ANY WW2 Historians here??

64DartGTinAZ said

Not quite true - the Doolittle Raid bombed Japan with B-25s before the B-29s were there.
But that was for morale purposes (our side) and demoralizing purposes (their side), and a one-way, one-off mission. Not sure how those air crews managed to fit their huge brass pairs in those tiny bomber seats...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doolittle_Raid

Two of the 80 Raiders are still alive today.

Click to expand...

I know very well about the Doolittle raid. But that was not practical on a continuing basis. That took MONTHS to train and plan, and even then resulted in some deaths to the crews. It was more a morale boost than anything else, and did quite minimal damage

No I was referring more to continuing raids. The problem was we simply didn't have land bases in range of the Island, until the appearance of the '29 and the taking of some Pacific Islands, notably Tinian