She also knew sharing her secret could put Ted's life at even greater risk than it already would be.

Ellen wasn't supposed to know anything about this mission except it was "dangerous and he would be out of the country for three months," but the newlyweds were a couple without secrets, even military secrets.

The Hornet cruised out of San Francisco Bay on April 1, 1942.

For the United States it was the middle of the darkest days of World War II.

The Japanese had shattered the Pacific Fleet with the Dec. 7, 1941, raid on Pearl Harbor. The Philippines were all but taken. Corregidor would fall in just over a month.

Everywhere in the Pacific the heavy boot of imperial Japan was crushing new territory, and America had yet to hit back.

But that was about to change.

Lt. Ted Lawson was a B-25 pilot. He and his plane, the "Ruptured Duck," with 15 other planes and crews just like his, were on their way to strike that first blow.

Later the Fresno native who grew up in Los Angeles shared his experiences in a book, "30 Seconds Over Tokyo," which would become a film of the same name.

In 1938, Ellen and Ted were students at Los Angeles City College. Ted was taking classes all day and working at an aircraft plant all night.

A strikingly handsome young man, Ted had caught the attention of the young beauty who would one day be his wife.

"I was in charge of the little engineering library (at the college) and he would come in and sleep. When I heard the bell I would wake him up," recalled Ellen, who now lives in the home they built in 1966 amid the orchards on the west side of Chico.

They really didn't get to know each other until he discovered Ellen baby-sitting at a home next to where his mother lived.

After a year's engagement, they married Sept. 7, 1941.

Ted's goal in life was to become an aeronautical engineer.

He joined the Army because he thought it would be the quickest way to learn about planes from a practical side.

So he was already a lieutenant in the Army on Dec. 7, 1941 when he and Ellen were sharing breakfast in a cafe on Hollywood Boulevard as the bombs began to fall on Oahu.

They were in the restaurant when the radio announced, "All men return to your bases."

Ted had been a B-25 pilot almost from the moment the two-engined, medium "Mitchell" bomber began rolling off the production lines.

"He had been flying B-25 all this time. He helped do some of the test flying."

In early 1942, Ted was given a chance to volunteer for a dangerous, profoundly secret mission.

He moved to an airbase in Florida for special training and not long after that his pregnant wife came out to join him.

In the movie "30 Seconds Over Tokyo," Spencer Tracy, as Col. Jimmy Doolittle, leader of the raid, delivered what Ellen said was a fairly realistic version of the speech the volunteers heard.

"The most important thing at this moment is secrecy. I don't want you to even tell your wives what you see down here," said Doolittle/Tracy.

Ted didn't entirely follow this order.

"I knew lots that I would never tell. We didn't have any secrets," recalled Ellen.

Besides knowing things she wasn't supposed to know, she did some things that would have had Doolittle howling had he found out.

"I was three months pregnant and he (Ted) took me on a flight, on one of his (practice) bombing missions in a B-25.

"I dressed up like a fellow. We flew out over the Gulf of Mexico and dropped the bombs. I had my hair up under a cap, and I was in coveralls. I had to hide my nail polish."

When the crews loaded their planes and flew west, Ellen and two other pilots' wives moved into an ocean-side house at Myrtle Beach, S.C., close to where they had been told their husbands would be posted when the mission was over.

Then they waited.

Ellen knew her husband, and the rest of Doolittle's Raiders, were going to be on an aircraft carrier.

Ted was one of a handful of the raiders who had been briefed on the target of the mission, and knew he was going to be bombing Tokyo. That meant Ellen knew, too.

Looking back over the 60-year span since the historic raid, Ellen said she figured out on her own the planes would have to land in China.

Then-neutral Russia could not be a landing point, and while the bombers could take off from the Hornet, there was no way to land on the ship.

While China was largely occupied by Japanese forces, it was the only real option.

"I just assumed they would go to China," she said.

The plan was for the Hornet to get to about 400 miles east of Japan. The 16 bombers would be launched, make their bombing runs over Tokyo - a few went to Nagoya instead - and then keep flying west to temporary landing fields established in China beyond the Japanese lines.

The planes were then to refuel and fly to a rallying point where the crews would be collected and taken back to the states.

Everything went as planned until just before dawn on April 18; then the flotilla of ships that included the Hornet and its escorts ran into a group of small Japanese "picket boats."

The U.S. ships sank the picket boats, but not before the Japanese had time to radio a warning to their islands.

The Hornet was 600 miles from the target, but the decision was made to launch the planes immediately for fear the picket boats' message would bring Japanese warships.

Ted, his Ruptured Duck, and the 15 other planes took off, and made their bombing runs with only light resistance.

As a military issue the bombs did no significant damage, but for the American public the fact the United States had finally bloodied the enemy had tremendous morale value.

According to documents from the U.S. Navy Naval Historical Center, the raid had another unanticipated impact.

"Spurred by (Japanese) Combined Fleet commander Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto, they also resolved to eliminate the risk of any more such raids by the early destruction of America's aircraft carriers, a decision that led them to disaster at the Battle of Midway a month and a half later," said the document.

The extra 200 miles of flight meant that none of the raiders made it to the Chinese airfields.

With his fuel all but gone, Ted spotted the small island of Nantien, just off the coast of China.

He decided to attempt to land on the beach, but before the plane got into position the fuel ran out and the "duck" went into the sea.

Ellen said Ted and his copilot were both thrown from the plane and both men suffered leg injuries. Ted's left leg was severely lacerated, and the copilot suffered a similar but less severe injury to his right leg.

"Ted said if he had had a needle and thread he could have sewn himself up," recalled Ellen.

Word of the raid, excluding any mention of where the planes had come from, was broadcast around the world.

Ellen found out about the bombing while she was in Los Angeles.

Ted's mother had suffered a heart attack that ultimately would be fatal. Ellen had sold Ted's beloved 1939 Buick to get the money to fly back home to help her mother-in-law.

It would be a month before Ted and most of his fellow raiders made it out of China. Eight of the team were captured by the Japanese, and three of them were immediately executed. Another would die in captivity and only three of the captives would ever get home.

Of the 80 fliers who took part in the raid, 75 eventually got home.

During the month in China, Ted's left leg had to be amputated to save his life.

Fairly early on Ellen found out Ted was alive.

Doolittle sent Ted's mother a letter that talked about both Ted's bravery and his injury, but the doctors would not let her see the letter.

She lived until after Ted had been flown back to Walter Reed Hospital outside of Washington, D.C. Ellen said Ted talked to his mother on the phone but they never saw each other face to face. She learned of Ted's lost leg in a radio broadcast.

In the movie "30 Seconds Over Tokyo," Van Johnson, who played Ted, told everybody who would listen he didn't want Ellen to see him with one leg.

Ellen said the movie portrayal was accurate.

"Aren't all men kind of proud? He left as a whole person and well, 'I'm coming back half of me.' "

"Doolittle phoned me and he said, 'Ted is in Walter Reed. Do you want to come back?' "

"I said, 'I certainly do!' "

"Then he said, 'Ted doesn't want to see you until his leg is all prettied up.' "

"I said, 'Well, what do you think I look like - I'm eight months pregnant!!' "

The couple got together and after Ted was released from the hospital they got an apartment in Washington, D.C. Their first child, Ann, was born in Washington.

Almost immediately, Ted began saying he wanted to tell the story of the raiders.

In January of 1943, he and well-known newspaper columnist Bob Considine decided to write the book, and in four nights and two days in the Mayflower Hotel in Washington, the entire story was lined out.

They had to wait until the Hornet part of the story was made public before the book could pass wartime censors.

Through friends in the Los Angeles area, Ted also made contact with MGM producer Sam Zimbalist, and the movie was launched.

Some scenes from the movie, which was filmed in 1943, were shot over Northern California. When the flights of B-25s come over the Japanese coast in the film and cruise over the rice paddies, it's the rice fields of this area that are shown.

Also, as Van Johnson's plane flies over Japan, the Sutter Buttes can seen out the window.

Ted left the Army in 1945, before the end of the war, and from then on was in a range of business including owning and operating a machine shop and working for Reynolds Metals as a liaison between the company and the military.

"He was ambitious. He was professional. He did several different things," said Ellen.

The lost leg, which pained him the rest of his life, "never held him down," according to his wife.

Now, the walls of her home are covered with photos, posters from the movie and memorabilia from Ted and the rest of the raiders.

On one wall is a small plaque with a fragment of metal from the sunken wreckage of the Ruptured Duck that was recovered in 1990.

"I call it the Ruptured Duck Museum," said Ellen of her living room.

On a wall is a tapestry-like hanging presented to Ted by the Chinese before he was evacuated from the country in 1942.

There is also a formal note of condolences to Ellen from President George Bush expressing his regret at learning of Ted's death.

Ted died on Jan. 19, 1992, in his Chico home.

Tuesday, the 23 surviving members of Doolittle's Raiders will gather in Columbia, S.C., for a reunion.

Ellen had intended to attend the reunion but has had to cancel due to ill health. Her daughter, Ann, will be there to represent the family.

All of the survivors are in their 80s, and Ellen predicted this may be the last gathering.

However, the story of Ted, and what he and the raiders accomplished, continues to live.

Ellen said a revised edition of "30 Seconds Over Tokyo," with a forward she wrote, will be released in late April, and she hopes to hold some autograph signing in local bookstores.

She is also in the process of writing her own book from the wives' perspective, but regardless of the books, the film, the scrapbooks and notes Ellen has lovingly preserved for six decades, there is another reason the memory of Ted Lawson will linger: the love of one man and one woman.

On what Ellen calls the "family wall" in her house, there is a photo of the young B-25 pilot in his military hat and bomber jacket.

The inscription reads, "My love, you have made my day every day of my life."