A Trip to Japan

Eight of Major General James H. Doolittle's flyers were captured by the Japanese. Fifty-five made their way back to the U.S. and to fighting fronts. Five flew to Russia and were interned there. One was killed, two are missing. Eight stayed in China to fight with Major General Claire Lee Chennault. Last week those eight gathered in the operations room of the Fourteenth Air Force and told their story to TIME Correspondent T. H. White:

We got shore leave the night before we left and everybody went out on a last party. It was a beautiful moonlit night, and we could see the carrier in the bay with the planes silhouetted against the sky.

We didn't know where we were going, but we had a darn good idea. About a day or two after we left, Doolittle called us all together in the wardroom and told us we were going to hit Tokyo. We just kept going day after day while Naval officers told us about the Jap Navy and Army general layout and economic situation. They told us about the industrial setup, Tokyo fire hazards, water problems, balloon barrages. We just lay around the ship playing poker, shooting craps every night. We had Easter service aboard the ship. It was surprising how many people showed up.

All Those Little Ships. The morning of the 18th was a perfect day. We were just getting into Japanese waters. We noticed a little Japanese shipping boat about 7:30 and a cruiser with us sank her right away. We were about 740 miles off the coast of Japan then, but decided to take off right away because all those little ships had radios and we thought they might have warned the Japanese.

Right after that we were told to stand by for takeoff. That was 8 o'clock in the morning. Doolittle was off first at 8:20.

The only formation flight was with Doolittle. All the other ships took off singly with specific targets--power plants, ammunition dumps, oil storage, the Mitsubishi aircraft factory, docks, water supply.

All Those Little Japs. We hit the coast north of Tokyo, had to look for the city quite a while. We were 30 feet off the ground. The first thing we saw was a squadron of pursuit ships practicing above us. But they didn't even notice us. Then we passed a training field with lots of planes taking off and landing. We flew right down one side but they didn't pay any attention.

We lined up on a power plant with a balloon barrage way off to our left. We got three hits out of four. Doolittle says he saw the stuff go higher than our planes. One fellow says he saw one man going right up in the air sitting on a chair, but that was probably baloney.

We were running right along over the streets, just above roofs and could even see a couple of soldiers leaning against a lamppost. Then anti-aircraft got bad with lots of black puffs, so we settled right down on the bay, so low in the water that our props were sucking it up. It was banging against the sides of the hull. We passed over the whole bay with warships, a weather ship, seven subs there, but nobody fired at us. There were a bunch of people sunning themselves on the beach, they waved to us as we went past.

One plane got interception, about five Zeros or I-978. Just then the plane's turret guns jammed and it dumped its bombs over the bay and got out heading down the coast. We saw a tanker as we flew--he went crazy--he was going full speed in one direction, then he reversed and started full speed in the other direction.

The Fires and the Death. By this time our planes were coming in one after the other, hitting targets all over the city. There were big scattered clouds of smoke and flame, some terrific block-long fires. One of the boys said he got an aircraft carrier in construction, that it rolled over right on the ways. Other planes were hitting Kobe, Yokohama and Osaka. They had orders not to bomb the Emperor's palace. Afterwards, from intelligence reports, we heard that more people were killed because of suffocation and inadequate dugouts than by flame or bombs.

One plane headed out to the bay with fishermen on small boats waving at them as they passed. Nine Zeros started to chase the plane but it outdistanced all but two. One got right behind to the left and began putting bullets through the wing. The pilot just heeled over to head him off, all the guns turned on him and he went down.

The Lights of Danger. After hitting Tokyo, we kept down the east coast of Japan, hoping to get through to the China coast. The change of plans in the early take-off had altered the nice calculations we had made and we were afraid of running short of gas. We flew low over the water. Sometimes Japanese patrol planes off the coast would pass high overhead without noticing us.

As we were heading for China a miracle of tail winds sprang up behind us, pushing us along to the west. The ceiling over the China Sea began at about 800 feet, dropped occasionally to zero while the planes were intermittently on instruments. Now & then through a cloud we would see a myriad of Chinese fishing junks careening gently along through shallow waters.

At about 10 o'clock at night, it was darker than inside a cow and raining like hell. All over a 70-mile radius our planes were coasting down, red danger lights glowing on the instrument panels, indicating there was no gas reserve left.

The sky for the next hour was full of our boys parachuting down. Lucien landed in a pile of brush, wrapped himself in his parachute and went to sleep. Brick landed hard on his fanny on top of the next mountain peak and dozed off. One boy landed beside a mountain ledge, lit a cigaret in the dark, flicked the burnt butt on the ground beside him. He looked down and saw the butt dropping hundreds of feet below him into what seemed a bottom less void. He didn't move another foot until daylight. Crouch hit the ground about 20 miles from a Chinese field where the flight was heading. Fitzhugh's ship landed safely in a rice paddy and the crew fired it. They could see lanterns, hear voices of Chinese peasants who were too terrified to approach. It was raining sheets, but Fitzhugh's boys slept in a ditch until morning, then took refuge in an abandoned pillbox built by the Chinese Army.

The Good Men of China. The area we landed in was under Japanese threat but was thoroughly infiltrated by Chinese guerrillas. The Chinese Government had an almost instantaneous warning out to all guerrillas to pick us up immediately. Some of the boys fell in bandit lairs on the hill sides. Chinese bandits stripped them of their guns and part of their clothes but fed them and turned them over to guerrillas.

Peasants everywhere were hospitable. One couple made one of the pilots crawl in bed and spend the night on the marital couch with them. One of us made contact with two lady missionaries, one English, one American. The American was engaged to marry another American missionary and the pilot gave her as a gift his white silk parachute, so she could make a wedding dress out of it.

For over two weeks we trickled in afoot and by sedan chair and horseback. General Doolittle came riding on a river boat.

Everywhere villages turned out to greet us. Schoolchildren lined up, flags were strung up, a celebration was called. At Chungking we were warned not to tell our story to anybody. Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek entertained us personally at a great banquet. In a few weeks all but a handful returned home. We -- and those others who flew to Russia or were captured -- were that handful.

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