Preparation
When planning indicated that the B-25 was the aircraft best meeting all specifications of the mission, two were loaded aboard the aircraft carrier USS Hornet at Norfolk, Virginia, and subsequently flown off the deck without difficulty on 3 February 1942. The raid was immediately approved and the 17th Bomb Group (Medium) chosen to provide the pool of crews from which volunteers would be recruited. The 17th BG had been the first group to receive B-25s, with all four of its squadrons equipped with the bomber by September 1941. The 17th not only was the first medium bomb group of the Army Air Corps, but in the spring of 1942 also had the most experienced B-25 crews. Its first assignment following the entry of the United States into the war was to the U.S. Eighth Air Force.
The 17th BG, then flying antisubmarine patrols from Pendleton, Oregon, was immediately moved cross-country to Lexington County Army Air Base at Columbia, South Carolina, ostensibly to fly similar patrols off the East Coast of the United States but in actuality to prepare for the mission against Japan. The group officially transferred effective 9 February to Columbia, where its combat crews were offered the opportunity to volunteer for an "extremely hazardous" but unspecified mission. On 17 February the group was detached from the Eighth Air Force.
Initial planning called for 20 aircraft to fly the mission, and 24 of the group's B-25B Mitchell bombers were diverted to the Mid-Continent Airlines modification center in Minneapolis, Minnesota, because with the support provided by the two senior managers of Mid-Continent Airlines, Wold-Chamberlain Field (Operations Manager and Chief Pilot Mr. Robert P. Harris; District Sales Manager Mr. Veryl Chase Wason, Navy commander, USNR), a modification center quickly setup inside their maintenance hangar was the first to become operational. From nearby Fort Snelling, the 710th Military Police Battalion (commanded by Lieutenant Colonel George William Eggerss) provided tight security around this hangar. Modifications included:
- Removal of the lower gun turret
- Installation of de-icers and anti-icers
- Steel blast plates mounted on the fuselage around the upper turret
- Removal of the liaison radio set (a weight impediment)
- Installation of a 160-gallon collapsible neoprene auxiliary fuel tank fixed to the top of the bomb bay, and support mounts for additional fuel cells in the bomb bay, crawlway and lower turret area to increase fuel capacity from 646 to 1,141 U.S. gallons (538–950 imperial gallons; 2,445–4,319 L)
- Mock gun barrels installed in the tail cone, and
- Replacement of their Norden bombsight with a makeshift aiming sight devised by pilot Capt. C. Ross Greening and called the "Mark Twain". The materials for the bombsight cost only 20 cents.
Two bombers also had cameras mounted to record the results of bombing. The 24 crews selected picked up the modified bombers in Minneapolis and flew them to Eglin Field, Florida, beginning 1 March 1942. There the crews received intensive training for three weeks in simulated carrier deck takeoffs, low-level and night flying, low-altitude bombing and over-water navigation, primarily out of Wagner Field, Auxiliary Field 1. Lieutenant Henry Miller, USN, from nearby Naval Air Station Pensacola supervised their takeoff training and accompanied the crews to the launch. For his efforts, Lt. Miller is considered an honorary member of the Raider group. Lt. Col. Doolittle stated in his after-action report that an operational level of training was reached despite several days when flying was not possible because of rain and fog. One aircraft was heavily damaged in a takeoff accident and another scratched from the mission because of a nose wheel shimmy that could not be repaired quickly enough.
On 25 March 1942, the remaining 22 B-25s took off from Eglin for McClellan Field, California. They arrived two days later at the Sacramento Air Depot for final modifications. A total of 16 B-25s were subsequently flown to NAS Alameda, California, on 31 March. Fifteen raiders would be the mission force and a 16th aircraft, by last-minute agreement with the Navy, would be squeezed onto the deck to be flown off shortly after departure from San Francisco to provide feedback to the Army pilots about takeoff characteristics. The 16th bomber was made part of the mission force instead.
Read more about this topic: Doolittle Raid
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