The Doolittle Raid was the first of a series of firebombing air raids by the United States Army Air Forces during the Pacific Campaign of World War II.
On Saturday, April 18th of 1942 the United States air raided the Japanese capitol Tokyo and other places of the island of Honshu. It demonstrated that the Japanese mainland was vulnerable as it was a sort of retaliation for the Japanese attack to Pearl Harbor.
It was originated as a desire from the president Franklin Delano Roosevelt who wanted to bomb Japan as soon as posible after the events of Pearl Harbor to boost the public morale and to cause the Japanese to doubt their leadership.
For the attack itself sixteen B-25 Mitchells were launched USS Hornet that was an aircraft carrier with the objective of attack seceral targets including Yokohama and Tokyo and then fly onto airfields in China. The raid itself did little damage to Japan´s war capability but was a significant propaganda victory for the U.S.
In which respect of the airships used they were launched at a longer range that supposed due to an encounter with a picket boat that before beeing sanck noticed Japan that an attack was going to happen. They bombed successfully the targets receiving little to none damage.
Neverthelles the success of the raid the airships had troubles to get to China because of the lower fuel they had; one of them had to divert it course and land in the Soviet Union. The rest of the ships arrived China but with differents destiny. Two of the crews land on a Japanese occupied territory in China and were captured.
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