In April, 1942, President Roosevelt urged the military high command to prepare a devastating carrier-launch raid against the Japanese home islands. And the only person who dared to lead the mission was the best-known risk-taker in the U.S. Air Force, Lieutenant Colonel James H. Doolittle.

Finalist for the 2016 Pulitzer Prize in History "Like Lauren Hillebrand's Unbroken…Target Tokyo brings to life an indelible era." —Ben Cosgrove, The Daily Beast On April 18, 1942, sixteen U.S. Army bombers under the command of daredevil pilot Jimmy Doolittle lifted off from the deck of the USS Hornet on a one-way mission to pummel Japan’s factories, refineries, and dockyards in retaliation for their attack on Pearl Harbor. The raid buoyed America’s morale, and prompted an ill-fated Japanese attempt to seize Midway that turned the tide of the war. But it came at a horrific cost: an estimated 250,000 Chinese died in retaliation by the Japanese. Deeply researched and brilliantly written, Target Tokyo has been hailed as the definitive account of one of America’s most daring military operations.

A narrative account of the Doolittle Raids of World War II traces the daring Raiders attack on mainland Japan, the fate of the crews who survived the mission, and the international war crimes trials that defined Japanese-American relations and changed legal history.

On 1 April 1942, less than four months after the world had been stunned by the attack upon Pearl Harbor, sixteen US aircraft took to the skies to exact retribution. Their objective was not merely to attack Japan, but to bomb its capital. The people of Tokyo, who had been told that their city was ‘invulnerable’ from the air, would be bombed and strafed – and the shock waves from the raid would extend far beyond the explosions of the bombs. The raid had first been suggested in January 1942 as the US was still reeling from Japan’s preemptive strike against the US Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbor. The Americans were determined to fight back and fight back as quickly as possible. The 17th Bomb Group (Medium) was chosen to provide the volunteers who would crew the sixteen specially modified North American B-25 bombers. As it was not possible to reach Tokyo from any US land bases, the bombers would have to fly from aircraft carriers, but it was impossible for such large aircraft to land on a carrier; the men had to volunteer for a one-way ticket. Led by Lieutenant Colonel ‘Jimmy’ Doolittle, the seventy-one officers and 130 enlisted men embarked on the USS Hornet which was shielded by a large naval task force. However, the ships were spotted by a Japanese ship. The decision was therefore made to take-off before word of the task force’s approach reached Tokyo, even though the carrier was 170 miles further away from Japan than planned and in the knowledge that the B-25s would not have enough fuel to reach their intended landing places in China. The raid was successful, and the Japanese were savagely jolted out of their complacency. Fifteen of the aircraft crash-landed in, or their crews baled-out over, China; the sixteenth managed to reach the Soviet Union. Only three men were killed on the raid, with a further eight being taken prisoner by the Japanese, three of whom were executed and one died of disease. The full story of this remarkable operation, of the men and machines involved, is explored through this fascinating collection of images.

DIV /div Jacob DeShazer found himself as one of the 80 men participating in the famous Doolittle Raid over Japan shortly after the bombing of Pearl Harbor. His story is not only about the bravery as a soldier and POW during war, but also about how powerful love and forgiveness can be when given to the enemy.

"A new edition for the sixtieth anniversary of the famous Doolittle Raid"--P. [4] of cover.

Immediately after Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor, President Franklin D. Roosevelt sought to restore the honor of the United States with a dramatic act of vengeance: a retaliatory bombing raid on Tokyo. On April 18, 1942, eighty brave young men, led by the famous daredevil Jimmy Doolittle, took off from a navy carrier in the mid-Pacific on what everyone regarded as a suicide mission but instead became a resounding American victory and helped turn the tide of the war. The First Heroes is the story of that mission. Meticulously researched and based on interviews with twenty of the surviving Tokyo Raiders, this is a true account that almost defies belief, a tremendous human drama of great personal courage, and a powerful reminder that ordinary people, when faced with extraordinary circumstances, can rise to the challenge of history.

It was the biggest gamble of World War II, but Lt. Co. "Jimmy" Doolittle\s legendary bombing raid on Tokyo gave America the morale boost it needed in the wake of Pearl Harbor. This is the full story as told by the Doolittle Raiders\ official historian. Carroll Glines is also the author of Attack on Yamamoto.

A historic account of the 1942 mission to bomb Tokyo describes the planning, White House secrecy, and the tragic aftermath of the raid.

In author-illustrator Nathan Hale’s Raid of No Return, go behind the scenes of World War II’s top-secret Doolittle Raid with the New York Times bestselling Hazardous Tales graphic novel series! “These books are, quite simply, brilliant. . . . Thrilling, bloody, action-packed stories from American history.” —New York Times Presented in the author’s instantly recognizable artistic and storytelling style, this colorful, exciting book of history for kids starts with a brief explanation of the events leading up to World War II and then describes the bombing of Pearl Harbor from both the Japanese and American points of view. The American response was a super-secret counterattack organized by stunt pilot Jimmy Doolittle. Just four months after Pearl Harbor, American crews would launch sixteen B-25 bombers from the aircraft carrier USS Hornet to drop bombs on the Japanese capital Tokyo and then fly to safety in China. Everything about the mission was as dangerous as it was secret. B-25s were not designed to take off from an aircraft carrier. Japan had formidable air defenses. There was no way to plan for landing in China or returning safely to America. The Doolittle Raid, as it became known, went down in military history as one of the most creative and harrowing missions of World War II. The pilots and crews became American heroes. Nathan Hale’s Hazardous Tales! Read them all—if you dare! One Dead Spy: A Revolutionary War Tale (#1) Big Bad Ironclad!: A Civil War Tale (#2) Donner Dinner Party: A Pioneer Tale (#3) Treaties, Trenches, Mud, and Blood: A World War I Tale (#4) The Underground Abductor: An Abolitionist Tale about Harriet Tubman (#5) Alamo All-Stars: A Texas Tale (#6) Raid of No Return: A World War II Tale of the Doolittle Raid (#7) Lafayette!: A Revolutionary War Tale (#8) Major Impossible: A Grand Canyon Tale (#9) Blades of Freedom: A Tale of Haiti, Napoleon, and the Louisiana Purchase (#10) Cold War Correspondent: A Korean War Tale (#11) Above the Trenches: A WWI Flying Ace Tale (#12)