Target Tokyo: Jimmy Doolittle and the Raid That Avenged Pearl Harbor

by Scott, James M.

  The officers arrived at the White House, where Doolittle was pleasantly surprised to find Joe. He had last seen her forty-seven days earlier in San Francisco. The two had little time to catch up before aides ushered them into the Oval Office at 1 p.m., followed by a gaggle of reporters and photographers.

  President Roosevelt, who had pushed his military leaders to develop the raid, perched behind his desk. He greeted Doolittle and shook his hand, telling him that the raid had accomplished everything he had hoped.

  The president pinned the Medal of Honor on Doolittle just above the left pocket of his uniform shirt as Marshall read aloud the citation. “Brigadier General James H. Doolittle, United States Army, for conspicuous leadership above and beyond the call of duty, involving personal valor and intrepidity at an extreme hazard to life,” Marshall read. “With the apparent certainty of being forced to land in enemy territory or to perish at sea, General Doolittle personally led a squadron of Army bombers, manned by volunteer crews, in a highly destructive raid on the Japanese mainland.”

  Generals Arnold and Marshall both saluted Doolittle, while Joe rewarded her husband with a kiss.

  News photographers shot stills and motion pictures of the historic event. The War Department handed out a three-page press release and a two-page statement attributed to Doolittle, giving the country the first real details of the mission, from hedgehopping across Tokyo to the types of targets bombed. The statement even mentioned the baseball game Jack Hilger’s crew witnessed.

  Doolittle then took to the airwaves in a radio talk broadcast the following evening, where he graciously credited the mission’s success to the seventy-nine young pilots, navigators, bombardiers, and gunners who volunteered. “No group of men could have thrown themselves into a task more whole-heartedly,” Doolittle told listeners. “They did not seek the path of glory. They merely volunteered for a hazardous mission, knowing full well what such a phrase implied concerning their chances for personal safety. They followed the finest traditions of American fighting men.”

  Reporters lapped it up, peppering Doolittle with questions in a press conference after the Medal of Honor ceremony.

  “We flew low enough so that we could see the expressions on the faces of the people,” Doolittle remarked.

  “And what was that expression?” someone asked.

  “It was one, I should say, of intense surprise,” Doolittle replied with, as one reporter noted, a twinkle in his eye.

  He went on to tell reporters that nine Japanese fighters attacked his bomber over Tokyo. “I was able to run away from all of them,” he said, before turning to face the journalists. “Better make that ‘evade all of them.’”

  “Are you going back again?” a reporter asked.

  “That is in the laps of the gods and the hands of the War Department.”

  Doolittle couldn’t resist a little fun—albeit off the record—when asked whether he could have bombed the palace. “Why,” he said. “I could have blown that chrysanthemum-painted bedpot right out from underneath the imperial throne.”

  Reporters wanted to know what losses America suffered.

  “No planes were left in Japan,” Doolittle said. “Some were damaged, but none was shot down. No plane was damaged to an extent that precluded it from proceeding to its destination.”

  He likewise refuted claims that the enemy had the wreckage of one the mission’s bombers on show in Tokyo. “The Japanese do not have one of our planes on display,” he said. “They may have painted up one of their own to look like ours, or they may have gotten an American plane from somewhere else, but not from us.”

  Reporters followed up by asking a stunned Joe Doolittle her thoughts. “I’m too thrilled to speak,” she replied.

  Absent from all the details released, of course, was any mention of the Hornet or the fact that the bombers had taken off from a carrier. More important—and what would later pose a problem for the War Department and the administration—was Doolittle’s dodge over the fate of the bombers. The press and as a result the American public were left with the deliberately false impression that all of the bombers as well as airmen had made it through the mission safely, even though by then Doolittle and his superiors knew that fifteen of the sixteen bombers had in fact crashed and that two of the crews had been captured. “Doolittle emphasized,” noted a story the next day in the Chicago Daily Tribune, “that all planes and men came thru safely and hooted at Japanese claims that they have one or more of the American planes on display.”

  The world had waited in anticipation to learn who had masterminded and executed the stunning assault on the Japanese capital. One month and a day later it had its answer in what would prove a public relations masterpiece, just as Marshall had envisioned. America’s aviation darling Jimmy Doolittle, the newly promoted general and recipient of the nation’s highest award for heroism, was a hero many already knew. The MIT-educated racing and stunt pilot, who had captivated Americans for decades with his aerial feats, was the perfect face to put on America’s war effort.

  The photo of the president pinning on the five-pointed star plastered the front pages of newspapers across the nation, accompanied by stories filled with the harrowing details of the raid that Doolittle now shared in his statement and interviews. Long profiles of the famed aviator followed in papers and magazines, reminding readers of his past heroics. Typical was the 1,797-word article in the Washington Post that carried the headline “His Life Story Reads like a Thriller, but with Perfect Timing.”

  Articles and editorials alike glowed with praise for America’s new hero. More than a few made a play on Doolittle’s ironic surname.

  “Jimmy Doolittle is a man whose exploits utterly belie his name,” declared the Baltimore Sun.

  “He should be named Doomuch,” recommended the New York Daily News.

  “Jimmy did it,” heralded Time magazine.

  Other newspapers argued that only someone of Doolittle’s caliber could have been trusted to organize and lead such a dangerous mission. “This was a test of skill and courage,” wrote the New York Times. “It took a splendid flier like Doolittle, resolute, intrepid and resourceful, to carry it through.”

  The Chicago Daily Tribune echoed that sentiment. “The bombing of Tokio may seem compounded of magic and the spirits of evil to a Japanese, but the American people will know that to Jimmy Doolittle it was a job,” the paper argued. “It was a job of planning, of organization, of navigation, of flying, of finding the target and releasing the bomb loads—and all of this has been Jimmy Doolittle’s life.”

  Doolittle’s family beamed.

  “I’m pretty cocky about my old man!” James Doolittle Jr., a second lieutenant in training in Dayton, told a reporter.

  Doolittle’s youngest son, John, who was about to begin his studies at West Point, was even more succinct: “Yippee!”

  Even Roosevelt scored political points off the mission’s success. “I think you should have gone a little farther by giving him the privilege of having his name changed to Doobig,” Mrs. T. J. Dykema of Pittsburgh cabled the president. “I hope my two boys in the Army have a similar opportunity.”

  “Give us more Doolittles,” added James Jordan of Portland, “we will take our chances in the west.”

  Personal congratulations poured in to both Jimmy and Joe Doolittle from friends, colleagues, and even strangers from around the country.

  “We only know that if ever any one could do it—it would be you,” Marty Moore wrote from Florida. “God-bless you.”

  “It is glorious news for the whole nation,” cabled Herb Maxson from New York. “He will always be tops in any league.”

  “So your Jimmie performed the miraculous feat!!” wrote Maude Howell from Los Angeles. “It is too marvelous to believe.”

  Hank Potter’s mother wrote from South Dakota. “Among the scores of congratulatory messages that you are receiving there will be none any more sincere than ours; especially so since our son Henry was navigator for your husband
on his flight to Japan,” she wrote. “I rejoice that all came back safely; and feel very proud—and humble—that the boys not only had the courage to volunteer but that they had the ability to do their job—and to your husband is due credit & praise.”

  One of the letters Doolittle would treasure most came from none other than Admiral Halsey, written April 24 as the task force neared Pearl Harbor. “I hated to dump you off at that distance, but because of discovery there was nothing else to do,” Halsey wrote. “I stated to my Staff, that on landing you should have had two stars pinned on each shoulder, and the Medal of Honor put around your neck.” Halsey added that he knew of no other deed in history more heroic than the raid Doolittle led. “You have struck the hardest blow of the war directly at the enemy’s heart. You have made history,” he concluded. “Keep on knocking over those yellow bastards.”

  Even old aviation rivals couldn’t help congratulating Doolittle, including famed racer Roscoe Turner. After the attack on Pearl Harbor, Turner had suggested to Doolittle that the veteran aviators recruit some younger fliers and bomb Tokyo. Doolittle had brushed him off, arguing the former racers were too old to serve as combat pilots. “Congratulations, you dog!” Turner now cabled. “Guess you have shown the world we old boys can still be of service as combat pilots.”

  Turner went so far as to fire off a letter to Joe. “The day the bombs fell on Tokyo I told all of my friends that that could be no one but Jimmy Doolittle’s work,” he wrote. “He is the greatest guy that ever climbed in an airplane.”

  DOOLITTLE SAT DOWN WITHIN days of his return to write letters to the families of all seventy-nine raiders, an exercise that made him take stock of the mission’s outcome, of what happened to each young man who had raised his hand and volunteered. The raid had claimed the lives of twenty-year-old gunner Leland Faktor, twenty-three year-old engineer Donald Fitzmaurice, and twenty-nine-year-old bombardier Bill Dieter, though Faktor’s death was the only one so far confirmed. The Japanese had captured eight other airmen from Dean Hallmark’s and Billy Farrow’s crews, and the Russians had interned Ski York and his men. Several others had been injured, a few seriously.

  Many of the letters were easy, and a form letter would suffice, echoing the May 20 note Doolittle sent to copilot Dick Cole’s mother in Dayton:

  “I am pleased to report that Dick is well and happy although a bit homesick. I left him in Chungking, China, a couple of weeks ago. He had recently completed a very hazardous, extremely important and most interesting flight—the air raid on Japan. He comported himself with conspicuous bravery and distinction. He was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross for gallantry in action, and also was decorated by the Chinese Government.

  “Transportation and communication facilities are extremely bad in the Far East and so it may be sometime before you hear again from Dick directly. I assure you, however, that everything is going smoothly with him and although plans for the future are uncertain he will probably be returning home sometime in the not too distant future.

  “I am proud to have served with Dick, who was my co-pilot on the flight, and hope that I may have an opportunity to serve with him again.”

  Doolittle sent similar letters to the families of navigator Hank Potter, bombardier Fred Braemer, and his loyal crew chief, Paul Leonard, as well as the wives and parents of the members of the eleven other crews who had safely escaped. He mentioned Charles Ozuk’s leg wound and Harold Watson’s injured arm. To the wife of his second-in-command, Doolittle wrote that he was requesting orders that day for Jack Hilger to return to the United States. “Under separate cover, I am sending one of several scrolls that were presented to the outfit in China,” he added. “Jack particularly liked this one and I am sure the Smithsonian Institute, where we planned to send it, will not miss the one.”

  The remainder of the letters Doolittle wrote over a two-day period proved far more painful, none more so than the one to Faktor’s uncle in Iowa. The gunner had been killed bailing out over China. Had his chute failed or had he failed to pull the rip cord in time? No one would ever know. The only fact was that he had died. “It is with the deepest regret that I am obliged to inform you that your nephew, Corporal Leland D. Faktor, was killed in action in the raid on Japan. He was buried with military honors in a field specially set aside at Chuchow in China,” Doolittle wrote. “He was a fine boy and is mourned by the entire group. I am proud to have served with him.”

  Information on the two captured crews was spotty—and incorrect. Reports indicated that two of Farrow’s crew were missing, when in fact the Japanese had captured all five. “The latest news we are able to get is that the plane piloted by your son landed near Japanese occupied territory and that two of the crew members are missing and three have been taken prisoner by the Japanese,” Doolittle wrote to Farrow’s mother. “We are unable to definitely authenticate this report, and are also unable to determine which of the crew members are missing and which captured. An attempt is being made today, through the American Red Cross, to obtain more definite information. As fast as we obtain any additional information you may depend on my passing it on to you. I am sincerely sorry that I am obliged to give you such an unfortunate report.”

  That misinformation likewise led Doolittle to pen far more upbeat reports to Hallmark’s father in Dallas and to relatives of the other crew members of the Green Hornet, including the families of Dieter and Fitzmaurice, who had died in the surf and been buried on a sandy knoll along the Chinese coast. “I am extremely sorry to have to bring you bad news. However, it is not as bad as it might be,” Doolittle began. “Your son, according to the most reliable information that we are able to obtain, landed in Japanese occupied territory in China and has been taken prisoner. Every effort was and still is being made to extricate him from Japanese hands but to date we have not been successful. You may depend on everything possible being done in this direction.”

  Doolittle advised the families of Ski York’s crew that American diplomats were now working to secure the airmen’s release, though he was vague about the extent of injuries suffered by Ted Lawson and others on board the Ruptured Duck, no doubt hoping to spare them worry. He was far more candid about the gravity of the crash in his letter to Dave Thatcher’s parents, praising the twenty-year-old gunner for having rescued Lawson and the others. “All of the plane’s crew were saved from either capture or death as the result of his initiative and courage in assuming responsibility and in tending the wounded himself day and night,” Doolittle wrote, noting that Thatcher had already received the Distinguished Flying Cross. “I have today recommended that he also be awarded the coveted Distinguished Service Cross for outstanding heroism.”

  Doolittle’s personal letters cheered the families and elevated the already high opinion most held of the general, a sentiment captured in a letter from Harold Watson’s father. “I doubt if the rules and regulations of the Army require a Commanding General, after completion of a mission, to write a personal letter to the parents of each participating member,” he wrote. “However, because in addition to being an able officer, General Doolittle is a father and a gentleman, he chose to do just that.”

  Many of the mothers, fathers, and wives responded with glowing telegrams and letters, congratulating Doolittle on the raid. “I can’t express in words how thrilled and proud I am to be the wife of one of the men who participated in the bombing of Tokyo,” wrote Thelma Bourgeois, wife of bombardier Robert Bourgeois. “Congratulations to you and your volunteers for achieving a completely victorious mission.”

  Others wrote to ask favors. Fred Braemer’s wife inquired whether Doolittle could expedite the return of her husband, who had been deployed to India. So did Melvin Gardner’s fiancée. “I am hoping to get married as soon as he comes back and wanted some idea so I would know whether to go ahead with some wedding plans.”

  Gardner would sadly never walk down the aisle; three days after his fiancée wrote her May 30 letter, he died in a plane crash after a raid over Burma.

>   Pilot Richard Joyce’s father questioned whether publishing the names of the raiders, particularly those still fighting in Burma, only put them at greater risk if later captured. Douglas Radney’s father wanted to know whether Doolittle might help him find his son’s 1940 Chevrolet, which he had left parked back in Pendleton, Oregon.

  Pilot Robert Gray’s parents, like many others, shared their son’s admiration of Doolittle. “Robert is mighty proud to serve under you, you are his ideal as a soldier, a flyer and a man,” the couple wrote. “We too are mighty proud that our son is with you and that you feel he is worthy of the place. May God bless you and keep you and our son and all his brave companions for the glory and honor of our great, free America.” Thomas White’s mother echoed that in a telegram. “Your leadership inspired all of your men,” she cabled. “Our Bob’s part is a glory to us all. He would follow you anywhere.”

  The letters Doolittle received from the parents of the captured airmen proved much more difficult to reconcile. Families were desperate for information, and many would continue to write to Doolittle as spring turned into summer. Chase Nielsen’s mother went so far as to write President Roosevelt, asking what treatment her son would likely suffer at the hands of the Japanese. “My heart grieves, and my burden seems almost unbearable without mentioning what he must be enduring,” she wrote. “I would be so very grateful for any information I might receive about my boy.”

  Bobby Hite’s mother wrote that her husband’s death in July 1941 coupled now with the capture of her son proved more than she could handle. “I just pray God,” she wrote, “that he still lives.” Bill Dieter’s mother, despite her own worries, still found the strength to applaud the mission’s success, a grace that amazed Doolittle. “Your kindness in congratulating us on the raid touched me deeply,” the general responded. “Congratulations should go to you, the mother of a gallant boy who served his country heroically and effectively in time of great national peril.”