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

On this episode of Our American Stories, Anne Claire tells the story of America's first two responses to Pearl Harbor: The Doolittle Raids and the Battle of the Coral Sea.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:11):
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

(00:33):
will come to you with their free and terrific online courses.
I learn more watching the Constitution one on one course
they're free offering than I did in three years studying
law at the University of Virginia School of Law. Up
next to a story from writer and Claire on two of
America's first responses to the attack on Pearl Harbor, the

(00:56):
Doolittle Raids and the Battle of the Coral Sea. Take
It Away and.

Speaker 2 (01:05):
The Japanese attacks on Pearl Harbor and other Allied strongholds
on December seventh, nineteen forty one 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 US based suspicion and in some cases

(01:26):
interment abroad. The US Navy, damaged but not destroyed, looked
for chances to strike back. Now, as the US was
looking for a chance to strike back, one of the
goals was Tokyo itself. The new commander in the Pacific

(01:48):
World War One 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

(02:11):
risked both the planes and the ships when he didn't
really have any despair. 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. Now, an aircraft carrier's regular

(02:36):
complement of planes has a shorter range, but B twenty
five bombers had a range of around twelve hundred or
more miles. So the big idea was that if pilots
could be trained to take off and B twenty five
s from a carrier's short runway. Those extra miles would

(02:57):
make the whole scheme of the on Tokyo far less
risky to the ships. The problem was that the B
twenty fives 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

(03:19):
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

(03:41):
make their way back to the US. Nimits agreed to
the plan, so sixteen B twenty fives and eighty crewmen
boarded the USS Hornet and set out. The plan did
succeed in part. Now the bombs achieved their surprise, they
were able to unload their payloads and to fly on afterwards,

(04:06):
things didn't work out quite as they might have hoped.
One crew did not make it to China. They actually
landed near Vldvostock 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 Dolittle Raiders were

(04:31):
captured by the Japanese and imprisoned. Of those, three were
executed and one died as a pow. However, Dolittle himself
and the majority of the others did find shelter with
the sympathetic Chinese as planned. Now, the Japanese authorities really
downplayed the importance. They called it the do Nothing Raid

(04:55):
instead of the do little 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

(05:20):
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 See, we need to go
back a little bit to the other American responses to
Pearl Harbor. US naval intelligence was scrambling. They were fairly
shocked and embarrassed at how badly things had gone at Pearl,

(05:44):
and it really galvanized the efforts of people like cryptanalyst
Commander Joseph Roschfert and Admirald Nomans's chief intelligence officer, Captain
Edwin Layton, and they really were struggling to break the
Japanese naval code. And in late April they sent word
they discovered something. Maybe it was spurred by the successful

(06:04):
Doolittle raid, but whatever the case, japan was preparing for
a big push to expand their influence in the Pacific,
and it appeared they'd try 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

(06:24):
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,

(06:48):
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 cut null 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

(07:11):
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

(07:32):
the fifth and sixth of May searching for each other.
On the morning of the sixth, US planes spotted smaller
aircraft carrier the Shoho and Sanker. One down, two to go,
but the two remaining were the big carriers. Due to weather.
On May eighth, the US planes had difficulty locating the
Japanese carriers, and when they did, one took refuge under

(07:57):
low clouds and escape. The other two 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

(08:18):
worked furiously to repair the ship and put out fires,
and for a while it appeared they were succeeding, But
twelve 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,

(08:41):
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. Yorktown survived, but had to limp

(09:01):
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 morrisby were thwarted for good.
As it turned out. However, the Japanese Navy did have
other plans in the works. As a new intelligence came in,
Admiral Nimitts urged the workers repairing the Yorktown to hurry

(09:22):
up because if his analysts were correct, she was going
to be needed soon to defend Midway.

Speaker 1 (09:34):
And great job as always to Monty on the storytelling
they are and his special thanks to Anne Claire telling
the story of the Doolittle Raids and the Battle of
the Coral Sea. And we tell these stories about World
War Two 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

(09:58):
was a win for us. You can both plaint victory
that 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 two if Australia had been captured and taken over
by the Japanese. It will be still my heart that
that didn't happen. The story of the Doolittle Raids and

(10:20):
the Battle of the Coral Sea. Our history stories is
always brought to us by the great folks at Hillsdale College.
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