Historical Dictionary of United States-Japan ... - Bakumatsu Films

78 • DOOLITTLE RAID
entrenched when the American banking group-backed railroad
failed to materialize.
DOOLITTLE RAID. Almost immediately after the Japanese attack on
Pearl Harbor, United States President Franklin D. Roosevelt had
called for a bombing raid against Tokyo. Vengeance obviously colored
Roosevelt’s motives, but he was also informed by a belief in the
applicability of air power against Japan. In any case, the president got
his wish when, on 18 April 1942, Captain James Doolittle led 16
B-25 bombers off the carrier Hornet and launched a surprise attack
against Tokyo, Kobe, Nagoya, Yokosuka, and Yokohama. None of
the planes were shot down. Instead they flew on to China, with one
plane landing in the Soviet Union (where its crew was interned). The
physical damage to Japanese cities was minimal, although the effects
of the so-called Doolittle Raid were tangible. On the one hand, it provided
the United States—whose forces had been soundly defeated by
the Japanese enemy in almost every battle since Pearl Harbor—with
a much-need morale boost. On the other, it painted a grim picture
for Japanese wartime leaders of the future shape of the war. In an
effort to prevent further carrier-based air attacks against Japan,
Commander-in-Chief of the Combined Fleet Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto
hastened plans for offensives against Port Moresby and
Midway. These were the first significant losses in battle sustained by
the Japanese and represented the beginning of the end for Japan in
World War II.
DOSHISHA UNIVERSITY. A private, Christian college founded in
1875 by Jo Niijima, also known as Joseph Hardy Niishima, a Japanese
Christian minister who lived and studied in the United States
from 1865 to 1874. Though it struggled to survive in its early years,
Doshisha University currently has more than 20,000 undergraduate
and graduate students in its many programs and attracts many international
students and international faculty. Doshisha is located near
the former imperial palace in Kyoto, Japan. See also CHRISTIAN-
ITY; HARDY, ALPHAEUS.
DULLES, JOHN FOSTER (1888—1959). John Foster Dulles was
born in Washington, D.C., the son of a Presbyterian minister. He was
educated at Princeton University, the Sorbonne in Paris, and George