A noteworthy accomplishment of the B-25 was the Gen. Jimmy Dolittle raid on Tokyo in April 18, 1942, which required that a squadron of specially equipped B-25s perform a mission which the designers could never have imagined: Take off from an aircraft carrier in the far North Pacific, carry out a daylight raid on targets in Tokyo, then, hopefully, fly into China where they were to land or ditch with minimum loss of life. The carrier unexpectedly encountered a Japanese fishing trawler which could have radioed a warning to Japan, so the launch was carried out earlier and much further from Japan than had been intended, resulting in the loss of nearly all aircraft due to fuel exhaustion following the strike. It has been speculated that in the aftermath of the huge American losses at Pearl Harbor, followed by further humiliation at the hands of the Imperial Japanese forces in the Philippines, Washington had decided that a morale-boosting attack on the Japanese homeland was worth the risk. Damage to Tokyo was light, but the raid went down in aviation history as a remarkable achievement against heavy odds. This extraordinary photo of the North American B-25 was taken by Phillip Makanna of Ghosts.com Watch for our next featured airplane or airman!