To tell the story of the Doolittle Raid I consulted more than three dozen archives and libraries scattered across four continents. Mission commander Jimmy Doolittle’s voluminous personal papers are divided among several institutions, including the Library of Congress, which holds copies of his original mission reports as well as his extensive correspondence with many of the raiders and the families of the airmen captured and executed by the Japanese. Other important Doolittle personal records are on file at the University of Texas at Dallas, including his extensive correspondence with his family, speeches he made after the war, and his logbooks. The National Personnel Records Center in Saint Louis holds the legendary flier’s military file, totaling more than one thousand pages and including his medical records, efficiency reports, and commendations.
Another important collection is the Doolittle Tokyo Raiders Association Papers, also at the University of Texas, which includes a file for each airman, complete with letters, diaries, oral histories, and newspaper clippings collected over more than seven decades. The Air Force Historical Research Agency, at Maxwell Air Force Base, in Montgomery, Alabama, holds copies of many of the original mission records as well as excellent oral histories, photos, and important raider correspondence. The National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) in College Park, Maryland, contains the deck logs, war diaries, and action reports of the raid’s naval task force, as well as the voluminous war crimes files. NARA also holds the debriefing report compiled by Merian Cooper, one of the most valuable records of the raid and one that more recent writers have failed to locate. The prize of Cooper’s report is the individual narratives of the raid and aftermath—drafted in May 1942—by fifty-nine of the eighty raiders who passed through Chungking.
One of the most important, and until now untapped, collections are the missionary files located at DePaul University. The scores of previously unpublished letters, affidavits, and personal narratives provide an important window into the horrific Japanese retaliations against the Chinese in the wake of the raid that for too long have been glossed over. The Franklin D. Roosevelt Library and Museum in Hyde Park, New York, contains the records related to the attack on Pearl Harbor as well as policy papers dealing with the capture and execution of some of the raiders. Other important collections include those of Henry Arnold, Ernest King, and Marc Mitscher, all on file at the Library of Congress, as well as a second collection of King’s and Mitscher’s papers at the Naval History and Heritage Command. Many other smaller institutions, from the Darlington County Historical Commission to Ohio University, contain the individual papers of specific raiders.
A number of important records chronicle the Japanese side of the raid, including the diary of Combined Fleet chief of staff Matome Ugaki. The Osaka Mainichi newspaper and the Japan Times & Advertiser published the detailed bulletins and alerts issued during the attack. Historian Gordon Prange’s papers at the University of Maryland house important interviews with many senior Japanese leaders, who provide valuable insight into how the Doolittle raid shaped military policy and led to the disaster at Midway. Other important and previously untapped Japanese sources include Senshi Soōsho, a 102-volume history that tells the story of Japan’s war. Volumes 29 and 85 devote significant space to the Doolittle Raid. Also, Japanese historians Takehiko Shibata and Katsuhiro Hara published an important study of the raid in 2003 that includes excellent breakdowns on the precise damage done by each bomber, though the work fails to explore the horrific aftermath of the raid in China. There unfortunately exists no English-language translation of any of these titles. I am indebted to Terrance Young in Tokyo, who translated these records for me.
As with any topic that has been covered before, I am indebted to the authors of several previous books. Most notable are the works by Doolittle Tokyo Raiders Association historian Carroll Glines, including Doolittle’s Tokyo Raiders, The Doolittle Raid, and Four Came Home. I likewise consulted James Merrill’s 1964 Target Tokyo and Duane Schultz’s 1988 The Doolittle Raid. Most of my book, however, is based on primary source materials—reports, diaries, letters, and oral histories, for which I have provided extensive endnotes. I have chosen to include only a select bibliography of the books I consulted. All quotations and dialogue come from official reports, memos, press conference and trial transcripts, cables, letters and diaries, the Congressional Record, ships’ logs, news stories, memoirs, both published and unpublished, and, in a few cases, from the recollections of those involved.
Place-names are rendered throughout the book as they were current in 1942. Likewise, ranks are often tricky, particularly in a fast-moving war, where promotions are frequent. As such, all raider ranks are given as they were on the date of the attack on Japan. To guarantee accuracy, I cross-referenced all ranks with Doolittle’s official report, each individual raider’s report, and documents related to post-raid promotions, which are on file with Doolittle’s papers in the Library of Congress.