The Desperate Need to Hit Back at Japan After Pearl Harbor
As America reeled from the Japanese surprise attack on Pearl Harbor, President Roosevelt wanted Japan bombed as soon as possible to boost public morale. Unfortunately, a wide chasm lay between America’s desire to hit back, and its ability to do so. Indeed, it was America and her allies who absorbed blow after blow from the rampaging Japanese. It was vital for America to retaliate, and be seen to retaliate. It would take time before sufficient forces were gathered to take the offensive. Until then, couldn’t American airplanes at least raid Japan? The problem though was how? The US Navy had bombers that could be launched from aircraft carriers, but their range was short. So carriers needed to get within two hundred miles of Japan – within range of Japanese land-based bombers.
That risk was too high for what was ultimately a symbolic strike. The US Army Air Forces had long-range twin and four engine bombers, but no airbases close enough for them to take off, bomb Japan, and return. It seemed like an insoluble conundrum, until one day, US Navy Captain Francis S. Low flew over Chambers Field at Norfolk Naval Station in Virginia, and looked down. Below was a runway painted with the outline of an aircraft carrier’s deck. Carrier pilots routinely practiced takeoffs and landings on such simulated decks on the ground. That day, however, there were some twin-engine Army bombers parked nearby. In one of those sudden insights that strike military men from time to time, Low linked the Army bombers to the adjacent painted carrier deck outline. Why, he thought, not meld the assets of two services to launch long-range Army bombers from a Navy carrier’s deck?