Us Official Photographs

"Off We Go"--The Army Air Corps song was never more appropriate than

Rising Sun industrial centers to give the Japanese their first taste of bombs dropping on their soil. In April, 1942, the United States and the world at large was electrified by an announcement by President Roosevelt that American fliers had carried the Battle of the Pacific to the heart of Japanese empire with a surprising and daring raid on military targets at Tokyo, Yokohama, Osaka, Kobe, and other Rising Sun industrial centers. Reasons of security have prevented the full story--the story of the Shangri-La where the flight of medium North American B-25 bombers started--from being told until now. Today the U.S. Navy presents in a dramatic series of pictures the take-off of the dangerous mission, headed by Maj. Gen. James H. (Jimmy) Doolittle, USA, from the deck of a sea-buffeted 20,000 ton aircraft carrier, USS HORNET, on April 18, 1942.