The Doolittle Raid by The Operations Room - Historian Reacts

welcome back everybody to another reaction video well uh you may have already seen uh but maybe you haven't uh we've got a new channel uh it's kind of a side project not meant to be like an everyday thing but probably a couple videos a week it's called vth extra and it's going to be a place for me to put all the stuff that doesn't have anything to do with history or that has to do with gaming for my gaming channel uh so music sports life just stuff that doesn't really fit with the theme of this channel so if you want to check out vth extra i did my first full video yesterday giving my predictions for the 2022 world cup who i think is going to win in each of the group stages and also who i think is going to win in the knockout stages so check that out i'll put a link down in the description but i also will put up a link at the end of this video well uh 80 years ago this month was the doolittle raid now many people are familiar with the doolittle raid especially today because of a couple recent films that show it one being pearl harbor about 20 years ago but then more recently in 2019 the movie midway which portrays parts of the doolittle raid so i thought it'd be interesting to take a look at that and we're going to do that by visiting our friends over at the operations room and i'll put a link in the description to that original content operations room does some of the best stuff especially associated with the war in the pacific during world war ii he puts a lot of time and effort into these videos they're very well done very easy to understand and very much backed up by the information that we have so i hope you enjoy this let's go ahead and dive in at 8 48 on the 2nd of april 1942 the uss hornet aircraft carrier steams under the golden gate bridge in san francisco and heads out to sea with her escort fleet sixteen b-25 mitchell medium bombers can be seen on her flight deck the locals assume the bombers are simply being transported to hawaii after all bombers of that size are surely far too large to be able to actually take off from an aircraft carrier [Music] in december 1941 the empire of japan attacked the us navy base at pearl harbor bringing the united states into world war ii simultaneously japan also took the us territories of guam the philippines and wake island and it wasn't just us territories either people forget because everybody focuses on the attack on pearl harbor on december 7th because that was the big event that brought the us into the war that's the one that you hear in the famous beginning clip where president roosevelt is addressing a joint session in congress and he says yesterday december 7th 1941 a date which will live in infamy the united states of america was suddenly and deliberately attacked by naval and air forces of the empire of japan but what people don't hear is in the expanded version of that clip he goes on to describe all the other places that they attacked the same day and it wasn't just american territories they basically launched attacks on the entire south pacific that same day they knew because at that point they had held off the u.s had been in negotiations with japan trying to come to some resolution that didn't lead to war and one of those one of those negotiations was where the us was basically saying listen if you stop stop attacking stop spreading stop going after more territory just confine yourself to where you're already at and we can kind of keep the peace and of course japan wanted american oil and wanted that to keep going didn't want any restrictions on trade and they just kind of never came to a place well once japan no longer had to worry about upsetting the us by attacking more territory in the south pacific since they were going to bring the us into the war they decided to go after everything all at once in fact let's take a look at a map so taking a look here you can see the extent uh to which japan had taken control by 1942 so it's the philippine islands at the beginning of 1942 you've got today what is thailand burma french indochina is vietnam today you've got a lot a large chunk of what is now indonesia you've got new guinea here some of the nastiest fighting of world war ii happens there in new guinea you've got the solomon islands gilbert islands marshall islands marianas wake island which is the u.s territory and they're on their way i mean they've attacked pearl harbor they're on their way to dealing with midway in the beginning of june of 1942 so you can see the extent to which they have expanded the american people were furious at these attacks on their territories and demanded revenge president roosevelt inquired about the feasibility of bombing raids on japan the u.s needed a morale boost however the loss of airfields on the occupied pacific islands rendered the u.s unable to reach japan with the range of its conventional bomber air power at a naval airfield in virginia testing was carried out whereby the outline of the deck of an aircraft carrier was drawn out on a runway and medium bombers attempted to take off within the required distance of 467 feet it was possible with major modifications but only just an attempt in the high seas of the pacific ocean would be quite a different matter people don't realize just how much of world war ii came down to innovation trying new things and just guts and the idea of launching a surprise attack on the japanese homeland at the very beginning of the war was ridiculous on the surface i mean we were not think about how long it took throughout the course of the war to get to the place where we were in range and had the bomber capability to launch major attacks on the japanese homeland it took into 1944 almost into 1945 before we had the ability to do that on a regular basis so the fact this was being done in 1942 is a big big deal and you might think well it's only two years but two years during world war ii is a lifetime in terms of technology in terms of the capabilities of the us i mean the us is just not ready for a major war on two fronts at the end of 1941. we had instituted a draft we were starting to build up our military just in case we weren't nearly as unprepared as we had been in world war one but we were far from ready for things like this so this was really um this was a gutsy thing to do lieutenant colonel doolittle an engineer before the war and now famous military test pilot sketched out a plan where median bombers would take off from an aircraft carrier off the coast of japan now doolittle wasn't just an engineer he was also um he had trained pilots during world war one he was one of the very first uh aviators in the u.s military back in the beginnings of the program and he was a pioneer uh in a lot of this stuff so much so like a lot of pioneers when people are arguing for things that later on become standard a lot of times a lot of people aren't listening and so he was kind of a voice in the wilderness in a lot of ways in the 1920s and 30s arguing for air power and and the fact that in the next war air supremacy was going to be everything uh well by 1942 now people are starting to listen and doolittle is going to go he's a lieutenant colonel during the doolittle raid the day after the raid he gets promoted two grades to brigadier general and by 1944 he's a three-star general in charge of the entire eighth air force in europe and strike the greater tokyo area landing back on the aircraft carrier after the raid would be impossible so he considered that the strikeforce would continue west after their raid and land in the soviet union turning the aircraft over to the soviet air force as len lee's so you might look at this and think to yourself okay why would they go all the way from san francisco instead of going from hawaii which would be much closer a couple of reasons number one hawaii's just been attacked pearl harbor is still in shambles they're still rebuilding they're still trying to recover most of most of the the ships that were sunk in the attack on pearl harbor were eventually recovered and and several of them were actually put back into service so there's a lot of reasons why another reason why is well obviously uh if this group was seen leaving pearl harbor and heading that direction then everybody knows they're headed for war whereas if they're leaving from san francisco like they said maybe people think they're just going to midway they're going to pearl harbor they don't think they're going to attack somebody however while the soviets were fighting with the allies in the war against germany they were still neutral with japan stalin did not want a second front to open in the far east with japan and the soviet union stays neutral with japan until the very end of the war uh at the last conference that they had uh before germany was defeated it was agreed that two months after germany left the war two or three months after germany was out of the war the soviets would declare war on japan and they did that right about the time that the war came to an end and a lot of people argued that yeah the atomic bombs might have played a part but what also played a part in japan being willing to surrender at that point was that the soviets had entered the war at a time when germany was hammering the soviet union to the west doolittle revised his plan to land the aircraft in china with the b-25s modified for long-range operations they were craned onto the deck of the uss hornet and on the 2nd of april the ship steamed west the force from san francisco task force 18 consists of the uss hornet aircraft carrier cruisers nashville and vincennes boiler cimarron and destroyers gwyn meredith monson and grayson on the 8th of april the euler cimarron refuels the destroyers whose range is limited in stormy seas in pearl harbor task force 16 led by admiral halsey puts to sea made up of the uss enterprise aircraft carrier cruisers northampton and salt lake city oilers sabine and destroyers belch venom elliot and fanning and we see that in the 19 and the 2019 movie midway you see that bull halsey is there with this task force even though the hornet's the one that's got all the planes on it that are going to be used in this attack the fleet leaves the navy base and heads towards grid reference 38 north 180 east they are to rendezvous with task force 18 on the 13th of april before the combined fleet heads west thousands of miles away off the coast of japan the uss submarines trout and thresher have been attacking and sinking japanese merchant shipping they monitor the weather and feedback radio reports to the fleet on the 17th the task force is 800 miles from the japanese coast all ships resupply from the oilers cimarron and sabine the two oilers then turn east for home the destroyers hold at this position to save valuable fuel for the later voyage home think about how they must have been feeling at this point how they're out there i mean they're out there and by themselves the us at this point in the war has been getting its butt kicked by the japanese now i think a lot of people understood eventually that was going to change but so far that's been the reality these guys are way out there they're right off the japanese coast i mean 800 miles is in ocean terms in the pacific right off the japanese coast at any point they could run into a huge japanese task force and just be wiped off the map there had to have been a lot of nerves a lot of concern about how this was all going to go down rest of the task force continues west the carrier uss enterprise is providing air cover to the fleet as the uss hornet cannot launch any of its own combat wing while the bombers take up the deck space recon aircraft are launched to search an area 200 miles ahead of the fleet for hostile shipping and when he says that the bombers are taking up the deck space you know remember the deck has to park all these planes because they can't park them down below there's just not room for planes that big so fully i think half the the entire deck is just covered with all these planes so there's no room to even have air cover so that's what enterprise is there for and of course no plan survives contact with the enemy and this plan is going to be no different at 3 a.m on the 18th of april the fleet detects two surface radar contacts at 20 000 yards distance halsey orders a course change away to avoid detection at 4 am the fleet resumes its course towards japan at sunrise air patrols resume from the enterprise this time three dauntless dive bombers are also dispatched to search for the surface contacts detected overnight one aircraft sites a ship at 42 miles ahead of the task force and drops a note onto the deck of the enterprise so as to preserve radio silence at 8 00 am the fleet spots the japanese patrol craft nita maru at 10 000 yards the uss nashville opens fire and sinks the craft but not before it was able to radio back a warning to the japanese homeland enemy carriers spotted so at that point you know it's it's up you know you have to launch and get out of there you have no choice uh and imagine being the bomber cruise you already have a a really next to impossible mission you're going to drop bombs on the mainland you're going to have barely enough fuel to make it and hope that you land behind friendly lines in china well now you've got to launch earlier and further away than expected for all intents and purposes this is basically a suicide mission at this point admiral halsey realizes the element of surprise has been lost and every minute passed is a minute longer the japanese military has to prepare for the attack 10 hours early and 170 miles further away than planned he gives the order to launch the bombers [Music] first into the air doolittle leads the 16 b-25 mitchells in successfully completing the perilous takeoff remarkably no aircraft are lost and the bombers set course for tokyo the task force turns back to the east so why are they circling while they're circling until all the bombers get in the air and they can all fly together knowing there are further patrol craft in the area ready to radio back the location of the fleeing ships to long-range bombers on the mainland [Music] with the b-25 launched hornet can now launch its own air wing to help defend the fleet over the next few hours hornet launches eight wildcat fighters on combat air patrols an enterprise launches dauntlesses in 200-mile search patterns for enemy ships enterprise detects japanese recon aircraft at long range but they turn away at 2pm the fleet spots two patrol craft to the north dauntlesses attack and destroy the first but return fire from the craft damages one darkness which crashes into the sea near the uss nashville the nashville closes in and destroys the remaining ship with the aid of dive bombers from hornet to the west the 16 bombers are approaching the japanese coast they split into five formations the first will hit northern tokyo the second central's tokyo the third southern tokyo so i'm curious to know what happened to the pilot of that plane that got shot down whether or not he made it well actually couldn't find anything about it so if anybody is able to find that information about who that pilot was that was shot down there and what happened to him most of the information i'm finding all has to do with what happened to the doolittle raiders themselves which we'll talk more about i'm sure the fourth spreads out over a 50 mile front on its way to kanagawa yokohama and yokosuka navy base the fifth will hit nagoya and kobe the first three flights 13 aircraft surround tokyo and run in from different directions the targets are selected military and civilian factories and oil refineries notably the nippon electric company and the mitsubishi aircraft company japanese observer posts have spotted the bombers crossing the coast and an intercepting fighter force comprising xeros ki-27s and ki-61s have been scrambled and you don't really see that in the movie portrayals right you don't see fighters coming after them but i believe the doolittle raid actually shot down i think according to them they shot down three fighters i don't know if that's the accurate number but i think i read that somewhere the targets selected are specifically chosen for their scattered nature throughout the greater tokyo area the plan is to cause as much shock to civilians as possible across the widest possible area that's a good point this is never intended to be about really having a significant impact in terms of damaging the industry of the japanese war machine or anything like that this is all about psychology this is all about hey you hit us we hit you you are not as strong and as protected as you think you are to let the japanese people know america came ready to fight and you're in trouble nearly all bombers are pursued and attacked by multiple fighters doolittle himself is attacked by nine enemy aircraft the city's anti-aircraft batteries open a desperate barrage of fire on the bombers but their low altitude and flight paths make them impossible targets the gunners on the us aircraft claim five fighters shot down inside defense it's a defensive disaster for the japanese who score no bombers destroyed nearly all planned targets are hit including damage to an aircraft carrier in drydock at yokosuka don't hear about that either two aircraft can attack multiple targets in nagoya they encounter heavy anti-aircraft fire before bombing a military barracks an oil storage facility and two aircraft factories the last aircraft follows the coastline into the port of kobe and drops bombs on a steel works electric works and the kawasaki dockyard and aircraft factory all bombers except one turn for china to make their escape captain edward york's aircraft makes for the soviet union an administrative error led to unauthorized modifications to york's engine carburetors before leaving the us mainland this means that fuel consumption is vastly higher than has been planned for and china will now be 300 miles out of range york's crew has no choice but to make for vladivostok in the soviet union they would eventually land safely but are interned by the soviet union a month later the soviet government would stage their supposed escape near the iranian border allowing the crew to travel to the british consulate in iran the crew would return home soon after without the soviets appearing to have broken the neutrality agreement with japan so in hindsight might have been better if all the planes had done that right if they had just gone to the soviet union and escaped uh so kudos to the soviets that could have gone differently uh so it sounds like they handled it pretty well i wish i could say the same thing for what happens uh in china especially for the civilians involved all crews are forced to bail out near or before their planned landing areas in china thanks to unusually high wind and fog when communicating the plan to the chinese military in the days leading up to the attack a mistake was made by u.s planners forgetting that the raid would involve crossing the international date line the chinese have been told to await the bombers 24 hours after intended all but two crews aiming for china returned home with help from the chinese doolittle received the medal of honor as leader of the raid the other two crews were captured by the japanese regretfully after a military trial three of the crew members were executed with another dying of malnutrition in prison japanese reprisals on china for harboring the cruise were severe launching operation saigo in may to occupy the coastal areas to prevent their use as a bomber landing area again estimates for civilian fatalities during the campaign range from 70 to 250 000 people think about that for a second a quarter million people died in the reprisals that's the high number but that's the number i see most often is 250 000 people died in direct reprisals because of this raid by a handful of bombers on a japanese mainland that tells you a lot about the enemy that was being faced here they were brutal they were ruthless and you have to understand that many years of that kind of thing you know when people judge things like the decision to drop the atomic bombs on hiroshima and nagasaki you have to remember that this has been five six years of seeing the japanese military's ruthlessness and many of the atrocities that are carried out on civilians and on captured soldiers ain't nobody want a piece of that nobody wanted any part of landing on the japanese mainland in dealing with that and so anything that could prevent having to land on the mainland and allowed for an opportunity to end the war early i'm not saying that to justify it i'm telling you that to help you get yourself in the mindset of the decision makers and understand that this was the nature of the war in the pacific uh and there's a whole lot more to it than that but that just gives you one example one raid by a handful of bombers on the japanese mainland that really doesn't do all that much to the japanese industry results in the death of a quarter million people uh imagine you know what could have been expected in a mainland invasion so um yeah uh and cool story about jimmy doolittle he not only survives the raid uh survives the war as one of the highest ranking officers in the air forces um he ends up living into the 1990s i think it was 1993 when he died he was eventually after retirement given a fourth star which you can see here being pinned on him by ronald reagan um which is kind of cool i think that is that barry goldwater with him um giving him a fourth star uh so he and his wife live or were married for over 70 years he had a couple of sons and grandsons who ended up pretty high ranking officers in the air force this is that picture you saw earlier that's jimmy doolittle right there so and real quick just so you can kind of get a sense of the man a little bit here's a video of jimmy doolittle at the end of world war ii uh when he was introducing general patton at a speech so some of you may have seen me um show this before but it's a there's a parade and you can see general patton right here i think this was in los angeles uh and uh it's being narrated by an army uh officer who was working in film the film industry none other than ronald reagan is the one narrating this but you'll see jimmy doolittle at the beginning before general patton speaks on his return americans showed their gratitude in general pershing's words it didn't hurt america to have a general so bold that he was dangerous and pershing knew patton really well pershing had actually been engaged to patton's sister for a while during world war one patton was on pershing's staff there's doodle on the right in its reception with him was general doolittle whose eighth air force in europe did so much to assure final victory although no unit no individual won the war we're fortunate and having one here tonight with us who had a large party so that's general doolittle uh it's kind of cool to see him in his prime there that's him and then of course seeing him as an old man still going strong living into his 90s so let's go ahead and finish this video up there was a major boost to american morale more importantly the japanese high command now considered their coastline vulnerable to attack they would attempt to take the pacific islands of midway two months later to try to hinder u.s carrier operations against their mainland in the future the resulting battle of midway would be a crippling defeat for the japanese navy and decisive in the war in the pacific and at some point we are going to take a look at the operations rooms uh series on midway from the japanese perspective i've heard it's very good i haven't seen it yet but yeah um psychologically has a big impact not only at home for america saying okay all right all right it's not all bad news coming out of the pacific now things are starting to look up a little bit and then midway happens and from that point it's an offensive war for the americans and it's a defensive war for the japanese and it's really just a matter of time at that point um but yeah it did it it affected how japan thought of things and it affected their own decision making and so that's a good thing you want to force your enemy into making decisions they otherwise might not have made and giving you the advantage so good stuff i hope you enjoyed that if you have something to add let us know something else about the doolittle raid that maybe we didn't talk about here and as i mentioned before please check out the new channel vth extra uh probably put up a couple videos a week at least to that but right now there's the one up with my predictions for the world cup and here's a link to that video if you want to check it out thanks for watching

Channel: Vlogging Through History

Views: 41,028

Keywords: world war 2, time lapse, world war ii, historian reacts, pacific war, doolittle raid, uss hornet, historian reaction, pearl harbor, pearl harbour, jimmy doolittle

Id: pHjkGP-5CY4

Length: 26min 39sec (1599 seconds)

Published: Sat Apr 02 2022