WEBVTT

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(dramatic music)

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- [[Narrator] The months
following the attack

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on Pearl Harbor were some of
the darkest of World War II.

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The Japanese Navy extended
their reach across the Pacific.

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By spring, 1942, America
needed a severe morale boost.

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And on April eighteenth,

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we delivered the much-needed counterpunch

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to a day President Roosevelt said,

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would forever live in infamy.

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The Doolittle Tokyo Raiders

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were a group of 80 men
from all backgrounds

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who flew into history on
that fateful day in '42.

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It was a very dangerous mission,

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yet all the men volunteered anyway.

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- So there was very real danger

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that the enterprise in the
Orient could come under attack.

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The Japanese were expecting,
knowing that the carriers

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had been found, a strike
of about 200 miles

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'cause that was about the
limit of carrier planes.

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They were not prepared for B25s,

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which were longer-range army aircraft,

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so the strike came as a total surprise.

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(dramatic music)

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- [Narrator] 16 B25 bombers

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led by then Lieutenant
Colonel Jimmy Doolittle

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and his copilot, Lieutenant Richard Cole,

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were to launch from
the deck of USS Hornet.

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They were to fly over Japan,
deliver their payload,

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and safely, land in a
non-hostile part of China.

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Although they were successful,

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not all things went according to plan.

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- I don't know about other people,

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but I was scared most of the time.

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But you have to, if you're
scared, you have to go

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from there, and I decided
there's no sense in trying

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to second-guess and worry
about what's gonna happen

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because it's gonna happen anyway.

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- [Narrator] The biggest
hurdle facing Doolittle

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and the Raiders happened
before they even took flight.

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Would the behemoth
aircraft clear the 300 feet

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granted by Hornet's flight deck?

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Miraculously, all planes made it unscathed

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to their objective.

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The bombing run was a success.

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- All the airplanes had done
what they were supposed to do,

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except being able to
land someplace intact.

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The mission was a success,
so we were pretty well

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happy with that, even though it cost

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some lives and some aircraft.

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- [Narrator] Doolittle's raid provided

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much-needed jubilation to the
American military and public,

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yet in the big picture,
it meant so much more.

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It proved to the Japanese
that their home islands

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were vulnerable to American
attack and caused them to shift

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their focus and their
resources to their own defense.

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A few months later, that
decision would help produce

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the outcome of the Battle of Midway,

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a pivotal American victory
that turned the tide

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of the war in the Pacific.