This allowed the US Navy to concentrate enough of their meager resources at the time to deflect the invasion fleet headed for Port Moresby on the southern side of Papua New Guinea. This action played out as the Battle of the Coral Sea in early May Retrospective analysis is often useful but we should keep in mind the strategic context of early as it was understood by the principal US military decision-makers.
The Doolittle Raid was launched with the expectation that it would come as a humiliating shock of some unknown degree to Japanese decision-makers. By exercising extreme caution launching the Bs early after the task force was sighted by a Japanese patrol vessel Vice-Admiral Halsey was able to minimize the risk to his two carriers, which surely earned a sigh of relief from CINCPAC.
And utilizing these two carriers in this fashion would probably not upset the strategic calculus in the minds of Navy planners. Most of the Japanese carriers were expected to be returning from the Indian Ocean and would probably need a period of rest before the next big operation -- whatever that might be. On our side, Yorktown was temporarily alone in the South Pacific but would soon be joined by Lexington.
Nimitz and King had reason to believe that the Navy would be reasonably well-positioned to meet the next Japanese push es. With this reasoning and the expectation of some useful propaganda fallout from the Doolittle Raid, the latter had been a justifiable risk. I doubt if too many American planners and decision-makers saw this raid as a huge positive development in the Pacific war, at that early stage. They were waiting for other shoes to drop.
Also, Dr. Kuehn, is your lecture on Admiral Fletcher available online, by any chance? Having read Lundstrom's book, I think he has been too easily dismissed by many naval historians. We need to remember that he was in command during a period of the war in which reconnaissance and communications were thoroughly unreliable.
I really do not understand why the various people discussing this issue are disregarding the fact that the Doolittle raid was a massive war crime that set a precedent for a number of other massive war crimes.
I expect historians to also be humanitarians,. Walt, I don't think there would be general agreement to a "fact" of the Doolittle raid being a "massive war crime. Attacks on Japanese cities later in the war continues to horrify, but those highly-flammable residential areas contained a great many distributed war production facilities, which were surely legitimate military targets. This industrial infrastructure supported a ruthless and aggressive regime waging unprovoked warfare against Asiatic nations that posed no threat to Japan.
The level of innumeracy and factual variance with historical reality demonstrated with Mr McIntosh's "Doolittle Raid was War Crime" accusation are awesome in scope.
Starting with the Pacific War, the Japanese Army Air Force civilian terror bombing of Chongqing kicked off in and the raids of May killed more than five thousand Chinese civilians. Orders of magnitude mean things. Demonstrated military intent means things. Neither Axis raid hit anything having military value. The Doolittle raid struck a major fleet element -- arguably a 2nd line capital unit -- of the Imperial Japanese fleet.
Given the actual scale of atrocities the Imperial Japanese Army committed on the Chinese civilians in retaliation for the Doolittle raid, see:. Regarding Walter McIntosh's concerns about war crimes.
By the time of the Doolittle Raid in bombing of civilian targets had become an accepted strategy of war on both sides. Inititated by the German bombing of London, it was soon followed by Bombing Command. In May the [British] Ministry of Economic Warfare, which had been monitoring the ineffectiveness of Bomber Command on precise economic objectives in Germany, sent a memorandum recommending that RAF abandon military targets and focus instead on economic warfare against major industrial concentrations or "whole cities.
So long as the target cities contain military targets, they're valid targets in international law. If you think otherwise, you'll to need to cite the relevant clauses from the major international legal treaties like the various Hague and Geneva Conventions.
Ralph, I really do disagree. It is very clear that the Doolittle raid , was a violation of the existing laws of war, and was not a humanitarian act, and it was a precedent for such atrocities as the bombing of Dresden, and the later even more horrifying bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki,, Indiscriminate bombing is outlawed by Int'l law. Walt, there are the "Laws of War" and the laws of necessity -- not always anticipated but responding to modern conditions and driving the use of military force in unexpected directions.
Here are a couple of quotations laying out his strategy:. That aim is the destruction of German cities, the killing of German workers and the disruption of civilized community life throughout Germany. It should be emphasized that the destruction of houses, public utilities, transport and lives, the creation of a refugee problem on an unprecedented scale, and the breakdown of morale both at home and at the battle fronts by fear of extended and intensified bombing, are accepted and intended aims of our bombing policy.
They are not by-products of attempts to hit factories. In six weeks they are in operation again. I kill all their workmen, and it takes twenty-one years to provide new ones. The laws of warfare agreed upon by the "civilized" nations prior to the two world wars were obviated by the "industrialization" of warfare in the 20th century. It hardly mattered that nobody got around to writing new laws in time to guide strategy in World War II.
Jason, the Hague's convention on warfare of applies, and even more so humanitarian law, which bans the indiscriminate bombardment of cities. There is no doubt that the Doolittle raid was precedent for any number of unlawful atrocities, by Americans , British, and Japanese. In fact, war itself is a crime against humanity. I, myself survived the horrendous rocket and artillery barrage into the civilian housing area of Tay Ninh Vietnam in early At one I was in the hospital there due to injuries, and while being operated on the hospital was receiving sustained shelling from the so-called liberated zone some 20 kilometers distant.
Walter McIntosh: What about the Japanese bombing of Chinese cities, and the German firebombing of Rotterdam, mentioned above and which occurred before the Doolittle raid?
Strikes me, if you're looking for precedents for indiscriminant bombing of civilians, those stand out as for more serious. And we're not mentioning almost countless previous attacks, including those by German Gotha bombers on England in WW It also srikes me that you have a particular animus against the Doolittle attack — why? And how did it differ in your view from the amply documented previous aerial attacks on civilians? What made the Doolittle raid so heinous and precedent-setting where the earlier ones weren't?
All: This issue of strategic bombing and the moral debate that surrounds it is very important. Especially today when we threaten to kill dozens of people when unmanned reconnaissance aircraft get shot done.
A very fine book on the topic is not just Overy's work, which I highly recommend, but A. There are two ways at least to approach this, from an absolutist ethical viewpoint and from a utilitarian viewpoint. From an absolute ethical viewpoint this form of warfare is criminal and unvirtuous. It is never "okay. Kant's lectures in ethics. But Erasmus is also in the mix as well as the Gospels. However, there is the second viewpoint, the utilitarian one that takes into account social norms and context and then asks, "so was this extreme step worth it?
For conventional bombing the bang delivered by the strategic bombing campaign in WW II does not measure up, it did not deliver the quick and ultimately "cheaper in lives" solution based on being quick" that it promised, It failed miserably on that score and it only became more effective due to second and third order effects such as destruction of Luftwaffe fighter force.
Worse, it was expensive, especially in manpower, causing the US to almost run out of combat troops if not for Thus, for atomic weapons the utilitarian argument has some value this is the other extreme , it was a key component in Japan's decision to surrender thus avoiding a costly bloody war in Asia for several more years, to say nothing of the famine and starvation that would have resulted without the surrender.
The attack or bombardment, by whatever means, of towns, villages, dwellings, or buildings which are undefended is prohibited. In sieges and bombardments all necessary steps must be taken to spare, as far as possible, buildings dedicated to religion, art, science, or charitable purposes, historic monuments, hospitals, and places where the sick and wounded are collected, provided they are not being used at the time for military purposes.
It is the duty of the besieged to indicate the presence of such buildings or places by distinctive and visible signs, which shall be notified to the enemy beforehand. Note the important qualifier in Art. The Germans mounted about 51 raids, mostly over London civilian target, lots of women and children, more than two decades before the "precedent-setting" Doolittle raid ranging as far afield as Tyneside and the Midlands. The German zeppelins suffered very heavy casualties, including the commander of the German zeppelin force.
No parachutes were carried for weight reasons, so when one of these giants went down, all aboard were burned alive. It dawned on me recently that post- WW I every single airship, but one, not built by Germany crashed! And the one that did survive GB's R was almost torn to pieces in a storm over the St. Lawrence River on its transatlantic voyage in R remains the largest object ever to fly in Canada's skies.
ALL US airships crashed. Ah ha! Well, it was built by Germany as war reparations to the US. The one German exception to all this, of course was the "Hindenburg". John , A very thoughtful post IMO. I think this discussion is both important and growing in importance. War is bad enough but indiscriminate bombing is a crime against humanity. By the way if list members want to talk about Japanese or British , or German war crimes, so be it, and start a new discussion , but this thread was about Doolittle's 30 seconds over Tokyo.
It was an American War Crime. All, There have been several attempts by people on this list to point fingers elsewhere in an attempt to shift the blame for USA committing war crimes. The discussion was about the Doolittle raid , Not about the atrocities committed by the Japanese in revenge for the Doolittle raid, nor about the war criminal Bomber Harris. The Doolittle raid was a war crime, did nothing to shorten the war or reduce causalities.
Jimmy Doolittle was awarded the Medal of Honer for committing a war crime. And racist one at that. Historians are supposed to tell the truth and not omit unpleasant details. Walt, I know your feelings run deep and you saw more of the Vietnam War than most people, but I believe the historians on this list, along with those of us who are merely students of history, would be skeptical about applying a war crime definition to an event that happened 35 years later, when the whole nature of war had changed, not to mention the technology.
The incomparably greater role that a nation's industrial infrastructure played in the great wars of the 20th century made the original Hague Convention largely irrelevant, in my opinion. I'm not sure we've learned, even now, how to legislate modern warfare. We live in a time when most large-scale application of military force will inevitably involve collateral damage -- even when our own country tries, whenever possible, to wage war with precision-strike drones and special forces.
But to John's original question: As I see it, the Doolittle Raid was a legitimate gamble made solely for propaganda purposes, with risks manageably contained. And Jimmy Doolittle was certainly the right guy to lead that mission. When he died in a large delegation from the Air Staff including one or two reservists like me hiked on foot from the Pentagon over to the Arlington Cemetery chapel for his funeral service.
As a pilot, an aviation technology expert, and a combat leader he had few peers. Really, how many prewar reserve officers accumulated as many stars as he did? Walter McIntosh writes of: "the atrocities committed by the Japanese in revenge for the Doolittle raid, nor about the war criminal Bomber Harris. If the Doolittle Raid was "racist", how do we explain our bombing the hell out of German cities, almost exclusively inhabited by fellow Caucasians?
Boston: Little, Brown and Company, Raid on Tokyo: Doolittle Report. Central Decimal Files, — bulkies , box Record Group Collected documents on Doolittle Raid. The Tokyo Raid. File Classified Decimal File, —, box Doolittle Raid.
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All reached their targets successfully, with little Japanese response. Then, low on fuel, fifteen of the planes crashed or were abandoned in China. The Japanese would eventually execute , Chinese for helping the American fliers escape. A sixteenth plane landed near Vladivostok. Two of the Doolittle raiders came down in enemy territory and three crewmen were executed. But 71 men eventually came home.
The raid caused minor damage, but the psychological effect, on both the Americans and the Japanese, was incalculable. Still recovering militarily and emotionally from Pearl Harbor, America had, through a bold stroke by real heroes, brought the war home to Japan.
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