Doolittle Raid

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

On April 18, 1942, 16 B-25s under the command of Lt. Col. Jimmy Doolittle were launched from the carrier Hornet , flew 650 miles to Japan, dropped their bombs on Tokyo and other targets, and escaped to China and neutral Soviet territory. Although a very small affair in comparison with the B-29 strikes three years later, the Doolittle raid was a severe psychological blow to Japanese military leaders and had far-reaching strategical effects. At the same time, the raid provided an electrifying boost to American morale. Glines, former editor of Professional Pilot magazine, relates this exciting story in full: the bold conception of the mission, the selection of its leader (Doolittle was known as a ``master of the calculated risk''), the difficult preparations, the hair-raising ``thirty seconds over Tokyo,'' and the ordeals of those crewmen who fell into Japanese hands in China. Glines also tells the almost unbelievable story of ``the last Doolittle raider.'' Lt. George Barr, convinced that his liberation was an elaborate Japanese trick, was shunted around the U.S. military-medical circuit and ended up in a mental ward. Doolittle himself, by then a general, traced him, rescued him from bureaucratic oblivion, and set him firmly on the road to recovery. Photos. (Oct.)