The Doolittle Raid: America's daring first strike against Japan

This book is a detailed recounting of the carrier launched B-25 raid against Tokyo, Japan on 18 April 1942. The book opens with a brief, one chapter, recap of the December 7th attack on Pearl Harbor. This chapter is followed by four chapters detailing the evolution of the idea of a carrier born

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bomber attack- the initial idea, the investigation of possible bomber types, the special modification to the bombers, crew training and, finally, the carrier Hornet sailing from San Francisco loaded with 16 B-25 medium bombers.

The chapters that follow detail the unexpected encounter with Japanese picket ships which forced an earlier than expected launch of the strike force, a plane by plane description of their respective flights from the Hornet to Japan, and the fate of those planes after the strike on Tokyo and vicinity. (Most of the bombers made it to China with their crews either bailing out over the land or ditching in the ocean near the coast. One crew landed in the Soviet Union and one entire crew and three survivors of a second were captured by the Japanese – 4 of these men survived 40 months of captivity.)

The remainder of the book discusses the impact of the raid on Japan and Japanese military thinking, the ordeals faced by the 8 who were captured and the repatriation of the POW's to the United States at the end of the war. The book is well written and does an excellent job of conveying the many facets of the mission-technical, political, and personal - to the reader.

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