The First Heroes

I’m reading a book called The First Heroes, which is about the Doolittle raid on Japan in the early months of WWII. I’ve know the basic story since I was a kid, but like any good book, the real soul of the story is contained in the details, and The First Heroes delivers.

Here’s the basic story. In April 1942, eighty men, all volunteers, flew 16 B-25’s off of the USS Hornet over 650 miles of Pacific Ocean to successfully bomb Tokyo and a few other Japanese cities. It was the first American victory of any kind, coming four months after Pearle Harbor and a string of Japanese military successes against us.

All the men were told they were volunteering for an exceptionally dangerous mission, and were given several opportunities to back out as they learned more details. None did. Very briefly, here is what they had to deal with.

First of all, no one had every taken off from an aircraft carrier in a B-25 (or anything remotely like it) until these guys did it in the middle of a raging storm, from a deck less that half as long as the normal runway length used by that plane.

The storm produced 60 foot swells. As each plane took off the deck was aimed downhill, so that the pilots stared directly into the ocean as they gained speed. But the Navy deck crewed planned each launch precisely so that half way down the deck it began to pitch up by 30º and reached its peak as each bomber got to the end, thus aiding lift. All 16 launched successfully.

Unfortunately, the Navy task force had been detected and they launched several hundred miles earlier than called for in the original plan. This was a big problem for several reasons. They were supposed to fly to Japan, and then continue another 600 miles to free China (as opposed to the much closer Japanese occupied China). The pilots knew before leaving the carrier that it was problematic that they would have enough fuel to make it; the extra distance dictated by the early launch meant that they would almost certainly have to ditch in occupied China, or into the sea. They all took off anyway.

The original plan called for arriving over Tokyo at dawn, but the new schedule put them there at high noon, with no fighter escort, and with half their normal defensive weapons removed to make room for extra fuel tanks. (They did put broomsticks in the ball turrets to simulate machine gun barrels.)

It was perfect weather over Japan. Every plane dropped its bombs and most hit their target. The Japanese were taken completely by surprise, and while there was heavy antiaircraft fire and Zeros rose to meet the B-25’s, somehow none were shot down.

Then they had a bit of luck when the winds shifted in their favor, which gave them renewed hope that they could reach free China. But instead of having a radio beacon to home in on (confusion over the International dateline had it turned off) they continued to rely on dead-reckoning via the stars and their homemade, hand drawn maps. Their trip was more like those made by 16th century explorers than by modern navigators.

So on they flew for more than 12 hours to the China coast, then south to avoid occupied territory, until their fuel began to run out. Unfortunately, the early take off change brought them to this point of their flight in the middle of the night, and in the midst of another major storm.
Of the 16 bombers, one landed safely, wheels-down in Russia. That’s a whole other story. Three essentially crash-landed on beaches or just off shore. Because of the heavy cloud cover, the other 12 planes could find no safe landing options and took the only option open to them – they jumped out.

Among all the crewmen in those planes, only Colonel Doolittle had every parachuted before, and he broke both ankles upon landing. But as the giants Billys (as they called the B-25’s) began to cough, sputter and lose altitude, the crews put on the chutes and jumped into the black void. They had no idea what was below them – river, ocean, mountain, Japanese army camp? They just jumped.

I’m having a hard time getting these images out of my head. For one thing, they keep raising uncomfortable questions like, “would I have ever had the courage to do what these men, whose average age was probably around 24, did?”

For another, I can’t help but to contrast the selflessness and bravery of these average Americans, who were the first heroes of the War, with the character displayed by the business and political leadership of our country these days. How did things change so much, and can we ever return to those values?