Remembering the Doolittle Raiders….75 Years Later
More than four months after America’s entry into World War II, there had been no U.S. victories to report, neither in Europe nor in the Pacific. There had been plenty of grit and courage, to be sure, but no American victory anywhere on the far-flung fields of international conflict. Legendary heroism had already been displayed by our Marines on Wake Island, by our soldiers in the Philippines, and by our sailors onboard the USS HOUSTON in the Battle of Sunda Strait. But all of these had ultimately resulted in defeats, involving the surrender or death of thousands of Americans. Morale on the home front was sinking low.
All of that was about to change on April 18, 1942. On that day, 75 years ago, sixteen American B-25 Mitchell bombers, under the command of Lieutenant Colonel Jimmy Doolittle, suddenly appeared out of the eastern sky over Tokyo and three other large Japanese cities. Without realizing it, the bombers had arrived just after an air-raid drill on the same day. Most of the Japanese below thought it was simply another part of the drill and paid little attention. Although they finally did manage to offer some resistance in the form of anti-aircraft fire from the ground and scrambled fighter planes, the Japanese military response was simply too little and too late. The U.S. airplanes dropped their bombs on war factories, oil storage facilities and military installations. Then, having safely flown across Japan from east to west, they headed for a friendly airfield in an area of China still controlled by our Chinese allies. It was all over, almost before it even started. In fact, one of the pilots, named Ted Lawson, would later write a book about the whole experience, which he aptly titled, “Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo.”
When all the dust had settled, the actual physical damage inflicted on Japanese facilities was by no means catastrophic. However, desired American objectives had definitely been achieved. Pearl Harbor had been avenged. Sagging morale in the U.S. and among our allies had been bolstered. The Japanese, unnerved by their sudden vulnerability to attack on the home shores, felt compelled to reposition critical forces from the front lines to the defense of the home front. Some armchair military theorists and historians have argued that due to the limited scope of the Doolittle Raid it could hardly be classified as a military victory. Others, including myself, maintain that the intangibles must also be considered when evaluating the success of the B-25 mission. American morale skyrocketed, and the Japanese now realized that they had aroused a sleeping giant, one which was definitely willing to fight. Not understood until later, Japan’s new sense of unease would precipitate a course of action that would result in a devastating and costly defeat for them in less than two months, at the Battle of Midway, a defeat from which their mighty Imperial Navy would never recover.
Almost immediately after Pearl Harbor was attacked, the thought of launching a similar surprise mission against the Japanese gripped the minds of many Americans, including President Roosevelt and other military and political leaders. One idea was to station American bombers in Russia, an American ally during World War II, and launch long-range bomber attacks on Japan from there. The Russians, however, were unwilling to cooperate. They had their hands full fighting the Germans, were not at war with Japan, and didn’t want to do anything that might involve them in fighting on another front.
A proposal was also offered to stage attacks from allied airfields in China. Before that scheme could take shape, however, plans were formulated to carry out a bombing attack on Japan from the sea, with planes launched from an aircraft carrier. Because normal carrierbased aircraft did not have the range for such a mission or the bomb capacity to deliver much of a blow to the Japanese, an audacious plan was developed to use land-based medium-range B-25 bombers. By making modifications to this versatile aircraft and through the use of special take-off maneuvers, it was believed that the B-25 could actually be launched from a carrier. A return landing on the carrier deck, however, would be totally impossible for the large, high-speed bombers. They would have to launch from the carrier, fly 400 to 450 miles to their targets in Japan, and then continue on in a westerly direction to a safe landing strip in China. From their launching off the deck of the famed carrier USS HORNET (CV-8), to their projected landings in China, it was a mission fraught with great danger and uncertainty. The co-pilot of the lead plane, being flown by Doolittle himself, a young Lieutenant named Dick Cole, remarked later that he felt as if he were leaving civilization when his aircraft cleared the deck of the HORNET. Overall naval commander for the mission, famed Admiral William F. “Bull” Halsey, described the raid as “one of the most courageous deeds in military history.”
The U.S. naval task force, composed of carriers HORNET and ENTERPRISE along with various other ships, stealthily approached Japan in midApril of 1942. They were using virtually the same northern Pacific route used by the Japanese armada which had attacked Pearl Harbor over four months earlier. Too large to be moved down to the protected hangar deck below, all 16 of the B-25s had been lashed to the HORNET’s exposed flight deck for the Pacific transit. It was to be a night raid, initiated approximately 400 miles from the Japanese mainland. Once the bombers had been launched, the entire naval task force, under Halsey’s command, was to “turn on a dime” and sail full steam ahead back to Pearl Harbor, a distance of over 3000 miles. The United States could ill afford to lose any of its ships, especially its few precious aircraft carriers, at this point in the war.
As often happens in war, things don’t always go exactly as planned. About eight hours and 250 miles from the projected launch point, the U.S. naval force was spotted by a Japanese picket ship. On top of that, stormy conditions were developing that included gale force winds and extremely rough seas. A decision had to be made quickly. To launch now meant that the chance of having enough fuel to reach China was very much in question, given that they survived their flight over Japan. The decision was made. Admiral Halsey, from his command post on the ENTERPRISE, flashed a message to the HORNET, “Launch planes…to Colonel Doolittle and gallant command, good luck and God bless you.”
Navy carriers turn into the wind to launch aircraft. Both the speed of the carrier itself and the force of head-on winds assist aircraft by giving added lift. One by one, all 16 of the heavy lumbering B-25s, with their left wings hanging out over the water, lifted off the HORNET’s flight deck. Navy deck crews had to skillfully time each plane’s launch at the exact moment when the bow of the HORNET was pushed upward by a tempestuous sea. The strong gale winds were actually a blessing as they helped boost the heavy land-based bombers from the carrier’s deck. Even though the crews of the bombers had been assured that such a carrier takeoff was possible, none of them had actually attempted it until this moment. The sixteenth, and final, bomber struggled a bit to achieve sufficient speed to launch. She disappeared for a moment below HORNET’s raised bow, seemed to almost skim the tops of the towering waves, then rose into the sky. A thunderous roar was lifted to the heavens by the Navy crew below, and Doolittle’s Raiders were headed for Japan.
Each of the planes delivered its bombload to assigned targets and completed its crossing of the Japanese homeland safely. But, fuel was now indeed the issue. One plane turned toward Russia and landed safely in Vladivostok. As the other 15 limped toward China, four crash landed at different places, and eleven crews bailed out as their airplanes ran completely out of fuel. The mission had begun with a total of 80 crew members, five per aircraft. Three men would eventually die during the mission, two by drowning as they attempted to swim to shore, and one as he tried to free himself from his aircraft and parachute to safety. Eight were captured by the Japanese in areas of China under their control. Three of these were executed, one later died of starvation in a POW camp, and four others spent 40 months as prisoners and were liberated at war’s end. The five crew members in Vladivostok were virtually held as prisoners by the Russians.
Stories of heroism and sacrifice in the survival and rescue of the Raiders in China abound. One, in particular, deserves to be told. As the mission was taking shape back in the States, an air squadron medical doctor, First Lieutenant Robert “Doc” White, volunteered. Told that there was no room for passengers and that he would have to qualify as a gunner to go, he willingly enrolled in gunner training, finished near the top of his class and was assigned to one of the Doolittle crews. Once on the ground in China, “Doc” White would save the life of Lieutenant Ted Lawson. Guided by friendly Chinese to a Christian missionary hospital nearby, the doctor turned gunner amputated Lawson’s fractured and gangrenous left leg, giving him two pints of his own blood in the process.
Sixty-four of the Doolittle Raiders, with incredible help from the Chinese populace and the Nationalist Chinese Army, eventually wound up in Chunking and safety, for the moment. Most fought on, under different commands in Europe and the Pacific, for the duration of the war. On an inexpressibly sad note, the Japanese unleashed a bloodbath of reprisals toward anyone or any village believed to have offered help to the Raiders, slaughtering over a quarter of a million Chinese in the process. This all happened under the direction of and with the blessings of Japanese Emperor Hirohito.
History is sometimes referred to as “His-story,” meaning that history is, in reality, the unfolding of God’s plan for mankind. Oftentimes we are not consciously aware of what He is doing. On other occasions we simply don’t understand His providential dealings with us, especially in times of pain and difficulty. But, there are also those amazing times when we can say, “I see the outworking of God’s Providence so clearly there.” The Doolittle Raid affords us many opportunities to see the Hand of Providence powerfully at work—the commencement of the bombing at the end of a Japanese air raid drill so as to confuse and delay their response, the gale force winds at sea actually aiding in the lift of the heavy bombers off HORNET’s flight deck, and the ensuing Japanese plan to capture the island of Midway, resulting in a monumental Japanese defeat and the turning point of the war in the Pacific. Winston Churchill recognized the reality of Divine Providence in the war when he told the U.S. Congress a few months earlier, “I will say that he must indeed have a blind soul who cannot see that some great purpose and design is being worked out here below, of which we have the honor of being the faithful servants.”
Of the original 80 Raiders, 62 survived the war and came home to raise their families and live out the rest of their lives. Jimmy Doolittle had a long and illustrious military career, retiring from the Air Force in 1959. He died in 1993 at the age of 96. Jacob DeShazer was converted to Christianity during 40 months as a Japanese POW, most of the time spent in solitary confinement. He returned to Japan after the war and served as a missionary there for 30 years. Amazingly, he was instrumental in the 1950 conversion of Mitsuo Fuchida, famous Japanese naval aviator and lead pilot in the attack on Pearl Harbor. Ted Lawson returned home, received additional surgery on his leg along with reconstructive facial surgery, and wrote his now classic book, “Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo.” Tom Griffin almost died of malaria in China. After recovering, he was re-assigned to Europe where he flew combat missions against Nazi Germany. Griffin was eventually shot down by the Germans and spent 22 months in a POW camp. While he was in his late 80s, he walked back and forth every day for three years from his home to a nursing facility where his wife was receiving care. Each day he fed her and brought her clean, freshly ironed clothes. Every night he washed and ironed her clothes and prepared for the next day. This was his daily routine until her death in 2005. His devotion and sense of duty, even in old age, was typical of the Raiders. Griffin died in 2013 at the age of 96. Today only one of Doolittle’s Raiders remains. Dick Cole was the co-pilot on the aircraft flown by Doolittle himself, the first B-25 to launch from HORNET’s deck. He is 101 years old.
There was a day, in the late 40’s and 50’s, when many Americans would become teary-eyed at the very mention of Doolittle’s Raiders. That day has long gone. Today, sadly, those 80 men and what they did for our nation have largely been forgotten. Mention of the Doolittle Raid today typically results in blank stares, not teary eyes. How can we forget them and what they accomplished for us….75 years ago?
“If we forget what we did, we won’t know who we are…” Ronald Reagan