Doolittle’s Raiders Strike the First Blow

Lacking bases within range of Japan, the U.S. Army and Navy collaborated on a scheme to use medium bombers launched from an aircraft carrier. On April 18, 1942, Lieutenant Colonel Doolittle led a flight of sixteen Army Air Forces B–25s from the deck of the carrier Hornet. Although he had planned to take off when the carrier was 650 miles from Tokyo, Doolittle decided to start the mission from 800 miles east when enemy boats spotted the task force, threatening the element of surprise. Doolittle’s raiders bombed not only Tokyo, but also Kobe, Yokohama, and Nagoya. 

Surprise was achieved, but there were some complications. Hit by anti-aircraft artillery fire, one of the sixteen planes suffered minor damage. Fifteen B–25s crash-landed in China, two of them in enemy-occupied territory where the Japanese executed three crew members and imprisoned five others. The remaining plane landed near Vladivostok in the Soviet Union, and the crew was interned there for the remainder of the war. Fortunately, most of the “Tokyo Raiders” soon returned safely to Allied territory. 

Although the mission inflicted little physical damage on Japanese territory, it did achieve its psychological objectives. Striking the Japanese islands boosted American morale and created heroes in the otherwise dark early days of the war. And it shattered Japan’s illusion of security. Adm. Isoroku Yamamoto, the commander of the Japanese Combined Fleet, and other Japanese military leaders responded by planning and executing a strike at Midway in June 1942 in an attempt to extend their defensive perimeter and thereby discourage future U.S. attacks on the heartland. 

The Doolittle raid was not part of any systematic bombing campaign. The United States would have to wait for its surface forces to secure bases closer to the home islands for the strategic bombing effort to begin in earnest. So, starting down the long and painful path to victory, the U.S. air war against Japan shifted away from the home islands to Asia, the south-western Pacific, and the central Pacific.