The Doolittle Raid and COVID19
On 18 April 1942 — today is 18 April, y’all — sixteen B-25B Mitchell bomber aircraft flew off the deck of the USS Hornet and conducted a bombing raid on Tokyo. The raid was militarily insignificant, but it sent a message to the Japanese. America was in the fight — four months after Pearl Harbor — and intended to take the fight to their capital.
My father told me it was an enormous boost to American morale. He was in the Army and the Army was getting ready to go to war in North Africa on 8 November 1942 with the Operation Torch landings.