It was seventy-four years ago today that the U.S. naval base at Pearl Harbor endured a surprise attack from the Imperial Japanese Navy. The attack lead to the United States’ entry into World War II. As we remember what President Franklin D. Roosevelt called “a date which will live in infamy,” we reviewed an excerpt from the book War in Pacific Skies–a retrospective on the attack of Pearl Harbor.
The war in the Pacific began from the air. Forty-five months later it ended from the air. For the first six of those forty-five months, Imperial Japan, on the offensive and believing it Japan’s divine right to dominate Asia, moved toward the east, southeast, south, and southwest. The Allies—Americans, British, Indians, Dutch, Australians, and New Zealanders—suffered one disastrous defeat after another. Like extended tentacles, Japanese aggression reached in several directions simultaneously.
Sunday, 7 December 1941, dawned peacefully on Oahu, Hawaii. With clear skies and warm temperatures, the perfect weather found civilians and U.S. military personnel beginning their day with no inkling of danger. Although a state of alert had existed, the relatively few on-duty soldiers and sailors went about normal assignments: color guards prepared to raise flags and personnel headed for breakfast or church or to grab a little more sleep. Ships and aircraft remained tethered, many closely parked for protection from threatened sabotage. Despite having broken the Japanese diplomatic code in Washington and facing the ominous possibility of war in the Pacific, Hawaiian installations were not generally expected to be an initial target.They were, as a consequence, “sitting ducks.”
Yet, before daybreak, the first naval action of the Pacific war occurred just outside Pearl Harbor. The destroyer USS Ward sank a Japanese midget sub sneaking toward the harbor. Unfortunately, action reports did not reach senior U.S.Navy officers until Japanese aircraft screamed overhead in the surprise attack.
Washington-based intelligence officers had intercepted and decoded messages from Japan to the Japanese Embassy that detailed the onset of war; but transmission of this information was slow to reach Admiral Husband E. Kimmel and Lieutenant General Walter C. Short, the navy and army commanders in Hawaii. Neither received the warning until long after the bombing ceased.
At the Japanese Embassy in Washington, slow decoding of all 14 parts of this critical message meant that bombs and bullets flew before Ambassador Nomura informed U.S. secretary of state Cordell Hull of Japan’s intent. This lapse truly made Pearl Harbor the victim of a “sneak attack.”
In the Pacific Ocean, Japan unleashed its Imperial Japanese Navy’s First Attack Force with six carriers—Akagi, Hiryu, Kaga, Shokaku, Soryu, and Zuikaku—escorted by two battleships, two heavy cruisers, one light cruiser, destroyers, submarines, and tankers. After having trained and practiced secretly, the force steamed out on 26 November under the command of Admiral Nagumo, its clandestine plan abetted by a major weather front with restricted ceilings and visibilities and its route north of normal shipping lanes. On 2 December, when 1,000 miles from Oahu, Admiral Nagumo was cleared to attack on 7 December (8 December Tokyo time).
Beginning at 0600 on 7 December, the First Attack Force launched 183 aircraft toward the Hawaiian Islands, saving 39 Zeros for carrier defense. Seeking to claim air superiority and to attack targets of opportunity, 43 Mitsubishi A6M Zero fighters and 51 Aichi D3A Val dive bombers aimed for aircraft at Wheeler and Hickam Fields and the U.S. Naval Air Station at Ford Island. Of 89 Nakajima B5N Kates targeting U.S. Pacific fleet warships in the harbor, 49 acted as level bombers with armor-piercing bombs. The remaining 40 served as torpedo bombers, releasing torpedoes specially modified for Pearl Harbor’s shallow waters.
United States radar operators first reported the approaching attackers at 0613, and when a second report was made at 0645, the enemy bore down from 135 miles north. A third radar sighting, reported at 0702, was dismissed by an inexperienced officer on duty at the Control Center at Fort Shafter, Oahu, Hawaii. He believed the aircraft were either inbound from U.S. carriers at sea or an expected flight of B-17Es inbound from the United States. He did not report the sightings further.
Aloft, Captain Mitsuo Fuchida, the mission commander, “homed” on a Honolulu commercial broadcast station that operated through the night to aid the incoming B-17s. At 0749, when he found no antiaircraft fire and no defending fighters climbing to intercept the attack force, he ordered the attack. Fuchida signaled Admiral Nagumo on the flagship Akagi the famous coded message “To- Ra,To-Ra,To-Ra,” translated “Surprise Achieved.”
The Kates bombed Battleship Row adjacent to Ford Island.They hit the battleships Arizona, West Virginia, Utah, Oklahoma, California, and Nevada and the cruisers Raleigh and Helena, inflicting heavy damage. Following the torpedo bombers, Kate-level bombers dropped armor-piercing weapons on the same ships. Four bombs exploded on the already damaged Arizona, breaking it in half, and other hits were made on the West Virginia, Tennessee, California, and Maryland. Simultaneously,Vals attacked the army and navy air bases and aircraft parked at Wheeler and Hickam Fields and the Naval Air Station at Ford Island. Zeros strafed the airfields and badly damaged an arriving squadron of SBD Dauntlesses flying in from the carrier Enterprise as well as the expected B-17s. As American sailors and soldiers struggled, first to realize what was happening, and then to mount some defense, the first wave of Japanese attackers was triumphant. Only one was shot down by anti-aircraft fire.
The second wave attacked as the first returned to the carriers. Raking the east side of Oahu, 78 Vals pursued the already damaged ships in Pearl Harbor, the dry-docked USS Pennsylvania and three additional destroyers, then hit Hickam Field and Ewa’s Marine Corps Air Station. Fifty-four Kates split into three groups: 18 attacked the U.S. Naval Air Station at Kaneohe, 27 focused on Hickam, and nine struck Ford Island’s Naval Air Station again.
This time, the island’s defenders were slightly better prepared. Antiaircraft weapons downed 14 Vals. Five army air force pilots raced to the auxiliary field at Haleiwa, jumped into Curtiss P-40s and P-36s, and downed nine enemy aircraft. Lieutenants Welch, Taylor, Brown, Rasmussen, and Sanders were decorated for their gallantry in the face of an overwhelming enemy force.
By 1000, the jubilant Japanese attackers landed on their carriers and argued for a third attack. Captain Fuchida wanted to return to Oahu to take out U.S. fuel supplies and repair facilities. The mission planner, Captain Genda, wanted to seek and destroy three U.S. carriers at sea— the Enterprise, Lexington, and Saratoga.Admiral Nagumo, believing that the objective was accomplished and fearing a U.S. counterattack, ordered a withdrawal. His decision not to launch a third attack was the first in a long series of errors made by the Japanese in the Pacific war.
Tactically, the Pearl Harbor attack was a great victory for Imperial Japan. It lost 29 aircraft, one submarine, and five midget subs. The U.S. Pacific fleet suffered the losses of 18 ships and 80 navy and marine aircraft. The USAAF tallied 77 aircraft destroyed with 128 damaged; 2,403 U.S. soldiers and sailors were killed and 1,178 wounded.
Strategically, however, it was a great loss for Japan. The “sneak attack” so infuriated the United States population that “Remember Pearl Harbor” rallied a previously isolationist nation. For the next 45 hard and costly months, that battle cry carried America forward to ultimate victory.
In the aftermath, investigations were launched into the responsibility for the success of the Japanese attack. Why was Hawaii so unprepared? The commanders in charge at the time of the disaster were relieved of their commands. A conspiracy theory that targeted President Roosevelt and his principal governmental advisers was largely dismissed as spurious. It really didn’t matter. The United States and its Allies were at war in the Pacific against a well-armed, well-trained, and committed adversary.
War in Pacific Skies
Author: Charlie Cooper
Author: Ann Cooper
Illustrator: Jack Fellows
War in Pacific Skies covers the most famous air engagements in WWII’s Pacific Theater of Operation in an exquisite and beautiful fusion of art and history. Paintings of acclaimed aviation artist Jack Fellows are supplemented by color maps, previously unpublished photographs, original artwork, and personal accounts. Climb in to the cockpit of some of America’s most heralded war birds: the P-38 that carried Richard Bong to his 40 kills and fly along with Paul Tibitts in the “Enola Gay” as it makes its final approach on Hiroshima.
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