Jimmy Doolittle's granddaughter talking about the Doolittle Raid.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fgt8PMoRGG8&featur:soldiers:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fgt8PMoRGG8&featur:soldiers:
"Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo" was one of the first WWII books I read as a kid. My father was working at Tinker Field at the start of the war and has always recalled the story about how Charles Limburgh landed in a B-25 one day with carburator problems. It was not until after the Doolittle Raid that he figured out that Limburgh might have been doing test flights to determine maxium range of the B-25.
The Doolittle Raid was a waste of material for a propaganda reason. If the Hornet and Enterprise had been at Coral Sea where they were supposed to be, we would have had a better chance of sinking more Japanese carriers than little Shōhō, and we probably wouldnt have lost Lexington. That means we have 4 carriers instead of 3 at Midway. We could have killed some more Japanese capital ships at Midway.
While brave and all that, it was a wasteful exercise in propaganda and not much more.
While brave and all that, it was a wasteful exercise in propaganda and not much more.
I disagree. The attack on Tokyo made the Japanese feel vulnerable to a sea based aircraft attack. As a result, they held some of their carriers closer to home to protect their homeland.
I agree. In addition, it could be argued that Yamamoto wouldn't have even went into Midway and had the resulting devastating loss there if it were not for the Doolittle raid. He felt pressured to do so. It was a win on all levels, politically, in our homeland morale, in causing the Japanese public to question their leaders, in confusing the Japanese military, tactically in helping draw the IJN back home and loosening their grip on trade routes, etc... The only real loser were the Chinese who recieved some extra slaughtering for helping us.
Reading a book on the War in the Pacific right now. One thing I never heard before about the Tokyo raid was this. The raid was viewed at the time (and by some still obviously) as a waste of effort. It did hurt the morale of the Japanese, and boost that of the Americans but there were two other major things it did. The Japanese sent their Navy out searching for Halseys battlegroup, which reduced the size of individual groups of warships since they were involved in a search mission. This made it easier for a few limited strikes to be carried out that otherwise would have probably gotten alot more people killed. The biggest thing it did though was cause the amount of radio traffic between ships, and between ships and the shore to increase to a massive scale. This allowed the code breakers to have more materiel to work with as they tried to break the code, and the more they had, the easier it was. So the Doolittle raid basicaly allowed us to break their code, which in turn helped us win the Battle of Midway.
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Thanks for posting this. Makes me wonder how many young ones know of it.
Thank you, js, HM and Mitch. I am biting my tongue trying to be civil.
Thanks Mitch. I never knew the practical implications of the mission, but it always seemed to me that the psycological effects alone were reason enough to strike back in any way possible.
Those guys were all volunteers and they knew what they were up against. "You won't have enough fule to get home, but if you don't shot down, you might make it to China. China isn't copletely controlled by the Japanese."
They went anyway. It might be a little tougher to find men like that today.
Good points, Ig. Must tell you of Pat Dugan sometime from Lone Wolf who, well, just right now he was a fighter pilot in the South Pacific.
