchor in Pearl Harbor, demanded that the Japanese homeland be attacked in a retaliatory strike.

It was an idea much on the minds of the American people. A successful strike on Japan would be a sensational success in the face of apparent Japanese invincibility. The beleaguered Allied nations, hard-pressed on every front by battle-tested Axis troops, would be rallied by such a raid. Just as importantly, Americans on the home front would be reassured that the battered U.S. military still had some teeth. But most important of all was the effect such a raid would have on the Japanese. The Empire of the Rising Sun would learn that America was not to be trifled with after all. Instead of throwing the entire weight of her military into attacking, in the wake of an American strike Japan would have to pull back some of her forces to defend the home islands. That would buy the U.S. some much needed time in the Pacific.

On December 18, 1941, Amon G. Carter, the publisher of the Fort Worth Star Telegram, wrote to Edwin M. Watson, Roosevelt's military secretary. The newspaperman suggested that 500 long-range bombers should be used to bomb Tokyo. Watson sent the suggestion to General Henry H. "Hap" Arnold, chief of staff for the Army Air Forces. Arnold, in his reply to Watson, wrote that "the fundamental idea is sound but the problem of execution is something more than expressed by Mr. Carter. However, we will have a solution in the near future which we hope will get the results desired."

That solution began to take shape on the evening of January 10, 1942. Admiral Ernest J. King, Chief of Naval Operations, was on board his flagship, the Vixen, which was moored in the Washington Naval Yard. Shortly after dinner, Captain Francis S. Low, a submarine officer who at the time served as King's operations officer, asked to speak with the weary admiral. King agreed to hear the younger man out and Low began relating how watching Army twin engine planes practice bombing runs on a painted outline of an aircraft carrier had given him an idea. "I thought" Low cautiously suggested, "if the Army has some twin-engine bombers with a range greater than our fighters, it seems to me a few of them could be loaded on a carrier and used to bomb Japan."

Not being a pilot, Low expected a quick rebuke for having suggested such a silly idea. Admiral King, though, pondered the suggestion for a moment, then replied, "You may have something there, Low." King directed the submariner to get to work on the idea with the help of Captain Donald "Wu" Duncan, a veteran pilot and the CNO's air operations officer.

The plan, kept under wraps by Duncan and Low, quickly took shape. Of the available Army aircraft, Duncan concluded that only the North American-built B-25 "Mitchell" twin-engine bomber was capable of carrying out the dangerous mission. The planes would be carried aboard and launched from the USS Hornet, a new carrier scheduled to depart Norfolk for the Pacific in February. The bombers would have to be modified and Army pilots would have to learn to take off from the short expanse of a carrier's deck. But it would be a one-way trip for the pilots involved. Though the Mitchell bombers could, in theory, take off from the Hornet, they were too big to land on the carrier's deck. The planes would have to push on after the attack in the hope that friendly airfields could be reached. Still, it looked workable. It was time to get "Hap" Arnold involved.

Enter Doolittle

When Duncan and Low briefed Arnold on January 17, 1942, the top man in the Army Air Forces was intrigued. But could it be done? Was the B-25 the plane to use? There was one man under Hap's command who would know the answers.

Lieutenant Colonel James H. Doolittle, probably the most famous pilot in the entire world, was serving his second stint in the air corps. He had missed World War I, but in the interwar years built his reputation on calculated risks and technical savvy. He was the first pilot to fly across the U.S. in less than 24 hours. He bettered that mark by becoming the first man to make the same trip in less than 12 hours. An air racing legend, he was also a pioneering innovator and an aeronautical acrobat, developing techniques for flying blind and proving that it was possible to fly an outside loop. Along the way, he picked up a doctorate in aeronautical engineering from MIT.

Doolittle was just finishing an examination of the flying problems plaguing the Martin B-26 "Marauder" bomber when Hap Arnold called him to his office in late January 1942. "Jim," Arnold began, "what airplane do we have that can takeoff in 500 feet, carry a 2,000-pound bomb load, and fly 2,000 miles with a full crew?" For a moment Doolittle was silent while he contemplated the Army's bomber inventory. Finally, he said: "General, give me a little time and I'll give you an answer."

It didn't take the veteran flyer long to come up with an answer. Only the B-23 and the B-25 could do what General Arnold had asked. The famous airman returned to Arnold's office to deliver the news. "One more thing I should have added," Hap said after hearing Doolittle's report. "The plane must be able to take off in a narrow space not over 75 feet wide." That was the clincher. The B-23's wingspan was too long. Only the B-25 would do. Doolittle had come to the same conclusion as the Navy's Duncan. Hap dismissed the puzzled flyer, not telling him that the next day he would begin work on the vital yet incredibly dangerous mission to bomb the Japanese homeland.

Special Aviation Project No. 1

In the waning days of January 1942, General Arnold authorized Low's innovative carrier strike concept and directed an eager Doolittle to make the mission happen. Designated by Doolittle as Special Aviation Project No. 1, the mission was on the fast track. There was much to be done: Crews had to picked and trained; the B-25s had to be modified to carry extra fuel; special incendiary bombs had to be designed; and someone had to fly a B-25 off the deck of the Hornet to show that it could be done. There were plenty of glitches, but by mid-March much progress had been made, except in one area. Though Doolittle was in charge of organizing the mission, he had not been authorized to lead the strike itself. The subject came up in one of Doolittle's frequent meetings with General Arnold.

"General," Doolittle said while the two discussed the mission, "it occurred to me that I'm the one guy on this project who knows more about it than anyone else. You asked me to get the planes modified and the crews trained and this is being done. They're the finest bunch of boys I've ever worked with. I'd like your authorization to lead this mission myself."

The always jovial general became serious and his stern gaze was more than enough to communicate the bad news to the waiting flyer. Shaking his head, Arnold had to say no. "I'm sorry Jim' he began. "I need you right here on my staff. I can't afford to let you go on every mission you might help to plan."

Doolittle wasn't about to let this be the end of the story. After persuasively lobbying the General, Hap gave in. "All right, Jim," he said, shrugging his shoulders. "It's all right with me provided its all right with Miff Harmon." Brigadier General Harmon was Arnold's chief of staff, and Hap, who couldn't have been surprised that his gungho top flyer would want to lead the bombing run on Japan, had no doubt expected Harmon to turn down Doolittle's request too. But Doolittle sensed a brief window of opportunity and immediately rushed to Harmon's office.

"Miff," an out-of-breath Doolittle said as he entered Harmon's office, "I've just been to see Hap about that project I've been working on and said I wanted to lead the mission. Hap said it was okay with him if it's okay with you." Harmon was caught off-guard. "Well, whatever is all right with Hap is certainly all right with me," he replied. Elated, Doolittle thanked the General and quickly headed for the exit. As he closed the door, he could hear Arnold talking to Harmon on the intercom. "But Hap, I told him he could go," a subdued Harmon explained to the exasperated air chief.

Target Japan

Toward the middle of March, the Hornet was en route to San Francisco, Doolittle and his men were preparing to head to the West Coast from Florida's Eglin Air base where they had been training, and "Wu" Duncan was at Pearl Harbor working out the final details of the plan with Admiral Chester W. Nimitz and his staff. The mission was nearly ready to go. In the third week of March, Admiral King's office in Washington, D.C., received a wire from Duncan in Pearl. It was brief and to the point: "TELL JIMMY TO GET ON HIS HORSE."

Doolittle and his crews did just that. By the end of the month, the Tokyo raiders had arrived on the West Coast and 16 B-25s had been loaded on the Hornet and were ready to go. On the morning of April 2nd, the day of departure, Doolittle was alone with his beloved wife, Joe. The couple had been apart many times during Jimmy's active career, but this was different. She didn't know where he was going or if he would come back. She tried to choke back her tears and the brave aviator himself wondered if he would ever see his wife again.

With Doolittle and his crews on board, the big carrier and her task force steamed out of San Francisco Bay under the command of Captain Marc Mitscher. Designated TF 16.2, the Task Force would rendezvous in the Pacific with TF 16.1, consisting of the carrier Enterprise and her task force under the command of Admiral William F. "Bull" Halsey. On April 13, 1942, the two groups of ships linked up as Task Force 16. Ahead lay Japan and the unknown.

Doolittle's crews busied themselves as best they could during the crossing. But as the ships drew nearer Japan's shore, the weather worsened. So too did the attitudes of Doolittle's men. There began to be talk of hitting the Emperor's palace and other civilian targets to pay back the Japanese for their destruction of Pearl Harbor. Doolittle would have none of it. "You are to bomb military targets only," he sternly reminded his men.

On April 17th, the group of ships was nearing Japan. Captain Mitscher called Doolittle to the bridge. "Jim, we're in the enemy's backyard now," he said with a grim tone. "Anything could happen from here on in. I think its time for that little ceremony we talked about." On board were three medals that had been sent to Secretary of the Navy Frank Knox. They commemorated a visit of the U.S. battle fleet to Japan in 1908. The former Navy men who had sent them had asked Secretary Knox to attach them "to a bomb and return [them] to Japan in that manner." Doolittle and his men were happy to comply.

Mitscher's concern that "anything could happen" proved well-founded. Japan had gotten wind that an American operation directed at the home islands was afoot and a string of Japanese picket boats had been dispatched eastward into the Pacific to act as an early warning system. At 3:00 a.m. on April 18th the Enterprise picked up two of the pickets on radar. Halsey's ships steered clear, but just hours later an American aircraft on patrol spotted another Japanese vessel. Not long after, yet another craft was spotted, this time only 12,000 yards away. Halsey ordered it sunk, but it was time for a decision. For Doolittle's raiders, it was launch now or never. Doolittle and his men would have to travel more than 800 statute miles before reaching their targets. The Hornet's klaxon blared and Captain Mitscher's voice boomed from the ship's loudspeakers: "Army pilots, man your planes!" Doolittle ran up his engines and gave a thumbs up. Then he was away, his B-25 clawing at the sky as it slowly accelerated away from the pitching deck of the Hornet. Behind him the other 15 B-25s left the carrier in turn before splitting up and heading for their respective targets in Tokyo, Yokohama, and other Japanese cities. It was 8:20 in the morning.

The weather, which had been heavy, cleared as Doolittle approached Japan. The B-25 droned onward, coming in low over the coast. By then the weather had cleared enough to get a good fix on the plane's position. As it turned out, they were off course slightly to the north. That was just fine, as far as Doolittle was concerned. They'd approach Tokyo from the north, avoiding fighter patrols and other defenses likely to be found in high concentrations in the Western parts of the city. Below the Japanese landscape spread out, beautiful in the spring and scented with the perfume of cherry blossoms. On the ground, people waved at the passing plane, secure in what they had been told: No one could bomb Japan. Doolittie flew on. Behind him, widely spread, came 15 more steel birds of prey, eager for blood.

Doolittle and his raiders, though, would not be wholly unopposed. Ten miles north of Tokyo anti-aircraft batteries opened up. Flak shook the plane. It seemed to Doolittle that shrapnel may have pierced his plane's thin metal skin. Unperturbed, he pressed the attack. As he pulled up and gained altitude, a large factory loomed in the plane's homemade bombsight. At 1,200 feet altitude, Doolittle ordered the bomb bay doors opened and bombardier Fred Braemer released the plane's deadly payload of four incendiary bombs. In Tokyo, it was 12:3 0 PM. America had her revenge.

Flight to Safety

Doolittle's thoughts now turned to escape. Whatever fate lay ahead, it would be far better than being shot down and captured in Japan. Were that to happen, hideous torture would be followed by excruciating death. Thus spurred on, Doolittle put his plane back down on the deck and raced for China. Behind him, the other raiders did the same.

Over the China Sea, fate turned against them. Running into a head wind in weather that began again to deteriorate, it looked as if Doolittle would have to ditch the plane. Below, he and his crew could see sharks in the water. No one on board wanted to wind up in the drink with those voracious fish. Fortunately, the head wind gradually shifted to a modest tail wind, helping to push the plane over the Chinese coast. Ahead lay promised airfields and safety.

As Doolittle flew on, he tried to contact Chuchow, where he expected to find a welcoming airfield. There was no reply. All he and his men could do was forge ahead, on a course calculated to bring them toward their silent destination. Finally, all the fuel gauges read zero. After 13 hours in the air, it was time to abandon ship. Putting the plane on autopilot, Doolittle ordered his men to bail out. Elsewhere over China, other planes from the raid were in the same bleak situation.

The enterprising airman's bold raid on Tokyo had come to a seemingly inglorious end. His first hours in China started out in a pile of "night soil" (human excrement used as fertilizer) in a rice paddy. After a cold night and a tense meeting with a Chinese military officer, Doolittle was reunited with the four men who had flown with him in the B-25. One of them, Paul Leonard, joined Doolittle on a trip to the crash site. It was more than the famed flyer could bear. His men were scattered God knew where and his plane was in pieces. To Doolittle's imagination as he sat, forlorn, by the wreckage, the raid was a dismal failure. Paul Leonard snapped his picture and tried to cheer him up. "What do you think will happen when you go home, Colonel?" he asked.

"Well, I guess they'll court-martial me and send me to prison at Fort Leavenworth," Doolittle replied. Leonard's response was quick and sure. "No sir," he exclaimed. "I'll tell you what will happen. They're going to make you a general." The exchange touched Doolittle's heart and tears came to his eyes. But there remained the problem of getting home.

Doolittle and the men who were with him still needed to get to Chuchow. To that end, they boarded a river boat and traveled by water, avoiding the Japanese patrols that were looking frantically for the Americans. One day, while hiding in the boat, their luck improved considerably. A man who seemed to be an American came on board. Calling out with a noticeable southern accent, he asked if there were any Americans inside. Doolittle and his men, apprehensive, didn't answer. The man called out again, and banged on the door. Finally, Paul Leonard was sure this was no Japanese trick. "Hell," he said as he opened the door, "no Japanese can talk American like that." Outside was a tall, slender man with a beard who called himself John M. Birch. A missionary, he had been eluding the Japanese and carrying on his missionary work as best he could ever since the bombing of Pearl Harbor. A talented man, Birch knew his way around China and could speak the language. His help was instrumental in getting Doolittle and some of his men home again and in preparing funeral arrangements for one of Doolittle's raiders who didn't make it out alive.

On Doolittle's recommendation, Birch went on to have an important role with American forces in China, taking up an intelligence position with General Claire Chennault and the famed Flying Tigers. Following the war, he was murdered by Chinese Communists. That, and his impeccable character, later led his biographer, Robert Welch, to christen his fledgling Americanist organization "The John Birch Society." Years later, in his autobiography, Doolittle speculated that Birch wouldn't have approved. In fact, Birch's parents had not only given their explicit approval but were honored that Welch chose their son as the organization's namesake. Indeed, they became enthusiastic life members.

Despite Doolittle's initial concern, the raid was a resounding success. True, the fate of the 16 Doolittle crews was grim. There were deaths and serious injuries. One crew had landed in Soviet territory and had their plane confiscated. Another eight men had been taken prisoner by the Japanese. Their treatment was brutal. Still, the raid devastated Japanese morale. In contrast, the raid buoyed American spirits. And, it accomplished the most important objective: The Japanese did indeed pull defenses back to guard the home islands. Moreover, the raid convinced Japanese officials to push the front out to Midway Island in an effort to make future American bombing raids impossible. The resulting Battle of Midway was the turning point in the Pacific. There American naval aviation scored a stunning victory over Japan's carrier forces. The move to Midway was a risk the Japanese needn't have taken, and may not have taken without the success of Jimmy Doolittle and his brave bomber pilots. In a congratulatory letter to Doolittle, Admiral Halsey summed up the raid: "You have struck the hardest blow of the war directly at the enemy's heart. You have made history."