by James Johns
Interestingly, just before the first attack started, the destroyer USS Monagham (DD-354) had been ordered out of the harbor to assist the Ward. En route to the entrance, she identified one of the Japanese midget subs that had successfully gotten into the harbor, where she rammed and sank it. This was the only midget sub proven to have actually made it into the harbor.
The author viewing some of the strafing at the two-thousand-man barracks, which is now the Pacific Air Force Headquarters building at Hickam Air Force Base.
The first attack wave had inflicted such extensive damage that the second wave just finished destroying anything that the first one didn’t. At the lead of the battleships, the California had taken three torpedoes and a number of bomb hits. To make things worse, its watertight hatches were all open for inspection, which helped to ensure its sinking. She was about to capsize when a young lieutenant saved the day by ordering counterflooding. But because of the torpedo hits, she sank in three days anyway.
Behind the California was the Oklahoma, which took nine torpedoes. She started to list to port, and within thirty minutes rolled over. Inboard, the Maryland took bomb strikes, but survived. Behind outboard was the West Virginia, which took nine torpedoes. Also struck with many bomb hits, it just sank in place, pinning the Tennessee. Eventually, sixty-seven bodies were found on the West Virginia, along with a calendar indicating that some of the crew had survived until December 23.22 Sixteen days on trapped air and canned food.
The Tennessee took bomb hits, but she too would survive. The repair ship Vestal had saved the Arizona from the torpedoes. But with five thousand cans of powder and thousands of rounds of ammunition in her hold,23 the Arizona sank from one well-placed bomb hit among others, taking 1,177 men down with her, the greatest loss of all the ships.24 The Vestal, too, settled to the bottom.
To the rear of Battleship Row was the Nevada. Although her captain was ashore, she got underway. But recognizing that if she sunk she would block the harbor entrance, her temporary captain opted to beach her at Hospital Point, after which she took one torpedo and five bomb hits. At 1010 Dock, south of Battleship Row, the light cruiser USS Helena (CL-50) took one torpedo that actually passed under the outboard ship, the mine layer USS Oglala (CM-4). While the Helena did not actually sink, the Oglala blew apart from the concussion. The other cruisers were relatively secure from torpedo attacks, being moored in concrete slips.
The battleship Pennsylvania, which was in dry dock, took only one bomb hit. But the two destroyers ahead of her in the same dry dock, the USS Cassin (DD-372) and the USS Downes (DD-375), both took bomb hits and were severely damaged. Most of the other destroyers were anchored in groups out in the middle of East Loch, the largest water area in Pearl Harbor, except for the USS Shaw (DD-373). Located in a floating dock west of the Pennsylvania, the Shaw took three bomb hits, one of which, similar to the Arizona, hit the forward magazine and destroyed the ship from the bridge forward.
As the ships exploded, men were blown into the water, which was covered with thick black oil escaping the ships’ tanks. Those not catapulted into the water had to jump into the massive oil slick, much of which ignited into a sea of flames. And through this, sailors had to try to swim ashore to Ford Island. As men emerged from the water in every state of dress, their entire bodies were black except for the whites of their eyes.
Admiral Bellinger’s yard at his quarters near Battleship Row was a lawn filled with wounded and dying. There were eyewitness accounts of men emerging from the burning water, climbing up the small bank to the grass, and just lying down and dying. On everyone’s minds, both military and civilian, was the question: do they try to take care of themselves, or do they prepare for the next round from the Japanese?
The new Bachelor Officers’ Quarters, just completed on Ford Island, today’s Navy Lodge, became a combination of supply depot, hospital, and morgue. And for days after the attack, boats would continue to patrol the harbor, just looking for more bodies.
In the coming days and weeks, families all around America would receive the dreaded telegram listing their family members as missing in action or confirmed dead. The telegrams would be followed by Purple Heart citations, and that was it. As for military security, they were very brief. Here today, gone tomorrow.
On the airfields, aircraft losses were not restricted to just those planes sitting on the ground, and the heroic attempts by some of the American pilots were dauntless.
The first two confirmed takeoffs of American pilots to get into the air were Second Lieutenants George Welch and Kenneth Taylor, both of the Forty-Seventh Pursuit Squadron, who sped by automobile from Wheeler Field north to the auxiliary strip at Haleiwa. Ground crews had their P-40s armed, gassed, and ready to go by about 8:30. Being directed south toward the marine base at Ewa, each of the pilots claimed two victories.
Both Welch and Taylor returned to Wheeler Field to gas up and re-arm. Welch was in the air first, and as Taylor was about to start down the runway, the field experienced another Japanese attack. During takeoff, Taylor came under attack, but Welch, already in the air, saw what was happening and came to the rescue, claiming his third victory. Welch then headed back to Ewa, where he claimed his fourth.
Two of the fighters were lost at Bellows when Second Lieutenants George Whiteman and Samuel Bishop attempted takeoffs. Whiteman was killed just as he got airborne at the end of the runway. From Sedalia, Missouri, Whiteman would become the first American aviator killed in World War II, for which he would be posthumously awarded the Silver Star. In 1955, with the reactivation of Sedalia Air Force Base in Missouri, it was renamed Whiteman Air Force Base. Bishop actually got into the air but was jumped by a number of Zeroes and crashed into the ocean, where his aircraft remains today, several hundred feet offshore. Though he was wounded, Bishop managed to swim ashore.
Amidst all the chaos and strafing at Wheeler Field, Second Lieutenant Phil Rasmussen, who had been on his way to the bathroom, climbed into a Curtiss P-36 and took off, still clad in his pajamas. Over Kaneohe Bay, where all the action was, he was charging his guns, which started firing prematurely. Unbelievably, while he was trying to get things under control, a Japanese Val passed right in front of him and exploded.
Rasmussen casually told this author that both his wings were raked with machine gun and cannon fire. His tail wheel was shot off, severing his rudder cables, and with his canopy blown off, he returned to Wheeler, where he started receiving ground fire from Schofield. With no directional control, he made what must have been a spectacular landing. And with over five hundred holes in his aircraft, it was junked. He has since been referred to as the “Pajama Pilot.”
Second Lieutenant Gordon Sterling of the Forty-Sixth Pursuit Squadron was on the flight line looking for an aircraft so he could get into the fight. He spotted a P-36 that another pilot had temporarily abandoned to run for a parachute. Sterling jumped in and handed his wristwatch to a mechanic, hollering above the engine noise, “See that my mother gets this. I won’t be coming back.”25 Then, over Kaneohe Bay, another pilot witnessed a Zero diving down in flames with Sterling, in flames, following it, with another Zero in flames following Sterling. All three crashed into the bay.
First Lieutenant Lewis Sanders, of the Forty-Sixth Pursuit Squadron, led a flight of four P-36s off Wheeler in the middle of the fight. Heading east toward Bellows, he spotted Japanese air activity just north of Kaneohe, from where he led the four into the fight, shooting down one enemy aircraft.
Charles Lindbergh in a Curtiss P-36 at Camp Ripley in Minnesota, 1939.
Second Lieutenant Harry Brown of the Forty-Seventh Pursuit Squadron got into the air from Wheeler and headed north toward Kaena Point, from where the Japanese were making their organized withdrawal. It was over the point where future air ace Lieutenant Brown shot down a Kate.
Lieutenant John Dains of the Forty-Sixth Pursuit Squadron flew two missions that morning in a P-40. After running out of ammunition the second time, he switched to a P-36, but by now, the Japan
ese aircraft had departed. So he returned to Wheeler. While in pattern to land, he was shot down by friendly fire from Schofield Barracks, which adjoined Wheeler, and he crashed onto the golf course.
Of the 145 aircraft on the field at Wheeler alone, forty-two were destroyed, and another fifty-six were put out of action.
To the surprise of the Japanese airmen, the ships’ crews responded with their antiaircraft guns, amazingly within the first five minutes of the attack. Destroyer crews did the same, and for all practical purposes, the destroyers remained relatively untouched. At the army bases, the few three-inch antiaircraft weapons were quick to return fire, followed by a hail of bullets from weapons all the way down to machine guns, rifles, and pistols.
Dependents load onto U.S. Army transport U.S. Grant after it delivers troops (1942). The ship departed Manila as quickly as possible.
By 9:30, the last planes of the second wave had disappeared. Commander Fuchida, who had been assessing damage and observing the second wave, waited until the second attack was completed and then returned to the aircraft carriers. To the Americans’ credit, the Japanese had lost five Kate torpedo bombers, fifteen Val dive bombers, and nine Zero fighters,26 plus all five midget submarines and one full-size sub still unreported today. And although they made it back to their carriers, another sixty-one Japanese aircraft suffered such severe damage that they were total write-offs.27
In addition to the attack, there had been another close brush with disaster involving the Enterprise, still two hundred miles west of Pearl Harbor on the return trip from Wake. Foul weather had delayed refueling at sea, which had saved the day because the carrier had originally been scheduled to return to Pearl Harbor at 7:30 on December 7. At dawn, Admiral Halsey had flown off eighteen of his SBD two-man dive bombers, to patrol ahead and land at Ewa. Flying into the middle of the attack before they realized what was happening, six were shot down by the Japanese, and at least one more was shot down by American ground fire.
Amongst the military personnel all across the island, the realization started to set in that they had just departed one age and were entering a new one, an age of war, whether for six months or six years. Life would never be the same. The new beginning would start by picking up the pieces and taking stock of what was gone and what was left. Where navy losses were mainly in ship and Ford Island damage, the base repair section, along with the overhaul and assembly sections of the engine repair department at Hickam Field, were completely destroyed. Over half of the Hawaiian Air Depot property stock was destroyed, along with all test equipment. Hickam’s administrative files and 75 percent of the aero repair branch were liquidated. These areas at Hickam alone accounted for 163 killed, 43 missing, and 326 wounded.28
Of the 2,403 lives lost at Pearl Harbor, it was, as noted, the Arizona that suffered the greatest loss for any single ship, claiming 1,177 lives. Eventually, sixteen Medals of Honor would be awarded for actions at Pearl Harbor, eleven of which were awarded posthumously.29 Oddly, for all the heroism displayed and sacrifices made by the army pilots, no Medals of Honor were awarded them. All went to navy personnel.
Initially, losses released to the press were held to a minimum for reasons of security, but the public was demanding court-martials and execution of the Hawaiian commanders. One paper stated that if Kimmel and Short had any honor, they would commit suicide. Both would have welcomed court-martials because within that legal process, they could have at least presented their sides of the story. But this could compromise national security, so they were denied.
In Admiral Yamamoto’s original estimate, the destruction of the U.S. Fleet at Pearl Harbor would essentially put the Americans out of business in the Pacific for about two years. And this may have been quite possible if his pilots had concentrated on the oil storage and shipyards. Japan would continue her conquest of the western Pacific over the next two years, but even with twenty-one U.S. ships sunk or damaged at Pearl Harbor, valuable strategic targets were overlooked.
One such example was the Lualualei Naval Magazine located at the entrance of Kolekole Pass on the west side of the island. Its underground storage held thousands of rounds of ship ordnance, fourteen-inch and sixteen-inch projectiles, along with thousands of bags of powder and a variety of other ammunitions. An admitted oversight of the Japanese attack plan, this facility remained untouched.
Other examples were the fuel storage tanks, containing four to five million barrels of oil. Had they been hit, it could have possibly taken years to replace. Bombs might not have even been needed to destroy them; machine-gun strafing might have done the job.
One of the memorials at Kaneohe Naval Air Station identifying sites of December 7 action.
Fraternization with Orientals was prohibited after December 7. Presumably, this unidentified couple was photographed before that date.
With the bigger targets so tempting, the Japanese totally overlooked the submarine base and its facilities, enabling American subs to immediately wander the Pacific looking for targets. Considering the Americans’ inefficient torpedoes available during the first year or two of the war, however, saving the subs lost some of their combat potential. Even the dock and repair facilities were mostly untouched. Destruction of these would have required any repairs to be conducted all the way back on the U.S. west coast. Another potential but overlooked target was the Joint Army Navy Defense Center, then under construction at Red Hill, where petroleum was stored.
Many Pearl Harbor observers also agree that the Japanese made a huge tactical error in leaving the oil storage tanks alone. But the final, approved Japanese plan called for ship and aircraft targets only, no storage facilities included. The emperor himself had insisted that there should be no civilian casualties. Yamamoto had even suggested the occupation of Hawaii with an accompanying expeditionary force, but his suggestion was refused.
Nagumo’s aerial commander, Mitsuo Fuchida, had argued for a third strike to finish the job, but Nagumo disagreed. He believed that the second strike had accomplished the main objective of the overall mission, and he had other concerns as well. Most of the Japanese losses suffered so far had occurred during the second strike, and considering their accomplishment, he didn’t want to risk losing more of his aircraft. Not knowing where the American carriers were, he was also concerned that the Americans still had enough air power to bomb his own carriers. Running low on fuel, and unwilling to risk night landings that a third strike would have entailed, he headed back to Japan. Admiral Yamamoto had originally supported Nagumo’s decision against a third strike, although soon after, he realized the error of not taking out the dockyards, maintenance facilities, and supply depots as well, which would have hampered U.S. retaliation. Everything that was destroyed could be replaced.
Perhaps the most redeeming factor in the entire attack was that much of the American fleet was caught in port. Had Kimmel been able to rally enough of a task force to get out of port, and had he been caught at sea, this armada, of whatever size, with absolutely no air cover, would have been decimated by the Japanese. With full crews at sea, rather than the partial crews encountered in port, total American losses of 2,403 may have climbed to perhaps twenty thousand killed, drowned, or captured.
In a footnote to the attack, the Dutch ship, Jagersfontein, which had sailed from the U.S. west coast, was just about to enter the Honolulu commercial harbor five miles east of Pearl Harbor, when the shooting started. Already at war with Germany, the crew just uncovered their weapons and joined in, the Americans’ first official ally in the attack on Pearl Harbor.
By December 7, Colonel Friedman, who headed the Signal Intelligence Service, was in the middle of a nervous breakdown. When told of the successful Japanese attack at Pearl Harbor, he cried out, “But they knew, they knew, they knew.”30 His stay in the hospital was under guard so that he would not say anything to the wrong people.
In Tokyo, Ambassador Grew had learned of the president’s last-minute appeal to the emperor by listening to the radio. A station in San Francis
co described the message as an effort to maintain peace. The State Department gave a heads-up to Grew that the message was coming, which had been filed Saturday evening in Washington, or 10:00 a.m. Sunday morning in Tokyo. The arrival-time stamp on it was 11:00 that morning, but it was 10:00 Sunday night before it was handed to Grew, another significant delay with communications, this one caused by the Japanese Ministry of Communications Censorship’s imposition of delivery delays on incoming and outgoing messages. The complete message was in Grew’s hand in another hour.
Without hesitation, he called Prime Minister Tojo for an immediate audience with the emperor. Tojo insisted on reading the message first, and Grew met with him at 12:15 a.m. Monday (Tokyo time). The attack was still two hours away. After studying the message, Grew was dismissed, while Tojo would pass his request to the emperor. Pearl Harbor was in ruins by the time Grew’s phone rang at 7:30 a.m. on Monday. Given the excuse that there had been attempts to reach him for two hours, Grew was requested to appear at the foreign minister’s office at once. However, his phone hadn’t rung.
Upon arrival at the foreign ministry, he was handed what he was told was the emperor’s reply, which was nothing but a copy of the fourteen-part note. Returning to his embassy, he heard a newsboy selling extras in the street, announcing that Japan was at war. In another hour, he received his official notification of war, and within minutes, the police arrived to officially close the doors. It would be much later that morning before the emperor would receive the notification of war. He had never seen President Roosevelt’s last-minute attempt to delay the inevitable.