"The beginning of 1942 was a dark time for the Allies in the Pacific. The Japanese seemed invincible. Hong Kong had fallen. Darwin was bombed. China, Burma, Borneo – the list of places the Japanese were advancing through was almost endless. And with those advancing troops came the Kempetai, the secret police, and within the Kempetai an even more secret unit that began the systematic looting of the conquered lands."
"Golden Lily," Fatima said.
"Yes," Abayon said.
"We will get back to that. But let me continue so you understand as much of the big picture as I do. In the United States, morale was at an all-time low. President Roosevelt ordered his Joint Chiefs of Staff to come up with something to hit back at the Japanese homeland. It was a daunting proposition, given the vast width of the Pacific Ocean. The plan that was developed was daring: launch medium bombers off an aircraft carrier.
"Sixteen B-25 Mitchell bombers were loaded on board the USS Hornet. The crews of the bombers, despite having spent weeks practicing short takeoffs, did not know their target or mission as they boarded the carrier. The Americans used to be very good at keeping secrets, a skill they've lost to a large degree since then. The ship set sail from California and headed west.
"Also on board the ship were three men who were neither part of the flight crew or the ship's complement. They had orders signed by General Marshall himself…very strange orders that simply directed any U.S. Military officer who was shown the orders to do as the bearer instructed."
Fatima stirred as if to say something, but Abayon continued without acknowledging her.
"I am sure Colonel Doolittle, the commander of the bomber group, was none too happy to have these orders shoved in his face shortly after the fleet took sail. But Doolittle was a good officer and he would do as ordered.
"The launch was set for April nineteenth, when the Hornet would be around five hundred miles from the Japanese islands. The planes would fly to their targets, drop their bombs, then continue onward to land in China. That plan, as with most military plans, went out the window on the eighteenth of April when one of the escort ships was spotted by a Japanese picket boat. The Japanese boat was sunk, but it was assumed it had gotten a warning message out.
"As dawn broke on the eighteenth, the public address system on the Hornet called the Army pilots to man their planes. For the first time since boarding the ship, the three men who had been snuck aboard in California during darkness came up onto the deck. They made their way to aircraft number sixteen, named Bat Out of Hell by its crew. Unlike the other fifteen bombers, this plane, as ordered by the man who carried the letter from Marshall, carried no bombs. Instead, the three men climbed into the bomb bay, where their equipment awaited them – parachutes, weapons, grenades, a wireless, and other equipment indicating they were going somewhere to do something dangerous."
Abayon was on a roll, telling the story almost as if he had experienced it firsthand, which surprised Fatima.
"The lead plane, piloted by Doolittle, lifted off the deck of the Hornet at 0820. The other planes followed as quickly as they could be moved into position. An hour after Doolittle had taken off, Bat Out of Hell roared down the wooden deck and into the sky. As soon as it was clear, the Hornet began a wide sweeping turn to head back east.
"Inside the last plane, the man with the letter made his way to the cockpit. The plane's original target was supposed to have been Kobe. The man's orders, backed up by his letter, changed that. Bat Out of Hell headed on an azimuth to make landfall just north of Tokyo.
"When the navigator estimated the plane was an hour from the Japanese coast, the three men rigged their parachutes and gear. At the designated location, the bombardier opened the doors on the bottom of the aircraft and the three men threw themselves out, their parachutes quickly deploying."
Abayon paused, and this time Fatima was able to get some words in.
"How do you know all this?" she asked.
"Afterward I met one of the members of that plane's crew," Abayon said.
"They managed to make it to China, but ran out of fuel and had to bail out. They suffered the misfortune of being captured by the Japanese. I had suffered the same misfortune almost two months before and was shipped to China en route to Unit 731 in Manchuria."
Fatima frowned.
"But I don't understand why this is important. Three men parachuted out of one of those planes. And…? Do you know who they were? What they were going to do? It sounds as if the crew of the plane certainly didn't."
"No, the crew had no clue who the men were or why they were parachuting into Japan," Abayon said.
"But I discovered more."
"How?"
He held up a hand.
"First, let me tell you a little more about what happened after the Doolittle raid so you get a sense of perspective. History, particularly American history, paints the raid as a great success and a turning point in the war. The Americans, as is their way, made a movie about it in 1944, even before the war was over. The commander, Doolittle, was given their Medal of Honor.
"Militarily, the raid accomplished very little. Each plane – other than number sixteen – carried only four five-hundred-pound bombs because of weight restrictions. The damage done was negligible. And all sixteen planes were lost when they crash-landed after running out of fuel.
"The Japanese, as they did here in the Philippines against the guerrillas, responded to this gnat's strike with fury. Since the planes all went on to China, and most of the crews were saved by Chinese partisans, the Japanese vented their rage on the Chinese people. First, they conducted more than six hundred air raids of their own on Chinese villages and towns. Any village where an American airman passed through was burned to the ground and the people murdered. No one knows the exact number, but the American moral victory cost almost 100,000 Chinese their lives."
"And the Americans did not care."
Fatima said it as a statement.
Abayon nodded.
"Most Americans care nothing for people killed as long as it is not their own people. A hundred thousand Chinese dead so that there can be exciting headlines in their newspapers and newsreel was fine for them.
"Some Americans did suffer. The Japanese captured eight of the men who were on the planes, including the crew of the Bat Out of Hell that the three mystery men had jumped out of. The eight were first taken to Tokyo by the Kempetai, where they were interrogated."
"But you said you talked to one of these men in China," Fatima noted.
"Yes," Abayon said.
"That was later. The Americans were kept in Tokyo for about two months, where they were tortured until they agreed to sign documents admitting they were war criminals. Then they were shipped back to China. I ran into them there in a prison camp. Surprisingly, though, the crew of the sixteenth plane was never interrogated about the three men, even though, under torture, they told of the jump."
Fatima was now intrigued with this story of events over sixty years ago.
"You're saying the crew told the Kempetai that three Americans parachuted into Japan during the raid, but the Kempetai never pursued that line of questioning?"