page_title: Doolittle Raid
section_title: Service of the returning crewmen
hierarchical_section_title: Doolittle Raid / Aftermath / Service of the returning crewmen
caption_attribution_description: 111-SC-21321AC: Doolittle Raid on Japan, April 18, 1942. Courage and wounds are honored at Walter Reed Hospital, Washington, D.C., in the first such ceremony conducted at the Army Medical Center during the war. Shown: Major General Millard F. Harmon, Chief of Air Staff of the AAF pinning the Distinguished Flying Cross on one of the members of the group which flew with General Doolittle in the raid over Japan. Former Secretary of the Treasury, Henry Morgenthau, second from left, back row. General Doolittle at right of front row. U.S. Army Photograph, now in the collections of the National Archives. (2017/05/02).
context_page_description: The Doolittle Raid, also known as the Tokyo Raid, was an air raid on 18 April 1942 by the United States on the Japanese capital Tokyo and other places on Honshu during World War II. It was the first air operation to strike the Japanese archipelago. It demonstrated that the Japanese mainland was vulnerable to American air attack, served as retaliation for the attack on Pearl Harbor, and provided an important boost to American morale. The raid was planned, led by, and named after Lieutenant Colonel James Doolittle, later General of the United States Air Force.
  Sixteen B-25B Mitchell medium bombers were launched without fighter escort from the U.S. Navy's aircraft carrier USS Hornet deep in the Western Pacific Ocean, each with a crew of five men. The plan called for them to bomb military targets in Japan and to continue westward to land in China. The bombing raid killed about 50 people, including civilians, and injured 400. Fifteen aircraft reached China but all crashed, while the 16th landed at Vladivostok in the Soviet Union. Of the 80 crew members, 77 survived the mission. Eight airmen were captured by Japanese Army troops in China; three were later executed.
context_section_description: Immediately following the raid, Doolittle told his crew that he believed the loss of all 16 aircraft, coupled with the relatively minor damage to targets, had rendered the attack a failure, and that he expected a court-martial upon his return to the United States. Instead, the raid bolstered American morale. Doolittle was promoted two grades to brigadier general on 28 April while still in China, skipping the rank of colonel, and was presented with the Medal of Honor by Roosevelt upon his return to the United States in June. When General Doolittle toured the growing Eglin Field facility in July 1942 with commanding officer Col. Grandison Gardner, the local paper of record (the Okaloosa News-Journal, Crestview, Florida), while reporting his presence, made no mention of his still-secret recent training at Eglin. He went on to command the Twelfth Air Force in North Africa, the Fifteenth Air Force in the Mediterranean, and the Eighth Air Force in England during the next three years.
  All 80 Raiders were awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross, and those who were killed or wounded during the raid were awarded the Purple Heart. Every Doolittle Raider was also decorated by the Chinese government. In addition, Corporal David J. Thatcher (a flight engineer/gunner on Lawson's crew) and 1st Lt. Thomas R. White (flight surgeon/gunner with Smith) were awarded the Silver Star for helping the wounded crew members of Lt. Lawson's crew to evade Japanese troops in China. Finally, as Doolittle noted in his autobiography, he successfully insisted that all of the Raiders receive a promotion.
  Twenty-eight of the crewmen remained in the China Burma India theater, including the entire crews of planes 4, 10, and 13, flying missions, most for more than a year; five were killed in action. Nineteen crew members flew combat missions in the Mediterranean theater after returning to the United States, four of whom were killed in action and four becoming prisoners of war. Nine crew members served in the European Theater of Operations; one was killed in action, and one, David M. "Davy" Jones, was shot down and became a POW in Stalag Luft III at Sagan, where he played a part in The Great Escape. Altogether, 12 of the survivors died in air crashes within 15 months of the raid. Two survivors were separated from the USAAF in 1944 due to the severity of their injuries.
  The 17th Bomb Group, from which the Doolittle Raiders had been recruited, received replacement crews and transferred to Barksdale Army Air Field in June 1942, where it converted to Martin B-26 Marauder medium bombers. In November 1942, it deployed overseas to North Africa, where it operated in the Mediterranean Theater of Operations with the Twelfth Air Force for the remainder of the war.
caption: An injured pilot received the Distinguished Flying Cross at Walter Reed Hospital from Maj. Gen. Millard F. Harmon in 1942.
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