The Doolittle Raid

One week after Pearl Harbor, President Roosevelt began pressing the U.S. military to immediately strike the Japanese homeland. The desire to bolster moral became more urgent in light of rapid Japanese advances. These included victories in Malaya, Singapore, the Philippines, Wake Island, Guam, and the Dutch East Indies, as well as sinking the British battleships Prince of Wales and Repulse.

Only improbable, audacious 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 Low, a submariner, first broached to Admiral Ernest King the idea of flying Army Air Corps medium bombers from an aircraft carrier. King thought Low’s “foolish idea” might be have merit and ordered him to contact Captain Donald Duncan, King’s air operations officer. Duncan reviewed the specifications of all Army Air Corps bombers and decided the B-25 could be modified to do the job. King then sent Low and Duncan to General Hap Arnold who bought the idea and directed Colonel Jimmy Doolittle to make the raid happen.

By mid-January 1942 Doolittle began assembling the planes and crews. As one of the first MIT aeronautical engineering graduates he could not only agree with Duncan’s initial assessment, but in choosing the B-25B knew exactly how to turn a possibly into a reality. Since few Army personnel underwent training or had experience for operations involving ocean navigation, crews were chosen from the 17th Bombardment Group flying anti-submarine patrols from the newly build airfield at Pendleton Oregon.

While in Minneapolis Captain David M. Jones told the officers 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 1941 and all but one was less than a year out of flight school.

Jimmy Doolittle, now a Lieutenant Colonel, met all 140 of 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 with Lieutenant Henry L. Miller, USN (who later became an “Honorary Tokyo Raider”) on Elgin Field 48 days before the raid. The crews used a remote runway flagged to mark available carrier deck length. In three weeks the crews learned to take off at near stalling speeds of 50-60 miles per hour, overloaded, and in just over a football field length. At Pendleton pilots had used a mile long runway to build up speed to 80-90 miles per hour.

As the mission armament officer, Captain Charles Ross Greening improvised substitutes after removal of the top secret Norden bombsight and the lower gun turret. At Elgin he and Tech Sergeant Edward Bain designed a substitute bomb sight with two pieces of aluminum. The “Mark Twain” device could be rapidly fabricated in the base metal shop and provided superior accuracy for this low-altitude bombing assignment. On board the Hornet Greening installed a pair of black-painted broom handles in each aircraft's tail cone to intimidate attacking enemies.

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 American carriers in the Pacific with 14 escorts and 10,000 crew members steamed towards Japan. The Army crews shared quarters with the navy squadrons. Edgar McElroy, pilot of #13 aircraft remembers bunking with two members of Torpedo Bomber Squadron Eight. He later learned that they along with all but one member of the squadron died at the Battle of Midway.

From radio traffic analysis, 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 the 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. Each aircraft received at this last minute 11 extra 5gal gas cans. A Navy officer twirled a flag, listened for the right tone from the revving engines, and felt for the precise moment to release them on the pitching deck. 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 angry ocean sending salt spray across the deck. 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 stormy sky; even Ted Lawson who discovered he had launched with flaps up and initially plunged towards the ocean.

The bombers proceeded independently to Tokyo, Yokohama, Yokosuka, Nagoya and Kobe. While underway the industrial targets had been briefed by Lt Stephen Jurika who was naval attaché in Tokyo 1939-1941. He imparted information from not only his own travels, but from a Soviet counterpart who had spent several years researching possible bombing targets. The Soviet Union was 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 plane and crew was interred in the Soviet Union. Fifteen crashed in China resulting in three crewmen deaths. Eight crew members were captured of whom three were executed and one starved to death in Japanese prison camps. 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 the Americans would never attack their home islands.

Charles Ross Greening, Colonel United States Air Force http://www.arlingtoncemetery.net/crgreening.htm

Greening, Colonel Charles Ross (1914-1957), HistoryLink.org Essay 10320 http://www.historylink.org/index.cfm?DisplayPage=output.cfm&file_id=10320

The Navy Targets Tokyo http://www.usni.org/magazines/navalhistory/2015-04/navy-targets-tokyo

Letters from the Precipice of War (Steven Jurika) http://www.usni.org/magazines/navalhistory/2014-01/letters-precipice-war

Sorge: A Chronology (Excerpts 1942) http://richardsorge.com/excerpts/1942/index.html

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

A final toast for the Doolittle Raiders http://www.cnn.com/2013/04/14/opinion/greene-doolittle-raiders

Jonna Doolittle Hoppes "Jimmy Doolittle Raid" presentation at Historic Flight Foundation http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fgt8PMoRGG8

Doolittle Raiders: The Last Reunion (VIDEO) http://salem-news.com/articles/may302013/doolittle-raiders-rn.php

Doolittle Raider forum, etc. http://www.doolittleraider.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=128&t=579 http://www.dontow.com/2012/03/the-doolittle-raid-mission-impossible-and-its-impact-on-the-u-s-and-china/ http://www.historynet.com/countdown-to-the-doolittle-raid.htm

“But it was Eglin base in Florida not Elgin.”

Actually, the Raiders trained at Duke Field, more than ten miles north of Eglin AFB proper. Duke is still in use, situated today within the bounds of Eglin AFB Reservation, which extends across portions of three Florida Panhandle counties, encompassing over 460,000 acres. In 1942 Duke was called Eglin Auxiliary Number 3: its namesake, 1Lt Robert L. Duke, did not perish until December 1943.

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%. Range eventually increased from about 1,000 to 2,500 miles by also utilizing flying configurations and practices designed to conserve fuel. Increased fuel weight then required removing a 230 pound liaison radio. The lower twin 50cal. remote control turret was later removed at Eglin Field in Florida saving 600 pounds. An armored 40gal fuel tank was then inserted. Cameras were installed to record bombing results.

...

On board the Hornet Greening installed a pair of black-painted broom handles in each aircraft's tail cone to intimidate attacking enemies.

Thanks for putting this together, and posting it every year.

Hope you don't mind that I suggest a small correction. The broomstick "tail guns" were put in at Minneapolis, actually before the belly turrets were removed. Here about halfway down you can see a couple pics of Doolittle B-25s at Minneapolis, one shot from the rear quarter of 02242 (Plane #8, piloted by Capt. Edward "Ski" York, which ended up landing in Russia) where you can just barely see the "tail guns" and the belly turret.

You can also see pictures here, about 20% of the way down (from the Roy Stork Collection) of the "tail guns" in place but the belly turrets now gone during the short take-off training.

A book just out, titled “Target Tokyo,” reviewed in today's WSJ, suggests the primary accomplishment of the raid was to convince the Japanese that what remained of the American fleet had to be destroyed, and quickly.

Thus, the battle of Midway only a few months after the Tokyo raid. We know how that turned out...

Yeah, that the Doolittle Raid changed Japanese thinking on what they needed to do to take out the US carriers is pretty well-known fact. Covered pretty well in the opening scenes of Tora Tora Tora.

I got the information about the belly turret and the broom sticks from Doolittle’s autobiography, which for some unknown reason I failed to list among my references. On page 246 of the hardcopy he says, “While the pilots were training at an auxiliary field, modifications were continuing on the B-25’s at Elgin…..A major problem we encountered concerned the electrically powered gun turrets. The early B-25’s had a top and lower turret with twin .50-caleber machine guns….. There were no guns installed in the tail section…..Much credit must go to Ross Greening for solving our armament problems. He suggested that we install two broomsticks in the tail and paint them black to simulate a tail gun position…..And since the lower turrets gave us nothing but headaches and were very complicated to operate, Greening suggested removing them. Again, I approved.”

I read those pages again and the book (I Never Could Be So Lucky Again) seems to be following a linear time line implying these events happened in Florida. Any mention of Ross Greening doesn’t show up until they are in Florida. But I think am also seeing the same things you are.

I found at least one other inconsistancy when I was checking about the guns again. His autobiography says the tank replacing the lower turret was 60 gallons and another source says 40 gallons. The book says the 60 gallon tank was always intended to be filled from 10 5 gallon cans loaded onto the planes, but Ted Lawson says all the tanks were topped off before they lifted into the air.

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