By January, 1942, the news coming from the war fronts was bad. The Pearl Harbor naval base had been attacked with heavy loss of life and warships. Hong Kong, Singapore, the East Indies, Guam, and the Philippines had already been lost or were about to fall. Japanese aircraft carriers had ranged far and wide, raiding in the Indian Ocean and Darwin, Australia.

President FDR challenged his military commanders to get a measure of revenge for the Pearl Harbor surprise attack. It was too risky to send our aircraft carriers close enough to Japan with short ranged naval aircraft. But there were no major airfields left in Asia from which to launch strikes with larger aircraft. However, it was thought that Army bombers, taking off from a Navy carrier, would allow our ships to conduct the raid while staying safely out of range of Japanese home island defenders.

By February, U.S. Army and Navy commanders had hatched a joint plan to hit the Japanese in a meaningful way. The plan was to send two aircraft carriers (and their escorts) close enough to Japan to launch 16 USAAF B-25s. One carrier (USS-Hornet CV-8) would carry the bombers and the other (USS Enterprise CV-6) would provide search, anti-submarine and combat air patrol aircraft.

This was the first war-related mission for brand new USS Hornet (CV-8). The Army B-25 bombers were loaded aboard right here at historic Alameda Naval Air Station, where the USS Hornet (CV-12) now resides as a museum ship. This year is the 80^th anniversary of that famous mission in World War II, now called the “Doolittle Raid,” named after Alameda’s own Jimmy Doolittle who help plan and lead the attack.  A joint services operation that dramatically altered the course of WWII in the Pacific.

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