Thursday, April 20, 2006

21st Century Reporting of Doolittle Raid

Harold Hutchison of StrategyPage gives us his thoughts regarding how today's media might report the Doolittle's April 18, 1942 raid on Tokyo.

Since we're celebrating the NYT I'll reproduce those accounts here:

The reporting:

New York Times, April 19, 1942: "AIR RAID ON TOKYO. In what the Roosevelt Administration described as retaliation for the attack on Pearl Harbor, the United States Army Air Corps launched an attack on Tokyo from an undisclosed location. The attack, using the North American B-25 Mitchell bomber, was described as a success, even though preliminary estimates indicate that little, if any, damage was done. A statement from President Roosevelt claimed the bombers launched from Shangri-La, although informed sources tell the New York Times that there was an unusually high degree of Army-Navy cooperation in the operation…"



The opinion:
New York Times Editorial, April 21, 1942: "Without a doubt, the decision to risk two carriers and their escorts to launch a raid that could do so little damage can only be described as incredibly stupid. The fact that the cost of this raid included all sixteen bombers, with most of the aircrews missing, only increases the level of disaster involved. By allowing this mission to go forward, Secretary of War Stimson and Secretary of the Navy Frank Knox have shown that they lack the judgment to carry this war to victory. If they will not resign, then President Roosevelt should fire them."
The reminder:

New York Times Editorial, June 18, 1942: "Two months ago, the Army and Navy carried out a joint mission to attack the Japanese homeland. All the B-25 bombers were lost, three men were killed, eight have been confirmed as having been captured, and while sixty-nine men made it back to friendly lines, some of them, like Lieutenant Ted Lawson, are gravely wounded. And for what? Minimal damage to Tokyo and Nagoya. One has to wonder if these bombers and their valiant crews might have done more had they been employed elsewhere. During the recent battle at Midway, these bombers could have damaged the fourth carrier, and thus, the United States Navy would still have had the Yorktown available, rather than on the bottom of the ocean…"


7 comments:

Unknown said...

Well imagine the reaction to the loss of civilian life. They would have been demanding that Doolittle stand trial for war crimes.

Anonymous said...

And that is the way it would have been reported, had we not also been standing shoulder to shoulder with Uncle Joe.

Doug said...

Court-martial & Later Life
When the Navy dirigible Shenandoah crashed in a storm, killing 14 of the crew, Mitchell issued a statement accusing senior leaders in the Army and Navy of incompetence and "almost treasonable administration of the national defense." He was court-martialed, found guilty of insubordination, and suspended from active duty for five years without pay. Mitchell resigned instead, as of February 1, 1926, and spent the next decade writing and preaching air power to all who would listen.

Mitchell viewed the election of Franklin D. Roosevelt, a Navy man, as advantageous for airpower. He believed the new president might even appoint him as assistant secretary of war for air or perhaps even secretary of defense in a new and unified military organization. Neither ever materialized. Mitchell died of a variety of ailments including a bad heart and influenza in a hospital in New York City on February 19, 1936.
---
In 1955, the Air Force voided Mitchell's court-martial. His son petitioned in 1957 to have the court-martial verdict set aside, which the Air Force denied while expressing regret about the circumstances under which Mitchell's military career ended.

Doug said...

In 2004, Congress voted to authorize the President to commission Mitchell as a Major General in the Army, posthumously, to date President Bush has not decided to go ahead with the commissioning.

Doug said...

Don't forget all the Pulitzer Prizes that would have been awarded.

Unknown said...

knucklehead:

I had a client who was taken prisoner by the Japanese while he was in the Phillipines. He hated MacArthur. Absolutely hated the man. I wonder if MacArthur would be seen as a hero today if that heppened and tens of thousands of men lost their lives in hopeless seige and imprisonment.

Eric said...

Actually, there were congressional hearings over various ascpects of the Solomons campaign.

There was quite a bit of hand-wringing over the casualties, being close to 1:1 in most of the ground actions--that is, American dead and wounded equaled Japanese dead and wounded. The difference being that there just lots more Japanese dead. Not that anyone cared about the Japanese casualties that much.

Although to read Richard Franks' "Downfall" about the last 6 months of the Pacific war, there was some discussion about the usefulness of bombing Japanese cities and concern about civilian casulaties. And Kyoto, for example was not bombed because of its cultural significance.

I'm willing to bet if one looked, you'll find criticism of various things during the war in various newspapers. Of course, nobody much remembers that nowadays, and things went down the memory hole a lot quicker then.