Details

Release year: 1944

Storyline

In the wake of Pearl Harbor, a young lieutenant leaves his expectant wife to volunteer for a secret bombing mission which will take the war to the Japanese homeland.

Top credits

Directors

Mervyn LeRoy

Writers

Cast

Spencer Tracy — Lieutenant Colonel James H. Doolittle
Van Johnson — Ted Lawson
Robert Walker — David Thatcher
Tim Murdock — Dean Davenport

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Awards

1 win & 1 nomination

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Did you know

• When Lawson's plane arrives in Tokyo and sees the fire and smoke from the previous bomber, Davy Jones, we are not looking at a special effect. During the making of the film, there was a fuel-oil fire in Oakland, near the filming location. The quick-thinking filmmakers scrambled to fly their camera plane and B-25 through the area, capturing some very real footage for the movie.

• The Japanese fishermen fired on by the U.S. Navy escort ships did in fact have time to alert Tokyo, but their transmission was ignored. An urgent report of two American aircraft carriers so close to Japan by understandably hysterical "ignorant" fisherman was scorned as ridiculous by Japanese authorities.

• The names of the crew of the Ruptured Duck and most of the military men in the film are the actual names of the men who were in this raid.