Whirlwind - Barrett Tillman [4]
Probably the most worthwhile target was a ship in Yokosuka dry dock: the 16,700-ton Taigei. The former submarine tender was being converted to a carrier, and it sustained a bomb hit on the bow and several incendiary clusters. Damage was light, and she would join the fleet before year end, renamed Ryuho. Most likely she was attacked by Lieutenant Edgar E. McElroy, with bombardier Sergeant Robert C. Bourgeois.
Antiaircraft fire was “active” but inaccurate; no bombers were seriously damaged. Doolittle’s crews attacked fast and low, preventing Japanese gunners from getting a clear shot at the B-25s. Barrage balloons—as many as five or six together—forced only one plane to divert from its briefed course.
Travis Hoover bombed an arsenal from 900 feet, well below the recommended altitude, as explosions blew wreckage higher than his bomber. Some Raiders reported bombing a residential area containing factories, and inevitably some unintended buildings were hit: Tokyo reported six schools and a military hospital struck. In all, about fifty people were killed and some 400 injured, with ninety buildings reportedly destroyed.
But not everyone found a target. Lieutenant Everett “Brick” Holstrom’s crew met “severe” fighter opposition. In evading the interceptors he bypassed Tokyo, proceeded to a secondary target, but was intercepted again. Frustrated, Holstrom dropped his bombs in the water and headed southwest for China.
Edward “Ski” York bombed Tokyo but knew he could not reach China. Before leaving the West Coast his carburetors had been “adjusted” by civilian mechanics. Burning 30 percent more fuel than normal, he diverted 600 miles northward across the Sea of Japan, landing north of Vladivostok in the Soviet Union.
Thirteen hours after launch, somewhere over the China coast, hundreds of miles from Chuchow, the other planes began running out of fuel. Doolittle ordered his crew to bail out, then jumped from 8,000 feet—his third parachute descent. He landed in a field fertilized with human waste.
The next morning, filthy and despondent, Doolittle sat on the wing of his wrecked bomber, pondering the failure of his mission. His gunner, Staff Sergeant Paul Leonard, snapped the CO’s picture, then sat beside him and asked, “What do you think will happen when you go home, Colonel?”
“I guess they’ll court-martial me and send me to prison,” Doolittle gloomed.
Leonard shook his head. “No, sir. They’re going to make you a general. And they’re going to give you the Congressional Medal of Honor.” Paul Leonard was right.
Of the eighty fliers on the mission, three died in crashes or attempted bailouts over the China coast. Eight were captured and taken to Tokyo. Four months later, they stood a mock trial in which no charges were revealed to them. All were declared guilty of war crimes, but for obscure reasons five were spared, leaving Lieutenants Dean E. Hallmark and William G. Farrow and Sergeant Harold Spatz to die. They were returned to China and, outside Shanghai one morning in October, they were made to kneel before three crosses, and were shot by Japanese soldiers. Another captured Raider starved to death in prison and fourteen others also would perish in the war.
In terms of actual damage, the Doolittle Raid amounted to little more than a pinprick. But its psychological effect was profound on both sides of the Pacific. The Doolittle Raiders had given American morale a boost unlike any other in the twentieth century. Newspapers crowed “Doolittle Do’oed