CHIEF OF NAVAL OPERATIONS SUMMARY OF WEATHER CONDITIONS RECORDED
BY THE HORNET The First Raid on Japan The most dramatic action
of the early part of the war was the combined operation which
resulted in the bombing of Tokyo, Yokohama, Kobe, and Nagoya.
Due to the fact that Army planes, designed to take off from a
5,000-foot runway, had to be flown from a carrier which had
advanced far into enemy waters, weather played an extremely
important role in the operations. From start to finish, the
weather requirement for the mission were exceedingly stringent.
Had the Japanese received information that an American task
force was on its way for an attack on their homeland, they could
have assembled an overwhelming combination of air and sea power.
Aside from the weather conditions required for the actual
launching of the aircraft, weather was relied upon to furnish
concealment from the time of departure from San Francisco harbor
to the time of closest approach to Tokyo and for the trip back
to Pearl Harbor. For conveni