The Doolittle Raid, also known as Doolittle's Raid, as well as the Tokyo Raid, was an air raid on 18 April 1942 by the United States on the Japanese capital Tokyo and other places on Honshu during World War II. It was the first American air operation to strike the Japanese archipelago. Although the raid caused comparatively minor damage, it demonstrated that the Japanese mainland was vulnerable to American air attacks. It served as an initial retaliation for the December 7, 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor, and provided an important boost to American morale. The raid was planned by, led by, and named after Lieutenant Colonel James Doolittle. It was one of six American carrier raids against Japan and Japanese-held territories conducted in the first half of 1942 as part of the undertaken strategy.
The Far East Air Force (FEAF) was the military aviation organization of the United States Army in the Philippines just prior to and at the beginning of World War II. Formed on 16 November 1941, FEAF was the predecessor of the Fifth Air Force of the United States Army Air Forces and the United States Air Force.
USS Dace (SS-247), a Gato-class submarine, was the first submarine of the United States Navy to be named for any of several small North American fresh-water fishes of the carp family.
The Battle of the Bismarck Sea took place in the South West Pacific Area (SWPA) during World War II when aircraft of the U.S. Fifth Air Force and the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) attacked a Japanese convoy carrying troops to Lae, New Guinea. Most of the Japanese task force was destroyed, and Japanese troop losses were heavy.
Eareckson Air Station, formerly Shemya Air Force Base, is a United States Air Force military airport located on the island of Shemya, in the Alaskan Aleutian Islands.
The Second Sino-Japanese War began on 7 July 1937 with the Marco Polo Bridge Incident in the Republic of China and is often regarded as the start of World War II as full-scale warfare erupted with the Battle of Shanghai, and ending when the Empire of Japan surrendered to the Allies in August 1945. The Chinese Air Force faced the Imperial Japanese Army and Navy Air Forces and engaged them in many aerial interceptions, including the interception of massed terror-bombing strikes on civilian targets, attacking on each other's ground forces and military assets in all manners of air-interdiction and close-air support; these battles in the Chinese skies were the largest air battles fought since the Great War, and featured the first-ever extensive and prolonged deployment of aircraft carrier fleets launching preemptive strikes in support of expeditionary and occupational forces, and demonstrated the technological shift from the latest biplane fighter designs to the modern monoplane fighter designs on both sides of the conflict.
Hong Kong and Whampoa Dock was a Hong Kong dockyard, once among the largest in Asia.
During World War II, Allied forces conducted air raids on Japan from 1942 to 1945, causing extensive destruction to the country's cities and killing between 241,000 and 900,000 people. During the first years of the Pacific War these attacks were limited to the Doolittle Raid in April 1942 and small-scale raids on military positions in the Kuril Islands from mid-1943. Strategic bombing raids began in June 1944 and continued until the end of the war in August 1945. Allied naval and land-based tactical air units also attacked Japan during 1945.
The 17th Special Operations Squadron is an active unit of the United States Air Force, stationed at Cannon Air Force Base, New Mexico. The squadron operates AC-130J Ghostrider aircraft and is assigned to the 27th Special Operations Group, 27th Special Operations Wing. The squadron was previously part of the 353rd Special Operations Group at Kadena Air Base, Japan, where it operated MC-130J Commando II aircraft providing special operations capability.
The attacks on Kure and the Inland Sea by United States and British naval aircraft in late July 1945 sank most of the surviving large warships of the Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN). The United States Third Fleet's attacks on Kure Naval Arsenal and nearby ports on 24, 25, and 28 July sank an aircraft carrier, three battleships, five cruisers, and several smaller warships. During the same period the British Pacific Fleet attacked other targets in the Inland Sea region and sank two escort ships and several smaller vessels as well as damaging an escort carrier.
HMS Moth was an Insect-class gunboat of the Royal Navy. Entering service in 1916, Moth had a varied career with service in the Middle East, the White Sea and the Far East in two world wars. Scuttled in World War II during the invasion of Hong Kong, the ship was raised and put into service by the Imperial Japanese Navy as Suma (須磨). The ship remained active throughout the war, before striking a naval mine in the Yangtze River in 1945 and sinking.
The 3rd Fighter Squadron (Commando) was a United States Air Force unit. Its last assignment was with the 3rd Air Commando Group, based at Chitose, Japan. It was disbanded on 8 October 1948.
The Bombing of Singapore (1944–1945) was a military campaign conducted by the Allied air forces during World War II. United States Army Air Forces (USAAF) long-range bomber units conducted 11 air raids on Japanese-occupied Singapore between November 1944 and March 1945. Most of these raids targeted the island's naval base and dockyard facilities, and minelaying missions were conducted in nearby waters. After the American bombers were redeployed, the British Royal Air Force assumed responsibility for minelaying operations near Singapore and these continued until 24 May 1945.
During World War II, a series of Japanese air attacks on the Mariana Islands took place between November 1944 and January 1945. These raids targeted United States Army Air Forces (USAAF) bases and sought to disrupt the bombing of Japan by B-29 Superfortress heavy bombers operating from the islands. The Japanese lost 37 aircraft during this operation, but destroyed 11 B-29s and damaged a further 43. Preparations were also made for commando raids on the bases in early and mid-1945 but these did not go ahead.
Operation Kita was conducted by the Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN) during the Pacific War in February 1945. Its purpose was to return two Ise-class hybrid battleship-aircraft carriers and four escort ships to Japan from Singapore, where they had been based since November the previous year. The movement of the Japanese force was detected by the Allies, but all attempts to attack it with submarines and aircraft failed. Nevertheless, as a result of the intensifying Allied blockade of Japan, the Ise-class battleship-carriers and their escorts were among the last IJN warships to safely reach the country from the Southwest Pacific before the end of the war.
The South China Sea raid was an operation conducted by the United States Third Fleet between 10 and 20 January 1945 during the Pacific War of World War II. The raid was undertaken to support the liberation of Luzon in the Philippines, and targeted Japanese warships, supply convoys and aircraft in the region.
On the night of 9/10 March 1945, the United States Army Air Forces (USAAF) conducted a devastating firebombing raid on Tokyo, the Japanese capital city. This attack was code-named Operation Meetinghouse by the USAAF and is known as the Great Tokyo Air Raid in Japan. Bombs dropped from 279 Boeing B-29 Superfortress heavy bombers burned out much of eastern Tokyo. More than 90,000 and possibly over 100,000 Japanese people were killed, mostly civilians, and one million were left homeless, making it the most destructive single air attack in human history. The Japanese air and civil defenses proved largely inadequate; 14 American aircraft and 96 airmen were lost.
Operation Boomerang was a partially successful air raid by the United States Army Air Forces' (USAAF) XX Bomber Command against oil refining facilities in Japanese-occupied Dutch East Indies during World War II. The attack took place on the night of 10/11 August 1944 and involved attempts to bomb an oil refinery at Palembang and lay mines to interdict the Musi River.
United States Army Air Forces B-29 Superfortress heavy bombers made two air raids on railway facilities in Japanese-occupied Kuala Lumpur during February and March 1945. The first of these attacks took place on 18 February, and involved 48 or 49 B-29s based in West Bengal. The second raid was made on 10 March by either 24 or 26 aircraft. These attacks inflicted extensive damage on the Central Railroad Repair Shops. No American aircraft were lost in either operation.
The Japanese city of Fukuoka was attacked by United States Army Air Forces Boeing B-29 Superfortress heavy bombers on 19 June 1945. This operation formed part of the Allied Air raids on Japan, and destroyed 21.5 percent of the city. B-29s also dropped naval mines near Fukuoka harbor on seven occasions between May and July 1945, and the city was attacked twice by American fighter aircraft.
