Hello, and thank you for listening to the history of World War II podcast, Episode

331, The Doodle of Raid, Part 2.

Colonel Jimmy Doodle and his B-25 crews arrived in California on April 1st.

The pilots were excited, finally a chance to strike back.

However, their leaders, Admiral Halsey and Nimitz, the latter now the CNC Pacific fleets,

were far from convinced of the wisdom of this operation.

Looking at the Pacific theater in general, at this time the Japanese were conducting their

own raids as far west as the Indian Ocean, and had even bombed Salon, modern day Sri Lanka.

But more importantly, the Americans did not know where the enemy was going to focus next.

Hence, was it all that wise to send two of Nimitz's four carriers close to the Japanese

home islands, just for a bomb run that could only do so much damage, besides which the

USS Saratoga had been hit by a torpedo on January 11th, and would eventually end up in

San Diego in late May for additional repairs.

Added to this, because of operational damage, two of the 24 modified B-25s would not be

making the trip.

Doodle was now down to 22 planes, this counter punch was getting weaker by the day.

Back to the fear of how this raid could turn out, CNC-US fleet and Chief of Naval Operations

Admiral Ernest J. King wasn't all that impressed either.

Not with the raid, per se, but the chances of task force 16 and 18 making it safely back

to Hawaii.

There was the larger war to consider.

But then King was told by Sink Pax or CNC-Pacific Fleet's intelligence staff that the enemy

...