Doolittle's Men (eBook)

Chapter 1

Across the half mile of storm-tossed ocean, the battery of Nashville’s number one turret flashed with another salvo. Lieutenant Colonel Jimmy Doolittle’s eyes darted from the cruiser to the tiny boat several thousand yards ahead, appearing and disappearing between crests and troughs. There, geysers of water leapt skyward like milky exclamation points against the slate gray background, bracketing the boat just as the thunderous report reached his ears and those of a gaggle of army lieutenants manning the rail of the Hornet. The young men cheered. Again the target emerged unscathed from the cascades of water, then disappeared into the next trough.

Each of their chocolate-brown flight jackets, glossy with rain, displayed one of several squadron emblems—a kicking mule here, an Indian thunderbird there, with winged helmets and lion heads rounding out the menagerie.

“Why don’t that big tub just run it down?” suggested one of the young men.

“Yeah, ’cause it sure don’t look like she’s ever gonna hit it,” added another.

Nearby, a sailor manning a fire hose was a sullen counterpoint to the delight the young army officers seemed to take in Nashville’s difficulty. With the task force at general quarters, every sailor was properly turned out in bulky kapok life vests and steel helmets, while the same gear was strewn disrespectfully at the feet of the army officers. Doolittle pondered the helmets in particular. They were a perfect metaphor for his army’s—his air corps’—unpreparedness at the start of another world war. Flat, antiquated relics from the last one. The air corps’ state was little better. It was being shredded by Japanese fighters that nobody in Washington thought, even for a minute, could be as advanced as they were proving to be. And their armies, slicing through all opposition like hot knives through butter, in Malaya and the Philippines, in Burma and Hong Kong, and their navy an implacable juggernaut in whatever waters it chose to enter.

Those silly, flat, antiquated dinner-plate helmets manifested his country’s desperation—and the desperation of the mission he was there to fly.

One of the young lieutenants was draped helplessly over the rail, retching out his breakfast. Doolittle took a step back to evaluate him, nearly tripping on his own kapok and helmet in the process. It was starting to feel too much like a Dodgers game. His men were starting to look undisciplined. Un-military. Too frat-house. Those sailors were watching them, judging them, and, by association, judging their commander. Some kind of admonishment was in order for their lack of professionalism—hell, for his own lack of professionalism. He stuffed his cap into his flight jacket and pulled the wet kapok over his head.

“All right, fellas, listen up—” he yelled down the railing as he fumbled with the straps, but the Nashville’s guns interrupted with another broadside. Again the lieutenants cheered. Again they laughed when the geysers bracketed—but missed—the little boat.

They stood in the lee of Hornet’s hangar deck, largely protected from the wind and spray generated by each plunge of the bow. Behind them, Hornet’s massive curtain doors were closed to the gale. Behind the doors was the carrier’s cavernous hangar containing the scores of gull-gray, single-engine navy aircraft lashed securely inside, wings folded, tight and close as a pallet of bricks. On the flight deck above, the olive wings and tails of twin-engine army bombers reached out over their heads and the frothing seas below.

Nashville fired again, this time obliterating the tiny boat and inducing wild cheers among Doolittle’s officers. Doolittle donned the helmet, cold and wet on his bald head, and pulled the strap past his nose and under his chin.

“Scratch one fishing boat! Well done, navy! The war’s half won!” said a laughing lieutenant.

“His fishing license just expired!” added another.

“Hey, navy, this is what Smitty thinks of your marksmanship,” joked a third as he slapped his vomiting comrade on the back.

“Fishing boats have radios too,” muttered the humorless sailor with the fire hose. Doolittle heard the comment. His men did not.

He squinted at the distant wreckage as the flotsam disappeared into a trough, then hurried up a nearby ladder onto the flight deck and into the teeth of the storm, picking his way under wings, around propeller blades, and through a thicket of tie-down ropes and chains. He scaled the ladders to the bridge as the klaxon sounded and the ship’s speakers competed with the din of the storm.

“ALL HANDS SECURE FROM GENERAL QUARTERS. SECURE FROM GENERAL QUARTERS. ALL FIRE CONTROL PERSONNEL STAND DOWN. STOW ALL HOSES AND FIRE GEAR.”

Doolittle stepped through the hatch and dogged it behind him. Inside, a marine stood guard at a half-open doorway. Freeing himself of the kapok and helmet, he dropped the gear on the deck, flung the water from his hands, and pulled his cap from his jacket as he addressed the marine.

“Colonel Doolittle requests permission to speak to the captain.”

“C’mon in, Jimmy,” came a voice through the door. Doolittle entered, nodding a greeting to the old man inside who was bent over a sea chart spread on a table. The eagles of a navy captain adorned his collar. His sun-browned face, like cracked leather, was attended by curls of cigarette smoke.

“Sir,” Doolittle said, “what if that wasn’t—”

“—wasn’t a fishing boat?”

Minutes later, Doolittle emerged from the captain’s quarters as the klaxon sounded.

“NOW HEAR THIS! NOW HEAR THIS: ALL ARMY FLIGHT CREWS REPORT TO THE READY ROOM ON THE DOUBLE. ALL ARMY FLIGHT CREWS REPORT TO THE READY ROOM ON THE DOUBLE.”

The marine held out the life vest and helmet, but Doolittle ignored him. He stepped out onto the exposed flying bridge and paused at the railing. Each descent of Hornet’s bow generated a dull boom and a wall of spray that towered over the forward end of the flight deck before being blown to the side. Barely visible through the rain and spume were the ghostlike profiles of the carrier, Enterprise, and the task force’s two cruiser escorts slamming through the swells on parallel courses. Beneath him, water shed from the broad wings of sixteen bombers—his bombers—and the wind beat furiously against canvas covers tied over Plexiglas noses, machine-gun turrets, and engine cowlings. Sixteen bombers. Eighty men. At almost forty-six—retirement age—he gazed below at his very first command.

Straightening himself and resetting his cap, he stepped smartly down the ladder to the flight deck below and disappeared through a hatch at the base of the “island.” He strode briskly through the warren of passageways, ladders, and hatches, eventually converging with other army personnel at the entrance to the ready room. Inside, the first man to see him sprang to his feet and called the room to attention. Chatting and joking ceased as all present stood. Doolittle took position at the lectern.

“At ease. Be seated. Smoke if you like. We haven’t much time, so this will be brief. The good news is that none of us should have any difficulty getting airborne in these winds.”

“Will we have ’em for tomorrow’s launch, sir?” came a voice from the seats.

“That brings me to the other news. I just came from the bridge. Captain Mitscher says the fishing boat the Nashville just sank was actually a Jap picket boat. Comms intercepted a radio transmission from it just before it went down. The jig is up, boys. They know we’re coming. Curtain.” Behind the lectern, a navy officer pulled the string to open a curtain, revealing a floor-to-ceiling map of the western Pacific. East of the Japanese islands was a small carrier icon magnetized to the map. Doolittle produced a pointer from behind the lectern. “Has this been updated since our last briefing?” he asked the navy officer.

“Yes, sir. Current as of ten minutes ago.”

Using the pointer, Doolittle measured the distance between Tokyo and the carrier, then held it against the legend at the bottom of the map.

“We’re about six hundred miles from Japan,” he said over his shoulder. “About two hundred miles short of our planned launch point.” He turned to his men. “Here’s our dilemma. Either we take off now and proceed to our targets in Japan, or the navy will have to push our aircraft over the side so they can launch their own. They’re probably gonna have to fight their way back to Pearl, so they’ll have to get scouts and fighters into the air as soon as the weather allows. The question each crew must now decide for themselves is, do you launch now or do you head back to Pearl with the navy?” All eyes shifted from him to the map. “I want you to consider the implications. The plan was to hit our targets at dusk, escape in the dark, and arrive over China at dawn. Now we’ll be hitting them in daylight and arriving over China in the dark. And no element of surprise. They’re gonna be waiting for us.”

“Will we even have the fuel to make it to China, Colonel?” one of the men asked.

“Probably not, son.” Doolittle leaned heavily on the lectern. “Fellas, I’ve been flying airplanes for twenty-five years. I’m still alive because I believe in planning. I believe in...