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Cover image for Target Tokyo : Jimmy Doolittle and the raid that avenged Pearl Harbor
Format:
Book
Title:
Target Tokyo : Jimmy Doolittle and the raid that avenged Pearl Harbor
ISBN:
9780393089622

9780393352276
Edition:
First edition.
Publication:
New York : W.W. Norton & Company, [2015]
Physical Description:
xv, 648 pages : illustrations ; 25 cm
Summary:
The dramatic account of one of America's most celebrated-- and controversial--military campaigns: the Doolittle Raid.

In December 1941, as American forces tallied the dead at Pearl Harbor, President Franklin Roosevelt gathered with his senior military counselors to plan an ambitious counterstrike against the heart of the Japanese Empire: Tokyo. Four months later, on April 18, 1942, sixteen U.S. Army bombers under the command of daredevil pilot Jimmy Doolittle lifted off from the deck of the USS Hornet on a one-way mission to pummel the enemy's factories, refineries, and dockyards and then escape to Free China. Most of the bombers ran out of fuel and crashed. Captured raiders suffered torture and starvation in Japan's notorious POW camps. Others faced a harrowing escape across China with the Japanese Army in pursuit.

The dramatic account of one of America's most celebrated--and controversial--military campaigns: the Doolittle Raid. In December 1941, as American forces tallied the dead at Pearl Harbor, President Franklin Roosevelt gathered with his senior military counselors to plan an ambitious counterstrike against the heart of the Japanese Empire: Tokyo. Four months later, on April 18, 1942, sixteen U.S. Army bombers under the command of daredevil pilot Jimmy Doolittle lifted off from the deck of the USS Hornet on a one-way mission to pummel the enemy's factories, refineries, and dockyards and then escape to Free China. For Roosevelt, the raid was a propaganda victory. In Japan, outraged over the deaths of innocent civilians, military leaders launched an ill-fated attempt to seize Midway. But it was the Chinese who suffered the worst, victims of a retaliatory campaign by the Japanese that claimed an estimated 250,000 lives. At the center of this story is Doolittle, the son of an Alaskan gold prospector, a former boxer, and brilliant engineer who earned his doctorate from MIT. Other fascinating characters populate this narrative, including Chiang Kai-shek, Lieutenant General Joseph "Vinegar Joe" Stilwell, and the feisty Vice Admiral William "Bull" Halsey Jr. Here, too, are portraits of the young pilots, navigators, and bombardiers, many of them little more than teenagers, who raised their hands to volunteer for a mission from which few expected to return. Most of the bombers ran out of fuel and crashed. Captured raiders suffered torture and starvation in Japan's notorious POW camps. Others faced a harrowing escape across China. Based on scores of never-before-published records drawn from archives across four continents as well as new interviews with survivors, this is World War II history of the highest order.--Adapted from book jacket.
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