The rendezvous of the two forces would become Task Force 16 and would take place on Sunday, April 12, at approximately 38 degrees 0 minutes north latitude and 180 degrees 0 minutes west longitude. The force would then proceed westward and refuel about 800 miles off the coast of Japan. The oilers would then detach themselves while the rest of the task force dashed to the launch point.

Halsey later reported in his memoirs that, Our talk boiled down to this: we would carry Jimmy within 400 miles of Tokyo, if we could sneak in that close; but if we were discovered sooner, we would have to launch him anyway, provided he was in reach of either Tokyo or Midway.

What Halsey did not discuss was the tremendous risk the Navy was taking. If marauding Japanese submarines discovered the task force steaming westward, it would be an excellent opportunity to cripple what was left of the Navy’s strength in the Pacific. Doolittle knew full well that if Halsey’s ships were under heavy attack, the B-25s stored topside would be pushed over the side to make flight deck available so the Hornet’s fighters could be brought up on deck to help protect the task force.

When the B-25s landed at Alameda on April 1, Doolittle and Captain Ski York greeted each crew. Anything wrong with your plane? they asked. If a pilot admitted some malfunction, he was directed to a nearby parking ramp instead of the wharf.

Originally, only 15 planes were to be loaded, but Doolittle asked for one more to be hoisted aboard. When the carrier was at sea, it would take off and return to the mainland to show the other B-25 crews that takeoffs were not only possible but could be made easily. Although the bomber crews had been told that B-25s had made carrier takeoffs previously, none had ever seen it done nor had they done it themselves. Lieutenant Miller, the Navy pilot who had instructed them in carrier takeoffs, would be aboard that B-25.

The next morning, Task Force 16.2 prepared to depart from San Francisco Bay. Just before the Hornet was to depart, Doolittle was ordered ashore to receive an urgent phone call from Washington. He recalled:

I thought it was going to be either General Hap Arnold or General George Marshall telling me I couldn’t go. My heart sank because I wanted to go on that mission more than anything….

It was General Marshall. ‘Doolittle?’ he said. ‘I just called to wish you the best of luck. Our thoughts and our prayers will be with you. Goodbye, good luck, and come home safely.’ All I could think of to say was, ‘Thank you, Sir, thank you.’ I returned to the Hornet feeling much better.

Shortly before noon, the Hornet passed under the Golden Gate Bridge. That afternoon, Mitscher decided to tell his men where they were going. He signaled to the other ships, This force is bound for Tokyo. As he recalled later, when he made the announcement on the Hornet, Cheers from every section of the ship greeted the announcement, and morale reached a new high, there to remain until after the attack was launched and the ship was well clear of combat areas.

The next day, April 3, Doolittle changed his mind about sending the 16th plane back to the mainland. A Navy blimp, the L-8, arrived overhead with spare parts for the B-25s. Air-patrol coverage was provided as far as possible by a Consolidated PBY Catalina.

Doolittle assembled his crews and introduced Commander Apollo Soucek and Lt. Cmdr. Stephen Jurika. Soucek was the ship’s air officer, and he described the basics of carrier operations. Jurika, the Hornet’s intelligence officer, briefed them on the target cities and surrounding areas.

Jurika had been an assistant naval attache in Japan in 1939 and had obtained much valuable information about Japanese industry and military installations. He spoke to the crews almost every day, telling them of Japanese customs, political ideologies and history. Doolittle allowed the pilots to choose their targets in the assigned cities. Lieutenant Frank Akers, the carrier’s navigator, gave the pilots a refresher course on navigation. Doc White, the physician gunner on Lieutenant Don Smith’s crew, gave talks on sanitation and first aid.

Doolittle made it a practice to meet with the crews two or three times a day. He continually warned them not to bomb the Imperial Palace and to avoid hospitals, schools and other non-military targets. He said that most planes would carry three 500-pound demolition bombs and one 500-pound incendiary. He planned to take off in the late afternoon with four incendiaries and drop them on Tokyo in darkness. The resulting fires would light up the sky and serve as a beacon for those following and guide them toward their respective targets in Tokyo, Yokohama, Kobe, Nagoya and Osaka. All aircraft would then proceed to China and be guided by homing beacons to landing fields where they would refuel before proceeding to Chungking, the ultimate destination.

Mitscher and Halsey joined forces as planned. Meanwhile, arrangements in China were not going well. Japanese ground forces were moving in strength toward the airfields where the B-25s were to refuel. Although the Americans and Chinese in Chungking were told that they could expect some aircraft to arrive and to prepare for them by placing fuel and setting up homing beacons, they were not told that the planes would be arriving from the east after bombing Japan. Misunderstandings developed, and were compounded when Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek asked that the arrival of the planes be delayed so he could move his ground forces into position to prevent occupation of the Chuchow area where one of the refueling airfields was located.

As the task force continued westward, the Japanese knew from intercepted radio messages as early as April 10 that an enemy carrier force was steaming toward them. However, it was estimated that it would have to approach within 300 miles of their coast in order to launch any carrier planes. If that was where the task force was headed, there would be plenty of time to intercept it.

Unknown to the Americans, a line of radio-equipped picket ships was positioned about 650 miles off Japan, and they could signal the approach of any large force and warn the land-based air defense forces to prepare for an attack.

Meanwhile, a Japanese navy air flotilla was alerted to back up homeland air defenses. Patrol bombers would be dispatched when the enemy force was estimated to be about 600 miles out. However, when the American task force observed radio silence for the last 1,000 miles, the Japanese cautiously decided that it might be headed elsewhere.

In the early morning hours of April 18, the Enterprise’s radar spotted two small ships. The force changed course briefly to avoid them. The weather turned sour; light rain was falling and green water was plunging down the Hornet’s deck. A dawn patrol was sent up from the Enterprise to scout the area. One of the pilots sighted an enemy surface ship and dropped a message to the Big E’s deck, noting the ship’s position and adding, Believed seen by enemy.

Admiral Halsey promptly flashed a message to Captain Mitscher: Launch planes to Col. Doolittle and gallant command, good luck and God bless you.

The B-25s were quickly loaded and one by one moved into takeoff position. Doolittle was first off at 0820; the 16th B-25 was off an hour later. Just as the pilot of the last plane had started his engines, a deckhand slipped on the wet deck and fell into the B-25’s whirling left propeller, which severed his arm.

One by one, the B-25s droned on toward Japan. None flew in close formation with another, and only a few actually saw any other B-25s as they droned along toward their respective target cities.

Shortly after noon, Tokyo time, Doolittle called for bomb doors open, and Sergeant Fred Braemer sighted down the 20- cent bombsight and triggered off four incendiaries into the capital city’s factory area. Fourteen other crews found their respective targets; however, one B-25, with its top turret inoperative and under attack by fighters, dropped its bombs in Tokyo Bay. Several others were also attacked, but none suffered any noticeable damage.

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