“I’ve been put in charge of the project you men have volunteered for,” Doolittle continued. “It’s a tough mission and will be the most dangerous thing most of you will have ever done. Any man can drop out now if he wants to, and nothing will ever be said about it.”
Nobody in the room took up the colonel’s offer to walk away.
Finally, a boyish-looking lieutenant raised his hand. Jimmy Doolittle signaled for the young man to speak.
“Sir, can you give us any more information about the mission?” the lieutenant asked.
“I’m sorry, I can’t do that right now,” Doolittle replied, shaking his head.
The lieutenant colonel then went on to explain how important secrecy was to the mission. He urged the men not to speculate among themselves as to what the mission might be. And they were to tell no one, not even their wives and girlfriends, about what they were up to. If anyone outside the military got too nosy or asked too many questions about what the men were doing, they were to report the name of that person to their commanding officer so that the FBI could be called in to investigate the person.
Jimmy Doolittle then went on to explain the importance of teamwork on the mission. The five-man crews were to train until they flowed together as a tight, cohesive unit. The pilots were to concentrate on getting their aircraft off the ground in the shortest distance with the heaviest load.
The aircraft the crews would be flying on the mission was the Mitchell B-25 bomber. Each crew was assigned to a bomber and was told they could name the plane if they wanted to. Jake and his crew settled on Bat Out of Hell as the name of their plane, while others chose names like Whirling Dervish and Ruptured Duck.
It did not take long for the crews to notice that all sorts of modifications had been made to their B-25s. These changes provided some clues as to what Special Aviation Project #1, as the secret mission had now been dubbed, might entail. For one, the bombers had extra rubber fuel tanks installed inside them that extended the fuel capacity of the plane from 646 gallons to 1,141 gallons. One of the extra fuel tanks was installed in the bomb bay. As a result, new shackles had been installed in the bomb bay to hold the bombs. The lower gun turret had been removed to make room for another gas tank. As well, some improvements had been made to the aircrafts’ remaining gun turrets. To Jake’s surprise, two broom handles painted black now protruded from the back of the tail to give the illusion that the plane had more firepower than it actually had. De-icing equipment had also been fitted to the leading edges of the wings and tail surfaces.
The airmen’s flight training in the modified B-25s offered more clues to their mission. At a remote airfield the pilots practiced taking off in the shortest distance possible, within the white outline of an aircraft carrier flight deck painted on the runway. Under the tutelage of Lieutenant Hank Miller (a naval aviator who had been brought in from nearby Pensacola Naval Air Station to train the army pilots in the fundamentals of short takeoffs) the pilots were soon getting their fully loaded bombers off the ground in less than five hundred feet. The pilots also practiced flying low over both land and water and then climbing to fifteen hundred feet to drop their bombs. The pilots were told to calibrate their instruments precisely and work out fuel efficient settings for their engines.
Meanwhile, the rest of the men on the crew learned how to perform the duties of the other members of the crew so that they could take over if something happened to one of the crewmen on the mission.
During the training period, two of the bombers and their crews were eliminated from the mission because of poor performance, leaving the total number of planes and crews for the mission at twenty-two.
Throughout this time the men, including Jake, couldn’t resist trying to speculate as to what their secret mission might be. The Germans were continuing their onslaught against Allied merchant and naval ships in the Atlantic Ocean. Some men thought that their secret mission might be to help France get stranded airplanes off the Caribbean island of Martinique. Still others speculated that they might be dispatched to protect the Panama Canal or to patrol the Aleutian Islands off the west coast of Alaska. It was all speculation. Yet the men knew that it was only a matter of time before they would learn the specifics of the mission they had volunteered for.
Then on the morning of March 23, 1942, three and a half months after the United States had declared war on Japan, Lieutenant Colonel Jimmy Doolittle addressed the men. “Today’s the day we move out,” he began. “We are headed for McClellan Field, outside of Sacramento, California, to be exact. File your flight plans. I’ll see you there.”
Chapter 4
“This Ship Is Bound for Tokyo”
The flight from Florida to the West Coast was a dream come true for many of the Army Air Corps pilots. The men had been instructed to practice their low-level flying, or hedgehopping, as it was called, on the flight out. Jake spent the two days of flying strapped into the bombardier’s position in the Plexiglas-enclosed nose of the airplane. He whooped with exhilaration at his first-class view as the B-25 bomber skimmed along just feet above the ground. And he laughed uproariously as cows in Texas and New Mexico fled as the plane buzzed inches above their heads.
The first day’s flying took them to Kelly Field in San Antonio, where they spent the night when the weather turned foul. The following day they took to the air again and completed their journey to McClellan Field in California. All twenty-two of the bombers made it safely to their destination. That night the men huddled into the mess hall at McClellan Field to await further instruction. They soon learned that they were to make the short trip from the Sacramento Valley to Alameda Naval Air Station, just outside of San Francisco. The airmen of Special Aviation Project #1 quickly concluded that their planes were to be loaded aboard a ship bound for somewhere in the Pacific region.
Before they left for Alameda Naval Air Station, the planes were given one last inspection. The men also learned that only sixteen of the twenty-two bombers would be going on the mission.
On April 1, 1942, the planes were back in the air headed for Alameda Naval Air Station. In a last fit of free-spirited flying, some of the pilots flew their aircraft under the Golden Gate Bridge en route, though Jake’s pilot, Will Farrow, exercised a little more caution. Jake was mesmerized by his first glimpse of San Francisco from the air. Peering through the panes of Plexiglas, he could see gray battleships lined up in the harbor. He could also see the Golden Gate Bridge that spanned the entrance to the bay, Alcatraz Prison set on a rocky island in the middle of San Francisco Bay, and the concrete and wood buildings of the city huddled over the hills. As the plane made its final approach into Alameda, it flew directly over an aircraft carrier.
“There are three of our planes on the deck,” the navigator, George Barr, announced over the intercom in his Brooklyn accent.
Sure enough, Jake looked down and saw three of the Mitchell B-25s lined up on the deck of the carrier. He was puzzled, though. Sailors appeared to be tying them down on the deck. Normally, B-25s had their wings unbolted and taken off and were stored below deck when they were transported, leaving the aircraft carrier’s fighter planes on deck. Everyone knew that B-25s were useless at sea. The bombers could not take off from an aircraft carrier, since the ship’s flight deck was designed to accommodate small fighter aircraft. Jake wondered why an aircraft carrier would give up deck space for its own planes in order to accommodate Army Air Corps bombers.
Jake had not solved the puzzle when Will brought their bomber in for a smooth landing at Alameda Naval Air Station. Lieutenant Colonel Jimmy Doolittle met the plane as it taxied to a halt.
“Hello, boys. Glad you made it. Any problems with your plane?” Doolittle asked. “Any malfunctions or concerns?”
“No, Sir. She flew like a charm,” gunner/engineer Harry Spatz replied.
Doolittle smiled. “Very good. Taxi down the ramp and get her loaded up,” he said, pointing in the direction of the pier, where the aircraft carrier they had flown over was tied up.
Jake and the crew of the Bat breathed a sigh of relief—their plane would be going on the mission.
After taxiing to the dock, Will cut the bomber’s engines. When the crew had clambered out of the plane, sailors began swarming over the aircraft. They drained the remaining fuel from the fuel tanks and then towed the plane down the pier to the side of the aircraft carrier.
Jake marveled at the size of the carrier. She was the USS Hornet, and she was massive. Her flight deck was 909 feet long and 127 feet wide, and the vessel towered over everything around her. Jake craned his neck to take in the sight. Along the ship’s side, just below the flight deck, he could see her 20-millimeter and 1.1-inch guns. Her hull was painted in a camouflage pattern of streaks of navy blue and dark and light grays. This pattern was supposed to make it more difficult for enemy aircraft and ships to see and target the vessel.
Jake and the other members of his crew remained dockside until their bomber was safely aboard the aircraft carrier. A large crane was used to lift the plane off the dock and set it down on the Hornet’s decks, where sailors chocked the plane’s wheels and lashed the plane down to the deck. The Bat was the last of the sixteen bombers to be loaded, and the plane’s tail hung over the rear of the Hornet’s flight deck.
Once the plane was safely aboard, the crew of the Bat boarded the USS Hornet. When all the Army Air Corps bombers and their crews were aboard ship, tugboats pulled alongside the Hornet, pulling it away from the dock. But they did not sail far. They simply crossed the bay and dropped anchor off San Francisco.
That night the crew members of the B-25 bombers were allowed a night of shore leave in the city. As Jake wandered the streets of San Francisco, he wondered whether this would be the last time he ever set foot in the United States. He recalled a phrase that Jimmy Doolittle had thrown out in a casual moment during a briefing that morning. “Think of it this way, boys. Some of you will be coming back here as heroes and some of you as angels.” Given that Jake did not believe in angels, he certainly hoped that he would be returning home in some earthly form.
The following morning, April 2, 1942, the USS Hornet weighed anchor and set sail on the mission. Accompanying the Hornet on this unknown mission were the cruisers Vincennes and Nashville; the destroyers Gwin, Grayson, Meredith, and Monssen; and the oiler Cimarron. Jake stood on deck with the other airmen as they set sail, hoping to get one last glimpse of their homeland. However, a heavy fog socked in the city and San Francisco Bay, and the men could barely make out the girders of the Golden Gate Bridge as they passed beneath it.
A single, unspoken question hung in the air: Where was this ship taking them?
The men did not have to wait long to find out. The USS Hornet and her escorts were only ten miles out to sea when the crews of the B-25 bombers were summoned to a briefing.
When the men had all assembled in the wardroom, Jimmy Doolittle matter-of-factly explained the mission to them. They were on their way to Japan. When they were four hundred miles off the coast of Japan, the crews would take off in their bombers from the deck of the Hornet and fly over Japan, bombing the cities of Tokyo, Yokohama, Nagoya, and Kobe. After the bombing, the crews were to fly on to China and land their airplanes at the city of Chuchow, some two hundred miles south of Shanghai. There they would refuel their planes and fly on to Chungking, China. While the Mitchell B-25 bombers could take off from the deck of the Hornet, it would be impossible for them to return and land on the deck of the carrier.
“If any of you don’t want to go, tell me now, because the chances of your making it back are pretty slim,” Doolittle told the men.
