Rising Into the Storm - the great Tokyo raid by aviation artist Bill Phillips

Rising Into the Storm by aviation artist Bill Phillips available from Prickly Pear Galleries.

 

"They came from our secret base at Shangri-La,” replied President Franklin Delano Roosevelt when asked by reporters where the "land-based” bombers of Lt. Colonel "Jimmy” Doolittle's raid had originated. In reality, Shangri-La was the USS Hornet and the idea of launching B-25s from an aircraft carrier was the result of determined and superb inter-service conception, planning and execution.

 

It is now 70 years since the USS Hornet's loudspeakers blared, "Army pilots man your battle stations for take off!” Task Force 16 had been detected at 7:38 AM April 18, 1942, a staggering 170 miles short of their estimated point of departure, by the Japanese picket boat No. 23 Nitto Maru. The decision was quickly made to launch the attack early. Doolittle's aircraft, the first to go, roared down and off the deck of the Hornet at 8:20 AM. Fifty-nine minutes later, by 9:19 AM, the sixteenth plane, under the commanded of Lt. W.G. Farrow, was headed towards Japan.

 

Nearly three quarters of a century ago, 80 men, all volunteers, unhesitatingly climbed aboard their B-25 bombers with the full knowledge that their aircraft did not have the range to land at the friendly airfields the mission design had called for. It is a sense of duty that any service member can relate to; theirs is a job where uncommon acts of valor are common place. Of those original 80 airmen, only five remain. Purchase this piece of history before time passes you by.

 

Paper print edition shown above with signatures.

Paper and canvas released March 2012.

More details available on request.