America Strikes Back: The Doolittle Raids and the Battle of the Coral Sea

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Get the full story at verizoninnovativelearning.com. Music And we return to Our American Stories and we love to tell stories about history on this show. And all of our history stories are brought to us by the great folks at Hillsdale College. Where you can go to learn all the things that matter in life. All the things that are beautiful in life. A classical liberal arts college.

And there are so few of them left in this great country. And if you can't get to Hillsdale, Hillsdale will come to you with their free and terrific online courses. I learned more watching the Constitution 101 course, their free offering, than I did in three years studying law at the University of Virginia School of Law. Up next a story from writer Anne Claire on two of America's first responses to the attack on Pearl Harbor. The Doolittle raids and the Battle of the Coral Sea.

Take it away Anne. Music The Japanese attacks on Pearl Harbor and other allied strongholds on December 7, 1941 had far reaching consequences. Shocked and angered, the United States officially entered the Second World War.

On the home front, people of Japanese descent living in the U.S. faced suspicion and in some cases internment. Abroad, the U.S. Navy, damaged but not destroyed, looked for chances to strike back. Music Now as the U.S. was looking for a chance to strike back, one of the goals was Tokyo itself.

The new commander in the Pacific, World War I veteran Admiral Chester Nimitz, definitely knew that striking Tokyo was no mean feat. His ships were pretty severely outnumbered in the Pacific and in order to get bombers close enough to strike Tokyo, he'd have to send an aircraft carrier and escort ships within just a couple hundred miles of the target. And at that range, he risked both the planes and the ships when he didn't really have any to spare.

So how could he risk it? Well, the answer came in this whole plan that became known as the Doolittle raid because it was led by Lieutenant Commander James or Jimmy Doolittle. Music Now, an aircraft carrier's regular complement of planes has a shorter range, but B-25 bombers had a range of around 1,200 or more miles. So the big idea was that if pilots could be trained to take off in B-25s from a carrier's short runway, those extra miles would make the whole scheme of an attack on Tokyo far less risky to the ships. The problem was that the B-25s were too heavy to land on the carriers afterwards, so they had to figure out what to do with the planes. Now, Doolittle's plan was that they'd actually continue past Tokyo after dropping the bombs and land in China because while there was a lot of conflict going on in China, there were friendly forces there.

The Chinese had groups that were allied with the Americans, even though Japan was occupying different areas. They hoped they could find sheltering forces to hide them, and then eventually they could just make their way back to the U.S. Nimitz agreed to the plan. So 16 B-25s and 80 crewmen boarded the USS Hornet and set out. The plan did succeed in part. Music Now, the bombers achieved their surprise. They were able to unload their payloads and to fly on.

Afterwards, things didn't work out quite as they might have hoped. One crew did not make it to China. They actually landed near Vladivostok and were detained there as authorities of the USSR, maybe overcome with the need to show hospitality to their new allies, detained them for over a year until they got out. Eight of the Doolittle raiders were captured by the Japanese and imprisoned. Of those, three were executed and one died as a POW.

However, Doolittle himself and the majority of the others did find shelter with the sympathetic Chinese as planned. Music Now, the Japanese authorities really downplayed the importance. They called it the do nothing raid instead of the Doolittle raid. However, Admiral Yamamoto is quoted as saying, Even though there wasn't much damage, it is a disgrace that the skies of the imperial capital should have been defiled without a single enemy plane being shot down. As the Japanese planned their next strokes, their attempt to spread their influence and control in the Pacific would shortly bring them into a direct clash with US forces in the Coral Sea. But before we can really move on to the Coral Sea, we need to go back a little bit to the other American responses to Pearl Harbor. When US naval intelligence was scrambling, they were fairly shocked and embarrassed at how badly things had gone at Pearl. And it really galvanized the efforts of people like crypt analyst Commander Joseph Rochefort and Admiral Nimitz's chief intelligence officer, Captain Edwin Layton, and they really were struggling to break the Japanese naval code.

In April, they sent word they discovered something. Maybe it was spurred by the successful Doolittle raid. But whatever the case, Japan was preparing for a big push to expand their influence in the Pacific. And it appeared they tried to take Port Moresby in New Guinea, which would give them dominance of the Coral Sea very close to Australia. So victory there would give the Japanese a real clear shot at Australia, as well as potentially cutting Australia's supply lines with the US, which would really do a number on allied efforts in the Pacific. Admiral Nimitz sent the aircraft carriers Yorktown and Lexington, along with several American and Australian cruisers to meet this threat.

And it turned out the intelligence was correct. Admiral Yamamoto had sent his own forces to the Coral Sea, including not two, but three carriers. So the stage was set for a new kind of naval battle.

Aircraft carriers were not brand new on the scene, but they definitely changed the face of naval warfare in the Pacific. Because both US and the Japanese could launch attacks on each other while still completely out of sight. Now, of course, the trick is, the planes would still need to be able to find the opposing vessels. This might not sound hard in theory, but poor weather conditions made it pretty difficult, especially for the Japanese who had no radar.

The opposing sides spent the fifth and sixth of May searching for each other. On the morning of the sixth, US planes spotted a smaller aircraft carrier, the Shoho, and sank her. One down, two to go, but the two remaining were the big carriers. Due to weather on May 8th, US planes had difficulty locating the Japanese carriers.

And when they did, one took refuge under low clouds and escape. The other took three bomb hits and was temporarily put out of commission. But meanwhile, the Japanese planes had located the Yorktown and the Lexington. The Yorktown was hit, but not sunk. The Lexington, unfortunately, was not so fortunate.

She was hit multiple times. The crew worked furiously to repair the ship and put out fires, and for a while it appeared they were succeeding. But 12 minutes after their ship's log reported that all the fires below decks were put out, a new entry was logged, that heavy explosions were felt venting up through the bomb elevators, and in spite of all the crew's efforts in the end, she had to be abandoned and scuttled. And that was essentially the end of the Battle of the Coral Sea.

Interestingly, both sides claimed victory. The Japanese lost their smaller carrier and more aircraft than the Americans. However, the loss of the Lexington was a blow to US forces in the Pacific. The Yorktown survived, but had to limp back to Pearl Harbor, trailing an oil slick. Perhaps the best claim for American victory, though, is the fact that the Japanese plans to invade Port Moresby were thwarted for good, as it turned out. However, the Japanese Navy did have other plans in the works.

As new intelligence came in, Admiral Nimitz urged the workers repairing the Yorktown to hurry up, because if his analysts were correct, she was going to be needed soon to defend Midway. And great job as always to Monty on the storytelling there, and a special thanks to Ann Claire telling the story of the Doolittle raids and the Battle of the Coral Sea. We tell these stories about World War II and all of our stories about history, because if we forget what we did, well, we'll forget who we are. And by the way, for my money, that was a win for us. You can both claim victory. But the Japanese had plans with the Coral Sea, and we had plans of our own to stop them. And we did. And imagine what would have happened in World War II if Australia had been captured and taken over by the Japanese.

Oh, be still my heart that that didn't happen. The story of the Doolittle raids and the Battle of the Coral Sea, our history stories, is always brought to us by the great folks at Hillsdale College, here on Our American Stories. For 10 years, Verizon has provided technology, curriculum, and connectivity to over a million students, like Manu. Manu was one of the first students in the Verizon Innovative Learning program.

Suddenly I get exposed to this technology. It was like, hey, this is where you belong. It totally changed our school. It changed the culture of learning, and it allowed, most importantly, for students to become leaders.

Get the full story at verizoninnovativelearning.com. Fall is just around the corner, and home is the center of it all. At Ashley, seasonal decorating's a breeze with their range of designs and materials. Snuggle up on a family-friendly sectional or an ultra-modern sofa, or gather outside and enjoy the crisp, cool air with a new fire pit or conversation set. From minor refreshes to total overhauls, Ashley has the essentials to make your home fall functional and fabulous.

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