Target Tokyo: Jimmy Doolittle and the Raid that Avenged Pearl Harbor
James M. Scott. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2015. 672 pp. Biblio. Illus. $35.
Reviewed by Stephen L. Moore
The Pacific Fleet was still smoldering at Pearl Harbor in December 1941 as American war planners began plotting a counterstrike at the heart of Japan. President Franklin D. Roosevelt approved a bold initiative to use two of the Navy’s precious aircraft carriers to slip within launching distance of the Japanese mainland to send twin-engine Army B-25 bombers against Tokyo.
The mission was led by 45-year-old Lieutenant Colonel James “Jimmy” Doolittle, a famed stunt and racing pilot whose enthusiasm for the project was contagious. The resulting Doolittle Raid is well known, but the level of detail unearthed on both the American and Japanese sides by author James Scott is refreshing. The reader has a front-row seat for meetings between Roosevelt and his staff and the subsequent joint Army-Navy efforts to pull off what Doolittle dubbed “Special Aviation Project No. 1.”
The storytelling unfolds in many layers as the task force puts to sea on its mission of vengeance. Target Tokyo is a gripping history filled with personal details of endurance, suffering, and determination. The author accessed a wide range of fresh archival data and firsthand accounts to breathe new life into his tale of a seemingly impossible mission that altered the course of the Pacific war. Scott shares the inner thoughts of the airmen, intelligence staff, mechanics, and sailors alike as the Navy’s newest carrier, the USS Hornet (CV-8), surges toward Tokyo with her task force. Once Japanese patrol craft radioed attack warnings to Japan, Admiral William F. “Bull” Halsey Jr. was forced to send off the B-25s ten hours earlier than planned, while they were still more than 750 miles from land.
On 18 April 1942, 16 bombers and 80 volunteer airmen launched from the Hornet with little expectation of making it to neutral airfields in China. Target Tokyo precisely relates the damage inflicted by Doolittle’s Raiders as they bombed military, industrial, and, inadvertently, civilian targets in Tokyo, Yokohoma, Yosuka, Nagoya, Kobe, and Osaka. One B-25 crew opted to land in the Soviet Union, only to be held for more than a year before they managed to bribe a smuggler to help them reach the Iranian border.
The ordeals of the other 15 crews follow in thrilling detail, as each is forced to bail out, crash land, or ditch in the ocean. Three airmen perished in the process. Aided by Chinese citizens and motley bands of guerillas, some of the Doolittle Raiders made narrow escapes ahead of Japanese soldiers in hot pursuit. Scott also covers the sobering fates of the eight airmen who were taken as prisoners of war. One Raider later perished in captivity. Three others were tried and executed after having been convicted of strafing and murdering Japanese citizens. Only four of the POWs were repatriated in 1945, some of whom suffered for decades because of the abuse they had endured.
Scott offers considerable insight on how Doolittle’s raid fueled Japanese plans to crush the U.S. Navy at Midway and how the attack shaped homeland morale—both in Japan and in America. The author does not shy away from recounting the barbarity Japan unleashed against Chinese citizens who assisted the American aviators.
Scott masterfully relates both the immediate and longer-range effects this bold American attack had on the Pacific war. Jimmy Doolittle, promoted to brigadier general and awarded the Medal of Honor for his mission, remained in close contact with his surviving aviators for decades after World War II. Target Tokyo is a lengthy book that proves to be a quick read, thanks to a moving narrative laced with rich personal accounts. This rare gem on American valor is destined to become the definitive account of Doolittle’s Tokyo raid.
13 Soldiers: A Personal History of Americans at War
John McCain and Mark Salter. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2014. 364 pp. Biblio. Index. Illus. $28.
Reviewed by Colonel John C. McKay, U.S. Marine Corps (Retired)
Senator John McCain and Mark Salter have written a curious book, a hybrid of sorts that is of interest but far from reflective. Salter, McCain’s longtime speechwriter, has been a collaborator on five other books––a sort of Boswell to the senator’s Samuel Johnson. As the authors make clear, “Obviously there is some arbitrariness at work here . . . but even then it is a very incomplete catalogue of commonly shared emotions and experiences.” And herein lies the curiosity. Each of the book’s chapters focuses on one soldier’s story in 13 major U.S. wars, from the Revolution through Afghanistan and Iraq. The diversity of their subjects is on plain display. Of the 13 soldiers, three are officers: Samuel Chamberlain, Mexican-American War; Oliver Wendell Holmes, Civil War; and Littleton Waller Tazewell Waller, Spanish-American War and Philippine Insurrection. Two are African-Americans: Charles Black, War of 1812; and Edward Baker, Buffalo Soldier and Spanish-American War. Two are aviators: Medal of Honor recipient and F-105 pilot Leo Thorsness, and his EWO Harry Johnson, both POWs during the Vietnam War. Two women are included, as well: Mary Rhoads, Persian Gulf War; and Monica Lin Brown, the war in Afghanistan. Salter’s father, Charles D. Salter Jr., Korean War, is appropriately in the mix. Nor are the rogues glossed over. Winston Churchill once remarked, “Remember, it isn’t only the good boys who help win the wars; it is the sneaks and stinkers as well.” The aforementioned Samuel Chamberlain, and Guy Louis Gabaldon, World War II, nicely fit Churchill’s accurate and astute observation.
As to what passes as reflection, the authors admirably and forthrightly address the blot of racism. The chapters on Charles Black and Edward Baker portray well the dedication and sacrifices of these two professional soldiers who nevertheless suffered the ignominy of an ungrateful nation because of the color of their skin. The chapters on Mary Rhoads and Monica Lin Brown are discerning and praiseworthy.
The authors are less successful in conveying the divergent psychological trappings of each conflict in its own unique place and time. There runs throughout the book an assumption of an immutable commonality within all wars. Arguably, there are particular human aspects common to all conflicts: a sense of duty, an all-abiding fear, the glue of camaraderie, the mental and physical deprivations, and unimaginable sacrifice, like Navy SEAL Michael Monsoor throwing himself on a grenade to save his fellow SEALS in the battle for Ramadi, Iraq. Conversely, the generators of those human emotions in each war are as varied as those between a Roman legionnaire at Cannae and those of Specialist Monica Lin Brown in Afghanistan in 2007.
13 Soldiers handles the background and general outline of the conflicts in a useful and understanding manner. Thus the layperson is able to grasp the essentials without having to delve into the nuances and subtleties of messy conflicts like the Philippine Insurrection and the recent wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. That less than one percent of the nation’s population is now fighting its wars and how this affects the mindset of today’s individual soldier is not explored. It should have been.
Though competently written, the book suffers from niggling distractions, from periodic lapses into the vernacular—“Indians were in the fort;” “insurgents started lighting them up;” and wondrous feats of horsemanship such as “he . . . drew his sword and pistol and charged”—to some outright errors. The authors state that Chinese “Boxers” were so called because of “their mystical devotion to the martial arts.” The term actually derived from a fusion of several secret societies, the “Society of Righteous and Harmonious Fists” or “The Fist of Righteous Amity.”
13 Soldiers will generally ring true with the combat veteran. Those lacking the experience can enjoy a Walter Mitty sojourn unencumbered by the need to grasp what being a combatant truly entails.
Enduring Freedom, Enduring Voices: U.S. Operations in Afghanistan
Michael G. Walling. Oxford, U.K.: Osprey Publishing, 2015. 336 pp. Illus. Index. Notes. $25.95.
Reviewed by Lieutenant Commander Joshua W. Welle, U.S. Navy
On 28 December 2014, combat operations in Afghanistan ended. There was a formal ceremony where NATO International Security Assistance Force’s General John Campbell explained to newly elected Afghan President Ashraf Ghani that Operation Resolute Support will “serve as the bedrock of an enduring partnership.” If this is the conclusion of Operation Enduring Freedom, many citizens and servicemen remain disillusioned: How did America come to fight a 13-year war? What missions led to 3,000 casualties and 20,000 wounded?
Michael Walling’s book, Enduring Freedom, Enduring Voices, seeks to answer these questions. He explains how the United States began the war after al Qaeda’s 9/11 attacks and its evolution to a counterinsurgency (COIN) campaign in which NATO forces partnered with the Afghanistan National Army and Police to defeat the Taliban’s Islamic extremism.
Enduring Freedom explains the war through the voices of soldiers, sailors, Marines, and airmen. During his research, Walling interviewed over 500 servicemembers to show a breadth of perspectives. In addition, he traveled from Kabul to Kandahar, interviewing locals, Mujahedeen fighters, civilians, and foreign troops. Some of those men and women carried out counterterrorism missions in the 2000s while others supported counterinsurgency efforts in the most dangerous regions of Kunar, Zabul, and Helmand provinces.
With decades of experience writing narrative nonfiction, this project was likely Walling’s most challenging and perhaps the most rewarding. The author established trust with soldiers in the field. The book’s interviews are rich in detail and provide raw perspectives, connecting the audience to a variety of missions. Most impressive is the breadth of research. Naval historians would appreciate the attention devoted to the deployment of a Provincial Reconstruction Team. Captain John Wade, one of several Navy officers leading ground operations, recounts the importance of his team, comprosed of National Guard and Reserve members, in not only providing military acumen but also delivering skill sets from corporate America needed to build governance and development.
The book offers detailed accounts of popularly known missions like Operation Red Wings—the battle in Asadabad where Navy SEALs were killed—as well as Operation Geronimo—the mission in Pakistan to find and eliminate Osama bin Laden. Yet Walling is commended for providing the reader granular details on myriad other joint operations. Marine Corps General Larry Nicholson explains that Operation Khanjar in Helmand Province would be the largest Marine operation since Vietnam and epitomize President Barack Obama’s surge strategy to “shape, clear, hold, and build.” The Marines were going to fight and stay; the operation’s success, he said, “is going to be dependent on how the populace views it.”
In one of the few policy-oriented chapters, Walling explains the facets of the COIN strategy: shape, clear, hold, and build. The methodology gained advocates in the early 2000s and was codified by General David Petraeus and used in Iraq. At one point during the mid-2000s, 250,000 servicemen were in Iraq and the demand for troops in Afghanistan had increased to 70,000. There were simply not enough troops available and the conflict in Afghanistan reached a stalemate with the Taliban.
If there is a weakness in the book, it is Walling’s total focus on the warfighter with little reference to the leaders making key strategic decisions in Washington or Kabul. The book lacks explanations of why decisions were made and the how the shift in policy from President George W. Bush’s Iraq-centric policy to President Obama’s counterinsurgency agenda in Afghanistan changed operations on the ground. This context is indispensible for understanding the dynamics between NATO partners and regional actors.
The on-the-ground accounts in this book make it a refreshing read. Many of the anecdotes reveal the helicopter pilots under pressure, development experts partnering with tribal leaders, and the strife of technocrats building Afghan government capacity. Yet the reader would be well served to understand the reasons for General David McKiernan’s dismissal in 2009 and the role of the State Department in shaping progress across all elements of civilian-military operations.
All in all, Walling’s book is well done and fills a gap in the wartime writing on Afghanistan. Many books are limited to one voice, the reflections of a seasoned diplomat, a retired four-star general, or a junior officer offering a fresh perspective on war. Michael Walling’s book is different and provides a forum for a variety of servicemen to share a small piece of their time in harm’s way.
By reading this book those in uniform will better understand the spectrum of operations performed by our sister services. The civilian reader would gain appreciation for those on the front lines. There are 11,000 American troops still deployed in Afghanistan who have stories to be told. Ultimately, Walling’s book is a bridge to close the civilian-military divide, providing stories of real people called to do extraordinary missions for a country they love.