World War II From Above by Jeremy Harwood

Author:Jeremy Harwood
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: MBI
Published: 2014-10-18T16:00:00+00:00

THE RAID IS LAUNCHED

By April 17, the Mitchells were ready for their mission. Each had been armed with four 500lb (226kg) bombs—three were filled with high explosives, while the other was an incendiary. Then chance took a hand. The following day, the Americans were still 150 nautical miles (278km) from their planned launching point when the task force was spotted by a Japanese picket boat. One of the escorting cruisers quickly sank her, but not before she had radioed a warning.

Halsey decided to launch the strike at once, 12 hours earlier and farther away from Japan than had been planned. The weather was worsening into the bargain. Winds were gusting at speeds of up to 20 knots and huge waves were breaking over the ships’ bows. To make the launch even more problematic, none of the B-25 pilots—including Doolittle himself—had ever taken off from an actual aircraft carrier before.

Starting at 8:20 a.m., it took around an hour to launch the planes, but all 16 of them managed to get into the air. They then set course for Japan in groups of two to four, dropping almost to wave level as they approached the coast to lessen the chances of detection. Arriving over Japan at around noon, they spread out to attack their allocated targets—10 in Tokyo; two in Yokohama; and one each in Kobe, Osaka, Nagoya, and Yokosuka. The air defenses were taken by surprise. Antiarcraft fire was light, while no fighters managed to get into the air in time to intercept the raiders. The low-flying bombers were actually cheered by civilians, who thought that they were Japanese.

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