April 18, 2020, marks the 78th anniversary of The Doolittle airstrike on Tokyo. 78 years ago, 16 B-25 medium bombers led by U.S. Army Air Force Lieutenant Colonel James Doolittle carried out air strikes on Tokyo, the capital of Japan, as well as the five cities of Yokosuka, Yokohama, Nagoya, and Kobe, which greatly improved the morale of the American military and civilians after the Pearl Harbor incident and also had a profound impact on the strategic deployment of the Japanese army in the Pacific theater.
<h1 class = "pgc-h-arrow-right" > attack on Pearl Harbor, air raids on Tokyo, export evil gas</h1>
On December 7, 1941, the Japanese Navy's Japanese carrier mobile unit, composed of six regular aircraft carriers and more than 440 carrier-based aircraft, sneaked up on the U.S. Navy's Pacific Fleet anchored at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, dealing a heavy blow to the U.S. Navy while dragging the United States into the battlefield of World War II. After that, the Japanese army launched a "southward advance" operation, launched a large-scale attack on Southeast Asia, and achieved a huge victory.
Pearl Harbor, which was attacked by Japanese airstrikes
On the other hand, the morale of the U.S. army, which has repeatedly lost on the battlefield, is very low, and the whole army is in great need of a landmark victory to boost morale. As a result, President Roosevelt issued instructions to the U.S. military to organize a counterattack against the Japanese army as soon as possible. At that time, because the Pacific Fleet had been severely damaged and the ground combat forces were difficult to immediately retake the lost ground, the US officers believed that direct air raids on Tokyo, the capital of Japan, were the only feasible plan and could achieve the greatest propaganda effect.
However, the problem soon came: at that time, the land-based bombers equipped by the US military were not enough to reach Tokyo, and if the aircraft carrier wanted to carry a carrier-based aircraft to carry out air raids, it would have to take a great risk to sail to the coastal waters of Japan, and before it reached the take-off position, it would be discovered by the Japanese guards deployed on the outer line, and then the Japanese fleet and land-based bombing opportunities would make a large-scale move to intercept the US aircraft carrier formation, and the operation would inevitably fail.
The plan for an air raid on Tokyo seemed impossible, but Colonel Francis Rohr, then deputy chief of staff of the Navy, after inspecting the army air force base and making a lot of calculations, believed that if the aircraft carrier was equipped with the army's twin-engine bomber, the aircraft carrier could release the bomber at a safe distance outside the Japanese cordon (about 740 kilometers from the Japanese mainland), and the crew could also cross the East China Sea after completing the air raid on Tokyo, fly 2800 nautical miles and land in China or the Soviet Union.
< H1 class = "pgc-h-arrow-right" > the B-25 Mitchell medium bomber involved in the operation, which was very challenging</h1>
After repeated selections, the US military chose the B-25 Mitchell medium bomber, which had just been equipped with troops at that time, as the main model for the mission. However, the normal endurance range of the B-25 is only 2100 kilometers, and it is obviously unable to fly a range of 3500 kilometers. What to do? Then dismantle it! The U.S. military removed almost all the removable items on the B-25, including self-defense machine guns and radios, and carried only four 500-pound bombs and necessary fuel. Thanks to the efforts of the ground crew, the B-25 finally completed the weight reduction, and also carried double the fuel, and the air raid plan was successfully implemented.
B-25B Mitchell medium bomber
With the necessary equipment, there must also be a trusted crew and commander to carry out the mission. Henry Arnold, then commander of the U.S. Army Aviation Corps, recommended a retired officer: Army Air Force Lieutenant Colonel James Doolittle, nicknamed "Jimmy." The 46-year-old lieutenant colonel joined the Army Aviation Corps as early as 1917, and he also won the 1925 Schneider Cup seaplane speed competition, and after retiring in 1930, he continued to be enthusiastic about flying, and in 1936 he also completed a long-distance flight across the Continental United States, and he was highly respected in the military and was a rare flying wizard. General Arnold also chose him because of his excellent leadership skills and superb skills for long-distance flight.
James Doolittle (left) with Captain Mark Mitchell (right) of the aircraft carrier USS Hornet before the start of the operation
In any era, the take-off and landing of carrier-based aircraft is extremely dangerous and difficult, and it is needless to say that specially designed carrier-based aircraft, let alone medium-sized bombers that were originally intended to take off and land on land airports. The distance left for the B-25 to take off is only a short 142 meters, which is only one-fifth of the normal take-off distance of the B-25! But for the experienced Lieutenant Colonel Doolittle, none of this is a thing. On land, Lieutenant Colonel Doolittle and more than 20 of his crews have undergone repeated simulated take-off and landing training, in which many aircraft have crashed due to accidents, but most of them have successfully completed ultra-short-distance simulated take-off and landing training, and then it is the day of waiting for departure.
< h1 class= "pgc-h-arrow-right" > expedition</h1>
On April 2, 1942, the aircraft carrier Hornet, carrying 16 B-25 bombers and 80 crew crews, secretly set sail from San Francisco, and on the afternoon of the same day, Lieutenant Colonel Doolittle finally informed his crew of the target of the bombing: Tokyo! The crew members were instantly excited, and cheers echoed throughout the hangar. On 14 April, the Hornet and the USS Enterprise, which had sailed from Pearl Harbor, successfully converged, and the two carriers were escorted by an escort formation of 3 heavy cruisers, 1 light cruiser, 8 destroyers and 2 supply ships, with General William Halsey as the commander-in-chief of the fleet, heading in the direction of Tokyo.
To show his contempt for the Japanese, Doolittle tied the medal he had received during his visit to Japan in the 1930s to a bomb and wrote on the bomb: "Your medals are now returned to you!" "
Due to the high winds and waves at sea, the B-25 used was firmly fixed to the flight deck with ropes
At 7:38 a.m. on April 18, the avant-garde destroyers spotted a Japanese alert ship, the Twenty-third Tomaru, by radar, and although the cruiser Nashville quickly stepped forward to sink the Japanese guard ship converted from a fishing boat, the Americans discovered through intercepted radio telegraphs that the Japanese had sent their movements to the rear command.
< H1 class= "pgc-h-arrow-right" > whereabouts were exposed, and the B-25 took off early</h1>
With their whereabouts exposed, and with 1,100 kilometers to go before the Japanese mainland, Doolittle and Halsey decided to let the attacking troops take off early! The pilots quickly boarded the plane, and after completing the necessary preparations, the No. 1 aircraft, which was taken by Doolittle, first began to glide on the deck of the Bumblebee. Only 1 meter from the end of the carrier deck, Doolittle pulled up the nose and shot straight into the sky. Subsequently, the remaining 15 B-25s also slid off one after another, and each aircraft left the ship, and there was a cheer on the deck. After regrouping in the air, the attack team all remained low-flying and flew towards the intended target. The carrier formation also quickly turned around and withdrew from the battlefield.
On April 18, 1942, B-25 bombers were taking off from the deck of the aircraft carrier Hornet
On the other hand, although the Japanese army has been informed of the emergence of the US aircraft carrier, the Japanese army did not expect the US military to adopt the tactic of releasing land-based bombers on the aircraft carrier, believing that the US aircraft carrier must be close to a distance of 400 kilometers from the mainland before it can release the carrier-based aircraft to carry out the attack, and made a wrong estimate of the time of the US attack. As a result, when The B-25 fleet led by Doolittle arrived over Tokyo, they encountered few decent interceptions.
A B-25 bomber that successfully dropped bombs over Tokyo
< H1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" > successful air raid</h1>
The navigator on board put the intended military targets such as weapons production workshops and ammunition depots into the sights and dropped the bombs step by step. After completing the bombing mission, the Doolittle attack team continued to fly westward, completing the "tour" amid the unresponsive anti-aircraft guns of the Japanese. Interestingly, on the day of The Doolittle air raid on Tokyo, Hideki Tojo, then Prime Minister of Japan, happened to finish inspecting the Mito Aviation School and flew back to Tokyo. Tojo's secretary noticed a twin-engine plane painted with an unfamiliar five-star logo flying from the right side of the plane, and suddenly woke up with a confused face, "American aircraft!" "。 If the B-25 had not removed the self-defense machine gun, it might have added an extra bonus to the mission.
Due to the early departure and the secrecy of the operation to the Chinese side, it was impossible for the attack team to land smoothly at the airport along the coast of Zhejiang Province, China, as planned. Therefore, after the fleet reached the skies over China, Doolittle ordered all the crews to abandon the plane and parachute.
The four American pilots who raided Tokyo grinned from under borrowed Chinese umbrellas
One of the B-25s, due to lack of fuel, flew out of its squad and landed in Vladivostok, which was controlled by the Soviet Union and did not return to China via Iran until 1943. Among the 75 pilots who parachuted in China, 3 died because of the forced landing of the plane, 64 were rescued by local anti-Japanese soldiers and civilians, and most of them returned to the United States after arriving in Chongqing and Guilin. Eight pilots unfortunately fell into the hands of the Japanese, 3 of whom were shot shortly thereafter, 1 died of illness in a prisoner-of-war camp, and the remaining 4 were liberated after the Japanese surrendered.
At the end of April 1942, Doolittle, who was successfully rescued, took a group photo with several pilots and Chinese military and political personnel
Lieutenant Robert Haiter, the co-pilot of Aircraft 16, was unfortunately captured by the Japanese and subjected to the so-called "trial" and was eventually imprisoned in a Shanghai prison, released after the surrender of Japan in August 1945. In order to prevent the U.S. army from launching a similar attack in the future, the Japanese army launched the Zhejiang-Gansu Campaign in mid-May 1942, destroying known field airfields along the coast of Zhejiang Province and Fujian Province, including Quzhou, Yushan, Lishui and other places, and at the same time launching a brutal sweep of the anti-Japanese soldiers and civilians in Zhejiang and Jiangxi provinces. According to later statistics, about 250,000 anti-Japanese soldiers and civilians gave their lives in the great sweep.
The B-25 fleet led by Doolittle flew along the route, except for one forced landing in Vladivostok, the rest reached the coastal areas of China
The news of Doolittle's successful air raid on Tokyo instantly made headlines in the US media and caused a huge sensation among the US military and civilians. On April 21, three days after the success of the operation, President Roosevelt was interviewed at the White House, and the reporter asked, "Where did the plane take off?" Roosevelt replied to reporters with a paradise described in the best-selling novel "Vanishing Horizon": "Shangri-La" (in fact, "no comment" in a different way).
< H1 class= "pgc-h-arrow-right" > air raids of far-reaching significance</h1>
Doolittle's successful air raid on Tokyo, although it did not cause great material losses to the Japanese, but it created a great shock to the Japanese army: in the Pacific theater, they could not ensure the absolute safety of the emperor's head? Affected by this, the Japanese suspended the offensive in the South Pacific and transferred a large number of fighters and anti-aircraft guns and other defense forces back to the mainland. The mastermind of the attack on Pearl Harbor, General Isoroku Yamamoto, commander of the Combined Fleet, also decided to attack Midway, hoping to take this opportunity to lure the US aircraft carrier and wipe it out. But what the Japanese army did not expect was that the Battle of Midway, which broke out 2 months later, turned out to be a turning point in the entire Pacific War, and the Japanese Empire gradually fell to the end.
On April 21, 1992, on the 50th anniversary of the Doolittle air raid, the U.S. military held a different commemorative event: two B-25 bombers were taken off from the CV-61 "Commando" aircraft carrier to pay tribute to the courage and wisdom of Doolittle and his 80 warriors.