As American forces gather for a possible military strike in South Asia, we would do well to think of a brave group of airmen from nearly 60 years ago. Then, as now, the US was reeling and in shock from a surprise attack. The US Pacific Fleet had been crippled at Pearl Harbor and the Japanese were fanning out over the Pacific and Southeast Asia. The Japanese had captured Hong Kong, Bangkok, Pacific outposts such as Wake Island, and had invaded the Phillipines. A mere 5 months into World War II, America and Britain were staggering from one defeat to the next.

Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo recounts the daring raid of Lt. Col. Jimmy Doolittle and the 79 airmen he led on the first raid on the Japanese home islands. Adapted from the book by the same name, the story focuses on the pilot and crew of plane number 7 - The Ruptured Duck. Captain Ted Lawson, pilot and author of the book, is played by a VERY young Van Johnson, with an equally young Robert Mitchum as part of his aircrew.

With the American public and Armed Forces badly in need of a morale boost, Army Air Corps chief Gen. Hap Arnold calls upon Lt. Col. James Doolittle (played by an amazingly dark haired Spencer Tracey) to plan a retaliatory strike against the Japanese. Prompted by the suggestion of a Navy Captain, Doolittle conceives of a rather novel plan. Launch a group of twin engined medium bombers on a one-way mission from the deck of a carrier.

After checking through the Air Corps inventory, Doolittle and his planners decide upon the twin-tailed North American B-25 "Mitchell" as the best choice for bomb-load, range and speed. Calling for volunteers from the ranks of trained air-crew, Doolittle establishes a training program in Florida, where the Army airmen set about learning how to take off from an aircraft carrier in a plane which had never been designed or intended for the purpose.

Lawson joins this select group and starts practicing the finer points of getting this lumbering aircraft aloft in less than 500 feet. During a practice run, he scrapes the bottom of the tail when he points the nose of the bomber too high before attaining flight speed. From that day on, the repaired B-25 is christened The Ruptured Duck. An artist among the ground crew paints the new name on the side of the plane, along with a picture of a cross-eyed Donald Duck wearing a leather helmet, staring out over crossed crutches.

In addition to the extremely short take-off runs, the crews practice very low-level cross country flying and navigation. As they approach the end of their training, the final 16 aircraft and crew selected for the mission fly their planes from Florida to Alameda, California, most of it at heights under 100 feet. At the Alameda Naval Yard, their craft are hoisted by cranes onto the flight deck of the USS Hornet.

Joined by the carrier USS Enterprise and escort ships, the newly designated Task Force 16 sails into the Pacific under the command of Adm. William F."Bull" Halsey. The plan called for the task force to approach within 400 miles of the Japanese coastline. After launch, the raiding force would fan out over various parts of Japan, bomb their targets and head for airfields in the interior of China.

Unfortunately, 900 miles out from Japan the carriers run into a Japanese patrol boat. Although it's promptly sunk, they fear that it may have radioed a warning. With the element of surprise lost, Halsey and Doolittle ordered the premature launch of the bombers. At this point, the airmen knew that they had just barely enough fuel to make the Chinese coastline, much of which was held by the Japanese. On April 18, 1942, Doolittle's Tokyo raid was underway.

As commander of the strike, Doolittle leads the raid by being the first to attempt a take-off. The actual take-offs were filmed from the Enterprise and other ships, and this footage is used extensively with very good effect. With a 20 knot wind in front of him, Doolittle gets his ship airborne with room to spare. With his plane aloft, he makes an alignment with the carrier to check his compass heading, takes a flyby pass over the Hornet and turns for Japan.

In plane number 7, Lawson is un-nerved when a sailor on the deck crew loses an arm to the propellor arc. When his turn comes, he runs both engines up to full military power and releases the brakes. The Ruptured Duck clears the end of the carrier deck, dips a little bit and starts to climb. When he reaches for the lever to retract the flaps, he discovers that he had never lowered them.

Once airborne, Lawson takes the Duck down to 30 feet above the waves and heads for his target - Tokyo. The inflight scenes at low level were actual film footage which was taken during training. Liberal footage from the nose of a B-25 doing 350 mph at 50 feet off the deck places the viewer in a unique perspective as the landscape unfolds and passes underneath at an astonishing rate.

As they cross over the Kanto Plain on their approach to Tokyo, Japanese peasants smile and wave at the crew, believing the plane to be one of theirs. Once over the city and in proximity of the target, Lawson took the plane up to 1,500 feet for the bomb run. Again, liberal use of actual combat footage imparts a degree of realism which was rare in the 1940's when this film was made.

With the bomb run complete, The Ruptured Duck heads back down to tree-top level and sets a course for the Chinese mainland. But after they cleared the Japanese islands, they run into a storm and a head-wind. This slows them down and starts burning gasoline at a furious rate. The premature launch has also upset the timetable, and the plane reaches the Chinese coastline as the sun starts to set.

Lawson decided to set the plane down on a strip of beach for the night and continue on in the morning. On his final approach, spray from the surf kills both engines while the plane is still above 6 feet of water. The landing gear hits the water and the Duck slams into the surf. The force of the impact uproots the pilots seats, and Lawson and his co-pilot are both pitched through the plexiglass canopy.

He comes to under water, still strapped in his seat and with a severe gash in his leg. What the movie doesn't show is that Lawson had his front teeth knocked out, suffered a concussion and a skull fracture. This of course, was sanitized for wartime audiences. From this point on, the movie is rather anticlimactic. The crew of the Duck evades capture by the Japanese, Lawson loses his leg as gangrene sets in, and Van Johnson indulges in some of the sappiest, corniest lines I've ever heard. "In spite of it all, the one thing that kept me going were thoughts of - Helen!" A few gems like that are enough to make a modern audience sneer and cringe simultaneously.

This movie must be viewed in the context of the time in which it was made, with the war still in progress. Although the military value of Doolittles raid was absolutely nil, the boost in morale for the American public was beyond value. And a surprise attack on the Japanese capitol stunned the Japanese public and military, who had assumed that they were beyond the reach of American aircraft. The Japanese withdrew air assets from the Pacific to defend the home islands for another raid.

The fact that this film is blatant war-time propaganda must also be taken into consideration. A display of this type of naked Jingoism would not be very well received in this day and age, even after the World Trade Center atrocity. But Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo was among the very best of the topical films produced during the war. And it exemplifies the offensive spirit of the aircrew we send out to carry war to the enemy's homeland. Although the Air Force banned "Nose art" in recent years in a dubious attempt to clean up their image, there will still be men such as Lawson to fly another Ruptured Duck into hostile airspace to do battle with our enemies.

Recommended:
Yes

Viewing Format: VHS
Video Occasion: Fit for Friday Evening