Target Tokyo: Jimmy Doolittle and the Raid That Avenged Pearl Harbor (18 page)

Chiang Kai-shek may have been the son of a merchant, but he was savvy enough to understand that the attack on Pearl Harbor had transformed China’s strategic value. With American bases in Guam and Wake gone and the Philippines under siege, the United States had no toehold in Asia from which to attack Japan. Furthermore, if Chinese forces could tie down the Japanese, it would slow the empire’s progress elsewhere. But Stilwell feared that Chiang
Kai-shek was more concerned with his own political self-interest and the struggle against Mao Zedong. That left the Chinese leader all too eager to exploit America’s weakened position. “The probabilities are that the CKS regime is playing the USA for a sucker; that it will stall and promise, but not do anything; that it is looking for an allied victory without making any further effort on its part to secure it; and that it expects to have piled up at the end of the war a supply of munitions that will allow it to perpetuate itself indefinitely,” Stilwell wrote in a 1942 memo. “They think we are dumb, easily fooled, and gullible, and that all they have to do to bring us to heel is to threaten to make a separate peace.”

This was the contemptuous political backdrop Hap Arnold and Jimmy Doolittle faced in planning the raid’s terminus. The war may have elevated China’s importance, but it did not eradicate America’s focus on its own self-interest. Preservation of those interests demanded the mission remain a secret from Chiang Kai-shek. On one level American officials knew that the generalissimo’s staff could not be trusted. General Marshall reminded Arnold of that in a February memo. “With relation to the highly confidential project you and King have on,” he wrote, “please read Magruder’s telegram of yesterday regarding lack of secrecy in all discussions at Chungking.” Marshall referred to Brigadier General John Magruder, the outgoing chief of the American military mission to China, who had shared an alarming personal experience. “Despite my request for confidential treatment of matter at height of interview an unexpectedly drawn curtain disclosed four servants absorbing the facts,” he wrote. “This is characteristic and indicates futility of efforts to maintain secrecy regarding any military matters.”

Beyond the fear of leaks American leaders had other more important reasons for keeping the mission a secret from Chiang Kai-shek. A raid against Tokyo—home of the emperor and the nerve center of the Japanese empire—promised to invite retaliation against the Chinese. That probability would likely trigger Chiang Kai-shek’s refusal to allow the bombers to land at Chinese airfields. American leaders, of course, knew all of this. Japanese atrocities against the Chinese had grown so notorious throughout the years that the State Department dedicated an entire report to them in February 1942. “Inhuman acts have been committed by Japanese armies on the civilian populations in varying degrees in every city or town captured by them
, from one end of China to the other,” the report stated. “The entry of Japanese troops has repeatedly been accompanied by wholesale robbing, raping and butchery of innocent civilians.”

The thirteen-page, single-spaced report—later circulated at the highest levels of the government and military—offered American policy makers a horrific window into what Japanese forces might do to any captured airmen or local villagers who assisted them. In previous campaigns Japanese troops had used prisoners for bayonet practice, buried others alive, and set some on fire, forcing villagers to watch as a means to extract information. Soldiers formed rings around entire villages, torched them, and then machine-gunned the residents who tried to escape. Following the fall of Shanghai in 1937, Japanese newspapers chronicled a “murder race” between two junior officers, competing to see who would be the first to kill 100 Chinese with a sword. “There came a day when each of the men passed the 100 mark, but as there was some dispute as to who had first reached the number, it was decided to extend the contest to a new goal, variously reported as 150 to 250,” the report stated. “One of the officers interviewed in the field by a Japanese correspondent declared that the contest had been ‘fun.’”

These atrocities reached a climax when troops entered the Chinese capital of Nanking in December 1937. The Japanese coaxed many of the Chinese soldiers into surrender, luring them outside the city and slaughtering them by the thousands. Inside the city’s walls gangs of soldiers brutalized civilians. So vast was the slaughter that dead bodies piled along the banks of the Yangtze turned the mighty river red. As many as one thousand rapes occurred each night, many of the women killed afterwards to cover up the crime. “Perhaps when we were raping her, we looked at her as a woman,” one soldier wrote after the war, “but when we killed her, we just thought of her as something like a pig.” The war crimes tribunal would later estimate that the Rape of Nanking—as it became known—claimed more than 260,000 noncombatants, while some experts would later push the total as high 350,000, horrors America knew of long before the war’s end. “The actions of the Japanese soldiery,” the State Department report concluded, “constitute the blackest, most shameful page in the military annals of modern times.”

With the Navy’s task force slated for departure, Arnold demanded an update from Stilwell on the raid’s preparations in China. The general had briefed Stilwell shortly
before he left the United States, informing him only of the operation’s basic logistics while omitting that the planes would in fact bomb Tokyo en route to China. The plan demanded the use of five airfields at Chuchow, Kweilin, Lishui, Kian, and Yushan. Signal flares and radio beacons would guide the bombers in to these primitive airfields, where the crews could then take on fuel and oil before pressing on to Chungking, the new capital of China, some eight hundred miles farther inland. There the bombers would form a new squadron to attack the Japanese in China. Arnold had heard nothing from Stilwell since his departure, and time now ran short. “What progress is being made on laying down gasoline supplies and bomb supplies on airports in eastern China?” Arnold’s staff messaged Stilwell on March 16. “What progress on airports?” Stilwell failed to respond, prompting a follow-up message two days later. “Time is getting short for spotting gas at agreed points.”

Stilwell had only recently arrived in China after a twenty-three-day voyage that covered some twenty thousand miles. His touchdown had coincided with the Japanese assault on southern Burma, a vital fulcrum on which the direction of the war balanced. The capital and principal seaport of Rangoon—the start of the Burma Road—had fallen to the Japanese in early March. This thin jungle membrane stood as a final barrier, blocking the Japanese from pushing through India and joining forces with the Germans in the Middle East. Much to Stilwell’s frustration Chinese forces proved far outmatched. Although China boasted almost three million uniformed men, a lack of resources forced most to bed down beneath shared blankets and to fight in straw sandals. Disease and malnutrition compounded China’s woes, robbing the nation of as much 40 percent of its forces each year. Officer desertions likewise were frequent. “You will know long before you get this what I’m up against,” Stilwell wrote to his wife. “It’s not a pretty picture.”

Because he was not briefed about the raid, Stilwell failed to appreciate Arnold’s urgency in finalizing the plans. He at last cabled Arnold on March 22 that Standard Oil of Calcutta had 30,000 gallons of 100-octane gasoline plus another 500 gallons of 120-oil in 5-gallon tins. “Please advise purpose for which it is being held,” Stilwell asked. “For use in American Army Aircraft, request authority to move this fuel to China.” Arnold ordered the fuel moved to Kweilin immediately; he would provide ten transports to help. He further ordered twelve men stationed at each airfield, including one who spoke English
. All men and supplies had to be in place by midnight on April 9–10. To illuminate the runways, five flares would line either side, plus an additional five on the windward end of each runway. “The success of a vital project which I discussed with you prior to your departure depends upon this movement being accomplished by air without delay and in using every possible precaution to preserve its secrecy.”

Rather than import fuel from India, Stilwell in a March 29 message recommended using Chinese gasoline. Only the airfields at Chuchow and Kweilin, the Chinese advised, were safe for heavy bombers. If America wanted to use the others, a qualified officer would first have to inspect them. “Other than fuel, no ammunition, bombs, or supplies are required,” Arnold cabled. “To meet date of April 10, use Chinese 100 octane or any other gasoline available. One take-off and landing only by medium bombers contemplated by operation. Only those airdromes for this operation should be marked. To insure availability, oil and gasoline supplies at these airdromes must be checked, and as soon as possible this information forwarded here. Means for rapid servicing from drums must be furnished servicing details.” The date for the task force’s departure loomed: time was up. “On April 20th, special project will arrive destination. An attempt will be made to notify you should a change in arrival date arise,” Arnold cabled. “For variation without notice you must however be prepared.”

DOOLITTLE HAD GOTTEN
the message from Arnold that the time had come to depart Eglin for the West Coast. He summoned his men at 3 a.m. on March 24. For Brick Holstrom the news arrived with a bang on his hotel wall from York in the next room. “Hey, come on,” York shouted. “We’ve got to go!”

Doolittle informed his men that twenty-two aircrews would fly cross-country to the air depot at McClellan Field in Sacramento for final modifications and tune-ups. From there crews would continue on to Alameda Naval Air Station and load the
Hornet
. Any extra aircrews would return to Columbia.

“Get your financial affairs in shape—all of you,” Doolittle warned. “And don’t, in your letters to the folks or to your wives, give any hint where you are going.”

The stress of the operation finally
caught up with the pilot Vernon Stintzi, who developed severe gastric symptoms—an ulcer. Thomas White, the mission doctor, diagnosed the lieutenant with anxiety neurosis and relieved him from flying duty. Doolittle saw Stintzi’s departure as an opportunity. “Rather than bump somebody else out of a position,” he said, “I will take this crew that doesn’t have a pilot.”

The aircrews hustled that Tuesday morning to prepare to depart, a scene captured by Ken Reddy in his diary. “Operations was like a mad house,” he wrote, “everyone trying to get off on a very short notice.”

Miller watched the hurrying fliers with envy just as Doolittle approached. “I hear you had an accident,” Doolittle said, referring to Bates’s crash the day before.

“Yes, Sir,” the Navy lieutenant replied. “But there’s nothing wrong with the technique or anything else of the airplane. What was wrong was Bates. He just wasn’t flying the airplane. The airplane was flying him.”

Doolittle understood. He told Miller that the crews were headed to the West Coast and would finish up final instruction at a California airfield.

“Well, you know, Colonel,” Miller said, “it’s a matter of professional pride with me. I don’t want anybody on the West Coast telling you, ‘No, let’s start all over again with this technique.’ If it’s possible I’d like to go with you, if we’re going to have time to do more of this practice out there.”

“If it’s all right with Washington,” Doolittle answered, “you can fly out with me this afternoon.”

Doolittle wanted to keep York as well, who had been given permission by Colonel Mills to help train the fliers in Florida, but not actually go on the mission. He phoned Mills up in South Carolina.

“Newt, old boy,” Doolittle said, “I am going to need York out in Sacramento for a few days. You don’t mind if he comes out there and then he comes right back afterwards?”

Mills hesitated, no doubt suspicious, before he relented: “All right.”

When Robert Emmens landed that afternoon in Florida with the bomber to replace the one Bates had crashed, he discovered that most of the other aircrews had all cleared out, leaving York to sweep out the operations building.

“Where is everybody?” Emmens asked.

“
They have all left for the West Coast,” York answered. “Do you want to go on this thing?”

“More than anything.”

“We could be that substitute crew,” York said. “They got pretty shook up in their accident, and they need another crew as well as the airplane.”

Doolittle wanted to use the cross-country flight as another training exercise, instructing his pilots to hedgehop west and test gas consumption, buzzing the rural countryside just as the men would Japan. The aircrews, who flew in formations of up to half a dozen bombers, decided to have some fun.

“We kept so low we could look up at the telegraph wires,” Lawson later wrote. “All of us seemed to figure we might not be around very long, so we might as well do things we always wanted to do. It was the craziest flying I had ever done, and I had done some kid-stuff tricks, like banking a B-25 through a low, open drawbridge.”

Lawson’s navigator Second Lieutenant Charles McClure described how the pilots terrorized some of the locals on the ground below. “When we departed Eglin, going across Alabama we were flying below many trees and in general, were chasing farmers, particularly Negroes, as they plowed. One old colored boy was dragged across the field by his scared mule because he had the reins wrapped under his arms,” McClure later wrote. “One Negro man grabbed two colored children and ran for a shack which I am sure would have blown over had the prop wash hit it.”

The pilots did more than scare the locals. “The trip to the West Coast was an enjoyable legal cross country buzz job which would probably give me a screaming class A nervous breakdown now,” recalled Aden Jones. “I pulled some sagebrush off of the bottom of that airplane,” remembered Jacob DeShazer. “I’d see the cattle stick their tails up in the air and run. We’d just go over their backs.”

Bad weather forced many of the crews to break up the trip in Texas, spending a night in San Antonio before flying on the next day to Phoenix, Riverside, and ultimately Sacramento. Doolittle, however, pushed onward, flying across the Rocky Mountains on instruments.