In spring 1942, Japan’s military was the virtual master of its area of operations. It had overrun most of Southeast Asia and a huge swathe of the western Pacific with startling speed after Dec. 7, 1941, and the campaigns in mainland China seemed well in hand. The Dutch and French colonial territories had fallen to the Japanese, as had the British territories of Malaya, Singapore, and Hong Kong, and besieged United States forces in the Philippines were on the verge of defeat. The Empire of Japan was ascendant. The imperial government assured its people that Japan’s Home Islands were safe from retaliatory attacks by any of the Allied powers.
That assurance was shattered at noon on April 18, 1942 when 16 B-25B Mitchell bombers, launched from the US Navy aircraft carrier , roared in over the island of Honshu, vectoring in from different points of the compass. It was a hit-and-run attack. After dropping their bomb loads on Tokyo and five other cities, the American aircraft made for the
