Posted on 04/18/2013 9:21:27 AM PDT by Retain Mike
One week after Pearl Harbor, President Roosevelt began pressing the U.S. military to immediately strike the Japanese homeland. Desires to bolster moral became more urgent in light of rapid Japanese advances. Victories in Malaya, Philippines, Wake Island, and Dutch East Indies included sinking the British battleships Prince of Wales and Repulse as the Japanese conquered Singapore.
Only improbable ideas warranted consideration, because submarines confirmed Japan placed picket boats at extreme carrier aircraft range. One idea even involved launching four engine heavy bombers from China or Outer Mongolia to strike Japan and fly on to Alaska. Captain Francis Law, a submariner, was the first to broach the idea of flying Army Air Corps medium bombers from an aircraft carrier. Jimmy Doolittle sold his boss at the Pentagon on the idea, with the proviso he would return to Washington for some real work.
By mid-January Doolittle began assembling the planes and crews. Few Army personnel underwent training or had experience for operations involving ocean navigation, so crews were chosen from the 17th Bombardment Group flying anti-submarine patrols from the newly build airfield at Pendleton Oregon.
Unaware of this pending mission, the 24 crews flew to Minneapolis where the bombers received extensive modifications. Installing auxiliary fuel tanks increased capacity over 70%. Increased fuel weight then required removing a 230 pound liaison radio and the lower twin 50cal. ball turret which was later accomplished at then Eglin air base in Florida. One auxiliary fuel tank required bomb rack modification. The planes lacked rear defense, so two blackened broom handles were installed in the tail cone after the planes boarded the Hornet aircraft carrier. A special aluminum jig for low level bombing replaced the top secret Norden bomb sight. Cameras were installed to record bombing results.
While in Minneapolis the officers were told their destination was not Columbia, South Carolina for anti-submarine patrol. They were asked to volunteer for a dangerous, important, and interesting mission for which no information could be given. Nearly everyone volunteered even though most were new to their trade. Of the 16 pilots Doolittle actually took on the raid only five had won their wings before 1941and all but one was less than a year out of flight school.
Jimmy Doolittle, now a Lieutenant Colonel, met them in Eglin’s operation’s office. He said, “If you men have any idea that this isn’t the most dangerous thing you’ve ever been on, don’t start this training period…..This whole thing must be kept secret. I don’t want you to tell your wives…..Don’t even talk among yourselves about this thing. Now does anyone want to drop out?” Nobody dropped out.
The crews began training in Pensacola Florida 48 days before the raid using a remote runway flagged to mark available carrier deck length. In three weeks the crews learned to take off at near stalling speed, overloaded, and in just over a football field length. At Pendleton pilots had used a mile long runway to build up speed.
Twenty two bomber crews hedgehopped across country to San Francisco. The sixteen crews who reported no problems had their planes lifted aboard ship. Those who reported problems, however minor, were devastated when Doolittle excluded them from the mission.
The Hornet left the U.S. and joined the Enterprise at sea April 13, 1942. Now two of the four carriers in the Pacific with 14 escorts and 10,000 crew members steamed towards Japan. From radio intercepts, the Japanese knew the carriers that had eluded their six carrier strike force on December 7 were underway somewhere in the Western Pacific. Unbeknownst to the Americans, the Japanese patrolling picket boats were 650 miles, not 300 miles, offshore to provide intelligence needed for an overwhelming counterattack.
On April 18 the U.S. task force encountered this picket line 170 miles before their planned launch. The pilots rushed to their planes as the ship plowed into the wind and 30 foot swells. A Navy officer twirled a flag and listened for the right pitch from the revving engines. The pilots, who had never flown from a carrier, saw the ship’s bow reaching into a grey sky, and then falling into a dark grey sea. When released, they quivered down a bucking flight deck keeping the left wheel on a white line to just miss the superstructure by six feet. Every plane lifted safely from a rising deck into the grey morning; even Ted Lawson who discovered he had launched with flaps up.
The bombers proceeded independently to Tokyo, Yokohama, Nagoya and Kobe. The industrial targets were first identified two years previously by a Soviet naval attaché in Japan, who imparted to his American counterpart those several years of research. The Soviet Union were long aware of Japan’s plans to attack both China and U.S.S.R. (strike north), or to attack colonial possessions of the U.S, Netherlands and Britain (strike south).
Colonel Doolittle considered the raid a failure. Every plane had been lost; one interred in the Soviet Union, and fifteen crashed in China with eight crew members captured by the Japanese. He saw the raid as secondary to the bombers safely arriving and providing Chennault’s air force an offensive capability.
However, the raid proved a crucial moral victory demonstrating Americans could do the impossible even if their battle fleet was blasted to wreckage, and they were losing an army in the Philippines. The Imperial Navy suffered a devastating loss of face, because Admiral Yamamoto had guaranteed the Emperor that Americans would never attack their home islands.
Doolittle Raiders 70th Anniversary: http://www.washingtontimes.com/specials/doolittles-tokyo-raid/ http://www.bing.com/images/search?q=doolittle+raiders+70th+anniversary&qpvt=doolittle+raiders+70th+anniversary&FORM=IGRE http://doolittlereunion.com/
Pendleton Field http://www.ohs.org/education/oregonhistory/historical_records/dspDocument.cfm?doc_ID=C9A94F93-E10A-57A0-B694B0AFFE69184C
They practiced at an axillary field, south of Tyndall AFB, the old weed covered field is still there with the marks showing where to run up, and the marks showing where you had to be off of the runway... Been there many times while stationed at Tyndall.
The U.S. Army conducted air warfare on a level never seen since, or to be seen again.
No it was at Eglin. When my Father got out of WWII he went to work at Tyndall for 5 years then worked at Eglin for 30 more years until he retired.
Field’s 1 and 2 were not too far from where we lived, S.E of DeFuniak Springs. I could sit in our pasture and watch planes do bombing and strafing runs. I couldn’t see the actual bombs fall but could see the planes dive then the ground would shake from the bombs.
That is the same place the Doolittle Raiders trained. Nearby Ft. Walton is where their next and probably last reunion will be.
IIRC, the raid caused the Japanese to recall their fleet in the Indian Ocean that had crushed all British opposition.
Thanks for the help. Every year it gets a little better.
I remember Ted Lawson mentioning that in his book. I have got to find it. That is definitely important. thanks for the help.
‘With full flaps, engines at full throttle and his left wing far out over the port side of the Hornet, Doolittle’s plane waddled and then lunged slowly into the teeth of the gale that swept down the deck. His left wheel stuck on the white line as if it were on a track.
His right wing, which had barely cleared the wall of the island as he taxied and was guided up to the starting line, extended nearly to the edge of the starboard side.
Doolittle picked up more speed and held to his line, just as the Hornet lifted up on the top of a wave and cut through it at full speed. He had yards to spare. He hung his ship almost straight up on its props, until we could see the whole top of his B-25. Then he leveled off and I watched him come around in a tight circle and shoot low over our heads – straight down the line painted on the deck.”
And coincidentally Admiral Yamamoto was shot down on the same date, 18 April, in 1943.
Have you read how Charles Lindbergh was instrumental in that event?
No..How?
This happened regularly. When this information sifted up through to the high command, Lindbergh moved, at General MacArthur’s request, from group to group instructing in fuel conservation and illustrating his lectures by flying with the squadrons.
His work was credited with lengthening the range and tremendously increasing the usefulness of the P-38 for long-range bombing escorts. His efforts enabled P-38 fighters to shoot down a Japanese bomber that was carrying Admiral Yamamoto, the architect of the attack on Pearl Harbor. Altogether he spent six months in the Pacific, made fifty combat missions, put in 178 combat hours, and returned to Connecticut with complete reports on fighter planes, their performance, and their problems.
This happened regularly. When this information sifted up through to the high command, Lindbergh moved, at General MacArthur’s request, from group to group instructing in fuel conservation and illustrating his lectures by flying with the squadrons.
His work was credited with lengthening the range and tremendously increasing the usefulness of the P-38 for long-range bombing escorts. His efforts enabled P-38 fighters to shoot down a Japanese bomber that was carrying Admiral Yamamoto, the architect of the attack on Pearl Harbor. Altogether he spent six months in the Pacific, made fifty combat missions, put in 178 combat hours, and returned to Connecticut with complete reports on fighter planes, their performance, and their problems.
Altogether he spent six months in the Pacific, made fifty combat missions, put in 178 combat hours, and returned to Connecticut with complete reports on fighter planes, their performance, and their problems.
Yes, but all that was a year after Yamamoto bit the dust. Lindbergh did help make signicant improvements to the P-38’s range which contributed significantly to the war effort, but reaching Bougainville was not his doing. That was accomplished by using external, jettisonable, wing tanks.
IIRC, before he was attached to MacArthur’s forces in New Guinea, he was touring front line units, including the unit which got Yamamoto, and I recall reading the testimony of a member of the unit stating that Lindbergh was instrumental in their success in getting Yamamoto (but I can’t remember where I read it).
You read it in the article you linked.http://www.ww2incolor.com/us-air-force/lindbergh01.html
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