Doolittle Raid April 18, 1942. LTC Jimmy Doolittle.

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Doolittle Raid April 18, 1942

Transcript of Doolittle Raid April 18, 1942. LTC Jimmy Doolittle.

Doolittle RaidApril 18, 1942

LTC Jimmy Doolittle

Doolittle RaidApril 18, 1942

• Sixteen U.S. Army Air Forces B-25B Mitchell medium bombers were launched from the U.S. Navy's aircraft carrier USS Hornet deep in the Western Pacific Ocean.

• The plan called for them to bomb military targets in Japan, and to continue westward to land in China

• Landing a medium bomber on the Hornet was impossible.

In this April 18, 1942 file photo, U.S. Army Air Corps Lt. Col. James Doolittle fastens a medal on the tail of a 500-pound bomb that he and the crew of 16

B-25 bombers dropped on Tokyo during a surprise raid.

Yokosuka Naval Base near Tokyo undergoes a bomb attack, seen from a B-25 bomber during Major General James Doolittle's raid

on Tokyo on April 18, 1942.

• All the aircraft involved in the bombing were lost and 11 crewmen were either killed or captured—with three of the captured men executed by the Japanese Army in China.

• One of the B-25s landed in the Soviet Union at Vladivostok, where it was confiscated and its crew interned for more than a year.

• Thirteen entire crews, and all but one crewman of a 14th, returned either to the United States or to American forces.[

Wreckage of Major General Doolittle's plane somewhere in China after the raid on Tokyo. Doolittle is seated on wreckage to the right.

Doolittle's fliers in China after the

Tokyo raid of April 18, 1942.

A blindfolded American military pilot is escorted from a plane, possibly to his own execution, by two Japanese soldiers. The unidentified pilot may have been taken

prisoner during the 1942 Doolittle raids over Tokyo. The Japanese declared that any pilot shot down over Japan during this raid would be executed.

• The raid caused negligible material damage to Japan, but it succeeded in its goal of helping American morale, and casting doubt in Japan on the ability of the Japanese military leaders.

• It also caused Japan to withdraw its powerful aircraft carrier force from the Indian Ocean to defend their Home Islands, and the raid contributed to Admiral Yamamoto’s decision to attack Midway—an attack that turned into a decisive rout of the Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN) by the U.S. Navy near Midway Island in the Central Pacific.

Original caption:4/26/1943-Washington, DC: This poster was

issued by the Treasury Department in Washington today, in answer to

the Japanese execution of American fliers, captured after

bombing of Tokyo.

For conspicuous leadership above the call of duty, involving personal valor and intrepidity at an extreme hazard to life. With the apparent certainty of being forced to land in enemy territory or to perish at sea, Gen. Doolittle personally led a squadron of Army bombers, manned by volunteer crews, in a highly destructive raid on the Japanese mainland.

MG James Doolittle being awarded a Medal of Honor for his part in the Raid on Tokyo. Presented by FDR.

Doolittle Raid Animation