The
carrier-borne air attack against Japan, to become known as "The Doolittle
Raid", was one of the most daring sorties of WWII. At the insistence of
Franklin D. Roosevelt, military planners devised a plan to enable sixteen
Mitchel B25 bombers to be launched off the coast of Japan in order to bomb
Tokyo and other cities. Things went awry when the operation was thought
to have been detected causing the bombers to take off further from the
Japanese coast than planned, and all of the planes were lost along with
a substantial number of aircrew, some of whom were captured by the Japanese.
Although little appreciable material damage was done to military targets,
the exercise provided a tremendous boost to American morale after the tragedy
of Pearl Harbor for which, in part, this raid was a reprisal; but more
importantly was effect it had on the Japanese who were undecided about
their strategy having already achieved most of their objectives. The obvious
choice was to take Australia as this was the direction from which counter-attacks
could be expected. Yamamoto favoured taking the war to American waters
in order to bring the US fleet into battle and hopefully defeat it. The
Doolittle Raid swung the argument his way, and the result was the Battle
of Midway. The rest is history. Dropbears.com
Read more...
I
Could Never Be So Lucky Again
by James H. Doolittle, et al
The autobiography of one of the most famous of all wartime aviators
who joined the US Army Air Service in 1917 and went on to lead a sortie
which would go down in history, and for which he was awarded the Congressional
Medal of Honor and his General's stars. Dropbears.com
Paperback - 544 pages (April 2001)
ISBN: 0553584642 |
 |
Thirty
Seconds over Tokyo
by Captain Ted W. Lawson
Hardcover (February 1999)
Buccaneer Books; ISBN: 0899668860
The
First Heroes: The Extraordinary Story of the Doolittle Raid - America's
First World War II Victory
by Craig Nelson
from Viking Press
Four
Came Home: The Gripping Story of the Survivors of Jimmy Doolittle's Two
Lost Crews
by Carroll V. Glines
Paperback (March 1996)
ISBN: 157510007X
Thirty Seconds over Tokyo (1944)
Starring: Van Johnson, et al.
Director: Mervyn LeRoy
Listed under War Movies
The
Doolittle Raid
Carroll V. Glines
Schiffer
Not
As Briefed: From the Doolittle Raid to a German Stalag
by Colonel C. Ross Greening
from Washington State Univ Pr
The Ship That Held the Line : The U.S.S. Hornet and the First Year
of the Pacific War
by Lisle Abbott Rose
Listed under Aircraft Carriers
» Click
here for top sellers in World War II
Related
Sections
