The Curious Case of Plane No. 8 of the Doolittle Raid

The Whirling Dervish was one of the sixteen B-25 Mitchell Bombers that took off from the USS Hornet on April 18, 1942, to take the war to the Japanese homeland. Fifteen of the planes completed their missions and either crashed or were ditched in China. After taking off in the eighth position from the Hornet, the Whirling Dervish missed its target in Tokyo but bombed a target of opportunity well north of the Japanese capital city. Then, it proceeded to the Soviet Union and landed safely at a Soviet airfield near Vladivostok. The Soviets confiscated the B-25 and interned the five-member crew for over a year before they were allowed to “escape” into Iran.

I have just completed Vanishing Act by Dan Hampton. He researched the circumstances of the diversion of the Whirling Dervish. The official US Government explanation is that once the crew realized they missed their target, they knew they lacked sufficient fuel to make it all the way to China, so they headed to the much closer Soviet Union expecting to be allowed to refuel and resume their trip to China. Any “unofficial” reason for traveling to the Soviet Union would have been known only to Edward York and Robert Emmens, pilot and copilot of the Whirling Dervish, Jimmy Doolittle, and General Hap Arnold. None of these four individuals has ever deviated from the official explanation and all are now deceased. There is no written record explaining this mission.

Hampton has seized upon some interesting facts about the Whirling Dervish and its crew, then extrapolated and speculated. First, the Whirling Dervish was not among the sixteen planes and crews originally selected for the mission. They were brought in as training at Eglin AFB was nearing completion as a substitute for a damaged plane. (There were other planes and crews who had gone through the training regiment as alternates, but the Whirling Dervish was brought from the outside.) Second, fifteen of the planes had modified carburetors which extended the range. The Whirling Dervish was the only plane of the sixteen that did not have modified carburetors. Third, the Whirling Dervish was the only plane of the sixteen that carried maps of the eastern Soviet Union.

Hampton concluded (speculated) that Hap Arnold had probably ordered the Whirling Dervish to travel to the Soviet Union to determine whether the Soviets might allow US bombers to utilize Soviet territory to attack Japan. The Soviets were neutral with respect to the US/Japanese War (although the Red Army had bested the Imperial Japanese Army in several skirmishes). The detention of the Whirling Dervish crew and confiscation of the plane pretty much put that possibility to rest.