THE ARMY AIR FORCES In World War I1 Volume 1

Philippines/Luzon at the start of the war.

4. How the attack on Pearl Harbor was actually a mistake for the Japanese

”Brilliantly executed though they were, the attacks of 7 December against Oahu and Luzon appear in retrospect as a colossal blunder. The perfection of those operations gave evidence of meticulous planning at the tactical level, but not of sound thinking along broader military and political lines. In fact, an analysis of postwar interrogations of high-ranking military and governmental leaders in Japan suggests that they had precipitated a major war without formulating for it an over-all strategy. Hopelessly outmatched in actual and potential industrial capacity, the Japanese had attacked with no firm pattern of operations in view and with no concept of how the war might be brought to a successful conclusion. There was some hope that if a formidable chain of island defenses could be thrown around the Inner Empire, American preoccupation with Germany and discomfiture over initial defeats might bring a negotiated peace, with Japan in uncontested control of the Greater East Asia Co-prosperity Sphere. Such a hope was, of course, based upon a most erroneous interpretation of American psychology.”

The problems, thus, were:

1. The Japanese military knew how they wanted to start the war, but they had no great overall plan for how to proceed with it very far.

2. The Japanese did not understand how Americans thought (nor Americans understand the way the Japanese thought.) They did not think Americans would fight, and that the Americans would cave in and sue for peace quickly. They had absolutely no idea at all that Pearl Harbor would becoming a rallying cry, and also increase the hatred for the Japanese that already existed among many Americans.

5. Was the West Coast of the U.S. in Danger?

“Defense of the central and eastern Pacific areas devolved upon the United States alone. There seemed little likelihood of an attack in force upon the western coast of the United States...”

It's interesting that the report says this, considering that the “threat” to the Pacific Coast was the main reason cited for the internment of persons of Japanese ancestry.

However, the report goes on to add:

”Estimates of the seriousness of the threat to continental United States varied widely with the perspective of the men who made them. Military planners, thinking in terms of world-wide strategy, were apt to minimize a danger which to an individual in an exposed community appeared to be highly personal and threatening. This emotional element in the situation, the feeling that it took only one bomb to wipe out a home, meant that in continental defense political factors were no less important than strictly military considerations. The initial reaction of the people in one of the more exposed areas was described in an account written on 10 December 1941 by Richard L. Neuberger, Oregon journalist: “People who had pooh-poohed any hint of peril on Saturday kept their children home from school on Monday.” While Mr. Neuberger wrote, the Northwest was blacked out from Puget Sound to southern Oregon, radio stations had been off the air for sixteen hours, and enemy aircraft were reported near the mouth of the Columbia River. It was not known whether the reports of enemy activity were founded on fact or rumor, but “men and women whose Congressional representatives less than a month ago voted overwhelmingly against repeal of the Neutrality Act are now prepared to believe such reports implicitly.” And on the preceding night “store windows in Seattle which did not dim were smashed by irate citizens.” An official estimate of the danger was given to the nation by President Roosevelt in a radio address on 9 December. Th e Chief Executive admitted that the losses at Pearl Harbor constituted a serious setback and bluntly told the people to prepare for a long war against powerful foes. He warned that the initial attack could be repeated “at any one of many points in both oceans and along our coast lines and against the rest of the hemisphere.” Summing up the terrible lesson which had been contained in the rain of bombs on American ships and planes in the Pacific, the President suggested that it ought to be clear to every citizen “that our ocean-girt hemisphere is not immune from severe attack that we cannot measure our safety in terms of miles on any map.” At the same time, Mr. Roosevelt outlined views which were to be reiterated through the discouraging months of the first half-year of disaster and retreat, namely, that although the country might be attacked, nothing must deter the nation from its principal job of preparing to take the war to the enemy.”

”Supporting the apprehensions of the people and the President’s warning, there were sober estimates of the situation by responsible military leaders. As early as 8 December, the Navy reported that the losses sustained in Hawaii had left the Pacific Fleet unable to carry out the tasks assigned to it in the existing war plan,4 and the next day Secretary Stimson reported to President Roosevelt that the War Department plan for the defense of the Pacific coast had been based on the security provided by Hawaii and the fleet, and that “the present attack has left the West Coast unprotected.” There was felt to be a grave possibility that the Japanese might, by renewed attacks, capture islands in the Hawaiian group ‘ and thereby penetrate the Pacific defense triangle ( Alaska-Hawaii-Panama) . Even without reducing Hawaii, the enemy was in a position to carry out raids against aircraft plants and shipbuilding installations along the Pacific seaboard.’”

This seems to contradict the section that said there was no danger to the U.S. West Coast.

The report went on to say that the Air War Plans Divison of the Air Staff had developed a “detailed list of enemy capabilities indicated that Axis forces might successfully attempt any of the following operations”

The list included:

1. The capture or isolation of Alaska. (The Japanese actually did manage to take and hold, briefly, a couple of the Aleutian Islands, but were driven away by the U.S. )

2. Attacks on the West Coast by air, sea, or land. (This was done by Japanese submarines, such as in the Santa Barbara attack, and submarine-launched aircraft, such as in the attack on the forests of Oregon. )

3. Seizure of bases in Canada or Mexico for later attacks on the United States. (Not done.)

4. Capture of the Galapagos Islands. (Not done as far as I know.)

5. Air operations against the Panama Canal. (A major source of worry, but it never came to much in actuality.)

6. Bombing of oil refineries in Peru or Venezuela. (Not done)

7. Seizure of airports and bridgeheads in Brazil. (Not done)

8. The fomenting of revolutions in Latin America. (Not done)

9. Attacks on the East Coast, perhaps after taking a lend-lease base. (Not done, although there were U-boat attacks and shipping sunk on the East Coast, and some shipping sunk by the Japanese off the West Coast.)

10. The capture or isolation of Greenland or Iceland. (Not done.)

”These first estimates undoubtedly reflect the shock resulting from the enemy’s initial victories. As was proper, they sought to cover all conceivable eventualities. But they serve to emphasize the urgent demands of the moment, the necessity, while providing reinforcements for hard pressed outposts and carrying forward plans for attack of the enemy’s vital establishments, to meet immediate and new requirements for an adequate defense of the Western Hemisphere.”

No sustained attack on the West Coast expected

“ It will be noted that it was not anticipated that enemy forces could bring to bear any sustained attack on the continental area, but, as Pearl Harbor had so forcefully demonstrated, a single and well-directed blow could inflict serious injury. That the chief focus of attention fell first on the Pacific rather than the Atlantic coast is explained by the former’s peculiarly exposed position following the Pearl Harbor attack.” Concentration of some of the larger aircraft plants in that region appeared to offer especially tempting bait for a Japanese raid. Fortunately, news of the start of war did not come as a complete surprise to the military forces there. The warning message sent by the War Department to the Western Defense Command on 27 November 1941, indicating that negotiations with Japan in effect had terminated and that war was probable, had resulted in an acceleration of measures being taken to provide an aircraft warning service. Defense arrangements were further facilitated by the fact that air force and antiaircraft artillery units, and civilian volunteers working with the warning service, were at the outbreak of war taking positions in California for an exercise scheduled to begin on I I December.”

Things done to protect the West Coast

”Once the news of the Japanese attack had been received on the mainland, the Fourth and Second Air Forces, which shared responsibility for defending the West Coast, readjusted their forces to provide maximum protection for the major cities3’ In co-operation with the Navy, off shore patrols were promptly instituted to provide warning against carriers and to combat submarines. The aircraft warning service was put into operation, with civilians hurriedly manning their observation posts. Amateur radio stations were ordered off the air, and unnecessary civilian flying was prohibited. The War Department ordered the immediate movement of reinforcements for the Pacific coast by air and fast trains. The supply of heavy bombers was so limited that it was not found possible to immobilize any large number by assigning them to stations along the coasts. Locally based air units therefore consisted in large part of fighter aircraft, to which were added antiaircraft artillery, barrage balloons, and searchlights. The first reinforcement to reach the Pacific coast consisted of planes of the 1st Pursuit Group, which arrived at San Diego on 8 December; by 22 December this entire P-38 group had been transferred from Michigan to California. An additional augmentation of pursuit strength was provided in mid-December by the temporary assignment to the Fourth Air Force of a Marine unit, Air Wing I . Meantime, antiaircraft artillery units had begun to reach the West Coast from inland stations, and some regiments which were at ports of embarkation were diverted to coastal defense assignments.

6. ”Invasion Fever”

”As these and other forces took up their defensive positions, coastal communities suffered from an “invasion fever” which first showed itself with the calling of an alert in San Francisco on 8 December. In the afternoon of the 8th, rumors of an enemy carrier off the coast led to the closing of schools in Oakland.“’ That evening, while residents of the Bay area were having dinner, radio broadcasting suddenly ceased, and this was followed by a blackout which lasted nearly three hours. In the absence of adequate preparations, sirens on police cars were used to warn the people, and self-appointed neighborhood wardens rushed from door to door to help enforce the blackout. Reports reaching Washington of an attack on San Francisco were regarded as credible, but news dispatches soon characterized the affair as a test and announced that California had “caught its breath again.” The Army, however, insisted that radar stations had tracked airplanes approaching the coast from a distance IOO miles at sea. The continuity of the tracking convinced officers that the planes were hostile, and Lt. Gen. John L. DeWitt of the Western Defense Command strongly denounced those who treated the alert lightly. In the San Francisco News of 10 December he was quoted as follows: “Last night there were planes over this community. They were enemy planes! I mean Japanese planes! And they were tracked out to sea. You think it was a hoax? It is damned nonsense for sensible people to assume that the Army and Navy would practice such a hoax on San Francisco.” Newspapers, impressed with these statements, carried banner headlines announcing that the “Army Warns City Danger Near.” A similar message had been carried to a national audience on 8 December when Fiorello La Guardia, head of the Office of Civilian Defense, told the radio public: “I do not want to unduly alarm my fellow citizens, but I want to be realistic. The situation is serious. We must not underestimate what happened twenty-four hours ago.” disturbing rumors of enemy threats continued to mount on 9 December. Early that morning unidentified planes were reported off southern California, and the Eleventh Naval District ordered preparations made to repulse a raid by sea or air. Later the Navy relayed to the AAF a “red hot tip” which announced that thirty-four enemy vessels were standing off the coast near Los Angeles, waiting for the fog to lift before starting an attack. Army planes were dispatched and found that the alarm had been occasioned by the presence of a group of American fishing boat. Later in the day a report told with convincing detail of a “Japanese cruiser 2o,ooo yards off the west tip of Catalina Island.” Other witnesses insisted that a cruiser and three destroyers, flying Japanese flags, had been spotted off the coast. This of course was the period when whales were mistaken for enemy submarines, and when floating logs were bombed by inexperienced and overeager air crew.”

Why there were so many alerts

”The many alerts of this period reflect the inexperience of both the public and the defense forces. To some critics they indicated a deliberate attempt by the Army to frighten the public in order to stimulate interest in war preparations. Before accepting this view, however, it should be noted that many of the reports of unidentified aircraft, leading to precautionary blackouts, resulted from mechanical difficulties with new radar equipment and from the understandable mistakes of inadequately trained personnel. Further, there is every evidence that Army commanders were genuinely convinced that the danger of attack, especially against the West Coast, was very real. Military men knew better than the layman how limited were the defenses against air attack. Along the Pacific coast in December 1941 there were, for example, only forty-five thoroughly modern fighter planes to defend a coast line which extended for 1,200 miles, and along which were located such important aircraft plants as those of Boeing in Seattle, Douglas and Lockheed in Los Angeles, and Consolidated in San Diego. In heavy bombers, the defenders were even less well equipped; for at the close of 1941, there were only ten such planes stationed along the entire coast and the number within reach for concentration against an enemy force was indeed limited. Although there were seventy-five medium bombers at hand, their short range cut down their usefulness against the type of attack expected. Moreover, during late 1941 crews of both fighters and bombers were handicapped by an acute shortage of ammunition.”

In other words, there were a lot of potential targets on the West Coast that the Japanese could have hit. This again became a major reason the Japanese lost the war; they were unable to attack these targets, and thus could not stop the U.S. war production effort. The U.S., on the other hand, was able, eventually, to attack similar targets in Japan, and thus could damage the Japanese war effort while the U.S. war effort went on without major problems.What would have happened if they had attacked?

”To reconstruct the problem as it appeared to air officers at the time, let us assume that the report of the presence of thirty-four Japanese ships off the California coast on 9 December 1941 had proved to be true. With what forces could so threatening a surface fleet have been opposed? There is good evidence on this point, for the Fourth Air Force actually issued an order to “attack and destroy” the enemy task force. By good fortune, fourteen bombers destined for the Southwest Pacific were in the vicinity; but it was found that the machine-gun turrets on the planes would not operate, that there was no adequate supply of oxygen for high-altitude operations, that only a few 300- and 600-lb. bombs were on hand, and that the bombers would have to enter an engagement without fighter How effective this force-which was larger than any normally stationed along the coast would have been against a major enemy fleet must be left to the imagination, but competent authorities were convinced that a vigorous attack would have overwhelmed American air units at any of the chief points of defense along the western seaboard.”

Basically, if Japan had chosen to follow up the attack on Pearl Harbor with a major attack on the West Coast, they could have probably caused terrific damage and civilian casualties since the U.S. did not have the forces there to defend against an attack-in-strength. Nothing I have read, though, indicates that the Japanese actually had the refueling capabilities nor the necessary supplies to have launched such an attack. They were also too busy concentrating on their attacks on various islands like the Philippines and New Guinea.

The Santa Barbara attack

”During the course of a fireside report to the nation delivered by President Roosevelt on 23 February 1942, a Japanese submarine rose out of the sea off Ellwood, a hamlet on the California coast north of Santa Barbara, and pumped thirteen shells into tidewater refinery installations. The shots seemed designed to punctuate the President’s statement that “the broad oceans which have been heralded in the past as our protection from attack have become endless battlefields on which we are constantly being challenged by our enemies.” “ Yet the attack which was supposed to carry the enemy’s defiance, and which did succeed in stealing headlines from the President’s address, was a feeble gesture rather than a damaging blow. The raider surfaced at 1905 (Pacific time), just five minutes after the President started his speech. For about twenty minutes the submarine kept a position 2,500 yards offshore to deliver the shots from its 5S-inch guns. The shells did minor damage to piers and oil wells, but missed the gasoline plant, which appears to have been the aiming point; the military effects of the raid were therefore nil. The first news of the attack led to the dispatch of pursuit planes to the area, and subsequently three bombers joined the attempt to destroy the raider, but without success. The reluctance of AAF commanders to assign larger forces to the task resulted from their belief that such a raid as this would be employed by the enemy to divert attention from a major air task force which would hurl its planes against a really significant target.

”The Battle of Los Angeles”

”Loyal Japanese-Americans who had predicted that a demonstration would be made in connection with the President’s speech also prophesied that Los Angeles would be attacked the next night. The Army, too, was convinced that some new action impended, and took all possible precautions. Newspapers were permitted to announce that a strict state of readiness against renewed attacks had been imposed, and there followed the confused action known as “the Battle of Los Angeles.” During the night of 24/25 February 1942, unidentified objects caused a succession of alerts in southern California. On the 24th, a warning issued by naval intelligence indicated that an attack could be expected within the next ten hours. That evening a large number of flares and blinking lights were reported from the vicinity of defense plants. An alert called at I 9 I 8 was lifted at 2 2 2 3, and the tension temporarily relaxed. But early in the morning of the 25th renewed activity began. Radars picked up an unidentified target 120 miles west of Los Angeles. Antiaircraft batteries were alerted at 02 I 5 and were put on Green Alert-ready to fire-a few minutes later. The AAF kept its pursuit planes on the ground, preferring to await indications of the scale and direction of any attack before committing its limited fighter force. Radars tracked the approaching target to within a few miles of the coast, and at 022 I the regional controller ordered a blackout. Thereafter the information center was flooded with reports of “enemy planes,” even though the mysterious object tracked in from sea seems to have vanished. At 0243, planes were reported near Long Beach, and a few minutes later a coast artillery colonel spotted “about 25 planes at IZ,OOO feet” over Los Angeles. At 0306 a balloon carrying .a red flare was seen over Santa Monica and four batteries of antiaircraft artillery opened fire, whereupon “the air over Los Angeles erupted like a volcano.” From this point on reports were hopelessly at variance. Probably much of the confusion came from the fact that antiaircraft shell bursts, caught by the searchlights, were themselves mistaken for enemy planes. In any case, the next three hours produced some of the most imaginative reporting of the war: “swarms” of planes (or, sometimes, balloons) of all possible sizes, numbering from one to several hundred, traveling at altitudes which ranged from a few thousand feet to more than 2o,ooo and flying at speeds which were said to have varied from “very slow” to over zoo miles per hour, were observed to parade across the skies.‘These mysterious forces dropped no bombs and, despite the fact that 1,440 rounds of antiaircraft ammunition were directed against them, suffered no losses. There were reports, to be sure, that four enemy planes had been shot down, and one was supposed to have landed in flames at a Hollywood intersection. Residents in a forty-mile arc along the coast watched from hills or rooftops as the play of guns and searchlights provided the first real drama of the war for citizens of the mainland. The dawn, which ended the shooting and the fantasy, also proved that the only damage which resulted to the city was such as had been caused by the excitement (there was at least one death from heart failure), by traffic accidents in the blacked-out streets, or by shell fragments from the artillery barrage. Attempts to arrive at an explanation of the incident quickly became as involved and mysterious as the “battle” itself. The Navy immediately insisted that there was no evidence of the presence of enemy planes, and Secretary Knox announced at a press conference on 25 February that the raid was just a false alarm At the same conference he admitted that attacks were always possible and indicated that vital industries located along the coast ought to be moved inland. The Army had a hard time making up its mind on the cause of the alert. A report to Washington, made by the Western Defense Command shortly after the raid had ended, indicated that the credibility of reports of an attack had begun to be shaken before the blackout was lifted. This message predicted that developments would prove “that most previous reports had been greatly exaggerated.” The Fourth Air Force had indicated its belief that there were no planes over Los Angeles. But the Army did not publish these initial conclusions. Instead, it waited a day, until after a thorough examination of witnesses had been finished. On the basis of these hearings, local commanders altered their verdict and indicated a belief that from one to five unidentified airplanes had been over Los Angeles. Secretary Stimson announced this conclusion as the War Department version of the incident, and he advanced two theories to account for the mysterious craft: either they were commercial planes operated by an enemy from secret fields in California or Mexico, or they were light planes launched from Japanese submarines. In either case, the enemy’s purpose must have been to locate antiaircraft defenses in the area or to deliver a blow at civilian morale.”

” The divergence of views between the War and Navy departments, and the unsatisfying conjectures advanced by the Army to explain the affair, touched off a vigorous public discussion. The Los Angeles Times, in a first-page editorial on 26 February, announced that “the considerable public excitement and confusion” caused by the alert, as well as its “spectacular official accompaniments,” demanded a careful explanation. Fears were expressed lest a few phony raids undermine the confidence of civilian volunteers in the aircraft warning service. In Congress, Representative Leland Ford wanted to know whether the incident was “a practice raid, or a raid to throw a scare into 2,000,000 people, or a mistaken identity raid, or a raid to take away Southern California’s war industries.” Wendell Willkie, speaking in Los Angeles on 26 February, assured Californians on the basis of his experiences in England that when a real air raid began “you won’t have to argue about it-you’ll just know.” He conceded that military authorities had been correct in calling a precautionary alert but deplored the lack of agreement between the Army and Navy. A strong editorial in the Washington Post on 27 February called the handling of the Los Angeles episode a “recipe for jitters,” and censured the military authorities for what it called “stubborn silence” in the face of widespread uncertainty. The editorial suggested that the Army’s theory that commercial planes might have caused the alert “explains everything except where the planes came from, whither they were going, and why no American planes were sent in pursuit of them.” The New York Times on 28 February expressed a belief that the more the incident was studied, the more incredible it became: “If the batteries were firing on nothing at all, as Secretary Knox implies, it is a sign of expensive incompetence and jitters. If the batteries were firing on real planes, some of them as low as 9,000 feet, as Secretary Stimson declares, why were they completely ineffective? Why did no American planes go up to engage them, or even to identify them? . . .What would have happened if this had been a real air raid?” These questions were appropriate, but for the War Department to have answered them in full frankness would have involved an even more complete revelation of the weakness of our air defenses. At the end of the war, the Japanese stated that they did not send planes over the area at the time of this alert,’l although submarine launched aircraft were subsequently used over Seattle. A careful study of the evidence suggests that meteorological balloons-known to have been released over Los Angeles may well have caused the initial alarm. This theory is supported by the fact that antiaircraft artillery units were officially criticized for having wasted ammunition on targets which moved too slowly to have been airplanes. After the firing started, careful observation was difficult because of drifting smoke from shell bursts. The acting commander of the antiaircraft artillery brigade in the area testified that he had first been convinced that he had seen fifteen planes in the air, but had quickly decided that he was seeing Competent correspondents like Ernie Pyle and Bill Henry witnessed the shooting and wrote that they were never able to make out an airplane. It is hard to see, in any event, what enemy purpose would have been served by an attack in which no bombs were dropped, unless perhaps, as Mr. Stimson suggested, the purpose had been reconnaissance.”

How the U.S. was divided into defense areas.

Dolittle raid could have led to a bombing of U.S.:

“Interest in the air defenses of the West Coast reached a climax in the alerts which preceded and accompanied the Battle of Midway. The Doolittle raid against Japan on I 8 April I 942 convinced American authorities that the Japanese would be satisfied, in retaliation, only by a blow against the US. mainland. In a speech at Chicago on 19 April, James M. Landis, director of the Office of Civilian Defense, began the campaign to prepare the country for a revenge bombing. The War Department even feared that the Japanese might try to use poison gas against civilian populations and rushed all available training gas masks -more than 600,000 in number-to the Western Defense Command for issue to police, air raid wardens, and other key civilians. These measures were accompanied by a newspaper campaign designed to prevent “undue excitement” in the event of a raid. A general fear of reprisal was translated into sharp calls for action when intelligence was received in mid-May of the impending moves of the Japanese against Midway and the Aleutians. Steps were taken at once to strengthen the defense forces along the western seaboard. General Marshall personally visited the Pacific coast and ordered additional antiaircraft artillery and barrage balloon units to the An air task force from the Second Air Force was moved to coastal stations in support of the Fourth Air Force.’” The danger seemed so acute by I June that the pending movement of the air echelon of the Eighth Air Force was and on the following day the 97th Bombardment Group (H) left the concentration area in New England to fly in two elements to McChord Field in Washington and to Hammer Field in California. Similarly, the 1st Pursuit Group on 5 June flew from Maine to Morris Field in North Carolina under orders to proceed to the West Coast. But the Japanese fleet already had been defeated west of Midway, and on the 6th the pursuit group returned to Dow Field.” Reappraisal of Panama

7. The Dolittle Raid

”All these plans and debates were necessary preliminaries to action, but plans alone do not win wars, nor do they sustain morale, for by their very nature they can be known only to a small circle within the topmost level of the military organization. Yet there was dire need of a stimulus to morale during the first weeks following the attack upon Pearl Harbor, which had preceded by three days the further loss to the Allies of the Prince of Wales and the Repulse off Malaya. One such stimulus was conceived during the dark hours of January 1942, one which projected a strike at Tokyo from the sea. Apparently President Roosevelt himself played a role in initiating the expedition, although it is not possible to determine its original author. The scheme involved the launching of medium bombers from a U.S. aircraft carrier which would transport the planes to a point near enough to Japan to permit them to attack Tokyo and several of the larger industrial Japanese cities; from Japan the planes would proceed 1,200 miles farther across the East China Sea to airfields in eastern China, subject of course to the consent of the Chinese government. “

“Although the patrol boat had warned of the approaching American carriers, Japanese intelligence, not anticipating that the attack would be made from such a distance, had not expected a raid before the following day."

Thus the bombers were unopposed as they swept in low over the coast on their way to Tokyo, where an air raid drill was in progress. A full air raid alert was not effected until after theattack was opened at I 2 I 5 by Doolittle in the lead plane, who unloaded his incendiaries upon the Japanese capital. Almost at once he was followed by Lt. Travis Hoover, attacking from 900 feet withthree 500-lb. demolition bombs, which, with the addition of a single incendiary cluster, constituted the bomb load of the majority of the Plane after plane roared over Tokyo, bombing and firing oil stores, factory areas, and military installations, while others went on to strike at Kobe, Yokohama, and Nagoya. At least one bomb from Lt. Edgar E. McElroy’s plane hit the carrier Ryuho resting in a dry dock at the Yokosuka naval base; bombs from other planes fell into thickly settled districts. Despite the best efforts of the enemy AA gunners, only one bomber was hit, that of Lt. Richard 0. Joyce, and even this hit caused only minor damage. Of the sixteen planes in the raid, fifteen had bombed installations in Japan and all sixteen safely left the home islands."

But circumstances beyond the control of the aircrews were against the flight. Although a fortuitous and unexpected tail wind helped to drive the bombers across the East China Sea toward the field they sought at Chuchow, over China the weather was thick and the hour was late;in darkness and rain and cloud, one after another, the bombers either crash-landed or were abandoned by their parachuting crews on the night of 18 April. Of the fifty men who parachuted, forty-ninereached ground safely and were recovered by Chinese and led to safety, as were ten more who had come down in their planes along the coast; only Cpl. Leland D. Faktor was killed in his leap. One plane landed in the sea along the coast and one in a rice paddy, both without scratching their crews; but another, piloted by Lt. Ted W. Lawson, was badly smashed as Lawson attempted to land on a narrow beach. Every man in its crew was injured, some almost fatally. The B-25 piloted by Capt. Edward J. York had gone to a point twenty five miles north of Vladivostok, and its crew was interned by the Russians. Planes piloted by Lts. Dean E. Hallmark and William G. Farrow both came down in enemy-held territory; of these crews, twomen apparently drowned in escaping from one plane, Lts. Farrow, Hallmark, and Sgt. Harold A. Spatz all were executed on 15 October 1942 after trial by the Japanese, and Lts. Robert L. Hite, George Barr, Chase J. Nielson, and Cpl. Jacob Deshazer were recovered at the end of the war after a long detention in enemy prison camps. One man, Lt. Robert J. Meder, died late in 1943 while in the custody of the Japanese. Thus ended the Doolittle raid on Japan. An assessment of the mission is difficult. All sixteen bombers had been lost, though not one to enemy action, and fourteen crews had come through alive."

"Eight of the planes had bombed their primary targets, inflicting varying amounts of damage upon them; five others struck secondary objectives on the Japanese mainland, and enemy reports indicated that the missing planes also bombed their targets. Some honest errors of bombing and gunnery had occurred when bombardiers overshot their marks, sending bombs into thickly settled districts, and these were used by the Japanese to justify the subsequent execution of the captured men. On the positive side, the mission had demonstrated the feasibility of launching heavily loaded medium bombers from carriers at sea under actual combat conditions, although it should be remembered that such an attempt was not repeated during the war. Upon the Chinese the effects were most unforrunate, for not only had their theater lost the future use of the sixteen bombers, but they soon lost their eastern airfields to the Japanese, who advanced upon Chuchow from the Hangchow area on 15 May. Within a short time the fields at Chuchow, Yushan, and Lishui had fallen into enemy hands. If the mission was designed permanently to depress enemy morale, it probably fell short. It was too light and could not be followed by a sustained effort, but significantly enough it did cause the Japanese to give serious thought to improvement of the homeland’s defenses and led them to retain four army fighter groups in Japan during 1942 and 1943 when they were urgently needed in the Solomons. What was probably the greatest achievement of the Doolittle raid is the most difficult to assess. The prevailing evidence, however, indicates that it came at just the time when Japanese army and navy leaders were debating the advisability of further expansion beyond their originally defined defensive perimeter. The raid seems to have lent additional weight to the arguments for pushing out the defensive line-to rest perhaps even on Midway, New Caledonia, and the Aleutians. Finally, the Tokyo raid was a hypodermic to the morale of the United States, which had suffered the worst series of military reverses in its history.”

8. The result of Midway on the Japanese

” Furthermore, Midway had forced the Japanese to recognize that the center of gravity now lay in the carrier divisions, despite the resistance of older officers who clung to the traditional battleship as the major w e a p o n . But even more important was the loss of pilots, for the Midway forces had carried the most highly skilled flying and technical personnel in the Japanese navy. Now many of them were gone; perhaps 30 per cent of the pilots had been lost with the estimated 2 5 0 planes destroyed, and almost half the survivors were sent to staff a fresh Third Fleet. Before their scheduled two month training could be completed, Guadalcanal had been invaded and it was necessary to commit them to Rabaul, where they were consumed in the running sore of the Solomons. Yamamoto now had his perimeter anchored in the Aleutians, but the attempt to fix its eastern terminus at Midway had dealt his naval air forces a keen blow; until the carrier groups were restored, his navy would be confined to the range of shore-based planes moving from island to island across the Pacific.”

Various maps

Australia, Coral Sea area

Map ofwider area of South Pacific

Coral Sea

Midway and the Aleutians

Japanese on Kiska (in the Aleutians)

The Aleutians

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