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April 18, 1942
At dawn on April 18, 1942, a U.S. Navy task force
was heading through rough Pacific seas toward Japan. One of the ships in
the flotilla was the aircraft carrier Hornet with 16 AAF B-25s on deck.
Plans called for the B-25s to take off from the carrier when within 450
to 650 miles of Japan, bomb selected targets at such locations as Yokohama
and Tokyo, and then fly another 1,200 miles to friendly airfields on mainland
China. Unfortunately, an enemy patrol boat was sighted and, although it
was sunk by U.S. gunfire, it was decided to launch the planes at once in case the patrol boat had been able
to radio a warning to Japan. The 16 B-25s were launched while the task
force was 800 miles from Japan rather than the desired 450 to 650 miles.
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| They all reached the Japanese islands, dropped their bombs on oil stores,
factory areas, and military installations, and then headed out across the
East China Sea. However, night was approaching, the planes began running
low on fuel, and the weather was rapidly becoming worse. The crews realized
they could not reach the Chinese airfields and had the choice of either
bailing out, ditching at sea, or crash-landing, although one plane was
able to divert to Vladivostok where its crew was interned by the Russians.
When the news of the raid was released, American morale zoomed from the
depths to which it had plunged following Japan's successes. It also caused
the Japanese to transfer back to the home islands fighter units which could
have been used against the Allies. In comparison to the B-29 attacks against
Japan two years later, the Tokyo Raid was a token effort. However, it was
an example of brilliant tactics.
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