On this date in 1942, Lt. Col. Jimmy Doolittle led 16 B-25 bombers off the deck of the aircraft carrier USS Hornet for the historic raid on Japan. The action marked the first time B-25s had been launched from the deck of an aircraft carrier on a combat mission. The raiders bombed Tokyo and five other Japanese cities, destroying the belief by the Japanese that their islands were protected by divine winds. Unable to return to the Hornet, one plane landed in Russia and 15 landed or crashed in China or Chinese waters. One raider died bailing out of his B-25 and two drowned in the sea off China’s coast. Eight were captured by the Japanese and three were executed. The raid was a psychological blow to the Japanese and a tremendous morale booster for the Americans after the surprise attack on Pearl Harbor four months earlier.
The Doolittle Raid
When asked to volunteer,
Each held up his hand
To take an outside chance
To answer to Japan.
Each recalled that awful day,
Out of the rising sun,
Japan attacked Hawaii.
A world war was begun.
Eighty stalwart warriors,
Heroes to a man,
Made a pact among themselves
To do the best they can
To avenge the stark aggression
Of that December day,
And send a message to Japan
Of what they’d have to pay.
And what a message they dispatched,
To astonished Japanese,
That they had not immunity
To strike at what they please.
Sixteen US bombers
Took hurriedly off that day,
From an aircraft carrier
Steaming on its way
Toward the island of Japan
To deliver the surprise;
An attack upon their home land.
They could not believe their eyes.
Three airmen lost their lives that day;
Three more, executed.
But within the seeds they’d sown
Victory was rooted.
The Japanese that day knew
That they were not immune
From the wrath that they had wrought.
One day they’d pay, late or soon.
The eighty men that volunteered,
On that fateful day,
Made it clear for all to see;
Aggression would not pay.
Our freedom is ensured, you see,
At home and over seas,
Not by diplomatic ploy,
But by men like these.
