[oldplayer]

Thanks for posting this. However, after all this time, how does the WSJ allow little errors to creep into the article? Not nit-picking, but B-25’s are medium bombers (not heavies) and, it is pretty certain that the Japanese did NOT know of the attack before the planes were over Japan.

That doesn’t change the heroism and sacrifice of the crews, or the strategic effects of the raid. It’s just frustrating that journalism can be so careless.

[DUMBGRUNT]

—”the Japanese did NOT know of the attack before the planes were over 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.[31] The boat was sunk by gunfire from USS Nashville.[note 5] 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.[33]

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.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doolittle_Raid

[Does so]

it is pretty certain that the Japanese did NOT know of the attack before the planes were over Japan.”

The operation was sighted by Japanese “picket ships”, several of which were sunk, and rescuees interrogated. B-25s launched early.

Radio intercept from “MY CT2 Navy People”. Pictures and intel here:

https://stationhypo.com/?s=Doolittle+

[Does so]

USN Radiomen all agreed Japan knew of the raid. They did not know of how high in Japanese ranks to which the messages were relayed.

"The big question posed to the intercept unit was: did any of the picket boats successfully transmit a sighting report to the enemy command. Intercept operators soon confirmed that sighting reports had indeed been transmitted. These were plain language sighting reports which the enemy apparently did not have time to encode. The sighting reports were also detected being relayed on several frequencies which seemed to confirm that they had been entered into the enemy military communications system. Unfortunately, due to the earlier call sign change, we could not specifically identify the levels of command at which the reports had been received."

https://stationhypo.com/2022/04/18/remembering-the-doolittle-raid-april-18-1942-80-years-ago/#more-19154

Whereupon, the raid was immediately launched...