I'm trying to find the exact path that the Doolittle Raid took from its rendezvous point near Hawaii to the launch point near Japan. I would like to be able to see this path on a map so I can understand it better.
What I've found so far is incomplete information. Wikipedia says that Task Forces 16 and 18 met "in the mid-Pacific Ocean north of Hawaii." It also says that this happened "a few days later" than Apr 02, when Hornet and TF18 departed San Francisco. It only had a cite for that last part. But later it at least gives a coordinate for the launch point: 35°N 154°E , and a time, Apr 18 07:38 (though it did not say if this was local time or some other time). However, there is apparently another point in the path where "On the afternoon of 17 April, the slow oilers refueled the task force, then withdrew with the destroyers to the east while the carriers and cruisers dashed west at 20 knots." It did not give a coordinate for this nor an exact timestamp.
I found another source that said a different rendezvous point "just east of Pearl Harbor" on Apr 10. However, I find that source unreliable because it said a Japanese I-Boat unsuccessfully attacked the Task Forces while on the way to Japan, which I have never heard of before, plus it said at the end the "Task Force arrived at the planned launch point without obstruction." which is just plain wrong. The Task Force launched a few hundred miles short of the planned launch point precisely because they were obstructed by a Japanese fishing boat that radioed a warning. I could not find any citations from that website. It appears to be a personal blog.
I could not find more data on the details of the path, such as dates/times of rendezvous points. I searched a few youtube docs too, but those are notorious for being 95% worthless recreations and 5% actual data, so I did not find the answer on youtube either.
