ABSTRACT
In the weeks after Pearl Harbor, the American Pacific Fleet carriers engaged in harassment operations against the Japanese. This kept up navy morale to a degree and did minor damage to the enemy, but it may have only served to demonstrate to Yamamoto that the sooner the American carriers were destroyed, the better. Then President Roosevelt, in conjunction with Admiral King and General Henry Arnold of the Army Air Corps, conceived the idea of bombing Tokyo, using planes flying from an aircraft carrier. This was a grave risk; it would entail the use of two of the four operative carriers, since one would be needed to supply air cover for the attack carrier. Lacking enough fuel to reach Chiang Kai-shek's lines, one plane turned toward Vladivostok, where its crew was interned by the Russians, although they were later allowed to escape via Iran and India.
