The Doolittle Raid: Sixteen Bombers, One Carrier, One Day (Illustrated Ebook)
On April 18, 1942, sixteen Army B-25 bombers took off from the deck of USS Hornet, a ship they had never been designed to leave, about 650 nautical miles from Japan and ten hours earlier than planned.
A 21-page illustrated history of the Doolittle Raid, from the January 1942 idea to the long aftermath. It covers:
- The Navy captain's idea, the choice of the B-25, and the 24 volunteer crews trained at Eglin Field in very short takeoffs
- The modifications: extra fuel tanks, a 20-cent bombsight and broomstick "tail guns"
- Task Force 18 and 16 crossing the Pacific, and the sighting by the picket boat Nitto Maru at 7:38 a.m.
- The launch, with about 467 feet of deck, and the bombing of five Japanese cities
- The night over China: fifteen crews bail out or crash-land, one crew lands in the Soviet Union
- The eight captured airmen, the Chinese civilians who helped, and the Japanese reprisal campaign in Zhejiang and Jiangxi
- What the raid changed: morale, Yamamoto's decision for Midway, and the strategic effects
Includes 14 original AI-generated illustrations (counting the cover; they are not photographs and show no real individuals), an original route map, a timeline, a "by the numbers" page, and a sources and credits page. Where sources disagree on counts, the book says so.
Format: PDF, 7x10 in, 21 pages, about 4 MB.
How it was made: the text was drafted with AI assistance and fact-checked against primary and official sources (the USS Hornet action report, the Army Air Forces intelligence summary on the raid, National Museum of the U.S. Air Force fact sheets, the official U.S. Air Force biography of Doolittle, NHHC/USNI and Medal of Honor Society records), with Wikipedia as a cross-check only. Spot an error? Tell us and we'll fix it in the next edition (free update).
Unofficial. Not affiliated with or endorsed by the Department of War (Department of Defense) or any military service. Logbook Press is an independent history imprint. All illustrations are AI-generated for Logbook Press, are not historical photographs, and are drawn without insignia or unit markings.
