Book Review: Target Tokyo
President Franklin D. Roosevelt, hoping to rally the American public for what he knew would be a long war, had ordered a swift retaliation for the attack on Dec. 7, 1941. Four months later, on April 18, 1942, sixteen B-25s launched from the carrier USS Hornet for a long-distance bombing raid on Tokyo and other Japanese cities. Since the distance to Tokyo was
The raid quickly became one of the most storied military missions of World War II, with enormous press coverage including the 1944, movie "Thirty Seconds over Tokyo," based on the true events Spencer Tracy had the starring role as Lt. Col. Jimmy Doolittle. Since the war, the raid and the men who flew it have been chronicled in books, documentaries, and newspaper feature stories.
Now comes James M. Scott's marvelous new book, "Target Tokyo: Jimmy Doolittle and the Raid That Avenged Pearl Harbor," deeply reported and with a 
strong narrative style, bringing the raid to the reader with you-are-there immediacy and drama. Filled with great characters, great heroism, and great suffering, Target Tokyo is at once thorough, realistic, and thrilling.
It is undoubtedly the most comprehensive account yet of the training of the crew, the modification of the planes, the air attack itself and the complex aftermath in Japan, the U.S. and China. In Scott's hands, the story, even at 480 pages, remains a page-turner. To gather material, Scott visited three dozen archives on four continents.
In his glowing assessment of the bravery and innovation of the Doolittle Raiders, historian Scott does not neglect to explore the ultimate horrendous cost of the mission in human lives. It is to Scott's credit that he does not shy from those facts.
Eight of the 80 airmen flying the mission were captured by the Japanese in China and viciously tortured in barbaric ways. While Scott is unstinting in his description of Japanese savagery, he provides a touching account of the day that Lt. Dean Hallmark, Lt. William Farrow and Cpl. Harold Spatz were executed by a Japanese firing squad.
In China, Japanese troops launched a barbarous campaign to find the Americans whose planes, out of gas, had crashed there; an estimated 250,000 Chinese were slaughtered, villages and cities were razed, women were raped. Scott covers it in riveting detail, especially the bravery and sacrifice of the Chinese and a group of Western missionaries who rescued the airmen and helped guide them to safe areas where U.S. and Chinese forces were located.
I highly recommend this book destined to become a classic - not only on the Doolittle Raid - but war in general. With his flair for characterization and vivid storytelling, the reader will be unable to put it down. Go out and buy a copy today.
Readers Review
A lucid, highly readable story fleshed out with an exceptional variety of people at every level, from mechanics with grease under their fingernails to aircrew inbound to the enemy capital, to national leaders in the halls of power in Washington, Tokyo, and China. Target Tokyo is bound to remain the standard reference on the subject.
~Barrett Tillman, award-winning author of Whirlwind: The Air War Against Japan 1942-1945
James Scott's Target Tokyo is much more than another account of Jimmy Doolittle's famous air attack on Tokyo in April of 1942. It is a gripping tale of determination, tragedy, endurance, and redemption. Even those who think they know this story, will be absorbed by this vivid account of adventure and peril."
~Craig L. Symonds, author of The Battle of Midway and Neptune
A superb writer and historian with a keen eye for detail, James Scott has created a meticulously researched account that undoubtedly will be considered the last - and best - word on the subject.
~Flint Whitlock, Editor, WWII Quarterly magazine
About the Author
A former Nieman Fellow at Harvard, James M. Scott's "Target Tokyo," was a 2016 Pulitzer Prize finalist and was named one of the best books of the year by Kirkus, The Christian Science Monitor and The Fort Worth Star-Telegram. His other works include "The War Below" and "The Attack on the Liberty," which won the Rear Admiral Samuel Eliot Morison Award.
Scott is a recipient of the McClatchy Company President's Award and was named the 2003 Journalist of the Year by the South Carolina Press Association. Wofford College honored Scott as its 2005 Young Alumnus of the Year.
He is at work on a fourth book on the February 1945 Battle for Manila. Scott lives with his wife and two children in Mount Pleasant, S.C.