The Japanese did not appreciate the role China had in helping downed American fliers:

"Enraged Imperial leaders wreaked terrible vengeance upon East China. In May, more than six hundred air raids on towns and villages initiated the retribution. That summer, 100,000 Japanese troops shot, bayoneted, raped, drowned, burned alive and beheaded an estimated 200,000 Chinese civilians and killed up to 50,000 soldiers. As a warning against helping American fliers in the future and to prevent a repetition of the Raid, the Japanese razed to the ground villages through which the airmen had passed."

Law of unintended consequences for sure. For negligible damaage, a boost to American morale, and the shattering of Japanese invinciblity the cost was indeed very high. Such is war.

That was sobering Shredder.

And now, we're friends to the Japanese and fear China.

The book, "The First Heroes" is excellent. Little known Doolittle was so despondent after his plane crashed he was contemplating suicide for a few weeks. They thought the raid was a complete failure.

Ever wonder why the planes had to ditch and crash, leave it to the State Department to frack it up, they had beacons, runways, lights, and reception parties all ready, but forgot to figure in the international date line. Typical even today for that department......

In the series I watched, they had a still photograph (didn't explain how that came about) of Doolittle sitting on his ditched plane's
wing. They mentioned that he was wondering about his Court Martial for the "failed" mission.

We also fought a war against the British twice and now the US and UK have a "Special Relationship" with each other.

Such is the ever changing nature of global politics.