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This is Volume One of The Army Air Forces in World War II, titled Plans and Early Operations, January 1939 to August 1942, edited by Wesley Frank Craven and James Lea Cate. The University of Chicago Press first published it in 1948, and the Office of Air Force History reprinted it in 1983. The front matter explains how the AAF historical program was set up during the war. The index covers Pacific, Atlantic and European operations, and nothing in the text concerns unidentified aerial phenomena.
“The Invaders”15 pages
T H E B A T T L E L I N E I N T H E P A C I F I C 467 feet of clear deck and the last plane hung precariously out over the stern ramp of the carrier; there was no spare space on the Hornet’s flight deck. Early on the morning of 18 April, the task force encountered the first of the enemy’s line of pickets; by 0 7 38 a patrol vessel was sighted. Now that secrecy had been compromised, and apprehensive that enemy bombers would strike the surface force prior to the launch, Halsey ordered the B-zs’s off at 0800, some ten hours prior to the original plan, which had contemplated a late afternoon departure and a night attack. Furthermore, the entire task force was one full day ahead of the schedule originally sent out to the Chinese. And instead of the 650 miles foreseen as a maximum distance to the targets, the aircrews now faced approximately 800 statute miles of flight before they would reach Tokyo.4z But this contingency had been foreseen and it had been agreed that rather than endanger the carriers, the planes would be sent off despite the remote chance that they could reach China from such a distance. T h e crews entered their planes amid some minor confusion caused b y the rush of last-minute prepara- tions, and at 0818 local time Colonel Doolittle made his run down the plunging deck into a 40-knot gale, which was sending green water over the bows and wetting the flight deck. Never before had this been accomplished, yet now it was carried off without a hitch. By 0 9 2 I the sixteenth plane had taken off and was on its way toward Japan. After launching the planes, the Hornet and the Eizterprise escaped without interference, although a Japanese force of five carriers returning to the homeland from Ceylon was alerted near Formosa and attempted to intercept them.43 Although the patrol boat had warned of the approaching American carriers, Japanese intelligence, not anticipating that the attack would be made from such a distance, had not expected a raid before the following day.44Thus the bombers were unopposed as they swept in low over the coast on their way to Tokyo, where an air raid drill was in progress. A full air raid alert was not effected until after the attack was opened at I 2 I 5 b y Doolittle in the lead plane, who un- loaded his incendiaries upon the Japanese capital. Almost at once he was followed by Lt. Travis Hoover, attacking from 900 feet with three 500-lb. demolition bombs, which, with the addition of a single incendiary cluster, constituted the bomb load of the majority of the Plane after plane roared over Tokyo, bombing and firing 441
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