On February 15, the electrifying news was announced on every ship: Task Force 58 was headed for Tokyo, where it would raid airbases and aircraft manufacturing plants before turning south to support an amphibious landing on Iwo Jima. No U.S. carrier task force had attempted to hit Japan since the Doolittle Raid, nearly three years earlier. Attacking the enemy’s capital would be like kicking over a hornet’s nest: hundreds of Japanese fighters would likely challenge them, and antiaircraft fire would be heavy. One young Hellcat pilot began applauding, then stopped, turned to his squadron mates,
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