Excerpt:

Thatcher volunteered in February 1942 for an “extremely hazardous'' mission. No details were given. Crews trained on a remote field on the Florida Gulf Coast. Pilots practiced takeoffs from a simulated carrier deck painted on a runway. Thatcher trained as a gunner, learning how to fire a B-25's twin 50-caliber machine guns in the top turret.

Crews flew the bombers to Alameda Naval Air Station in San Francisco and watched 16 of the warplanes loaded onto the aircraft carrier USS Hornet.

“That's when we guessed where we were going,” he said. “There was nowhere else to go.”

The next morning, the carrier sailed under the Oakland Bay and Golden Gate bridges. Sixteen Army-brown bombers were lashed to the carrier's wood deck.