This skin represents a North American B-25B Mitchell, of "The Doolittle
Raiders", who launched the first attack on mainland Japan from the aircraft
carrier USS Hornet in April 1942. 

Thanks to Woolfman, Redeyes and RDF and anyone else I forgot.

The April 1942 air attack on Japan, launched from the aircraft carrier
Hornet and led by Lieutenant Colonel James H. Doolittle, was the most daring
operation yet undertaken by the United States in the young Pacific War.
Though conceived as a diversion that would also boost American and allied
morale, the raid generated strategic benefits that far outweighed its
limited goals.

The raid had its roots in a chance observation that it was possible to
launch Army twin-engined bombers from an aircraft carrier, making feasible
an early air attack on Japan. Appraised of the idea in January 1942, U.S.
Fleet commander Admiral Ernest J. King and Air Forces leader General Henry
H. Arnold greeted it with enthusiasm. Arnold assigned the technically-astute
Doolittle to organize and lead a suitable air group. The modern, but
relatively well-tested B-25B "Mitchell" medium bomber was selected as the
delivery vehicle and tests showed that it could fly off a carrier with a
useful bomb load and enough fuel to hit Japan and continue on to airfields
in China.

Gathering volunteer air crews for an unspecified, but admittedly dangerous
mission, Doolittle embarked on a vigourous program of special training for
his men and modifications to their planes. The new carrier Hornet was sent
to the Pacific to undertake the Navy's part of the mission. So secret was
the operation that her Commanding Officer, Captain Marc A. Mitscher, had no
idea of his ship's upcoming employment until shortly before sixteen B-25s
were loaded on her flight deck. On 2 April 1942 Hornet put to sea and headed
west across the vast Pacific.

Joined in mid-ocean on 13 April by Vice Admiral William F. Halsey's flagship
Enterprise, which would provide air cover during the approach, Hornet 
steamed toward a planned 18 April afternoon launching point some 400 miles
from Japan. However, before dawn on 18 April, enemy picket boats were 
encountered much further east than expected. These were evaded or sunk, but
got off radio warnings, forcing the planes to take off around 8 AM, while
still more than 600 miles out.

Most of the sixteen B-25s, each with a five-man crew, attacked the Tokyo 
area, with a few hitting Nagoya. Damage to the intended military targets was
modest, and none of the planes reached the Chinese airfields (though all but
a few of their crewmen survived). However, the Japanese high command was
deeply embarrassed. Three of the eight American airmen they had captured
were executed. Spurred by Combined Fleet commander Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto,
they also resolved to eliminate the risk of any more such raids by the early
destruction of America's aircraft carriers, a decision that led them to
disaster at the Battle of Midway a month and a half later.
