Media usually like to recycle anniversaries but somehow overlooked the 80th anniversary of the famous Doolittle raid during World War II, observes Grumpy Editor.
Planned and led by Lt. Col. James Doolittle (who later became a general) on April 18, 1942, 16 B-25B Mitchell medium bombers, each with a crew of five, took off without fighter escort from the U.S. Navy aircraft carrier USS Hornet off Japan to hit Tokyo and other places on Honshu.
It demostrated that the Japanese mainland was vulnerable to U.S. air attacks and boosted morale of Americans.
After bombing military and industrial targets in Japan, the plan was to continue westward and land in China. But some aircraft ran out of fuel and crash landed on the way.
The action was portrayed in the well-received 1943 movie, “Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo” starring Spencer Tracy as Doolittle.
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