Jimmy Doolittle Releases the Brakes

On the morning of December 8th, 1941, the vaunted US Pacific fleet lay deep in the mud at the bottom of Pearl Harbor. Americans were stunned, but this was just the beginning, as the Japanese rampaged throughout the Pacific, seemingly unstoppable. The six aircraft carriers used on the attack at Pearl Harbor had been training for years, and their pilots were the best in the world flying bible Zero’s that flew circles around the lumbering US fighters, knocking them down in droves. America needed a victory — any victory, but ideally a bombing raid on the Japanese capital of Tokyo. But Tokyo was well out of range of Army Bombers, and the short range of Navy planes meant risking America’s few precious remaining aircraft carriers. But Franklin Roosevelt wanted to hit Japan, and so the project was handed over to the great celebrity aviator of the day, a 5’4” human dynamo named James Doolittle. Jimmy Doolittle had a history of effortlessly winning every air race he appeared in, and prior to...