138 - America Strikes Back - Tokyo in Flames - WW2 - April 18 1942

by Panzer
He escaped?...
Down a cliff on a homemade rope?
Wow, that's pretty cool!
And then jumped a train for the Swiss border?
Man, that's... What?
Wait, how old is he?
63??!
Wow, that's really cool!
Yeah, okay.
Yeah, yeah, see ya...
April 18, 1942 It is the home of the Emperor, the headquarters
of the army, the navy, and the government, but what Tokyo also is this week- is bombed!
I'm Indy Neidell; this is World War Two.
Last week, Japan's Operation C, a raid in the Indian Ocean by the carrier fleet Kido Butai,
came to an end after huge success in sinking both naval and merchant shipping. On the Philippines,
Bataan finally surrenders to the Japanese and the Bataan Death march begins,
and Adolf Hitler issues his plans for the summer offensive against the Soviet Union.
So it was kind of a game changing week, and after the major fleet losses- including a carrier and
two cruisers, British PM Winston Churchill feels now not only Burma, but India is in great peril.
He wants the US fleet to send ships to join the British Eastern Fleet to prevent a repeat of the
operation. American Fleet Commander Ernest King says no and President Franklin Roosevelt says
he'll only send some bombers to beef up India's defenses.
He does have a little something, though- really, not that big of a thing- up his sleeve.
You remember Jim Doolittle? Well, now he's Lieutenant Colonel James
Doolittle. You remember him- test pilot and aeronautical engineer back in the 20s?
Masters of Science from MIT in Aeronautics? PhD in aeronautical engineering?
Won the Schnieder Cup and the Mackay Trophy? You remember him! First daredevil pilot to ever
perform an outside loop? Super famous! First pilot to take off, fly, and land using only instruments,
without a view from the cockpit? Set the world speed record for land planes back in '32?
Boom, that guy! Well, he's in the news again-
sort of. What I mean is he does something this week that's pretty
cool but it won't be released to the press for a few weeks, so he's not actually in the news.
Here's the story- ever since Pearl Harbor, Roosevelt has been bugging his war planners
to find a way to somehow bomb Tokyo. You know? Hit them by surprise the way the Americans were.
You could send planes on a one-way suicide mission from China, and there would be plenty of
volunteers for that, but that wouldn't exactly be a PR coup. Well, three months ago, Admiral King's
staff had the idea of sending land-based bombers- ones too big to land on an aircraft carrier,
but that could maybe possibly take off from a carrier- from such a carrier that had got
within range of Japan's coast to bomb Tokyo and then continue on and land in China. Henry Arnold,