War Stories II by Oliver L. North Page B

entire carrier strength of the U.S. Pacific Fleet. If they were discovered and sunk by the Japanese, it could take years for America to rebound, rebuild its naval forces, and deal with the Imperial Navy.
    Aboard the Hornet , the Army aircrews were kept busy rehearsing the mission and working on the planes—critical parts were even delivered to them by blimp. They had to memorize maps and targets, listen to intelligence briefings, learn about Japan’s cities and culture, and review their options after the bombing runs.
    Doolittle hoped that he had thought of everything. His plan called for Chinese guerrillas, under Chiang Kai-shek, to place radio beacons to lead the B-25s to safe landing fields in China. Still, his greatest anxiety was having enough fuel to reach them.
    But if Doolittle had any doubts, he did not show it.
    Corporal Jake DeShazer, from Salem, Oregon, was a cook for a sheep-herding camp before he joined the Army Air Corps in 1940 at the age of twenty-seven. He remembers being on KP duty when Pearl Harbor was bombed and thinking to himself, “Japan is really going to get it for this.” DeShazer recalls standing alone on the Hornet ’s flight deck, thinking, “I wonder how many more days I am going to spend in this world. Maybe I wasn’t so fortunate after all to get to go on this trip.”
    On 16 April, in heavy seas, the sailors and Army airmen aboard the Hornet moved the B-25s to a parking area at the rear of the flight deck, where they would be ready to take off. The following day the weather deteriorated
further. Halsey and Doolittle, concerned about the ability of the sailors and airmen to work on the open flight deck, ordered the planes fueled and bombs loaded, even though the task force didn’t plan to be at the launch point until late on 19 April.
    By darkness on 17 April, the airmen and deck crews were exhausted, but Halsey and Doolittle had done all they could to prepare. Now if they could just avoid the enemy picket ships and patrol craft, the Hornet might be able to get within 400 miles of Japan—and that edge might give the B-25s and their crews a chance of surviving the mission. But it wasn’t to be.

USS HORNET
    TASK FORCE 16.2
650 MILES OFF JAPANESE COAST
18 APRIL 1942
    In the predawn morning hours of 18 April, a radar operator on the Enterprise reported a “surface contact”—a ship—about ten miles from the carrier. Though the Enterprise was still more than 650 miles from Japan, Halsey ordered the entire task force to change direction to keep from being spotted by what had to be a Japanese ship. Then, at 0600, an American scout plane scouring the waters ahead of the American ships saw a Japanese patrol boat.
    Hoping to sink the vessel before it could notify Japan of their presence, Halsey’s cruiser, the USS Nashville, engaged with five-inch gunfire at 0738, and immediately afterward dive-bombers from the Enterprise attacked the picket ship. The Nitto Maru , designated as Japanese Naval Patrol Boat No. 23, sank in minutes. But not before the crew radioed Imperial Fleet HQ at Kure that three American aircraft carriers were headed for Japan.
    Aboard the Enterprise , Navy code-breakers intercepted the Nitto Maru ’s radio traffic, and though the Nitto Maru incorrectly warned that there were three American carriers, it still meant that, despite the weather, the task force was now in great jeopardy. So, too, was Doolittle’s attack plan.
    The Hornet , with the sixteen B-25s aboard, was still hundreds of miles away from its intended launch destination, and hundreds of miles more
from the targets in Japan. Halsey had planned to steam west another thirty-two hours before launching the bombers, so that they would arrive over their targets on the night of 19 April—and be able to find their landing fields in China on the next morning.
    Admiral Halsey and Doolittle now had to make a serious decision, and it had to be made quickly. The