Posted by Mary Jones on Dec 07, 2017
President John Fuller invited Club member Dick Campbell forward to present the day's program -- a retrospective of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941.
 
 
REMEMBERING PEARL HARBOR
 
            “Yesterday, December 7, 1941 – a date that will live in infamy – the United States of America was suddenly and deliberately attacked by naval and air forces of the empire of Japan.”
With this opening sentence, President Franklin D. Roosevelt, appearing before a joint session of Congress on December 8, terms the attack by Japan upon Hawaii as dastardly and unprovoked, and asks for an immediate declaration of war. He closed his text remarks with this sentence -
“With confidence in our armed forces, with the unbounding determination of our people, we will gain the inevitable triumph – so help us God.” Roosevelt had spoken for only 6 ½ minutes.
            In American mythology, Pearl Harbor still represents, even after 76 years, a classical moment of treachery and betrayal. Certainly it was a moment of historic surprise, a moment when the impossible happened, when warfare suddenly spread, for the first and only time in history, to virtually the whole world. The surprise, when it first exploded over Pearl Harbor, was shattering and anyone now over 82 years old can probably still remember what they were doing when the news interrupted that quiet Sunday.
            My remembrance of that day was recorded in this December 2007 issue of the History Channel Magazine, shown here on page 40, of my published answer to their question – “Where were you on Infamy’s day?”   I was 9 years old, living in Indianapolis, Indiana, playing on our front porch. I had no idea where Pearl Harbor was at the time, but I became very interested in following the progress of our involvement in WW II through radio reports and news coverage in our three Indianapolis newspapers. On December 8, 1941, I began clipping anything pertaining to the war for next four years, and by Sept. 2, 1945, I had compiled eight scrapbooks, which I still have today. I like to refer to them as “World War II through the eyes of a ‘Hoosier’ boy.”
 
           
Looking back after 76 years, it’s difficult to imagine how so many clues were missed or ignored and also somewhat difficult to understand why Japan attacked in the first place. The causes of the war were complex . . .
When Japanese troops landed in French Indochina in 1941, President Roosevelt froze Japanese assets in the United States and cut off Japan’s critical supplies of oil from the United States. To Japanese leaders his actions threatened the very survival of their nation, which they believed depended upon further expansion into Southeast Asia. The Japanese military set its sights on British Malaya, the Dutch East Indies, and the Philippines, a U.S. commonwealth. Without abundant new supplies of tin, rubber, oil, and other resources found in these countries, Japan feared it could not fulfill its destiny to rule Asia. War now appeared inevitable between Japan and the U.S.
 
For years the U.S. ambassador to Tokyo, Joseph C. Grew, had warned of the temper of the Japanese military. Yet the daring plan to bomb Pearl Harbor came not from a young warrior itching to fight, but rather from a 57 year-old Japanese veteran in January 1941, who was deeply opposed to war with America, Adm. Isoroku Yamamoto, commander in chief of Japan’s Combined Fleet. Yamamoto had studied at Harvard University in 1919 and served as naval attaché in Washington, DC from 1926 to 1928. . Although initially opposed to war with the United States, he resigned himself to war under pressure from the Army-ruled Japanese government and its expansionist plans.
 
The purpose of the attack was to sink or cripple large units of the U.S. Pacific Fleet so that they would not interfere with Japan’s southern thrust toward the Philippines and especially the East Indies.... Once Yamamoto was convinced that war was unavoidable, he reached a startling conclusion. Instead of waiting for U.S. ships to venture close to Japanese waters, where the Japanese navy could fight a defensive battle, Japan should launch a surprise attack on Pearl Harbor to deliver an early knockout punch. If Japan could destroy the U.S. fleet in one pre-emptive strike, it could set up an impenetrable line of defense across the Pacific Ocean before America could replenish its warship supply. 
 
The island of Oahu, due to its fortifications, its garrison, and its physical characteristics at Pearl Harbor, was believed to be the strongest fortress in the world. One U.S. Senator boasted that the U.S. Navy “can defeat the Japanese Navy, any place and at any time.” Even President Roosevelt and his top advisors, who were reading Tokyo’s secret diplomatic messages, failed to recognize the imminent danger to Hawaii.
           
The two officers most responsible for defending Pearl Harbor were caught equally unprepared for the assault.
The commander in chief of the U.S. Pacific Fleet, Adm. Husband E. Kimmel, was convinced that Japan would strike in Southeast Asia, not Hawaii. Even after an urgent war warning message to Pacific bases from Washington D.C. on November 27, 1941, stating that, “an aggressive move by Japan is expected within the next few days,” Kimmel took no special precautions at Pearl Harbor. No ships were sent out to sea, no long-range patrols ordered for Navy scout planes.
            The commander of the Army’s Hawaiian Department, Lt. Gen. Walter C. Short, was more worried about sabotage by Hawaii’s 160,000 residents of Japanese ancestry than about a surprise attack by Japan. When Short read the war warning message on November 27, he ordered an Alert, calling for a defense against sabotage espionage, and subversive activities. Instead of taking measures to ensure that his warplanes could respond swiftly to an attack, he ordered ammunition to be locked up to prevent theft by locals and his aircraft parked in tight groups out in the open, where they could be easily protected from saboteurs. As a result, they were lined up like sitting ducks when the Japanese bombers swooped in.
 
            To be fair, Hawaii’s military leaders might have defended Pearl Harbor better if America’s intelligence agencies had been more alert and had passed along crucial information sooner....
 
            Although the U.S. had broken the codes for Japanese diplomatic messages in the summer of 1940, Admiral Kimmel and General Short were not getting information they needed. Among the documents flooding cryptographers in Washington were cables from 29 year-old Takeo Yoshikawa, a spy in the Japanese consulate in Honolulu. He had regularly posed as a tourist, taking commercial sightseeing flights above Oahu and Pearl Harbor and then reporting back to Tokyo the number and types of warships in the harbor.... Because Yoshikawa was never identified as a spy, his reports were ignored by intelligence experts in Washington. 
 
            Yet another chance to sound the alert came at 6:45 am Sunday morning, when the destroyer Ward spotted and fired upon a midget submarine at 6:53 a.m. near the entrance to the Pearl Harbor channel. This vessel was one of 5 midget and 30 large submarines then encircling Oahu. Their mission was to spy on the base, torpedo escaping ships, and protect the Japanese aircraft carriers.
 
The Ward’s captain reported its action to the district watch officer... (When) Admiral Kimmel was called at home,. having recently dealt with numerous false alarms relating to submarines in the area, he reacted skeptically, deciding to “wait for verification.” By that time the Japanese bombers were on their way.
 
            Incredibly, the Japanese aircraft were spotted by two U.S. Army radar operators at 7:02 a.m., while the planes were still more than 130 miles away.  Even that wasn’t enough to rouse Pearl Harbor into action. Pvt. Joseph Lockard telephoned the information center at Fort Schafter, which passed the message along to Lt. Kermit Tyler, a pilot with the 78th Pursuit Squadron, who was temporarily manning the message desk. At 7:20 a.m. Lockard told Tyler that they were continuing to track what appeared to be an unusually large flight racing in from almost due north. Remembering that a flight of B-17 American bombers was due to arrive from California that morning, Tyler told Lockard,Well, don’t worry about it.” (Five words that he regretted for the rest of his life)
 
            The Japanese task force, under the command of Adm. Chuichi Nagumo, had steamed eastward from Hitokappu Bay in the Kuriles on November 26, 1941 for its 12-day voyage to Hawaii. This task force consisted of 6 aircraft carriers with 432 aircraft aboard, 2 battleships, 2 heavy cruisers, 1 light cruiser, 9 destroyers, 3 submarines, and 7 refueling tankers, for a total of 30 ships.
 
At an average speed of 13 knots, refueling daily, the attack force pursued a course 3,150 miles from Hitokappu Bay through the empty expanse of the North Pacific, arriving at their takeoff point, about 230 miles north of Pearl Harbor on December 6.   
 
            At 5:50 a.m. on December 7, 1941 Adm. Nagumo turned his six carriers into the wind and increased their speed to 24 knots.  At 6:10 a.m., Lt. Cmdr. Mitsuo Fuchida, leader of the air attack, took off in a Kate bomber, with the first wave of Zero fighters, followed by the dive bombers, high level bombers, and torpedo planes. Within 15 minutes, 183 aircraft were winging south toward Oahu. Another 167 planes followed in the second wave. 
 
When Fuchida arrived over Pearl Harbor he thought to himself, “What a majestic sight,” as he counted the vessels lined up in Battleship Row. Eight of the nine battleships in the Pacific Fleet were enjoying a quiet day of rest.  A total of 96 ships were in the harbor.
 
Fuchida fired a flare at 7:40 a.m. to start the attack. He then sent the now famous radio message to all Japanese commands in the Pacific: Tora! Tora! Tora!,” meaning (Tiger, Tiger, Tiger)Indicating that they had achieved complete surprise. Within minutes, Pearl Harbor was pandemonium: explosions, screams, tearing steel, the rattle of machine guns, smoke, fire, bugles sounding, the whine of diving planes, and more explosions. With Battleship Row afire, Fuchida’s bombers circled over the maze of Pearl Harbor’s docks and piers, striking again and again at the cruisers and destroyers and supply ships harbored there.
 
Other Japanese bombers swarmed over Hawaii’s military airfields, Hickam, Wheeler, Kaneohe and Ewa. Dive bombing and strafing the American planes neatly parked on the runways, they quickly won control of the sky. They wrecked hangars, warehouses, and barracks.
 
The great attack was really fairly short. The first bombers returned to their carriers just after 10;00 a.m., scarcely two hours after they descended on Battleship Row. Fuschida lingered to observe and photograph the damage and was the last to return to Naguma’s fleet. It was still only noon.
 
Mitsuo Fuchida and Minoru Genda argued fiercely with Nagumo for renewing the attack.  But Adm. Nagumo, who had mistrusted the plan from the start, felt he had accomplished his mission and saw no reason to risk his fleet any further. Back in Japan, Yamamoto strongly disapproved of Nagumo’s decision to withdraw, but accepted the tradition that such decisions are left to the combat commander on the scene.
 
In terms of casual destruction, this was one of the most one-sided battles in history. The U.S. lost 2,403 killed (about half of them on the Arizona,) and 1,178 wounded. The Japanese, who had expected to sacrifice as much as one-third of their force, lost 55 airmen, nine crewmen aboard five minisubs, and approximately 65 on one sunken submarine. The U.S. lost 21 surface warships, sunk or seriously damaged; the Japanese none.  The U.S. lost 169 planes destroyed and 159 damaged; the Japanese lost 29 aircraft.
 
To Yamamoto and the Imperial Japanese Navy, Operation Hawaii appeared to be a complete success.... But . . . they also made some big blunders at Pearl Harbor:
 
They failed to destroy Pearl Harbor’s Navy Yard, which within months, repaired three battleships and sent them back to sea. Had our Pearl Harbor installations for repairs been destroyed, our Fleet would have been forced back to the West Coast of the United States for support, which would have prolonged the war.
 
They failed to blow up the oil storage tanks, brimming with 190 million gallons. Without that fuel the U.S. fleet would have had to relocate to the mainland. It would have taken years to re-establish that supply and would have delayed our Pacific war accordingly.
 
 They failed to catch the U.S. Pacific Fleet’s three aircraft carriers in port, (the Lexington and Enterprise were at sea, and the Saratoga was undergoing repairs in California), and within six months the carriers struck back, sinking four Japanese carriers at the Battle of Midway.
 
Likewise, the Japanese made an even more serious error  by leaving our submarine base on Quarry Point free from attack. As a consequence, no submarines or supporting equipment were damaged and submarines could proceed immediately to stations in the far western Pacific and start their long campaign of destruction of the Japanese merchant marine which was a primary factor in the defeat of Japan.
 
So in spite of the reverses we suffered on December 7, these were some spots on which we could congratulate ourselves on our good luck!
 
Most important for Japan, Yamamoto had misjudged the United States. Instead of being demoralized by the surprise attack, as he had predicted, the American people were enraged. No matter what their political differences, they were now united in their determination to seek revenge. No longer did President Roosevelt have to persuade the U.S. to join the world at war. When the Japanese bombers struck on that awful Sunday morning, they gave Americans all the reason they needed.
 
Like a bridge spanning the years, the Arizona Memorial has become a place of reconciliation as well as remembrance.
 
Of the 96 U.S. warships in Pearl Harbor on the morning of December 7, 1941, 21 were sunk or damaged. Of the nine battleships, all supposedly destroyed, six were successfully refloated, salvaged, and returned to active service in 1942, thanks to the preservation of the Navy Yard from Japanese attack.
 
 
 
 
 
President John asked John Nichols to lead the Club in the Four-Way Test to close the meeting.