The Doolittle Raid (also known as Doolittle's Raid or the Tokyo Raid) was an air raid by the United States on the Japanese capital of Tokyo and other places in Honshu during World War II. Launched on 18 April 1942, it was the first American air operation to strike the Japanese archipelago. Although the raid caused comparatively minor damage, it demonstrated that the Japanese mainland was vulnerable to American air attacks. It served as an initial retaliation for the attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941 and provided an important boost to American morale. The raid was named after Lieutenant Colonel James Doolittle, who planned and led the attack. It was one of six American carrier raids against Japan and Japanese-held territories conducted in the first half of 1942.
Under the final plan, 16 B-25B Mitchell medium bombers, each with a crew of five, were launched from the US Navy aircraft carrier USS Hornet, in the Pacific Ocean. There were no fighter escorts. After bombing the military and industrial targets, the crews were to continue westward to land in China.
On the ground, the raid killed around 50 people and injured 400. Damage to Japanese military and industrial targets was minimal, but the raid had major psychological effects. In the United States, it raised morale. In Japan, it raised fear and doubt about the ability of military leaders to defend the home islands, but the bombing and strafing of civilians created a desire for retribution—this was exploited for propaganda purposes. The raid also pushed forward Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto's plans to attack Midway Island in the Central Pacific—an attack that turned into a decisive defeat of the Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN) by the US Navy in the Battle of Midway. The consequences of the Doolittle Raid were most severely felt in China: in reprisal for the raid, the Japanese launched the Zhejiang-Jiangxi campaign.
Of the 16 crews involved, 14 returned to the United States or reached the safety of American forces, though one man was killed while bailing out. Eight men were captured by Japanese forces in eastern China (the other two crew members having drowned in the sea), and three of them were later executed. All but one of the 16 B-25s were destroyed in crashes, while one of the planes landed at Vladivostok in the Soviet Union.
Because the Soviet Union was not officially at war with Japan, it was required, under international law, to intern the crew for the duration of the war. The crew's B-25 was also confiscated. However, within a year, the crew was secretly allowed to leave the Soviet Union, under the guise of an escape—they returned to the United States or to American units elsewhere by way of Allied-occupied Iran and North Africa.
Doolittle initially believed that he would be court-martialed for missing his primary targets. Instead, he received the Medal of Honor and was promoted two ranks to brigadier general.
Background
President Franklin D. Roosevelt spoke to the Joint Chiefs of Staff in a meeting at the White House on 21 December 1941 and said that Japan should be bombed as soon as possible to boost public morale after Pearl Harbor. Doolittle recounted in his autobiography that the raid was intended to bolster American morale and to cause the Japanese to begin doubting their leadership: "An attack on the Japanese homeland would cause confusion in the minds of the Japanese people and sow doubt about the reliability of their leaders. ... Americans badly needed a morale boost."
The concept for the attack came from Navy Captain Francis S. Low, Assistant Chief of Staff for antisubmarine warfare. He reported to Admiral Ernest J. King on 10 January 1942 that he thought that twin-engined Army bombers could be launched from an aircraft carrier, after observing several at Naval Station Norfolk Chambers Field in Norfolk, where the runway was painted with the outline of a carrier deck for landing practice. Doolittle, a famous military test pilot, civilian aviator, and aeronautical engineer before the war, was assigned to Army Air Forces Headquarters to plan the raid. The aircraft to be used would need a cruising range of 2,400 nautical miles (4,400 km) with a 2,000-pound (910 kg) bomb load. Doolittle considered the B-25B Mitchell, Martin B-26 Marauder, Douglas B-18 Bolo, and Douglas B-23 Dragon. The B-26 had questionable takeoff characteristics from a carrier deck. The wingspans of the B-18 and B-23 were larger than that of the B-25, reducing the number that could be taken aboard a carrier and posing risks to the ship's superstructure. The B-25 had yet to see combat and had a range of about 1,300 miles, but tests indicated that it could fulfill the mission's requirements if it were modified to hold nearly twice as much fuel.
Doolittle's first report on the plan suggested that the bombers fly to Vladivostok after their attack, where they could be handed to the Soviet Union under the Lend-Lease program. This stratagem was intended to circumvent Moscow's April 1941 neutrality pact with Japan, but Soviet officials refused. Instead, planners looked to China, adding some 600 nautical miles (1,100 km) to the flight. Despite concerns about Japanese reprisals, Chiang Kai-shek agreed to provide five refueling sites and a final destination: Chongqing.
No fighter escort was possible, for no fighter aircraft with the required range were available.
Preparation
After planning indicated that the B-25 best met the mission's requirements, two were loaded aboard the aircraft carrier USS Hornet at Norfolk and were flown off the deck without difficulty on 3 February 1942. The raid was immediately approved. The crews would be drawn from the 17th Bombardment Group (Medium), which had been the first group to receive B-25s and had become the most experienced B-25 unit in the service; all four of its squadrons flew the bomber by September 1941. Its first assignment after the United States entered the war was to the U.S. Eighth Air Force.
The 17th BG, then flying antisubmarine patrols from Pendleton, Oregon, was immediately moved cross-country to Columbia Army Air Base at West Columbia, South Carolina, ostensibly to fly similar patrols off the East Coast of the United States, but in actuality to prepare for the mission against Japan. The group officially transferred effective 9 February 1942 to Columbia, where its combat crews were offered the opportunity to volunteer for an "extremely hazardous", but unspecified mission. On 19 February, the group was detached from the Eighth Air Force and assigned to III Bomber Command.
Initial planning called for 20 aircraft to fly the mission, and 24 of the group's B-25B Mitchell bombers were diverted to the Mid-Continent Airlines modification center in Minneapolis, Minnesota. With support provided by two senior airline managers, Wold-Chamberlain Field's maintenance hangar was the first modification center to become operational. From nearby Fort Snelling, the 710th Military Police Battalion provided tight security around this hangar. B-25B aircraft modifications included:
Removal of the lower gun turret.
Installation of de-icers and anti-icers.
Mounting of steel blast plates on the fuselage around the upper turret.
Removal of the liaison radio set to save weight.
Installation of a 160-US-gallon (610 L; 130 imp gal) collapsible neoprene auxiliary fuel tank, fixed to the top of the bomb bay, and installation of support mounts for additional fuel cells in the bomb bay, crawlway, and lower turret area, to increase fuel capacity from 646 to 1,141 U.S. gallons (538 to 950 imperial gallons, or 2,445 to 4,319 L).
Installation of broomsticks as mock gun barrels in the tail cone.
Replacement of the Norden bombsight with a makeshift aiming sight devised by pilot Capt. C. Ross Greening. Dubbed the "Mark Twain", its materials cost just 20 cents.
Two bombers also had cameras mounted to record the results of the bombing.
The 24 crews were selected and picked up the modified bombers in Minneapolis and flew them to Eglin Field, Florida, beginning 1 March 1942. There, the crews received concentrated training for three weeks in simulated carrier deck takeoffs, low-level and night flying, low-altitude bombing, and over-water navigation, operating primarily out of Eglin Auxiliary Field #1, a more secluded site. Lieutenant Henry L. Miller, a U.S. Navy flight instructor from nearby Naval Air Station Pensacola, supervised their takeoff training and accompanied the crews to the launch. For his efforts, Miller is considered an honorary member of the Raider group.
Doolittle stated in his after-action report that the crews reached a "safely operational" level of training, despite several days when flying was not possible because of rain and fog. One aircraft was written off in a landing accident on 10 March and another was heavily damaged in a takeoff accident on 23 March, while a third was removed from the mission because of a nose wheel shimmy that could not be repaired in time.
On 25 March 1942, the remaining 22 B-25s took off from Eglin for McClellan Field, California. They arrived two days later at the Sacramento Air Depot for inspection and final modifications. Five crews did extra training on March 30 and 31 at the Willows-Glenn County Airport. A total of 16 B-25s were flown to Naval Air Station Alameda on 31 March. Fifteen made up the mission force and the 16th, by last-minute agreement with the Navy, was loaded so that it could be launched shortly after departure from San Francisco to demonstrate to the Army pilots that there was sufficient deck space for a safe takeoff. Instead, that bomber was made part of the mission force.
Participating aircraft
In order of launching, the 16 aircraft were:
Mission
On 1 April 1942, the 16 modified bombers, their five-man crews, and Army maintenance personnel, totaling 71 officers and 130 enlisted men, were loaded onto Hornet at Naval Air Station Alameda in California. Each aircraft carried four specially constructed 500-pound (230 kg) bombs. Three of these were high-explosive munitions and one was a bundle of incendiaries. The incendiaries were long tubes, wrapped together to be carried in the bomb bay, but designed to separate and scatter over a wide area after release. Five bombs had Japanese "friendship" medals wired to them—medals awarded by the Japanese government to U.S. servicemen before the war.
The bombers' armament was reduced to increase range by decreasing weight. Each bomber launched with two .50-caliber (12.7 mm) machine guns in an upper turret and a .30-caliber (7.62 mm) machine gun in the nose. The aircraft were clustered closely and tied down on Hornet's flight deck in the order of launch.
Hornet and Task Force 18 got underway from San Francisco Bay at 08:48 on 2 April with the 16 bombers in clear view. At noon the next day, parts to complete modifications that had not been finished at McClellan were lowered to the forward deck of Hornet by Navy blimp L-8. A few days later, the carrier met with Vice Admiral William Halsey Jr.'s Task Force 16: the carrier USS Enterprise and her escort of cruisers and destroyers in the mid-Pacific Ocean north of Hawaii. If the Japanese attacked, Enterprise's fighters and scout planes would protect the task force, since Hornet's fighters were stowed below decks to make space for the B-25s.
The combined force was two carriers (Hornet and Enterprise), three heavy cruisers (Salt Lake City, Northampton, Vincennes), one light cruiser (Nashville), eight destroyers (Balch, Fanning, Benham, Ellet, Gwin, Meredith, Grayson, Monssen), and two fleet oilers (Cimarron and Sabine). The ships proceeded in radio silence. On the afternoon of 17 April, the slow oilers refueled the task force, then withdrew with the destroyers to the east while the carriers and cruisers dashed west at 20 knots (37 km/h; 23 mph) toward their intended launch point in enemy-controlled waters east of Japan.
At 07:38 on the morning of 18 April, while the task force was still about 650 nautical miles (1,200 km; 750 mi) from Japan (around 35°N 154°E), it was sighted by the Japanese picket boat No. 23 Nittō Maru, a 70-ton patrol craft, which radioed an attack warning to Japan. The boat was sunk by gunfire from Nashville. The chief petty officer who captained the boat killed himself rather than be captured, but five of the 11 crew were picked up by Nashville.
Doolittle and Hornet skipper Captain Marc Mitscher decided to launch the B-25s immediately—10 hours early and 170 nautical miles (310 km; 200 mi) farther from Japan than planned. After respotting to allow for engine start and runups, Doolittle's aircraft had 467 feet (142 m) of takeoff distance. Although none of the B-25 pilots, including Doolittle, had ever taken off from a carrier before, all 16 aircraft launched safely between 08:20 and 09:19, though Doolittle's bomber was witnessed to have almost hit the water before pulling up at the last second. The B-25s then flew toward Japan, most in groups of two to four aircraft, before flying singly at wave-top level to avoid detection.
The aircraft began arriving over Japan about noon Tokyo time, six hours after launch, climbed to 1,500 feet (460 m) and bombed 10 military and industrial targets in Tokyo, two in Yokohama, and one each in Yokosuka, Nagoya, Kobe, and Osaka. Although some B-25s encountered light antiaircraft fire and a few enemy fighters (made up of Ki-45s and prototype Ki-61s, the latter being mistaken for Bf 109s) over Japan, no bomber was shot down. Only the B-25 of 1st Lt. Richard O. Joyce received any battle damage, minor hits from antiaircraft fire. B-25 No. 4, piloted by 1st Lt. Everett W. Holstrom, jettisoned its bombs before reaching its target when it came under attack by fighters after its gun turret malfunctioned.
The Americans claimed to have shot down three Japanese fighters—one by the gunners of the Whirling Dervish, piloted by 1st Lt. Harold Watson, and two by the gunners of the Hari Kari-er, piloted by 1st Lt. Ross Greening. Many targets were strafed by the bombers' nose gunners. The subterfuge of the simulated gun barrels mounted in the tail cones was described afterwards by Doolittle as effective, in that no airplane was attacked directly from behind.
Fifteen of the 16 aircraft then proceeded southwest off the southeastern coast of Japan and across the East China Sea toward eastern China. One B-25, piloted by Captain Edward J. York, was extremely low on fuel, and headed instead for the Soviet Union rather than be forced to ditch in the middle of the East China Sea. Several fields in Zhejiang province were supposed to be ready to guide them in using homing beacons, then recover and refuel them for continuing on to Chongqing, the wartime Kuomintang capital. The primary base was at Zhuzhou, toward which all the aircraft navigated, but Halsey never sent the planned signal to alert them, apparently because of a possible threat to the task force.
The raiders faced several unforeseen challenges during their flight to China: night was approaching, the aircraft were running low on fuel, and the weather was rapidly deteriorating. None would have reached China if not for a tail wind as they came off the target, which increased their ground speed by 25 kn (46 km/h; 29 mph) for seven hours. The crews realized they would probably not be able to reach their intended bases in China, leaving them the option of either bailing out over eastern China or crash-landing along the Chinese coast.
All 15 aircraft reached the Chinese coast after 13 hours of flight and crash-landed or the crews bailed out. One crewman, 20-year-old Corporal Leland D. Faktor, flight engineer/gunner with 1st Lt. Robert M. Gray, was killed during his bailout attempt over China, the only man in that crew to be lost. Two crews (10 men) were missing.
The 16th aircraft, commanded by Capt. Edward York (eighth off – AC #40-2242) flew to the Soviet Union and landed 40 miles (64 km) beyond Vladivostok at Vozdvizhenka. As the USSR was not at war with Japan, and the Soviet–Japanese Neutrality Pact was officially in force, the Soviet government was officially unable to immediately repatriate any Allied personnel involved in hostilities who entered Soviet territory. Furthermore, at the time, the Soviet Far East was vulnerable to military action by Japanese forces. Consequently, in accordance with international law, the crew members were interned, despite official US requests for their release, and the B-25 was impounded. York would later report that he and his crew had been treated well by the Soviet authorities. Several months later, they were moved to Ashgabat (Ashkhabad), in what was then the Turkmen Soviet Socialist Republic, 20 miles (32 km) from the Soviet-Iranian border. In mid-1943, they were allowed to cross the border into Allied-occupied Iran. The Americans presented themselves to a British consulate on 11 May 1943. A cover story was concocted that York had bribed a smuggler to assist them in escaping from Soviet custody. The fact that the "smuggling" had been staged by the NKVD was later confirmed by declassified Soviet archives.
Doolittle and his crew, after parachuting into China, received assistance from Chinese soldiers and civilians, as well as John Birch, an American missionary in China. As did the others who participated in the mission, Doolittle had to bail out, but he landed in a heap of dung (saving a previously injured ankle from breaking) in a paddy in China near Quzhou. The mission was the longest ever flown in combat by the B-25 Mitchell medium bomber, averaging about 2,250 nautical miles (4,170 km).
Aftermath
Fate of the crewmen
Following the Doolittle Raid, most of the B-25 crews who had reached China eventually found safety with the help of Chinese civilians and soldiers.
Of the 16 planes and 80 airmen who participated in the raid, all either crash-landed, were ditched, or crashed after their crews bailed out, with the single exception of Capt. York and his crew, who landed in the Soviet Union. Despite the loss of these 15 aircraft, 69 airmen escaped capture or death, with only three killed in action. When the Chinese helped the Americans escape, the grateful Americans, in turn, gave them whatever they had on hand. Eight Raiders were captured.
Some of the men who crashed were aided by Patrick Cleary, the Irish Bishop of Nancheng. The Japanese troops retaliated by burning down the city.
Missing crewmen
The crews of two aircraft (10 men in total) were unaccounted for: those of 1st Lt. Dean E. Hallmark (sixth off) and 1st Lt. William G. Farrow (last off). On 15 August 1942, the United States learned from the Swiss Consulate General in Shanghai that eight of the missing crew members were prisoners of the Japanese at the city's police headquarters. Two of the missing crewmen, bombardier S/Sgt. William J. Dieter and flight engineer Sgt. Donald E. Fitzmaurice of Hallmark's crew, were found to have drowned when their B-25 crashed into the sea. Both of their remains were recovered after the war and were buried with military honors at Golden Gate National Cemetery.
The other eight were captured: 1st Lt. Dean E. Hallmark, 1st Lt. William G. Farrow, 1st Lt. Robert J. Meder, 1st Lt. Chase Nielsen, 1st Lt. Robert L. Hite, 2nd Lt. George Barr, Cpl. Harold A. Spatz, and Cpl. Jacob DeShazer. All eight captured in Jiangxi were tried and sentenced to death at a military trial in China, and then transported to Tokyo. There the Army Ministry reviewed their case, with five of the sentences being commuted and the other three being executed. Out of the 80 crewmen, three were killed in action, eight were captured, and three were killed in captivity by the Japanese.
The surviving captured airmen remained in military confinement on a starvation diet, their health rapidly deteriorating. In April 1943, they were moved to Nanjing, where Meder died on 1 December 1943. The remaining men—Nielsen, Hite, Barr and DeShazer—eventually began receiving slightly better treatment and were given a copy of the Bible and a few other books. They were freed by American troops in August 1945. Four Japanese officers were tried for war crimes against the captured Doolittle Raiders, found guilty, and sentenced to hard labor, three for five years and one for nine years. Barr had been near death when liberated and remained in China recuperating until October, by which time he had begun to experience severe emotional problems. Untreated after transfer to Letterman Army Hospital and a military hospital in Clinton, Iowa, Barr became suicidal and was held virtually incommunicado until November, when Doolittle's personal intervention resulted in treatment that led to his recovery. DeShazer graduated from Seattle Pacific University in 1948 and returned to Japan as a missionary, where he served for over 30 years.
When their remains were recovered after the war, Farrow, Hallmark, and Meder were buried with full military honors at Arlington National Cemetery. Spatz was buried with military honors at National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific. Of the surviving prisoners, Barr died of heart failure in 1967, Nielsen in 2007, DeShazer on 15 March 2008, and the last, Hite, died 29 March 2015.
Service of returning crewmen
Immediately following the raid, Doolittle told his crew that he believed the loss of all 16 aircraft, coupled with the relatively minor damage to targets, had rendered the attack a failure, and that he expected a court-martial upon his return to the United States. Instead, the raid bolstered American morale. Doolittle was promoted two grades to brigadier general on 28 April while still in China, skipping the rank of colonel, and was presented with the Medal of Honor by Roosevelt upon his return to the United States in June. When General Doolittle toured the growing Eglin Field facility in July 1942 with commanding officer Col. Grandison Gardner, the local paper of record (the Okaloosa News-Journal, Crestview, Florida), while reporting his presence, made no mention of his still-secret recent training at Eglin. He went on to command the Twelfth Air Force in North Africa, the Fifteenth Air Force in the Mediterranean, and the Eighth Air Force in England during the next three years.
All 80 Raiders were awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross, and those who were killed or wounded during the raid were awarded the Purple Heart. Every Doolittle Raider was also decorated by the Chinese government. In addition, Corporal David J. Thatcher (a flight engineer/gunner on Lawson's crew) and 1st Lt. Thomas R. White (flight surgeon/gunner with Smith) were awarded the Silver Star for helping the wounded crew members of Lt. Lawson's crew to evade Japanese troops in China. Finally, as Doolittle noted in his autobiography, he successfully insisted that all of the Raiders receive a promotion.
Twenty-eight of the crewmen remained in the China Burma India theater, including the entire crews of planes 4, 10, and 13, flying missions, most for more than a year; five were killed in action. Nineteen crew members flew combat missions in the Mediterranean theater after returning to the United States, four of whom were killed in action and four becoming prisoners of war. Nine crew members served in the European Theater of Operations; one was killed in action, and one, David M. "Davy" Jones, was shot down and became a POW in Stalag Luft III at Sagan, where he played a part in The Great Escape. Altogether, 12 of the survivors died in air crashes within 15 months of the raid. Two survivors were separated from the USAAF in 1944 due to the severity of their injuries.
The 17th Bomb Group, from which the Doolittle Raiders had been recruited, received replacement crews and transferred to Barksdale Army Air Field in June 1942, where it converted to Martin B-26 Marauder medium bombers. In November 1942, it deployed overseas to North Africa, where it operated in the Mediterranean Theater of Operations with the Twelfth Air Force for the remainder of the war.
Zhejiang-Jiangxi campaign
After the raid, the Japanese Imperial Army began the Zhejiang-Jiangxi campaign (also known as Operation Sei-go) to prevent these eastern coastal provinces of China from being used again for an attack on Japan and to take revenge on the Chinese people. An area of some 20,000 sq mi (50,000 km2) was laid waste. "Like a swarm of locusts, they left behind nothing but destruction and chaos", eyewitness Father Wendelin Dunker wrote. The Japanese killed an estimated 10,000 Chinese civilians during their search for Doolittle's men. People who aided the airmen were tortured before they were killed. Father Dunker wrote of the destruction of the town of Ihwang: "They shot any man, woman, child, cow, hog, or just about anything that moved, They raped any woman from the ages of 10–65, and before burning the town they thoroughly looted it ... None of the humans shot were buried either". The Japanese entered Nancheng (Jiangxi), population 50,000 on June 11, "beginning a reign of terror so horrendous that missionaries would later dub it 'the Rape of Nancheng'", evoking memories of the infamous Rape of Nanjing five years before. Less than a month later, the Japanese forces put what remained of the city to the torch. "This planned burning was carried on for three days," one Chinese newspaper reported, "and the city of Nancheng became charred earth."
When Japanese troops moved out of the Zhejiang and Jiangxi areas in mid-August, they left behind a trail of devastation. The Imperial Japanese Army had also spread cholera, typhoid, plague infected fleas and dysentery pathogens. The Japanese biological warfare Unit 731 brought almost 300 pounds (140 kg) of paratyphoid and anthrax to be left in contaminated food and contaminated wells with the withdrawal of the army from areas around Yushan, Kinhwa and Futsin. Around 1,700 Japanese troops died out of a total 10,000 Japanese soldiers who fell ill with disease when their biological weapons attack rebounded on their own forces. According to Chinese records, the campaign resulted in over 20,000 civilians murdered, 30,000 more captured or missing, and more than 100,000 houses burned in Quzhou alone.