by Oliver North
By darkness on 17 April, the airmen and deck crews were exhausted, but Halsey and Doolittle had done all they could to prepare. Now if they could just avoid the enemy picket ships and patrol craft, the Hornet might be able to get within 400 miles of Japan—and that edge might give the B-25s and their crews a chance of surviving the mission. But it wasn’t to be.
USS HORNET
TASK FORCE 16.2
650 MILES OFF JAPANESE COAST
18 APRIL 1942
In the predawn morning hours of 18 April, a radar operator on the Enterprise reported a “surface contact”—a ship—about ten miles from the carrier. Though the Enterprise was still more than 650 miles from Japan, Halsey ordered the entire task force to change direction to keep from being spotted by what had to be a Japanese ship. Then, at 0600, an American scout plane scouring the waters ahead of the American ships saw a Japanese patrol boat.
Hoping to sink the vessel before it could notify Japan of their presence, Halsey’s cruiser, the USS Nashville, engaged with five-inch gunfire at 0738, and immediately afterward dive-bombers from the Enterprise attacked the picket ship. The Nitto Maru, designated as Japanese Naval Patrol Boat No. 23, sank in minutes. But not before the crew radioed Imperial Fleet HQ at Kure that three American aircraft carriers were headed for Japan.
Aboard the Enterprise, Navy code-breakers intercepted the Nitto Maru’s radio traffic, and though the Nitto Maru incorrectly warned that there were three American carriers, it still meant that, despite the weather, the task force was now in great jeopardy. So, too, was Doolittle’s attack plan.
The Hornet, with the sixteen B-25s aboard, was still hundreds of miles away from its intended launch destination, and hundreds of miles more from the targets in Japan. Halsey had planned to steam west another thirty-two hours before launching the bombers, so that they would arrive over their targets on the night of 19 April—and be able to find their landing fields in China on the next morning.
Admiral Halsey and Doolittle now had to make a serious decision, and it had to be made quickly. The carriers couldn’t proceed closer to the intended launch point, loath to engage an overwhelming Japanese naval force or provoke an attack by land-based bombers. But could the B-25s still make it to their targets—and then on to safety in China—if they launched now? If not, their only alternative was to abandon the mission. By signal light, from his flagship to the Hornet, Halsey presented the options to Doolittle.
The Army flight leader wasted no time in making a decision. Even though they were still nearly 700 miles from Tokyo, with almost no chance of reaching the recovery airfields in China after the bombing raid, Doolittle signaled back, “Let’s go now.”
Halsey ordered the task force to turn into the wind and gave the order to launch the aircraft. The admiral ended his message with, “Good luck, and God bless you.”
Aboard the Hornet, Army airmen and sailors sprang into action as loudspeakers blared, “Army Air personnel, man your airplanes for immediate takeoff.” The aircrews raced onto the flight deck and readied the sixteen bombers for takeoff as high winds and thirty-five-foot swells tossed the ships about like toy boats. With water breaking over her bow, the Hornet turned into the wind, now blowing at twenty-five to thirty knots.
To the uninitiated, the idea of trying to launch sixteen overloaded B-25s from the terrifyingly short, pitching deck of an aircraft carrier into the teeth of a raging gale might seem like madness. But to Jimmy Doolittle, the MIT engineer perched in the lead aircraft, the plane that had the shortest takeoff roll, the wind was now their ally. It offered hope that all his aircrews could succeed in doing what no one had ever done before—first, getting the planes, weighing nearly fifteen tons, into the air, and then bombing the Japanese homeland.
CORPORAL JACOB “JAKE” DESHAZER, USAAF
Aboard the USS Hornet
18 April 1942
The announcement came: “Army personnel, get your airplanes ready; in ten hours will be takeoff.” And just after they did that, the fog lifted up and we saw a Japanese ship. We could all see it. And one of our ships turned and shot into that Japanese ship and I could see it sinking. One end was up, the other end headed for the bottom of the sea. Right after that happened, they made the announcement: “Army personnel, man your airplanes, take off immediately!”
I saw Doolittle going out to his airplane; he was the first one off. We were all watching pretty close because his plane only had about 400 feet for takeoff on that aircraft carrier.
LIEUTENANT ROBERT HITE, USAAF
Aboard the USS Hornet
18 April 1942
0920 Hours Local
Yeah, the space that we had for takeoff was from the island to the end of the flight deck, about 400 feet. So we had that much to get off of the carrier. But the secret of being able to do this was, we had about a thirty-knot wind that we were going into, a west wind. And the carrier was traveling at about close to thirty knots, so that gave us a wind across the deck of about sixty knots. This was very advantageous for what we were going to do. We used full flaps and full power on our B-25s, which was enough to lift us from the carrier.
The original plan was to take off in the evening and do our bombing raid at night. That changed after they sank the Japanese patrol boat that had radioed that we were coming. So Jimmy and the commander from the Hornet, and Halsey with the Enterprise decided we better get those B-25s off the deck and on the way.
The last thing that Jimmy said before we took off was, “We don’t have any new information on the mission. And we’ll have to do the best we can.”
We knew he was a great pilot, so if Jimmy could do it, we were going to try it. Jimmy being the number-one aircraft was the first one off, and he did it perfectly. It gave us great confidence to know that it could be done, to see him make that takeoff.
Jimmy took off at 8:20 AM and we were the last aircraft, number sixteen, taking off at 9:20 AM, so it took one hour to get the American B-25s off of the Hornet.
Once we were at altitude, we made meticulous use of the mixture control and our rpm to minimize the flow of gasoline through the engine. The standard B-25 engine runs on about 150 to 160 gallons an hour, but we had our B-25 running at about 60 gallons per hour. We had planned to launch within about 400 miles of our target, but we actually took off about 700 miles out.
LIEUTENANT RICHARD (“DICK”) COLE, USAAF
Aboard the USS Hornet
18 April 1942
0920 Hours Local
The first thing we heard that morning was the guns going off, from the cruiser that had spotted the picket ship. I was at breakfast when they started firing. And immediately we all put breakfast aside and ran up topside to see what was going on. Then, right away they announced over the PA system, “Army personnel, man your planes!” I had to run back down to where my quarters were and get my gear. For those of us who flew with Jimmy, the name of the game was to get to the airplane before the old man did.
I got there in time to help Fred Braemer and Paul Leonard pull the props through and make a walk-around check, and we were “air-available” when the boss came. There was a low overcast and the sea was running high enough where water was coming up over the bow. In fact, the area where we were got wet, and they had to put down some abrasive pads for some of the later airplanes because they were sliding back and forth on the deck.
As far as whether or not we were going to make it off the deck, I didn’t even think about it. We had done the same thing off of a runway with not near as much headwind. I had no doubt about it. We were flying with the best pilot in the world and besides that, being a second lieutenant, I had to worry about flaps, landing gear—stuff like that.
USS HORNET
TASK FORCE 16.2
650 MILES OFF JAPANESE COAST
18 APRIL 1942
A 16mm film made by a U.S. Navy combat cameraman that stormy morning shows the deck crew pulling the wheel chocks from the lead B-25. Then, at 0820, with both engines at max rpm and sea spray whipping
down the deck, Jimmy Doolittle’s plane lumbered just a few hundred feet and leapt into the air—a dozen feet before reaching the end the Hornet’s bow. The sailors on the flight deck let out a cheer. It could be done after all.
Doolittle’s B-25 climbed immediately and circled, buzzed the Hornet to synchronize his magnetic compass heading with the ship’s, and then headed west, while behind him the rest of the planes took off. One by one, the fifteen B-25s, each carrying 2,000 pounds of munitions, and nearly that much weight in fuel, along with five crewmen, followed Doolittle’s example and took off.
The first six did it flawlessly. The seventh plane—its flaps mistakenly left up in the pre-flight tension—took off but slipped dangerously low as it left the deck of the carrier, almost dropping into the waves. But the pilot recovered in time and lifted his craft smoothly, up into the blustery skies with the rest of the bombers. The other nine B-25s followed without a hitch—almost.
Just before the last bomber cleared the deck, one of the sailors helping to launch the planes fell into the spinning prop of copilot Bob Hite and bombardier Jake DeShazer’s B-25. Both men watched in horror as the blade tore off the sailor’s arm, expecting that it had killed him. It wouldn’t be until after the war that they would learn the sailor survived.
Admiral William “Bull” Halsey commanded U.S. Navy carrier forces, and was later CINC South Pacific forces.
Doolittle had instructed his pilots that once they were airborne, they had to maintain course just forty feet above the ocean at a speed of 150 mph in order to conserve fuel. As the Army bombers headed west, Admiral Halsey ordered the Hornet, the Enterprise, and their escorts to make a sharp U-turn and head for Pearl Harbor. The Doolittle Raiders were now completely on their own.
CORPORAL JACOB “JAKE” DESHAZER, USAAF
Plane #16, Doolittle Raid
18 April 1942
When Doolittle got up, we all let out a big cheer and we knew it could be done. In my B-25, Bill Farrow was the pilot and the copilot was Bobby Hite. George Barr was the navigator, Harold Spatz was crew chief, engineer, and gunner, and I was the bombardier. There were five men on each airplane, all doing the same kinds of duties. They told me that when our wheels left the deck of the Hornet, I became a sergeant.
I really didn’t know what was going to happen and I didn’t speculate on it. I didn’t think about it. If I got killed, I got killed.
DOOLITTLE RAID
EN ROUTE TO TOKYO
550 MILES OFF JAPANESE COAST
18 APRIL 1942
The sixteen B-25s scattered in a loose formation spreading out more than 150 miles across the skies. To add to their fuel concerns, they were bucking a twenty-five miles per hour headwind. Soon they were out of sight of one another. That didn’t matter, though. They had planned it this way. There was less likelihood of detection if they were spread out. They all had their own orders and flight plans; each aircraft had its own target list specifying where to drop its bombs.
A Japanese patrol plane at least 600 miles off the east coast of Japan spotted one of the bombers at 0945 and reported a single twin-engine, land-based plane flying toward the Home Islands. But back in Tokyo, the military intelligence people ignored the report—it had to be a mistake; no land-based enemy aircraft that large could fly that far out to sea.
That morning in Tokyo there was a routine air raid drill. The military and civilians took it in stride. Practice drills were commonplace and the people often took them for granted. After all, Tokyo was safe—the Japanese generals and Radio Tokyo had said so. And Emperor Hirohito had personally reassured them that they were safe from enemy attack. It was impossible for enemy aircraft to attack the city.
Just minutes after noon, the first of Doolittle’s planes reached their target areas. Climbing to 1,500 feet to avoid being blown out of the sky by their own bombs, they lined up their targets in the bombsights.
At 1215, the Americans released their ordnance, and in fewer than fifteen minutes, Tokyo was ablaze from the B-25s’ incendiary bombs.
The same thing happened in Osaka, Kobe, the Yokosuka Navy Yard, and three other Japanese cities. The raiders made it a point to seek out military targets, concentrating on factories believed to be serving the war effort, refineries, and docks, as well as any visible fuel and ammunition dumps. After dropping their bombs, the B-25s descended to a hundred feet so as to present less of a target to Japanese anti-aircraft guns.
The anti-aircraft fire was ineffective, and though enemy fighter planes were aloft and others were sent up during the raids, not one of the B-25s was shot down. Several Japanese fighters tried to close in on some of the U.S. aircraft after they had dropped their bombs, but it was no easy task. After hitting their targets, the Americans were squeezing every bit of speed they could out of their planes, achieving speeds of up to 300 mph. Those B-25s that were threatened responded with the only weapons Doolittle had let them keep—two lightweight .30-caliber machine guns. At least two Japanese fighters that got too close were downed.
For Doolittle and his raiders, escaping Japanese anti-aircraft batteries and fighters over land wasn’t the end of their jeopardy. By the time they had cleared the west coast of Japan and headed over the East China Sea, the B-25s had enough fuel to fly about 800 miles. Unfortunately, the safe area in China was 1,000 miles away. But as the American aircrews began reviewing procedures for ditching at sea, something happened that seemed contrary to the laws of nature. A storm came up and the winds shifted. It seemed impossible to the navigators, who knew that the prevailing winds always blew from the China Sea toward Japan. But that day, the headwinds that they had bucked all day turned into tailwinds, and began to blow them toward China.
It was, in the minds of some of the weary airmen, an answer to prayer—a miracle! The winds were now helping the bombers to make up some of the hundreds of additional miles they had had to fly when they took off early from the Hornet.
Still, the wind shift hadn’t solved all their problems. None of the B-25s were able to pick up the homing signals in free China that were supposed to guide them to their recovery airfields. It was only later that they would learn that the plane dispatched to place the transmitting beacons had crashed in the same storm that helped extend the range of Doolittle’s B-25s. Without those homing signals to guide them to friendly airfields, they were on their own.
Finally, nearly ten hours after they had bombed Japan, one by one, lost in a tropical storm, with fuel gauges at “empty,” their engines began to sputter. Doolittle’s crew and the men aboard ten other B-25s decided that their best option was to bail out before the planes went down. Four other bombers made forced landings on the Chinese coast, but one crashed into the sea while trying to ditch. The plane hit the water at more than a hundred miles per hour, and the five men inside were pulled beneath the waves, still strapped in their seats. Three of them managed to unbuckle themselves and get out before the plane sank. These survivors managed to climb into a rubber life raft and make it to land. Soon after, the three were captured by Japanese patrols.
Only one plane was able to locate an airfield for a landing—but that was because the pilot knew they wouldn’t have enough fuel to get to China. He’d decided instead to head for Vladivostok, a Russian port in southeastern Siberia, some 500 miles west of Japan. When their B-25 landed, the Russians took the crewmen into custody and confiscated their bomber. Though the Soviets were ostensibly our “allies,” the American flyers were kept in Siberia until they escaped about a year later, eventually making their way through Iran to the Middle East and back into Allied hands.
The B-52 in which Jake DeShazer served as bombardier made it almost 300 miles into China. It wasn’t far enough. He and the other four men on his plane parachuted safely from their doomed aircraft, but were soon captured. The Japanese wasted no time in parading the Americans before the cameras for propaganda purposes. In all, eleven of the Doolittle Raiders were captured and became Japanese POWs. Three of them, DeShazer’s crewmates, were executed
to exact revenge for the bombings. Jake DeShazer survived to tell the story.
CORPORAL JACOB “JAKE” DESHAZER, USAAF
Plane #16, Doolittle Raid
3,000 Feet Above China
18 April 1942
Our airplane flew farther than any of the rest of them. At 10:30 at night we were at 3,000 [feet] and the pilot said, “We’re going to have to jump. Jake, you’re first.”
I took a hold of the edge of the fuselage, pushed real hard, and jumped away from it. I counted to five real fast, pulled the ripcord, and the parachute opened up, and I thought, “I’m on the way now. I’m gonna get down.” And sure enough, I hit the edge of some kind of a rice field.
I tried to find a road or something that night, but I just went around in circles, so I came back to the same place where I started, found a place where I could get in out of the rain, and the next morning I started out looking for a road or some telephone lines. I found some kids about fifteen years old who had uniforms on. So I went up to them and asked them if they were Chinese or Japanese. And one fellow said, “Me, China.” I had my .45 all ready to go, because I was trying to find out if I was in free China or Japanese-occupied China. And they said, “Let’s go down to the camp.” It was only about a quarter of a mile away.
But when I got there, they surrounded me and every bayonet was pointed right at me. So I let them have my gun. They fed me and then I found out that I was in the hands of the Japanese military. They had captured all five of us. That started my three years and four months in a Japanese prison.
A few days later they flew us to Tokyo and started asking us questions. The hardest part was to be questioned for twenty-four hours and then taken down to our cells and maybe get a piece of bread to eat with a little rotten potato-peel soup.
