Luke Bimm looks back at the legendary ‘Doolittle Raids’ and experiences what it was like to fly one of the machines responsible for the United States’ first bombing raid of World War Two
Eighty years ago, on April 18, 1942, one of the most famous military raids took place: 16 B-25B Mitchell medium bombers, each with five crew, launched from the US Navy aircraft carrier USS Hornet to attack Tokyo and other Japanese industrial cities. It was morale-boosting retaliation for the December 7, 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor.
Now known as the Doolittle Raid, after Lieutenant Colonel James Doolittle who planned and led the mission, the raid inflicted relatively minor damage and all 16 aircraft were lost. But it was historically significant – this surprise tactical event had exceptional strategic consequences.
As a fellow military aviator, what really strikes me is the bravery and heroism of those airmen, who willingly set off on their mission knowing that the chances of survival were relatively very poor. Although wartime conditions and risks could never be replicated, to try to understand what flying one of these aircraft was like for these airmen, FlyPast was invited by the Flying Bulls company to climb aboard its immaculate
