This was a daylight incendiary mission involving 21 planes from the 6th Bomb Group:
On 25 Feb the Group flew its first major strike against the Empire when
twenty-on aircraft, with the other groups in the Wing, carried out a
high-altitude (24,000 feet) daylight attack against the port and urban area
of Tokyo. General purpose bombs and a few incendiary clusters were
used. Complete undercast at the target area caused bombing to be by
radar and strike results were impossible to photograph. Enemy
opposition was light - eleven single-engine fighters were spotted but none
attacked the formations; anti-aircraft fire was moderate and inaccurate.
No damage was sustained by any of the Sixth ships and all returned to the
home base safely. Flight commander for the 24th Squadron was Capt
Edgar McElroy, who had bombed Japan as a member of Gen Doolittle's raid in
April 1942. On that raid Capt McElroy bailed out over China and was
rescued by the Chinese. Now he had returned to his original target.
Immediately upon receipt of strike reports from the Group's crews the news was broadcast over the loud-speaker system.
The announcement began: "Attention Sixth Bomb Group! Attention Sixth Bomb Group!
The Sixth struck its first real blow of the war today against the Jap Empire.
The strike report of the attack was flashed back to Tinian from the lead plane carrying Col Gibson and piloted by Cap D. H. Frank of
the 40th Squadron", and ended, ". . . there are fires burning in Tokyo today because the Sixth Bomb Group -
its air and ground personnel, its men and officers, its flying crews and maintenance crews, its clerks and cooks, its
adjutants and medics, its hundreds of specially trained men all helped to deliver those bombs to Tokyo."
[Pirate's Log, pp. 29-30]
