Honoring the Past, Inspiring the Future: 75th Anniversary of the Attack on Pearl Harbor

75th Anniversary of the Attack on Pearl Harbor

HONORING THE PAST, INSPIRING THE FUTURE

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Innovative partnership brings the USS Arizona to life

Opening a window to the past An innovative partnership brings the USS Arizona to life Written by Pete Kelsey, Autodesk and Scott Pawlowski, National Park Service As we approach the 75th Anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor and the 100th anniversary of the commissioning of the USS Arizona, salt water is degrading the integrity of the Arizona’s hull, as time’s passage gradually corrodes our memories of that day. While over 1.5 million tourists a year visit the Memorial to honor those lost, and remember that “day of infamy,” the emotions stirred by its stories are beginning to have less impact as generations shift and methods of accessing and interpreting information change.

Taking advantage of new technology to open a window to the past, the USS Arizona Memorial is being preserved, and its stories of valor brought to life in a way that will inspire new generations.

This project included the first-ever integration of four reality capture technologies to acquire extremely detailed and accurate data. Terrestrial laser scanning was used to acquire position and dimension models of surfaces above the waterline.

Multibeam and side-scanning SONAR used sound waves to measure depth, size and position of objects under the water and to develop a picture of the ocean bottom. Photogrammetry was used to make detailed models of objects and artifacts of interest, including a vent on the deck, a Coca-Cola® bottle, a cooking pot, and an open hatch. Subsea LiDAR used specialized lasers to acquire detailed 3D models of the USS Arizona position and condition.

DEVELOPING THE ART OF THE POSSIBLE In 2014, the National Park Service approached Autodesk with a near impossible task: they wanted to survey and develop a comprehensive model of the USS Arizona. Approximately 900 of the Sailors and Marines killed remain inside the Arizona, prohibiting entry into the ship. The team would need to work with extreme care to gather detailed information while avoiding disturbing the site and preserving the integrity of the hull.

The team on the USS Arizona Memorial project pushed the boundaries of what was possible. They leveraged the most sophisticated tools ever used underwater to deliver a comprehensive living model–a 3D window into our past.

USS Arizona survivor Don Stratton holding a 3D print of a cooking pot artifact that is located on the deck of the Arizona

“Our collaboration highlights how the National Park Service is managing the USS Arizona for future generations to come.”

Scott Pawlowski, National Park Service

The value of the model was realized almost upon completion, when in May 2015, the USNS Mercy struck the USS Arizona Memorial dock. The team was able to use the model to identify what occurred with the ship and to rapidly respond.

The model is also used to assess risks due to environmental degradation. Approximately 500,000 gallons of heavy fuel oil remain in the ship. With the 3D model, the team was able to measure and estimate the weight of silt and bio growth on the Arizona to determine potential risks of leakage into the environment.

A valuable secondary outcome of the survey was that the data could also be used to bring details of the USS Arizona Memorial to life for visitors. Each model features intricate details including color and texture. Models like that of a cooking pot that sat on the deck near the ship’s galley for 75 years provide a tangible representation of the effects of the attack.

The project team used Autodesk® ReCap 360™ Pro software to combine and integrate the data from all four reality capture technologies, process it, and convert it into 3D point clouds and meshes. The team used Autodesk® ReMake™ software to clean up, fix, edit, optimize, and prepare the generated meshes for application use including 3D printing. Finally, the LiDAR and SONAR data were combined in Autodesk® InfraWorks® 360 software to create an intelligent 3D model that provided an incredibly accurate survey of the USS Arizona Memorial, the ship in its existing condition, and the surrounding area.

The final mesh was then used with 3D printing technology to create 1:200 3D models that could be viewed at the USS Arizona Memorial and in the Autodesk Gallery in San Francisco, California.

THE FUTURE OF MAKING THINGS

The USS Arizona Memorial project combined technology and ingenuity to make the impossible a reality. Through the use of Autodesk technology, the National Park Service has both preserved a national treasure and created a way to bring the events of December 7, 1941 to life for so many visitors. This window into our past allows future generations to experience, interact with, and view previously unseen details of the USS Arizona. By developing the “Art of the Possible” the team produced what once could only be imagined, inspiring many future generations to come.

This same technology and process can be leveraged in the future for sustainment programs in existing active platforms like ship and airframe re-fits to building assessment and maintenance management.

Visit Autodesk at http://www.autodesk.com to make your ideas a reality.

Visit the USS Arizona replica at the Autodesk Gallery at One Market, Floor 2, San Francisco CA 94105.

Autodesk, the Autodesk logo, InfraWorks 360, ReCap 360, and ReMake are registered trademarks or trademarks of Autodesk, Inc., and/or its subsidiaries and/or affiliates in the USA and/or other countries. All other brand names, product names, or trademarks belong to their respective holders. Autodesk reserves the right to alter product and services offerings, and specifications and pricing at any time without notice, and is not responsible for typographical or graphical errors that may appear in this document. © 2016 Autodesk, Inc. All rights reserved.

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FULL EVENT SCHEDULE, DEC. 1 - 11, 2016 THURSDAY, DECEMBER 1 U.S. Air Force Band of the Pacific Jazz Combo – Papana Performance | 8:45 a.m. to 10 a.m. | Pearl Harbor Visitor Center Lanai | Free, Open to the Public

Hawaii Remembers – Block Party | 5 p.m. to 9 p.m. | Home of the Brave Museum & Brewseum | Free, Open to the Public

FRIDAY, DECEMBER 2

Movie on Waikiki Beach – “Run Silent, Run Deep” | 5:30 p.m. to 10 p.m. | Waikiki Outdoor Theater | Free, Open to the Public

25th Infantry Division Band Performance | 8:45 a.m. to 10 a.m. | Pearl Harbor Visitor Center Lanai | Free, Open to the Public

Night at the Museum: VIP Reception & Virtual Reality Premiere | 7 p.m. to 9 p.m. | Venue TBA | Private Event

75th Anniversary of Pearl Harbor Symposium | 9 a.m. to 4:15 p.m. | HPU at Aloha Tower Marketplace | Ticketed Event

MONDAY, DECEMBER 5

USS Arizona Reunion Association Wreath Laying Ceremony 1:30 p.m. to 2:30 p.m. | National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific (Punchbowl) | Free, Open to the Public

U.S. Pacific Fleet Band Performance | 8:45 a.m. to 10 a.m.

Pearl Harbor Visitor Center Lanai | Free, Open to the Public Fighting Two Wars: Japanese American Veterans Tribute | 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. | Hawaii Convention Center | Ticketed Event

Movie on Waikiki Beach – “Twelve O’Clock High” | 5:30 p.m. to 10 p.m. | Waikiki Outdoor Theater | Free, Open to the Public

The Swingin’ Blue Stars Performance | 2 p.m. to 4 p.m.

Pearl Harbor Visitor Center | Free, Open to the Public

SATURDAY, DECEMBER 3

Harbor Tour for Survivors and Veterans | 3:30 p.m. to 6 p.m.

Pearl Harbor Visitor Center | Private Event

Military Band Performance | 8:45 a.m. to 10 a.m. | Pearl Harbor Visitor Center Lanai | Free, Open to the Public The Swingin’ Blue Stars Performance | 1 p.m. to 3 p.m.

Pearl Harbor Visitor Center | Free, Open to the Public Cultural Resources Year in Review | 3 p.m. to 5:30 p.m.

Pearl Harbor Visitor Center Theater | Free, Open to the Public “For Love of Country – Pass It On” Opening Gala | 6 p.m. to 10 p.m. | Pacific Aviation Museum Pearl Harbor | Ticketed Event

SUNDAY, DECEMBER 4

Movie on Waikiki Beach – “From Here to Eternity” | 5:30 p.m. to 10 p.m. | Waikiki Outdoor Theater | Free, Open to the Public

TUESDAY, DECEMBER 6 Blackened Canteen Ceremony | 7 a.m. to 8 a.m. | USS Arizona Memorial | Private Ceremony U.S. Marine Corps Forces Pacific Band Performance | 8:45 a.m. to 10 a.m. | Pearl Harbor Visitor Center Lanai | Free, Open to the Public

Royal Hawaiian Band Performance | 8:45 a.m. to 10 a.m.

Pearl Harbor Visitor Center Lanai | Free, Open to the Public

8th Annual Ewa Field Battlefield Commemoration | 9:30 a.m. to 11 a.m. | Ewa Plain Battlefield | Free, Open to the Public

Ford Island Aerological Tower Dedication | 1 p.m. to 2 p.m.

Pacific Aviation Museum Pearl Harbor | Free, Open to the Public

Freedom Bell Opening Ceremony and Bell Ringing | 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. | USS Bowfin Submarine Museum & Park | Free, Open to the Public

“Remember Pearl Harbor” Documentary Film Premiere 2 p.m. to 4:30 p.m. | Pacific Aviation Museum Pearl Harbor | Ticketed Event

Fox Sports Pearl Harbor Basketball Invitational | Broadcast time TBA | Bloch Arena | Private Event

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FULL EVENT SCHEDULE, DEC. 1 - 11, 2016 Interfaith Prayer Service | 3:30 p.m. to 4:30 p.m. | USS Arizona Memorial | Private Event USS Utah Memorial Sunset Service | 5 p.m. to 6 p.m. | USS Utah Memorial | Private Event

THURSDAY, DECEMBER 8 Freedom Bell Ringing | 7 a.m. to 5 p.m. | USS Bowfin Submarine Museum & Park | Free, Open to the Public USS Nevada Remembrance Ceremony | 10 a.m. to 11 a.m.

USS Nevada Memorial | Private Event

“December 7th Remembered” – An Evening of Honor and Tribute | 5:30 p.m. to 10 p.m. | Hilton Hawaiian Village, Coral Ballroom | Ticketed Event

Doris Miller Bust Rededication Ceremony | 1:30 p.m. to 2:30 p.m. | Doris Miller Housing | Free, Open to the Public

WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 7

Movie on Waikiki Beach – “Sands of Iwo Jima” | 5:30 p.m. to 10 p.m. | Waikiki Outdoor Theater | Free, Open to the Public

National Pearl Harbor Remembrance Day Commemoration 7:45 a.m. to 9:15 a.m. | Kilo Pier, Joint Base Pearl HarborHickam | Live Stream Available

FRIDAY, DECEMBER 9

Attack on Hickam Field Ceremony & Reception | 7:50 a.m.

Atterbury Circle, Hickam AFB | Free, Open to the Public Annual Wreath Presentation | 8 a.m. | Marine Corps Base Hawaii | Free, Open to the Public U.S. Pacific Command Reception | 10 a.m. | USS John C. Stennis | Private Event Freedom Bell Ringing | 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. | USS Bowfin Submarine Museum & Park | Free, Open to the Public 75th Anniversary Pearl Harbor Mass Band Performance Noon to 1 p.m. | Battleship Missouri Memorial | Free, Open to the Public Fox Sports Pearl Harbor Basketball Invitational | Broadcast time TBA | Bloch Arena | Private Event

Freedom Bell Ringing | 7 a.m. to 5 p.m. | USS Bowfin Submarine Museum & Park | Free, Open to the Public Movie on Waikiki Beach – “The Guardian” | 5:30 p.m. to 10 p.m. | Waikiki Outdoor Theater | Free, Open to the Public “Righteous Revenge” | 6 p.m. to 9 p.m. | Pacific Aviation Museum Pearl Harbor | Ticketed Event A Salute to Dorie Miller: The Heroic Reflection of Bravery & Service | 6 p.m. to 10 p.m. | Honolulu Country Club | Ticketed Event Signature Concert “Inspiring the Future” | 6:30 p.m. and 10 p.m. | Neil Blaisdell Arena | Ticketed Event

SATURDAY, DECEMBER 10 Freedom Bell Ringing | 7 a.m. to 5 p.m. | USS Bowfin Submarine Museum & Park | Free, Open to the Public

USS Oklahoma Memorial Ceremony | 1 p.m. to 2:30 p.m.

USS Oklahoma Memorial, Ford Island | Free, Open to the Public

Signature Concert “Inspiring the Future” | 8 p.m. | Neil Blaisdell Arena | Ticketed Event

25th Infantry Division Commemoration Ceremony | 3 p.m. to 3:30 p.m. | Fort DeRussy | Free, Open to the Public

SUNDAY, DECEMBER 11

Interment Ceremony | 4 p.m. to 5:30 p.m. | USS Arizona Memorial | Private Ceremony Pearl Harbor Memorial Parade and Public Ceremony | 4:30 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. | Kalakaua Avenue, Waikiki | Free, Open to the Public

Honolulu Marathon (Honoring the Past, Inspiring the Future) 5 a.m. | Honolulu | Ticketed Event

All events subject to change.

HONORING THE PAST,

INSPIRING THE FUTURE 75TH COMMEMORATION SUPPORTERS (AS OF OCT. 31, 2016)

Diamond Supporters - $500,000 and above Hawaii Tourism Authority American Airlines Platinum Supporters - $250,000 State of Hawaii USAA PepsiCo Budweiser Gold Supporters - $100,000 U-Haul Hilton Hawaiian Village Hawaiian Airlines Hawaii Pacific Health City and County of Honolulu United Airlines Bank of Hawaii BAE Systems Marriott Foundation/Marriott Hotels Hawaii Star Advertiser/Oahu Publications Inc. JN Chevrolet/Cycle City Hawaii/South Seas Cycles Hawaii News Now/Raycom Media iHeart Media Silver Supporters - $50,000 Enterprise HEI/Hawaiian Electric/American Savings Bank Veterans United Bob Hope Legacy The Modern Honolulu Par Hawaii Jack Roush Joseph Fleischhacker and Family Starwood/Kyo-ya

Bronze Supporters - $25,000 Alaska Airlines Aqua–Aston Booz Allen Hamilton Central Pacific Bank Huntington Ingalls Industries Hunt Companies Hyatt Regency Waikiki Beach Resort and Spa Halekulani Monsanto Hawaii Outrigger Hotels & Resorts Jelly Belly Pacific Air Cargo Patron Supporters - $5,000-$10,000 Kelly & Eisenberg Territorial Savings Bank Omidyar Foundation

CONTENTS EVENT SCHEDULE............................................................................ 3 WAR PLAN ORANGE: THE UNITED STATES' PACIFIC WAR PLAN.................................10

By Norman Friedman

PREPARATIONS FOR WAR............................................................20

By Robert F. Dorr

"THIS IS NO DRILL!".......................................................................30 THE PEARL HARBOR ATTACK

By John D. Gresham

FIGHTING BACK..............................................................................48 THE ARMY AIR FORCES AT PEARL HARBOR

By Robert F. Dorr

IT COULD HAVE BEEN WORSE.....................................................60

By John D. Gresham

RISE OF THE SUBMARINES..........................................................68

By Norman Friedman

RISING FROM THE MUD: THE PEARL HARBOR SALVAGE OPERATION..............................76

By John D. Gresham

TRAGEDY TO TRIUMPH.................................................................84 FROM PEARL HARBOR TO THE BATTLE OF MIDWAY

By John D. Gresham and Chuck Oldham

VISITING HISTORY.......................................................................102 PEARL HARBOR’S WORLD WAR II MONUMENTS, MEMORIALS, AND HISTORIC SITES

By Craig Collins

DEC. 7, 1941 LOSSES................................................................... 112

Commitment.

Courage. Honor.

FedEx pays tribute to the 75th Commemoration of Pearl Harbor and honors the women and men who continue to serve our country.

75th Anniversary of the Attack on Pearl Harbor

HONORING THE PAST, INSPIRING THE FUTURE Published by Faircount Media Group 701 North West Shore Blvd.

Tampa, FL 33609 Tel: 813.639.1900 www.faircount.com www.defensemedianetwork.com EDITORIAL Editor in Chief: Chuck Oldham Managing Editor: Ana E. Lopez Editor: Rhonda Carpenter Writers: Craig Collins, Robert F. Dorr Norman Friedman, John D. Gresham Chuck Oldham

Our friends Robert F. Dorr and John D. Gresham passed away earlier this year, before this publication went to press. Their stories, written some time ago, remain as good as any written in describing the events surrounding Dec. 7, 1941, and are republished here in their memory.

DESIGN AND PRODUCTION Art Director: Robin K. McDowall Designers: Daniel Mrgan Kenia Y. Perez-Ayala Ad Traffic Manager: Rebecca Laborde

Robert F. Dorr Sept. 11, 1939 – June 12, 2016 John D. Gresham Aug. 8, 1957 – July 2, 2016

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WAR PLAN ORANGE: THE UNITED STATES’ PACIFIC WAR PLAN

BY NORMAN FRIEDMAN

Long after the end of World War II, Fleet Admiral Chester Nimitz reportedly said that almost nothing in the Pacific War had really surprised him; he had seen it all carefully gamed out at the Naval War College at Newport, Rhode Island. The only major exception was the kamikazes, and they were a tactical, rather than a strategic, surprise. The attack on Pearl Harbor was also clearly an unpleasant surprise, but what is remarkable, looking back 75 years later, is just how closely the U.S. Navy was able to follow the basic strategy it had developed

that, although the Japanese, too, expected this war, their image of how it would be fought was, in the end, far less like what happened. That difference helped guarantee their defeat.

10

U.S. NAVAL HISTORY AND HERITAGE COMMAND

over the decades prior to war. It is also remarkable

U.S. Navy battleships maneuvering off California in 1932. The U.S. Navy knew aircraft carriers were the way of the future; it just didn’t know how close that future was to becoming reality.

11

U.S. NAVAL HISTORY AND HERITAGE COMMAND

The U.S. Navy first began to think seriously about a Pacific war in the early years of the 20th century. As the United States expanded across the Pacific, first to Hawaii and then to the Philippines, Japan expanded into Asia.

Some Americans began to wonder whether the Japanese would ultimately want to force the West, including the United States, out of the Orient, leaving them as its masters. For example, the Japanese resented American attempts to enforce an “open door” policy in China. Rising American nationalism was reflected in rather racist anti-Japanese sentiment on the West Coast, and attacks on Japanese immigrants undoubtedly fueled Japanese resentment.

By 1907, the Navy was taking the problems inherent in a war against Japan (code-named

Orange) seriously. By 1915, senior U.S. naval officers feared that the Philippines (which the United States had seized from Spain in 1898) would be the prize to ignite a Far Eastern war.

Prophetically, they concluded that even if the United States freed them at once, they would have a moral right to demand protection in the event of a Japanese attack. As it happened, in 1935 Congress ordered the islands freed in 1946, specifically to remove a potential cause of war in the Far East, and the Philippines became a largely self-governing commonwealth. That turned out to be irrelevant in 1941.

It was generally assumed that at the outset, Japan would try to seize the only major U.S. possession in the Far East, the Philippines.

There was little point in basing a fleet there,

13

USS Saratoga (CV 3), foreground, and USS Lexington (CV 2) at anchor with part of the battlefleet. Originally planned as battlecruisers, the two big sister ships tested and proved U.S. Navy carrier aviation tactics prior to World War II. Planes from Saratoga and Lexington actually “bombed” Pearl Harbor on a Sunday morning in 1932, during wargames.

since the islands could not support it. Any force they could support would quickly be overrun. A key question was how long U.S. Army forces in the Philippines could hope to hold out. Could naval assistance arrive in time to save them?

It was certainly a very long way from the U.S. West Coast, where a fleet might be based, to Japanese waters. In 1904-05 the Russians found by bitter experience (at Tsushima) that a fleet operating too far from its base suffered crippling disadvantages. In 1907, the U.S. Navy steamed its “Great White Fleet” around the world largely to demonstrate to the Japanese that it could do so, but in fact, it learned what the Russians had learned: that operations very far from home would be difficult indeed.

The basic question was how to prosecute a war. For the U.S. Army, the object would be simply to relieve the force in the Philippines and to eject any Japanese invaders. The U.S. Navy, which prevailed, thought in broader terms. The object of war would be the defeat of Japan.

14

Whether or not Japan succeeded in overrunning the Philippines completely would be of secondary importance, since upon its defeat Japan would have to disgorge whatever she had seized in the war.

It seemed most unlikely that the United States could or would raise an army massive enough actually to invade Japan. However, Japan was almost unique in lacking natural resources; the nation lived by imports, hence by shipping.

Anything that blocked its seaborne trade would starve the country. Ultimately the Japanese main fleet protected the shipping. Thus the prerequisites for blockade were to destroy that fleet (which otherwise would interfere with blockading ships) and also to seize small island bases from which the blockaders could operate.

By 1929, an additional element was added to U.S. Orange war planning: The Japanese might not capitulate even if they were blockaded, but the islands could support a strategic bombing campaign as well.

NATIONAL ARCHIVES PHOTO

U.S. Army troops in Malinta Tunnel during the siege of Corregidor, in the Philippines. Years before the war began, War Plan Orange concluded the Philippines couldn’t be held.

The basic war plan, then, was to seize sea control around Japan by seeking and winning a decisive battle against the main Japanese fleet. That decisive battle would be a means to a larger end. To fight that battle in the Western Pacific, the U.S. fleet would need an advanced base. At the very least, it would have to go to the base after the battle, to refuel and rearm. At the outbreak of war, the main U.S. fleet would probably be on the West Coast, at its San Diego base.

It would steam to Hawaii, and then farther west.

The Japanese formed a somewhat similar view of a future Pacific war, also including a decisive fleet battle. However, unlike the U.S. Navy, the Imperial Navy seems not to have looked beyond the major battle to a war-ending move. It seems to have assumed that merely destroying the main U.S. fleet would suffice to convince Americans to abandon the war.

Among other miscalculations, this one omitted U.S. industrial strength and resilience. When war actually did come, the bulk of the U.S. Navy fleet that destroyed the Imperial Navy in 1944 had not existed, or at least had not yet been commissioned, on the day of Pearl Harbor. A great deal of the prewar U.S. fleet actually had been destroyed by the Japanese – at the cost of much of their own prewar fleet, which they could not replace.

Until 1918, Orange was the lesser of two threats the U.S. Navy designed itself to face.

The greater was Black (Germany). For example, the fleet was concentrated in the Atlantic.

When World War I ended, however, it seemed that Black had been permanently vanquished.

Orange, on the other hand, was building a powerful fleet, and seemed likely to fight the United States at some point. In 1919, the fleet moved to San Diego, and various forms of the Orange war plan became the measure of proposed future building plans and also of new technology.

During World War I, Japan had fought on the Allied side. As a consequence, it had received (as League of Nations mandates) Central Pacific islands formerly owned by Germany. When American officers contemplated an Orange war, they had to face the problem of moving the fleet through the Mandates. Although the Japanese were bound by treaty not to fortify the islands, they could certainly base warships and aircraft there.

Also in the aftermath of World War I, the United States and Japan, among other countries, signed a naval arms limitation treaty at Washington in February 1922. It set the ratio of capital ships and aircraft carriers (by total tonnage) at 5:3 for the United States and Japan.

From a Japanese perspective, to win the decisive battle the ratio had to be changed. Some of that could be done simply by fielding superior weapons, such as a superb heavy torpedo (the Long Lance) or the Zero fighter. Some of that would also be done by attacking the U.S. fleet as it made its way through the Mandates.

The mandated islands had little intrinsic value, then, but as naval bases they could seriously damage the U.S. fleet. On the other hand, if the United States could seize islands as its fleet headed west, it could use the bases thus created to support the fleet and to destroy Japanese island-based forces. In that case, the best way to fight would be to make a step-by-step advance.

That, in turn, would stretch the time between a Japanese attack on the Philippines and the arrival of the fleet in the Far East. Relief of the Philippines would become nearly impossible; the Army would not be able to hold out long enough.

In 1935, the Army and Navy jointly approved a version of War Plan Orange in which this conclusion was made explicit. As Army Chief of Staff, Gen. Douglas MacArthur signed the document.

Specifically to seize the bases required for the war, the U.S. Marine Corps developed the amphibious techniques that proved so successful in World War II. One great irony of the interwar period was that the United States made little or no attempt to forge an alliance with Great Britain, the other major Western power in the Far East. For much of this period, Americans recalled the pre-1922

Various forms of the Orange war plan became the measure of proposed future building plans and also of new technology.

15

NATIONAL ARCHIVES PHOTO

Anglo-Japanese alliance, and actively feared that U.S. attacks on shipping in the Pacific might sink British ships and thus bring Britain into a war on the Japanese side. As it happened, during that same time the British feared that the Japanese planned to seize their Far Eastern empire (which was of greater intrinsic value than the Philippines) – and badly wanted the United States as a wartime ally. They never got far, because an isolationist U.S. government would not make any serious agreement with them.

Because the British were never considered a likely ally, U.S. war planners seem never to have contemplated a fleet advance through Britishowned islands in the South Pacific, avoiding the Mandates.

The war that came in 1941 can be seen as a direct collision of the Japanese and American war plans. The attack on Pearl Harbor was the Japanese attempt to fight and win a decisive battle, in this case using the new capabilities offered by carrier air power. The battle was not quite decisive, because the attack missed the U.S. aircraft carriers – at a time when carriers

were coming into their own. Many commentators later suggested that Pearl Harbor marked the death of the old “battleship navy,” which had blocked carrier aviation. In fact, the prewar U.S. Navy was generally considered quite air-minded; the senior naval advisory group, the General Board, asked not whether carriers would ever supersede the beloved battleships, but rather when that would happen. It seems fair to argue that until the late 1930s or even about 1940, carrier aircraft did not yet have quite the performance required. There was one other irony. In the 1930s, the U.S. carriers sometimes practiced surprise attacks against Pearl Harbor. The tactic was abandoned with the advent of a very long range patrol bomber, the Consolidated PBY Catalina, which it was thought could detect – and strike – the enemy’s carriers long before they reached an attacking position. As it happened, in December 1941, Pearl Harbor had too few PBYs to mount the appropriate searches, and it seems that the commanders on the spot forgot just why the surprise attack scenario had been abandoned.

17

A landing vehicle tracked, loaded with Marines, churns through the sea bound for the beaches of Tinian Island near Guam in July 1944.

War Plan Orange assumed the U.S. Navy would need to capture islands to establish bases for a step-by-step advance toward Japan.

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NATIONAL ARCHIVES PHOTO

Having failed to fight the decisive battle, the Japanese seem to have forgotten their strategy. They tried to erect a defensive barrier against American attack. As lines on a map, it must have seemed quite impressive, but lines cannot be drawn over the sea. Through early 1942, the U.S. Navy showed just how porous the Japanese barriers were, culminating in a carrier air strike against Tokyo itself. The Imperial Navy concluded that it had to draw the remnants of the U.S. Navy into a decisive battle by attacking some objective the United States could not afford to lose: Midway. At that battle, the U.S. Navy showed exactly how air-minded it had been, and the Japanese lost four irreplaceable fleet carriers.

After that, the United States largely executed the original war plan. The Philippines were lost, and forces had to be fed into the Southwest Pacific to protect remaining Allied territory, and Australia. Forces from the Southwest Pacific ultimately retook the Philippines. However, the key to defeating Japan was what had been imagined years earlier: a tight blockade by air and sea backed

by a powerful main fleet, which had defeated the main Japanese fleet, and supplemented by strategic bombing. To get the fleet to the Western Pacific, the Marines had to seize supporting bases.

The ships and airplanes were largely of wartime construction, but the thinking that led to their success had been done in the lean prewar years. That included the Marines’ innovative amphibious concepts and also the creation of a fleet train that could transform untouched atolls into advanced bases or could keep ships operating for months at sea by providing them with fuel, food, and ammunition at sea. No other World War II navy approached such capabilities.

In the end, the blockade starved Japan, and the bombing campaign burned down Japanese war-making industry. It turned out that the United States could indeed raise a large enough army to invade – at what was expected to be a horrific cost – but that was not needed. The Orange strategy invented almost entirely by U.S. naval war planners decades before war broke out won it. n

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Ships of Task Force 38 at Ulithi Atoll, December 1944. The development of a fleet train to transform Pacific atolls into advanced bases, as well as the building of a fleet of fast carriers, came during the war, but the thinking behind them had been done in the prewar years.

Aichi D3A1 Type 99 “Val� divebombers warm up on deck. The carrier Soryu, with its distinctive port-side island, is astern.

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PREPARATIONS FOR WAR

BY ROBERT F. DORR

In January 1941, Adm. Isoroku Yamamoto, commander of Japan’s Combined Fleet, used brush, ink, rice paper, and the rich flourish of calligraphy to compose a letter to Navy Minister Koshiro Oikawa, marked “to be burned without showing to anyone else.” Yamamoto was putting into writing a scheme that, until now, had circulated among Japanese officers only by word of mouth. War was inevitable, Yamamoto said. He wanted to attack Pearl Harbor. No man had better reason to know his enemy. Yamamoto had studied English at Harvard (1919-1920) and had been naval attaché in Washington (1926-28). He had traveled

U.S. NAVAL HISTORY AND HERITAGE COMMAND

the U.S. heartland. Fearful that Japan could never match America’s industrial potential, the admiral wanted to smash U.S. morale, then secure quick victory by surprising the U.S. fleet and sinking its aircraft carriers and battleships at their moorings.

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Japanese cipher code, known as “Purple.” A select few U.S. officials began reading the code intercepts, dubbed “Magic.” President Franklin D. Roosevelt and other U.S. leaders were thus well aware of Japan’s diplomatic maneuverings, although not of naval movements.

And the U.S. commander at Pearl Harbor, Adm. Husband E. Kimmel? In October 1941, Rear Adm. Richmond Kelly Turner assured the chief of naval operations, Adm. Harold “Betty” Stark, that Kimmel knew of the Magic intercepts and was reading them regularly. Turner, described by historian Gordon Prange as “a brilliant but corrosive man of enormous ego and ambition,” was wrong. U.S. officers in Hawaii, Kimmel included, did not have access to Magic.

Adm. Isoroku Yamamoto, architect of the Pearl Harbor attack.

Yamamoto was proposing a dramatic change of Japanese strategy, which until then had been focused on luring the U.S. fleet into a set-piece naval engagement in the southwest Pacific.

Yamamoto’s proposal eventually reached a relatively junior officer, Cmdr. Minoru Genda, air staff officer on the carrier Kaga, who believed an attack could succeed but saw two snags.

Genda warned that aerial torpedoes dropped into the shallow waters of Pearl Harbor (typically, 30 to 45 feet deep) would dig into the bottom before they could run their courses.

More importantly, Genda cautioned that a Pearl Harbor attack plan would certainly fail if Japan did not achieve surprise.

Genda, of course, had no clue that Americans were reading Japanese mail. In 1940, U.S. War Department cryptanalysts had cracked the

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For Japan, the key to success was the aircraft carrier. No other nation had started earlier or worked harder to develop these new capital ships. Yamamoto, Genda, and others would never have planned the Pearl Harbor attack had Japan not been a world leader in the new weapon of naval warfare.

In the 1920s and 1930s, while world naval conferences haggled over the size and shape of battleships, Japan pioneered the aircraft carrier. The Hosho, a 7,470-ton aircraft carrier built at Tsurumi, Japan, was completed in December 1922, and may have been the first ship in the world built as an aircraft carrier from the keel up. During much of the 1920s, Hosho was Japan’s only flattop and, like her U.S. Navy contemporary, the converted collier USS Langley (CV 1), was developed for carrier operational techniques and tactical doctrine.

Though superseded by far more capable ships during the later 1920s, she continued in operation well into World War II. By 1941, Japan had more and newer carriers and carrier aircraft, including the incomparable “Zero” fighter. The United States was also a leader in this new field of naval warfare, but American carriers would not be a factor at Pearl Harbor.

Japan genuinely hoped no war with the United States would be necessary, all the way into late 1941. Throughout 1940 and 1941, Japan sought a diplomatic solution that would persuade the United States to accept its dominant role in Asia, including its occupation of

U.S. NAVAL HISTORY AND HERITAGE COMMAND

Aircraft Carriers

War was inevitable, Yamamoto said. He wanted to attack Pearl Harbor. much of China. But on July 25, 1940, Roosevelt signed a proclamation ending the sale to Japan of all petroleum, petroleum products, and scrap metals. Although this was quickly watered down to become merely an embargo on aviation gas and certain metals, some in Tokyo took it as a signal that war was inevitable.

U.S. NAVAL HISTORY AND HERITAGE COMMAND

Operation Z Once Yamamoto’s bold plan for a sudden attack won approval, it became “Operation Hawaii,” also called “Operation Z,” and forged rapidly ahead under the admiral’s oversight.

In October 1941, while Stark was being misinformed about Kimmel’s access to Magic intercepts, Japanese airmen intensified training for Pearl Harbor in the beautiful, westerly city of Kagoshima. By then, wooden fairings had been developed for the Japanese torpedoes, hindering the tendency to go deep before beginning their run-in near the surface. In one mock torpedo-bombing exercise after another, Japanese air crews demonstrated that the problem of using torpedoes in shallow water had been solved.

In Washington, Japan’s Ambassador Kichisaburo Nomura continued to negotiate vigorously, reflecting his nation’s ongoing search for an outcome that would avoid war and win U.S. acquiescence to Japanese hegemony in Asia. Though military men ruled the Japanese Empire, with the emperor in some respects a symbolic leader, there is no question that top leaders, including Minister of War Gen. Hideki Tojo, wanted to avoid a fight with Americans. To bolster their negotiations for a settlement, they sent a second diplomat, Saburo Kurusu, to Washington. Nomura and Kurusu became a familiar duo, seeking appointments with Secretary of State Cordell Hull and others. They never learned that Hull was even more a figurehead than their own emperor (the

State Department was essentially being run by deputy Sumner Welles), and they never knew that Roosevelt, Hull, and Welles knew their negotiation positions in advance, thanks to the Magic intercepts.

On Oct. 23, 1941, in Kagoshima, Vice Adm. Chuichi Nagumo, who would command the carrier strike force, and Cmdr. Mitsuo Fuchida, who would command the striking force’s planes, received a briefing. Nagumo was a curious choice to assemble history’s first aircraft carrier task force – a 54-year-old man of “underlying anxiety,” in the words of one observer, “chosen solely on the basis of seniority, skilled in surface warfare but without experience in aviation. He appears to have had cursory interest in the briefing.”

Fuchida, on the other hand, was enraptured.

The briefer was Lt. Cmdr. Takeshi Naito, Japan’s

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Vice Adm. Chuichi Nagumo, commander of the Japanese First Air Fleet during the Pearl Harbor attack.

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naval attaché in Berlin, who had flown to Italy to observe the aftermath of an unprecedented British torpedo raid. The name of that battle was on everyone’s lips: Taranto.

Also of great interest to American planners, including Stark and Kimmel, the battle had taken place a year earlier, on Nov. 10, 1940, when just one British carrier, HMS Illustrious, sent a mere 21 fabric-covered, open-cockpit Fairey Swordfish biplane torpedo bombers to attack Mussolini’s battle fleet, nestled safely in its home port at Taranto, Italy. The Italian warships were protected by anti-aircraft guns and a sophisticated early-warning system that lacked radar but used powerful acoustic warning devices.

Unlike U.S. warships at Pearl Harbor, the Italian vessels also were shielded by anti-torpedo nets slung across the harbor.

The Swordfish struck in two waves an hour apart. The first, led by Lt. Cmdr. Kenneth Williamson, consisted of six torpedo-armed Swordfish, plus six carrying flares or bombs.

The Swordfish carried a crew of two that night,

a pilot and an observer, the usual gunner left behind, replaced by the observer, and a large auxiliary fuel tank in the observer’s seat. The first wave flew into bitter cold and thick clouds, flying on instruments, then after about 30 minutes in the air, reached a clear sky lit by a crescent moon. Six battleships, seven cruisers, and 28 destroyers lay at their moorings at Taranto. They boasted 600 anti-aircraft guns. Yet the first wave lost just one Swordfish, hitting two battleships and Taranto’s seaplane base.

The second wave of nine Swordfish, led by Lt. Cmdr. Ginger Hale, had an unlucky start, losing two planes to mechanical glitches. With his remaining seven Swordfish, Hale flew into Taranto through heavy anti-aircraft fire. Flarecarrying planes went in first and lit up the target. The action that followed was one-sided.

The British lost two men killed and two taken prisoner. The Italians lost 40 men, and, more importantly, lost a symbol; Taranto, the Italian navy’s main naval bastion, had been shown to be vulnerable. The British disabled three

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Japanese naval aircraft prepare to take off to attack Pearl Harbor. In the foreground is a Mitsubishi A6M2 Type 0 “Zero” fighter.

In honor of all who gave their lives on December 7, 1941, we present this page at half-mast.

U.S. NAVAL HISTORY AND HERITAGE COMMAND

battleships and four other warships, and shifted the balance of power in the Mediterranean.

When ex-naval attaché Naito gave details to air wing commander Fuchida in October 1941, Fuchida asked questions again and again; their conversation dragged into the night.

In the snow and fog of Tankan Bay in the Kurile Islands, Nagumo’s First Air Fleet (1st Koku-Kantai) sailed on the morning of Nov. 26, 1941, to follow a leisurely course along the 43-degree north parallel far from cluttered sea lanes. The unheralded departure of the First Air Fleet happened only hours before a message to Kimmel warned of impending Japanese action – but made no mention of the Hawaiian Islands. “This dispatch is to be considered a war warning,” began the message. Japan might launch “an amphibious expedition against either the Philippines, Thai or Kra Peninsula, or possibly Borneo.”

Kimmel and Army commander Lt. Gen. Walter C. Short had received numerous other cables from Washington suggesting that Japanese action might be coming soon, but they are given less credence in historical accounts because they lacked the crucial two words “war warning,” included more or less as an afterthought. It did not help that Kimmel and Short were poorly informed about U.S. codebreaking efforts. The Nov. 27 message is often given great weight because it begins with the words “war warning.” But numerous similar messages had been sent without those two crucial words. Turner, who drafted the message, later told historian Gordon Prange that he meant “war warning” to “express the strong conviction on the part of the [Navy] Department that war was surely coming.”

None suggested that Japan might strike Pearl Harbor.

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A Nakijima B5N2 Type 97 “Kate” torpedobomber takes off from the deck of the aircraft carrier Shokaku en route to attack Pearl Harbor.

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U.S. NAVAL HISTORY AND HERITAGE COMMAND

While the fleet proceeded – contrary to myth, it crossed the North Pacific without being seen or detected by anyone – messages from Tokyo to the Japanese embassy in Washington gave negotiators Nomura and Kurusu a position to take to Hull, plus a fallback position. Thanks to Magic, Hull was aware of both when the Japanese diplomats showed up.

No one in the room knew that the first aircraft carrier strike force ever assembled was proceeding toward its target, but U.S. leaders knew the Japanese were no longer prepared to accept any agreement that would also be acceptable in Washington. On Dec. 1, 1941, the First Air Fleet received the coded “go” signal from Tokyo (“Niitakayama Nobore,” or “Climb Mount Niitaka,” the Japanese name for the highest mountain on Formosa) even though negotiations between the U.S. and Japanese governments were still taking place.

The fleet refueled on Dec. 3, now drawing close to its destination. In Washington, two sets of code experts began decoding 13 parts of a 14-part message from Tokyo to Nomura, which the ambassador was to deliver to the Americans at 1:00 p.m. Washington time

(7:00 a.m. Hawaii time) on Sunday, Dec. 7. At the Japanese embassy, the task of decoding was given to an employee in whom there was impeccable trust, but whose typing skills were poor. The U.S. codebreakers of the Magic program had no such problem. It would turn out, in the end, that Nomura and Kurusu would be ushered in to see Hull one hour and 43 minutes later than they planned and 53 minutes after the attack began. Nomura and Kurusu never knew about the First Air Fleet, and only learned about the attack after their awkward meeting with Hull, who learned about it while they waited to see him. Those events came later. At 3:00 a.m. on Dec. 7, (Hawaii time, the date on the western side of the international dateline), the First Air Fleet had reached its fly-off position.

At 5:45 a.m., the first A6M2 combat air patrol lifted from carrier decks. At 6:00 a.m., Cmdr. Mitsuo Fuchida took off at the head of 183 aircraft. At 7:15 a.m., Lt. Cmdr. Shigekazu Shimazaki launched with 170 aircraft. The sun came up at 6:43 a.m., silhouetting the fighters and bombers high over the ocean as they flew toward Oahu. n

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A Nakijima B5N2 Type 97 “Kate” takes off from a Japanese aircraft carrier during the second wave of the attack on Pearl Harbor.

Sailors in a motor launch rescue a survivor from the water alongside the sunken USS West Virginia (BB 48) during or shortly after the air raid on Pearl Harbor. USS Tennessee (BB 43) is inboard of the sunken battleship.

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“THIS IS NO DRILL!” The Pearl Harbor Attack

BY JOHN D. GRESHAM

The storm of iron and explosives that broke over Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941, was one of the finest applications of air power in all of World War II. For several hours on that beautiful Sunday morning in Hawaii, Japan’s elite naval aviators pummeled the American forces on Oahu, crippling the U.S. Navy’s battleship fleet and destroying the ability of the United States to intervene against other Japanese occupation efforts in the Pacific Basin. The

PHOTOGRAPH FROM THE ARMY SIGNAL CORPS COLLECTION IN THE U.S. NATIONAL ARCHIVES

Hawaiian operation was a flawed concept from the start, however, targeting only enemy naval vessels and aircraft, missing more strategically significant targets, and setting the stage for Japan’s eventual defeat in 1945. Despite this, the attack on Pearl Harbor remains one of the most intriguing and decisive air strikes in history.

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U.S. NAVAL HISTORY AND HERITAGE COMMAND

The Japanese: Forces and Plans U.S. Navy Commodore Matthew C. Perry’s four-ship diplomatic mission to Japan in 1854 triggered the island nation’s emergence from centuries of isolation under the xenophobic Tokugawa shoguns (1603-1868). Within two generations, the Japanese transformed their preindustrial society to catch up with and even surpass the most advanced military technology of the Western powers. During that period, the Japanese developed a complex love-hate relationship with America and its society. This was symbolized by President Theodore Roosevelt’s intervention to help negotiate the Treaty of Portsmouth, (which ended the Russo-Japanese War in 1905) at the same time that racial segregation was imposed on Japanese-American immigrants in California’s schools. Nevertheless, during World War I, Japan joined the Western Allies, and was rewarded with a number of former German colonial possessions in China and Polynesia.

By the 1920s, Japanese elites began to believe that the domination of the Pacific Basin was the natural expression of their national manifest destiny. However, the emerging civility of nations following World War I put a crimp in Japan’s plans for regional dominance. In particular, the wave of naval disarmament treaties (London in 1920 and Washington in 1922), designed to reduce the chances of war, actually offended the Japanese due to the Western powers’ insistence that they accept an inferior and unequal status. Japan’s total warship tonnage was limited to three-fifths of the American or British fleets, leaving the Pacific in an uneasy stasis. During the 1930s, the West increasingly viewed Japan’s “expansion” in China as “aggression,” and a collision of vital interests became inevitable. Meanwhile, in deep secrecy, a generation of brilliant young Japanese engineers and naval officers was perfecting a well-trained naval aviation force, equipped with fast carriers, long-range aircraft, and the best torpedoes in the world.

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Gun crew of the No. 3 gun of the destroyer USS Ward. They fired the first shots of the war for the United States, sinking a midget submarine.

In August 1939, Adm. Isoroku Yamamoto became commander in chief of the Imperial Japanese Navy and began planning for war with the United States. A visionary with an eye to the growing power of naval aviation and aircraft carriers, he was a “transformation” supporter long before the term was created. This was important, since the major navies of the late 1930s were dominated by the cult of the battleship. Called the “Big Gun Club,” it was composed of senior officers who had spent their careers training and preparing for dramatic and decisive gunnery duels between armored dreadnoughts. For more than two decades, naval war colleges around the world had spent time refighting and analyzing the Battle of Jutland, all seeking to find ways to achieve decisive victory through the guns of battleships.

All of this changed on the night of Nov. 11, 1940, when 21 slow Swordfish torpedo bombers launched from the Royal Navy aircraft carrier HMS Illustrious struck the Italian naval base of Taranto. The fragile British biplanes sank three modern battleships with aerial torpedoes, damaging two cruisers as well.

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Yamamoto was determined to strike the U.S. Pacific Fleet, which had relocated in spring 1940 from its traditional bases at San Diego and Long Beach, California, to Pearl Harbor on the island of Oahu. The Japanese regarded this forward deployment as a deliberate provocation.

Yamamoto’s finely tuned instrument for the Hawaii operation was the Kido Butai (literally, “Mobile Force”), commanded by Vice Adm. Chuichi Nagumo and built around six large aircraft carriers (Akagi, Kaga, Hiryu, Soryu, Zuikaku, and Shokaku) of the “First Air Fleet.” The First Air Fleet pilots and crew trained for months to attack the American fleet at anchor in Pearl Harbor, along with the combat planes on airfields scattered around Oahu. As they trained, Japanese engineers and designers worked on producing the special weapons necessary to attack ships in a confined harbor. Specifically, this included shallow-running aerial torpedoes and heavy armor-penetrating bombs to hit the battleships and aircraft carriers they hoped to find moored alongside Ford Island in the middle of Pearl Harbor. By late November 1941, all preparations

U.S. NAVAL HISTORY AND HERITAGE COMMAND PHOTO

The view from an attacking aircraft shows Nevada, at far left, wreathed in smoke; to her right is Arizona, taking a bomb hit near her stern with Vestal outboard of her; to the right of the Arizona is the West Virginia, already gushing oil from torpedo hits, outboard of Tennessee; to the right of them is Oklahoma, beginning to capsize, and Maryland inboard, protected for the most part by Oklahoma soaking up all the torpedoes.

were complete, and the Japanese task force was ready for its journey across the Pacific.

For what the Japanese called “the Hawaiian Operation,” Kido Butai was escorted by the fast battleships Hiei and Kirishima, the heavy cruisers Chikuma and Tone, and screened by a light cruiser, nine destroyers, and three long-range submarines. Eight oil tankers accompanied the strike force on a long, indirect approach across the rough, foggy, and nearly untraveled North Pacific (mostly along the 43 degree north latitude line).

In total radio silence (“transmit” keys were removed or sealed on every radio of the force), the fleet sailed from Tankan Bay in the remote Kurile Islands on Nov. 26. Its advance was shielded from observation by a weather front that was moving about the same speed across the North Pacific. The voyage took almost two weeks, during which time other Japanese invasion and attack forces moved toward their targets. During the same period, Japanese diplomats continued to negotiate with the United States, in part to screen Kido Butai from U.S. curiosity. All the while, Takeo Yoshikawa, a secret agent at the Japanese Consulate in Honolulu, provided daily coded updates on the types and locations of the American warships in port.

To support the planned attack, 20 Japanese fleet submarines patrolled around the Hawaiian Islands to ambush any U.S. forces that might escape the aerial attack. At the same time, a “Special Naval Attack Unit” (under Capt. Hanku Sasaki) of five two-man midget submarines launched from submarine mother ships was dispatched on a direct course to Pearl Harbor.

The midget subs would attempt to enter the narrow, net-protected channel by trailing one of the minesweepers that routinely patrolled the harbor entrance.

The First Air Fleet massed a total of 474 aircraft: 137 fighters (Mitsubishi A6M2 Type 0 “Zeros”), 144 dive-bombers (Aichi D3A1 Type 99 “Vals”), and 183 torpedo planes (Nakajima B5N2 Type 97 “Kates”). The Japanese aircrews were products of an incredibly tough selection process and a rigorous training program. Originally, Yamamoto had considered launching the Pearl Harbor strike as a one-way mission from a range of 500 miles, but his staff convinced him that the sacrifice of so many irreplaceable pilots and aircraft was unnecessary to achieve surprise. Many of the

The most precious and irreplaceable American targets, the Pacific Fleet’s three aircraft carriers, were absent from Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7.

Japanese naval aviators were veterans of recent combat over China, leading a crack corps of flyers into a target they knew as well as their own home bases. One measure of their skill is that using only the simplest optical sights, the torpedo and dive-bomber pilots would achieve hit rates at Pearl Harbor that would not be equaled until laserguided munitions entered combat in the 1970s.

Three hundred and sixty-one of Japan’s best pilots were handpicked for the Pearl Harbor attack. The Val dive-bombers carried semiarmor-piercing bombs, with excellent blast and fragmentation effects. Some of the Kates would carry special armor-piercing bombs converted from 16-inch naval gun projectiles. The rest of the torpedo planes carried the superb Type 91 aerial torpedo (17 3/4-inch diameter with a 205-kilogram/452-pound warhead), modified with special wooden fins for low-level drops into shallow water.

The strike was organized in three groups, requiring precise calculation of timing, distance, speed, wind, and aircraft endurance. Timeon-target and complete synchronization were critical to help manage the air traffic over the carrier decks and maximize the effectiveness of the attacking aircraft.

Target Array: The Americans on Hawaii Despite popular notions, strategically the Japanese attack was a failure before it even began. The most precious and irreplaceable American targets, the Pacific Fleet’s three aircraft carriers, were absent from Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7. Saratoga (CV 3) was off San Diego after a refit, while Lexington (CV 2) was ferrying

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a reinforcement of Navy planes to the island base of Midway. Enterprise (CV 6), delayed by bad weather, was returning to Hawaii after delivering 12 Marine F4F-3 Wildcat fighters to the remote Wake Atoll. Nevertheless, the sprawling Pearl Harbor naval base and the entire island of Oahu was target-rich, vulnerable, and utterly unprepared.

The vulnerability was a product of divided command; the Army and Navy shared overlapping responsibilities for the defense of the islands. Unpreparedness stemmed from strategic failures of intelligence and communications, but above all failure of imagination.

Few events in American history have been documented and studied in such exhaustive

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detail; the transcript of the wartime congressional investigation alone runs to 37 massive volumes. Conspiracy theories and dark hints of cover-ups have abounded, but ultimately the men in command simply lacked the imagination to anticipate the audacity and creativity of Yamamoto’s plan. This was despite a number of staff studies and so-called “fleet problems” that indicated that such an event was not only possible but probable.

The fleet commander was Adm. Husband E. Kimmel, who graduated from the Naval Academy in 1904 and spent most of his career in battleships. In February 1941, he was promoted over 32 more senior officers to be Commander in Chief, Pacific (CINCPAC), relieving Adm. James

U.S. NAVAL HISTORY AND HERITAGE COMMAND PHOTO

Sailors rescuing shipmates from the oily waters look down Battleship Row from Ford Island. Nearest them is USS California, already listing from two torpedo hits. Beyond California is Oklahoma’s upturned hull, and inboard of her Maryland. West Virginia lists heavily to port just astern of Maryland.

Tennessee is obscured by Maryland and thick black smoke from the burning Arizona. At right the fleet oiler Neosho backs away from the area.

O. Richardson, who had vigorously opposed the fleet’s transfer from the West Coast to Hawaii.

CINCPAC had long been the Navy’s largest and most prestigious command, but already there was an expectation that the real action in the coming war would be fought in the Atlantic, against Germany. The newest ships and the first priority for scarce resources were earmarked for the undeclared war against Hitler’s U-boats.

Despite this, Hawaii was a vital way station for expediting reinforcements to the Philippines and Far East, where any Japanese attack was expected to fall first. It was also an isolated, expensive tropical backwater initially lacking the infrastructure to sustain the entire fleet and its personnel. Nevertheless, there was an impressive array of naval facilities, including radio and cable stations. Pearl Harbor was a sheltered (though crowded) harbor, with dry docks big enough for the largest battleships and aircraft carriers, oil storage tank farms, several Navy and Marine air stations for land-based aircraft and seaplanes, a submarine base, hospitals, maintenance shops, and supply warehouses. Total Navy and Marine personnel on Oahu numbered about 50,000.

On Dec. 7, 1941, the U.S. Pacific Fleet had more than 150 warships assigned. Of these, about 100 lay at anchor, or in drydock, in Pearl Harbor. All told, eight battleships, six heavy cruisers, four light cruisers, 30 destroyers, four submarines, one gunboat, nine minelayers, 14 minesweepers, and 27 auxiliaries were in harbor.

This included the old battleship Utah (AG 16), which had been disarmed and converted into a target ship under the terms of the 1930 London Naval Treaty. More than 200 “serviceable” naval aircraft were present on the island, though a high portion were trainers or observation planes of little or no combat value.

While the leaders on Oahu may have been lacking in imagination, they were not completely naive to the prospects for war in 1941. Some weeks earlier, U.S. radio monitoring sites had lost track of the First Air Fleet and its carriers, making their location a priority.

At his morning briefing on Dec. 2, Kimmel pointedly asked where the missing Japanese carriers were. His intelligence officer, Cmdr.

Edwin Layton, said, “I think they are in home waters, but I do not know for sure where they are.” The admiral replied by saying, “Do you mean to say they could be rounding Diamond

Head and you wouldn’t know it?” Layton could only reply, “I hope they would have been spotted before now.” Prophetic words indeed.

The problem was that the Navy lacked enough long-range search planes to patrol in all directions, and aircraft were only scouting westward and southwesterly, toward the nearest Japanese base in the Marshall Islands, 2,000 miles distant.

Moreover, there simply was no suspicion of a threat from due north, and technically, defense of the island and the fleet was the responsibility of the Hawaiian Department, which was an Army command.

Commanding the department was Lt. Gen. Walter Short, who was commissioned in 1901 after graduating from the University of Illinois.

Short served in France as a training officer during World War I, and in effect was in charge of a corps headquarters on the islands. Total Army strength on Oahu was about 45,000, including the understrength 24th and 25th Infantry Divisions, a large Coast Artillery Command, and the Hawaii Army Air Force. Maj. Gen. Frederick Martin commanded the force, with the 18th Bombardment and 14th Pursuit Wings split among four main bases: Hickam, Wheeler, Haleiwa, and Bellows Fields. Serviceable Army aircraft totaled 51 bombers and 147 fighters, though at Hickam and Wheeler the planes were parked wingtip to wingtip, sitting in the center of the fields, unarmed and unfueled, to protect them from the imagined threat of Japanese saboteurs.

Local anti-aircraft defenses included 26 fixed four-gun batteries of 3-inch guns and 15 mobile batteries, all with their ammunition locked safely away in central armories. On weekends, the guns were unmanned. To provide early warning against air attack, six mobile SCR-270 radars ringed the island. Badly sited, with inadequately trained crews and unreliable generators, the radar crews relied on commercial telephone lines to report tracking data to a central plotting station. Three more powerful fixed SCR-271 radar sets had been received in July 1941, but Army engineers had been too busy with other tasks to install them by Dec. 7.

The Night Before: Dec. 6, 1941 Early on Dec. 6, Kido Butai crossed the “last hurdle” of its journey: the 700-mile range limit of Navy PBY Catalina seaplane patrols from Oahu.

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Luckily for the Japanese, no patrols were scheduled that weekend, and the seas north of Hawaii were calm enough for a final underway refueling.

The Japanese submarine I-72, scouting near Maui, reported that the American deep-water anchorage off Lahaina was empty, making Pearl Harbor the target for the coming strike.

That afternoon, the force turned due south, making an economical 12 knots toward the dawn launching point about 230 nautical miles north of Pearl Harbor. From the halyards of flagship Akagi, Nagumo broke out the famous flag signal that Togo had flown before the Battle of Tsushima in 1905. It read, “The Fate Of The Empire Rests Upon This One Battle; Let Every Man Do His Utmost.” Kido Butai was now ready for battle.

That evening, Martin had arranged to pay the Honolulu commercial radio station, KGMB, to remain on the air all night so that a squadron of unarmed B-17 bombers flying in from the West Coast could use the soft music being broadcast as a navigational beacon. The bombers were on their way to reinforce the defenses of the Philippines, and were stopping on Oahu to refuel and rest their crews. Unfortunately, the Japanese were also homing in on the signal, amazed and delighted by this stroke of luck, which indicated that the enemy suspected nothing. The Japanese were entirely correct in their assessment.

All over Oahu that night, soldiers, sailors, airmen, and Marines were enjoying themselves, taking advantage of the storied pleasures of the island.

For many ship commanders and their senior officers, this meant a night ashore and home with wives and loved ones. This left many vessels and installations in the hands of junior officers, many just a few years out of West Point, Annapolis, or college. Enlisted personnel were also out that night, enjoying pleasures ranging from the fleshpots and bars of Honolulu to a final “battle of the bands” competition among ships in port. Nobody doubted that war was coming, for there had been many alerts and warnings over the past weeks. On Dec. 6, though, war was the furthest thing from the minds of Americans on Oahu.

Dawn’s Early Light: Launch, Warnings, and Early Actions Two hours before dawn at 4:00 a.m. Hawaiian time, Kido Butai’s flight crews were awakened

By 7:58 a.m., Ramsey had ordered a radioman to send a message in the clear to all commands: “Air raid on Pearl Harbor.

This is no drill.”

for their breakfast of fish and rice, along with tiny ceremonial cups of sake. They wrapped traditional white hachimaki headbands around their flight helmets, inscribed with “hissho” (“Certain Victory”) for luck. At 5:30 a.m., the heavy cruisers catapulted off a pair of Aichi E13A1 “Jake” floatplanes for a final pre-strike reconnaissance over the target. Just before 6:00 a.m., the six carriers, making 24 knots, turned into the 10-knot east wind. It took about 15 minutes to launch the first strike wave, with one Zero fighter being forced to ditch. A total of 183 aircraft gathered into three formations of 16 compact attack groups and headed south, led by Cmdr. Mitsuo Fuchida in a Kate equipped with a special orange marker light. Estimated flight time to the target was just over 90 minutes.

The first wave was composed of 49 B5N2 Kate level bombers with one 800-kilogram/1,760pound armor-piercing bomb, 40 B5N2 Kate torpedo bombers with one modified Type 91 torpedo, 51 D3A1 Val dive-bombers with one 250-kilogram/550-pound high-explosive or semi-armor-piercing bomb, and 45 A6M2 Zero fighters with two 7.7 mm machine guns and two 20 mm cannon.

Even before the first Japanese planes made landfall, the destroyer Ward (DD 139) was firing the initial shots of the war in the Pacific.

Patrolling just outside the harbor mouth, the Ward was directed toward a midget submarine trying to follow a repair ship towing a barge into Pearl Harbor at 3:42 a.m. The destroyer fired on

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the exposed conning tower of the sub, hitting it before depth-charging the craft.

Though Ward radioed word of the attack to 14th Naval District headquarters ashore, the warning was lost in the chain of command. It was the first of several warnings that went unheard or unheeded in the confusion of that morning.

Twenty-eight miles north of Honolulu, Kahuku Point is the northern tip of Oahu. Just inland, near the tiny village of Opana, Joseph Lockard and George Elliot, two Army privates, manned one of the primitive SCR-270B radar sets. They

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were supposed to shut down the system at 7:00 a.m., but their breakfast truck was late, so they remained on duty to get some extra practice.

Soon, the flickering radar scope displayed the largest return they had ever seen: more than 50 aircraft approximately 130 miles north. They phoned a report to the air warning duty officer at Fort Shafter, who told them not to worry about it.

The control officer, 1st Lt. Kermit Tyler, assumed that the contact was the arriving flight of 12 B-17s, which was expected around 8:00 a.m. Lockard and Elliot continued to track the incoming wave

U.S. NAVAL HISTORY AND HERITAGE COMMAND PHOTOS

In a photo taken by an attacking aircraft, West Virginia has just been hit by a torpedo on the far side of Ford Island. On the near side of Ford Island, the cruisers Detroit and Raleigh (far left) have both been torpedoed, and just astern of them Utah is listing sharply to port.

Japanese planes can be seen banking low over Ford Island (center right) and the Navy Yard (right).

until they lost the contact at 20 miles, in the noisy backscatter from the nearby hills.

First Wave At 7:38 a.m., Chikuma’s floatplane tapped out its radio report: “Enemy formation at anchor. Nine battleships one heavy cruiser six light cruisers in harbor.” This message, along with wind and weather reports, was relayed to Fuchida, now about 25 miles north of Oahu. Suddenly, the clouds broke and the coastline appeared, a good

omen for the Japanese airmen. At 7:49 a.m., Fuchida ordered his force into attack formation by firing a single flare. Then, thinking the divebombers had missed this signal, Fuchida fired a second flare, which the 51 Vals misinterpreted as an order to attack immediately. It did not matter. At 7:53 a.m., Fuchida sent the prearranged signal “Tora Tora Tora” (“Tiger! Tiger!

Tiger!”), meaning that complete surprise had been achieved. Crossing over Kahuku Point, the first wave split into two main groups. Fuchida led 89 Kates swinging wide around the Waianae mountain range to strike Battleship Row from the southwest. Simultaneously, 51 Vals and 43 Zeros struck the air bases.

At 7:55 a.m., a Navy color guard raised the flag at the Ford Island Command Center. A plane buzzed them and Lt. Cmdr. Logan Ramsey, commanding the 2nd Patrol Wing, thinking a naval aviator was “grandstanding,” snapped, “Get that fellow’s number!” Then something fell from the plane and exploded among the hangars. By 7:58 a.m., Ramsey had ordered a radioman to send a message in the clear to all commands: “Air raid on Pearl Harbor. This is no drill.”

About the same time, on the western side of Ford Island, the first Kates skimmed in low above the waters of Pearl Harbor, dropping their specially modified torpedoes and striking Utah and Raleigh (CL 7). Lines from the quay kept the torpedoed cruiser from capsizing, but the old Utah was not so lucky. Disarmed and with wooden planks mounted across her decks to cushion the blows of practice ordnance, she may have been mistaken for a carrier, and with two torpedoes in her, she eventually capsized.

On Battleship Row, Oklahoma (BB 37) took her first aerial torpedo hit, rapidly followed by three more, and began to list. Oklahoma is thought to have taken up to nine torpedoes by the end of the attack. West Virginia (BB 48) was shattered by no fewer than six torpedoes in addition to a number of armor-piercing bombs. Aboard West Virginia, Capt. Mervyn Bennion lay mortally wounded, but still trying to direct efforts to save his ship. Mess Steward Doris Miller moved his captain to a safer location aboard, despite the captain’s protests, and later manned a machine gun. Despite the ship’s grievous wounds, she took a long time to settle to the bottom of the harbor. Her captain was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor, and Miller became the

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first African-American to receive the Navy Cross. Two torpedoes hit California (BB 44), which was quickly surrounded by burning oil from her ruptured tanks. With numerous voids open for an impending inspection, and hatch covers removed, California lacked normal watertight integrity, and the crew struggled to keep her from capsizing as she slowly settled to the bottom. Within minutes, every one of the outboard ships was torpedoed, and Oklahoma began to capsize. The worst was yet to come.

Just after hoisting the flag at 8:00 a.m., Arizona (BB 39) was apparently struck by a torpedo that passed under the old repair ship Vestal (AR 4) moored alongside. Then around 8:10 a.m., a flight of Kates dropped their special armor-piercing bombs, one of which hit Arizona on her foredeck. Penetrating to the forward magazine, the bomb detonated more than 50 tons of ammunition and set off a catastrophic explosion that nearly tore the battleship in half and shook the entire harbor. Almost 1,200 of the Arizona’s crew, including Capt. Franklin Van Valkenburgh and Rear Adm. Isaac Kidd, were killed instantly, the largest total for any American warship in wartime.

All around the harbor, the destruction of the Arizona was having secondary effects. Burning oil from Arizona surrounded the stern of Tennessee (BB 43), trapped inboard of the sinking West Virginia, starting fires aboard. Damaged by the blast when Arizona exploded and hit by a number of bombs meant for the battleships, Vestal later managed to pull away from the stricken Arizona.

Her wounded captain, Cmdr. Cassin Young, climbed back aboard after being blown off the ship, and beached Vestal to keep her from sinking. For his gallantry and persistence, Young would be awarded the Medal of Honor. Just aft of the Arizona, Nevada (BB 36) managed to get her anti-aircraft guns into action, downing two torpedo planes but taking a hit in the port bow that caused extensive flooding. Nevertheless, Nevada had two boilers lit, and later managed to get under way, the only battleship to do so during the attack. With her captain and executive officer ashore for the night, command of Nevada fell upon Lt. Cmdr. Francis Thomas, a middle-aged reservist. Her sortie would mesmerize everyone around and over the harbor that morning. For the moment though, there were other battles being fought all over Oahu.

The cost to the Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbor was heavy, with at least 19 U.S. warships sunk or severely damaged.

At Ford Island’s gasoline pier, the fleet oiler Neosho (AO 23), loaded with volatile highoctane aviation fuel, struggled to get under way.

If Neosho had been hit, the resulting fire and blast wave might have swept the harbor, killing any sailors in the water who had abandoned ship and doing untold damage. Then around 8:00 a.m., adding to the growing confusion, the B-17s from the mainland, and a reconnaissance flight of 18 SBD Dauntless dive-bombers from Enterprise, arrived in the middle of the Japanese attack. Desperately trying to find a place to land, most ran into a holocaust.

From the very beginning, Japanese planners had shown the utmost respect for what land-based aircraft might do to Kido Butai if discovered. It therefore is no surprise that almost half of the aircraft launched against Hawaii that morning were assigned to destroy American aircraft and airfields. At the Ford Island Naval Air Station, the lines of patrol planes were bombed and strafed to “take out the eyes” of the Americans who might try and find the Japanese fleet. Similar strikes at Kaneohe Bay were equally devastating, though by this time lone Americans were beginning to fight back.

At Kaneohe, Chief Ordnanceman John William Finn set up spare .30- and .50-caliber machine guns on mounts, then manned several to shoot at the strafing Zeros. All around Oahu, from the Submarine Base to small fighter strips like Haleiwa, American servicemen began to get into the fight.

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Across the harbor at Hickam Field, the bombers and Zeros were particularly deadly.

Time after time, Japanese aircraft on strafing runs blew up fighters and other aircraft, as well as strafing hangars and other ground facilities.

Wheeler Field got a similar treatment, with virtually every plane blown up or shot to pieces. Into the middle of this cauldron came the squadron of unarmed B-17s from the West Coast, some of which landed at Hickam, while the rest diverted to Haleiwa. One put down on a golf course. The biggest nightmare was suffered by the SBDs from Enterprise. Some were lost to “friendly fire” from the ground, while Japanese fighters shot others down. Ironically, some of the survivors would help destroy the carriers of Kido Butai at

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Midway just six months later. For now, all any of them could do was survive.

Second Wave About 8:40 a.m., there was a brief lull before the second wave of Japanese planes struck.

These included: 54 B5N2 Kate level bombers with a mix of 250-kilogram/550-pound and 60-kilogram/120-pound bombs; 78 D3A1 Val dive-bombers with one 250-kilogram/550pound high-explosive bomb; and 36 A6M2 Zero fighters with two 7.7 mm machine guns and two 20 mm cannon.

The second wave continued the work of the first, especially at the airfields and air stations

U.S. NAVAL HISTORY AND HERITAGE COMMAND PHOTOS

Sailors standing on Ford Island amid the wreckage of OS2U Kingfisher and SOC Seagull floatplanes and PBY Catalina flying boats watch as USS Shaw’s forward magazine explodes.

around Oahu. The helpless and massed Army aircraft at Wheeler Field were bombed and strafed repeatedly. The same story was repeated at the Ewa Marine Corps Air Station and other airfields around the island. At Bellows Field, three P-40s took off, but were quickly shot down by the incoming wave of Zeros. However, two Army pilots, George Welch and Kenneth Taylor, dodging Japanese strafing as they raced to Haleiwa Field, managed to get their P-40s into the air and claimed seven kills between them.

Back in the harbor, the Vals scored additional hits, concentrating on Nevada, which was slowly making her way toward the channel that led to the open sea. Between 8:50 a.m. and 9:05 a.m., she was hit by at least four more bombs.

If Nevada had been sunk, blocking the channel, the U.S. fleet would have been trapped and the harbor would be rendered useless for months.

Thomas, still senior officer aboard Nevada, decided to run the ship aground to keep her from sinking. At 9:10 a.m., Nevada plowed into the shore near Hospital Point, where she would eventually be salvaged. Meanwhile, the bombers continued to work over other targets in the harbor.

Pennsylvania, the fleet flagship, was in drydock along with two destroyers, Cassin (DD 372) and Downes (DD 375). At 9:07 a.m., Pennsylvania was hit by a 250-kilogram/550pound bomb that knocked out one 5-inch gun, though by Dec. 12 she was repaired and able to get underway. However, bombs also struck the fragile destroyers, flooding the floor of the drydock with burning fuel and setting the “tin cans” on fire. Downes’ torpedoes detonated from the fire, causing a sympathetic detonation of Cassin’s magazine. The dock had to be flooded to control the fires. At 9:20 a.m., a near miss buckled the hull of the light cruiser Honolulu, causing severe flooding, while her sister ship St. Louis (CL 49) got under way.

Cutting through a cable that secured a dredge at the south end of Ford Island, St. Louis reached the open sea by 10:04 a.m., evading two torpedoes from a Japanese midget sub, which she promptly sank with gunfire. Earlier, the destroyers Helm (DD 388) and Monaghan (DD 354) both had encounters with midget subs while exiting the harbor, with the second vessel ramming and depth charging one of the tiny submersibles. Helm was also damaged by

an attack at sea by a single Japanese aircraft, the near miss opening a couple of seams and damaging vital equipment.

A few other destroyers made it out of the harbor during the attack, all short of men and sometimes their senior officers. Dale (DD 353) and Henley (DD 391) joined the growing collection of surface ships outside the harbor mouth, wondering if a Japanese task force was approaching from just over the horizon to finish the job of the bombers.

Perhaps the most unique escapes of the day came from two destroyers that went to sea under the command of ensigns. Aylwin (DD 355) under the command of Ensign Stanley Chaplin (and three other ensigns), and Blue (DD 387), conned by Ensign Nathan Asher, would both make the trip to sea under the most junior of commanders. Joining St. Louis, Detroit, and the destroyers at sea was the USS Phoenix (CL 46), undamaged in the attack. (Forty-one years later, renamed General Belgrano, she would meet her fate at the hands of the Royal Navy submarine HMS Conquerer during the Falklands War.) About the time the destroyers were completing their breakout to the sea, the reason for their sortie was leaving to go home. The planes of the second wave, their ordnance expended and starting to take losses to the growing anti-aircraft fire, left the target areas. Heading out to sea to prearranged rendezvous points away from American observation posts, they doglegged back to Kido Butai to avoid any U.S. “snoopers” trailing them to their carriers. In just over two hours and with just a handful of losses, the planes of the First Air Fleet had just laid a textbook example in the use of airpower at the feet of historians for their study over the next six decades.

Withdrawal: The Japanese Turn Home By 10:00 a.m., the Japanese first wave began landing aboard the carriers, which had closed to 190 miles north of Oahu. Fuchida remained in the air to observe the effects of the second wave. He landed aboard Akagi, the last plane of the first wave to be recovered, at 1:00 p.m., and reported to Nagumo that at least four battleships had been sunk and four seriously damaged.

Fuchida believed his force had shot down 10 American planes in air combat and destroyed

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c. 1943 Times Square Service Center

Mr. Kendall is presented with the Distinguished Flying Cross.

another 250 on the ground. He tried to convince Nagumo to launch a third wave of attacks on the port facilities, though the admiral only wanted to know two things.

First: Where were the American aircraft carriers?

Second: Had the Pacific Fleet been disabled for at least six months?

The answers were “We don’t know,” and “Yes,” and that was good enough for Nagumo. A lifelong fleet officer, Nagumo did not care about oil tanks and warehouses, which was typical of the Japanese military’s disdain for logistics. It was an attitude that would strand one heroic, starving Japanese army unit after another on remote islands and distant jungles.

Nagumo didn’t know it, but he had just lost Japan its only chance to win the war. Four of his six aircraft carriers and most of the aircrews under his command had just six months to live, all destined to die just a few hundred miles away, near Midway Atoll.

As soon as the second wave had completed recovery, Kido Butai was on course for home.

Along the way, Soryu and Hiryu, along with the two heavy cruisers and two destroyers, were detached to strike the U.S. base at Wake Island. The rest of the force headed home, arriving back in Japan to the congratulations of the emperor and Japanese people. The cost had been absurdly small, with only 29 aircraft lost (nine Zeros, 15 Vals, and five Kates) and 55 airmen killed. Five midget subs were sunk or beached, with the loss of nine sailors killed and one captured.

Accounting: The Price of Dec. 7, 1941 The cost to the Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbor was heavy, with at least 19 U.S. warships sunk or severely damaged. Four battleships (Arizona, Oklahoma, California, and West Virginia) were sunk or destroyed, with the others damaged to various degrees. Light cruisers Helena (CL 50), Honolulu (CL 47), and Raleigh (CL 7); destroyers Shaw (DD 373), Cassin (DD 372), Downes (DD 375), and Helm (DD 388); minelayer Oglala (CM 4); seaplane tender Curtiss (AV 4); repair ship Vestal (AR 4); and target vessel Utah (AG 16) were all heavily damaged or sunk. Also lost were the tug Sotoyomo (YT 9) and Floating Drydock No. 2.

However, Maryland, Tennessee, West Virginia, California, Nevada, and Pennsylvania would all be repaired and modernized, all but Nevada to fight again in the last great clash of battleships, annihilating a Japanese squadron at Surigao Strait on Oct. 25, 1944. Arizona, stripped of gun turrets and superstructure, and topped by a gracefully arched visitor center, remains in place, slowly rusting away and still leaking oil, as a war grave and national memorial. Although she is not technically still “in commission,” her name has never been assigned to another Navy vessel, and probably never will.

By one estimate, of the 394 U.S. aircraft present, 188 were destroyed and 159 damaged.

Several civilian light aircraft, out for Sunday morning rides and training flights, were also downed by Japanese pilots. The official count of Americans killed is 2,403, including 2,008 sailors, 218 soldiers, 109 Marines, and 68 civilians. The wounded totaled 1,178, including 710 sailors, 364 soldiers, 69 Marines, and 35 civilians. The toll would have been higher, but many severely burned casualties were saved from fatal infections by the new antibiotic sulfanilamide. Sixteen Medals of Honor were awarded for outstanding bravery at Pearl Harbor, 10 posthumously. Fifty-one Navy Crosses, 53 Silver Stars, four Navy and Marine Corps Medals, one Distinguished Flying Cross, and more than 1,000 Purple Hearts were also awarded, in many cases years later.

For all the damage done, ships sunk and put out of action, aircraft destroyed, and personnel killed, Pearl Harbor could have been much worse for the United States. All three of the Pacific Fleet’s aircraft carriers were away during the attack, allowing the incoming CINCPAC, Adm. Chester W. Nimitz (who replaced the nowdisgraced Kimmel), to begin raids and other operations as soon as he took command. Also, since the sunk and damaged ships were inside a protected and shallow harbor, salvage and repairs were relatively easy. The bulk of the aircraft destroyed were obsolete, and not terribly difficult to replace. Best of all, not one of the oil tank farms or repair shops were damaged in any way. The air bases, while suffering some damage, were easily repaired and soon stocked with fresh aircraft from the mainland. By not attacking infrastructure targets after hitting the warships, the Japanese left behind the very instrument of their eventual defeat: the Pearl Harbor base itself. n

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Neat rows of P-36s and P-40s (left center) still undamaged at burning Wheeler Field during the early phase of the attack.

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FIGHTING BACK The Army Air Forces at Pearl Harbor

BY ROBERT F. DORR

Pearl Harbor was primarily a naval battle, but America’s Air Force was also caught up in the fighting. There were heroes and even a handful of successes, but the Army Air Forces (AAF) ultimately paid dearly for being ill-prepared when the first Japanese warplanes arrived. Lt. Gen. Walter C. Short, the Army boss whose command included the AAF and whose primary mission was the defense of the fleet in its moorings, had been repeatedly warned against sabotage. Short’s senior staff, including air commander Maj. Gen. Frederick L. Martin, expected Japanese sympathizers on Oahu to threaten aircraft, vehicles, and buildings. For ease of guarding, they parked aircraft wingtip to wingtip on the flight lines at Hickam, Wheeler, Bellows, and other airfields. At some airfields, ammunition was stored far from aircraft, in a central location. The islands’ few, primitive radar warning sites operated on a part-time basis and were scheduled to shut down at 7:00

NATIONAL ARCHIVES PHOTO

a.m. – 53 minutes before the Dec. 7, 1941 attack began.

As an official history puts it, “Though the leadership had been made aware of a possible Japanese offensive, few measures were in place to defend the American bases.”

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On the morning of Dec. 7, Navy personnel largely ignored – and Army troops never learned of – full-blown evidence that an attack had been launched. The destroyer USS Ward (DD 139) sank a Japanese midget submarine in the mouth of the harbor at 6:54 a.m., but the staff of Adm. Husband E. Kimmel was not told until 7:25 a.m., and Army and AAF officers were never told. An Army radar station spotted Japanese aircraft at about 7:00 a.m. The only AAF officer who could be reached by the radar technicians decided the radar blips were B-17 Flying Fortresses arriving from the West Coast – there were four B-17Cs and eight B-17Es approaching, just 3 degrees off the heading of the Japanese warplanes – and alerted no one. At 7:53 a.m., the commander of the first wave of Japanese pilots radioed, “Tora, Tora, Tora,” the code words for a successful surprise approach, back to the Japanese fleet, and the attack began.

The AAF in Hawaii consisted of the 18th Bombardment Wing at Hickam Field, the 14th Pursuit Wing at Wheeler Field, and a gunnery training detachment at Bellows Field. The nation’s air arm in Hawaii had 754 officers and 6,706 enlisted men. Short and Martin had bombarded Washington with requests for newer planes but had only 12 B-17D Flying Fortress, 33 B-18 Bolo, and about 12 A-20 Havoc bombers, 39 P-36A fighters, and 87 P-40B and 12 P-40C Tomahawk fighters. Most of these aircraft were unfueled and unarmed on the morning of Dec. 7, and most were inferior to their Axis counterparts. It did not help that, despite warnings that should have been heeded, the first wave of Japanese warplanes took Wheeler Field completely by surprise.

PHOTO VIA ROBERT F. DORR

Striking the Airfields The destruction of the AAF fields on Oahu was vital to the Japanese battle plan.

Though the target of the attack was the Pacific Fleet, the Japanese did not want to engage in an all-out battle with Army and Navy pilots. Japan feared that long-range American aircraft could trace departing Japanese aircraft back to their ships. They wanted quick and complete destruction of AAF aircraft on Oahu to protect their carriers at sea.

The Japanese targeted Hickam, Wheeler, and Bellows Fields. The initial attack struck Wheeler and Hickam Fields, destroying aircraft, maintenance hangars, and other structures. The base chapel, mess hall, and barracks at Hickam also suffered serious damage. A second wave of Japanese aircraft struck Wheeler and Hickam Fields about one hour after the first attack ended.

During the second attack, Japanese aircraft also strafed tents, buildings, and aircraft at Bellows Field. At the conclusion of the Japanese offensive, almost 700 Army Air Forces personnel were dead and wounded, and more than twothirds of the air power on Oahu was damaged or destroyed.

The first American aircraft lost in World War II probably was a B-24A Liberator that had been brought to Hickam a few days earlier by pilot 1st Lt. Ted Faulkner. The Liberator was being readied for a planned, clandestine photographic mission in the Pacific that would enable the United States to detect any offensive naval movements by Japan. Lt. Kunikiya Hira, leading No. 3 Squadron from the Japanese carrier Shokaku, toggled the bomb release on his Aichi D3A Type 99 “Val” dive-bomber. His bomb – the first to fall on Hickam – hit Hangar 15 and set fire to the bomber, the only B-24 in the Pacific (the AAF at the time had just 10 in the world).

Two crew members were killed and three wounded, the first American casualties of the war. Staff Sgt. Burton R. Grinyer, the crew’s photographer, was walking toward the Liberator

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P-40Bs of the 6th Pursuit Squadron, 18th Pursuit Group, in August 1941. P-40s were inferior to the Japanese Zero in many aspects of performance, but were rugged, well armed, and deadly when flown properly.

with two other members of the crew at the time of the attack. One man broke and ran and was cut down by another Japanese aircraft on a strafing run. A second went in another direction and was wounded. Grinyer figured that lightning couldn’t strike twice and dived into the crater made by the bomb. He survived unhurt.

The 12 Flying Fortresses arriving in Hawaii amid the attack came to earth in all directions.

1st Lt. Harold Chaffin landed his B-17E at the small auxiliary field at Haleiwa. 1st Lt. Frank P. Bostrom made several attempts to land, dodged Japanese fighters repeatedly, and finally put his B-17E down on the Kahuku Golf Course.

Those Fortresses symbolized good intentions on the part of U.S. military planners. They were en route to the Philippines, where the war with Japan was expected to start. The AAF planned to have four heavy bomber groups in the Philippines by April 1942, a formidable order of battle likely to withstand any assault the Japanese might mount. For both Hawaii and the Philippines, however, April 1942 would be four months too late. Half of the dozen Fortresses arriving in Hawaii that morning never flew again.

Welch and Taylor

“We climbed to 9,000 feet and spotted Val dive-bombers,” Rasmussen remembered later.

“We dived to attack them.”

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practice and the attackers had not yet struck the field, so Taylor and Welch were able to grab a pair of P-40B Tomahawks and take off.

As reported in an official history, ground control directed Taylor and Welch to head for the southern tip of the island, where Japanese aircraft from the first wave were strafing the Marine base at Ewa. The pilots spotted a group of Japanese aircraft arrayed in a long line.

They dove into the midst of this line and began shooting. Each P-40 pilot was credited with two confirmed aerial victories in those rushed moments, and Taylor fired on a third aircraft but did not see it go down. Having exhausted their ammunition and running low on fuel, Taylor

NATIONAL ARCHIVES PHOTOS

As pilots scrambled to find aircraft that were fueled and armed, confusion reigned. The first takeoffs by American pilots occurred at Haleiwa Auxiliary Airfield. 2nd Lts. Kenneth M. Taylor and George Welch made their way by car from Wheeler Field to Haleiwa. Their 47th Fighter Squadron had been deployed there for gunnery

A USAAF B-17E Flying Fortress with landing gear lowered tries to find a safe place to land during the attack.

In the foreground is the seaplane tender USS Avocet (AVP 4).

and Welch landed at Wheeler Field to rearm and refuel.

At Wheeler Field, 2nd Lt. Philip M. Rasmussen was attired in purple pajamas, struggling with fellow pilots to arm and fuel Curtiss P-36 Hawk fighters of the 15th Pursuit Group. With bombs falling around them, four pilots got into the air just as the second wave of Japanese warplanes approached Kaneohe Bay. The P-36 was no match for the Zero, or even for the P-40, but it was the assigned aircraft and the only thing readily available.

“We climbed to 9,000 feet and spotted Val dive-bombers,” Rasmussen remembered later.

“We dived to attack them.”

Led by 1st Lt. Lewis M. Sanders and Rasmussen among the four pilots, the P-36s engaged the Japanese aircraft. Sanders got on the tail of one and shot it down. Moments later, 2nd Lt. Gordon H. Sterling, Jr., downed a Japanese aircraft but then was downed at sea and lost his life. Just before witnessing Sterling’s death, Rasmussen charged his guns only to have them start firing on their own.

While the pajama-clad pilot struggled to stop his guns from firing, a Japanese aircraft passed directly in front of him and exploded. Shaking off two Zeros on his tail, Rasmussen got his guns under control, raked another Japanese aircraft with gunfire, then felt himself taking

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hits from a Japanese fighter. “There was a lot of noise,” he said. “He shot my canopy off.” Rasmussen lost control of the P-36 as it tumbled into clouds, its hydraulic lines severed, the tail wheel shot off. He did not know it yet, but two cannon shells had buried themselves in a radio behind his pilot’s seat. The bulky radio had saved his life.

NATIONAL ARCHIVES PHOTOS

Nurses on Duty The Army had fewer than 1,000 nurses on its rolls on Dec. 7, 1941, and just 82 served in Hawaii at three medical facilities. Tripler Army Hospital was overwhelmed with hundreds of casualties suffering from severe burns and shock. Tripler’s blood-spattered entrance stairs led to hallways where wounded men lay on the floor awaiting surgery. Army and Navy nurses and medics (enlisted men trained as orderlies) worked side by side with civilian nurses and doctors. As a steady stream of seriously wounded servicemen continued to arrive through the early afternoon, appalling shortages

of medical supplies became apparent. Army doctrine kept medical supplies under lock and key, and bureaucratic delays prevented the immediate replacement of quickly spent stocks.

Working under tremendous pressure, medical personnel faced shortages of instruments, suture material, and sterile supplies. Doctors and nurses used cleaning rags as facemasks and operated without gloves. Equally difficult circumstances confronted Army nurses at Schofield Hospital.

But the real chaos prevailed at the Army Air Forces’ medical facility at Hickam Field, known as Hickam Station Hospital. The previous Saturday night, Army nurse Monica Conter had been out on a date with Army 2nd Lt. Barney Benning at a dance at the Pearl Harbor Officers’ Club. “We noticed that there were Navy people all over the place,” Conter said. The fleet was in. She and Benning decided to take a walk, so “we went down to the harbor. It was the most beautiful sight I’ve ever seen – all the battleships and the lights with the reflection on the water.

We were just overwhelmed.”

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On a morning when most airplanes were destroyed on the ground, these were among the few men who managed to get into the air to fight. Left to right are 2nd Lt. Harry Brown; 2nd Lt. Philip M. Rasmussen; 2nd Lt. Kenneth M. Taylor; 2nd Lt. George S. Welch; and 1st Lt. Lewis M. Sanders.

HONOR. RESPECT. FREEDOM

COMMEMORATING

NATIONAL

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Benning and Conter would still remember the awesome sight of the battleships at anchor when they celebrated their 58th wedding anniversary in 2001. Conter was one of two nurses on duty when the attack on Hickam began (initially, with the bombing of Faulkner’s B-24) and described reporting for duty with nurse 2nd Lt. Irene Boyd at 7:00 a.m. The pair were the only medical personnel at work at Hickam when the attack began 55 minutes later. “We heard this plane,” she said. “It was losing altitude. We both just stopped suddenly and stared at each other.

Then ‘bang!’” A delayed-action 500-pound bomb landed on the front lawn of the hospital, 60 or 70 feet from patients. Because of the acrid stench of explosives in the air, people around the hospital began crying, “Gas! Gas!” adding to the confusion.

The chief nurse at Hickam, 1st Lt. Annie Guyton Fox, arrived and organized her team of eight nurses to work valiantly with wounded as

they were brought in. Other nurses, including Conter and Kathleen Coberly, improvised, provided a steadying influence, and tended to more patients than they had ever expected to handle. This was the first time military nurses were on the front lines, rather than in evacuation hospitals at least 10 miles behind the fighting.

Later, Fox became the first of many Army nurses to receive the Purple Heart, usually given to those wounded by enemy action. Although unwounded, Fox received her medal for “her fine example of calmness, courage, and leadership, which was of great benefit to the morale of all she came in contact with.”

1st Lt. William R. Schick, a flight surgeon aboard one of the arriving B-17 Flying Fortresses, sat on the stairs to the second floor of the hospital attired in winter uniform (never worn in Hawaii) and bleeding profusely from head and face. Schick repeatedly refused medical care, pointing to casualties on litters on the floor

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The remains of a P-40 Tomahawk at Wheeler Field.

To the brave men and women of December 7th – we’ll never forget.

The actions of Taylor, Welch, Rasmussen, and other pilots, while unable to change the course of the battle, were heroic examples of how American forces kept fighting even in the midst of crushing defeat. and urging responders to “take care of them.”

Despite his resistance, Schick was put aboard an ambulance for Tripler “but died before arriving there.” Today, the Hickam hospital is named for Schick, who was never stationed at the airbase.

Chaos at Wheeler At a smoke-strewn Wheeler Field, where explosions continued to resound and numerous aircraft had been twisted into burning wreckage, Rasmussen landed the P-36 without brakes, rudder, or tail wheel, and riddled with more than 500 bullet holes. There was no aircraft he could use to get back into the air again. For his actions, Rasmussen received the Silver Star. He shot down a second Japanese aircraft in 1943, survived the war, and retired from the Air Force in 1965.

The situation that followed was confusing, with a second wave of Japanese aircraft striking Oahu while American pilots took off individually from two different airfields, sometimes joining up after getting airborne. No record exists today of the exact time or sequence of certain events. Taylor and Welch were now ready to go aloft on their second sortie. Welch took off in his P-40B while Taylor waited until what he thought was the last in a line of Japanese aircraft passed overhead, then took off, seeking to get them in his gunsight.

A Zero latched onto Taylor’s tail and opened fire. Welch had remained nearby and maneuvered to the rescue. He maneuvered behind the Zero, fired short bursts, and racked up his third kill of the day. Subsequently, Welch flew to Ewa, found a lone Japanese aircraft, and shot down his fourth for the day. Later in the war, Welch would become a 16-kill ace; as a test pilot, he would pioneer jet aviation and lose his life in an F-100A Super Sabre in 1954. Taylor would reach brigadier general rank; he died in 2006.

At Bellows Field, 1st Lt. Samuel W. Bishop and 2nd Lt. George A. Whiteman attempted to take off in another pair of P-40Bs. Bishop got aloft, but Zeros swarmed over him and he went down in the ocean. Whiteman was hit as he cleared the ground and went down in his aircraft off the

end of the runway. Bishop was only wounded and swam ashore, but Whiteman lost his life.

At least six other pilots got aloft from Wheeler in P-36s and P-40s. 2nd Lt. John Dains ended up flying three sorties, two in a P-40B and one in a P-36, and apparently shot down a Zero that was observed falling from the sky by AAF radar operators. This aerial victory cannot be linked to any other pilot in the air that day, but it is unclear whether Dains was on the scene shortly before he was shot down and killed by U.S. anti-aircraft fire. 1st Lt. Harry Brown apparently scored the last confirmed kill of the day when he shot down a Zero as it headed out to sea. The second and final wave of the attack was over.

Nowhere was there more carnage than amid the 58th Bombardment Squadron at Hickam, where disarmed A-20A Havoc twin-engined attack aircraft and many of their ground crews were chewed to pieces by Japanese strafing and bombing. As the second wave of Japanese aircraft retired, Martin ordered the 58th to search for and attack a Japanese carrier reported (incorrectly) to be south of Barbers Point on Oahu. At 11:27 a.m., after bombs and fuel had been loaded with great difficulty, Maj. William Holzapfel led four A-20As into the air.

It was too late to be thinking about doing any more damage to the Japanese on this day, but the sight of the bombers taking off inspired downtrodden troops at Hickam.

The exploding bombs and swirling smoke of the Pearl Harbor attack killed 2,403 people, most of them American servicemen, and wounded 1,178 others. The Japanese conceded the loss of 29 aircraft, of which 10 are thought to have been downed by the AAF (including six by Taylor and Welch). Casualties would surely have been higher but for the initiative of doctors and nurses who improvised on the scene.

The actions of Taylor, Welch, Rasmussen, and other pilots, while unable to change the course of the battle, were heroic examples of how American forces kept fighting even in the midst of crushing defeat. n

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The Pearl Harbor attack helped move aircraft carriers to the forefront of naval warfare.

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IT COULD HAVE BEEN WORSE

BY JOHN D. GRESHAM

In terms of physical and morale damage, the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor remains one of America’s worst military defeats. Thousands of personnel dead and wounded, eight battleships sunk or damaged, hundreds of planes lost on the ground, and the ability of the United States to respond to the Japanese attack in the Pacific negated. But just how bad was the effect of the raid upon long-term prosecution of World War II and America’s conduct of the war? While some of what follows is personal opinion and supposition, it is fair to say that

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two answers exist to that original question.

The effect of the attack on America’s long-term prosecution of the war in the Pacific was great.

But it could have been worse. Much worse.

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This sky has witnessed history.

This sky has changed the world.

We look to the sky to remember.

And give thanks that today this sky brings us together.

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The “great” part of the answer has to do with the strategic and long-term consequences of the Japanese attack. In terms of political and public support for America’s entry into World War II, President Franklin D. Roosevelt could not have asked for a greater gift than Pearl Harbor.

In just a few hours, the isolationism that had gripped the United States since Armistice Day 1918 was wiped out for a generation. Not until Vietnam would Americans question the need for their country to fight wars overseas. So obvious and powerful was the public outrage and sentiment on that day of the attack that it is said British Prime Minister Winston Churchill danced to the inevitable Allied victory. He knew that, with America all the way into World War

II, his nation would survive and the forces of fascism were doomed to destruction. By attacking Pearl Harbor by surprise, and not providing the usual diplomatic notes on time in Washington, D.C., Japan created a moral outrage that sustained America throughout the worst days of what was to come. It is sometimes difficult to understand just how enraged the American public was over the attack on Pearl Harbor. American fighting men, warships, and bases on U.S. soil had been attacked by an enemy on the other side of the world’s greatest ocean. The American public immediately knew such an attack could not have happened by chance, and that this was not a mistake of identification or navigation.

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Women workers install fixtures and assemblies to a tail fuselage section of a B-17F bomber (the “Flying Fortress”) at the Long Beach, California plant of Douglas Aircraft Company. Women became a major part of the U.S. workforce during the war.

The attack on Hawaii was obviously deliberate and direct, and “Remember Pearl Harbor!� became a rallying cry for the rest of the war.

Seeing opportunity, the war administration of Roosevelt moved quickly to take advantage of the sentiment.

All around America, industry was rapidly retooled for war-related production. Unlike the Axis nations, the United States put itself onto a total war footing, siphoning almost all of its resources and energies toward producing the men, weapons, and supplies needed to win

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Ironically, the Japanese did themselves as much damage by what they did not hit as what they did.

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Crew members who manned the 20 mm guns of a Coast Guard cutter during World War II. Breaking with long-standing social restrictions for the war effort, such as allowing minorities into combat units, led to permanent changes in U.S. society.

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The cruiser USS Northampton (CA 26) of the Enterprise task force enters Pearl Harbor on Dec. 8, 1941. Had the task force not been delayed by a storm at sea, it would have been there the morning of Dec. 7.

World War II. America then built the necessary means to deliver everything to fronts as far away as Burma, Russia, and China.

When manpower became short, the United States was even willing to break with longstanding social restrictions and traditions, allowing women into war production plants, and minority men (blacks and JapaneseAmericans) into a handful of combat units.

These “experiments� led directly to the civilrights and feminist movements that would follow the war. In so many ways, Pearl Harbor

was the catalyst for the modern U.S. society that we know today. It sometimes takes a hard knock to cause radical change in a society or organization; Pearl Harbor was a body blow from which American traditionalists never fully recovered. For the United States, it was the shove into the future through the gateway that it had been standing in for a generation, since the end of World War I. Japan, with its illconsidered and timed attack on Hawaii, made the past disappear for the United States, and the future inevitable.

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The second answer, “It could have been worse,” has to do with the short-term consequences of the Dec. 7 attack. As positive an effect as the Japanese raid had on American public and political opinion, the attack on Pearl Harbor had positively revolutionary effects upon the Navy it had been meant to destroy. With the traditional battle line of battleships either sunk or out of action, naval operations would have to use lighter, faster units like aircraft carriers and cruisers. With the new Navy leadership of men like Adm. Ernest J. King, Adm. Chester W. Nimitz, and Vice Adm. William F. Halsey calling the shots, there was no thought of waiting until the battle line could be raised and repaired. Though the new operational concept of fighting exclusively with fast carrier groups would take some time to get used to, the U.S. Navy was committed to combat, as much by the realities of what Japan failed to destroy at Pearl Harbor as by any conscious decision of its own making. Unwittingly, the Japanese had forged the very instrument of their upcoming defeat by attacking Hawaii on Dec. 7.

Ironically, the Japanese did themselves as much damage by what they did not hit as what they did. When Vice Adm. Chuichi Nagumo made the decision not to launch a third wave of attacks against Hawaii on the afternoon of Dec. 7, 1941, he made an error fraught with unimaginable consequences for Japan. Virtually every Japanese officer from Adm. Isoroku Yamamoto (the commander in chief of the Combined Fleet) to Cmdr. Minoru Genda (Nagumo’s air operations officer) knew that a third wave of airstrikes would let them destroy the maintenance and infrastructure targets that made Hawaii such a valuable forward base. Instead, left behind virtually untouched were drydocks, repair shops, and the entire fuel stock for the Pacific Fleet.

Among the first ships out of the harbor to run for the safety of the sea were tankers like Neosho (AO 23), which would sustain U.S. Navy carrier groups during their early raids and battles. Also untouched was the Submarine Base, from which so many patrols would originate to help strangle Japan later in the war. Of all the mistakes made on Dec. 7, 1941, Nagumo’s decision to head home after just two waves of raids may well have been the worst.

There also is the matter of luck, and the United States had more than its share that

Sunday morning: luck that the aircraft carrier Lexington (CV 2) was delivering aircraft to Midway Island, and that Saratoga (CV 3) was off the California coast that morning. Luck that poor weather delayed the return of Task Force 8 to Pearl Harbor, saving the carrier Enterprise (CV 6) and Halsey from probable destruction.

Luck that the invaluable fuel tank farm, which was loaded with aviation gas and bunker fuel, did not take a single bomb or bullet that might have set the harbor on fire. Luck that Nagumo was more afraid of losing his force than finishing off the Pacific Fleet and its facilities on the first day of the war. Luck that the fleet was in the shallows of Pearl Harbor that morning and not the much deeper offshore Lahaina anchorage. Had battleships like the California (BB 44) or West Virginia (BB 48) gone down there, personnel casualties would have been much heavier and salvage would have been impossible, even with the technologies of today. Finally, there was the luck that in its plans, Japan had no way of understanding just how Pearl Harbor would inspire everyone, from Roosevelt to the minority messmates aboard the warships, to make efforts that brought out the very best that Americans could offer.

Within six months of the attack, the U.S. Navy had made numerous raids and fought two major battles with its carrier battle groups. The Americans would sink five Japanese flattops and a heavy cruiser while losing just two carriers, a pair of destroyers, and a tanker in return.

Along the way, the U.S. Navy managed to blunt two major Japanese invasions (against Port Moresby and Midway) and take back the initiative throughout the Pacific. Just eight months after Pearl Harbor, America began landing Marines on Guadalcanal and Tulagi in their first offensive against Imperial Japan. Even the most optimistic strategists on both sides must have looked in awe at the achievements of a Pacific Fleet that did not have even one battleship in its forward-deployed units until mid-July 1942!

That they would break the back of the Imperial Japanese Navy in just six more months of brutal fighting in the waters around Guadalcanal was a sign of just how committed America and its Navy were to avenge the blow that they had suffered on Dec. 7, 1941.

All in all, it could have been worse. Much worse. n

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U.S. fleet submarines prepare for their next war patrol. The big fleet boats were well-designed for long patrols in the Pacific.

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RISE OF THE SUBMARINES

BY NORMAN FRIEDMAN

World War II saw two great submarine campaigns. One was a failure; one was a success. The failure is by far better known: It was the Battle of the Atlantic, in which the Germans tried to break the sea lanes feeding Britain and, by extension, the buildup for war in Europe. The defeated force represented the bulk of the German navy’s resources. The success

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was the U.S. submarine campaign against Japan, which in effect sank the merchant marine that kept Japan alive. It represented a tiny fraction of the U.S. naval effort.

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Honoring and Remembering Those Who Served

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When the U.S. Navy first seriously contemplated a war against Japan after World War I, the obvious focus was Japanese shipping. The war just ended had demonstrated how effective submarines could be; it was widely believed that Britain had almost been knocked out of the war by the German U-boats. The then-senior U.S. submariner, Capt. Thomas C. Hart, told a class at the Naval War College that U.S. submarines should mount a similar offensive against Japanese shipping in a future war. However, his advice was not immediately taken, for two related reasons.

The first was ironic. Until 1921, Japan and Britain were allies. Many American naval planners believed contemporary political theory, which held that economic rivalry was the primary cause of war. It seemed to follow that the two greatest world economies, that of the United States and that of the British Empire, were on a collision course. In a war between the United States and Japan, American submarines firing indiscriminately at merchant ships would probably sink British ships (which accounted for the bulk of world shipping) – just as German U-boats had sunk U.S. ships in 1915-17. Surely

a Britain inclined to favor Japan (due to the alliance) and in any case hostile to the United States (because of economics) might then be inclined to enter the war on Japan’s side. After all, German sinkings of U.S. ships had helped propel the United States into World War I. Americans were blissfully unaware that by 1919 the British considered the Japanese the main threat to their valuable possessions in the Far East. Indeed, as the British developed their own war plans, they came to see the United States as the only useful major ally in such a war; they were dissuaded by the old U.S. hostility to “foreign entanglements.”

The second reason was that in the aftermath of World War I, the old rules of blockade had been reaffirmed by the U.S. government. Only ships carrying contraband could be stopped, and they could be sunk only after provision had been made for the safety of those aboard. To meet these requirements, a submarine would have had to expose herself to attack. The Germans had learned that in World War I, and switched to unrestricted submarine warfare as a solution.

The U.S. government had justified entry into the war at least partly on the basis of this German barbarity. It was, therefore, quick to reaffirm

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A Japanese aircraft flies over the Pearl Harbor Submarine Base on the way to Battleship Row, burning in the background. The Japanese failure to attack Pearl Harbor’s Submarine Base and fuel storage tanks was an error that would cost them dearly.

the old rules of commerce warfare. To the U.S. Navy, the reaffirmed rules meant that they could not conduct a World War I-style campaign of unrestricted submarine warfare against Japan.

That did not make submarines obsolete; it merely focused U.S. attention on submarine roles other than attacking merchant ships. The great virtue of the submarine was, after all, that it could operate freely in areas nominally controlled by an enemy. Thus the interwar U.S. Navy valued submarines for their ability to scout Japanese naval bases and to attack Japanese warships. Naval exercises showed that submarines could support the U.S. battle fleet in very valuable ways. The main consequence of these views was that the U.S. Navy developed a large, fast, long-endurance type of submarine: the fleet submarine. Among the Western navies, the United States built the largest submarines because it expected to fight over the greatest distances (the British also planned to fight the Japanese, but they hoped to do so from their base at Singapore). As it happened, the U.S. type proved very successful in just the kind of antishipping warfare the Navy was eschewing. Sheer size, moreover, made the submarine adaptable to new technology, such as radar and electronic countermeasures. After the war, American fleet submarines proved much easier to modernize (for better underwater performance) than their somewhat smaller British counterparts, the result being that they generally served longer. A few still survived in foreign navies more than half a century after they were built.

The fleet submarine makes an interesting contrast with a type designed specifically to destroy shipping: the German Type VIIC U-boat.

The Germans deliberately built the smallest and least expensive possible submarine, on

Once the torpedo problem had been solved, U.S. submarines became premier ship-killers.

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the theory that numbers would be decisive.

At the outset of war, the U-boats proved extremely effective, albeit generally over much shorter ranges than their U.S. counterparts.

However, they were difficult to modify as the war proceeded. For example, the Germans never silenced their U-boats to nearly the extent achieved by the U.S. Navy. As a measure of relative effectiveness, as the war in Europe wound down, experienced U.S. Navy anti-submarine units were transferred from Atlantic to Pacific.

In tests, U.S. fleet submarines proved far more effective than the U-boats.

In any case, by 1941 the U.S. Navy had a very effective large submarine well suited to long cruises to the Western Pacific. It had one major shortcoming: The new Mk. 14 torpedo was a failure. Much secret effort had been expended to devise a particularly devastating magnetic fuze, which was intended to cause the torpedo to explode as it passed under the target (this was actually more effective, if it worked, than having the torpedo strike directly). In order to preserve secrecy, the fuze was tested only once.

In practice it did not work, and the back-up contact exploder also failed. Thus, for about the first year and a half of the war, until the submariners themselves forced the navy’s Bureau of Ordnance to redesign the exploders, U.S. submarine commanders had the unnerving experience of making perfect hits and achieving nothing, except for Japanese escorts to depth-charge them vigorously. We now know that the British and the Germans also developed magnetic fuzes under similar secrecy, and also had them fail disastrously once the war began. They were luckier in that their back-up fuzes did work.

Quite aside from the fuze problem, Mk. 14 seems to have had steering problems – which were never completely cured. It was reportedly prone to circular runs, coming back at the submarine that launched it. Up to 10 American submarines, a fifth of overall losses, may have fallen victim to their own torpedoes.

There was also a human problem. In peacetime, a submariner learns his trade by exercising with anti-submarine ships. Being found is equated with being killed; exercises can, therefore, breed caution. Moreover, the prewar emphasis on attacking Japanese fleet units carried with it the implication that such units would be heavily escorted: to show anything in daylight would be

U.S. NAVAL HISTORY AND HERITAGE COMMAND

to invite heavy counterattack. Thus the U.S. Navy developed submarine sonars in the expectation that its craft would not even use their periscopes in daytime. Commanders who pointed out that a submarine operating on the surface at night (as the German U-boats soon did) would be quite effective were reprimanded. Many prewar submarine commanders took this experience to heart. Torpedo failures cannot have helped.

In the first 18 months of the war, about half of all U.S. submarine commanders were removed from their posts for insufficient aggressiveness.

They must, however, have done something right, because the officers who took over had sailed with them, and had been trained by them. Those second-generation submarine commanders were generally quite aggressive enough. Once the torpedo problem had been solved, U.S. submarines became premier ship-killers.

They did not act entirely alone. Remember that most U.S. naval effort went into other forces, such as a large battle fleet built around aircraft carriers and battleships. Much has been made of the Japanese failure to form powerful antisubmarine forces, such as those that fought and won the Battle of the Atlantic. The usual explanation is that the Japanese disdained such work, preferring to concentrate on the more

glamorous war of fleet against fleet. Perhaps a better explanation would be that the big U.S. fleet made it impossible for the Japanese to make any other choice. The naval effort that might have gone into defeating the U.S. submarine assault on Japanese shipping went instead into facing the threat of the main U.S. fleet. The destroyers that might have convoyed Japanese merchant ships were sunk in battles at places like Guadalcanal and Leyte Gulf. The Japanese did not have enough resources to fight both kinds of naval war. As the shipping war intensified, the Japanese did form and escort convoys, but they could never devote their best naval assets to the job. It is often said that they disdained mere shipping protection, or that they had never learned the lesson of World War I. However, it seems equally fair to say that Japan had limited overall resources; her economy was only a fraction of the size of the U.S. or British economy. She just could not maintain the necessary combination of war production, a large army (mainly in China), a main-fleet navy, and an anti-submarine fleet. The U.S. naval offensive made choice almost impossible, because if the Japanese did not face down the U.S. fleet, they would be destroyed just as certainly as if they did not defeat the U.S. submarines.

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A torpedoed Japanese destroyer sinking, seen through the periscope of its killer, a U.S. Navy submarine. Though Navy submarines sank a large number of Japanese warships, their greatest achievement was sinking more than 60 percent of the Japanese merchant marine.

Gratefully honoring all who served

U.S. NAVAL HISTORY AND HERITAGE COMMAND

Conversely, when the Germans spent most of their naval money on U-boats, they did not present the Allies with any such dilemma in the Atlantic. The few German heavy ships, like the Bismarck and Tirpitz, did impose heavy costs on the Allied naval effort, which meant a reduction in shipping protection. The most graphic case in point is a British convoy, PQ-17, sent to Russia in the summer of 1942. The German battleship Tirpitz lay in a Norwegian fjord. Convoy escorts, which were quite sufficient to protect against U-boats, could not possibly have faced down the battleship. Were she to have fallen on the convoy, she would have massacred it. Thus the appropriate tactic against the battleship was for the convoy to disperse, which was exactly opposite to the right tactic against the U-boats. When the British learned that the Tirpitz was coming out, the Admiralty ordered the convoy to scatter.

The decision was controversial because those on the scene thought a sortie unlikely. They were right; the battleship never made it all the way out of the fjord. However, by then the convoy had scattered, and the U-boats destroyed it. There really was a relationship between the surface fleet and the success of the submarines; one supported the other.

Other factors also favored the U.S. submarines. One great problem in submarine warfare is that the submarine herself cannot find targets at any great distance. Somehow she has to be cued into position. In World War I, the U-boats initially concentrated at “focal points” where shipping could be expected to concentrate. The initial anti-submarine measure was to patrol such points in hopes of catching U-boats. The more successful measure was convoying – which, among other things, concentrated the targets and left most of the ocean empty. The question the Germans studied between wars was how to find convoys and direct submarines at them.

The World War II solution, for the Germans, was a combination of air reconnaissance, U-boat patrol lines, and codebreaking (signals had to be sent to convoys to order them to take certain routes, and re-directed to evade known U-boat concentrations). The U-boat headquarters in turn would direct the U-boats. Once the Allies could break the U-boat codes, they could predict where U-boats had been ordered to lurk, and could order convoys to evade. Since the U-boats themselves were used to detect convoys, they

had to radio information back to headquarters, and their own messages could be intercepted and used against them.

In the Pacific, the U.S. submarine force faced much the same problems. Codebreaking was again a key asset. It turned out that Japanese convoys reported at noon each day, in a very low-grade code. Not only did that give away their positions, it also indicated how well attacks ordered for the previous night had succeeded. By measuring the status of deployed U.S. submarines on the basis of intercepted Japanese reports, U.S. submarine headquarters ashore could work with very little communication from the submarines. The Japanese had no “Ultra” to support their anti-submarine war.

To the extent that wartime codebreaking was an industrial enterprise, the U.S. submarine victory in the Pacific can be attributed partly to superiority in this rather specialized technology, as well as to superiority in such technologies as radar and sonar.

In the end, however, it was the U.S. submariners who won – at great cost. Out of about 250 submarines that fought in the Pacific, 52 never came home. The loss rate among U.S. submariners was greater than that in any other branch of the U.S. Navy. n

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Inside the conning tower of a U.S. Navy submarine in 1943.

The men of the “Silent Service” paid a high price for their success.

Of some 250 U.S. Navy submarines that fought in the Pacific, 52 never returned.

The patched-up USS Nevada (BB 36) departs Pearl Harbor in April 1942, headed to Puget Sound Navy Yard for a major overhaul and modernization that would be completed in October. Nevada went on to participate in the invasions of Attu, Normandy, Southern France, Iwo Jima, and Okinawa.

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RISING FROM THE MUD: THE PEARL HARBOR SALVAGE OPERATION

BY JOHN D. GRESHAM

Of all the stories that came out of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, none is more inspiring or symbolic than that of the salvage effort to raise and repair the ships sunk and damaged on Dec. 7, 1941. This difficult and dangerous effort, which took more than two years to complete, was more than just an effort to clear valuable channels and berthing spaces. On the contrary, by the time that the Pearl Harbor salvage effort was completed, the equivalent of an entire battle line had been rebuilt to fight again. Those battleships would fight across the globe, from the Normandy beaches on D-Day to crossing the Japanese “T� at the Battle of Surigao Strait, where they would exact a very personal

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revenge against the Japanese. USS West Virginia (BB 48) was one of the most heavily damaged of the battlewagons at Pearl Harbor, having taken six or seven torpedoes, but was present for the Japanese surrender at Tokyo Bay in 1945.

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The effort to recover the fleet ravaged at Pearl Harbor began even before the Japanese planes had returned to their carriers, as the first assessments of damage were being made. At the time, the news was bad enough. These were the highlights: • Lost or capsized – The USS Arizona (BB 39) had been destroyed by the explosion of a forward magazine after being hit by a heavy armor piercing bomb, breaking in two and sinking to the harbor bottom. USS Oklahoma (BB 37) took five or six torpedoes, and had rolled over on to her back, a total loss. Finally, the target ship USS Utah (AG 16) and the minelayer Oglala (CM 4) were sunk at their moorings.

• Sunk – The battleships California (BB 44), West Virginia, and Nevada (BB 36) were all heavily damaged by torpedoes, had sunk, and were resting on the shallow bottom of the

harbor. California and Nevada had also taken severe bomb damage, and all would require complete rebuilds when raised.

• Damaged – The Pacific Fleet flagship, USS Pennsylvania (BB 38), was damaged by bomb and shrapnel in her drydock, with the battleships Maryland (BB 46) and Tennessee (BB 43) taking their own bomb hits. The light cruisers Helena (CL 50) and Raleigh (CL 7) suffered underwater damage from torpedoes and bombs, and the destroyers Cassin (DD 372), Downes (DD 375), and Shaw (DD 373) were all nearly destroyed by bomb strikes. In addition, the repair ship Vestal (AR 4) and the seaplane tender Curtiss (AV 4) were hit by bombs and damaged Japanese aircraft (in the case of Curtiss), heavily damaging them.

• Minor damage – A number of vessels around Pearl Harbor suffered minor damage in the attack, mostly through near misses and bombs

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The shattered destroyers Downes (DD 375) (left) and Cassin (DD 372) lie forward of the lightly damaged battleship USS Pennsylvania (BB 38) in Drydock #1. Though both destroyers’ hulls were scrapped, their machinery was salvaged, with new hulls built around it to sail again under the same names and pennant numbers. Astern of Pennsylvania at far left is the California. At center left is USS Maryland, with the capsized USS Oklahoma beside her. Behind Pennsylvania’s superstructure is the still burning Arizona. At far right is the damaged light cruiser USS Helena (CL 50).

Uncommon valor saved our nation and the world We deeply respect and revere the memory of all who answered the call in the early morning of December 7, 1941. Their courage and fierce response steeled a nation for the commitment to preserve freedom.

We humbly honor your sacrifice and pledge our continuing support to those who have followed and serve today.

To the past, present, and future generations of servicemen and women around the world, we thank you. We’re proud to support you with strong infrastructure and smart buildings so you can carry out your mission.

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U.S. Air Force photo by Airman 1st Class Adarius Petty/Released

Our Gratitude for Your Service

U.S. NAVAL HISTORY AND HERITAGE COMMAND

that hit but did not explode high-order. These included the heavy cruiser New Orleans (CA 32) and light cruiser Honolulu (CL 48), along with a number of other smaller warships and yard craft.

What this all added up to was a massive salvage, repair, and recovery effort, upon which would depend not only the future efficiency of Pearl Harbor as an operating base, but also the ability of the Navy to build and sustain the kind of fleet needed to overcome Imperial Japan.

The first order of business was to clear out the damaged ships that could fend for themselves and make for the vast repair yards of the West Coast of the United States. These included the Pennsylvania, Tennessee, and Maryland, which

left for home together on Dec. 20, 1941. Most of the other smaller ships damaged in the attack departed in the days and weeks that followed.

Once this was done, the effort to raise those ships sunk on Dec. 7 began in earnest. Several, like the Arizona and Utah, would never be brought up, with only the battered superstructure of the broken battleship being removed for salvage and refittings. The loss of several divers to explosions around the Arizona meant that she would forever remain at her berth next to Ford Island, where today a memorial stands over her rusting hull. Others, like the California and Nevada, were refloated after weeks or months, and sent home for overhaul and modernization.

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Winches on Ford Island pull USS Oklahoma (BB 37) back to an even keel.

While Oklahoma was refloated and moved from her old moorings in the harbor, she was decommissioned in 1944.

Sold for scrap, she sank under tow to San Francisco in 1947.

NAVAL HISTORY AND HERITAGE COMMAND

USS West Virginia (BB 48) in drydock at the Pearl Harbor Navy Yard, June 10, 1942, for repair of the damage suffered on Dec. 7, 1941.

The large patch fixed on her hull covers the huge holes in her side caused by torpedoes.

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The real work involved getting the Oklahoma and West Virginia off of the bottom, the former to be sold off as scrap, the latter to be rebuilt.

The problem with West Virginia was the six massive holes torn in her port side by perhaps seven Japanese torpedoes. These were sealed with huge conformal cofferdams some 50 feet tall, cemented to the side of the ship. The West Virginia was then pumped out and refloated, the previously flooded compartments cleaned of oil, human remains, and other debris, and towed back to the United States for rebuilding.

The Oklahoma was an even bigger problem, as she had capsized during the attack, digging her superstructure into the mud of the harbor.

After sealing the five torpedo holes in her hull, the salvage crews set to work erecting a series of 40-foot-long wooden towers (called “bents”) along the starboard deckline. Tied by 21 cables to winches on Ford Island, they were used to turn Oklahoma’s hull into an upright position after she had been pumped out. Unfortunately, the old hulk sank while under tow to the West Coast. More than two years after the attack, her berth was finally clear to take large ships.

Other unique salvage efforts involved the destroyers Cassin, Downes, and Shaw, which had been badly damaged on Dec. 7. The first two, which had been burned and wrecked in the same drydock as the Pennsylvania, were in such bad shape that their internal machinery was stripped out and sent back to the West Coast, where new hulls (with the same names and hull numbers) were built around the existing innards. The Shaw, which lost her entire bow in a spectacular forward 5-inch ammunition magazine explosion while in drydock, had a wooden bow attached, then proceeded back home to receive a replacement unit already fabricated and waiting. All three went back into service, fighting for the American cause.

The six battleships that survived the attack all went back to the West Coast and underwent various levels of refitting and modernization.

Eventually, all received new superstructures, secondary armament, electronics, and other features that easily made them the equivalent of newer battlewagons in every area except top speed. Nevertheless, they did yeoman work providing pre-invasion bombardment and fire support during invasions, and even

On the night of Oct. 24, five of the surviving Pearl Harbor battlewagons (Maryland, West Virginia, Tennessee, California, and Pennsylvania) joined up with the battleship Mississippi (BB 41) and a force of cruisers, destroyers, and PT boats to annihilate a Japanese surface group in Surigao Strait.

Executing a perfect crossing of the enemy force’s “T,” the American force completely destroyed a Japanese force of two battleships (Fuso and Yamashiro), along with its escort of cruisers and destroyers.

got into a major skirmish during the vast Battle of Leyte Gulf in 1944. On the night of Oct. 24, five of the surviving Pearl Harbor battlewagons (Maryland, West Virginia, Tennessee, California, and Pennsylvania) joined up with the battleship Mississippi (BB 41) and a force of cruisers, destroyers, and PT boats to annihilate a Japanese surface group in Surigao Strait. Executing a perfect crossing of the enemy force’s “T,” the American force completely destroyed a Japanese force of two battleships (Fuso and Yamashiro), along with its escort of cruisers and destroyers. Only a single Japanese destroyer (Shigure) escaped to tell the tale of the old battlewagons’ revenge, a fleet of ships raised from their muddy graves to fight again. n

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TRAGEDY TO TRIUMPH From Pearl Harbor to the Battle of Midway

BY JOHN D. GRESHAM AND CHUCK OLDHAM

By attacking the United States and its allies, Japan had taken the initiative and struck the first blow in what was going to be the largest (geographically at least) military confrontation in the history of warfare. Throughout the Pacific Basin, Japanese forces attacked dozens of targets belonging to the United States, Great Britain, and The Netherlands, from forces as small as a pair of destroyers bombarding Midway Atoll, to the massive assaults on the Philippines and Kra Peninsula.

Such an offensive posture was necessary for Japan, which had far too few resources to sustain a war taking years to resolve. Japan’s strategy for the Pacific campaign required victory within 12 to 18 months maximum, or America’s vast industrial potential would provide a lethal advantage. Such had been the logic of Adm. Isoroku Yamamoto, the chief of the Japanese Combined Fleet, when he had laid out the Imperial Navy’s war plans in mid-1941. Conversely, America’s key goal in the months following Pearl Harbor was simple survival: retain the critical bases and supply lines to Hawaii and Australia while the shipyards and schools back home created and trained the forces to defeat Japan.

While these opposing war plans were obvious to everyone with any strategic vision in late 1941, there was one group of people unwilling to wait for American industry to deliver the tools to decisively defeat Japan: the professional corps of American naval officers. Prideful and filled with

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vengeful rage following Pearl Harbor, these men were not content to merely “hold the line” for a year or two while Japan ran wild in the Pacific.

They wanted to take back the initiative, fight battles of their own choosing, and take the fight into Japan’s front yard as soon as their superiors would let them. The leader of this rush to battle was the new Commander in Chief of the Pacific Fleet (CINCPAC), Adm. Chester W. Nimitz, who took over command on Dec. 17, 1941.

Before he could start the march back, there would be many bad days and defeats ahead, some of which occurred before he even took command. In the leadership vacuum between Adm. Husband Kimmel’s departure and Nimitz’s arrival, an expedition to relieve the Marines at Wake Island turned back to Pearl Harbor, mostly due to a lack of positive leadership on the part of the interim CINCPAC, Vice Adm. W.S. Pye. For almost two weeks following Pearl Harbor, the Marine garrison on Wake held off Japanese

U.S. NAVAL HISTORY AND HERITAGE COMMAND

The Omaha-class cruiser USS Marblehead (CL 12) at Tjilatjap, Java, in February 1942, after she had been damaged by a Japanese high-level bombing attack in the Java Sea. Too damaged to continue the fight, she was one of the handful of Asiatic Fleet ships that escaped, making an epic 16,000-mile voyage home.

invasion assaults and air attack, sinking several warships in the process, before succumbing to overwhelming force on Dec. 23. Then in January, the carrier Saratoga (CV 3) was torpedoed by a Japanese submarine and put out of action for six months while patrolling off of the Hawaiian Islands. The good news was that Kimmel left Nimitz an extraordinary group of staff officers, many of whom served with him until the war was won in 1945. There also were promising officers like Vice Adm. William F. “Bull” Halsey and Rear Adm. Raymond A. Spruance, who would lead his fleets to victory in the years to come. In the winter of 1941-42, though, there was no joy to be had at CINCPAC Headquarters.

The Death of the Asiatic Fleet Of all the trials endured by Allied naval forces, none was more brutal than that of the men and ships assigned to duty in the Far East. Already a skeleton force, the U.S. Asiatic Fleet and British Far Eastern Fleet were numerically small

forces with aging equipment, just starting to be reinforced as the peace was broken. Almost immediately, both fleets suffered terrible losses.

The United States took the first blow, when the Japanese bombed and wrecked the Cavite Naval Base on Dec. 10. This forced Adm. Thomas C. Hart, the commander of the U.S. Asiatic Fleet, to move his handful of cruisers and destroyers to the south, leaving only a few submarines and PT boats to defend the Philippines. Even worse came when Japanese land-based level and torpedo bombers attacked and sank the British battleship Prince of Wales and battlecruiser Repulse on the same day. Force Z, composed of the two big-gun warships and four destroyers, had been trying to intercept the Japanese invasion force headed for the Kra Peninsula when it was overwhelmed north of Singapore. This meant that not one Allied capital ship was left in the Far East to defend against the Japanese onslaught. Within weeks, every Crown possession in East Asia, including Hong Kong and Singapore, was in Japanese hands.

The next four months were spent in a running retreat to the Java-New Guinea chain of islands, with almost every Allied ship engaged sunk. A multinational Australian-British-Dutch-American naval command, dubbed ABDAFLOAT, was formed, and pulled together the various ships available to defend what became known as “the Java Barrier,” but this effort was a fiasco. The only bright spot for the ABDA command came on Jan. 24, when four American destroyers sank a few Japanese transports at Balikpapan in a night torpedo and gun attack. Through several vicious surface engagements and many air attacks, the ABDAFLOAT force was gradually worn down and eventually all but wiped out. The climax of ABDAFLOAT’s short history came between Feb. 27 and March 1, with the Battle of the Java Sea. One of just a handful of surface engagements to take place primarily in daylight, Java Sea was a triumph for the Japanese and their devastating Type 93 “Long Lance” torpedoes.

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USS Langley (AV 3), which had once been the U.S. Navy’s first aircraft carrier, sinks after being bombed off Java, Feb. 27, 1942. The photo was taken from the destroyer USS Whipple (DD 217), one of the few Asiatic Fleet ships to escape the advancing Japanese fleet.

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NATIONAL ARCHIVES PHOTO

Famous ships like the heavy cruiser Houston (CA 30) and America’s first aircraft carrier, Langley (AV 3, converted to an aircraft transport), were lost in a series of running battles. By the end of the Java campaign, only a handful of World War I-era destroyers and a few PBY Catalina patrol planes had survived the terrible trip down from the Philippines. These survivors joined up with the small Allied naval force forming to defend Australia, and stood by to repel the Japanese invasion that was expected in the spring.

Composed of Australian, New Zealand, and U.S. (ANZUS) warships and aircraft, it would be placed under the command of Gen. Douglas MacArthur, who had just escaped from the Philippines. Before that happened,

however, circumstances elsewhere began to change Allied fortunes in the Pacific and Indian oceans.

In April 1942, when the Japanese sent their striking force of aircraft carriers, commanded

by Adm. Chuichi Nagumo, into the Indian Ocean, British Adm. Sir James Somerville managed to evade them. Despite being outnumbered and overmatched, Somerville skillfully preserved his small force of battleships and aircraft carriers. Despite the loss of the light carrier Hermes, two cruisers, and a handful of destroyers and merchant ships, the British position in South Asia was safe for the time being. Attention would now turn to the Americans and Australians, who would take up the battle.

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A Douglas TBD-1 torpedo bomber from USS Enterprise (CV 6) flies over Wake Island during the Feb. 23, 1942 raid.

While hit and run raids did little damage, they built experience and morale.

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Ducking and Punching: The Carrier Raids From his first days as CINCPAC, Nimitz knew he would have to fight a naval guerrilla war against the Japanese until he could gather more strength and give his peacetime Navy some badly needed combat experience.

Nevertheless, he also wanted to strike some blows, no matter how trivial, against Japan’s bases in the Pacific Basin. To accomplish these dual tasks, Nimitz turned to his small force of three aircraft carriers: Lexington (CV 2), Yorktown (CV 5 – moved from the Atlantic Fleet after Pearl Harbor), and Enterprise (CV 6).

Building a force of fast cruisers and destroyers around each carrier, Nimitz began to dispatch them on raids against Japanese island bases in early 1942. Though results were at first mediocre, the attacks soon began to generate some positive results.

On Feb. 1, Task Force 8, built around Enterprise and commanded by Halsey, raided Japanese bases in the northern Marshall Islands. At the same time, Task Force 17 (with Yorktown) commanded by Rear Adm. Frank Jack Fletcher, raided the southern end of the Marshalls chain. Though damage to enemy installations was light, several Japanese ships were sunk and everyone in the force gained a great deal of positive experience. Best of all, the fast-moving forces of Halsey and Fletcher dodged any response from the Japanese, beginning a cycle that would frustrate and eventually motivate the Imperial Navy to some reckless actions that spring. There would soon be more raids to frustrate the Japanese.

Feb. 23, 1942, saw Halsey and his Enterprise group raiding Wake Island, destroying much of what the Japanese had hauled in following their occupation in late December. Then, on Feb. 24, a task force built around Lexington (Rear Adm. Wilson Brown commanding) tried to raid the new Japanese base at Rabaul on the eastern tip of New Guinea. However, the force was detected by long-range patrol aircraft and attacked by land-based bombers of the 25th Air Flotilla.

What followed was the first head-to-head air duel between Japanese and U.S. Navy aviators, with the battle becoming a decisive American victory. Most of the twin-engined Japanese G4M1 “Betty” bombers were shot down by F4F-3 Wildcat fighters, including five claimed by

Lt. Edward H. “Butch” O’Hare, who was awarded the Medal of Honor for his actions. Despite not being able to bomb Rabaul, the gallant action of the American fighter pilots protecting the Lexington provided a well-needed morale boost back in the United States.

The last of the single carrier raids was run by Halsey and the Enterprise group on March 4, when they attacked Marcus Island – just less than 1,000 miles from the Japanese mainland and Tokyo. After Marcus, battle groups of two aircraft carriers would begin to nip at the Japanese perimeter. The first of the multi-carrier raids was run using Lexington and Yorktown on March 10, when more than 100 American planes raided the harbor at Lae-Salamaua, New Guinea. This time, the American aviators did significant damage, sinking or damaging nine Japanese ships. The stage was now set for the greatest of the 1942 carrier raids: the Doolittle Raid on Tokyo.

For several months, planners in Washington had been developing a plan to attack the Japanese home islands. The result was an innovative operation to fly twin-engine Army B-25 medium bombers off of the deck of a Navy aircraft carrier. This would allow the bombers to be launched outside of the range of Japanese search planes, and then fly on to China after bombing their targets in Japan. The bomber force was selected, trained, and led by the legendary pilot and engineer Lt. Col. James H. “Jimmy” Doolittle, and was ready to go in early April. Flying his force to Naval Air Station (NAS) Alameda, California, Doolittle loaded 16 B-25s aboard the newly commissioned carrier Hornet (CV 8), and headed west across the North Pacific.

On April 13, Enterprise and the rest of what now was called Task Force 16 joined the Hornet and her escorts. The combined force was commanded by Halsey, whose announcement, “This force is bound for Tokyo,” caused wild celebration aboard ship. For five days, the carriers and their escorts headed for Japan, planning to launch late on April 18 for a night raid on Tokyo and several other cities on Honshu.

However, when the force ran into a line of Japanese patrol boats 500 miles out early on April 18, Halsey made the decision to launch early and raid Japan in daylight.

Despite heavy seas and bad weather, all 16 B-25s were launched successfully and

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managed to hit various targets. Meanwhile, Task Force 16 turned home for Hawaii at high speed, Halsey’s reputation as America’s most aggressive admiral secure in the minds of people on both sides of the war. All 16 B-25s were either lost or interned in the USSR, though most of Doolittle’s gallant aviators survived to become the stuff of American legend in the postwar years. Doolittle’s planes carried only small loads of bombs, and the actual damage to Japanese installations was minimal. However, the Doolittle Raid had effects far beyond a few bombed factories and military installations.

Back home, American morale skyrocketed with the news that Japan itself had been bombed.

Concerned over the safety of Doolittle’s flyers still in China, President Franklin D. Roosevelt coyly announced that, “the planes flew from our new base in Shangri La,” referring to the mythical Himalayan kingdom in the book and film Lost Horizon.

Yamamoto took personal responsibility for the American attack, seeing the navy as the protector of Japan and the emperor. Since the start of the

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war in December, Yamamoto had sought to lure the U.S. Pacific Fleet out to destroy it.

The Doolittle Raid provided Yamamoto the political leverage to initiate a new series of invasions to expand the Japanese defensive perimeter and hopefully draw the Americans into a decisive battle. In particular, operations against the Solomon Islands, New Guinea, the Aleutians, Samoa, and Midway would be run in the coming months of late spring and early summer. While these invasions would ostensibly help expand the Japanese defensive perimeter, their actual intent was to take territory that the U.S. Navy would be unwilling to give up. Decisive battles would be fought, and the small force of American aircraft carriers would be sunk.

Following that, negotiations might be initiated with the United States, which would sue for peace, and Japan would retain the conquests of 1941 and ’42. At least that was the way the Japanese had planned things. However, in a dank basement at Pearl Harbor, a small group of naval personnel were about to ruin Yamamoto’s carefully crafted plans.

NATIONAL ARCHIVES PHOTO

An Army Air Forces B-25B bomber awaits the takeoff signal on the flight deck of USS Hornet (CV 8) as the Doolittle Raid is launched, April 18, 1942. Note the flight deck officer holding a launch flag at right, and white stripes painted on the flight deck to guide the pilot’s alignment of his plane’s nose and port side wheels.

U.S. NAVAL HISTORY AND HERITAGE COMMAND

First Blood: The Battle of the Coral Sea The Fleet Radio Unit Pacific (FRUPAC) was a small codebreaking and analysis shop, assigned to Nimitz’s superb intelligence chief Cmdr. Edwin Layton. Run by Lt. Cmdr. Joseph Rochefort, FRUPAC was a self-contained organization that could take raw intercepted Japanese radio signals and crack the message to generate useful information for Nimitz.

While FRUPAC attacked and eventually broke a number of Japanese code and cipher systems by the end of World War II, their primary target in early 1942 was the Imperial Navy Flag Officer’s system known as JN-25. JN-25 was a very difficult system to break into, despite the best personnel and technology that FRUPAC

could obtain. Nevertheless, by spring 1942, Rochefort was giving Layton and Nimitz some hard data they could use operationally.

The first of these breaks came when FRUPAC managed to break down a list of Japanese warships assigned to amphibious operations against New Guinea and the Solomon Islands in the area of the Great Coral Sea, north of Australia. Combined with other information from aerial reconnaissance and local radio intercepts, Nimitz and the ANZUS command in Australia determined that Port Moresby in New Guinea and the southern Solomons were likely targets for invasion in early May. To oppose these twin operations, Nimitz sent the Lexington and Yorktown task forces to join the ANZUS surface force under Rear Adm. J.G. Crace, RN. He also

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A TBD-1 Devastator launches from the deck of USS Yorktown (CV 5) during the Battle of the Coral Sea.

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dispatched Halsey with Task Force 16 to the Coral Sea, though they would not arrive in time to affect the outcome of the world’s first carrierversus-carrier battle.

The Allies had successfully discovered the details of Operation MO, which would be supported by a Japanese task force of cruisers and destroyers, along with the light carrier Shoho. MO would also have the services of the 5th Carrier Division, composed of the big carriers Shokaku and Zuikaku, along with two heavy cruisers and six destroyers. The planned start date was in early May, with the various Japanese task groups moving into position a few days before. This time, though, a Japanese invasion would run into an ambush.

What became known was the Battle of the Coral Sea began on May 4, when the Yorktown launched an air strike on an invasion force occupying Tulagi and Guadalcanal in the southern Solomons. After sinking several Japanese warships, the Yorktown force rendezvoused with the Lexington group to await developments. What followed was three days of “blind man’s bluff” in the thick May weather north of Australia before events broke open on May 7. That morning, both the Japanese and American carrier forces thought that they had discovered each other, and launched large air strikes. When the Japanese arrived over their targets, they found only the oiler Neosho (AO 23) and destroyer Sims (DD 409). D3A1 dive-bombers promptly left both ships sinking, but with nothing else to show for their effort. The American strike also did not find its primary target, though the planes from Lexington and Yorktown did discover a worthy target: the Japanese MO invasion force headed for Port Moresby.

Within minutes, the two air groups jumped on the light carrier Shoho, hitting it with more than a dozen bombs and torpedoes. The little carrier went down shortly after, prompting the famous “Scratch one flattop!” quote from the victorious American aviators. While the Americans had missed a chance to gain first blood on the large Japanese carriers, their sinking of the Shoho was perhaps more valuable. Having lost the air cover for Operation MO, the invasion force was pulled back to Rabaul and the occupation of Port Moresby postponed. It would never be executed, and a Japanese invasion had been

stopped for the first time since the start of hostilities. However, there still were two carrier forces trying to grope their way through the murky weather, and their battle the next day would need to play out before a victor was declared in the Battle of the Coral Sea. Late that afternoon, the Shokaku and Zuikaku tried to launch an air strike against the American carriers, but their planes became so lost in the darkening clouds that at one point several were in the landing patterns of Lexington and Yorktown, attempting to recover aboard. After the surviving Japanese planes returned to their ships, both sides sorted out their reconnaissance chores, getting ready for the big battle the next day. On the morning of May 8, both sides sent off large air strikes against each other’s carrier forces.

The American strike found Shokaku in the open, though her sister, Zuikaku, was able to find cover under a nearby rain squall. Shokaku was hit by a number of large bombs and heavily damaged, though she managed to limp home to Japan for repairs. Meanwhile, the Japanese had somewhat better luck, hitting Lexington with a number of bombs and torpedoes, while Yorktown suffered one bomb hit and a near miss alongside. Initially, the exchange of air strikes looked like a draw, until gasoline fumes on Lexington ignited in a massive explosion. This led to uncontrollable fires. The beloved “Lady Lex” was abandoned and sank that evening.

With their carrier air groups badly depleted, both sides withdrew to nurse their wounds, and the battle was over.

While the Japanese scored a tactical victory, sinking more and larger ships than the Americans, strategically, the United States and its Allies had won, deflecting the invasion of Port Moresby.

The ANZUS force had also sunk some important ships, especially the carrier Shoho. In hindsight, Coral Sea was an important American victory, the first of World War II.

Incredible Victory: The Battle of Midway Even before the Battle of the Coral Sea, FRUPAC had begun to pick up traces of information about another Japanese offensive, this one headed their way in the central Pacific. Called Operation MI, it appeared to be the largest single operation ever undertaken by the Imperial

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Fleet, with virtually every ship and submarine taking part. Through some very clever analysis and a little trickery, FRUPAC managed to piece together the MI plan, and informed Nimitz of the target and planned execution date: Midway Atoll and early June. The Japanese would muster 11 battleships, eight aircraft carriers, and more than 100 other warships, submarines, and transports to move across the Pacific and take and occupy the northernmost base in the Hawaiian chain – clearly a challenge for the U.S. Navy to come out and fight.

Nimitz had no illusions about what would happen if he attempted to face Yamamoto’s force head-on. There would be a short and ugly battle, with America being driven out of the central Pacific and possibly forcing the evacuation of Pearl Harbor. Short of ships, especially after the loss of the Lexington at Coral Sea, the Pacific Fleet was down to just three operable aircraft carriers (Enterprise, Hornet, and the damaged Yorktown) and a few dozen cruisers, destroyers, and submarines to oppose the Japanese onslaught.

However, Nimitz had one key advantage over Yamamoto: He knew exactly what the MI operation was planned to accomplish, where and when it would happen, how it was organized, and even what ships were assigned to the various Japanese battle groups. Best of all, the Japanese had no idea that FRUPAC had broken into JN-25 and that the MI plan had been thoroughly compromised. MI revolved around the idea that the Japanese would have the same kind of surprise at Midway as at Pearl Harbor, and that the American fleet would be in harbor.

Clearly there were flaws inherent in the MI plan, some of which could be exploited by Nimitz and his carrier commanders if his forces could be assembled in time to meet Operation MI in early June. Realizing that there was opportunity as well as danger in the coming Japanese assault, Nimitz rolled the dice. However, he carefully loaded them in his own favor.

First, Nimitz ordered all three U.S. carrier groups back to Pearl Harbor, having made sure that they were seen by Japanese reconnaissance planes in the South Pacific prior to their return. He then began a quick but thorough reinforcement of Midway Atoll, remembering how effective the Marines at Wake had been the previous December. Along with the ground

Despite heavy seas and bad weather, all 16 B-25s were launched successfully and managed to hit various targets. forces, he sent PT boats and aircraft to protect the tiny atoll, and set up a cordon of American submarines to the northwest and northeast.

Finally, he had his staff study the intercepted MI operations plan, which by now had been almost totally decoded by the FRUPAC codebreakers.

Seeing that the Japanese were throwing their forces in piecemeal in their complex plan, and using almost half of their strength in diversions and reserve forces that were going to be well back from Midway itself, he decided to try to ambush the Japanese Kido Butai (literally mobile unit or force) carrier group. Commanded by Nagumo, this was the same unit that had devastated Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941. The mobile force normally would have been composed of six big aircraft carriers, two fast battleships, a pair of heavy cruisers, and about a dozen other escorts.

Crucially, however, the Coral Sea battle had left Shokaku badly damaged and Zuikaku with a depleted air group. Both would be out of action for several months, reducing the Japanese task force’s striking power by a third.

In contrast, Nimitz ordered Yorktown into drydock at Pearl Harbor for 72 hours to have the worst of her damage patched and her aircraft losses made good by standby replacements.

Joining the rest of Task Force 17 under Fletcher, Yorktown was sent out in time to meet up with Enterprise and Hornet at a rendezvous northeast of Midway, aptly named “Point Luck.” All three of the U.S. carrier air groups had been reinforced with new-model F4F-4 Wildcat fighters, and the three American flattops would have almost as many planes as Nagumo’s four. Combined with the land-based aircraft on Midway, Nimitz’s forces would actually have a small numerical advantage over Kido Butai if the Japanese showed up as scheduled on June 4.

Not everything went in Nimitz’s favor, however. He lost the services of Halsey when the carrier commander came down with a severe skin inflammation that required

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hospitalization. On Halsey’s recommendation, Nimitz elevated Spruance to command of Task Force 16 (whose cruisers and destroyers he had commanded previously) and ordered him to take the two-carrier force out to meet up with Fletcher’s Task Force 17. Also, not all the reinforcements sent to Midway were of the highest caliber. Many of the aircraft were obsolete fighters and dive-bombers such as the Brewster F2A Buffalo and Vought SB2U Vindicator, and the aircrews were as green as their planes were outdated. Nevertheless, Nimitz gambled wisely, with the final touch being that he would remain at Pearl Harbor, rather than go out with the fleet. This would allow him to send updates and messages to his carrier commanders while they concentrated on fighting their battle. In contrast, Yamamoto was riding aboard his flagship, the super battleship Yamato, several hundred miles behind his carrier force, where radio blackout rules would leave him mute until the battle began.

The Battle of Midway opened early on June 3, when the Japanese diversion force in the Aleutians bombed Dutch Harbor, Alaska, and began to occupy the small islands of Attu and Kiska. However, all this did was give Nimitz further confidence in the FRUPAC estimate of the MI operational plan, which had predicted the diversion, and he ordered his units to get ready. One lesson from Coral Sea that the Americans were able to take advantage of at Midway was extensive use of land-based reconnaissance aircraft.

More than 30 Navy PBY Catalina flying boats based on Midway made daily patrols out to 700 miles, covering an entire day’s transit distance by Japanese surface forces. On the evening of June 3, a PBY from Midway discovered the MI invasion force, which was attacked by Army B-17s and Navy PBYs armed with aerial torpedoes. One tanker was torpedoed, though only slightly damaged. It was clear, though, that sometime the next morning, the largest naval engagement in U.S. history was going to take place.

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A U.S. Navy Douglas SBD-3 Dauntless scout bomber of Bombing Squadron Six (VB-6) from the USS Enterprise (CV 6), after landing on the USS Yorktown (CV 5) at about 1140 hours on June 4, 1942, during the Battle of Midway. This plane, damaged during the attack on the Japanese aircraft carrier Kaga that morning, landed on the Yorktown as it was low on fuel. It was later lost with the carrier. Its crew, Ensign George H. Goldsmith, pilot, and Radioman 1st Class James W. Patterson, Jr., are still in the cockpit. The damage to the horizontal tail attests to the fact that the SBDs’ attack was no cakewalk.

June 4, 1942, was a beautiful day in the central Pacific, with the weather front that had been northwest of Midway breaking up. As it did, the ships of Kido Butai emerged and launched an air strike against Midway to begin the pre-invasion bombardment. As more than 100 Japanese bombers and fighters flew toward Midway, a pair of PBYs sighted the attack force, and then Kido Butai itself. While Midway scrambled its small force of fighters to intercept the incoming air strike, dozens of bombers took off to attack the Japanese carrier force.

The Japanese struck first, hitting Midway with a heavy air strike. While their superb A6M2 “Zero” fighters shredded the elderly Marine fighters, the “Vals” and B5N2 “Kates” proceeded to drop their bombs.

However, a number of Japanese aircraft had been lost or damaged, and the leader of Nagumo’s returning strike radioed that they had met an unexpected level of resistance and another strike would be needed to subdue Midway. Though Nagumo had been ordered by Yamamoto to hold half his planes back – armed with torpedoes and armor-piercing bombs – for an attack on any American carriers, he decided to rearm those reserve aircraft for a second strike against the atoll. This meant removing the anti-ship ordnance from the aircraft and loading bombs that were more effective against ground targets.

In the meantime, the island had launched a series of airstrikes of its own – from Air Force B-17s and torpedo-carrying B-26s to Marine SBD Dauntlesses and obsolescent SB2U Vindicators – against Nagumo’s carriers. While the strikes achieved no damage against Kido Butai, they were pressed home with determination and kept the combat air patrols (CAP) of Zeros busy and the carriers maneuvering to avoid the attacks.

This slowed the intricate work of rearming aircraft in the hangar decks, and kept the carriers from being able to head into wind for much longer than it took to recover and recycle their CAP aircraft. Rearming a full deckload strike of aircraft could take up to an hour and a half even under ideal conditions, and spotting the aircraft on deck could take another 45 minutes or more, as the Type 99 Aichi D3A Vals were bombed-up on the flight deck itself. On top of this, the Zeros in the CAP had to be refueled and rearmed after engaging the American aircraft attacking from

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Midway, and more launched in order to keep an umbrella of air cover over the fleet.

Meanwhile, the Japanese aircraft that had flown the first strike on Midway, low on fuel, some damaged and with wounded aboard, would soon need to land and be struck below to the hangar decks to be refueled and rearmed.

At approximately 0745, Nagumo received the message that Tone‘s scout plane reported sighting an American fleet. Shocked, he now reversed the order to rearm his planes for a second strike on Midway. The Kate torpedo bombers were to be reloaded with torpedoes and the Val dive-bombers with armor-piercing bombs for use against ships. Some of his advisers urged an immediate strike on the American fleet with whatever weapons were already hung on the aircraft. He decided instead to land and refuel his CAP aircraft as well as his returning strike aircraft while the rearming was being done, and to launch one big strike assembled from all his carriers.

In the mad rush to rearm, torpedoes, bombs and ammunition were left on the hangar decks, and aircraft were also being fueled. At 0820 Tone‘s scout radioed that it had spotted an American carrier. Nagumo’s decision had already been made, and anyway, rearming was proceeding, and the returning strike aircraft had all landed by 0920. However, it would take time to finish the rearming already underway, rearm the newly recovered strike aircraft, move them up to the flight decks, and spot them for launch.

It would take time Nagumo no longer had.

While the Japanese carriers worked to finish arming, fueling, and preparing to move their strike to the flight decks, 151 American aircraft were shortly to arrive above the Japanese fleet.

Between 0700 and 0755, Spruance’s Enterprise and Hornet had begun launching aircraft at extreme range, hoping to catch the Japanese in exactly the position they had found themselves. At this range, the squadrons did not have enough fuel to circle around and form up properly for coordinated strikes, and individual squadrons departed on individual courses to seek out the Japanese fleet. Aboard Yorktown, Fletcher launched later, between 0838 and 0906, and managed to send a more coordinated strike.

Coordination was important because it split the defenders. This was especially important to the torpedo squadrons flying the obsolescent Douglas

U.S. NAVAL HISTORY AND HERITAGE COMMAND

TBD Devastators. Lt. Cmdr. John C. Waldron’s Torpedo 8 was the only squadron from Hornet to find the enemy that day, but it found the carriers first, around 0920, just as the last of Nagumo’s Midway strike aircraft were trapping aboard.

Waldron was under no illusions as to VT-8’s chances without fighter escort, and even before launching told his pilots that if only one of them was left, he expected that pilot to get a hit. The TBDs came in low and slow, locked into their runs just above the wavetops as the combat air patrol of Zeros scythed into them and every gun in the Japanese fleet that could bear opened up.

The Zeros came in again and again, and one by one the Devastators went in, too low to bail out and too fast to ditch. Only a few dropped their torpedoes, none of them scored hits, and only one pilot, Ensign George Gay, survived.

Rearming and refueling proceeded as quickly as was possible aboard the Japanese carriers as they heeled over into sharp evasive turns to avoid the attacks, but soon Lt. Cmdr. Eugene E. Lindsey’s Torpedo 6 arrived and steadied into their runs. This time, seven managed to

drop their “fish,” but again they got no hits, and only four aircraft survived to recover aboard Enterprise. Even as the carriers recovered from this attack, Lt. Cmdr. Lance E. Massey’s Torpedo 3 bore in. This time, Cmdr. John S. Thach’s Wildcats were there to take on the CAP of Zeros, but they were vastly outnumbered, and enough Zeros remained to cut the TBDs to pieces. Five of Torpedo 3’s Devastators launched, all missed, two returned to their carrier. All three torpedo squadrons had taken devastating losses and failed to make a single effective hit. But it was somewhere in the middle of Torpedo 3’s attack that the Dauntless dive-bombers arrived.

The two squadrons from Hornet failed to find the Japanese forces. The two Enterprise squadrons were similarly unable to initially find their targets, but their leader, Cmdr.

Clarence “Wade” McClusky, was made of sterner stuff. Following a Japanese destroyer that had been chasing down an American submarine, McClusky led his two squadrons of SBDs north. At the same time, Lt. Cmdr.

Maxwell “Max” Leslie was leading a squadron

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The Hiryu after SBD Dauntless dive-bombers of the Hornet and Enterprise finished with her. Her elevator has been blown up against the island structure.

Gutted by fires, she was scuttled when it was clear salvaging her was impossible. The loss of Hiryu and three other carriers marked the end of major Japanese offensives in the Pacific.

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They stood strong 75 years ago so we could stand here today.

To the Pearl Harbor survivors, thank you for your heroism.

of dive-bombers from Yorktown straight at Kido Butai. At 9:34 a.m., the three squadrons of SBDs converged over the Japanese task force and began their attacks.

Thanks to the previous attacks depleting the Japanese CAP, the SBDs had little or no opposition as they began near-vertical dives on three of the Japanese flattops. Most of the Enterprise dive-bombers followed McClusky down onto Kaga, hitting her with so many bombs that she was nearly ripped apart. The five remaining Enterprise SBDs followed Lt. Cmdr. Richard “Dick” Best onto Akagi, hitting her twice and starting devastating fires. Leslie was just as good, leading his Yorktown SBDs onto Soryu, and mortally wounding her. All the exposed ordnance and fuel lines fed the flames, sealing the fate of the three carriers and Japan’s ambitions. In just five amazing minutes, the entire course of the Pacific War had changed.

However, Rear Adm. Tamon Yamaguchi aggressively fought the one remaining Japanese carrier, the Hiryu. Launching a pair of air strikes at the Yorktown, his Vals and Kates crippled the American flattop, leaving her abandoned and drifting by the end of the day. However, Fletcher had sent out a search from Yorktown before the Japanese air strikes, and they found Hiryu in the afternoon. Over on Enterprise and Hornet, Spruance scraped together all the SBDs he could, including some refugees from Yorktown, and sent them after Hiryu. Once again, the Americans caught the Japanese launching, with a final air strike spotted on the deck of Hiryu when the SBDs bombed. Fatally hit, Hiryu would soon join the other three Japanese flattops on the bottom of the Pacific. Though the Americans had lost almost half of their airplanes and had Yorktown crippled, they had just won the most decisive naval victory since Trafalgar, and the battle was not over yet.

For a while after his carriers were hit, Yamamoto tried to hold Operation MI together.

That evening, the Japanese commander tried to ambush Task Force 16 with a night engagement, but the wily Spruance backed out of the trap. Within a few hours, Yamamoto canceled Operation MI, ordering the bulk of his forces to withdraw behind a screen of cruisers. On June 6, SBDs from Enterprise and Hornet sank the heavy cruiser Mikuma and badly damaged her sister, Mogami, as they tried to withdraw. The curtain

With the victory at Midway, Nimitz completed one of the great reversals of fortune in military history. In just six months and with little reinforcement, he led the Pacific Fleet to blunt the greatest overwater invasion in military history, and retook the initiative for the United States and its allies. Within two months, American Marines would take the offensive and land on Guadalcanal to begin the fight that would start the Allies on the road to Tokyo Bay.

fell on the Battle of Midway the next day when the Japanese submarine I-168 torpedoed and sank the crippled Yorktown and the destroyer Hammann (DD 412) as the carrier was being towed home to Pearl Harbor.

With the victory at Midway, Nimitz completed one of the great reversals of fortune in military history. In just six months and with little reinforcement, he led the Pacific Fleet to blunt the greatest overwater invasion in military history, and retook the initiative for the United States and its allies.

Within two months, American Marines would take the offensive and land on Guadalcanal to begin the fight that would start the Allies on the road to Tokyo Bay. n

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Sailors place leis on the graves of Pearl Harbor attack casualties at the Punchbowl in 1945, which would be dedicated as the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific in 1949.

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VISITING HISTORY Pearl Harbor’s World War II Monuments, Memorials, and Historic Sites

BY CRAIG COLLINS

Pearl Harbor Naval Base, Hawaii, has been the homeport of the U.S. Navy’s Pacific Fleet since 1940, when the fleet moved from the west coast of the North American continent to serve as a buffer against Japanese

U.S. NAVAL HISTORY AND HERITAGE COMMAND

expansionism. Today the working naval base, about two miles west of Honolulu International Airport, exists alongside the living remnants of the 1941 attack.

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While public access to the base is restricted, there are several memorials and museums accessible to civilians who want to pay their respects to, or simply learn more about, heroes and victims of the attack on Dec. 7, 1941.

The World War II Valor in the Pacific National Monument

NATIONAL PARK SERVICE PHOTO

In 2008, several existing Pearl Harbor sites and monuments were brought together within the newly designated World War II Valor in the Pacific National Monument – a sprawling complex, encompassing nine sites in three states, that honors America’s engagement in the Pacific theater. In Hawaii, these sites include: The USS Arizona Memorial and Visitor Center In Hawaii, the national monument’s installations are anchored by the USS Arizona Memorial and its shoreside Visitor Center. The Visitor Center, remodeled in 2010 to serve as a portal to all the monument’s Hawaii sites, features a number of interpretive historic and cultural exhibits not only on the Pearl Harbor attack, but on its prelude and aftermath. Many of these exhibits, as well as the center’s bookstore and gift shop, are the work of Pacific Historic Parks, a nonprofit that supports educational programs at four National Park Service sites throughout the Pacific.

While many other ships were damaged, and many of their crew members killed or injured during the attack, the scope of the USS Arizona’s loss in 1941 became the focal point for a nation that had been divided over U.S. involvement in the war. Likewise, the Arizona’s memorial – perhaps the most famous and most frequently visited war memorial in the United States, receiving about 1.6 million visitors each year – has become emblematic of the feelings of loss, grief, and pride for the people who served and died throughout World War II. Though some efforts were made to remove ordnance from the Arizona after it was sunk, the ship was too badly wrecked to be raised again.

With wartime efforts focused on salvaging and refloating ships that could be saved, it was also decided not to attempt to recover the bodies of the dead, though about a hundred were recovered initially. The rest are considered buried at sea by the U.S. Navy. About 900 men are still entombed in the vessel’s remains, which lie

in 38 feet of water, with some rusted parts – including the prominent rusty barbette of the Number 3 gun turret – still protruding from beneath the water.

In 1950, then-Commander-in-Chief Pacific Fleet Adm. Arthur W. Radford ordered a flag flown and a plaque placed over the sunken hull of the Arizona. In 1958, President Dwight D. Eisenhower approved the creation of a larger memorial, which was completed within three years and dedicated on Memorial Day 1962.

The National Park Service assumed operation of the USS Arizona Memorial in 1980.

The simple white concrete structure, 184 feet long, is perched transversely over the sunken hull of the battleship, supported by two enormous concrete girders. The memorial is reached by shuttle boat, and access is gained by formal stairs at the harbor end. The memorial itself is divided into three sections: an entry or assembly room, a central area used for ceremonies and for viewing the sunken ship, and a shrine room, where the names of those lost on the Arizona are inscribed on a marble wall. A few small steps lead up to the wall where leis, flowers, and wreaths are usually placed in remembrance. A separate marker is devoted to 16 survivors who chose to be reunited with their shipmates in the waters below. The main central area includes a viewing well that looks down below the surface of the water, at the vague outline of the ship’s remains. The flag over the memorial flies from a pole attached to the ship’s severed mainmast.

A visit to the memorial begins onshore at the Visitor Center, where free guided tours begin with a brief talk by a park ranger or a Pearl Harbor

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The USS Arizona Memorial.

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NATIONAL PARK SERVICE PHOTO

survivor, followed by a film about the attack. The center is open from 7 a.m. to 5 p.m. daily, except for Thanksgiving Day, Christmas Day, and New Year’s Day, and tours generally begin every 15 minutes from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. A Navy-operated tender takes successive groups to the memorial structure. During this ride, as the shuttle boat passes the sites of other ships sunk or damaged in the attack, a narrative audiotape relates what happened on the morning of Dec. 7, 1941. The entire tour typically takes about 75 minutes.

Because the memorial is also a burial site, it is a very solemn place. The assembly room is capable of holding only about 200 people at once, so the line-up for tours at the Visitors Center is often long – a two-hour wait on most days – and tickets are usually gone by early afternoon. The best time to arrive is before the doors open at 7:00.

The USS Oklahoma Memorial and Battleship Row Mooring Quays F6, F7, and F8 Like the Arizona, the USS Oklahoma was one of eight battleships moored in a line of deepwater berths known as Battleship Row, along the southeast side of Ford Island. The Oklahoma, like the Arizona, did not survive the attack; the six other battleships in Pearl Harbor – Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Maryland, California, West Virginia, and Nevada – later returned to service.

The Oklahoma suffered three torpedo hits almost immediately after the first Japanese bombs fell on Pearl Harbor. Two more struck the ship’s hull as it began to capsize, and the members of its crew who attempted to abandon ship were strafed by gunfire. Within 12 minutes of being hit, Oklahoma had sunk, rolled over with its masts touching the bottom of the harbor and part of its keel exposed. A staggering 429 of its crew were lost, though many survived to join the fight – earning three Medals of Honor, three Navy and Marine Corps Medals, and a Navy Cross among them.

The wreck of the Oklahoma capsized and sank while being towed to San Francisco for scrapping in 1947. In Pearl Harbor, the sole reminder of its service is a polished black granite monument near the spot where the ship was moored on Ford Island – accessible by taking the Ford Island shuttle from the Visitor Center to the USS Missouri Memorial.

Battleship Row vessels were tied off to huge black-and-white masonry mooring quays, many

of which still stand today. Mooring quays F6, F7, and F8 are part of the World War II Valor in the Pacific National Monument.

The USS Utah Memorial The Utah rests on the west side of Ford Island in Pearl Harbor, where it had returned in early December 1941 after completing an anti-aircraft gunnery cruise – its final voyage. At 8:01 a.m. on Dec. 7, the ship took two torpedo hits and listed so quickly that the order was given to abandon ship. Within 12 minutes, the battleship had rolled over and was keel up, a total loss. Fifty-eight of the ship’s crew were dead, and most still lie with the sunken remains. The Utah was later rolled over to clear the channel, but was left on the bottom.

A memorial plaque was affixed to the overturned hull of the ship, but in later years a more permanent and accessible memorial was constructed: a 70-foot walkway, extending out from Ford Island to the Utah’s partially exposed hull. The brass plaque commemorating the loss of the Utah is mounted here, at the base of a flagpole.

Because of its location within the confines of an active military installation, the Utah Memorial, a National Historic Landmark, is normally open only to visitors with a government ID card.

The Ford Island CPO Bungalows Also included in the national monument are five chief petty officer bungalows on Ford Island, adjacent to Oklahoma’s mooring quays. They are the last remnants of the CPO neighborhood, the homes that were closest to Battleship Row.

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The USS Oklahoma Memorial. Beyond it is the USS Missouri Memorial and Museum.

being refloated and modernized. Nevada served with distinction throughout the remainder of World War II – including fire support for the capture of Attu in the Aleutian Island chain; attacks on German shore defenses during the Normandy invasion; and service with the Third Fleet off Okinawa during the closing days of the war. The Nevada returned to Pearl Harbor and was decommissioned in 1946.

Sixty of the Nevada’s officers and men were killed in action during the Pearl Harbor raid. Their names are inscribed on a plaque that stands on the shoreline near Hospital Point, where the Nevada ran aground. The memorial was dedicated on Dec. 7, 1983.

Once slated for demolition, the bungalows were saved by the efforts of community members – including the Historic Hawaii Foundation – and, while still owned by the Navy, are managed by the National Park Service (NPS), which mistakenly tore one of the bungalows down in June, 2016. The NPS plans to restore the remaining five, beginning with Building 29. The bungalows have not yet been made available to the public.

The sites contained within the World War II Valor in the Pacific National Monument are not the only places near Pearl Harbor where visitors can learn about the war in the Pacific and pay respect to those who served. Other sites include:

The USS Nevada Memorial The only battleship able to get underway and make a break for the open water during the attack, the USS Nevada (BB 36) made it as far as the mouth of the harbor channel before it was overcome by multiple bomb hits and a torpedo. As it became clear that the ship could not stay afloat, the decision was made to run the Nevada aground and keep the channel clear for other ships to make their way out of Pearl Harbor, if possible. Before the ship struck the shore, its crew managed to down three Japanese aircraft.

As the crew fought its numerous fires, the Nevada drifted until it was facing back up the harbor. Within a day it had settled on the bottom, though still upright and in fairly shallow water. It remained there for more than two months before

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The USS Bowfin Submarine Museum and Park Adjacent to the USS Arizona Memorial Visitors Center on the shore of Pearl Harbor, the USS Bowfin Submarine Museum and Park is a complex that includes a museum, mini-theater, gift shop, outdoor exhibits, and the Waterfront Memorial for the submarines and crew who served and died during World War II. One of the more popular attractions at the complex is the Bowfin itself. Launched on the first anniversary of the Pearl Harbor attack, the submarine served admirably enough to be nicknamed “The Pearl Harbor Avenger,” sinking more than 16 Japanese merchant and military vessels.

Decommissioned in 1971, Bowfin is now back at Pearl Harbor, berthed at the park and available for tours. In 1986, Bowfin was designated a National Historic Landmark.

An admission ($12 adults, $5 for children, and $8 for military and seniors) is charged to see the Bowfin and museum exhibits, but the public is free to roam the park grounds, where the Waterfront Memorial, officially dedicated in May 1992, stands in tribute to the U.S. submarines and more than 3,500 submariners lost during World War II. The 52 individual monuments chronicle the wartime career of each of the sunken submarines and list the names of their officers and enlisted men. A separate monument lists the names of additional submariners who died in the line of duty.

The museum and park are open daily from 7 a.m. to 5 p.m., except for Thanksgiving Day, Christmas Day, and New Year’s Day.

NATIONAL PARK SERVICE PHOTO

The USS Utah Memorial.

The USS Bowfin Memorial.

PHOTO VIA USS BOWFIN SUBMARINE MUSEUM AND PARK

The Pacific Aviation Museum On 16 acres near the Missouri and Oklahoma memorials on Ford Island, the Pacific Aviation Museum chronicles the nation’s aviation history, with special attention given to naval warfare in the Pacific. The grounds include three historic naval aircraft hangars and a control tower. Veteran docents lead tours among aircraft housed in Hangar 37 and Hangar 79, a battlefield survivor that still bears the scars of the Pearl Harbor attack.

General admission to the museum, which is open daily from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. (except for Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year’s Day), is $25 for adults and $12 for children; additional charges apply for use of a combat flight simulator and docent-guided tours.

The Pacific Aviation Museum can be accessed by car, or by shuttle buses that depart the Pearl Harbor Visitor Center every 15 minutes, from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. daily. Tickets to the museum may be purchased at the Visitor Center, the museum itself, or online.

National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific (Punchbowl National Cemetery) The extinct volcanic Punchbowl Crater was known to ancient Hawaiians as Puwowaina

(“Hill of Sacrifice”), and was the sacred site of many royal burials, as well as the place where breakers of certain kapus (taboos) were sacrificed. Now the site of the 115-acre National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific, Punchbowl is the final resting place of more than 38,000 soldiers, more than half of whom died in the Pacific during World War II. The soldiers’ graves are marked by individual plaques in the ground. 776 casualties from the Pearl Harbor attack were among the first to be buried at the cemetery, which was dedicated in September 1949. While many of the ships that suffered losses at Pearl Harbor – including the Oklahoma, California, Pennsylvania, and the West Virginia – don’t have individual memorials at the harbor, the men who served on them are honored here.

The centerpiece of the cemetery, atop a marble flight of stairs, is the Court of Honor, anchored by the 30-foot statue of a female figure holding a laurel branch. The area includes a nondenominational chapel and several engraved galleries of maps, which depict important Pacific engagements of World War II. On either side of the stairway are 10 marble “Courts of the Missing,” monuments to the 28,788 Americans listed as missing in action in World War II, the Korean War, and the Vietnam War.

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The Battleship Missouri Memorial and Museum.

A place of serenity and natural beauty, Punchbowl offers visitors a chance for quiet contemplation and reflection. A paved road leads up from the cemetery to a lookout point, which offers a spectacular view from Diamond Head and Waikiki to downtown Honolulu. The cemetery is open to the public, free of charge, from 8 a.m. to 6:30 p.m. daily (it closes at 5:30 p.m. from Sept. 30 to March 1 and is closed on federal holidays other than Memorial Day). The American Legion (808-946-6383) offers walking tours Monday through Friday.

Punchbowl is easily accessible from downtown Honolulu or the Pali Highway.

The Battleship Missouri Memorial and Museum Three hundred yards away from the Arizona, the USS Missouri (BB 63) – whose career spanned a half-century and service in three wars – is berthed, its 16-inch guns pointing symbolically toward the Arizona in a protective posture. While the Arizona is the tragic emblem of the war’s beginning, the Missouri stands as a powerful symbol of the war’s end. It was aboard the Missouri, docked at Tokyo Bay on Sept.

2, 1945, that the Japanese signed the formal surrender ending World War II.

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Part of the last and biggest class of U.S. Navy battleships ever built – it didn’t even exist at the time of the Pearl Harbor attack – Missouri entered service in 1944 and was involved in the invasions of Okinawa and Iwo Jima, as well as attacks on the Japanese mainland. At the beginning of the Korean War, it was involved in the invasion of Inchon. Missouri was decommissioned in 1955 and docked at Bremerton, Washington, where it served as a tourist attraction until 1986, when it was recommissioned at San Francisco. In 1990, after Iraq invaded Kuwait, Missouri was sent to the Persian Gulf, and in 1991 fired its big 16-inch guns – capable of flinging a 2-ton shell more than 20 miles – for the first time since Korea.

Finally decommissioned in 1992, the Missouri was donated to the USS Missouri Memorial Association in Honolulu, and was opened as a memorial in January 1999. Despite its location, the “Mighty Mo” is not part of the national monument, but like the Bowfin is maintained and operated by a private non-profit organization.

Tour tickets ($27-65 adults, $13-35 children) can be purchased at the Bowfin Memorial Museum, or booked online. The memorial is open daily (except Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year’s Day) from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m June-August, and 8:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. September-May. Visitors can view the wardroom, officers’ quarters, and the spot on the ship’s fantail where a Japanese attack plane crashed onto the deck, setting the ship on fire. Six of the decks are accessible to visitors; one of the most popular spots is the main deck, where visitors stand in awe of the Missouri’s massive guns. The exact spot of the Japanese surrender on Deck 01 (the “Surrender Deck”) is marked by an inset plaque, and highlighted by the recorded voice of Gen. Douglas MacArthur.

The decision to berth the Missouri within a ship’s length of the Arizona was not without some controversy. There were some who felt – and still feel – that the big battleship overshadows the solemn memorial to those who died at Pearl Harbor. Others believe that the Missouri and Arizona, side by side, serve as fitting bookends to mark the start and finish of the bloodiest conflict in world history. n

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Dec. 7, 1941 Losses

Monaghan Dale Farragut Aylwin

Henley Ralph Talbot Patterson

East Loch

Selfridge Case Tucker Reid Conyngham Whitney

Blue

PEARL CITY

Phoenix

Middle Loch Gamble Montgomery Breese Ramsay

MacDonough Phelps Dewey Hull Worden Dobbin

Detroit Trever Wasmuth Zane Perry

Solace

Raleigh

Baltimore Allen Chew

Utah

Medusa

McGrew Point

FORD ISLAND NAVAL AIR STATION

Tangier Curtiss

Nevada

Arizona Vestal Tennessee West Virginia Oklahoma

Maryland

BATTLESHIP ROW

Neosho California

1010 Dock

Avocet

SUPPLY BASE Ramapo

Rigel

Cachelot

Downes Cassin

Bagley

Narwhal Dolphin Tautog Hulbert Thornton Manuwai

Pennsylvania Hospital Point

Widgeon

New Orleans San Francisco St. Louis Honolulu

Helena Shaw

Pelias

Argonne

Oglala Seaplane Ramp

PT 25, 23, 21, 24, 20, 22

SUBMARINE BASE Sumner Tank Farm Merry Point

Castor

(Drydock)

NAVY YARD Tank Farm

Sunk Heavily Damaged Moderately Damaged Undamaged Nevada's Sortie

Vireo Turkey Bobolink Rail

West Loch

To Pacific Ocean Helm

LOSSES

UNITED STATES

JAPAN

Personnel Killed

Navy – 1,998 Marine Corps – 109 Army – 233 Civilian – 48

64

Personnel Wounded

Navy – 710 Marine Corps – 69 Army – 364 Civilian – 35

Unknown

Sunk or beached – 12 (All U.S. ships, except USS Arizona, USS Utah, and USS Oklahoma, were salvaged and later saw action.)

Damaged – 9

Sunk – 5 (midget submarines) Damaged – 0

Destroyed – 164 Damaged – 159

Destroyed – 29 Damaged – 74

Ships

Aircraft

CASUALTIES (KIAS) BY SHIP USS Arizona (BB 39) – 1,177 USS California (BB 44) – 105 USS Chew (DD 106) – 2 USS Curtiss (AV 4) – 21 USS Dobbin (AD 3) – 4 USS Downes (DD 375) – 12 USS Enterprise (CV 6) – 11 USS Helena (CL 50) – 34 USS Maryland (BB 46) – 4 USS Nevada (BB 36) – 57 USS Oklahoma (BB 37) – 429 USS Pennsylvania (BB 38) – 24 USS Pruitt (DM 22 light minelayer) – 1 USS Shaw (DD 373) – 24 USS Sicard (DM 21) – 1 USS Tennessee (BB 43) – 5 USS Tracy (DM 19) – 3 USS Utah (AG 16) – 58 USS Vestal (AR 4) – 7 USS West Virginia (BB 48) – 106