Doolittle raid

Here’s a look back at the historic mission.

My attempt at recreating a photo from the Doolittle Raid. As before, credit for B25 Mitchell bomber design is to Michael Nelson, aka nelsoma84

View looking aft and to port from the island of USS Hornet (CV-8), while en route to the mission's launching point. USS Vincennes (CA-44) is in the distance. Several of the mission's sixteen B-25B bombers are visible. That in the foreground is tail # 40-2261, which was mission plane # 7, piloted by 2nd Lieutenant Ted W. Lawson. The next plane is tail # 40-2242, mission plane # 8, piloted by Captain Edward J. York. Both aircraft attacked targets in the Tokyo area. Lt. Lawson later wrote the…

Here’s a look back at the historic mission.

An Army Air Force B-25B bomber takes off from USS Hornet (CV-8) at the start of the raid, 18 April 1942. Note men watching from the signal lamp platform at right. Official U.S. Navy Photograph, now in the collections of the National Archives.

USS Hornet, a 19,800 ton Yorktown class aircraft carrier, was constructed at Newport News, Virginia. Commissioned in October 1941, she spent the next four months shaking down in the Atlantic. Transferred to the Pacific in March 1942, Hornet was immediately employed on the Doolittle raid. On 18 April 1942, she launched 16 Army B-25 bombers to attack Japan, a strike that caused relatively little damage, but which had enormous strategic implications. Hornet was then sent to the South Pacific to…

Here’s a look back at the historic mission.

Today in history, on a Monday, Doolittle Raider Richard August Knobloch, a crew member of Crew 13 during the Doolittle Raid, was born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, USA.