| The Doolittle Raid of April 18, 1942, was the first air raid by the United States to strike the Japanese home islands during World War II. The mission was unusual in that, for the only time in U.S. military history, United States Army Air Forces bombers launched into combat from a U.S. Navy aircraft carrier. The Doolittle Raid demonstrated that the Japanese home islands were vulnerable to Allied air attack, and it provided an expedient outlet for U.S. retaliation for Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. . . . |