American History Essay, Research Paper

All through history, man always seems to be at war. In some cases he is the

attacker, in others the defender. In both cases, these wars are broken down into two basic

elements, the battles that are fought and the individuals who fight them. In The Red

Badge of Courage, Stephen Crane talks about conflict, courage, fear, cowardice, heroism,

victory, and defeat. These elements make up the exploits of war we record in our history

books. This paper will deal with war, more specifically, a special exploit within one of the

most significant wars ever experienced by the human race. World War II involved

millions of fighting men around the world. In Europe, Hitler and Germany were the

enemy. In the Far East, Japan was the enemy. To America, Japan was probably more

hated since they brought us into the war with the surprise attack on Pearl Harbor. This

assault on Pearl Harbor infuriated President Franklin D. Roosevelt, and he urged his

military planners to find a way to bomb Japan. He wanted to bring home to Japan some

meaning of war, and that they did. The first bombing of mainland Japan was a logistical

challenge, a daring exploit, and had a major effect on both American and Japanese people.

In terms of the Japanese, they had solid reasons to feel secure. No foreign attacker

had seriously threatened Japanese soil since Kuble Kahn in 1281.(Edward Oxford: Against

All Odds-3) At that time, a violent storm destroyed Kahn s attack force, and the Japanese

referred to this storm as kamikaze, which means divine wind.(Edward Oxford: Against All

Odds-2) In the past, the Japanese felt that they were protected by the kamikaze; but now,

they had a more tangible reason to feel secure with antiaircraft guns, warships, and planes.

(Edward Oxford: Against All Odds-4) The Japanese were feeling high with their military

successes starting with China and extending into the Pacific.(Edward Oxford: Against All

Odds-5) They captured Hong Kong, Malaya, Guam, Wake and the Philippines. They

destroyed much of the American fleet at Pearl Harbor.(Edward Oxford: Against All

Odds-9) It was no wonder that the Japanese didn t feel confident.

The first plan to bomb Japan came shortly after Pearl Harbor. One month after the

attack, Admiral Ernest J. King and General H.H. Arnold put the final touches on the

original plan proposed by Captain Francis Low. (Edward Oxford: Against All Odds-11) It

is interesting to note that Low was not an airman, but a submarine officer. He was at

Norfolk air station when he noticed the outline of a flight deck painted on the

runway.(Edward Oxford: Against All Odds-11) As he looked at the runway, he noticed a

shadow of a twin engine plane flying across it.(Edward Oxford: Against All Odds-12) In

a split second the idea hit him. What if Army bombers could take off an aircraft carrier?

(Edward Oxford: Against All Odds-12) Low tried his idea on Admiral King. King

thought the idea had potential so he sent it on to Captain Donald Duncan to turn his plan

into fact. (Edward Oxford: Against All Odds-13) This he did, and the Tokyo Raid became

fact instead of fiction.

The first step in the plan was finding a leader. General Arnold requested

Lieutenant Colonel James Doolittle as the man to select the plane and the men for the

mission. (Edward Oxford: Against All Odds-14) Doolittle accepted the challenge without

hesitation. Arnold let him know in no uncertain terms that he was to be a planner not a

pilot. (Edward Oxford: Against All Odds-15) As Doolittle went to work on the project,

he saw a lot of problems. First of all, carrier landings were impossible for twin engine

bombers.(Edward Oxford: Against All Odds-16) Next, the total air trip was eleven

hundred miles. The closest landing area would be in Russia, but Joseph Stalin would not

let them land there because he didn t want to be invaded by Japan since he already had his

hands full with the Germans.(Edward Oxford: Against All Odds-18) Fortunately, China

said it was all right to land there but they said it reluctantly. (Edward Oxford: Against All

Odds-19) With these considerations and others, Doolittle determined that the chances of

the mission succeeding was fifty-fifty.(Edward Oxford: Against All Odds-17)

Despite the odds, the decision was made to begin the project. As the first step,

despite Arnold, Doolittle wrote himself into the plan as a pathfinder. (Edward Oxford:

Against All Odds-20) Doolittle s job during the attack would be to light up Tokyo with

incendiary bombs so that the bombers could easily spot their targets.(Edward Oxford:

Against All Odds-20) The B-25 bomber was chosen for the mission. It was 53 feet long,

had a 67 feet wing span, could carry two thousand pounds of bombs at close to three

hundred miles an hour, and had a two thousand mile range.(Edward Oxford: Against All

Odds-21) After testing, it was proven that B-25s could take off from a U.S. aircraft

carrier. (Edward Oxford: Against All Odds-21) Twenty-four crews and planes were

needed, and twenty-four crews volunteered.(James F. Sunderman WWII In Air-47)

Doolitttle warned the crews that this would be a top-secret and extremely dangerous

mission. He told them that anyone who wanted to bow out should do so now. No one

did. (Edward Oxford: Against All Odds-24)

The first step for the crews began with a heavy training schedule. The first part of

the training took place at Eglin Field, Florida in February, 1942. (James F. Sunderman

WWII In Air-47) The training revolved around those items needed to get such a large

plane off the deck of a carrier. They trained in such things as: short takeoffs, formation

flying, gunnery practice, low level bombing, navigation over water, fuel consumption tests,

and quick ground refueling under enemy attack. (James F. Sunderman WWII In Air-47)

Flights over the Gulf of Mexico gave experience to navigators over open water. Pilots and

bombardiers practiced low-level bombing across the hills of Texas, New Mexico, and

Kansas. (Edward Oxford: Against All Odds-27) The Norden bombsight was classified

and also proved to be of little use at low level. Therefore, it wasn t used and was replaced

by the design of the new bombsights by Captain C. R. Greening which only cost fifteen

cents. (James F. Sunderman WWII In Air-47) Army pilots learned to hang on to their

props , fighter style. (Edward Oxford: Against All Odds-25) On the runway, there were

flags every fifty feet to help gauge minimum distance required to get airborne. (Edward

Oxford: Against All Odds-25) Taking off at sixty-five miles per hour in a five hundred

foot run could be done if the engine didn t skip a beat, said Copilot Jack Sims. (Edward

Oxford: Against All Odds-26) On March 25, the flyers left for Sacramento, California for

final flight training. (James F. Sunderman WWII In Air-47)

After the training, the team that was to fly the mission headed for California.

Sixteen planes were loaded onto the U.S.S. Hornet at Alameda Air Station near Oakland.

(Edward Oxford: Against All Odds-28) As they sailed under the Golden Gate Bridge, a

lot of the higher ranking officers were very nervous. The stakes were high. They were

sailing into enemy waters close to Japan with both the Hornet and Enterprise which

represented half of America s carrier strength in the Pacific. (Edward Oxford: Against All

Odds-29) The airmen and the crew of the Hornet knew nothing of the mission until the

first day out. (James F. Sunderman WWII In Air-48) Even after they found out they

would be bombing Japan, the hand-picked flight crews felt confident since their training

had been thorough.(Edward Oxford: Against All Odds-30) They may have felt some of

that confidence because most of them had never experienced combat before. (Edward

Oxford: Against All Odds-30)

During the final planning stages, all the loose ends were taken care of. Pilots were

given a chance to pick their targets from a list that had already been made.(James F.

Sunderman WWII In Air-48) The objectives selected were steelworks, oil refineries, oil

tank farms, ammo dumps and factories, dockyards, and supply areas. (James F.

Sunderman WWII In Air-51) Numerous alternate plans were devised to cover just about

any problem that came up. For example, if they were forced to take off too soon, they

were to fly to Hawaii or Midway.(James F. Sunderman WWII In Air-48) They also

received other information during their briefings. During one of these. they received three

warnings: 1. Under no conditions try to land in Russian, Siberia. 2. Non military targets

couldn t be bombed like the emperor s palace. 3. This would be the last briefing before

takeoff. (James F. Sunderman WWII In Air-50)

There were a lot of ships involved to make this mission a success. The number of

ships had to be sufficient in case the enemy discovered them when they arrived in enemy

waters. Six days out to sea, the carrier Enterprise arrived with her escorts and all of the

ships became Task Force 16 under the command of Vice Admiral William Halsey. (James

F. Sunderman WWII In Air-49) Captain Marc Mitscher was skipper of the Hornet.

(James F. Sunderman WWII In Air-49) Task Force 16 was composed of two carriers,

the Hornet and the Enterprise, four cruisers, seven destroyers, two submarines, and two

tankers. (James F. Sunderman WWII In Air-49)

In order for the attack to work, a great deal depended on secrecy. However, the

Japanese had an idea that something was going on when they picked up messages

transmitted between the two task groups and Pearl Harbor. (Edward Oxford: Against All

Odds-31) The Japanese stations monitored all radio broadcasts so that they could obtain

any information about the mission that might be useful. (James F. Sunderman WWII In

Air-49) A carrier strike was the only way Japan could be attacked, and the Japanese

figured that the Americans would have to get within three hundred miles to make a carrier

strike because this was the limit for carrier planes to fly out and back to the carrier.

(Edward Oxford: Against All Odds-32) The Japanese 26th Air Flotilla ranged out as far

as six hundred miles, and they would hit any carrier force before its planes could even be

launched. (Edward Oxford: Against All Odds-33) Besides that the Japanese had a bunch

of radio equipped boats about the same distance from the coast, and any enemy force

crossing that line would probably be seen by one of them. (Edward Oxford: Against All

Odds-34)

As the task force got nearer to Japan, final preparations were made. On April 17

aboard the Hornet, crews moved all of the B-25s to the rear of the flight deck to prepare

for launch. (Edward Oxford: Against All Odds-35) That was a good idea because at 3:00

a.m. on April 18, radar operators aboard the Enterprise picked up the blips of two small

ships. (James F. Sunderman WWII In Air-49) A scout plane from the Enterprise spotted

a Japanese patrol boat at 5:58 a.m. about forty miles away. (Edward Oxford: Against All

Odds-37) At 7:38 a.m., the task force had encountered the Japanese patrol boat, the Nitto

Maru. (Edward Oxford: Against All Odds-39) This boat was sunk by one of the

American cruisers, the Nashville. (James F. Sunderman WWII In Air-50) Before it went

down, the radio operator had enough time to send a message off to Japan that said three

enemy carriers had been sighted. (Edward Oxford: Against All Odds-40) They were

discovered and Admiral Halsey decided to launch the airplanes early. (James Sunderman:

WWII In Air-50) Fortunately for the American task force. the Japanese chose not to

listen to the report because no more messages came from the patrol boat. (James

Sunderman: WWII In Air-50)

It was time to get the planes into the air even though they were too far out.

Halsey shifted the course of the ships into the wind bouncing around in waves that were

thirty feet high. (Edward Oxford: Against All Odds-38) The task force was over eight

hundred miles from Tokyo and over four hundred miles farther out than had been planned.

4-50) One of the pilots recalled that he knew there would be fuel problems and the

chances of reaching airstrips in China were worse than bad. (Edward Oxford: Against All

Odds-43) At 7:40, the pilots heard the order, Army pilots man your battle stations for

take off. (James Sunderman: WWII In Air-50) At 8:00, Halsey flashed the go signal

to the Hornet.(Edward Oxford: Against All Odds-42)

The attack that the fliers had worked on was ready to start. The first plane off the

deck was piloted by Doolittle. (R. Conrad Stein-33) His plane took off at 8:20 a.m. and

the last plane made it into the air at 9:19 a.m. which meant that the average time between

takeoffs was about four minutes. (James Sunderman: WWII In Air-51) All sixteen planes

took off without incident. (R. Conrad Stein-34) Ted Lawson, the pilot in the plane behind

Doolittle said:

We watched { Doolittle } like hawks, wondering what the wind would do

to him, and whether he could take off in the little run toward the bow. If

he couldn t, we couldn t…Doolittle s plane took off. He had yards to

spare. He hung his ship almost straight up on its props until we could see

the whole top of his B-25. Then he leveled off, and I watched him come

around in a tight circle and shoot right over our heads. (Thirty Seconds

Over Tokyo)

Now that the planes had taken off and were headed toward Japan, the next step of

the plan took over. Task Force 16 had accomplished its mission. Within minutes, the

carriers and cruisers reversed course and headed back to Pearl Harbor at 25 knots.

(Edward Oxford: Against All Odds-45) The planes were not in formation but were flying

independently strung out in a ragged line 200 miles long. (Edward Oxford: Against All

Odds-48) The flights were spread out to provide the greatest possible coverage to give

the impression that there were more planes involved. (James Sunderman: WWII In

Air-53) The planes were to go in as lone raiders. (Edward Oxford: Against All Odds-49)

Three and one half hours later, the first planes reached the coast of Japan. (R.

Conrad Stein-34) The planes skimmed over trees and hills, and then the pilots gunned

their planes up to about one thousand feet above the city. (Edward Oxford: Against All

Odds-51) The planes had been scattered out by headwinds and by different settings on

their magnetic compasses and came over Tokyo from all different directions. (Edward

Oxford: Against All Odds-50) There was little opposition from the Japanese when the

enemy planes arrived. Some fighters made attacks on the bombers, (Edward Oxford:

Against All Odds-53) but they stayed away because they were civilian defense pilots and

inexperienced. (James Sunderman: WWII In Air-54) Antiaircraft defense over Japan was

active but inaccurate. (James Sunderman: WWII In Air-55) Even though it was erratic,

ground gunners did hit several of the B-25s with fragments, but no American plane was

shot down. (Edward Oxford: Against All Odds-54) It was all fast and furious as each

pilot dropped his bombs and then bore southwest along the Japanese coast toward what

they hoped would be China. (Edward Oxford: Against All Odds-56)

The results from the attack were as expected. There was a high degree of damage

for such a few planes since many of the Japanese buildings were flammable.(James

Sunderman: WWII In Air-51) At first, the Japanese people didn t know what was

happening. Then they figured it out when they saw the dark planes with the white stars on

the side. They were Americans. (Edward Oxford: Against All Odds-7) The Japanese

authorities reported that fifty people had been killed, two hundred and fifty wounded, and

ninety buildings destroyed. (Edward Oxford: Against All Odds-86) Radio Tokyo

announced that enemy bombers had appeared over Tokyo for the first time but that they

did little damage. According to this report, nine Americans had been shot down. (Edward

Oxford: Against All Odds-78) It didn t really make much difference the amount of

damage because the objective of the attack had been psychological. (Edward Oxford:

Against All Odds-87) The attack was a shattering blow to the Japanese people. (Edward

Oxford: Against All Odds-87)

The next problem facing the pilots was to get their planes and themselves to safety.

As they headed for China, the B-25s encountered for and rain. The ceilings kept getting

lower and navigators had to estimate their positions by dead reckoning. (Edward Oxford:

Against All Odds-58) One good thing about the weather was that they had picked up a

tail wind which helped conserve gas. (James Sunderman: WWII In Air-55) Thirteen

hours after takeoff, the B-25s were somewhere over China listening for a homing signal,

but none was to be heard. (Edward Oxford: Against All Odds-60) In China, the

paper-plan had fallen apart. Everything was going wrong. (Edward Oxford: Against All

Odds-61) Marshal and Arnold wanted to maintain secrecy, so they gave little information

to the Chinese leader and none to Colonel Claire Chennault, the leader of the Flying

Tigers. (Edward Oxford: Against All Odds-62) Radio beacons that were supposed to be

at the landing fields never made it because the plane carrying them crashed in a storm.

(Edward Oxford: Against All Odds-63 There was no lights because when the B-25s

reached the coast, air raid sirens went up and everyone turned the lights off. (James

Sunderman: WWII In Air-55)

The survival of the crews was better than expected. Most of the B-25s crash

landed and their crews either stayed with the planes or parachuted out over Chinese

territory. (R. Conrad Stein-34) Plane 16, after flying 200 miles into China crash landed

and the crew members were captured by the Japanese. (Edward Oxford: Against All

Odds-65) In total, eight flyers were captured by the Japanese. (R. Conrad Stein-36) The

American prisoners were turned over to the Kempei Tai, the Japanese Army s police.

(Edward Oxford: Against All Odds-91) All of the prisoners were tortured. Some had

their faces covered with wet towels that suffocated them. (Edward Oxford: Against All

Odds-92) Others were forced to drink large quantities of water and then the guards

would jump on their stomachs. (Edward Oxford: Against All Odds-92) The Japanese

wanted to break the spirits of the flyers and get them to sign confessions. (Edward

Oxford: Against All Odds-93) Five of the Americans were found guilty of bombing

schools and gunning down civilians and were sentenced to life in prison. (Edward Oxford:

Against All Odds-96) Three others were sentenced to death after a trial that lasted twenty

minutes. (Edward Oxford: Against All Odds-94) They were eventually executed as the

Japanese condemned them as, enemies of the people. (R. Conrad Stein-36)

Other fliers had better luck than those captured by the Japanese. Doolittle landed

in a rice paddy. (Edward Oxford: Against All Odds-69) Plane 8 turned northwest when

they left Japan and headed toward Russia. They landed at a small airfield there and were

taken into custody. (Edward Oxford: Against All Odds-68) Ted Lawson, who was the

pilot of The Ruptured Duck , attempted a beach landing; but as he approached the

ground, both of his engines quit. His plane landed in six feet of water going at one

hundred and ten miles an hour. (Edward Oxford: Against All Odds-66) Lawson was

severely injured . The majority of the flesh on his left leg had been ripped off and bones

above and below the kneecap were exposed. (Edward Oxford: Against All Odds-67)

Later, under the care of the Chinese and the American flight surgeon, Lawson lost his leg.

He watched as nurses picked it up and carried it out of the door. (Edward Oxford: Against

All Odds-73)

Now that the fliers were on the ground, those that were not prisoners made their

attempt to get home. Chinese guerrillas picked up the flyers and headed toward

Chunking. (Edward Oxford: Against All Odds-74) The fliers didn t trust the Chinese

since they thought they were leading them into the hands of the Japanese. (Edward

Oxford: Against All Odds-75) Then a Chinese engineering student named Tong-Sheng

Liu showed up, and since he could speak English became their guide and interpreter.

(Edward Oxford: Against All Odds-76) During a three week period, groups of Raiders

finally struggled into Chunking and that was the end of the journey. (Edward Oxford:

Against All Odds-77)

The Chinese people had held up their part of the bargain. They had helped the

flyers get safely away from the Japanese. The Japanese, however, were furious at the

Chinese and showed it. (Edward Oxford: Against All Odds-88) Thousands of Chinese

were killed. The Japanese made it a point to burn to the ground those villages through

which the airmen had passed. (Edward Oxford: Against All Odds-89) They tortured

countless civilians. In one reported case, a man was wrapped in a gasoline soaked blanket

and his wife was forced to set him on fire. (Edward Oxford: Against All Odds-90)

The mission was over. Doolittle and some of the Raiders were ordered back to the

United States while others remained in the China-Burma and India Theater. (Edward

Oxford: Against All Odds-82) America was more than proud of the flyers and Doolittle

was promoted to the rank of brigadier general. (Edward Oxford: Against All Odds-82)

FDR pinned the Medal of Honor on Doolittle at the White House, and one month later,

General Arnold awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross to the Raiders (Edward Oxford:

Against All Odds-85)

Like all wars, WW II came to an end. This story and many other stories will live

on in recorded history. In the case of the Tokyo Raid, a set of eighty silver goblets, each

one inscribed with a Raider s name, has been kept on display at the U.S. Air Force

Academy in Colorado Springs, Colorado. (Edward Oxford: Against All Odds-97) All of

the Raiders were heroes. All helped shorten the war. It is important to remember that

there were thousands of other heroes in WW II that provided the ultimate victory. There

may be no record of what they did, but they were heroes none the less. It is this fighting

spirit that makes America great.