At Sea

On the afternoon of April 2, with olive drab and gray Army bombers lashed onto her flight deck, the Navy's newest aircraft carrier steamed beneath the Golden Gate Bridge, escorted by two cruisers, four destroyers, and an oiler. When Hornet's skipper, Captain Marc Mitscher announced over her loudspeakers that "the target of this task force is Tokyo," cheers rang through the ship.

On April 8, Admiral William Halsey led aircraft carrier Enterprise and seven escort vessels out of Pearl Harbor. Five days later, Hornet's group rendezvoused in the North Pacific with Halsey to form Task Force 16. Steaming almost due west at twenty knots through rain, fog and heavy seas, its sixteen ships would transport the Doolittle Raiders' sixteen bombers to within striking distance of Japan.

Hornet's own planes were stored below on her hangar deck to make room for Army Mitchells, so the task force depended on Enterprise to provide air cover and scouting. With his ships' radars probing ahead for enemy picket ships and patrol planes, Halsey hoped to approach undetected 400 miles off Honshu before launching the B-25s. Hornet and Enterprise represented half of American carrier strength in the Pacific.

But even before Mitscher combined with Halsey, the Japanese intercepted radio communications between the two task groups and Pearl Harbor. As a result, the US Navy would be surprised by an early warning net of radio-equipped trawlers positioned about six hundred miles east of Japan.

Tokyo assumed that the Americans would have to close within three hundred miles to mount a carrier strike with naval aircraft. Imperial Navy headquarters alerted sixty-nine long-range, land-based anti-ship bombers capable of hitting the carrier force before launch. But their spies had failed to notice Hornet depart San Francisco Bay laden with Army bombers.

Doolittle allowed each crew to pick its military, industrial and transport targets, but instructed them that their favorite objective, the Imperial Palace, was strictly off limits.

On April 16, Hornet's fueling teams topped off the bombers' gas tanks and ordnance men hoisted four bombs into each aircraft, while Army crew loaded machinegun ammo and flight engineers checked mechanical and hydraulic systems one last time. Navy plane handlers moved the B-25s aft on the flight deck in preparation for launch; the rear fuselage of Lt, William Farrow's "Bat Out of Hell"stuck out over the stern.

Next morning the two carriers and four cruisers refueled from the oilers, then, at 2:40 PM, increased speed to twenty-eight knots for the final run to the launch point. The destroyers and oilers soon disappeared astern.

At 3 AM on April 18, radar operators aboard the Enterprise picked up images of two small ships about 11 miles ahead. "General quarters" sounded, startling all hands, especially the Doolittle Raiders. Halsey veered the task force to starboard to avoid the contacts.

At 5:58 AM a scout plane from Enterprise spotted a Japanese picket boat forty miles out. Halsey again shifted course. Pitching and rolling in thirty-foot swells, swept by rain squalls, the force sped closer to its objective, but toward ever greater peril.

At 7:38 AM, lookouts aboard Hornet saw a tiny enemy patrol craft about ten miles distant, barely visible in the mist. As Doolittle and Mitscher watched from Hornet's bridge, cruiser Nashville opened fire on the boat with her six-inch guns and dive bombers from Enterprise attacked the vessel. She finally sank at 8:23 AM, but not before sending a message that "three enemy carriers" had been sighted. Enterprise heard a sudden burst of signals between Tokyo and Japanese warships. The Imperial Navy knew where the Americans were.

Hornet was still over 700 miles from Honshu; nine hours short of her planned launch position. B-25 crews hastily collected their personal gear and made last-minute preparations for takeoff. At 8 AM Halsey flashed the "go" signal to Hornet: "launch planes x to colonel doolittle and gallant command x good luck and god bless you." Loudspeakers blared, "Army pilots, man your planes!"