Doolittle air raid:The first raid on Tokyo was the Doolittle Raid of April 18, 1942, when sixteen B-25 Mitchells were launched from the USS Hornet to attack targets including Yokohama and Tokyo and then fly on to airfields in China. The raid did no damage to Japan's war capability but was a significant propaganda victory for the United States. Launched prematurely, none of the attacking aircraft reached the designated airfields, either crashing or ditching (except for one aircraft which landed in the Soviet Union, where the crew was interned). Two crews were captured by the JapaneseB-29 air raids:The key development for the bombing of Japan was the B-29, which had an operational range of 3,250 nautical miles (6,019 km); almost 90% of the bombs dropped on the home islands of Japan were delivered by this type of bomber. The initial raids were carried out by the Twentieth Air Force operating out of mainland China in Operation Matterhorn under XX Bomber Command but was supplemented in...