Time to punch back

How did we respond after the attack on Pearl Harbor?  We needed a fighter.  This is the story of how former boxer, and aviation icon Jimmy Doolittle returned to action to punch back.

Transcript

Paula 0:00

For the Best Aerospace Era this is mansplaining. Here is the host Anthony L. Sealey

0:08

Welcome aerospace enthusiasts. Picture this, you're walking down a dark alley out of nowhere, someone fast and agile jumps behind you. You turn around as quickly as you can just in time to be punched in the jaw harder than you've ever been punched before you've hit the ground dazed. As you start to get up on all fours, you taste blood. You move your tongue around in your mouth. To see if you're missing any teeth. You get back on your feet to make your stand. You start to stare down your opponent. You see two others walk up and join your rival appearing behind each of his shoulders. You have only one move to make here. It's time to fight back. It's time to punch back. I hope this analogy works for you. The person who jumps and sucker punches you is of course, Japan on December 7th, 1941. We all know that date from school. We have all heard stories, seen pictures, and even videos from this attack. There are many great books, documentaries, and other sources from both sides of this attack. There are also many movies about this event. Some good, some bad. It is one of the most covered events of the past 100 years. We have all seen the numbers from this attack. 2008 Navy Sailors, 218 Army Air Force members, 109 Marines. And 68 civilians were killed. Well over a thousand were injured. The USS Oklahoma and the USS Arizona were destroyed, along with a total of 188 aircraft. I got these numbers from Pearl harbor.org. By the way, I have not been to the Arizona Memorial yet, but maybe one day I'll make that long flight out there. I know it will be worth it, but let's talk about how we responded. Who rose to the challenge and punched back, and what were the challenges we faced? Yes, I have been hinting about this episode since the first series of the Mansplaneing podcast and its finally time. Let's get into it. Now, back to my analogy. As for the other two figures who appeared over the shoulders of your opponent. One is Italy. He declares war on the US just four days later on December 11th, 1941. The other figure, of course, is Germany. Who declares war that same day. Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany were allies of Imperial Japan, so they were forced to declare war against the us whether the timing was right for their agendas or not. In any event, the US needed to punch back against Japan after the attack on Pearl Harbor. We needed a fighter. How about someone who used to box in the ring? Someone who's also been in many fights outside of the ring. We had just the man for the job. But before we get to him, I wanna set the stage and show you the challenges we faced and how the plan to punch back formed. I, The Empire of Japan was unstoppable in the early 19 hundreds. Leading up to the day of the attack on Pearl Harbor. First, let's talk about the Russo Japanese war. The vast Russian empire led by the Romanoffs had a military port on the Pacific Peninsula called Port Arthur it is now part of China called the Lushun Port. It's just passed and in between the Korean peninsula and mainline China. If you look it up on a map. The Japanese in 1903 sent a large portion of their Navy and took this port from the Russian forces and the Japanese army pushed further inland. Now, what could the Russian Empire do here? Sending reinforcements on land across the frozen continent wasn't practical. They did send their navy. But they had to travel all the way around the world, past Europe, Africa, Asia, just to get there. The Japanese forces just waited and were ready when they arrived. The result of this battle was the Russian Navy finally arrived, was another shocking victory for Japan. This greatly hurt the power of the Russian Empire and the Romanoffs I remember learning about this in grade school and admiring how genius this operation was because the Russians could not send formidable reinforcements. This defeat shocked western nations. Peace talks that brought an end to this conflict between Japan and Russia. Were hosted by us in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, by the way. During the Great War, Japan was on the allied side, along with France, Russia, the British, Italy, and the us, against the central powers of the German Austro-Hungarian, Bulgarian, and Ottoman Empires. Japan's role was to take over territories controlled by Germany and the Pacific. Now, in 1931, the Empire of Japan invaded Manchuria. Some say this was really the beginning of World War ii, although some will argue, world War I never really ended and World War II was just a continuation. But that's a topic for another time. Now, Japan cannot be stopped. They occupied parts of China, Mongolia, Soviet Russia, Southeast Asia, the Korean Peninsula, the Philippines, and a number of small islands in the Pacific, including Guam. Look up a map online of the Japanese Empire at its height in the 1940s. They were capable and they were smart about their campaigns. Some may have underestimated Japan because they were just a small island nation. Think about this though. The largest empire in history was the British Empire. Great Britain is also a small island nation. Now Japan's campaigns were effective in part because of the air superiority with their fast attack aircraft. They also had a strong propaganda campaign that rallied their people. But I really wanna talk about here is how ruthless they were in regard to human life. I once researched and wrote a paper on some of the vile experiments the Japanese performed on POWs and the Korean nationals in the 1930s and forties. Now think about some of the most heinous things that could be done to a human being. Yes, the Japanese Empire did worse than what you just thought of. I will not go into details here, but they did all this in the name of the empire. Now I really want to hammer this home. The US military did not have the numbers to fight this war in 1941. From the personnel numbers and the number of ships, submarines, guns, or airplanes. Have you ever seen the show, the Man in the High Castle released in 2015? In this alternate reality, the Japanese empire conquers the Pacific States of Washington, Oregon, California, and moves further inward up to the Rocky Mountains. This was a possible outcome leading up to 1941, and the attack on Pearl Harbor was just a prelude to more campaigns in an effort to control all of the Pacific. The Japanese had already won battles against the vast Russian empire and China. Two countries with much deeper history and more dominion than the US s Think about it. At the time, the US was only 165 years old. We were only a young capitalist nation in the midst of a depression, and we were not a world power. We also did not have any territory in the Pacific to stage a counter attack. We did not have long range bombers in our arsenal in 1941. No plane really existed that can make that flight all the way to Japan and make it back. In any event, we needed to find a way to punch back against Japan after the attack on Pearl Harbor. But who was gonna do it? We needed a fighter. How about a former boxer? Someone who had been in many fights in and outside of the ring. Someone who could punch back, if you will. We had just the man for the job. You know that scene from Avengers where Loki says we have an army. And Stark says, we have a Hulk. Well, we have a Doolittle James Harold Doolittle. I will get to where Doolittle comes in momentarily. First, someone needed to get creative and come up with a plan. About a month after the attack, an idea came to Navy Captain Francis Fog Low. He was inspecting work done on the construction of the aircraft carrier Hornet. Afterwards, Lowe took off on a DC 3 and looked out the window nearby the Hornet. Low saw a runway with two Army bombers. He thought to himself, does the Army have a bomber capable of taking off from an aircraft carrier? This is not the first time I've mentioned someone forming an important idea that changed history. While staring out the window of an airplane. Now he ran this idea up the chain of command to vice Admiral Earnest J King. no nonsense type of admiral who was known to bite others' heads off. You know the type bravely. Low presented his idea of using the hornet to get some army bombers close enough to strike mainland Japan despite the many unknown logistical problems. Amazingly. Admiral King did not go off on him. Low was ordered to find out if there was a way to make this work. Low was in over his head. He came from the submarine background of the Navy. They consulted with Navy Captain Donald B. Duncan, who was an air officer. About what was the size that aircraft needed to be in order to take off from an aircraft carrier. Now awesome aircraft like the F4F Wildcat, the F6F Hellcat, and the F4U Corsair were purposely engineered to not just take off and land on a relatively shorter deck of an aircraft carrier, but also designed in ways that maximize the number that could be transported on a carrier. They also had wingspans that would clear the island on the deck. No army aircraft, was engineered or designed with any of these parameters in mind. However, there was a medium range bomber in the Army Air Force arsenal that had a wingspan of 67 feet, short enough to clear the aircraft carriers island on the starboard side. That aircraft was a B 25. Mitchell named for former general Billy Mitchell, who was a major advocate for military aviation. will cover him in the future, so standby for that. The B 25 with 1700 horsepower could reach 300 miles per hour, carry a payload of 2,400 pounds at a range of 1500 miles, But most importantly, it could clear the tower With this 67 foot wingspan, There was one glaring problem here. The B 25 might be able to successfully take off from an aircraft carrier. But in no way, shape or form could it land on one that's a problem for later. Now the Navy guys needed to bring in Army guy in the fold of this top secret plan. They brought on board General Hap Arnold. After hearing the plan, general Arnold basically said. I know a guy who might be able to pull this off. This is where James Harold Doolittle comes in. James Harold Doolittle, or Jimmy Doolittle, as he is more commonly called, was born in Alameda, California on December 14th, 1896. Doolittle was the kind of kid who always seemed to get into fights at school. One of his teachers decided to put his fighting skills to good use and taught him how to box in the ring. He was really good at it. Doolittle won the Pacific Coast Amateur Championship at the Los Angeles Athletic Club in 1912. He still had a tendency to get in fights outside the ring, though. This landed him in jail once or twice. Doolittle continue to box while he attended the engineering school at the University of California Berkeley. In 1916, he went undefeated. As I said before, we needed a fighter after the attack on Pearl Harbor. Someone who could punch back. He checks that box. We also needed someone who was an awesome pilot. Dooltttle joined the Army Signal Corps when the US joined The Great War, in 1917. He was never deployed overseas, though before the war ended. Instead. Over the next 15 or so years, Doolittle racked up an oppressive aviation resume. He first took on the job of flight instructor one of the most dangerous jobs at the time. He also performed stunts in air shows and won air races. In order to promote aviation to the nation. Doolittle flew across the continental US in 1922. Not many other people could say they did that back then. Doolittle went on to attend MIT. He pushed aircraft to high speeds to find out what speed they would begin to break apart. Doolittle also test it, at which point a pilot would black out in a dive. He did this diving his aircraft down, exceeding 200 miles per hour until his eyesight began to go dark before blacking out. Somehow he lived to write papers on this. Doolittle, little later took off and landed an airplane completely blind by using only the instruments in the cockpit. The first instrument flight on September 24th, 1929. I profiled this in one of my earliest episodes. You can't fly like that from series one. He continued to race in air races and won the Thompson Trophy in 1932, flying a Gee Bee Air racer. If you got the time, look up a Gee Bee Air racer from the 1930s. They're awesome looking airplanes. Not long after this, Doolittle, more or less retired from the Army. And this kind of death defying flying. Doolittle was arguably the greatest aviator alive, but he was also pushing 40 with a wife and kids living a daredevil, aviator's life. The life expectancy of aviators like him was maybe around 25. That's how dangerous aviation was in the first few decades of the best aerospace era. Doolittle went to work in the private sector. He still travel the world, brokering business deals though. But he did hang up his boxing gloves. And his pilot wings. Just before the Pearl Harbor attack, Doolittle was working with Ford and GM factories to be prepared to convert their factories to manufacture airplanes instead of cars. Eyes, were on the situation in Europe at the time. But now in the wake of the attack on Pearl Harbor, we needed Doolittle to come out of retirement. He was the fighter and pilot we needed. Doolittle went right to work on modifying the B-25s. Making them lighter, but also adding fuel reserves to increase its range. A challenging task. Everything not essential to this unusual mission. Needed to be stripped out of the B-25s to make way for fuel bombs, ammo, and the five man crew. Check this out. The weight saving was so extreme. They replaced the rear 50 caliber guns with broom handles painted black. They hoped their broom handles would look the part of gun barrels. To deter any Japanese pilots trailing them after the raid. That's just one of the many improvised modifications. This work was being done at Wright Patterson Air Force Base in Dayton, Ohio. By the way, now, while this was going on, Duncan, who I mentioned before, supervised a takeoff test of a B 25 off the USS Hornet. Although it was not full of bombs and fuel, it only cleared the island by six feet, but it did work. Now? Who was gonna fly the B 25s on this mission? They asked for volunteers from the 17th bombardment group. The only information that was given to them. Was that it was a highly dangerous mission and that they may be outta the country for three months. Keep in mind this was a top secret mission and all of them signed on Training took place at the Elgin Field in Pensacola, Florida, under the Naval station's Lieutenant Henry L. Miller. They trained alongside the 45-year-old aviation legend who secretly intended to lead this raid himself for all of his accomplishments. Doolittle had never done anything like this. The plan was to take off from the USS Hornet at a safe range, fly to the Japanese mainland bomb, their targets around Tokyo, then fly on west to a region of China that was not under the Japanese control. The Chinese nationalists were an ally of the US during World War ii, so the hope was that their army and civilians would hide and help them get the B 25 crews out and away from the Japanese forces. Whether the B-25s can make it that far was yet to be seen, Doolittle gave the odds for them surviving this mission of 50 50, and they only had weeks to make it happen. I said before? Doolittle secretly plan to lead this, raid himself? When Hap Arnold brought him on, it was more of an advisory role to make this mission work. Here's how we got around that. He pitched his case to lead the mission to Hap Arnold in his office in Washington. Arnold emphatically said no. Doolittle would not take no for an answer. Eventually Arnold sent Doolittle down to his chief of Staff Brigadier General Millard f Harmon. So here's what Doolittle did. He lied to Harmon and said, I want to lead this mission. Hap said It's okay with him if it's okay with you. Harmon was caught off guard, but said, well, whatever is all right with Hap is certainly all right with me. Doolittle left in a hurry and made arrangements to get to the hornet before his treachery was realized. How awesome is that? Now let's get to it. It's time to punch back. The date Saturday, April 18th, 1942. Just over four months from the date that will live in infamy. The USS Hornet, escorted by two heavy cruisers, two light cruisers, and eight destroyers, along with aircraft carrier Enterprise. Only 16 B-25s would fit on the deck of the Hornet. The Hornet itself was vulnerable while the 16 B-25s were up on the deck. The first B 25 would've the least amount of deck space to take off. Guess which one Doolittle piloted. Around 900 hours, despite strong winds and large waves rocking the hornet's deck. Doolittle was given the signal to rev up his engines. He said it was like riding a seesaw that plunged deep into the water each time the bow dipped downward. Imagine that. Doolittle time to take off just as a hornet's bow cut through the top of a wave. The others followed in these terrible conditions. The Doolittle raiding party headed for Japan, the Hornet Enterprise and the escort ships made for Hawaii before the Japanese Navy could decide to follow. This armada was under the command of Admiral William Bull Halsey, by the way. And as formidable as they were, they were surrounded by Japanese forces who were much more experienced. After five hours of tents slow flying to conserv fuel the 16 B 25s made it to the Japanese mainland and used Mount Fuji as their guide. They had not encountered any enemy fire so far because no one expected this. The Japanese believed as they had for thousands of years. They were protected by kamikaze or Divine Wind. Well, Doolittle and the B-25s. Flew through a storm to get here. Doolittle reached the vast city of Tokyo first and get a jump on the anti-aircraft guns. This must have been a what the moment for them. At 1200 feet, the Bombay doors open. The Bombardier aimed for his target. The four 500 pound bombs were dropped and hit ammunitions factory. The others followed to hit their targets. Then they made for the Western coast fast. Five deadly enemy fighters flew to intercept Doolittle's B-25. He performed an S turn around some hills and somehow lost them. Perhaps they thought he crashed into one of the hills. One other target they hit was a brand new Japanese aircraft carrier. The Ryuho What is now famously known as a Doolittle Raid, lasted just over one hour and served as our punch back. A clear message. As clearer message as ever to Japan that we were going to fight. Now, there are many more details in stories about the Doolittle raid to go over here. Much more than I can fit in just one episode. What happened to the crew afterwards? I told you before how cruel the Japanese empire was to their POWs. How many made it out? Here are just a few thoughts I have for Jimmy Doolittle. While he was employed by Shell Oil in 1933. Doolittle actually traveled through Tokyo. He later recalled had he known the US and the Empire of Japan would be at war eight years later, he would've scouted out a few military targets. Now after the Pearl Harbor attack, he was in his forties, a former boxer and aviation legend who had hung up his boxing gloves and his wings years prior. He could have sat back and let the young guys fly on this perilous raid and fight this war, but that's not the kind of man he was. He rose through the challenge and became the fighter we needed and punched back against the Empire of Japan. As we celebrate the 250th anniversary of the United States in 2026, this story and the people behind it should be remembered. The Doolittle Raid is how we responded to the greatest foreign threat in our history. I do have one recommendation for you here. If you'd like to read more about it, then I recommend the book, the Aviators by Winston Groom. If you look at the cover of this book, you'll see a picture of a B 25 that just took off from the Hornet on the cover. This book is a good introductory source for early aviation. Thank you so much for listening. And remember, there's always a light at the end of the runway.

Paula 28:59

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