Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo
The USS Hornet departed from San Francisco on April 2nd, with its oversized cargo of 16 B-25 bombers parked on the aft (rear) flight deck. Hornet would rendezvous with USS Enterprise (CV-6) north of Midway, along the international date line, on April 12th. Admiral William F. "Bull" Halsey was in command of Task Force 16. The two carriers and their escorts would then proceed westward. On April 17th, the carriers and their four escorting cruisers would leave their accompanying destroyer screen and tankers behind to make a final high speed "dash" towards the Japanese home islands. The bombers would be launched on the April 18th.
The first Japanese patrol ship was encountered around 0300 on April 18th. The American force managed to maneuvere around this vessel undetected but it soon encountered others. Within hours other Japanese pickets were met and intercepted radio transmission from these ships showed that the force's presence had be discovered. Consequently, the decision was made to launch the strike force in the morning, rather than wait. They were about 650 miles from Tokyo, or 150 miles short of the launch point.
Colonel James H. "Jimmy" Doolittle led the sixteen Army Air Force B-25 Mitchell medium bombers used in the raid. Planes struck Tokyo, Nagoya and Kobe, dropping a few tons of bombs in total and causing no appreciable damage. After dropping their payloads, the bombers headed eastward for sanctuary. They did not have enough fuel to reach their original landing objectives. One of the bombers landed in Vladivostok in the Soviet Union where it was promptly seized, while the other fifteen were lost over China. Of the eighty crew members launched on this mission, the five who arrived in the USSR were interned while sixty-two of the others were saved by the Chinese; five died while evacuating their aircraft; and eight were captured by the outraged Japanese (of whom three were executed as war criminals). Colonel Doolittle's command suffered a 100% loss of aircraft and 22.5% loss of crew members.
Technically, the raid was a disaster for the Americans. This did not matter. The United States had struck a blow at the heart of Japan; the imperial perimeter was proven to be insufficient to protect the home islands. Japanese strategic debates over what to do next came to an abrupt halt and a fateful direction was chosen with the express intention of preventing such a raid from happening again.
Although it was
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