Pearl Harbor

                                  Pearl Harbor

In early November of 1941 the Imperial Japanese Military Staff had decided that the American Pacific Fleet had to be neutralized in order to continue their war of expansion that they were planning in the Dutch East Indies. They decided that a strike would be made against the American Pacific Fleet while they are in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. Admiral Yamamoto was assigned the task of carrying the plan to fruition and was issued a list of nine general orders but the most important of them was Order number 1, Order number 5 and Order number 9.

Order number 1 stated that The Carrier Strike Force will proceed to the Hawaii area and deliver a fatal strike to the American Naval and other military forces there. The strike will be made beginning at 0330 hours and after completion of the attack the Task Force would withdraw and return to Japan. But if a large force tries to intercept a counter attack would be delivered.

Order number 5 gave discretion to abort the attack to Admiral Yamamoto if ongoing negotiations with the United States results in an agreement

Order number 9 issued on December 1 was in 6 parts and addressed to Admiral Yamamoto. It said in part:

Japan had decided to open hostilities against the US, Great Britain and the Netherlands in early December.

Admiral Yamamoto will smash the enemy fleets and air forces in the Orient and at the same time will intercept and annihilate any enemy fleets sent to attack Japan.

Admiral Yamamoto will occupy key bases of the United States, Great Britain and the Netherlands in the Orient in close cooperation with the Commander-in-Chief of the Imperial Southern Army.

On November 26, 1941 the Carrier Task Force with the strength of 6 aircraft carriers, 2 battleships, 3 cruisers, 9 destroyers, 8 tankers, 23 submarines, 5 midget submarines and 441 aircraft all commanded by Vice Admiral Nagumo departed the Kuril Islands under strict radio silence. The biggest mystery in this whole fiasco was why the American military was so unprepared. They had been receiving almost daily reports since mid- November that the Japanese were coming. They even received a report from an Australian spy when the task force left the Kuril Islands. When the attack began, the anti-aircraft weapons were not manned, the ammunition for them was in lock-up, the anti-submarine procedures were not implemented, there were no combat air patrols, the aircraft were parked wingtip to wingtip to avoid sabotage, etc. Not only that, in 1924, United States General Billy Mitchell forecasted the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor and even predicted when (on a weekend and at dawn) and how, three waves with the dive bombers first. But the upper echelon of the American military were too busy wallowing in inter-service rivalry to pay this man of vision any attention. Mitchell was not in good stead anyway because Mitchell had told the Navy that the days of the battleship was numbered because they were vulnerable to air attack. Mitchell was a promoter of air power. The US Navy told Mitchell he was wrong and challenged him to put his money where his mouth was and sure enough Mitchell sent a surplus battleship to the bottom with 5 bombs. The commander-in-chief of the Pacific fleet, Rear Admiral Husband Kimmel, paid little if no attention to all the incoming intelligence saying that the Japanese were coming as did the Commanding General of the Army post in Hawaii, General Walter Short. They believed they were coming but not as soon as they did arrive. The only message that specifically mentioned Hawaii as a target was not decoded until December 8.

While all of this is going on, the Japanese embassy in Washington is receiving many messages from Tokyo all hinting at preparations for war with the United States and all were being intercepted by American Military Intelligence and given to all the appropriate civilian authority. At the same the Japanese diplomats in Washington were trying to negotiate a treaty with the United States Secretary of State Cordell Hull. The Diplomats were instructed to complete negotiations by exactly 1:00p of December 7 because after that time Japan would declare war on the United States and the attack on Hawaii would begin. The treaty was not completed but the declaration of war was never issued and the attack began as a sneak attack.

Admiral Yamamoto and his staff had worked out a plan of attack that included coming in three waves. The commander of the Fleet, Admiral Nagumo, decided to us only two waves instead. The first attack began at about 7:55a with 49 level bombers, 51 dive bombers, 40 torpedo planes and 43 fighters flying air cover. Pearl Harbor and most of the military installations were on the south side of the island of Oahu so the Japanese attacked from the north to maximize the element of surprise. This attack was led by Lt. Commander Fuchida. The second attack contained 54 level bombers, 78 dive bombers, and 35 fighters flying air cover. There was also Japanese submarines at the mouth of the harbor waiting to torpedo any ship trying to escape. In fact, film evidence shows that the first shot fired by the Japanese during the attack was by a midget submarine that somehow got into the harbor and fired a torpedo into the flanks of the USS West Virginia. The further disposition of this submarine was never determined.

The first wave air attack began in earnest at 7:58a with the level bombers followed closely by the dive bombers and then the torpedo planes. Since there were no American fighters airborne, the Japanese fighters came down from air cover and strafed the aircraft on the ground. Nearly all of the American combat aircraft were destroyed at all of the airfields on the Island of Oahu. Not only that, there were B-17 long range bombers and Catalina recon aircraft that were destroyed also. The first wave turned toward their carriers and passed the second wave incoming. It was more and more carnage now because the docked ships were defenseless except for small caliber anti-aircraft fire. The first wave suffered minimal losses but the second wave losses were considerable because the element of surprise was gone.

Most of the bombs used by the Japanese were not bombs per se, they were armor piercing artillery shells fitted with fins. It was during the second wave that the forward ammunition locker on the USS Arizona was penetrated by a bomb and a ferocious explosion ripped the great ship apart and it sank to the bottom. Nearly half of the American casualties during these attacks were attributable to the crew members that were lost on the Arizona. At the completion of the second wave, the destruction was complete. The good thing about this whole disaster was that the only American aircraft carriers in the Pacific were out to sea during the attack. Had they been in port, the war in the Pacific probably would have been different. Victory would have been much longer in coming.

After the aircraft on the second wave were recovered, Admiral Nagumo signaled for the fleet to head back to Japan over the objections of many of his officers. They wanted a third wave to take out the huge American oil storage facilities and the submarine pens. Had Nagumo chosen to allow the destruction of the oil storage facilities the American forces would have been in serious trouble. Nagumo chose to leave for several reasons. His ships and aircraft needed refueling. He was afraid that the American carriers and/or submarines would find them. And he had indeed have completed his mission of the destruction of the American Pacific fleet.

The final totals were:

Of the 8 American battleships, 1 destroyed (Arizona), 2 sunk in their moorings, 1 capsized, 1 beached, 3 damaged but afloat.. In addition to the battleships, there were 9 other warships severely damaged and 188 aircraft totally destroyed. There were 2,335 military and 68 civilians killed, 1,143 military and 35 civilians injured.

There were 55 Japanese airman and 9 submariners killed with 1 captured., 29 aircraft and 4 midget submarines lost.

The next day United States President Franklin Roosevelt declared war on the Empire of Japan and the United States entered in the bloodiest conflict in recorded history.

Thanks for listening I can hardly wait until tomorrow