Midweek Sortie 31: America Strikes Back—The Dolittle Raid

Months after Pearl Harbor, sixteen B-25 bombers launched from a carrier, carrying America’s defiance across Japan and proving the Pacific war had only begun to the stunned world.

The first lesson is that you can’t lose a war if you have command of the air, and you can’t win a war if you haven’t.

—Jimmy Doolittle

USS HORNET, PACIFIC OCEAN 1942 -- Lt. Col. James “Jimmy” Doolittle performs a full-throttle takeoff from the USS Hornet 650 miles from Japan on a secret mission (US Air Force)

A restless Pacific surges beneath the USS Horne…