USS Hornet (CV-8), the seventh U.S. Navy vessel of that name, was a Yorktown-class aircraft carrier of the United States Navy. During World War II in the Pacific Theater, she launched the Doolittle Raid on Tokyo and participated in the Battle of Midway and the Buin-Faisi-Tonolai raid. In the Solomon Islands campaign, she was involved in the capture and defense of Guadalcanal and the Battle of the Santa Cruz Islands, where she was irreparably damaged by enemy torpedo and dive bombers. Faced with an approaching Japanese surface force, Hornet was abandoned and later torpedoed and sunk by approaching Japanese destroyers. Hornet was in service for a year and six days, and was the last US fleet carrier ever sunk by enemy fire. For these actions, she was awarded four service stars and a citation for the Doolittle Raid in 1942, and her Torpedo Squadron 8 received a presidential unit citation for extraordinary heroism for the Battle of Midway. Her wreck was located in late January 2019 near the Solomon Islands.

During the period before the attack on Pearl Harbor, Hornet trained out of Norfolk. A hint of a future mission occurred on February 2nd, 1942, when Hornet departed Norfolk with two Army Air Forces B-25 Mitchell medium bombers on deck. Once at sea, the planes were launched to the surprise and amazement of Hornet's crew. Her men were unaware of the meaning of this experiment, as Hornet returned to Norfolk, prepared to leave for combat, and on 4 March sailed for the West Coast via the Panama Canal.

Pictured here is a 1:1250 scale diecast replica of the US aircraft carrier Hornet as it appeared in 1940. Now in stock!

Dimensions:
Length: 8-1/2-inches
Width: 1-inch

Release Date: February 2022

Historical Account: "The Doolittle Raid" - Hornet arrived at Naval Air Station Alameda, California, on March 20th, 1942. With her own planes on the hangar deck, by midafternoon on April 1st, she loaded 16 B-25s on the flight deck. Under the command of Lieutenant Colonel James H. Doolittle, 70 United States Army Air Corps officers and 64 enlisted men reported aboard. In company of her escort, Hornet departed Alameda on April 2nd under sealed orders. That afternoon, Captain Mitscher informed his men of their mission: a bombing raid on Japan.

Eleven days later, Hornet joined the aircraft carrier Enterprise at Midway, and Task Force 16 turned toward Japan. With Enterprise providing combat air patrol cover, Hornet was to steam deep into enemy waters. Originally, the task force intended to proceed to within 400 nmi (460 mi; 740 km) of the Japanese coast, but on the morning of April 18th, a Japanese patrol boat, No. 23 Nitto Maru, sighted the American task force. Nashville sank the patrol boat. Amid concerns that the Japanese had been made aware of their presence, Doolittle and his raiders launched prematurely from 600 nmi (690 mi; 1,100 km) out, instead of the planned 400 nmi (460 mi; 740 km). Because of this decision, none of the 16 planes made it to their designated landing strips in China. After the war, Tokyo was found to have received the Nitto Maru's message in a garbled form and the Japanese ship was sunk before it could get a clear message through to the Japanese mainland.

As Hornet came about and prepared to launch the bombers, which had been readied for take-off the previous day, a gale of more than 40 kn (46 mph; 74 km/h) churned the sea with 30-foot (9.1 m) crests; heavy swells, which caused the ship to pitch violently, shipped sea and spray over the bow, wet the flight deck, and drenched the deck crews. The lead plane, commanded by Colonel Doolittle, had only 467 ft (142 m) of flight deck, while the last B-25 hung its twin rudders far out over the fantail. Doolittle, timing himself against the rise and fall of the ship's bow, lumbered down the flight deck, circled Hornet after take-off, and set course for Japan. By 09:20, all 16 were airborne, heading for the first American air strike against the Japanese home islands.