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Seventy years ago today, 16 U.S. Army B29 Mitchell bombers under the command of Lt. Col. James H. Doolittle took off from the deck of the USS Hornet on a mission to bomb Tokyo. This would be the first American strike against the Japanese just 4 months after the sneak attack on Pearl Harbor. It was essentially a suicide mission as the bombers didn’t have the fuel capacity to complete a round trip back to the carrier. The plan was to complete the bombing run, make it into China and bailout out over territory not yet held by the Japanese.More history here...
The raid went generally as planned and all 16 planes were able to drop their bomb loads over Tokyo in broad daylight. Of the 80 crew members, all but 6 survived. One was killed on bailout; 2 drowned when their plane ditched off the coast of China; 8 were captured by the Japanese and 3 of those were executed by the Japanese.
Dan Collins has a post on it too...
Serr8d has a post too...
Airforce Times has a post...
h/t: The Blogmocracy
A Cleveland "art-band" called Pere Ubu memorialized the event in their surrealistic 1976 song: 30 Seconds Over Tokyo
ReplyDeleteLyrics:
Flew off early in the haze of dawn
in a metal dragon locked in time,
skimming waves of an underground sea
in some kind of a dream world fantasy
Sun a hot circle on a canopy,
'25 a racing blot on a bright green sea
Ahead the dim blur of an alien land,
time to give ourselves to strange gods' hands
Dark flak spiders bursting in the sky,
reaching twisted claws on every side
No place to run,
no place to hide,
no turning back on a suicide ride
Toy city streets crawling through my sights,
sprouting clumps of mushrooms like a world surreal
This dream won't ever seem to end,
and time seems like it'll never begin
30 seconds,
and a one way ride
30 seconds,
and no place to hide
30 seconds over Tokyo
"all 16 planes were able to drop their bomb loads over Tokyo...."
ReplyDeleteNegative. Ten bombed Tokyo. The remaining 6 bombed other cities, including Yokohama, Yokosuka, Nagoya and Kobe.
Good point. Thanks.
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