On 18 April 1942 sixteen U.S. Army Air Forces B-25 bombers, led by Lieutenant Colonel James H. Doolittle, took off from the aircraft carrier USS Hornet and bombed Tokyo and other cities on Japan's home islands. It was the first American air attack on Japan. The bombs did little physical damage, but the raid lifted American morale and pushed the Japanese navy toward its attack on Midway. Fifteen of the bombers came down in China, and the Japanese army took savage reprisals on the Chinese who had helped the crews.
Bombers on a carrier deck
The plan was conceived in January 1942, weeks after Pearl Harbor. Its aims were to damage Japanese industry and to make Japan keep forces at home for its own defense, and it was also meant to raise the spirits of the American public and of the Allies. Army bombers would be carried within range by a Navy carrier. The North American B-25 Mitchell was judged the only suitable type, and tests showed that a B-25 could take off from a carrier but could not land on one again, so the crews would fly on to airfields in China after the attack. The Soviet Union, which was at peace with Japan, would not let them land at Vladivostok.1
The crews came from the 17th Bombardment Group and trained at Eglin Field in Florida. On 1 April 1942 sixteen modified B-25s were loaded aboard Hornet at Alameda, California, and the carrier sailed to join Vice Admiral William F. Halsey's task force with the carrier Enterprise.2
An early launch
On the morning of 18 April, before the planned launch point was reached, a Japanese picket boat sighted the task force and radioed a warning. Halsey would not risk two of the Navy's carriers any closer to Japan and ordered the bombers off at once. The distance is given differently: the Naval History and Heritage Command says the task force was within about 650 miles of Japan, while Britannica puts Hornet more than 820 miles from Tokyo. All sixteen bombers were airborne in about an hour.3
The bombers flew in low and hit targets in Tokyo, Yokohama, Yokosuka, Nagoya and Kobe, and Britannica adds Osaka. Japanese opposition was weak, and no bomber was lost over Japan. The Naval History and Heritage Command adds that one bomb damaged the carrier Ryuho, then under conversion at Yokosuka, and delayed her completion.4
The fate of the crews
Because of the early launch, none of the bombers had the fuel to reach a safe airfield. Fifteen crashed or were abandoned over China at night in bad weather, and one landed near Vladivostok, where the Soviets interned the crew. Most of the 80 airmen got through to safety with the help of Chinese soldiers and civilians. Three were killed in bail-outs and crash landings, and two crews were captured by the Japanese. Three of the prisoners were executed in October 1942 and a fourth died in captivity.5
According to Britannica, Doolittle was promoted to brigadier general and awarded the Medal of Honor.6
Midway and the reprisals in China
The raid did little damage, but it shocked the Japanese high command. The Naval History and Heritage Command says it ended the Naval General Staff's doubts about Admiral Yamamoto's plan to attack Midway, and Britannica says it led Japan to push out its defensive perimeter, which ended in defeat at Midway in June 1942. The battle is told in our article on Midway.7
In China the Japanese army launched the Zhejiang-Jiangxi campaign to destroy the airfields and punish those who had helped the Americans. The death toll is uncertain. Britannica cites an estimate of some 250,000 civilians killed in three months. The China Project, writing on the raid's legacy, gives the same figure of about 250,000 Chinese killed, and says some 180,000 Japanese troops took part in the offensive. No exact count exists. The whole story of the raid is in our article on the Doolittle Raid, and the man who led it in our biography of Jimmy Doolittle.8
Also on this day
- 1945: Ruhr pocket. In the Ruhr pocket, American armies encircled German Army Group B in Germany's industrial heartland in the last weeks of the war in Europe.
