The World War II Collection

by Lord, Walter;

  But all in all, Fuchida had good reason to be satisfied. As the first attack wave wound up its work around 8:30, he could weigh what had been done to the fleet and the airfields against his own losses: five torpedo planes … one dive-bomber … three fighters.

  Admiral Nagumo was also taking stock of the striking force, now hovering about 200 miles north of Oahu. Brief radio flashes from the planes gave a pretty good picture: 8:05 A.M., torpedoes successfully dropped … 8:10 A.M., 30 planes hit, 23 on fire … 8:16 A.M., large cruiser hit … 8:22 A.M., battleship hit …

  Once again everyone went into ecstasy. In the Akagi’s engine room Commander Tanbo’s firemen hugged each other with joy as the news filtered down. Up on deck, Seaman Iki Kuramoti shouted in glee. But tough Commander Hoichiro Tsukamoto, navigation officer of the Shokaku, lived in fear of being caught by American planes. He knew the carriers were easy targets; he didn’t know how little was left to hit them.

  Admiral Yamamoto was also serious as he waited for results in the operations room of his flagship Nagato back at Kure. The minutes ticked away on the large nautical clock that hung on the wall. Yamamoto had almost finished his second cigarette when the first word came in. As the results piled up, the rest of the room buzzed with excitement, but Yamamoto rarely changed expression. One intercepted U.S. message spoke of ships operating around the harbor. “Good!” exclaimed Rear Admiral Matome Ugaki, “that means our midget subs are getting through!” Yamamoto merely nodded. Actually he still felt the midget submarines were a mistake, that it was a waste of manpower to sacrifice men at the outset of war.

  He may have been right — certainly Ensign Sakamaki was getting nowhere. Coming in for another try at the harbor entrance, he got close enough to a patrolling destroyer to see the white uniforms of the crew. It apparently picked him up too, for several depth bombs thoroughly shook up the sub. One of them stunned Sakamaki and filled the sub with fumes and a thin white smoke. When he came to, he withdrew to check his damage. Nothing seriously wrong, so he tried again. According to Sakamaki, he made three separate attempts to get by charging, depth-bombing American destroyers before ending up briefly on the coral reef just outside the harbor entrance.

  American memories and records suggest no such spirited engagement. Between the Ward’s contact at 6:45 and the time the Helm saw the midget on the coral at 8:17, there was only one sub report — the sound contact made by the Ward at 7:03.

  If Sakamaki was confused or mistaken, it’s quite understandable. The air in the sub was vile, the batteries were leaking, the smoke getting worse. And there is certainly no question about one thing he recalls seeing. Once, as he twisted his periscope toward Pearl Harbor, he saw columns of black smoke towering toward the sky. “Look! Look!” he cried.

  Seaman Inagaki was completely overjoyed: “Just look at that smoke!”

  They clasped each other’s shoulders and solemnly pledged, “We’ll do the same!”

  CHAPTER IX

  “You Don’t Wear a Tie to War”

  THE BREESE SAW IT first. From her anchorage off Pearl City, the old destroyer-minecraft sighted a conning tower turning up the west side of Ford Island just after 8:30. The Medusa and Curtiss saw it a few minutes later, and signal flags fluttered from all three yardarms.

  The Monaghan caught the warning right away. The ready-duty destroyer had now cleared her nest and was heading down the west channel, the first ship to get going. A signalman turned to Commander Bill Burford: “Captain, the Curtiss is flying a signal that means, ‘Submarine sighted to starboard.’”

  Burford explained it was probably a mistake … such a thing could easily happen in all the confusion of gunfire and burning ships.

  “Okay, Captain — then what is that thing dead ahead of us that looks like an over-and-under shotgun?”

  The skipper squinted through the smoke and was amazed to see a small submarine moving toward them on the surface several hundred yards ahead. In its bow were two torpedo tubes, not side by side as usual, but one directly above the other. They seemed to be pointed directly at the Monaghan.

  By now everybody was firing. The Curtiss pumped a shell right through the conning tower at 8:40 — decapitating the pilot, according to her gunners; clipping off his coat button, according to Monaghan men. The Medusa was firing too, but at the crucial moment the powder hoist broke on the gun that had the best shot. The Monaghan’s own guns were blazing as she rushed at the sub, but the shot missed and hit a derrick along the shore.

  The midget missed too. It failed to get the Curtiss with one torpedo; the other whisked by the charging Monaghan and exploded on the Ford Island shore. The Monaghan rushed on, and everybody else held their fire as Burford tried to ram. He grazed the conning tower, not really a square blow, but hard enough to spin the sub against the Monaghan’s side as she surged by. Chief Torpedoman’s Mate G. S. Hardon set his depth charges for 30 feet and let them go. They went off with a terrific blast, utterly destroying the sub and knocking down nearly everybody on deck. Fireman Ed Creighton thought the ship had at least blown up its own fantail.

  But she hadn’t. Instead, the Monaghan rocketed on, now too late to make her turn into the main channel leading to sea. She drove ashore at Beckoning Point, piling into the derrick already set on fire by her guns. Fireman Creighton ran to the bow and manned a hose; others wrestled the anchor free. Burford backed off, turned, and steamed out to sea while the nearby ships rang with cheers.

  The whole harbor was on the upsurge. A trace of jauntiness — even cockiness —began to appear. Three men in a 50-foot launch hawked .30- and .50-caliber ammunition off the foot of Ford Island as if they were selling vegetables. A bomb hit a mobile “gedunk” wagon on 1010 dock, and men from the Helena dashed ashore to gather up the free pies, ice cream, and candy bars. A number of seamen sneaked away from their regular stations on the Whitney to take a turn at the machine guns — like patrons of a shooting gallery. When a gun crew on the Blue winged a plane, everyone stopped work, danced about shaking hands with one another.

  A strange exhilaration seized the men at the guns. Not knowing of war, they compared it to football. Marine Gunner Payton McDaniel on the Nevada sensed the tingle of going onto the field at game time. Ensign Martin Burns on the Phoenix felt the excitement of the scrimmage. When the Honolulu and St. Louis winged a plane, Machinist’s Mate Robert White could only compare the cheers to Navy scoring against Army. And in fact, when the Marine gunners on the Helena knocked down a plane, Captain Bob English shouted from the bridge, “The Marine team scored a touchdown!”

  In their excitement men performed astonishing feats. Woodrow Bailey, a sailor on the Tennessee, chopped a ten-inch hawser in half with one stroke. Gun Captain Alvin Gerth and two other men did the job of 15 men at one of the Pennsylvania’s five-inch guns. Kenneth Carlson ran up vertical ladders on the Selfridge with a bandoleer of .50-caliber machine-gun shells slung over each shoulder — normally he could handle just one of the 75-pound belts. A man on the Phelps adjusted a blue-hot 1.1 gun barrel by twisting it with his hands — didn’t even notice the heat.

  There were fiascoes too. When an old chief on the St. Louis cleared some Navy Yard rigging from the ship’s foremast, other crew members paused to watch with delight a Mack Sennett classic — he was chopping away the scaffold he stood on. The Argonne gunners shot down their own antenna, then almost got the Fourteenth Naval District signal tower. Next a hole appeared in the powerhouse smokestack. Seaman Don Marman says the Helena fired the shot; Marine Gunner McDaniel of the Nevada also claims the honor. Other shells — with the fuses defective or not set at all —whistled off toward downtown Honolulu.

  Little matter. At the moment all anybody cared about was keeping the guns going. The Tennessee’s five-inch guns fired so fast that paint hung from the overheated barrels in foot-long strips. On the Pennsylvania Gunner’s Mate Millard Rucoi was busy ramming shells when a man at the next five-inch gun began waving his arms, as though describing a shapely woman. Rucoi was too busy for friv
olity and there was too much noise for conversation, so he just shook his fist and went on ramming. Finally the man came over and shouted to come and look at his gun barrel — it was so hot it was wavy. He asked Rucoi whether he should keep shooting. The answer was easy: “Hell, yes, keep her going.”

  Nothing was allowed to interfere. At 1010 dock, tugs towed the sinking Oglala clear of the Helena to a new berth farther astern. As the lines between the two ships were cast off, Admiral Furlong appeared on the Oglala’s bridge and wandered into the line of fire of a Helena five-incher. A very young boatswain’s mate stuck his head out of the gunport: “Pardon me, Admiral, sir! Would you mind moving from the wing of the bridge so we can shoot through there?”

  Lieutenant Commander Shigekazu Shimazaki got a real reception when he arrived with the second attack wave at 8:40. There were no torpedo planes this time —just 54 high-level bombers, 80 dive-bombers, and 36 fighters. The level bombers would concentrate on Hickam and Kaneohe, but the dive-bombers screamed down on Pearl, searching for targets that hadn’t been plastered.

  The Maryland and Helena’s newly installed 1.1 guns now swung into action and bagged three planes right away. On the Castor, Quartermaster William Miller listened with clinical interest to the new weapon. It wasn’t a bark like the three-inch guns, or an ear-blasting crack like the five-inchers — just a muffled, persistent pom-pom that was somehow very reassuring. On the West Virginia, Ensign Ed Jacoby was more surprised than reassured; these guns had been a constant headache in practice —they were always breaking down — but this morning they worked like a charm.

  A dive-bomber crashed near Ford Island, just off the dock normally used by the Tangier … another into the main channel near the Nevada … another off Pearl City, not far from the destroyer-minecraft Montgomery. Chief Machinist’s Mate Harry Haws sent Seaman D. F. Calkins in the destroyer’s whaleboat to investigate. The pilot was sitting on the wing, but refused to be rescued. As the gig drew alongside, he pulled a pistol. He had no chance to use it — Calkins shot first.

  In their anger and excitement the men shot at anything that flew. This had already been learned by the B-17s coming into Hickam. Now it was discovered by 18 planes flying into Ford Island on a routine scouting mission from the carrier Enterprise.

  The big ship had been due back at 7:30 A.M. from her trip to Wake, but heavy seas held up the refueling of her destroyers, and at 6:15 she was still some 200 miles west of Oahu. So the early-morning scouting flight took off as usual — 13 planes from Scouting Squadron 6; four from Bombing Squadron 6; one additional reconnaissance plane. They were to sweep the 180-degree sector ahead of the ship, then land at Ford Island. Ensign Cleo Dobson and the other married pilots were delighted — they couldn’t go ashore until the Enterprise docked, but they could at least call their wives.

  The planes droned off. It must have been about 8:00 A.M. when they all heard Ensign Manuel Gonzales yell over the radio, “Don’t shoot! I’m a friendly plane!” No one ever saw him again.

  Lieutenant (j.g.) F. A. Patriarca’s patrol took him north to Kaui, and as he swung back toward Oahu shortly after eight, he noticed planes orbiting northward in the distance. It looked like the Army on maneuvers. When he reached Oahu, he learned the truth and gunned his plane out to sea, calling again and again over the radio: “White 16 — Pearl Harbor under attack. Do not acknowledge.” He headed back for the Enterprise, but the carrier — now under radio silence — had changed course and disappeared. Running out of gas, Patriarca finally crash-landed in a pasture at Kauai.

  The warning was too late for some of the pilots. Japanese fighters racked up Ensigns Bud McCarthy, John Vogt, and Walter Willis; only McCarthy escaped alive. Navy antiaircraft fire took care of Ensign Edward Deacon; he crashed into the sea, but both he and his rear-seat man were saved. Then a Zero caught Lieutenant (j.g.) Clarence Dickinson’s plane. The rear-seat man was shot, but Dickinson bailed out. Landing in a dirt bank just west of Ewa Field, he stumbled to the main road. He hoped at least to catch a ride to Pearl.

  The rest of the pilots somehow squeaked into Ewa or Ford Island. Lieutenant Earl Gallaher arrived over Pearl about 8:35, decided it was hopeless and made for Ewa instead. Ensign Dobson happened along and decided that was a good idea too. They touched down, and a Marine ran up shouting, “For God’s sake, get into the air or they’ll strafe you too!” Taking off again, they circled about for a few minutes, finally headed into Ford Island when it looked like a lull.

  As Dobson dropped his wheels to land, every gun in the Navy seemed to open up on him. Tracers flew by. A pom-pom shell burst under his right wing, throwing the plane on its side. He dropped his seat down … hid behind the engine … and dived for the runway. At 50 knots extra speed, he shuddered to think that his tires might be shot. But he made it all right, scooted the whole length of the runway, ground-looped to a stop just short of a ditch.

  There was nothing dazed or stunned about Ford Island now. Some of the men were dragging damaged planes clear of the burning hangars. Others were salvaging the guns and setting up pillboxes. One ordnanceman had to improvise his mount out of some sewer pipe. There still weren’t enough guns to go around, and Chief Storekeeper Bonett — a quiet, unassuming man who was supposed to know nothing about weapons — was busy assembling .30-caliber machine guns in the paint storage building.

  Others rallied around the oil-soaked men who struggled ashore from Battleship Row. Many of them headed for a spot near the gas dock, where the beach shelved off gradually. Chief Albert Molter dragged in a tall ensign, still wearing binoculars, who had passed out just short of the beach. As he tugged away, he saw another man swimming in, using only one arm. Molter thought he must be using a cross-chest carry on someone else, and helpfully called out that the water was shallow. The man murmured his thanks and stumbled to his feet — he was carrying a large canned ham.

  The wounded were quickly taken in tow — some to the tennis courts, which had been turned into a receiving station; others to the mess hall, where they lay on tables yet to be cleared of breakfast. Seaman Thomas Malmin, who drove the bus that ran around the island, took the worst hit to the dispensary. Once he picked up an ensign —no apparent wounds but in a state of complete shock. He couldn’t speak, couldn’t hear, fought desperately to stay in the bus when it reached the building. Another time he gave four colored men a lift. They were all badly hurt but wouldn’t let anybody touch them or aid them in any way. They kept together in the bus and helped each other out at the end — still going it alone.

  The dispensary was quickly swamped, and the men piled up in the patio —sprawling, sopping bundles that looked completely out of place on the bright, clean tiles. A young girl, perhaps 14, went around trying to get their names, but she just couldn’t bear to look.

  The service families opened their larders and wardrobes for the men who weren’t wounded. An officer walked about in seaman’s jumpers; a sailor with him wore a T-shirt, swallow-tailed coat, and full-dress “fore and aft” admiral’s hat. Like the other good Samaritans, Mrs. Pat Bellinger had raided her husband’s trunk.

  Off Ford Island, a weird flotilla dodged Japanese strafers, darted in and out of the burning oil, picking up the men still swimming. Boatswain’s Mate A. M. Gustchen maneuvered Admiral Leary’s barge with all the professional polish an admiral’s coxswain should have. Musician Walter Frazee, who had never steered a boat before, handled a launch from the Argonne. Chief Jansen brought his honey barge in close, fighting fires on the West Virginia. A water barge turned up to redeem a mildly tarnished past. For some time it had been the crew’s custom to give any ship more than its quota of fresh water — if the ship made it worthwhile. A suggested rate of exchange was 10,000 gallons for a big dressed turkey, sixty dozen eggs, with a few extra items to sweeten the deal. Just the day before, such a transaction was worked out with the Curtiss; in fact, the turkey was in the oven at the very moment the Japanese struck. Now, all thoughts of a Sunday feast were forgotten, as the barge rushed to help the s
wimmers.

  They were all types. When Seaman Albert Jones idled his motor for a second to spread sand for better footage, a sailor in the water screamed hysterically — he was sure he would be forgotten. Another man swam over and did his best to help. It wasn’t easy, for he had just lost his own arm.

  Ensign Maurice Featherman of the West Virginia lay exhausted on the deck of a harbor tug and didn’t care whether he lived or died. His shipmate, Ensign John Armstrong, appeared from nowhere in starched whites — looking as if he had just stepped out of the Harvard Club. Kneeling at Featherman’s side, he set about injecting his friend with the will to live: “Mo, history is being made now, and you and I are in the middle of it, and our actions might affect the outcome.”

  Few men thought in such terms, but more and more acted as if they did. Chief Radioman Thomas Reeves hung on alone in a burning passageway of the California, trying to pass ammunition by hand, until he fell unconscious and died. The ship had taken a bad hit around 8:25, and flames raged along the second deck. As Ensign Herbert Jones lay wounded in their path, he calmly explained to two friends that he was done for anyhow and they must leave him.

  On the bridge of the tanker Neosho — lying between the California and the rest of Battleship Row — Commander John Phillips prepared to move his ship from the area. As her engineers lit off the boilers and the blowers cut in, Aviation Machinist William Powers jumped with fright — that rising whine sounded just like bombs in the movies. By 8:35, some of the Neosho’s crew had joined air station personnel in the job of chopping the lines. Slowly she cleared the dock and backed up Battleship Row to the fuel depot on the other side of the channel.