The first heroes : the extraordinary story of the Doolittle Raid : America's first World War II victory / Craig Nelson.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Nelson, Craig, 1955-

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

United States. Army Air Forces.

History.

Bombing, Aerial.

Tokyo (Japan)--History--Bombardment, 1942.

Tokyo (Japan).

Bombing, Aerial--Japan--Tokyo.

World War, 1939-1945--Aerial operations, American.

World War, 1939-1945.

Doolittle, James Harold, 1896-1993.

Doolittle, James Harold.

United States. Army Air Forces--Biography.

United States.

United States. Army Air Forces--History--World War, 1939-1945.

Japan--Tokyo.

Genre:

Biographies.

Physical Description:

xviii, 430 pages, 16 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations, map ; 25 cm

Place of Publication:

New York : Viking, 2002.

Summary:

Immediately after Japan's December 7, 1941, attack on Pearl Harbor, President Franklin Roosevelt sought to restore the honor of the United States with a dramatic act of vengeance: a retaliatory bombing raid on Tokyo itself. In those early days of World War II, the very notion of an attempt by America -- which was ill prepared for any sort of warfare -- to make a direct assault on Asia's military superpower was almost inconceivable. But FDR was not to be dissuaded, and at his bidding a squadron of scarcely trained army fliers, led by the famous daredevil Jimmy Doolittle, set forth on what everyone regarded as a suicide mission.

On April 18, 1942, eighty young men, most of them scarcely out of their teens, took off from a navy carrier in the mid-Pacific. In their sixteen planes they successfully attacked Tokyo, Osaka, Yokohama, Nagoya, and Kobe, although the mission was critically compromised when Japanese spies detected the American fleet. Most of Doolittle's squadron ran out of gas and was forced to crash-land in enemy-occupied China, where the boys were secretly ferried by peasants to the safety of the Nationalist capital, Chungking. Eight of the fliers were captured by Japanese patrols, confined to years of solitary imprisonment, tortured, forced to sign false confessions, and judged as war criminals. Three were executed by firing squad; one was starved to death. The survivors, rescued at war's end, were reduced to living skeletons, although one found God and after the war returned to Japan on a campaign of forgiveness. Still other Raiders were interned as hostile aliens by the Soviet Union and had to be smuggled into Persia to freedom. This raid, meanwhile, led directly to what every historian now believes was the turning point in the war against Japan.

The First Heroes is the story of this extraordinary mission, one of the most daring episodes of World War II. Although the Doolittle Raid became the basis for the classic 1944 film Thirty Seconds over Tokyo, this moment in history is surprisingly unfamiliar today. To give these heroes their due, Craig Nelson interviewed twenty of the surviving participants and researched more than forty thousand pages of books, periodicals, and archival documents. The fact that 90 percent of these men came home alive was little short of a miracle, as was the way their efforts revived the morale of the nation and helped convince the world that the Allies might eventually triumph. Here is a true account that almost defies belief, a tremendous human drama of great personal courage, and a powerful reminder that ordinary people, when faced with extraordinary circumstances, can rise to the challenge of history.

Contents:

History Runs Away ... xi

Liftoff: April 18, 1942 xv

Volunteers 3

"The Man Who Can Never Stand Still" 32

Ship 50

Dai Nippon Teikoku 71

The Dreamer, Paralyzed 96

Liftoff 113

Bomb 131

Crash 161

Escape 191

Seized 235

Death 268

Metamorphosis 298

Peace 326.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages [403]-415) and index.

ISBN:

0670030872

OCLC:

50417289