Airfield Shangri-La

From Wikipedia on the naming of the USS Shangri-la, an attack carrier of WWII vintage.

The naming of the ship was a radical departure from the general practice of the time, which was to name aircraft carriers after battles or previous US Navy ships. After the Doolittle Raid, launched from the aircraft carrier Hornet, President Roosevelt answered a reporter's question by saying that the raid had been launched from "Shangri-La", the fictional faraway land of the James Hilton novel Lost Horizon.

The Doolittle Raid entailed the launching of sixteen B-25B bombers from the USS Hornet some seven hundred miles Japan, only four months after the Pearl Harbor attack. Launching bombers from aircraft carriers had never been attempted before. Roosevelt's response was a nod towards disinformation.

The military results of the raid were a tactical pinprick but for both the Japanese and Americans it was highly significant.

For the Japanese public it was evidence that, despite all the military claims, the Japanese home islands were going to be part of the battle. For the American public it was a vivid signal that the seemingly uninterrupted string of Japanese successes would have an end. The Battle of Midway the following month, May, 1942 dealt a material blow to the Japanese carrier force. The Japanese were on the defensive for the rest of the war.