Immediately after Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor, President Roosevelt sought to restore the honor of the United States with a dramatic act of vengeance: a retaliatory bombing raid on Tokyo itself. At his bidding, a squadron of scarcely trained army fliers, led by the famous daredevil Jimmy Doolittle, set forth on what everyone regarded as a suicide mission. Their extraordinary success led directly to what every historian now believes was the turning point in the war against Japan, and helped convince the nation and the world that the Allies might eventually triumph.
A true account that almost defies belief, The First Heroes is a tremendous human drama of great personal courage and a powerful reminder that ordinary people, when faced with extraordinary circumstances, can rise to the challenge of history.
Just four months after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, a flight of brave aviators led by Jimmy Doolittle launched B-25s from the aircraft carrier HORNET to drop the first bombs on Tokyo. Against horrible odds, the surviving pilots faced torture, imprisonment, disease, and death upon landing in occupied China. The author tapped the memories of 20 living crew members and surveyed thousands of documents to compile the most complete and riveting account of the raid ever written. Raymond Todd's clear words, comfortable pace, and vocal inflections maintain an aura of patriotic excitement throughout the story, in which brave men and women, just doing their jobs, change the course of history. J.A.H. (c) AudioFile 2003, Portland, Maine
