The World War II Collection

by Lord, Walter;

  Meanwhile AP Correspondent Eugene Burns tipped off the police that the consulate might be worth checking. Robert Shivers, the local FBI man, was urging the same thing, having failed to interest the Army or Navy in the matter. It was around eleven o’clock by the time Lieutenant Yoshio Hasegawa — the ranking officer of Japanese ancestry — got under way. He arrived with two carloads of men, to find Consul General Kita lounging around the backyard in slacks, with Reporter Nakatsuka still trying to get his story.

  Hasegawa and Kita entered the consulate, and other police trailed along. Smoke was coming from behind a door, and somebody asked if there was a fire. “No,” Kita replied vaguely, “there is just something in there.”

  The police opened the door and found two men burning papers in a washtub on the floor. They stamped out the fire and managed to salvage one brown Manila envelope full of documents. The tour continued, and behind another door they found three or four men getting ready to burn five burlap bags of torn papers.

  Hasegawa posted guards around the place, confined the staff to one room, arranged for the files to be turned over to the FBI and the Navy. He also asked Kita and the other Japanese the same question that Reporter Nakatsuka had found so fruitless: did they know there was a Japanese attack on? No, they said solemnly, they didn’t know.

  By now there was time for some of the formalities of war. At 11:15, 72-year-old Governor Joseph E. Poindexter read his Proclamation of Emergency over KGU. His voice trembled badly, but perhaps with good reason. One antiaircraft shell had already exploded in his driveway; another pursued him to his office, bursting in a corner of the Iolani Palace grounds. As the governor wound up his address, a phone call came through from the Army — get off the air; another attack was expected. The Governor’s aides complied with startling vigor — seizing him the instant he finished, rushing him down the stairs, into his car and away. The bewildered old man thought he must have done something very wrong on the broadcast and was under arrest.

  In line with the Army’s order, both KGU and KGMB went off the air at 11:42. This was done, of course, to prevent enemy planes from beaming in on either station —undoubtedly a sound precaution, considering how useful Commander Fuchida had found the local radio. But the silence only added to the misery of the service wives, huddled in their homes, lonely and afraid, longing for any news. Most of them kept their radios on — listening for the occasional orders that still came over the regular stations, or to the harrowing Fifth Column rumors that poured out over the police radio.

  Many of the wives were more than ready when formal evacuation of the Hickam and Pearl Harbor areas began at noon. The plan had been worked out long in advance — buses and car pools would take everyone to the University of Hawaii, the various public schools, the YWCA; from there the evacuees would eventually move in with families in safe areas who had volunteered to take them. Now the plan was under way — loudspeaker cars rolled up and down the post streets, bellowing out instructions to get ready.

  At Hickam, Mrs. Arthur Fahrner struggled to load her five children into the family car. But as fast as she packed them in, they would squirm out and run back to the house for some favorite toy. Finally she was ready, but just as she started off, ten-year-old Dan came running out — nearly left behind when he made a last trip back for his swimming medal.

  At Schofield, Major Virgil Miller’s family faced a different problem. A Chinese GI had been sent to their house to tell them where to go, and the Millers weren’t taking any chances. Fearing he was a Japanese soldier in American uniform, they made him shout his instructions through the locked front door.

  Some didn’t wait for formal evacuation. When the planes strafing Pearl City discouraged 11-year-old Don Morton from searching for his brother Jerry, their mother lost no time. She just scooped Don up in the family car and set off for the landing where the boys had been fishing. There was no traffic, but she kept honking the horn anyhow. It finally stuck, adding to the general din. Near the landing, Jerry emerged from the algarroba bushes and climbed aboard — a Marine corporal had pushed him to safety just before getting hit himself.

  The boys’ mother, Mrs. Thomas Croft, now turned the car around and headed for Honolulu. Huge explosions mushroomed up on their right. Thoroughly frightened, they stopped the car and ran into a cane field. There they sat for the next two hours … hands over their ears, heads between their knees. Whenever a plane flew by, Mrs. Croft would ask one of the boys to peek up and see if it was American. It never was.

  Everyone had a different idea of safety. Mrs. Gerald Jacobs, another Pearl City Navy wife, stopped her car and stuck her head in a roadside bush — literally like an ostrich. Mrs. James Fischer stayed indoors, just as her husband told her to do. But for only so long. She suddenly put on her winter coat, ran out of Navy Housing Unit 1, and began hitchhiking to Honolulu. A family friend saw her and gently led her back to shelter. Mrs. E. M. Eaton joined a group of friends who zigzagged madly down back roads to the Mormon church.

  They took along the things they thought would come in handy. Mrs. Joseph Cote picked up a loaf of bread, a can of tuna, but no can opener. Mrs. Arthur Gardiner carried a blanket, a can of orange juice, a butcher knife, and Pinocchio. She and her two children then joined several other families in a small railroad ravine behind the junior officers’ duplex quarters. Pinocchio proved a good idea, and the mothers took turns reading. Occasionally there were interruptions — cheers when a plane crashed, or an uneasy glance at some low-flying strafer —then back to the book again. As they read, they all did their best to keep a calm voice.

  Once some Hawaiian-Japanese cane-field workers came running down the railroad track toward the little group. Everyone was sure the local Japanese had captured the island and this was the end. Mrs. Gardiner grabbed her butcher knife, ready to fight for her children’s lives. But the field hands veered off and bid in the cane, equally terrified that they were going to be massacred by an aroused white population.

  The local Japanese had heard some rumors too. Early in the day the story spread that the Army planned to kill them all. Later this was modified — the Army would kill only the men, leave the women to starve.

  There had already been some close calls. Five Japanese civilians had an especially narrow escape walking down a peaceful country road far from the fighting. They were spotted by Seaman George Cichon and several shipmates, who were bringing a truckload of ammunition from Lualualei Depot to Pearl Harbor. The driver stopped the truck, and one of the sailors wanted to shoot them all. At first the others more or less agreed, but suddenly someone said, “We are not beasts; these people had nothing to do with the attack.” The men sheepishly got back in the truck and drove on. During the entire incident not a word was spoken by the five Japanese.

  It was in this atmosphere that a young Japanese named Tadao Fuchikami, wearing a green shirt and khaki pants, chugged up to Fort Shafter on a two-cylinder Indian Scout motorcycle at 11:45 A.M.

  Fuchikami was an RCA messenger, and this morning his day had started as usual. He punched in around 7:30, killed a little time, then picked up a batch of cables waiting for delivery. The cables had been put in pigeonholes, according to district, and Fuchikami just happened to take Kalihi, which included Fort Shafter. He thumbed through the envelopes to plan his best route — one of his first stops should be the doctor on Vineyard Street. The one for Fort Shafter would come later — there was nothing on the envelope that indicated priority; it just carried the two words “Commanding General.”

  As he started off, he was already aware of the war. The operator had said something about planes dogfighting; he could see the antiaircraft burst over Pearl; he knew it was the Japanese. But war or no war, he still felt he had his regular job to do.

  This morning it was slow going. The traffic was a nightmare. Then as he headed toward Shafter, he ran into a National Guard roadblock. They advised him to go home, told him they almost mistook him for a Japanese paratrooper. This was quite a jolt — Fuchikami hadn’t r
ealized how much his messenger’s uniform resembled what the parachutists were supposed to be wearing. From now on he felt very conspicuous.

  Next he hit a police roadblock on Middle Street. Only defense workers could get through. He rode his motorcycle on the sidewalk up to the barrier, showed the police his Shafter message, and they finally let him pass. When he got to Fort Shafter itself, he surprisingly had no trouble at all. A sentry waved him right on in. He drove straight to the message center and delivered the cable.

  The message was decoded and delivered to the adjutant at 2:58 P.M. He saw that it reached General Short right away, who in turn sent a copy to Admiral Kimmel. It was a cable from General Marshall in Washington, filed at the Army Signal Center for transmission via Western Union at 12:01 (6:31 A.M., Hawaii time) and received by Honolulu RCA at 7:33 A.M., just 22 minutes before the attack. It said that the Japanese were presenting an ultimatum at 1:00 P.M., Eastern Standard Time (7:30 A.M. in Honolulu) and helpfully explained, “Just what significance the hour set may have we do not know, but be on the alert accordingly …”

  Admiral Kimmel told the Army courier that it wasn’t of the slightest interest any more and threw it in the waste basket.

  He could have better used a message saying what the Japanese were up to now. They had disappeared completely. No one seemed to have the slightest idea where they had come from or where they had gone.

  At first Kimmel thought they probably came from the north. He had always felt there was more possibility of an attack from the north than from the south. At 9:42 A.M. he even radioed Halsey on the Enterprise that there was “some indication” of enemy forces to the northwest.

  But soon all the information ran the other way. At 9:50 A.M. CINCPAC reported two enemy carriers 30 miles southwest of Barbers Point. Already maneuvering in the area, the Minneapolis knew it wasn’t so, tried to scotch the report by radioing, “No carriers in sight.” The message came through, “Two carriers in sight.”

  At 12:58 P.M. four Japanese transports were reported to the southwest … at 1:00 P.M. an enemy ship four miles off Barbers Point. A bearing on a Japanese carrier, which had briefly broken radio silence, could be read as coming from either directly north or directly south. The interpreter figuratively tossed a coin, called it directly south.

  Recalling that two Japanese carriers had recently been detected at Kwajalein, Admiral Halsey played a hunch that fitted in nicely with the meager intelligence available — he began concentrating his search to the south and southwest.

  The ships emerging from Pearl Harbor did their best to chase down the leads. When a message arrived reporting the enemy off Barbers Point, Admiral Draemel hoisted the signal “concentrate and attack.” There weren’t many ships to “concentrate” — just the St. Louis, Detroit, Phoenix, and a dozen destroyers — but they all dashed bravely forward. They, of course, found nothing, and as they steamed on to join Halsey, they were themselves identified as the enemy by an Enterprise scouting plane. This generated more reports pointing to the southwest, some of which were relayed to Admiral Draemel. Without realizing it, his ships were at one point searching for themselves.

  The air search was having no better luck. At first the only planes available were some old unarmed amphibians based on Ford Island. They belonged to Utility Squadron One, which performed chores like carrying mail, towing targets, and photographing exercises. Nothing else could fly, so they had to be used; but it wasn’t an appealing assignment — even after rifles were provided for protection.

  “I want three volunteers — you … you … and you,” Chief G. R. Jacobs told three of the squadron’s radiomen. Aviation Radioman Harry Mead soon found himself airborne in one of the planes. They had no luck, but they did establish that the Japanese weren’t lying off Oahu. It made no difference; the rumors rolled on.

  The Army couldn’t get up any search planes in the early stages, but by mid-morning Major General Frederick Martin called Patwing 2 to put some bombers at the Navy’s disposal. That was what he was meant to do under the Army-Navy plan for “cooperation.” Nobody would give him a mission.

  But General Martin heard somewhere that two carriers were south of Barbers Point, so he sent out four light bombers at 11:27 A.M. They found nothing. Then he sent some other planes a few miles to the north. They didn’t find anything either. That afternoon he made one more try — this time at the Navy’s request. He sent six B-17s to look for a carrier that was rumored to be 65 miles north of Oahu. They too found nothing.

  On Ford Island, nine of the planes just in from the Enterprise were still undamaged, and Ensign Dobson rushed to get them in shape. Each one was loaded with a 500-pound bomb, and tank trucks stood by to gas them up. The pilots waited at the command center, swapping experiences and joyfully greeting latecomers who trickled in from forced landings all over the island. Lieutenant Dickinson arrived, having hitched one last ride — this time in a launch from the Navy Yard. He was surprised at the way men who had never been particularly close now fell on one another’s shoulders. One senior officer, who had always seemed a crotchety martinet, threw an arm around Dickinson and even produced a nickel, calling, “Somebody go and get this officer a cup of coffee …” (It was great while it lasted, but Dickinson also noted that within a couple of days relationships were back to normal.)

  By 12:10 the planes were ready, the pilots climbed in, and Lieutenant Commander Halstead Hopping led them on a flight that scouted a wide sector 200 miles to the north. The right direction, but by now just a little too late.

  As they returned to Pearl late that afternoon, the sun blazed unmercifully in Ensign Dobson’s face. He was dead tired, and it made him so very sleepy. He tried to concentrate, but his mind kept drifting off. Could it be, he wondered, that this day was just a dream … that when he got back to Ford Island, he could go home to his family after all?

  As the search dragged on, the best clues lay untouched. Major Truman Landon couldn’t interest anybody in the Japanese planes he saw flying north when he was bringing in his B-17. Lieutenant Patriarca had seen Japanese planes flying north too, but he was so concerned about alerting the Enterprise that he didn’t think of anything else. The Opana radar plot had quite a story to tell, but when the Navy asked the Army radar people whether they had any information on the Japanese flight in, nobody knew anything. And everyone forgot that radar not only can track planes in but also track them out. Opana carefully plotted the planes returning to the north — and the information center was manned by now —but in the excitement no one did anything with this data.

  It made no difference to Commander Fuchida. The Japanese leader didn’t even try to cover his tracks on the flight back to the carriers. There just wasn’t enough gas for deception. As fast as the bombers finished their work, they rendezvoused with the fighters 20 miles northwest of Kaena Point, then flew back in groups. The fighters had no homing device and depended on the larger planes to guide them to the carriers.

  Fuchida himself hung around a little while. He wanted to snap a few pictures, drop by all the bases, and get some idea of what was accomplished. The smoke interfered a good deal, but he felt sure four battleships were sunk and three others badly damaged. It was harder to tell about the airfields, but there were no planes up, so perhaps that was his answer.

  As he headed back alone around eleven o’clock, a fighter streaked toward him, banking from side to side. A moment of tension — then he saw the rising sun emblem. One of the Zuikaku’s fighters had been left behind. It occurred to Fuchida that there might be others too, so he went back to the rendezvous point for one last check. There he found a second fighter aimlessly circling about; it fell in behind, and the three planes wheeled off together toward the northwest — last of the visitors to depart.

  At his end, Admiral Kusaka did his best to help. He moved the carriers to within 190 miles of Pearl Harbor. He wasn’t meant to go closer than 200 miles, but he knew that even an extra five or ten miles might make a big difference to a plane short of gas or cri
ppled by enemy gunfire. He wanted to give the fliers every possible break.

  Now everything had been done, and Admiral Kusaka stood on the bridge of the Akagi anxiously scanning the southern horizon. It was just after 10:00 A.M. when he saw the first faint black dots — some flying in groups, some in pairs, some alone. On the Shokaku, the first plane Lieutenant Ebina saw was a single fighter skimming the sea like a swallow, as it headed for the carrier. It barely made the ship.

  Gas was low … nerves were frayed … time was short. In the rush, normal landing procedures were scrapped. As fast as the planes came in, they were simply dragged aside to allow enough room for another to land. Yet there were few serious mishaps. As one fighter landed on the Shokaku, the carrier took a sudden dip and the plane toppled over. The pilot crawled out without a scratch. Lieutenant Yano ran out of gas and had to ditch beside the carrier — he and his crew were hauled aboard, none the worse for their swim.

  Some familiar faces were missing. Twenty-seven-year-old Ippei Goto, who this morning had donned his ensign’s uniform for the first time, failed to get back to the Kaga. Baseball-loving Lieutenant Fusata Iida didn’t reach the Soryu. Artistic Lieutenant Mimori Suzuki never made the Akagi — he was the pilot who crashed into the Curtiss. In all, 29 planes with 55 men were lost.

  But 324 planes came safely home, while the deck crews waved their forage caps. The men swarmed around the pilots as they climbed from their cockpits. Congratulations poured in from all sides. As Lieutenant Hashimoto wearily made his way to his quarters on the Hiryu, everyone seemed to be asking what was it like … what did he do … what did he see.