H-004-4 Doolittle Raid

On the morning of 18 April 1942, 16 U.S. Army Air Force B-25B Mitchell twin-engine bombers, led by Lieutenant Colonel James H. "Jimmy" Doolittle, launched from the flight deck of the carrier USS Hornet (CV-8) and bombed targets in Japan, the first strike by the U.S. against the Japanese homeland since Pearl Harbor. The raid was a huge boost to U.S. morale. Damage to military targets was good for the limited number of aircraft employed, but the psychological effect on the Japanese was profound. All 16 aircraft were lost (none were shot down over Japan, but 15 crashed in or off the coast of China after running out of fuel and one was interned by the Soviets when it landed near Vladivostok.) The human cost was seven aircrewmen dead (three killed in bailout/ditching, and of eight POW's, three were executed and one starved to death.) As many as 250,000 Chinese men, women, and children were killed in a three-month Japanese campaign of retaliation for Chinese assistance to the Raiders, including use of bacteriologic agents from Japan's infamous "Unit 731."