Doolittle Raid

I have never had much of an interest in Military History but while watching the movie Pearl Harbor I felt the only interesting part of the entire movie was towards the end when it covered the Doolittle Raid. I researched the book back then but just left it on my wish list. Now years later I finally picked it up and was truly glad I did. It does read like a novel and is at times choppy but the reasons for that made it all the more interesting. The book often uses first hand reports or interviews to move the story along. Given the 16 flight crews involved this makes for a lot of people to incorporate into the flow. By getting the official reports you do not have the over dramatization you could have. You get just the facts (mostly) on an important and under appreciated historic event that changed the course of WWII. The book could have been much longer. There are lots of details missing or glossed over, but you get the idea that that is how the crews want it. They knew what they did. They knew what it accomplished. They knew what it cost them. But here's the facts. End of story.

An intensely interesting account of the Doolittle Raid - America's first strike at the Japanese mainland five months after Pearl Harbor. The Doolittle Raid is one of those historical events that people are aware of without knowing many of the details - more so now as the veterans of WWII age and pass on than 20 odd years ago when this book was first published. The books well-written, factual, covers everything from the conceptualisation of the raid through the planning, preparation, the raid itself and it's aftermath as well as side-events such as the crew that ended up in the USSR and eventually escaped through Iran to India. There's photo's of all the crews that took part in the raid as well as some of the aircraft themselves. Keep in mind that these men volunteered for this mission without knowing what it was, flew off a carrier with bombers that were in no way designed for it and took off on a one-way mission with nothing much prepared at the other end. Eight were captured by the Japanese and three were executed. Quite frankly, these guys were real heroes. "They shall not grow old, As we that are left grow old. Age shall not weary them, Nor the years condemn. At the going down of the sun, And in the morning, We will remember them. We will remember them."

A truely inspiring read about men willing to fight any odds to strike a blow for the USA.

In April, 1942, the U.S. Navy set out to strike back at the Japanese. The plan was to launch B-25 Mitchell bombers from the deck of an aircraft carrier, bomb Tokyo, then fly to safety in China. In this excellent book by Carroll Glines, the story of the famed Doolittle Raiders unfolds. President Roosevelt conceived the idea. American morale was very low after the Pearl Harbor attack, and the President felt that an attack on the Japanese homeland would do wonders for the American civilians as well as the armed forces. Colonel Jimmy Doolittle was selected to lead the mission. Famous for his air racing and numerous speed records, Doolittle assembled sixteen crews and began training in Florida. Finally, the planes were loaded aboard the U.S.S. Hornet and the task force set sail for Japan. The original plan was to approach to within about 350 miles of the Japanese coast before launching, but a Japanese sampan discovered the task force while they were still some distance from the take off point. I enjoyed the way that Mr. Glines told the individual story of each crew involved in the attack. This aspect of the book made it much more enjoyable to read. The dialogue is so vivid that one can imagine themself sitting in the cockpit. In the end, most of the planes successfully crash-landed in China, but eight men were taken prisoner by the Japanese. They suffered horribly at the hands of their captors. One man died in prison, three were executed by the Japanese, and four survived the war to return to the United States. Another book, entitled Four Came Home, also written by Mr. Glines, tells the story of the four survivors in much greater detail than this book. I would highly recommend both of these books as they both do an excellent job describing this first strike against the enemy.

This book, I believe, is a very good account of a relatively forgotten event during the Second World War in the Pacific theater. Sandwiched between two intensely covered events such as the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor and the American victory at Midway, the Doolittle raid often gets overlooked. The author did a good job to provide a detailed account of the events leading up to the raid as well as an excellent account of the experiences of each of the sixteen bomber crews as they made their raid over Japan. Other lesser-known areas concerning the raid were covered such as the voyage of the carrier task force and just how close they came to being attacked by Japanese aircraft and surface forces. Also the technical challenges that occurred to the aircraft were elaborated on as well as an account from the Japanese standpoint pertaining to their preparedness for such an air raid. To complete this telling of the Doolittle Raid the author explains the fate of the aircrews that either survived the raid to continue the fight or those that were captured by the Japanese. Finally the plight of the Chinese people as a result of their part of the raid was not forgotten or overlooked, as is often done by history. Overall, for a person generally interested in World War II history this book would rate a 4 out of 5. If you are particularly interested in the Pacific war against Japan this book is definitely a 5 of 5.