How World War II Might Have Been Lost But For the Doolittle Raid

The Indian Ocean and Suez were wide open to Japan. India, the British position at El Alamein and the entire Middle East were on the brink of being lost. Until Jimmy Doolittle changed everything.

by Pete Feigal
April 18, 2022

On this 80th anniversary of the Doolittle Raid, it is well worth considering how dramatically different things might have been but for an attack that some saw as an ineffectual publicity stunt.

In this context, few ever mention the incredible Japanese victory in April 1942 in the Indian Ocean and the potential nightmare an extended attack could have caused there. Things in ’42 could have been much worse for the Allies if Japan had chosen not to attack Midway but Ceylon, British East Africa, Madagascar, even the Suez Canal.

The Doolittle Raid was a brilliant piece of soldiering, thought up, planned and executed in record time. (“Aqaba..from the land!”-Lawrence.) It was a plan of genius, of military propaganda, even theatre, and was as crucial an event as anything in the entire war. Indeed, it started a chain-reaction that eventually led to Hiroshima.