EXT. HORNET - FLIGHT DECK - STRIPPING THE PLANES - DAY It's starting to rain but the guys don't notice at all.
They're stripping seats out of the planes, tossing out their own gear.
Greening pulls the machine guns out of the rear of the planes and puts in broomsticks painted black.
Off in the distance the Japanese patrol boat takes a hit and explodes. Rafe and Danny meet between their bombers.
DANNY:
Broomsticks instead of tail guns.
RAFE:
We'll get separated over the target, but you and I will rendezvous for the run to China. I'm on your wing.
DANNY:
And I'm on yours. Land of the free.
RAFE:
Home of the Brave.
They climb into their bombers.
EXT. HORNET - FLIGHT DECK - DAY The engines are revving. The tachs are showing redline. The crews are in their planes. Doolittle is first, just ahead of Rafe and Danny's B-25's.
The battle pennants whip, the props blur, the wheels strain against the brakes; from the cockpits the flight deck looks impossibly short...and the American flag cracks in the wind.
战旗抽打,道具模糊,车轮踩刹车;从驾驶舱里看,驾驶舱看起来短得不可思议。。。美国国旗在风中飘扬。
And now every pilot looks at Doolittle's plane... Doolittle starts the run down the flight deck...faster...the end looming. He turns the plane almost vertical, standing it on its props...and lifts away smoothly.
The sailors on deck cheer, like the Japanese did before Pearl Harbor.
Rafe, Danny, and the others take off too.
EXT. SKIMMING OVER THE WAVES - DAY The B-25's head toward Japan.
EXT. PACIFIC - THE AMERICAN TASK FORCE - DAY Admiral Halsey, on the deck of the ENTERPRISE, watches as the last plane takes off. The planes recede in the distance, racing just a few feet over the water, toward Japan.
HALSEY:
Of all the other things this mission is doing that have never been done before... I've never sent out planes that I wasn't going to see safely home. Let's get out of here.
The task force runs for home.
EXT. SKIMMING OVER THE WAVES - DAY At first the planes are together; Rafe and Danny can see each other off each other's wing, and Doolittle's plane is ahead.
The others are grouped after them. They maintain strict radio silence, and can communicate only with gestures, hand signals, or a flasher for Morse code. When Rafe speaks to the crew of his own plane, it's by pressing an intercom sender to his throat.
RAFE:
What's our ETA for Tokyo?
The bombardier/navigator is already working out the numbers at his plotting table in the center of the plane.
NAVIGATOR:
Almost exactly at 12 noon.
RED:
High n-noon. I k-kinda like that.
Rafe looks over to Danny and gives him a thumbs up.