The Massacre in China after the Doolittle's Raid on Tokyo

After the Doolittle’s raid on Tokyo in April 1942, Chinese civilians and resistance guerrillas, rescued the surviving B-25 crewmembers and risked their own lives to bring them to safety. The disgraced Japanese mounted a furious search by sending 53 infantry battalions, torturing and slaughtering 250,000 Chinese, obliterating villages, and destroying crops in an effort to force the Chinese to give up the Americans. Besides the two months massacre in Zhejiang and Jiansu provinces of the bomber landings as a punishment, the enraged IJA plowed up every airfield in an area of 52,000 square kilometers.

Despite the worst attempts of the Japanese, for more than a month after the raid the Chinese helped 64 crewmen to evade capture, eventually return to US forces via inland airfields and the war time capital Chongqing. Nevertheless the Japanese killed numerous Chinese, their pride was severely wounded, removing at one stroke Japanese confidence in Yamato superiority, unparalleled might, and predictability of their cause. Ended in August 1945, the Samurai advance in China was reversed in a long series of land and air battles with the final crushing defeat of their empire. As for the Chinese, who endured not-so-short term (15 years) pain in pursuit of long term gains, unfortunately that gains turned out to be a hollow one.

China failed to be transferred the 16 desperately needed B-25Bs from Doolittle’s one-way raid, which all crash landed. Nonetheless the earliest Mitchell bombers fought in China were the seven B-25Cs of the AVG, better known as the Flying Tigers, 1942. The CAF Mitchells remained in service throughout the postwar struggle which led to the Communist overthrow of the Generalissimo. Small numbers of captured aircraft were used by the PLAAF while most of them withdrew to Taiwan, the island newly liberated from the Japanese occupation for half a century. During the counter-offensive, the CAF struck the Communist coastal positions on Sept 1954, wherein B-25Js and F-84Gs had been in action. These vintage B-25Js remained active with the 34th Bomber Squadron until 1958.

Please note the B-25H armorers maintained the Browning M2 .50s and T13E1 75mm nose canon at the Nanking airfield. Other Mitchells in my drawings are the early model B-25C, major production model B-25J, and photo-recon model F-10.