Pacific · United States vs Japan
Doolittle Raid
18 April 1942
Sixteen Army B-25 bombers flew from the carrier Hornet to bomb Tokyo and other cities, the first attack on the Japanese home islands. The damage was slight and all the aircraft were lost, most of the crews coming down in China. The raid embarrassed the Japanese high command and helped persuade Yamamoto to press his plan to attack Midway.
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— Thirty seconds
The picket boat Nitto Maru sights Task Force 16 at 07:38, some 650 miles from Japan and 250 miles short of the intended launch point, and is sunk after getting a signal away. Doolittle takes the first of sixteen B-25s off Hornet's deck at 08:20 into a forty-knot wind. They come in low around midday and bomb Tokyo, Yokohama, Yokosuka, Nagoya, Osaka and Kobe against light and surprised opposition, then fly on for the Chinese coast; fifteen crews bail out or crash-land in China after dark, one lands at Vladivostok and is interned, and three men are executed by the Japanese.
