Between 1 February and the end of March, Vice Admiral William “Bull” Halsey with the USS Enterprise, Rear Admiral Jack Fletcher on the USS Yorktown , and Vice Admiral Wilson Brown aboard the USS Lexington conducted a series of fast carrier raids over vast areas of the southwest Pacific. Japanese installations, ships, and forces were hit in the Marshall Islands, the Solomons, and the Bismarck Archipelago, and successful attacks were conducted against Kwajalein, Marcus, and Wake Islands.
Though these fast carrier raids did little serious long-term damage to the Japanese, U.S. commanders and pilots were quickly gaining skill and proficiency against their far more experienced adversaries. Using newly built fleet oilers and fast resupply ships, the U.S. carriers perfected the ability to replenish under way, allowing them to stay at sea for months at a time. The pilots were improving as well, and the names of U.S. naval aviators were becoming known to the American people, desperate for good news on any front. While battling Japanese bombers sent out to find the Lexington, Lieutenant Edward “Butch” O’Hare became the Navy’s first ace—achieved by downing five enemies—and was lionized in the press.
Yet as dramatic and courageous as these fast carrier raids were to the American people and the participants, they were still defensive operations, hitting at but not stopping the Japanese advance. By mid-April 1942, the Japanese had seized virtually all the territory they needed to assure the availability of strategic resources and materials for their war effort. And once the Philippines fell, they would be able to secure their entire southern flank—and neutralize Australia as an Allied base.
By the spring of 1942, the long string of defeats and near-calamities had many Americans grumbling that it was “time to fight back.” In Washington, congressional leaders complained to FDR that Radio Tokyo was broadcasting taunts that the Japanese Home Islands “were invincible and could never be attacked.”
But in April 1942, striking at Japan itself seemed nothing short of impossible. Land-based bombers in China and Australia didn’t have the range to make it to Tokyo and return. Naval air raids were out of the question. Carrier-based aircraft had to be within 200 miles of their target—300 at the very most—and it was going to be many months, if not years, before the U.S. Pacific Fleet, ruined at Pearl Harbor, could be rebuilt strong enough to seriously challenge the Japanese navy west of Hawaii.
Fast carrier raids like those conducted by Halsey, Brown, and Fletcher helped keep the Imperial Fleet off balance—it wasn’t the same as going on the offensive. And in April of 1942, with the collapse of the Philippines—even with Wainwright holding out on Corregidor—almost everyone assumed that hitting the Japanese at home was impossible.
But those who were so despondent didn’t know that the U.S. Navy and Army had been working together for months on a daring plan to do just that. And they hadn’t reckoned on Jimmy Doolittle.
ATLANTIC OCEAN
U.S. NAVY CARRIER USS HORNET
NORFOLK, VIRGINIA
MID-JANUARY 1942
Two weeks after the attack on Pearl Harbor, Navy Captain Francis Low, a submarine officer on the staff of the chief of naval operations, Admiral Ernest J. King, was dispatched from Washington to Norfolk, Virginia. His mission was to determine what could be done to expedite the delivery of a brand-new carrier, the USS Hornet. While there, Low happened to observe some U.S. Army Air Corps bombers practicing takeoffs and landings from nearby Langley Field. Because the airfield was also used to train Navy pilots, it had the outline of a carrier deck painted on the runway. As Captain Low watched the Army bombers practice “touch and go” landings and takeoffs, his imagination took over.
Admiral Ernest J. King, chief of naval operations during World War II.
Returning to Washington, Low broached an idea with Admiral King that lesser men might have rejected, for fear of having their service loyalty—or even their sanity—questioned: “Sir, I’m wondering . . . would it be possible for Army bombers to take off from a carrier?”
No one had ever tried it before, but King, rather than rejecting the query out of hand, instantly grasped its importance. If a long-range Army bomber could take off from a carrier, the U.S. vessel—and those that accompanied it—wouldn’t have to get nearly as close to the target as smaller, shorter-range Navy aircraft did. With the Far East Air Force eliminated and the Philippines under siege, it might be the only way America could strike back at Japan for months or years to come.
Admiral King put the submarine officer to work on the concept and told him the goal was to find a way to attack the Japanese Home Islands. Although he wasn’t a pilot, Low understood that even if a fully loaded bomber could take off from a carrier, it was solving only half the problem. No large bomber could land on a carrier, and unless he could come up with a place for the Army aircraft to land, it would end up being a one-way suicide mission. Was there somewhere they could safely land?
General Henry “Hap” Arnold, commander, U.S. Army Air Forces.
Captain Low believed that the U.S. bombers might make it to a friendly base in China, where General Claire Chennault and a group of American “volunteers” were helping Chiang Kai-shek’s Nationalist Forces fight the Japanese. Unsure, he went back to King for advice.
Admiral King took the idea up to General Henry “Hap” Arnold, the Army Air Corps chief of staff. Intrigued, General Arnold immediately called his friend Lieutenant Colonel James H. “Jimmy” Doolittle for advice. Doolittle was a stunt flier, test pilot, and Army Air Corps officer. Yet Doolittle wasn’t just a brash hotshot. He’d also earned a degree in aeronautical engineering at MIT so he would fully understand the science of flight as well as its daring mystique. He was the kind of pilot who needed to know firsthand just how high a plane could go, how fast it could fly, and just what it was made of.
Doolittle had become a charismatic and popular figure in the 1920s and’30s winning just about every aviation trophy available. His fame and notoriety were second only to Charles Lindbergh’s. Doolittle had helped to develop the first high-octane aviation fuel and had pioneered instrument flying in 1929. After covering the windshield of his airplane with a hood, he became the first person to fly a course and land “blind,” using only the plane’s instruments to guide him.
But that was old news by now, and Hap Arnold had a new challenge for his daring friend. The general asked Doolittle, “Does America have a bomber that can take off in less than 500 feet and carry a 2,000-pound bomb load?” Arnold added that the planes had to have enough range to fly at least 2,000 miles and attack Japan.
Intrigued by the challenge, after several days of research, Doolittle told his boss that the only aircraft available for such a mission was the B-25, a relatively new twin-engine, land-based bomber, built by California’s North American Aviation. Asked why he selected the B-25, Doolittle replied, “Because it’s small . . . and has sufficient range to carry 2,000 pounds of bombs 2,000 miles.” Arnold gave his assent and left it up to Doolittle to work out the details.
HQ U.S. ARMY AIR CORPS
OFFICE OF LIEUTENANT COLONEL JAMES DOOLITTLE
WASHINGTON, D.C.
25 JANUARY 1942
The B-25 bomber Doolittle selected was trim—about fifty-three feet long (about the length of the typical semitrailer) and with a wingspan just a little over sixty-seven feet. Its right wingtip could just clear an aircraft carrier’s island, the superstructure on the starboard side of the vessel. But the overriding question still had to be answered: Could it take off from an aircraft carrier?
Doolittle and the Navy tested the idea with a couple of stripped-down B-25s aboard the USS Hornet. The planes rolled down the deck, and at sixty knots—about sixty-five miles per hour—showing on the airspeed indicator, the big bombers lifted into the air before they got to the end of the carrier deck. So far, so good. But there still was no proof that a B-25 fully loaded with bombs, extra fuel, and crew could repeat the feat. Doolittle worked out the calculations and said it could be done—in theory.
That was good
enough for Ernie King and Hap Arnold. Admiral King decided that the USS Hornet would be the ship, and Arnold told Doolittle that he could have as many B-25s as he needed for the operation.
The Hornet was the perfect choice for the mission. Brand-new, and outfitted at the then unheard-of cost of $31 million, it was the ship they had already used for testing the idea during her pre-commissioning trials.
Since only sixteen of the bombers would fit on the Hornet and still allow sufficient space on the 809-foot flight deck for a 500-foot takeoff roll, Doolittle now set out to find enough five-man crews to fly the mission. That should have meant he was looking for eighty men, but the forty-five-year-old lieutenant colonel needed only seventy-nine. Doolittle had convinced his superiors that he’d have to lead the attack, not just plan it.
USS Hornet. Doolittle’s Raiders launched from her deck in April 1942.
Doolittle began his search for aircrews by first asking the Army Air Corps to identify the best-trained B-25 unit. The 17th Bombardment Group, stationed at Pendleton Field, Oregon, was selected, and in early February 1942, the entire group was ordered to fly to Columbia, South Carolina, where they would be away from any possible enemy spies or collaborators. Once they arrived in South Carolina, Doolittle asked for volunteers to accompany him on a top-secret mission he described only as “dangerous.” One hundred and forty-nine men volunteered, from which he selected ninety-nine.
Doolittle divided the men into twenty five-man flight crews, and dispatched them to Eglin Field, on the Gulf Coast of Florida, where they spent most of March practicing takeoffs from a 500-foot section of runway to approximate what it would be like to launch from a carrier deck. They also practiced low-level bombing runs by flying just above the whitecaps in the Gulf of Mexico.
During this Florida “shakedown” period, Doolittle had each B-25 retrofitted with extra 225-gallon fuel tanks in the bomb bay and in the crawlway behind the cockpit. Sixty-gallon fuel tanks replaced guns in the bottom turrets, so radios, batteries, and even the tail guns were removed. Broomsticks, painted black, were inserted in the turrets and blisters in hopes that any pursuing Japanese fighter planes would mistake them for real machine guns and think twice about getting too close. Doolittle also used this time to trim down his volunteers to the seventy-nine who would accompany him on the mission.
While the aircraft were being modified, Doolittle sent two lieutenants, Thomas Griffin and Davey Jones, to Washington, D.C., to learn all they could about the enemy from Army Air Corps intelligence. Without divulging their mission, Griffin and Jones collected maps and photographs of five different Japanese cities. Doolittle wanted American bombs to land on at least five different locations so that that the enemy propaganda machine couldn’t hide the facts of the attacks from the Japanese people.
Twenty-six-year-old Dick Cole was among those who gave me their account of the mission. He was Doolittle’s copilot, and the plane’s navigator was Lieutenant Henry Potter, a twenty-two-year-old from South Dakota.
Lieutenant Bobby Hite, a farm boy from Texas, had planned to become an agricultural teacher but dropped out of college after three years and enlisted in the Army Air Corps. As a twenty-one-year-old copilot, he flew in the same B-25 as Corporal Jacob (“Jake”) DeShazer, their bombardier.
LIEUTENANT ROBERT HITE, US ARMY
Secret Training Site
Eglin Field, Florida
15 February 1942
We didn’t know at the time that we were going to Japan. Jimmy said it would be very dangerous, but he couldn’t tell us more. Everybody speculated that we were going to be sent to Europe. We just really didn’t have a clue. Nobody mentioned an aircraft carrier, but the whole group volunteered anyway.
We were ready. We wanted to go with Jimmy Doolittle wherever he went. And I think, in our hearts and minds, we had the attitude “we can do it.”
LIEUTENANT HENRY (“HANK”) POTTER,
US ARMY
Secret Training Site
Eglin Field, Florida
15 February 1942
When we got to Columbia, South Carolina, Doolittle gathered the flight crews together in a hangar and briefed us, stating, “We’re gonna need volunteers for a dangerous mission that will be of great importance to the American war effort.” Nobody could figure out where he wanted us to go or what he wanted us to do when we got there, but if Jimmy Doolittle was going, we wanted to be there.
He sent us to Eglin Field in Florida, where the pilots learned how to take off at short distances and the rest of us got the additional training in navigation, bombing, and firing machine guns. I don’t think that any one of us had any lack of confidence that we’d be able to make it. After all, we were flying with the premier pilot in the Air Corps at that time. If he couldn’t do it, it wasn’t going to be done.
USS HORNET
NAVY TASK FORCE 16.2
SAN FRANCISCO BAY
1 APRIL 1942
Finally, after more than a month of arduous training exercises and flight maneuvers, the planes and men were ready. Doolittle sent the armada of B-25s from Eglin Field to McClelland Field, not far from Sacramento, California. From there, on 22 March, the B-25s flew to Alameda Naval Air Station near Oakland, on San Francisco Bay.
During the nearly 3,000-mile trip to California, Doolittle had told his high-spirited aircrews to practice low-level flying. The young daredevils flew at practically cornstalk level, skimming over farmhouses, “hot-dogging” it across the country. They flew down through the Grand Canyon, and up and down the Sacramento Valley at an elevation of ten feet above ground level, sending farmers and fruit pickers scurrying for cover.
April Fool’s Day, 1942, was the date picked for having everything ready. The following morning, the carrier and its seven escort ships, designated as Task Force 16.2, sailed from San Francisco Bay. Once well out to sea, the skipper of the Hornet, Captain Marc Mitscher, with Doolittle beside him, announced over the ship’s PA system their objective—until now top secret information. The captains of the escorts did the same, telling all hands: “Now hear this—this task force is going to Japan.” Those who were there remember the cheering that reverberated across the decks.
Northwest of Hawaii, the Hornet and her escorts rendezvoused with Task Force 16.1, consisting of the carrier USS Enterprise, with Admiral Halsey aboard, and eight escorts. Together, the seventeen ships raced northwest across the Pacific, heading for the spot in the ocean 412 miles from the Japanese coast that Doolittle and the Navy planners had chosen as a takeoff point for the B-25s.
It was, for this high-risk mission, a sensible plan. U.S. naval intelligence officers knew that the Japanese had positioned picket ships along a perimeter 400 miles from their homeland. The warlords in Tokyo had done the math—they figured that the Americans would have to be no more than 300 miles from Japan in order to carry out any kind of attack with carrier-based aircraft. The U.S. Navy code-breakers also knew from intercepts of Japanese communications that the 26th Air Flotilla, with more than sixty bombers on alert, could take off on short notice and attack any U.S. vessel that the pickets sighted as far as 600 miles out—well before carrier-based task forces could launch an air attack on Japan.
Halsey’s fleet steamed west maintaining total radio silence, hoping that the 10,000-man task force could make it to within 412 miles of the Japanese coastline without being detected. Doolittle’s aircraft needed to be close enough to hit their targets and still have enough fuel to make it 800 more miles to recovery fields in China. After launching the bombers, the task force ships would turn and race south, hoping to be out of the area and beyond the range of any Japanese aircraft by the time they arrived at the launch site.
It was a superb plan—on paper. But the fliers were taking a huge risk. So were the aircraft carriers and their escorts. The Hornet and the Enterprise made up half of the entire carrier strength of the U.S. Pacific Fleet. If they were discovered and sunk by the Japanese, it could take years for America to rebound, rebuild its naval forces, and deal
with the Imperial Navy.
Aboard the Hornet, the Army aircrews were kept busy rehearsing the mission and working on the planes—critical parts were even delivered to them by blimp. They had to memorize maps and targets, listen to intelligence briefings, learn about Japan’s cities and culture, and review their options after the bombing runs.
Doolittle hoped that he had thought of everything. His plan called for Chinese guerrillas, under Chiang Kai-shek, to place radio beacons to lead the B-25s to safe landing fields in China. Still, his greatest anxiety was having enough fuel to reach them.
But if Doolittle had any doubts, he did not show it.
Corporal Jake DeShazer, from Salem, Oregon, was a cook for a sheep-herding camp before he joined the Army Air Corps in 1940 at the age of twenty-seven. He remembers being on KP duty when Pearl Harbor was bombed and thinking to himself, “Japan is really going to get it for this.” DeShazer recalls standing alone on the Hornet’s flight deck, thinking, “I wonder how many more days I am going to spend in this world. Maybe I wasn’t so fortunate after all to get to go on this trip.”
On 16 April, in heavy seas, the sailors and Army airmen aboard the Hornet moved the B-25s to a parking area at the rear of the flight deck, where they would be ready to take off. The following day the weather deteriorated further. Halsey and Doolittle, concerned about the ability of the sailors and airmen to work on the open flight deck, ordered the planes fueled and bombs loaded, even though the task force didn’t plan to be at the launch point until late on 19 April.
War Stories II Page 8