Doolittle's Raid on Tokyo

    It was 69 years ago today... April 18, 1942 and America finally fought back after the disaster of Pearl Harbor. The Japanese had a lot of successes after the surprise attack on December 7, 1941. Buoyed by the great victory of the Pearl Harbor mission, the Japanese followed up with conquests of Malaysia, the Phillipine Islands, and Indonesia, to go along with the large section of China (Manchuria) the Japanese had invaded in the late 1930's. The constant stream of bad news for America forced President Franklin D. Roosevelt to order his military forces to come up with some way to fight back. Japan was too far from any U.S. base to attack from the air, so a joint-service effort was devised. The Navy would ferry U.S. Army B-25 bombers close to Japan and the bombers would strike five different Japanese cities before heading for China. On April 18, 1942 sixteen B-25's took off from the aircraft carrier U.S.S. Hornet. Never before in history had a bomber taken off from a ship. The mission was under the leadership of Lt. Colonel James Doolittle and he not only trained the men, but was the pilot of the first bomber to leave the Hornet. The mission was a super success for the U.S. and extremely embarrassing for the Japanese, who thought they were safe from the U.S. military. One of the bombers landed in Russia, five others ditched in the South China Sea, and the ten others crashed in China. Of the eighty men involved in the mission only five are still alive as of this day. Each year since the mission the remaining fliers all get together for a reunion and there is a bottle of vintage champagne waiting for the last of these American heroes.