To China and Russia

Flying west over the East China Sea, the B-25s encountered fog, then rain. The ceiling kept getting lower. Navigators had to estimate their positions by dead reckoning. The planes bounced around in updrafts and downdrafts.

Then, to their surprise, the Raiders picked up a tailwind. Historical weather maps showed that prevailing winds blew from China to Japan. But on this day of manifold danger, the wind providentially switched to blow toward China.

Thirteen hours after takeoff, the bombers were somewhere near the China coast. Darkness enveloped them. Fuel gauges read nearly empty. The pilots listened for the Morse Code radio homing signals designated to guide them to five designated airfields near Chuchow. But they heard only silence.

Marshall and Arnold, wary of security leaks, had given Chiang few details of the raid, and none at all to his US aide Chennault. Last-minute arrangements went awry. Japanese troops neared the airstrips. The plane dispatched to deliver t he radio beacons crashed in a storm. No signals would be transmitted to the fuel-starved Mitchells.

In his memoirs, Chennault claimed that, if notified, a single Flying Tigers ground radio station could have talked most of the Raiders into friendly fields.

Captain York's Plane Number Eight, with a faulty carburetor, burned fuel at such a prodigious rate during the flight to Tokyo that he realized it could never reach China. After dropping his bombs, York turned northwest toward Soviet Siberia. The Americans landed at a small naval airfield near Vladivostok and were taken into custody by Russian officials. The US aircrew thought they'd be released the next day to continue onto China.

The other fifteen Raider aircrews, almost out of gas, flew into the night in worsening weather toward an uncertain fate over the sea or an enemy-occupied continent.