Holding the Line in the Pacific
Top, Lieutenant Colonel Jimmy Doolittle and his Tokyo Raiders on board the USS Hornet, from whose deck they flew a formation of North American B-25 Mitchell bombers to attack the home of the Japanese empire and raise the spirits of discouraged Americans in 1942. Captain Marc Mitscher, the Hornet's skipper, stands at Doolittle's left; center, left, Major General Claire Chennault, leader of the legendary Flying Tigers and, bottom, left, Major General George Kenney, Commanding General, Fifth Air Force, fought the conquest-hungry Japanese valiantly while Allied resources were directed to "Europe first"; center, right, the Douglas C-47 Skytrain transport, an indispensable workhorse in Asia. C-47 "Hump" flights from the U.S. Tenth Air Force's hastily-built base in Assam, India, over the Himalayas relieved the beleaguered Allies fighting in China after the Japanese cut off their overland supply route; bottom, right, Brigadier Generals Heywood Hansell and Curtis LeMay, first and second leaders of XXI Bomber Command of the Twentieth Air Force. LeMay employed the command's B-29s, prone to engine fires and imprecise targeting at high altitudes, as successful medium-altitude bombers in incendiary raids over much of Japan.
