THE PLAN AND THE MAN

The Plan: January 1942

For over a month after the assault on Hawaii, President Roosevelt repeatedly pressed his service staff chiefs, Army General George C. Marshall, Air Forces General Henry H. "Hap" Arnold and Admiral Ernest J. King, to avenge Pearl Harbor by bombing Japan. But the Soviet Union wouldn't permit American aircraft to fly from Siberia and the Japanese occupied all Chinese soil within range of their Home Islands even for heavy, four-engine bombers. The US Navy's few aircraft carriers were too precious to risk steaming within 300 miles of Japan to launch their shorter-ranged, slow and vulnerable torpedo and dive bombers against the Empire's air and sea defenses. Roosevelt nevertheless insisted that military planners find some means of retribution.

On January 10, Captain Francis S. "Frog" Low, a submariner on Admiral King's staff, had flown to Norfolk, Virginia, to check the readiness of the Navy's newest aircraft carrier, Hornet. While taking off to return to Washington, Low noticed the outline of a flight deck painted on one of the runways, allowing naval aviators to practice carrier landings and takeoffs. As he watched, twin-engine Army Air Forces bombers swept overhead in a mock attack on the simulated deck. In that moment, a novel thought flashed through the non-flier's mind. He wondered if USAAF medium bombers could take off from an aircraft carrier? Their longer range might permit launch from farther out at sea, surprising Japan's defenses as the Imperial Navy had America's in Hawaii, paying back the enemy in kind.

That night, Low approached gruff Admiral King with his idea. King ordered Captain Donald B. "Wu" Duncan, his air officer, to study Low's seemingly hare-brained scheme. Although medium bombers could not possibly land on a carrier, Duncan felt launching them might be feasible. After five days, he wrote, in longhand, a thirty-page analysis detailing how Air Forces bombers flying off an aircraft carrier might mount a surprise attack on major Japanese cities. The bold plan offered the dramatic retaliation that Roosevelt desperately sought in order to boost public morale in the midst of disasters then reported almost daily. King sent Low and Duncan to present the improbable project to General Arnold on January 17.

The USAAF chief was enthusiastic, but needed to confirm that the daring scheme could be accomplished. As soon as Low and Duncan left, Arnold sent for his staff trouble-shooter, 45 year-old Lieutenant Colonel James H. Doolittle, the ideal man to evaluate this radical proposal. Next to Charles A. "Lucky" Lindbergh, Doolittle was probably the most famous pioneer flier of the inter-war decades, the Golden Age of aviation.