On April 18, 1942, Jimmy Doolittle and 15 gallant crews took off from the deck of the USS Hornet for an historic flight to bomb Tokyo. The planes were parked on the Hornet's flight deck in the order they were to leave. There was no room to rearrange them, and their long, non-folding wings made it impossible to send them below. The leading bomber, piloted by Lieutenant Colonel Doolittle, had but a few hundred feet of deck run to reach flying speed, but every subsequent one had a little more.

The B-25 bomber was named as a tribute to the crusading Colonel, Billy Mitchell, for his visionary ideas on air power. On April 18, 1942, Jimmy Doolittle flown the B25 and led a group of 16 B-25 bombers from the deck of the USS Hornet for an historic flight to bomb Tokyo, Japan.

The bombing was one of the most audacious missions of World War II. The plan for this confidential mission started several months before, and Jimmy Doolittle was the one chosen to lead, organize and plan the raid. The plan was to get within 300 or 400 miles of Japan, bomb military and industrialized targets in Tokyo, Osaka, and Kobe soon after dusk, and then fly on to a dawn landing at hidden airfields on the coast of China. The twin engine B25 Mitchell bomber was selected by Doolittle for the mission, indicated that it should be possible to establish these aircraft from a carrier deck with less than 500 feet of runway.