Target Tokyo: Jimmy Doolittle and the Raid That Avenged Pearl Harbor

by Scott, James M.

  The strong response from the normally relaxed and jovial commander in chief shocked some in the media. “President Roosevelt has issued the most powerfully worded statement of his whole career,” proclaimed Robert St. John of NBC. “The statement is full of strong, red blooded words. Call them hate words, if you will.”

  The reaction from members of Congress proved equally fierce. A few lawmakers went so far as to demand like reprisals, while others insisted America dedicate more resources to the war in the Pacific.

  “We are fighting a bunch of beasts,” argued Representative John Rankin of Mississippi, “not a nation of human beings.”

  “So gruesome it defies comment,” asserted Speaker of the House Sam Rayburn of Texas.

  Senator Tom Stewart of Tennessee seized on the execution to build support for his bill to intern all Japanese and even Americans of Japanese descent, arguing in a speech that he hoped his fellow lawmakers would strip citizenship from the “yellow devils.” “Where there is a drop of Jap blood, there is treachery,” Stewart howled. “They cannot and never will be honest. The execution of the American airmen confirms that statement. They are unworthy of the rights of citizens.”

  Even William Douglas, an associate justice of the Supreme Court, sounded off. “Those boys were not killed,” Douglas said. “They were murdered. They have laid on us obligations from which we cannot escape.”

  Letters of outrage poured into the White House, many exposing the nation’s long-simmering social tensions. Rollie Toles of Pasadena argued that acts just as barbaric had been committed against the nation’s blacks. Other letters targeted people of Japanese descent, just as Breckinridge Long had feared. “In the face of your report of the horrible manner our flyers were treated by Japan do you still feel any Jap of any standing whatever should be permitted the freedom of this West Coast area,” asked Ira Seltzer of Los Angeles. “We out here definitely do not.”

  W. A. McMahon of Reno was far more hostile in his letter to the president. “With horror, we hear of the execution of some of Gen. Doolittle’s men, by these goddam Japs,” he wrote. “I despise them, as they are nothing but heathens, cannibals and rats. They should be treated as such, and KILLED and eliminated.”

  In response to the executions, North American Aviation announced that its workers named eight new bombers after the captured raiders, while the Wright Aeronautical Corporation’s chief field engineer told reporters that he used a Japanese-made slide rule—complete with the Rising Sun markings—to perfect the power control calculations used by the Tokyo raiders. Bond sales soared, and newspapers that had been critical of the military’s evolving story of the raid now rallied in horror at the execution of the American airmen, targeting the enemy in outraged editorials with headlines such as “Japanese Beasts,” “The Savages of Tokyo,” and “Those Jap Murderers.”

  Many broadcast journalists likewise vilified the enemy. “Never before has Japan committed an act so arrogant, so vicious and so impelling to immediate retaliation, as the execution, in cold blood, of American prisoners of war,” declared Joseph Harsch of CBS. “They were not killed when they had a chance to defend themselves. They were taken prisoner, tortured, finally executed on a charge which was trumped up.”

  More than a few newspapers and magazines resorted to racist stereotypes, including an editorial cartoon in Time magazine that depicted a cocked pistol labeled “Civilization” pointed at the head of an ape on whose chest was written, “Murderers of American Fliers.”

  “The Japs are even lower than the apes,” echoed the Independent Tribune of Anderson, South Carolina. “The sneak Pearl Harbor attack should have been ample warning of what the Monkey Men would do to war prisoners.”

  Amid such calls for retaliation a few voices in Congress and the press urged restraint, a sentiment captured by an editorial in the Washington Post. “Horror breeds a demand for reprisals and we must avoid reprisals on the Japanese pattern like the plague,” the paper argued. “Any such reprisals would indicate that, far from delivering Japan of its virus, we were letting the Japanese inoculate us with it. Then we should have lost the war. We must crush Japan, but without doing violence to our values.”

  The executions, the loss of the bombers, and the retaliation suffered by the Chinese made some observers question whether the raid was even worth it, including syndicated columnist David Lawrence, who had previously published Billy Farrow’s creed. “The raid on Tokyo can be classed, therefore, as a stunt—a token affair designed for its psychological effect rather than its military value,” he wrote. “Stunts play a part, but they are not usually worth the risks unless they are integrated in a well-sustained military plan.”

  The execution of the raiders hit hard in the military. “We must not rest—we must redouble our efforts until the inhuman war lords who committed this crime have been utterly destroyed,” Hap Arnold declared in a message sent to the entire air force. “Remember those comrades when you get a Zero in your sight—have their sacrifice before you when you line up your bomb-sight on a Japanese base.”

  Admiral Halsey, who commanded the Tokyo task force, was less politic. “We’ll make the bastards pay!” he snarled through gritted teeth as the birthmark on his neck turned bright purple. “We’ll make ’em pay!”

  Doolittle’s fury was evident as he addressed reporters at the Allied headquarters in North Africa, vowing that America would bomb Japan until the empire crumbled and its leaders begged for mercy. “We will drop each bomb in memory of our murdered comrades,” vowed Doolittle, who was joined by his fellow raiders Rodney Wilder and Howard Sessler. “Such a hideous act violates all our principles of right and justice—all the things we are now fighting for. After my first feeling of regret that such wanton barbarity could still exist in a civilized world, I could only feel a deep loathing and resentment toward the war leaders who were responsible for the act.”

  “The day will come when these atrocities will be avenged,” Sessler added. “I hope I am among the avengers.”

  Raiders elsewhere promised payback.

  “We won’t forget!” Joseph Manske wrote in the New York Herald Journal. “We’ve been over Tokio once—and we’ll be over it again.”

  The families of the captured raiders struggled with the news that the Japanese had executed some of the airmen. The rushed release of information meant that most had learned the news from the radio or newspapers. Sid Gross, the head copyboy at the Cleveland Press—and close friend of Bob Meder’s family—called and broke the news to Meder’s mother, an experience he described in an angry letter to Steve Early, the White House press secretary. “She was very upset. In addition she was shocked that the news had to be given to her over the phone and not by official notification from the government. It is cruel and thoughtless for the families,” he wrote, “to learn of the unhappy news without being previously warned.”

  Reporters sought out the families for interviews, some of whom were in denial. “The Japanese just can’t be so heartless and inhuman as all that,” Meder’s mother told the press. “They just couldn’t resort to such vile and insane acts with our boys.”

  “I don’t see how any one who professes to be of the human race can be so cruel and inhumane,” said Chase Nielsen’s mother.

  The mother of Donald Fitzmaurice, who had drowned in the surf after the crash of the Green Hornet, told reporters she was convinced her son was now fighting alongside the Chinese guerrillas, whereas Billy Farrow’s mother was more pragmatic. “What the Japs are dealing out to those left,” she said, “may be worse than death.”

  CHAPTER 24

  For victory, the black heart of Japan must be bombed again and again.

  —PHILADELPHIA INQUIRER, APRIL 22, 1943

  SKI YORK AND HIS CREW traveled almost a week by train, followed by several more days in a flat-bottomed ferry boat on the Kama River, before finally disembarking at the village of Okhansk, located at the foot of the Ural Mountains. Poverty was rampant in this communal farm village. “There was no
pavement in the town at all,” Emmens recalled. “Everything was just dirt and these almost hovels.”

  The raiders settled into a primitive home—albeit one with a fresh coat of paint—that boasted a kitchen, a dining room, a bedroom for York and Emmens to share, and another for Ted Laban and David Pohl. Nolan Herndon would have to sleep on a bed in the small hall. The single bathroom consisted of a hole in the floor that emptied out under the home. “The odor,” Emmens later wrote, “can be imagined.”

  The Russians measured the airmen for winter clothes. After the first week, a bundle of forty letters arrived. York counted thirteen and Emmens ten, while the others split up the rest. “I will never forget the thrill of receiving news from home,” Emmens recalled. “Both Ski and I received pictures from home of our new offspring.”

  “I wonder how old our kids will be when we get out of this place?” Emmens asked.

  “Jesus,” York answered, “I wonder.”

  Hope seemed to arrive when Major General Follett Bradley, who was in Russia on a mission from Roosevelt to speed up the delivery of lend-lease supplies, visited the crew. Joined by Ambassador Joseph Standley and recently promoted Brigadier General Michela, the three departed Kuibyshev the afternoon of September 11, flying in a twin-engine Douglas transport to Molotov. There the Americans boarded the provincial governor’s yacht, a side-wheel riverboat. “The countryside was even more beautiful from the steamer than it had been from the air, the foothills of the Ural mountains rising gently from the river, forested with deciduous trees flaming with the gorgeous colors of Autumn,” Standley wrote. “Turbulent mountain streams tumbled down the hills, so crystal clear and beautiful that I longed for a chance to wet a fly in one of them.”

  The American officials disembarked the next day at Okhansk. The raiders watched from the top of the riverbank, marveling at the governor’s yacht.

  “Boy,” York said, “that’s not exactly consistent with the communism this country preaches, is it?”

  The ambassador caught sight of the anxious airmen. “I saw a little group of men in American khaki uniforms at the top of the bluff,” Standley later wrote. “They waved excitedly and we waved back.”

  The raiders saluted the senior officers on arrival, and the group made introductions of everyone and shook hands.

  “Wonderful country,” Standley said, trying to make conversation.

  “Yes, sir,” York replied, “except when you are stuck in it.”

  Everyone laughed.

  The group returned to the house. The primitive conditions surprised Standley, who described the home as resembling a “log cabin.” The Americans sat down at the dining room table. “Not exactly like home,” the ambassador said, “is it?”

  York asked about the war, and Bradley gave the men a brief update. “What news do you have of the rest of our gang from the Tokyo raid?” Emmens asked.

  “The raid made quite an impression back home,” Bradley said.

  York mentioned that Japanese reports broadcast in Russia claimed the loss of as many as seven bombers.

  “None of the ships was lost over Japan itself,” Bradley said. “Some of them did have trouble when they got to China. In fact, I think the Japs got one or two of the crews, but I don’t think any of them was shot down.”

  One of the Russians brought in a box of supplies for the raiders, including more magazines, toothpaste, and a Russian grammar book that the fliers had requested. “It’s not much,” Michela said, “just a couple of shirts and some toothpaste sample tubes.”

  The airmen appreciated the supplies and asked for the possibility of getting some new clothes and shoes. Michela instructed them to write down their sizes.

  “Have they been feeding you well?” Standley asked.

  “No, sir,” York replied. “They have not! We have been living on rice and cabbage and black bread and tea until the word came of your visit. All that food that you see was brought in last night for your benefit.”

  The American diplomats were appalled, but powerless to do much to help—and the raiders knew it. “I felt a tremendous letdown creeping over me, and I think the other boys felt it too. Here were our own countrymen, the only people in Russia who could do anything for us, but their hands were tied,” Emmens wrote. “They had no more chance of getting the Russians to do something for us than we did.”

  Standley had to balance bigger concerns and carefully chose his battles. These were just five fliers out of what one day might be thousands who would land on Soviet soil. The ambassador couldn’t push the Russians too far. “I felt terribly sorry for the boys, but, after all, like the rest of us, they were caught up in the maw of a vast war which might go on for years,” he later wrote. “I wanted to help them and to establish a procedure for all the others who would land in Russian territory as the home islands of the Japanese came within the bomber line of our advancing forces.”

  York leaned across the table toward Michela.

  “General, we are having a rather bad time. This enforced idleness is not good,” he said. “If nothing has happened by the time the spring thaws come, I’m afraid we are going to have to try getting out on our own, even from up here. In that event, is there anything you can do for us? We would need maps and a compass.”

  Michela said he suspected the raiders might be planning an escape, but cautioned that the embassy could not help. “I don’t blame you for feeling that way, but you can imagine what would happen if the embassy were caught aiding you.”

  “You would all be taking pretty much of a chance trying anything like that,” Standley added.

  Bradley intervened, informing the raiders that he was trying to arrange a route to ship lend-lease bombers to Russia via Alaska. “If I am successful, it just might be worked out that you could all be absorbed into the crew setup of Americans who will be flying airplanes into Russia,” the general said, warning the men not to get too excited. “On the other hand, if these people want to keep you here in the Soviet Union, there is nothing I can do, you can do, or anybody else can do about it to change their minds.”

  York said the news was encouraging. “You must all try not to lose your powers of reason. You must remember that, after all, there is a war being fought, a big war, and it will last a long time,” Bradley added. “You are five Americans up here in Siberia. Your getting out or staying here will not change the course of that war.”

  The general then produced a carton of smokes from his briefcase. “Oh, boy, American cigarettes!” York exclaimed. “We’ll have to really ration these.”

  The raiders passed along lists of desired supplies and letters for the embassy to mail and then accompanied the ambassador and generals down to the dock. “I felt as if we were saying good-by to our only hopes of leaving, our only connection with the outside world,” Emmens wrote. “Actually, we were!”

  Standley would note in his report to Secretary of State Hull that he found the raiders in “good health, comfortably housed, adequately fed and in general well taken care of,” but the ambassador empathized with the airmen’s frustration. “I knew how the men felt,” he later wrote. “I tried to cheer the boys up as best I could without arousing false hope. They were still standing on the ferry barge looking after us and waving, as the little yacht rounded the first bend in the Kama River.”

  SEPTEMBER GAVE WAY TO October and then November. The weather grew cold and wet as the village’s dirt roads first turned to mud and then froze. By October a foot of snow blanketed the area, and large pieces of ice floated down the Kama, a brief prelude before the entire river froze, making river passage impossible until spring. Unaccustomed to such brutal cold, the raiders remained mostly indoors. “Our morale was becoming lower day by day,” Emmens wrote. “It was becoming necessary to be extremely careful of the things we said and the manner in which we said them to one another. Any serious rift among ourselves would be bad, in our close quarters.”

  As the group’s leader, York enforced discipline, insisting that his men use formalit
ies such as “yes, sir” and “no, sir.” Though he was best friends with Emmens, he likewise required the junior officer do the same in front of the others, though in private the two used each other’s nicknames. “I knew we had to maintain discipline,” York later said. “Instead of coming out like a bunch of bums, we would come out like a bunch of troops.” The raiders split firewood outdoors and studied Russian, chuckling over the grammar book’s propagandist sentences, such as “In America, the workers are poorly fed, poorly clothed, and are generally mistreated by the ruling class.” “I spent about ten hours a day studying Russian,” York recalled. “I figured this would probably be the only chance in the world where I would want to learn the language, but as long as I had to be there, I was going to come out with something.”

  The raiders played hearts each night after dinner until the evening news came on at midnight, devising a system to reward the winner as well as solve petty grievances. “The heaviest loser had to put his head down in the seat on the divan with his bottom toward the center of the room,” Emmens later wrote. “Each of the other players was allowed to render him one swat on the stern with an open hand. The swat could be helped by a running start from the opposite wall. The second loser received similar treatment from the remaining three, the third loser from the remaining two, the fourth loser from the winner only, and the winner suffered only a sore hand. This offered some vent to ill feeling which any of us might build up during the week.”

  In late November, assistant military attaché Major Robert McCabe and naval physician Commander Frederick Lang visited the crew, arriving by horse-drawn sleigh with magazines, books, and several bottles of American whiskey.