Target Tokyo

Jimmy Doolittle and the Raid That Avenged Pearl Harbor

By: James M. Scott

Narrated by: L. J. Ganser

The dramatic account of one of America's most celebrated - and controversial - military campaigns: the Doolittle Raid.

In December 1941, as American forces tallied the dead at Pearl Harbor, President Franklin Roosevelt gathered with his senior military counselors to plan an ambitious counterstrike against the heart of the Japanese Empire: Tokyo. Four months later, on April 18, 1942, 16 US Army bombers under the command of daredevil pilot Jimmy Doolittle lifted off from the deck of the USS Hornet on a one-way mission to pummel the enemy's factories, refineries, and dockyards and then escape to Free China. For Roosevelt the raid was a propaganda victory, a potent salve to heal a wounded nation. In Japan, outraged over the deaths of innocent civilians - including children - military leaders launched an ill-fated attempt to seize Midway that would turn the tide of the war. But it was the Chinese who suffered the worst, victims of a retaliatory campaign by the Japanese Army that claimed an estimated 250,000 lives and saw families drowned in wells, entire towns burned, and communities devastated by bacteriological warfare.

At the center of this incredible story is Doolittle, the son of an Alaskan gold prospector, a former boxer, and a brilliant engineer who earned his doctorate from MIT. Other fascinating characters populate this gripping narrative, including Chiang Kai-shek, Lieutenant General Joseph "Vinegar Joe" Stilwell, and the feisty Vice Admiral William "Bull" Halsey, Jr. Here, too, are indelible portraits of the young pilots, navigators, and bombardiers, many of them little more than teenagers, who raised their hands to volunteer for a mission from which few expected to return. Most of the bombers ran out of fuel and crashed. Captured raiders suffered torture and starvation in Japan's notorious POW camps. Others faced a harrowing escape across China - via boat, rickshaw, and foot - with the Japanese Army in pursuit.

Based on scores of never-before-published records drawn from archives across four continents as well as new interviews with survivors, Target Tokyo is World War II history of the highest order: a harrowing adventure story that also serves as a pivotal reexamination of one of America's most daring military operations.

©2015 James M. Scott (P)2015 Audible, Inc.

Amazing History

I love listening to accounts of amazing historical feats, and the WWII raid of Tokyo led by Jimmy Doolittle is right up there with some of the best of these stories. There is no way that any of the 80 airmen should have survived the raid (for one thing they didn't have nearly enough fuel for the mission) and yet 78 did. A story of courage, faith, and miracles that was critical to the victory over Japan. The accounts of what the Japanese did to the Chinese is also gripping though very troubling.

Great portrait of little known heroics of the Pacific theater

Interesting and descriptive history of the raid on Tokyo , provided unique emotional perspective of pacific battle.

Outstanding book

Read about history fine what happen. Makes you think what it may had happen it we had lost the war.

Remarkable, powerful, and wonderful

This is a marvelous history of the bravery and tragedy of war. It should be required reading for high school students who are oblivious to what it meant to be an American during WWII

One of the best books..

I've listened to hundreds of books here, this may be the most detailed, yet adventurous one yet! It tells the full story, Pearl Harbor to the fate of each man back home. Excellent