Fantom Zorbin (#10521),
Thank you for welcoming me back into our fraternity !
I wouldn't have thought a "Black Buck" type operation with the Doolittle Raid Mitchells in 1942 was remotely possible. As it was, they couldn't even land back on their carrier and carried on to China, where all were written off and the crews got a mixed reception !
It was a pin-prick as far as the Japs were concerned, but it achieved its objective in boosting US Home morale. The fatal blow to Japan's Pacific ambitions came two months later, when the SBD "Dauntless" dive bombers (advt !) in twenty minutes (or less), totally destroyed the Japanese carrier group at Midway, and thereby irrevocably turned the tide of the Pacific war against Japan.
Revenge was doubly sweet, for this was the carrier group which had done the damage at Pearl Harbor. It was a victory almost as important to the US as the BoB was to Britain, and why "Midway Day" (June 6th) isn't celebrated with equal ceremony over there has always been a mystery to me.
As for your
... "However, would this in itself have been enough to sway the tenacity of the Imperial hierarchy to pursue the war come what may?...",
the certain answer was "No". The Japanese did not give in easily !
The Japanese soldier fought till he died (surrender was impossibly shameful for a fighting man), and even the B-29 heavy fire bombing of Tokyo later in the war had no effect on their resolve. It took the overwhelming horrors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki to convince Hirohito and the Imperial Staff that "the game was up" - and only then as they did not know how many more "Lightning Bombs" the US had up its sleeve (I believe the answer was "None", they'd "shot their bolt" - but it was enough).
Danny.