Would these pilots have the knowledge to find the target via instruments only and then the ability to fly the plane to that target?
Yes, while there aren't a lot of windows on the flight deck of a jetliner as compared to, say, an F-16, what you can see
out the windows is limited only by weather conditions. If it's a clear day, you can see to the horizon easily. And since you're flying at altitudes, you can see much further than someone standing on the ground.
Not only that, but a tiny 322x258 pixel image posted on a message board doesn't even come close to representing what you can actually see when sitting in a cockpit. (This is a refrain you'll commonly find on forums discussing combat flight sims — the level and detail of visibility on a computer screen is nowhere near to what the human eye can make out in the real world in a real cockpit, hence the various "cheats" computer flight sims have to use to make up for that.)
As to the instrumentation, that's no mystery. There are only a handful of key instruments you really need to know about — the altimeter, the artificial horizon, the vertical speed indicator, the compass, and the airspeed indicator. If you know and understand those you know enough to steer an aircraft from point A to point B.
Microsoft's Flight Simulator is enough to teach you the basics of how those instruments work.
Of course, if you want to be efficient in navigating, then learning a bit about VOR and DME would be useful (and not all that difficult). And that's not even touching upon the ubiquitous GPS.
Considering that long before VOR, DME, and GPS pilots were able to navigate by nothing more than dead reckoning, being able to get an aircraft from one point to another is not some sort of task only the most expert can accomplish. It only requires a bit of research and some practice to do competently.
