WWII History 2014 - Pearl Harbor 70th Anniversary SI 1

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PEARL HARBOR THE JAPANESE

WAY OF WAR

SCOUT SQUADRON 6 PEARL HARBOR

Pearl Harbor’s Little-Known

■

70th Anniversary

Heroes

USS UTAH ’S FINAL MINUTES COMBAT & CAPTURE ON

Wake Island CAUGHT ON THE GROUND

Onslaught in the

Philippines

DECEMBER 7, 1 941:

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CONTENTS

PEARL HARBOR FEATURES 16 The Road to War Tensions between the United States and Japan had been escalating for years and eventually erupted into war with the attack on Pearl Harbor. John Wukovits

26 Sunday Morning Shattered Japanese planes attacked Pearl Harbor and other installations on the island of Oahu and plunged the United States into World War II. Michael E. Haskew

38 Pearl Harbor Paradox The target ship USS Utah, a memorial to the dead of December 7, 1941, exists in relative obscurity. Richard Klobuchar

44 Scout Squadron at Pearl Harbor

DEPARTMENTS 04 Editorial Pearl Harbor and World War II changed the life of Mitsuo Fuchida in a remarkable way. Michael E. Haskew

06 Profile: Yamamoto Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto led the Imperial Japanese Navy to war with the attack on Pearl Harbor. Michael Hull

On the morning of December 7, 1941, a flight of 18 dive-bombers from the carrier USS Enterprise flew straight into the Japanese attack. Richard L. Hayes

50 Caught on the Ground U.S. forces in the Phillippines felt the brunt of Japanese military might on December 8, 1941. Sam McGowan

58 Pearl Harbor: A Reassessment of the Japanese Way of War Presaging Pearl Harbor. Steven Weingartner

08 Profile: Nimitz

66 A Magnitude Never Imagined

A superb organizer, Admiral Chester W. Nimitz was the architect of naval victory in the Pacific. Michael Hull

The salvage operations that followed the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor were an epic of skill, bravery, and ingenuity. Mike McLaughlin

10 Profile: Layton

76 Heroic Defense of Hong Kong

Intelligence officer Edwin T. Layton had Nimitz’s ear, and guided the way across the Pacific. Mike McLaughlin

A diverse assemblage of British, Canadian, Scottish, and Indian troops made the Japanese pay dearly for the crown colony’s capture. David H. Lippman

14 Insight Three trapped sailors perished at the end of a mighty struggle to stay alive after the attack on Pearl Harbor. Don Haines

COVER: The battleships U.S.S. West Virginia (foreground) and U.S.S. Tennessee burn after the attack on Pearl Harbor. INSET: A Japanese plane flies over Oahu during the attack.

94 The Fight for Wake In the opening days of the war, the heroic defense of a Pacific island gave America hope. John Wukovits

Pearl Harbor (ISSN 1524-8666) is published by Sovereign Media, 6731 Whittier Avenue, Suite A-100, McLean, VA 22101-4554. (703) 964-0361. Pearl Harbor, Volume 1, Number 1 © 2014 by Sovereign Media Company, Inc., all rights reserved. Copyrights to stories and illustrations are the property of their creators. The contents of this publication may not be reproduced in whole or in part without consent of the copyright owner.

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EDITORIAL Pearl Harbor and World War II changed the life of Mitsuo Fuchida in a remarkable way. When Lt. Cmdr. Mitsuo Fuchida led the air assault on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, he did so out of a sense of duty to the Emperor and to his country. “It was the most thrilling exploit of my career,” he remembered. In February 1942, Fuchida led a destructive air attack against the harbor at Darwin, Australia, and in April he was again at the head of a Japanese raid that struck British naval facilities on the island of Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) in the Indian Ocean. As the decisive Battle of Midway unfolded in June, he was suffering from appendicitis and unable to fly or fully participate in the planning of the Japanese offensive to capture the strategically vital atoll just 1,100 miles from Hawaii. During the catastrophic Midway defeat, four Japanese aircraft carriers, all veterans of the attack on Pearl Harbor, were sunk. Fuchida escaped with his life as the flagship Akagi was consumed by flames. Standing on the bridge, he was among a group of officers whose avenue of escape was blocked by a wall of fire. Wracked with pain from his recent surgery, Fuchida was among several who were compelled to climb down from the inferno by rope. As he made slow, deliberate progress, an explosion tore his grip from the rope. He plummeted to the deck below, shattering both his ankles. The recuperation period was long and arduous. When he had sufficiently recovered,

Fuchida spent the remainder of World War II as a staff officer. The day before the first atomic bomb was dropped, he was in Hiroshima attending a conference but a telephone call from Tokyo required his immediate return to the capital. The day after the Hiroshima bombing, he was back in that city to assess the destruction at the request of the government. Remarkably, every member of the delegation that entered Hiroshima after the bomb had been dropped later died of radiation poisoning with the exception of Fuchida, who developed no symptoms. During the protracted postwar Japanese war crimes trials, Fuchida was called to testify on several occasions but was never charged with any wrongdoing. By 1947, as Japanese prisoners of war were returning home from camps, he was surprised to encounter Kazuo Kanegasaki, who had previously served as his flight engineer. Fuchida was shocked to learn that Japanese prisoners had not been tortured and had actually been treated humanely by their captors. He was overwhelmed to hear that a young woman had been particularly caring even though her parents, Christian missionaries, had been killed by Japanese troops in the Philippines. For Fuchida, the concept of kindness such as this was illogical. It was a direct contravention of the Bushido Code, by which Japanese war-

riors had lived for centuries. At a railroad station in Tokyo during the autumn of 1948, Fuchida was given a pamphlet on the life of Jacob DeShazer, one of the airmen who had participated in the historic air raid on Tokyo in April 1942 that was led by Lt. Col. Jimmy Doolittle. The pamphlet told of DeShazer’s capture, imprisonment, and torture, as well as his awakening as a Christian. The story of his former squadron mate and the chance encounter in the railroad station convinced Fuchida that he should become a Christian. For the next quarter century, until his death in 1976, he worked as an evangelist. In 1952, he coauthored a book on the Battle of Midway from the Japanese perspective. Two years later, he toured the United States with the Worldwide Christian Missionary Army of Sky Pilots, and in 1954 he wrote an account of the Pearl Harbor attack for Reader’s Digest. He traveled and preached extensively in Asia. Fuchida also told his remarkable story in the book From Pearl Harbor to Calvary. In 1970 he wrote, “I would give anything to retract my actions of 29 years ago at Pearl Harbor, but it is impossible. Instead, I now work at striking the death-blow to the basic hatred which infests the human heart and causes such tragedies.” Such a transformation is remarkable indeed. Michael E. Haskew

PEARL HARBOR Carl A. Gnam, Jr.

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PROFILE

BY MICHAEL HULL

Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto led the Imperial Japanese Navy to war with the attack on Pearl Harbor. COURAGEOUS, URBANE, AND COMPLEX, Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto was Japan’s greatest naval strategist and the architect of one of the most stunning achievements in the history of war. Fluent in English, he studied in the United States and claimed many American friends. A solid and respected man, he argued passionately for peace as fascism spread in Europe and as the militarists in Tokyo called for aggressive expansion. Yet, he was a patriot to the bone, and when ordered to fight, waged war with a vengeance. But, initially, he was uneasy, and warned his countrymen. Having studied briefly at Harvard University and spent two years in Washington as a naval attaché, he both admired America and was aware of its potential military strength. “Japan cannot beat America,” he told a group of Japanese school children in 1940. “Therefore, Japan should not fight America.” Yamamoto played no part in the militarists’ decision for war; indeed, he was sent to sea to

put him out of range of would-be assassins who regarded his antiwar views as unpatriotic. But, when the decision was made, he was adamant on one point: the only course open to Japan was to destroy the U.S. Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. When the Navy General Staff unanimously opposed his plan, Yamamoto said, “The U.S. Fleet … is a dagger pointed at our throat. Should war be declared, the length and breadth of our southern operations would be exposed to serious threat on its flank.” Only when the commander-in-chief of the Combined Fleet threatened to resign and retire if his plan was not approved did the Japanese General Staff concede. “If he has that much confidence, it is better to let Yamamoto go ahead,” said the Navy chief of staff. Believing that a preemptive strike to cripple the U.S. Navy from the start was Japan’s only hope against such a powerful opponent, Admiral Yamamoto started planning the operation against Pearl Harbor early in 1940. He

U.S. Navy

A Japanese Zero fighter aboard Akagi, photographed prior to the attack on Pearl Harbor.

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was not optimistic. “If you tell me that it is necessary that we fight,” he told the bellicose high command in Tokyo in September 1940, “then in the first six months to a year of war against the United States and England, I will run wild, and I will show you an uninterrupted succession of victories; but I must tell you that, should the war be prolonged for two or three years, I have no confidence in our ultimate victory.” Inspired by the stunning carrier-based attack on the Italian Fleet at Taranto on November 11, 1940, by Swordfish torpedo bombers of the British Royal Navy’s Fleet Air Arm, Yamamoto’s attack on December 7, 1941, executed by Vice Admiral Chuichi Nagumo’s strike force, achieved strategic and tactical surprise. It caught Admiral Husband E. Kimmel’s anchored U.S. Pacific Fleet napping and thrust America into World War II. The Combined Fleet commander’s final message to his carrier crews and pilots echoed the rallying cry of the commander of the victorious Japanese fleet at the Battle of Tsushima against Russia 36 years before: “The rise or fall of our empire now hinges on this battle.” Two waves of torpedo bombers, dive bombers, high-altitude bombers, and fighters from the carriers Akagi, Hiryu, Kaga, Shokaku, Soryu, and Zuikaku swept in over Oahu and sank the battleship USS Arizona, capsized the Oklahoma, heavily damaged the California, West Virginia, and Nevada, and damaged the Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Tennessee. A total of 2,403 American servicemen were killed and 1,178 wounded. The attack electrified the Japanese people, Yamamoto’s reputation soared, and he was, indeed, free to “run wild” for several months, with powerful Japanese fleets supporting thrusts against Hong Kong, Singapore, Guam, Wake Island, British Malaya, the Dutch East Indies, the Solomon and Philippine Islands, and New Guinea. But the admiral’s doubts about the wisdom of his empire’s strategy persisted. After the Pearl Harbor attack, he confided, “I fear all we have done is to awaken a sleeping giant and

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fill him with a terrible resolve.” Born on April 4, 1884, Isoroku Yamamoto (the name means “base of the mountain”) was the seventh child of a cultured but impoverished primary school headmaster of the samurai class in Nagaoka on the bleak, isolated west coast of Japan’s main island. He grew up in a little wooden house, where rice was scarce and life hard. Little Isoroku secured part of his early education from Christian missionaries, although he never became a Christian. A slender lad with a protruding lower lip and thoughtful expression, he was often ill. He usually suffered from influenza during the harsh Nagaoka winters. He read the Bible, was exposed to English, and gained an appreciation of things English and American. Isoroku became a great admirer of President Abraham Lincoln, mastered the art of calligraphy, and would write poetry throughout his life. He and his family and friends took box lunches to the playing fields around his school and watched baseball games. The American national pastime was then becoming a favorite Japanese sport. But Isoroku’s great love was gymnastics, in which he excelled and gained physical strength. In later years, he could not resist showing off by doing headstands on the rail of a ship or boat. He referred to himself later in life as a “country boy” who became “just a common sailor.” But he was actually far from common. He stood second out of 300 applicants when he entered the Japanese Naval Academy at the age of 16, and graduated as seventh in his class four years later. Through a process similar to adoption, he was provided the opportunity to attend the academy by a naval family wishing to keep its tradition alive (his original surname was Takano). The young ensign went to sea with the Imperial Fleet and did not have to wait long for his baptism of fire. As a gunnery officer, he served aboard the cruiser Nisshin, which covered the flagship of Admiral Heihachiro Togo in the destruction of the Russian Baltic Fleet in the Strait of Tsushima, between Japan and Korea, on May 26, 1905. In the final action of the first and last great fleet encounter of the ironclad era, Ensign Yamamoto was wounded by shrapnel. His body was peppered by shell fragments, and he lost an orange-sized chunk of his thigh and two fingers from his left hand. Soon after his wounds were healed, Yamamoto went back to a gunnery school,

Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto conceived the attack on Pearl Harbor and believed the success of the undertaking would provide the only chance for a Japanese victory over the U.S. in World War II.

was promoted to commander, and served at the Imperial Naval Headquarters in Tokyo. His career moved into high gear when he was appointed to the Naval Staff College in 1913. After a brief courtship, Yamamoto married a sturdy but pretty housemaid named Reiko in August 1918. They would have two sons and two daughters. The couple had no sooner set up housekeeping than they were separated. Posted to America for study at Harvard University, Yamamoto sailed in April 1919 and adapted smoothly to life in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Along with 70 of his fellow countrymen, he studied economics and petroleum sources. He was such a hardworking student that several oil companies offered him jobs. He also developed a lively interest in naval aviation that was to stand him in good stead. Back in Japan, Yamamoto headed a new air training base before being sent to Washington as a naval attaché for two years. He was a delegate to the London Naval Conference in 19291930, took command of the 1st Air Fleet in 1930, and was promoted to rear admiral in charge of the Imperial Navy’s technical service. Having learned to fly while a captain, he vigorously championed naval aviation, aware that someday airplanes would relegate battleships to a secondary role. As the chief Japanese delegation at the 19341936 London Naval Conference, Yamamoto forced the termination of a treaty that kept Japan’s battleship fleet inferior to those of Great Britain and America by a ratio of 5:5:3. He

returned home a national hero, became vice minister of the Navy, and lobbied for the construction of aircraft carriers, whose key role he had foreseen, as did the British, as early as 1915. He fought a program to build two gigantic battleships. “These battleships will be as useful to Japan in modern warfare as a samurai sword,” he said. The carriers Akagi and Kaga, already in service, were joined by faster and more modern vessels, and long-range flying boats and the formidable Zero fighter were developed. The Pearl Harbor attack made Yamamoto an overnight hero, but, as he had predicted, the euphoria was short-lived. Only six months later, after the Doolittle Raid and the Battle of the Coral Sea, in which both the American and Japanese fleets took heavy losses, Yamamoto suffered the first major Japanese naval defeat since the 16th century. At Midway on June 46, 1942, the overconfident Japanese fleet was outmaneuvered, lost four carriers, and was forced to withdraw. Yamamoto had conceived a sound strategy, but he failed to muster all available force for the main effort, was not positioned to control the action, and was careless about deploying reconnaissance and screening forces. The “Nelson of Japan” never recovered from the shock of defeat, though he continued to command fleet movements in the Solomons campaign. But the Japanese fleet had suffered great losses in pilots and aircraft which it would never make good. Yamamoto’s last plan was for a massive naval air counterstrike, codenamed I-Go, designed to smash Allied advances in the Pacific in the spring of 1943. The end came for Admiral Yamamoto in April 1943, when U.S. Navy codebreakers learned that he planned an inspection tour in the western Solomons. Sixteen P-38 Lightning fighters from Henderson Field on Guadalcanal were waiting on April 18 when two Mitsubishi Betty bombers carrying Yamamoto and his staff approached Kahili. The two enemy planes were shot down, and Yamamoto was killed. The admiral’s ashes was recovered from dense jungle and sent back to Japan aboard the destroyer Yugumo. In Tokyo, Emperor Hirohito awarded Yamamoto the Grand Order of the Chrysanthemum, first class, and promoted him posthumously to fleet admiral. A state funeral followed. German führer Adolf Hitler made Yamamoto the only foreign recipient of the Knights Cross with Swords. ■ 70TH ANNIVERSARY

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PROFILE

BY MICHAEL HULL

A superb organizer, Admiral Chester W. Nimitz was the architect of naval victory in the Pacific. KEYNOTING THE COMMISSIONING OF the 81,600-ton fleet aircraft carrier USS Nimitz on May 3, 1975, President Gerald R. Ford quoted the distinguished Professor E.B. Potter of the U.S. Naval Academy. “He surrounded himself with the ablest men he could find, and sought their advice, but he made his own decisions. He was a keen strategist who never forgot that he was dealing with human beings, on both sides of the conflict. He was aggressive in war without hate, audacious while never failing to weigh the risks.” The man in question, and for whom America’s second nuclear-powered carrier was named, was Fleet Admiral Chester W. Nimitz, who had the biggest job in American naval history. He led the massive Pacific Fleet in World War II and commanded thousands of ships and aircraft and millions of men. He wielded more military power than all commanders in previous wars. The far-flung operations he directed and, to a large extent, planned led to

the defeat of the Japanese empire. Tall and vigorous, with a ruddy complexion, silver hair, and piercing blue eyes, Nimitz was a fighting, innovative admiral who became one of the most widely respected figures in naval history. He shunned publicity, yet his inspired, softspoken leadership in 1941-1945 assured him a niche in the pantheon of American heroes. Chester William Nimitz was born on February 24, 1885, in Fredericksburg, Texas, the son and grandson of settlers, two of whom had been seafarers. Despite growing up fascinated by tall tales of the sea, young Chester knew many Army officers and set his sights on West Point. But no appointment was available, so he went to the U.S. Naval Academy at Annapolis. He graduated seventh in a class of 144 in 1905. The young man was sent to the Philippines and was commissioned an ensign in 1907 while serving a tour of duty on the China station. After commanding an old Spanish gunboat, the Panay, he was put in command of the destroyer

USS Decatur at the age of 20. Nimitz was a promising officer, but his experience aboard the Decatur almost proved the undoing of his career. On the dark evening of July 7, 1908, the vessel went aground on a mud bank in the poorly charted Batangas Bay in the Philippines. A stunned Nimitz was court-martialed, but because of the circumstances and his fine record he was let off with a reprimand. He never forgot this, and in later years was lenient toward subordinates who made one mistake. In 1909, Nimitz was assigned to the Submarine Service. It was much to his distaste, but he applied himself with energy and diligence. He commanded the USS Plunger and other boats and became the Navy’s leading authority on undersea vessels. He was promoted to lieutenant in 1910, took the bridge of the USS Skipjack in 1912, and was given command of the Atlantic Submarine Flotilla that year. The following year, the bilingual officer was sent to Germany and Belgium to study advances in

U.S. Navy

A B-25 bomber takes off from the deck of the USS Hornet. The daring raid on Tokyo by 16 B-25s electrified the world and made the strike leader, Lt. Col. Jimmy Doolittle, a national hero. Scarcely four months after the disaster at Pearl Harbor, U.S. planes bombed the Japanese capital.

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diesel engines. After returning home, Nimitz was largely responsible for the installation of the new power plants in the U.S. Navy’s dangerous and noxious “pig boats.” Nimitz was promoted to lieutenant commander in 1916, and during World War I he served as chief of staff of the Atlantic Fleet’s submarine division. Promoted to commander in 1921, he studied at the Naval War College in Newport, Rhode Island, and joined the staffs of the Battle Fleet and the U.S. Fleet. Assigned to the University of California from 1926-1929, Nimitz pioneered a training division that evolved into the Naval ROTC program. He also introduced the concept of underway replenishment that was to revolutionize operations at sea. Promoted to captain in 1927, he commanded Submarine Division 20 for two years, headed the San Diego destroyer base, skippered the cruiser USS Augusta in 19331935, and served as assistant chief of the Bureau of Navigation in 1935-1938. The up-and-coming Texan was promoted to rear admiral in 1938, commanded cruiser and battleship divisions for a year, and was made chief of the Bureau of Navigation in June 1939. Then came World War II. On December 16, 1941, shortly after the Japanese sneak attack on Pearl Harbor, Nimitz was notified by Navy Secretary Frank Knox that he was to take over immediately as commander-in-chief of the Pacific Fleet, replacing Vice Adm. William S. Pye, who had stood in for the disgraced Admiral Husband E. Kimmel. “I’m the new commander-in-chief,” a distressed Nimitz told his wife Catherine. “You’ve wanted this all your life,” she reminded him. “But, sweetheart,” he protested, “all the ships are at the bottom.” Delayed by bad weather, Nimitz—now a 56year-old vice admiral—arrived aboard a PBY Catalina flying boat at Pearl Harbor on Christmas morning to learn that Wake Island had just fallen. As a whaleboat carried him across the harbor to the dock, he watched small craft moving about searching for the bodies of sailors. Corpses still rose to the surface from the sunken battleships. He took over as CINCPAC, with four stars, on December 31. Disregarding the advice of Admiral Ernest J. King, U.S. Fleet commander, that he ought to “rid Pearl Harbor of pessimists and defeatists,” Nimitz took only a flag secretary to Hawaii. Asking most of the old Pacific Fleet staff to serve under him, he gave his

Admiral Chester W. Nimitz assumed command of a Pacific Fleet in shambles and led the U.S. Navy to victory in the war with Japan.

demoralized subordinates a new lease on life and set about swiftly to rebuild the shattered Pacific Fleet. Early in 1942, Admiral Nimitz was established as commander of all Allied land, sea, and air forces in the Pacific Ocean Areas, with the north and central subareas under his direct command. The south was under the command of Admiral Robert L. Ghormley and later Admiral William F. “Bull” Halsey. Nimitz shared overall responsibility with Army General Douglas MacArthur, commanding the Southwest Pacific Theater. An outstanding strategist, Nimitz was responsible for bringing the Pacific Fleet from its weak and dejected situation after the Pearl Harbor attack to a position of initiative and offense within the first year of the war in the Far East. He was a link and buffer between the imperious, caustic Admiral King and his own subordinates, strong-willed men like Bull Halsey, Admiral Richmond Kelly “Terrible” Turner, Marine Major General Holland C. “Howlin’ Mad” Smith, and Admiral Frank “Black Jack” Fletcher. Nimitz quietly and patiently molded them into one of the most effective fighting teams in history. Ordered by King to launch carrier raids soon after assuming command, Nimitz directed Halsey to take a task force built around the USS Enterprise to hit the Marshall Islands, while Fletcher, aboard the USS Yorktown, attacked the nearby Gilbert Islands. Although the strikes caused minimal damage,

they were a valuable start. Nimitz furnished a series of nasty surprises for the Japanese, starting with the famous Doolittle raid on Tokyo, which was launched from the USS Hornet in April 1942. Through such subordinates as Halsey, Turner, Admiral Thomas C. Kinkaid, Admiral Raymond A. Spruance, and Admiral Marc A. Mitscher, Nimitz, a great believer in amphibious operations as a way to attack Japanese positions by leapfrogging beyond the main enemy lines, directed several campaigns as the Pacific Fleet gathered strength after the epic Battle of Midway on June 4-6, 1942. Halsey moved up the Solomon Islands chain in support of MacArthur’s troops, while Central Pacific forces took Tarawa and Makin in the Gilberts in November 1943. Then followed the crucial actions at Kwajalein, Eniwetok, Saipan, Guam, Tinian, the Philippine Sea, the Palaus, Leyte Gulf, Iwo Jima, and Okinawa. Headquartered in Pearl Harbor with a small staff, Admiral Nimitz frequently visited forward positions, initially Guadalcanal and Midway, and met every other month with King. He worked hard to improve relations with the autocratic MacArthur and to smooth ArmyNavy disagreements over strategy. He was promoted to the newly created five-star rank of admiral of the fleet in December 1944. The war ended for Nimitz when he signed the Japanese surrender documents on behalf of the United States aboard his flagship, the battleship USS Missouri, on September 2, 1945. Nimitz succeeded King as U.S. Fleet commander on December 15 that year, served as special assistant to the Secretary of the Navy, and retired in December 1947. Two years later, he was chosen to supervise the United Nations plebiscite in Kashmir. In 1952, Nimitz resigned from the United Nations and became a regent at the University of California at Berkeley. He and his wife lived quietly there until the summer of 1963, when they moved to Navy quarters near San Francisco. After a severe fall, the admiral’s health deteriorated, and he died on February 20, 1966. He was buried under a regulation headstone in the Golden Gate National Cemetery. The self-effacing Admiral Nimitz, who had resisted becoming “good copy” for war correspondents, wrote no memoirs, but he collected his papers and had them deposited in the operational archives of the Naval History Division in Washington. His memory lives on at the Nimitz Museum in his hometown. ■ 70TH ANNIVERSARY

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PROFILE

BY MIKE MCLAUGHLIN

Intelligence officer Edwin T. Layton had Nimitz’s ear, and guided the way across the Pacific. knew where. Yet Nimitz’s previous command was the Navy’s Bureau of Navigation, which kept the records of the men at Pearl. He knew what they were capable of and he set out to restore their faith. He needed it. When he was chosen, President Roosevelt had said, “Tell Nimitz to get the hell out to Pearl and stay there until the war is won.” Commander Edwin Thomas Layton was the Fleet Intelligence Officer. His colleagues had regarded him as alarmist. He had been convinced the Japanese would attack the oil-rich Dutch East Indies and then, to protect the left flank of their sea lanes, would also strike the U.S. forces in the Philippines. This they did, hours after bombing Pearl. Later that day, one officer said, “Here’s the man we should have listened to all along.”

Layton assumed his intelligence career was finished and requested command of a destroyer. Nimitz had good reasons to disagree. Layton had been Assistant Naval Attaché in Japan, and he spoke excellent Japanese. He knew the Japanese Navy’s chief strategist, Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto, and the leader of the Pearl Harbor attack, Admiral Chuichi Nagumo. “I want you to be the Admiral Nagumo of my staff,” Nimitz told him. “I want your every thought, every instinct as you believe Nagumo might have them. You are to see the war, their operations, their aims, from the Japanese viewpoint and keep me advised what you are thinking about, what you are doing, and what purpose, what strategy, motivates your operations. If you can do this, you will give me the kind of information needed to win this war.” Layton

U.S. Navy

ON THE MORNING of December 31, 1941, Admiral Chester W. Nimitz assumed command of the U.S. Pacific Fleet. The service took place at the submarine base at Pearl Harbor. The mood was grim. More than two thousand men had been killed in the Japanese attack on December 7. The Battleship Force had been wrecked, and most of the Army and Navy’s planes were destroyed on the ground.The fleet commander had been Admiral Husband E. Kimmel. The Navy replaced him, temporarily, with Admiral William Pye. Fearing further damage to the fleet, Pye canceled a mission to rescue the besieged Marines on Wake Island. When Nimitz replaced Pye, morale was so low he worried if it could ever be raised. Every officer present feared blame for the disaster, and reassignment to God only

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took the challenge. He later wrote, “I was not so sure about his conclusion. But my respect for his enthusiasm and determination to restore the reputation of the fleet was fired up.” Born in 1903 in Nauvoo, Ill., Layton had a lifelong ambition: a career at sea. Battleships and the U.S. Naval Academy were his favorite writing subjects in high school. He applied to Annapolis in 1920 and was accepted. The Naval Academy stressed navigation, gunnery, and tactics used during World War I. Radio interception and code-breaking were off the path to flag rank. Despite this, Layton was fascinated by codes and ciphers and saw their value in naval strategy. In January 1924 the Office of Naval Communication (ONC) established a cryptographic research department in Washington, D.C. Headed by Lieutenant Laurence Safford, the unit consisted of himself, two analysts, and a typist. As Safford set up shop, Edwin Layton was finishing his last year at Annapolis. Upon graduating, Layton was assigned to the battleship West Virginia. In January 1925 the West Virginia sailed to San Francisco to join a ceremony for Japan’s naval cadet training squadron. Layton met his counterparts from the naval school at Etajima. They were amiable, enthusiastic men who spoke fluent English or French. Not one U.S. officer could speak Japanese. Layton urged the Navy to start a Japanese language program. He learned that such a program existed, and that only two officers a year were accepted. Layton applied and waited. After five more years of battleship and destroyer duty, he was accepted. En route to Japan in 1929, he met Lieutenant (j.g.) Joseph Rochefort. Rochefort had worked with Safford at the ONC crypto unit, now called OP-20-G. Layton and Rochefort became good friends. Their friendship would be invaluable in the years ahead. In Tokyo, Layton received a no-nonsense briefing from the naval attaché. “You have only two duties to perform: One, study and master the Japanese language. Two, stay out of trouble. If you fail in either, I’ll send you home on the next ship.” Layton’s instructors stressed basics that Japanese children already knew by their first day of school. He had to learn the sounds of the language, and then the grammar and vocabulary. Then he began transcribing Japanese newspapers into English. He attended plays and

ABOVE: Captain Edwin Thomas Layton in 1944. OPPOSITE: Layton helped win the great carrier battles of Coral Sea and Midway by determining where the Japanese were headed for attack.

operas. “Revenge is the central theme of our drama,” one teacher told him. “Never forget that.” He studied Japan’s national character and learned the depth of their outrage when the United States barred Japanese immigration in 1924. The insult was double-edged because it also placed them in the same category as Koreans, Chinese, Indonesians, and Indians. “Always remember,” his teacher said, “that in the Japanese mind we are a superior race.” In June 1936 Layton transferred to Washington as the new head of the translation section OP-20-GZ. Through his work there, he learned that the Japanese Navy was refurbishing one of its older battleships, the Nagato, and that her rebuilt turbines could reach 26 knots. The U.S. Navy had believed she could only reach 23 1/2 knots, and with that in mind had planned the new North Carolina class of battleships. Layton’s discovery prompted the Navy to improve the class so it could exceed 28 knots. Afterward, Safford declared, “This paid for our peacetime radio intelligence organization a thousand times over.” After two more years in Japan as assistant naval attaché, Layton took command of the destroyer Boggs in 1939. That summer, he ran across an old friend, Captain Ellis Zacharias, the intelligence chief for the Eleventh Naval District (San Diego). Over drinks, he asked, “How would you like to be fleet intelligence officer?” Layton was surprised, yet interested. Thinking about it later, he wrote, “Whoever

got the job would be the busiest man on the staff when the inevitable conflict broke out.” By 1941, Commander Safford’s research department had become the Security Intelligence wing of the ONC. It had three stations: Negat (Washington), Cast (the Philippines), and Hypo (Pearl Harbor). By then, hundreds of men and women, military and civilian, were applying themselves to deciphering Japanese messages. Japan’s diplomatic code was nicknamed “Purple.” There were several versions of the military code, beginning with “Red” in the 1920s, then “Blue.” By 1941, the Japanese naval code was JN-25. It was composed of tens of thousands of five-digit numbers. Each number represented a ship, unit, person, or place. All messages included a fixed value that was added to each code number. With it was an instruction for the receiver to use a particular number to subtract from each number in order to decipher the message. The codes were periodically changed. Decryption required both intuition and a memory for countless details. Some changes were subtle. Other, more complex changes took thousands of man-hours to evaluate. Success was never total. Opportunities came in different ways. One happened in 1920. An Office of Naval Intelligence (ONI) team broke into the New York office of the Japanese vice-consul, who was a naval officer. They cracked his safe and photographed his code book. The photos were transcribed into a red, leatherbound book. This became the Red code book, a keystone for the ONC’s analysis. Layton became Fleet Intelligence Officer in December 1940. He worked for Admiral James O. Richardson, and then his successor, Admiral Husband E. Kimmel. Layton gave daily briefings on Japanese military activity throughout the Pacific. This reunited him with Station Hypo’s boss, his old friend Commander Joseph Rochefort. Washington frequently disagreed with Pearl. Admiral Stark, the Chief of Naval Operations, often doubted if the Japanese would make any aggressive moves at all. The Atlantic was consuming Washington’s attention because German U-boats were savaging Allied merchant shipping. In June 1941, Negat (the Washington station) accused Hypo (the Pearl Harbor station) of withholding information regarding a Japanese buildup in its Mandated Islands, Pacific Islands 70TH ANNIVERSARY

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Stan Stokes

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Layton intercepted Japanese Admiral Yamamoto’s itinerary. Army P-38s rose to shoot down the admiral’s plane on a inspection tour of Bougainville in 1943.

transferred to Japanese control after World War I. Stunned, Layton pointed out that the information came from Station Cast (the Philippines) and had been sent to Negat, with a copy to Hypo; a Negat officer simply hadn’t appreciated the message’s significance. The incident illustrated OP-20-G’s decentralized structure. Six months later, the structure would be shown to be tragically flawed. Hypo saw only Japanese naval messages. Lacking Purple decryption equipment to read diplomatic traffic, they depended on Negat for that information. Hypo’s problems grew worse when JN-25 was changed for the second time that year, on December 1. By late November, Negat believed that Admiral Nagumo’s carriers were operating in the western Pacific, with some cruising to Indochina. But Nagumo was already heading east to Pearl, under radio silence so enforced that the transmitter keys had been removed from his ships’ radios. When Nimitz took command, he wasn’t impressed with Hypo. If they were so good, why didn’t they foresee the attack? It was an agonizing question that reverberated through the Navy for years. It triggered many investigations, caused endless finger-pointing, and permanently stained Kimmel’s reputation. Layton stressed that if the Japanese had broadcast anything about the attack, they used a code he knew nothing about. Nimitz came around. Every day, Layton and Rochefort laid out dozens of intercepts on plywood tables. Each 12

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message listed the sender and the recipient. It was a puzzle with many missing pieces, but enough fit to give an idea of the picture. An Allied base mentioned with weather reports and increased Japanese air patrols often pointed to an impending attack. In the weeks that followed the travesty of December 7, Layton briefed Nimitz every morning at 8 AM. If vital information came in, Nimitz’s door was always open to him. The Commander-in-Chief Pacific (CincPac) Operations room had a huge map of the Pacific, with tracing paper laid over it. Every night, Layton’s men wrote on it the latest information about Japanese units. Through the winter and spring, Nimitz sent his carriers to raid the Marshall and Gilbert Islands. While these raids didn’t slow the Japanese conquest of the Dutch East Indies and the Philippines, they did much to boost morale for the United States. So did the Doolittle raid on Japan in April 1942. The raids also alarmed the Japanese high command. ONC suffered a shakeup in February 1942. The Navy’s commander-in-chief, Admiral Ernest J. King, dismissed Negat’s long-time commander, Laurence Safford. It was part of a plan for better administration, but slashed a vital personal link between Hypo and Negat. Admiral King was also the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Nimitz worried about King’s “Europe first” view. Washington, over five thousand miles to the east, saw the Japanese threat in a different light. Nimitz recalled

the Texas saying, “The nearest rattlesnake is always the biggest.” He valued Hypo’s work over Negat’s. He told Layton and Rochefort, “Tell me what the Japanese are going to do, and I will then decide if it’s good or bad, and act accordingly.” By late April 1942, Layton was convinced that the next Japanese target was the Allied base at Port Moresby, New Guinea. Nimitz agreed, and sent Admirals Aubrey Fitch and Frank Jack Fletcher with the carriers Lexington and Yorktown to counter the threat. The Battle of Coral Sea followed, from May 4 to May 8. By the 8th, U.S. planes had sunk the light carrier Shoho and damaged the heavy carrier Shokaku. The carrier Zuikaku came through unhurt but lost many of its planes. The Japanese struck back, sinking Lexington and damaging Yorktown. Despite this, the Japanese fleet retreated north, canceling the invasion. Soon another invasion—“MI”—was in the works. Layton and Rochefort had come across a recurring designator, “AF.” Japanese patrol planes used two-letter designators beginning with “A” when discussing the Hawaiian Island chain. When Rochefort learned that Japanese planes were advised to avoid AF’s fighter cover, he came to believe that AF was Midway. Washington felt that the next attack would be elsewhere. Rochefort devised a simple trick to settle the question. Layton pitched it to Nimitz. Nimitz approved. Using their underwater cable between islands, Pearl Harbor ordered Midway to radio-transmit in plain language that its fresh water condenser was broken. The Midway station did so. The Japanese station at Kwajalein intercepted it, then reported: “AF needs fresh water.” That settled it. Midway was the target. Even Washington came around. The break happened just in time. The JN-25 code was changed again, and it would be weeks before Hypo could evaluate the changes. The miraculous victory occurred a week later. Nagumo’s carriers approached northwest of Midway, just as Hypo said they would. American dive-bombers attacked, flying from Admiral Raymond Spruance’s Enterprise and Hornet and from Fletcher’s Yorktown. All of Nagumo’s carriers were sunk. Again, the American cost was high, too. Yorktown and the destroyer Hammann were sunk, and hundreds of Navy and Marine airmen were killed. But once more, Nimitz’s men stopped an invasion. Layton contributed to the victory in another way. In March, Japanese seaplanes flew scouting missions over Oahu. When one dropped

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bombs near Pearl, Nimitz asked how it was possible. Layton recalled an article called “Rendezvous,” written by a friend of his, which described how a PBY Catalina was refueled by a submarine at a remote atoll. Layton figured the Japanese had done just that at French Frigate Shoals. Nimitz sent ships to guard the shoals. As a result, the Japanese canceled a reconnaissance mission. Nagumo steamed to Midway without knowing where the U.S. carriers were. After Midway, the Japanese Navy lost the offensive. Despite this, Nimitz had limited resources to fight with. He would get new carriers, battleships, and more in 1943, but until then, he had to make do. The desperate fight for Guadalcanal consumed his energies for the rest of the year. That autumn of 1942, Hypo took a hard blow. Negat had long viewed Hypo as a rogue outfit. Rochefort, who had loudly disdained Negat’s work, was ordered to report to Washington for “temporary” consulting work. “I’m not coming back,” Rochefort told Layton. He was right. In early November, Admiral King wrote to Nimitz, “Now that I have taken care of Rochefort, I will leave it up to you to take care of Layton.” Nimitz showed Layton this dark note. “You’ve got an enemy there,” Nimitz said. Layton wondered again if he should return to commanding a destroyer. But he did not. Over the next two years, CincPac’s intelligence staff expanded to nearly 50 times its original size. At first, Nimitz was opposed to this. He liked small outfits, straight lines of contact, and no red tape. But with the ongoing campaigns stretching toward Japan, Layton needed a larger department. Thus, his handful of men expanded to nearly two thousand by the war’s end. Marine, Coast Guard, and Army intelligence men worked with the Navy. They composed the Joint Intelligence Command Pacific Ocean Area (JICPOA). Layton studied enemy logistics. Japanese unit commanders sent housekeeping reports about the amount of rations consumed in a month and the number of men fit for duty. Reading this helped the Marines and Army understand what they would face when they went ashore. During invasions, JICPOA men seized documents and interrogated prisoners to assess enemy defenses. JICPOA also tracked Japanese merchant convoys and relayed the information to U.S. subs, which began sinking Japanese transports in increasing numbers. Layton read one particularly powerful inter-

Layton’s longtime friend Commander Joseph Rochefort.

cept on April 14, 1943. It was the travel itinerary for an inspection trip by Admiral Yamamoto. Nimitz stared hard at it, then looked at his map. Yamamoto would be within range of fighters from Guadalcanal. Nimitz asked, “Do we try to get him?” During his time in Japan, Layton had known Yamamoto. Within the limits of duty, Layton considered him a friend. But that was six years earlier. “Yes,” Layton answered. “We should. He’s unique among their people. If he’s shot down, it would demoralize the navy. It would stun the nation.” Nimitz replied, “What concerns me is whether they could find a more effective fleet commander.” The two men discussed the senior commanders of the Japanese Navy. Finally, Layton said, “You know, Admiral, it would be just as if they shot you down. There isn’t anybody to replace you.” Nimitz smiled. “All right. We’ll try it.” On April 18, 1943, Army P-38 fighters shot down Yamamoto’s plane. Japan’s greatest military mind was killed. Through the war, Layton often had to challenge the claims of men who’d been closer to the action. In July 1943 he incurred the wrath of Admiral Walden Ainsworth, who’d reported that his forces had sunk two enemy cruisers in a night battle. Layton denied it. Ainsworth flew to Pearl to report to Nimitz, and to shake his finger in Layton’s face. “How can you sit here on your fat ass, thousands of miles from the action, and make such a statement!” Layton replied that his mission was to evaluate enemy radio traffic. No enemy cruisers had been reported lost. “I have no stake in this matter personally,” Layton said. “But I have a stake in the war.” Later, he was vindicated when a captured Japanese sailor confirmed his analysis. It had been unpleasant, but Nimitz needed hard

facts. Layton was a man who could keep his head and report bad news as well as good. Two years of bitter fighting remained. With every invasion, the ferocity of resistance increased. Surrenders were few. Kamikaze attacks at Iwo Jima and Okinawa inflicted massive casualties on U.S. ships. When briefed on the Manhattan Project, Layton believed it offered Emperor Hirohito a face-saving way to end the war. To his way of thinking, nothing less would work. That supposition has been debated ever since. But the Japanese did come to terms directly after the atomic destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. On August 15, Layton received the Japanese message accepting the terms of surrender. He raced it to Nimitz, who held up a similar sheet and said, “I just got one from Admiral King.” The next day, Nimitz put the word out: “Suspend all operations.” Nimitz invited Layton to accompany him on a visit to Yokosuka Naval Base. “You’d better bring a Marine,” Layton warned him. “They wouldn’t attack me,” Nimitz said, surprised.“They’d attack MacArthur.” Layton disagreed. “They know it was our naval power that brought them to their knees.” “Are you a good shot?” Nimitz asked. Together they drove to Nimitz’s personal shooting range and practiced for several days. When they went to Yokosuka, Layton didn’t need the pistol. Their visit was a quiet one. On September 2, Layton watched his boss sign the Japanese surrender on the deck of the Missouri. They had crossed half the world and waited four years to reach this moment. And while the Pacific War produced many great admirals and generals—Halsey, Spruance, Fletcher, Mitscher, Burke, Vandegrift, Smith, and more—one man alone, Chester W. Nimitz, was responsible for them. To make sound decisions when giving orders to these men, Nimitz needed solid information. Layton gave it to him. For this, Layton won a Distinguished Service Medal, plus many other decorations. But none of them matched what Nimitz gave him, in the fall of 1942, when Layton’s worries were grave. Nimitz had taken a photo of himself from his desk and signed it. “To Commander Edwin T. Layton,” he wrote. “As my intelligence officer, you are more valuable to me than any division of cruisers.” ■ Mike McLaughlin is a freelance writer and military historian. His work has been published by AMVETS magazine, American Veteran and The Boston Tab newspaper. 70TH ANNIVERSARY

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INSIGHT

BY DON HAINES

Library of Congress

Three trapped sailors perished at the end of a mighty struggle to stay alive after the attack on Pearl Harbor.

As the USS West Virginia burns, sailors disregard the possibility of further explosions to fight the flames started by Japanese torpedoes and bombs. The ship sank, trapping three sailors, who survived until their air ran out.

When Nathan and Jane Olds of Stanton, N.D; Ralph and Vera Endicott of Aberdeen, Wash.; and Effie Costin of Henryville, Ind., were informed by the U.S. Navy in December 1941 that each of their families had lost a son during the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, they were heartbroken. Clifford Olds, 20; Ronald Endicott, 18; and Louis “Buddy” Costin, 21, had been sailors on the battleship USS West Virginia, which had been hit by a series of bombs and torpedoes. The telegrams merely stated that the three young men “died at their duty stations.” But during the ensuing years another story began to emerge—one so horrible that family members who learned the truth decided not to tell the parents in order to prevent them from suffering further. Harland Costin, younger brother of Buddy, 14

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found out in 1942 when a chance meeting with a crew member of the now refloated West Virginia told a sad tale that by now has become legend. It was a story of three young men who had survived for what must have been 16 hellish days in the dark pump room of a battleship sitting on the bottom of Pearl Harbor. Costin, Olds, and Endicott had not died easily or willingly, as attested to by witnesses who remember. “It was worse at night,” said Marine Corps bugler Dick Fiske. “You’d hear bang-bangbang, then stop, then bang-bang-bang from deep in the bow of the ship. It didn’t take long to realize that men were making that noise.” To this day Fiske chokes up when he tells the story. “Pretty soon nobody wanted to do guard duty, especially at night when it was quiet. It didn’t stop until Christmas Eve.” Bob Kronberger, who was a crewman on the

West Virginia, says he knew all three of the young sailors. “I didn’t know them well because I was of a higher rank and couldn’t fraternize, but it was an awful way to die.” Kronberger is a good example of the fortunes of war. His brother and father were also part of the West Virginia crew. All three survived the attack. It was not hard for Harland Costin to make the decision not to tell his family about the true circumstances of Buddy’s death. His family had already suffered much. A brother had died young of an infectious disease. The father had died in a fight. To tell his mother how Buddy must have suffered might have been too much for her to bear. He would keep his secret until the 1990s, when newspapers began to report the story. Duke Olds found out about his brother’s struggle to live from a relative who worked at the shipyard in Bremerton, Wash., where the West Virginia had been taken for repairs. Olds told his brother and two sisters but not his par-

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Both: Author’s Collection

ents. “It would have been really hard on my father. He and Cliff were real close. It was best to let it be.” It would be many years before Duke would find out that what he thought had been a well-kept secret had been revealed to his mother not long before she died. “They say she took it really hard.” Jack Miller, a buddy of Clifford Olds, says he knew his friend was one of those making the noise that was coming from the bow section. Olds had often invited him into the pump room for conversation. Just for laughs, they would close the hatch and scream all manner of epithets in the airtight space, knowing no one on the outside could hear them. The night before the attack, Olds, Miller, and another buddy had gone to a Honolulu nightspot together. They had said no thanks to a barmaid who had taken their picture and offered to sell it to them. Miller could not know that the morrow would change their lives forever—and how much that photo would come to mean. Ronald Endicott had joined the Naval Reserve at age 17, mainly because he wanted to emulate his father who had served earlier. He had been on active duty for 10 months when the Japanese rained death on his ship and he found himself entombed in Pump Room A-109 with Olds and Costin. Velma Lawrence, now of California, was Endicott’s childhood sweetheart and says his parents left Aberdeen in 1956. She knows they never knew how their son died. No doubt the main reason for the state of anguish among the sailors topside stemmed from the fact that they knew rescue was impossible. Olds, Costin, and Endicott were sitting on the bottom of Pearl Harbor, surrounded by water. The ship’s commander, Captain Mervyn S. Bennion, had been killed in the early moments of the attack, but quick thinking by a young lieutenant who was also the fire-control officer ensured the West Virginia would sink on an even keel. It is somewhat ironic that the three men were doomed; the young officer’s action saved hundreds but ensured their deaths. Had the WeeVee, as the ship was affectionately known, capsized like the battleship Oklahoma, the three might have been rescued by cutting through the hull. Not that rescue would have been guaranteed, as the Oklahoma rescuers discovered. Many men on that ship died of asphyxiation when air rushed out as soon as the hull was breached. Those topside on the WeeVee also knew that

TOP: Young Louis “Buddy” Costin poses at Pearl Harbor as he prepares for guard duty. ABOVE: Seaman Clifford Olds (right) enjoys the company of two buddies on the evening of Dec. 6, 1941. Six hours later, he was trapped in pump room A-109 aboard the USS West Virginia fighting for his life.

rescue from below the waterline by drilling a hole through the hull would result in a blowout, killing the diver. Added to this was the realization that the United States had been plunged into war, and many things had taken precedence over three enlisted men at the bottom of Pearl. Those above knew it was not a question of whether Olds, Costin, and Endicott could be rescued. It was only a question of how long they would last. The three entombed young men, who had only three years of service between them, probably did not know they were doomed. They wanted to live, and they had more on their side than their comrades knew. They had emergency food rations, access to the fresh water compartment, flashlights to enable them to see, and two other things—an eight-day clock and a calendar. And so they banged. At the end of each 24-hour period, they marked their calendar. No doubt they wondered, “Does anybody up there hear us?”

Despite all the remembrances, the story of the three trapped sailors might never have been released to the public without the salvage report filed by Commander Paul Dice during bodyretrieval efforts in May 1942. While many of the 106 deaths on the West Virginia were from drowning when compartment hatches had to be closed on those trying to escape, Dice immediately noticed that Pump Room A-109 was completely dry. Three bodies were found huddled together on the storeroom shelf. Then Dice saw flashlights and batteries strewn about, along with empty food ration cartons. The manhole cover to the fresh water tanks had been removed. Then salvage workers saw the eight-day clock and the calendar with a red X marked through each day through December 23. With this discovery, grown men broke down in tears. The three sailors were buried in a mass grave with 22 others. That is what officials told Harland Costin when he journeyed to Honolulu in 1945. In 1949, when the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific was opened, the bodies were disinterred and given separate burials. Clifford Olds’s remains were shipped home to Stanton, N.D. Costin and Endicott are buried in the National Memorial Cemetery in Honolulu, which is commonly referred to as the “Punch Bowl.” The three stones are identical and have death dates of December 7, 1941. There is unanimous agreement that the death date is unfair in view of the heroic struggle waged by the three young sailors to stay alive. When Jack Miller (who died in 2002) returned to Honolulu after sea duty, he understood that the photo taken by the barmaid was one of the last snapped before the world fell apart. He retrieved the negative and kept it for the rest of his life. It shows three carefree young men out on the town and was the last happiness Clifford Olds would ever know. World War II Navy lore is full of courageous yet sad stories that have been fully told. Yet the story of three young sailors and their heroic struggle to stay alive on the bottom of Pearl Harbor lives only in a few newspaper columns and the memories of some shipmates, most of whom have now passed away. Louis “Buddy” Costin, Clifford Olds, and Ronald “Tubby” Endicott deserve more than a Purple Heart and an incorrect date on their tombstones. ■ Don Haines is a freelance writer and Cold War Army Veteran who lives in Woodbine, Maryland. 70TH ANNIVERSARY

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Tensions between the United States and Japan had been escalating for years and eventually erupted into war with the attack on Pearl Harbor.

The Road to War By John Wukovits

In a lightning strike to capture the oil fields of Sumatra, Japanese paratroopers with weapons at the ready begin advancing toward their objectives as comrades continue to plummet earthward. The oil fields, seized from the Dutch on Sumatra and the neighboring island of Borneo, were vital to the Japanese war machine, as were other natural resources of the Dutch East Indies. 16

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A

DMIRAL WILLIAM F. HALSEY HAD never seen such destruction. What made matters worse, the harm had been inflicted on his beloved Navy inside one of its strongholds—the Pacific bastion of Pearl Harbor. As he steamed into the harbor aboard the aircraft carrier Enterprise on December 8, 1941, and obtained a firsthand view of what the Japanese had done, he gritted his teeth. Sadly, he noticed, the battleship Utah lay sunk at its berth—the same berth Halsey would have occupied with his carrier had he been in port that fateful December 7 morning. The sight of mangled ships and floating bod-

U.S. Army Art Collection

ies chagrined the old warrior. An officer nearby watched the admiral scan the harbor in silence, then mutter in an emotion-filled voice, “Before we’re through with ‘em, the Japanese language will be spoken only in hell!” Although what Admiral Halsey witnessed was a stunning surprise, the burning vessels and shattered aircraft—to say nothing of the charred bodies that littered the harbor—were the culmination of a string of events that started years before. As early as the late 1800s, American politicians proclaimed that it was the nation’s “manifest destiny” to expand beyond its continental

borders into the Pacific. They viewed with lusty eyes the lucrative natural resources in the Orient and intended to implant and maintain an economic presence in the region. American manufacturers also wanted to have a ready market for the vast amount of goods their factories churned out. Following the successful conclusion of the war with Spain in 1898, the United States gained possession of the Philippine Islands. Standing 1,400 miles southwest of Japan, the Philippines offered numerous rich products, such as oil and rubber, as well as superb sites for military bases. The United States dispatched a

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garrison army to occupy the subjected nation, and without openly declaring so, conveyed to Japan through her actions that the United States, and not Japan, would achieve mastery in the Pacific. In December 1907, President Theodore Roosevelt increased the American presence in the Pacific by ordering the United States Navy to steam through the region as part of its circumnavigation of the globe. In doing so, he intended to send a message to Japan that the United States would defend its Pacific interests, especially the Philippines. Unfortunately for Roosevelt, once the Navy left Pacific waters, he had no military tool with which to stop any aggressive Japanese moves. Congress was reluctant to start an expensive arms race and declined to approve the money needed to add ships that could be stationed in the area. Until the time came when the country expanded its navy, United States policy in the Pacific existed without the means to enforce it. Japan’s role in the Pacific and Far East was more complex than that of the United States. In the eyes of many Japanese, a leading position guaranteed the nation’s survival, while to accept an inferior status would relegate her to the backwaters of world rankings. Unlike the United States, which enjoyed spacious land into which her population could

spread, Japan existed inside a tiny area framed by water. The more her population increased, the less space became available. Approximately 80 million people lived in Japan in the 1920s. The country’s total area was comparable to the state of Montana, but that U.S. state had a population of under one million. If she were to grow, Japan, the most crowded nation on earth, had to seek land beyond her borders. When expansionists studied the nearby areas, most eyes turned west toward the Asian mainland and China. As an island nation, Japan had to import much of her raw materials and food products. Her people could cultivate only a certain percentage of the national need, and to fill the rest the nation’s leaders had to look elsewhere. Almost 70 percent of the country’s supply of zinc and tin came from outside, 90 percent of its lead, and all of its cotton, wool, aluminum, and rubber. When they sought raw materials from Asia, Japanese leaders crashed head-on with European interests. Japan needed rubber, tin, and bauxite from Burma and Malaya, but those nations were controlled by Great Britain. Indochina’s vast rubber plantations contained valuable material, but France held sway in that country. The most eagerly sought product, oil, existed in bountiful amounts in the East Indies,

Anne S.K. Brown Military Collection

BELOW: In this Japanese artist’s conception of the Battle of Tsushima, sailors of the Imperial Navy fire their weapon at vessels of Czarist Russia’s Baltic Fleet. The Japanese victory at Tsushima stunned the world and emboldened the island nation to continue asserting its preeminence in Asia. ABOVE RIGHT: In Tokyo, a Japanese soldier hangs a banner emblazoned with patriotic slogans. Imbued with the code of Bushido, the Japanese military displayed an intense martial spirit.

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but the Dutch maintained a stranglehold on the region. Everywhere Japan turned, a European nation appeared to block the path to her future. Japan yearned to be the dominant nation in the Pacific and Far East. She, not Great Britain or any other European country, deserved preeminence in the area because she was an Asian land. Besides, she had already built a potent military and asserted her interests in the region. In 1894 she fought a war with China over supremacy in Korea. Even though her welltrained soldiers easily defeated the Chinese, Japan’s interest in gaining more living space on the mainland was thwarted by Russia, which brokered a peace agreement that gave Japan the tiny island of Formosa, off China’s coast. Ten years later Japan exacted revenge on Russia. The Czarist-led country tried to expand its influence into Manchuria, a region north of Korea, by building a railroad through the country. Japan countered this threat to her interests in Korea and Manchuria by unleashing a surprise naval attack on the Russian Far East Squadron as it lay at anchor in Port Arthur, Manchuria, on February 8, 1904. Japanese troops then landed and swept north to seize the city of Mukden. The rest of the world took notice in May when the Japanese Navy soundly defeated the Russian Baltic Fleet at the Battle of Tsushima. For the first time an Asian nation had bested a European power, and both Great Britain and the United States realized that Japan could pose a threat to their own interests. The successes reinforced the idea that Japan’s destiny lay in the Pacific and on the Asian mainland. Japanese leaders masked their intentions by proclaiming that, as the only Asian nation to rise to the status of world power, she, not the European nations or the United States, had an

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Japanese soldiers rapidly advance through a rubble-strewn street in the city of Toh-an, China. Locked in close combat with Chinese troops, the Japanese pushed toward Kiukang, the terminus of the Nannsun Railway.

inherent right to rule in the region. This attitude placed Japan in direct opposition to similar interests expressed by the United States. The decade of the 1920s saw both a reduction in military weaponry and an escalation of harsh feelings between the United States and Japan. The isolationist attitudes that swept the United States caused government leaders to support arms limitations even though they remained uneasy about Japan’s aggressive stance in the Pacific. Money drove the world’s major naval nations to Washington in 1921 to discuss restraints on building ships. Most countries could not afford an escalating naval arms race, and over a three-month period they formulated an agreement to halt naval construction. The document’s final version stipulated that Great Britain would retain 22 capital ships (battleships and cruisers) and the United States 18— keeping them virtually equal in power—while Japan reduced its battle fleet to 10. A 10-year hiatus in naval construction meant that the superiority given the United States and Great Britain would remain in force for an entire decade, but Japanese leaders, facing world support for the conference, acceded to its demands. The Washington Naval Conference slowed

the arms race, but it embittered the Japanese, who believed that the United States and Great Britain only wanted to keep Japan in an inferior position in the Pacific and excluded from status as a world power. They departed Washington determined to address the wrongs inflicted on them. Other events in the United States contributed to growing resentment toward that country inside Japan. Although built on the principles of equality and fair play, the United States government had a deplorable history of bigotry toward the Japanese and Japanese-Americans. In 1907 the school board in San Francisco, California, refused to allow Japanese children to attend school. Six years later the California state legislature passed a law prohibiting Japanese from owning land, and in 1924 Congress passed a biased immigration law. Japan was so enraged by this 1924 law that on the day it took effect in the United States, the Japanese government declared a national day of humiliation. Japanese rumblings in the Pacific unnerved people in the United States, who had frequently referred to Asians as the “yellow peril.” At first the Chinese, and then the Japanese, were seen as threats to the white-dominated rule that had existed in the Pacific and throughout the world.

The Japanese were not to be trusted, and their desire to expand beyond their borders was to be viewed with alarm. Other actions in the 1920s bothered the Japanese military. The Kellogg-Briand Pact of 1928 condemned war as a course of action, which to the Japanese meant that those in control—Great Britain and the United States— would remain in control. Two years later the London Naval Treaty forbade the construction of any new battleships before 1937, which the Japanese viewed as another step by Western powers to retain superiority. People in Japan, especially younger, more radical Army officers, considered the different peace agreements as a betrayal of Japan’s interests by moderate politicians. They looked to their military to correct the situation. The military commanded enormous respect from the population in Japan in the 1920s and 1930s. When a young man reached the age of 17, he entered his two years of service with a party hosted by the residents of his hometown. School children collected coins in a drive to finance the construction of a battleship, and it was deemed an honor to serve the emperor. Rigorous training instilled discipline and an aversion to surrendering. Instructors taught 19

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trainees that loyalty to one’s unit, faith in commanding officers, and spirit would defeat any foe, no matter how well-armed it might be. Attacking, even in circumstances that produced ghastly casualties, was preferred to surrendering or pulling back. Men trained 14 hours a day, six days a week, under the watch of dictatorial officers who answered complaints with punishment. Soldiers would embark on marches of 25 miles wearing gear that weighed two-thirds of their own body weights, then run the final mile to prove they still had reserves of strength. A soldier’s life belonged to the emperor, and to suffer defeat or surrender was considered an insult to the emperor and brought shame to the soldier’s family. His behavior was governed by the ancient samurai tradition known as Bushido, which meant “Way of the Warrior.” The samurai were honored fighters in Japan’s history, and soldiers of the Imperial Army were expected to emulate them. “Duty is weightier than a mountain, while death is lighter than a feather,” reminded one dictate. A soldier could attain no higher glory than to die in battle. Japanese militants who urged immediate expansion onto the Asian mainland were held in check by more moderate forces and by the fact that the Japanese economy depended heavily on the United States for products. The stock market crash of 1929, which ushered in the Great Depression, altered the situation. Military extremists castigated moderates for giving away too much military might in the 1920s peace accords and for refusing to exploit China. They clamored for a new policy that would

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emphasize conquest and expansion. The Japanese military held such immense power because it controlled the fates of those factions in power. The Army and Navy each had one minister in the Japanese cabinet, and if they did not agree with current policy they could hamstring a government by recalling the ministers and bringing the regime to a standstill. From early 1936 on, militarists gained more influence. Politicians justifiably feared for their lives if they supported a position unpopular with the Army or Navy. In the 1930s, four government officials were assassinated by the military and two coups were attempted. An alarmed American ambassador to Japan, Joseph Grew, warned Washington that the Japanese militarists were gaining strength every day and that they intended to expand into China and other areas of the Pacific. He told his superiors, “Whatever way it falls out, one thing is certain and that is that the military are distinctly running the government and that no step can be taken without their approval.” The Army and Navy supported diverse plans for expansion. The Army wanted to focus on Russia and northern China—land targets— while the Navy claimed a water advance into Indochina, the Dutch East Indies, and Pacific islands would be better because of the rich natural resources available. Faced with two radically different plans from groups that could easily dissolve the government, in 1936 Japan’s cabinet refused to take a stand and gave permission for both plans. This decision set in motion a chain of events that could only result

ABOVE: During the horrific Rape of Nanking in December 1937, a Japanese soldier bayonets a Chinese civilian, whose lifeless body will soon roll into an adjacent pit. BELOW: Crossing the Central Mountain Belt in China’s interior, elements of a Japanese tank corps roll forward accompanied by well equipped infantrymen. The Japanese Army did not typically employ armored units in large numbers.

in conflict with either Great Britain or the United States, or with both. The initial aggressive moves that culminated in World War II in the Pacific occurred on September 18, 1931, when a bomb exploded along the Japanese-controlled South Manchuria Railway near Mukden, Manchuria. Units of the Japanese Army had been stationed in Korea since the Russo-Japanese War to protect Japanese interests. Officers of the Kwantung Army, as it was called, immediately launched an invasion to overrun all of Manchuria, which they quickly gobbled up and renamed Manchukuo. The Army command ignored orders from the Tokyo government to halt the invasion, partly because they believed the civilian officials had meekly given away so much military might in the 1920s peace accords with European nations. Once the government officials realized the Kwantung Army was easily overrunning Manchuria, many of them adopted a different stance. They praised the military for its performance and encouraged Japanese citizens, plagued by crowded conditions in the home islands, to emigrate to the area. Other nations, including the United States, condemned the invasion. When the League of Nations refused to recognize the puppet state of Manchukuo, Japan withdrew from the organi-

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zation in 1933 and continued to exploit her new possession. Since many nations were in the midst of battling economic problems stemming from the 1929 Wall Street crash, they did not consider using military force to halt the aggressive moves. Japan, as well as German dictator Adolf Hitler and Italian leader Benito Mussolini in Europe, noticed this refusal to take action and embarked on bolder courses of action as the decade unfolded. A more serious incident occurred on the Asian mainland on July 7, 1937, when Japanese soldiers opened fire on Chinese troops at

bitter enemies, battling for control of their homeland, united in the common cause of repelling the invading Japanese. The Japanese reacted swiftly and brutally. Although their forces stalled at Shanghai, where Chinese forces fought for three months and inflicted 40,000 casualties, the Japanese Army quickly overran other major cities. Peking, Tientsin, Hankow, Chenchow, and Canton fell one after another, with angry Japanese exacting brutal vengeance at each site, where soldiers raped and killed civilians by the thousands. The worst carnage had unfolded in December 1937, at Nanking, where Japanese troops embarked on an orgy of killing and rape. Soldiers used thousands of civilians for live bayonet practice, set afire whole groups of men, women, and children, and raped old and young alike. A war crimes tribunal after the war determined that 20,000 women between the ages of 11 and 76 had been raped, and more than 200,000 Chinese murdered. One American who was present wrote on Christmas Eve that Nanking “is a city laid waste, ravaged, completely looted, much of it burned. The victorious army must have its rewards—and those rewards are to plunder, murder, rape, at will, to commit acts of unbelievable brutality and savagery. In all modern history surely there is no page that will stand so black as that of the rape of Nanking. It has

been hell on earth.” The United States protested these criminal acts against a nation with which they shared sentimental bonds, developed by American missionaries who had long worked in China. Since no nation was willing or able to mount military action to deter the Japanese, the critical words achieved nothing. The Japanese continued to plunder China at will. In Japan, American Ambassador Joseph Grew cautioned President Franklin D. Roosevelt that the nation rode a risky path by attacking Japan verbally without appropriate military force to back up the words. Like Winston Churchill warning the democracies in Europe about the rise of Hitler, Grew urged his nation to build a military machine capable of maintaining order in the Pacific. Otherwise, Grew added, “one side or the other would eventually have to eat crow.” Roosevelt agreed with his ambassador, but embroiled in rescuing the devastated American economy from the Depression, he unfortunately could do little to stop the Japanese. The events in China pushed the United States and Japan further apart. The Japanese believed that the United States had no right to interfere in Asian matters, and the United States was stunned at the brutality with which the Japanese treated fellow Asians. More and more, the two viewed each other as bitter foes.

the Marco Polo Bridge near Peking, China. Who fired first is unclear, but the Japanese Army used the incident as justification to unleash a huge offensive against Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek’s Chinese Army. Within weeks the Japanese Army had pushed Chiang’s poorly trained and under-equipped forces toward the interior of China, leaving many key Chinese coastal cities open to the Japanese. The Chinese leader steadfastly refused to negotiate with the Japanese, even though his troops were faring poorly. In October 1938, he withdrew farther into China’s vast interior, moved the country’s capital from Peking to Chungking, and created an alliance with his communist opponent, Mao Tse-tung. The two

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BELOW: Chinese soldiers, ill equipped and poorly led, were squandered during the early fighting in Burma against well-disciplined units of the Japanese Army. LEFT TOP: Under-Secretary of State Joseph Grew served as U.S. Ambassador to Japan during the difficult years preceding World War II. LEFT BOTTOM: The gunboat USS Panay sinks after being hit by Japanese bombers on the Yangtze River. The Japanese government claimed the incident was a case of mistaken identity even though the vessel was clearly marked as American.

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Japanese Marines roll a field gun forward to deal with a pocket of stubborn Chinese resistance that has held up their advance through Shanghai. The Japanese captured a number of major Chinese cities and effectively controlled much of the vast nation’s coastline.

Relations between the United States and Japan worsened in December 1937 when Japanese aircraft attacked the U.S. gunboat Panay. The gunboat was removing the last of the American embassy staff from the besieged town of Nanking when a squadron of Japanese aircraft bombed the small boat. The American commander ordered everyone over the side of the burning craft into lifeboats, which sought the shelter of high reeds along the Yangtze River. Although the sinking Panay was clearly marked by American flags as belonging to the United States, the Japanese pilots continued their assault. Two American sailors and one Italian journalist were killed in the attack, which was filmed by a news reporter. Politicians and citizens in the United States reacted angrily to the news, and for a moment the two nations appeared on the verge of warfare. Franklin Roosevelt knew that he could do little to assert American power in China, and thus did not want to start hostilities. The Japanese government, embroiled in China and fearful that the U.S. would cut off shipments of valuable scrap iron and oil to Japan, hoped to avoid conflict with the United States at any cost. With neither side eager for fighting, a peaceful solution emerged. Roosevelt demanded that Japan offer a public apology and pay more than $2 million in damages. Tokyo agreed, and Roosevelt accepted the explanation that the Japanese pilots had incorrectly identified the Panay as a Chinese boat. 22

Although both sides deflected hostilities at this time, the affair soured relations between Japan and the United States. Even before the Panay incident, Roosevelt had enough evidence to convince himself that, sooner or later, his nation would be engaged in war with either Germany or Japan. Beset with economic problems and leading a nation that wanted to avoid overseas entanglements, Roosevelt had to adopt a cautious approach in which he could gradually awaken his fellow countrymen to the existing dangers and in which he could slowly build America’s military might. The Panay incident handed him justification for stepping up his efforts, though. One month after the gunboat sank, Roosevelt asked for and received from Congress a 20 percent increase in funds for the Navy so it could build enough ships to station a fleet in both the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. At the same time he requested that American munitions and aircraft manufacturers stop bargaining with Japan, and he reduced the amount of important products, such as scrap iron, oil, and cotton, sent to Japan from the United States. In October 1939, Roosevelt changed the Pacific Fleet’s home base from San Diego, California, to Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. Roosevelt intended that this series of moves would send a message to the Japanese that the United States opposed their actions in Asia and would react even more strongly in the future.

When Hitler overran Western Europe in the spring of 1940 and threatened to knock Great Britain out of the war, Congress appropriated more money for the military. Shipbuilders increased their output, and aircraft manufacturers strove to produce 50,000 aircraft. In September 1940, Congress passed the first peacetime draft in the nation’s history in an attempt to expand the armed forces. The United States also reexamined its military strategy in light of recent events. For years the nation had been guided in the Pacific by War Plan Orange, which assumed the Japanese would strike the United States in the Philippines. The plan called for U.S. troops stationed in the Philippines to hold out until the American fleet could arrive. Since the military did not yet possess enough men or ships to maintain simultaneous operations in both the Atlantic and Pacific, Roosevelt’s top military advisers concluded that the greater threat to American security came from Hitler and recommended that most efforts to build the military focus on the Atlantic. Should war erupt, American forces in the Pacific would try to hold onto American possessions until Hitler had been defeated. Then the focus would switch to Japan. Even if they lost the Philippines, the U.S. leaders believed they had to first meet the challenge posed by Hitler. Roosevelt had one more reason to implement this “Germany first” strategy. He feared that German scientists were close to perfecting an atomic bomb, a concern that worsened when German forces defeated France and gained possession of a famed French nuclear physics lab. Should Hitler attain an atomic bomb before the United States, he could act almost at will. One officer argued against abandoning the Philippines. General Douglas MacArthur, a distinguished soldier from an eminent military family, claimed that given sufficient time, he could build American and Filipino forces to the point where they could successfully repel a Japanese attack. The former Army chief of staff contended that by spring 1942 he could field 200,000 trained Filipino troops bolstered by one American division. His optimistic opinion swayed his superiors, who named him commander of forces in the Philippines in July 1941. From then on, MacArthur engaged in a race to construct a potent military presence before the Japanese struck. Most military strategists dismissed the notion that the Japanese would launch an attack against the American fleet at Pearl Harbor. Although they developed a plan to cover

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France to allow them to place troops in Indochina. While the Japanese claimed that the forces were necessary to protect their southern flank in China, Japan was actually interested in obtaining Indochina’s vast natural resources and possessing a base from which to push southward against British-held Burma and Malaya. When Japanese troops moved into Indochina in July 1941, President Roosevelt cut off all trade with Japan, including the flow of oil. He promised to maintain the embargo until Japan withdrew from both China and Indochina and renounced the Tripartite Pact. Japanese Prime Minister Hideki Tojo replied, “We sent a large force of one million men, and it has cost us well over 100,000 dead and wounded, their bereaved families, hardship for four years.” He answered that they could not now repudiate such sacrifices. In light of Roosevelt’s order to stop the flow of oil, Japanese leaders could follow one of two paths. They could reach a settlement with the United States and reopen the supply line from that nation, or they could continue their present policy of overseas expansion and risk war with the United States. Since they held only enough oil and supplies to last for 18 to 36 months of war, the leaders had to determine which course to adopt and how best to implement it. The Japanese military then had to settle a dispute between the Army and Navy over which direction any possible attack would go. The Army wanted to mount an invasion to the north against long-time enemy Russia. The

Navy, needing a continuous supply of oil to fuel the fleet, hoped to swing southward toward the oil-rich Dutch East Indies. When the German Army pushed deep into the Soviet Union and tied up millions of Stalin’s forces, the Japanese government decided that they had enough time to hit south, consolidate their new possessions, and still be ready for a spring 1942 offensive against the Soviet Union. The plan was to sweep down the Malay Peninsula and attack Hong Kong, Malaya, Burma, Singapore, and the Dutch East Indies, while other segments invaded American forces in the Philippines. Japan assumed that the only military force of significance in the Pacific, the American Pacific Fleet stationed at Pearl Harbor, would steam toward the relief of the soldiers fighting in the Philippines. The Japanese Navy planned to station submarines along the route to attack as the U.S. Navy passed by, then destroy the remnants in the Philippines area in a great naval slugfest between opposing battleships. Japanese military leaders never intended to completely subdue the American foe. Instead, they hoped to set up such a potent defensive perimeter around their new acquisitions that the United States, rather than engage in a protracted Pacific struggle at a time when Hitler posed a serious threat, would negotiate for peace. As Tojo said, “America may be enraged for a while, but later she will come to understand.” Japan believed she had the necessary military might to pull off such a complex operation spread out over long distances. About 350,000 British, American, and Australian troops, many poorly trained, manned outposts in the Pacific.

Preparing to assault Chinese defensive positions guarding the city of Changsa, Japanese soldiers await the order to advance. The Chinese Nationalists, led by Chiang Kai-shek, and their Communist adversaries, under Mao Tse-tung, formed an uneasy alliance against their common enemy.

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the eventuality, few believed it would occur. Army Chief of Staff General George C. Marshall told Roosevelt in May 1941 that Pearl Harbor was “the strongest fortress in the world. Enemy carriers, naval escorts and transports will begin to come under air attack at a distance of approximately 750 miles. This attack will increase in intensity until within 200 miles of the objective, the enemy forces will be subject to all types of bombardment closely supported by our most modern pursuit. An invader would face more than 35,000 troops backed by coast defense guns and antiaircraft artillery.” This optimistic evaluation would shortly be tested and found wanting. Although small numbers of American troops filtered to various U.S. possessions in the Pacific, the country did not possess enough forces to pose a deterrent to the Japanese. Only 400 Marines and Navy personnel defended Wake Island; the same number guarded Guam. Most of the Navy’s 347 warships steamed in Atlantic waters. Should Japan attack, it was not likely that American troops could do anything but fight as long as they could, and then surrender. A glimmer of hope emanated from the Philippines, but MacArthur needed until at least early 1942 to be adequately prepared. Top American military planners held one ace in their hands. Army and Navy codebreakers had cracked Japan’s diplomatic code. From 1935 to 1939 they intercepted and read most of the messages that passed from Tokyo to overseas embassies. The Japanese switched codes in March 1939, but American codebreakers, aided by the theft of secret material from the Japanese embassy in Washington, D.C., cracked the new code and learned of Japanese intentions before they acted. This codebreaking operation, called “Magic,” provided valuable information throughout the duration of the war and helped influence the outcome of some of the most crucial battles. Magic intercepts informed the United States of Japan’s advance into French Indochina. Since Hitler had defeated France and the Netherlands and appeared about to knock Great Britain out of the war, Japan saw an opportunity to seize European possessions in the Pacific and gain control of their valuable resources. In September 1940, the Japanese signed the Tripartite Pact with Germany and Italy. The agreement bound each party to declare war on any nation that joined the war against one of the three. The three hoped this alliance would deter the United States from entering the conflict. Japan then applied pressure on a weakened

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Japanese machine gunners pause during their pursuit of a retreating Chinese infantry unit. Moving with incredible speed, the Japanese conquered large amounts of Chinese territory in a relatively short period of time.

Ninety warships and 1,000 aircraft supported them. Japan could count on 2.4 million welltrained troops, many of whom had been battle tested, supported by 7,500 aircraft and 230 warships. Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto, however, insisted that the only hope of victory against an industrial giant such as the United States lay in a successful preemptive strike at the U.S. Pacific Fleet anchored at Pearl Harbor in Hawaii. Yamamoto prevailed, and on Sunday, December 7, 1941, Japanese aircraft fell upon the unsuspecting fleet at Pearl Harbor and hit other Navy and Army Air Corps installations on the island of Oahu, inflicting tremendous damage and loss of life. The fighting capability of the U.S. armed forces in the Pacific was crippled. On December 8, in Washington, D.C., in words that have resonated through the years, President Roosevelt asked Congress to declare war on Japan. “Yesterday, December 7, 1941, a date which will live in infamy, the United States of America was suddenly and deliberately attacked by naval and air forces of the Empire of Japan.” When Congress overwhelmingly passed the resolution, the United States was at war. For the first time in many months, Winston Churchill thought that victory lay within the Allies’ grasp and went to bed and slept “the 24

sleep of the saved and the thankful.” The American military tried to rebound from catastrophe. Eight congressional and military boards concluded that the Pacific Fleet Commander, Admiral Kimmel, and Army Commandant Lt. Gen. Walter C. Short, had been negligent in their duties. The two were quickly relieved of their posts. In an effort to raise morale, a Navy message to troops at Pearl Harbor said, “You will have your revenge. Recruiting stations are jammed with men eager to join you.” At the same time Japanese aircraft blitzed Pearl Harbor, other Japanese units advanced toward Southeast Asia, the Philippines, and other Pacific islands. In the first of three huge military operations, the Japanese Army planned to move through Malaya, then split into two groups and swing west into Burma and east toward the Dutch East Indies. From Formosa, other units would strike American forces in the Philippines, while the Japanese Navy steamed in the Pacific to seize control of Guam, Wake Island, and the Gilberts. Once they accomplished these moves, the Japanese intended to construct a defensive barrier behind which they could exploit the resources of Asia and the Pacific. By the time the United States recovered sufficiently from Pearl Harbor to mount a

counteroffensive, which the Japanese predicted would take at least 18 months, their forces would be so firmly ensconced behind the defensive barrier that they could not be dislodged. On December 9, Japan quickly took Tarawa in the Gilbert Islands against minor opposition. The next day, 5,400 Japanese attacked the 427 U.S. Marine Corps and Navy personnel stationed at Guam, 1,500 miles east of Manila. Although the men battled heroically, they were forced to surrender within one day. Five hours after Pearl Harbor, more than 200 Japanese aircraft approached American military installations in the Philippines. Since news of the Pearl Harbor attack had already flashed around the world, the Japanese aviators expected stiff resistance from American fighters and antiaircraft guns. In a surprise even more astonishing than Pearl Harbor, they encountered very little. Delighted fliers dove on American bombers and fighters neatly arranged in rows and inflicted a second major blow to American forces stationed in the Pacific. The commander of Allied forces in the Philippines, General Douglas MacArthur, lost much of his air capability in a matter of minutes. MacArthur, one of the American military’s most heralded officers, now scrambled to

assemble a defensive stance with which to confront the inevitable Japanese land assault. He commanded over 100,000 soldiers, but less than one-third were experienced veterans. The remainder were newcomers to the Philippines or Filipino soldiers who had received little training. MacArthur predicted that the Japanese would land at Lingayen Gulf 120 miles north of Manila. He intended to place most of his men along the southern shore of Lingayen Gulf, fight as long as possible, then withdraw to the south into the Bataan Peninsula and wait for reinforcements to arrive from the United States. On December 22, a force of 43,000 Japanese soldiers under Lt. Gen. Masaharu Homma landed at Lingayen Gulf, but farther to the north than MacArthur expected. Meeting little opposition, the Japanese Army raced behind MacArthur’s surprised soldiers and began closing in from the rear. At the same time, a second invasion force landed 70 miles south of Manila at Lamon Bay and headed toward the capital. Caught in this predicament, MacArthur had no choice but to order a hasty retreat into the Bataan Peninsula to avoid being trapped by the two forces. Barely 20,000 soldiers were healthy enough on Bataan to oppose the Japanese. When Homma renewed his offensive, the Americans and Filipinos could not hold on for long. After a five-hour bombardment on April 3, fresh Japanese reinforcements, backed by artillery and armor, punched holes all along the thin American defensive line. The Americans and Filipinos maintained the line long enough to evacuate 2,000 men and 104 nurses to the island of Corregidor in Manila Bay, but continued resistance was futile. On April 9, roughly 12,000 American and 63,000 Filipino soldiers on Bataan lay down their arms on orders from Maj. Gen. Edward P. King, Jr. The Western powers, who had only six months previous ruled much of the Far East and the Pacific, were now reduced to the trapped garrison on Corregidor. Japan had triumphed everywhere else, and she would soon add one more conquest. For one month Japanese artillery bombarded Corregidor around the clock to weaken the defenders for the final attack. During the night of May 5-6, Japanese forces crossed over from Bataan, fought through the minor resistance existing at the beaches, and spread throughout the island. Realizing that the end had come, Maj. Gen. Jonathan M. Wainwright surrendered his forces. When the Japanese threatened

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As their wary captors look on, American and Filipino soldiers display the white flag of surrender. In the spring of 1942, the last organized resistance to the Japanese in the Philippines came to an end on Corregidor.

to continue the killing unless Wainwright ordered the surrender of all American troops in the Philippines, not just those on Corregidor, Wainwright issued the directive. He feared that unless he agreed the Japanese would exact their anger on the wounded and the nurses in Malinta Tunnel’s hospital. Some Americans stationed elsewhere in the Philippines complied with Wainwright’s order, but many fled into the jungle to continue resisting. Moments before the surrender, Army Signal Corps Private Irving Strobing sent a radio message that was recorded at Pearl Harbor and aired three weeks later on a radio program. “The jig is up. Everyone is bawling like a baby. They are piling dead and wounded in our tunnel. I know now how a mouse feels. Caught in a trap waiting for guys to come along and finish it up. My name is Irving Strobing. Get this to my mother, Mrs. Minnie Strobing, 605 Barbey Street, Brooklyn, N.Y. My love to Pa, Joe [brother], Sue [sister], Mac, Garry, Joy and Paul. Tell Joe, wherever he is, go give ‘em hell for us. God bless you and keep you.” Wainwright added his own touching message. On May 6, he cabled his commander in chief, President Franklin Roosevelt: “With broken heart, and head bowed in sadness but not in shame, I report to Your Excellency that today

I must arrange terms for the surrender of the fortified islands of Manila Bay. With profound regret and with continued pride in my gallant men, I go to meet the Japanese commander. Good-bye, Mr. President.” With the collapse of resistance in the Philippines, the Japanese controlled the Pacific from Hawaii to the Far East. Only in Australia did the Allies maintain a slim hold. The American Navy had been manhandled at Pearl Harbor, the American Army had been forced out of the Philippines, and the American Marines had surrendered at Wake Island and Guam. The British lost much of their fleet as well as their two major possessions in the Far East, Singapore and Hong Kong. After 300 years, the Dutch lost the Indies. The only news that energized the American public, the electrifying defenses at Wake Island and Bataan, resulted in additional defeats. Just when things seemed their worst, events in the first week of May 1942 cast a glimmer of hope. The U.S. Navy, aided by radio intelligence, started to turn the tide. At the Battle of the Coral Sea, a Japanese invasion force was turned back from Port Moresby on the island of New Guinea. Weeks later, the epic Battle of Midway would change the balance of power in the Pacific permanently. ■ 25

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SUNDAY MORNING

SHATTERED AT 9PM

on the evening of December 6, 1941, Vice Admiral Chuichi Nagumo of the Imperial Japanese Navy called all hands aboard the aircraft carrier Akagi to attention. Addressing the assembly, Nagumo read a message from Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto, commander in chief of the Combined Fleet. “The rise or fall of the empire depends on this battle. Everyone will do his duty to the utmost.” Just before sunrise on Sunday, December 7, the six aircraft carriers under Nagumo’s direct command—the flagship Akagi, Kaga, Soryu, Hiryu, Shokaku, and Zuikaku—would turn into the wind and launch a powerful aerial striking force, 353 planes, in two waves. The target of the First Air Fleet was the anchorage of the U.S. Navy’s Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbor on the island of Oahu in the territory of Hawaii. Other installations of the U.S. Navy and the Army—Hickam Field, Wheeler Field, Bellows Field, Ewa Marine Corps Air Station, and the naval air stations at Kaneohe and on Ford Island in the heart of Pearl Harbor—were to be hit as well. Other Japanese forces were to strike the Philippines, Wake Island, Midway Atoll, and Malaya. For Japan, the road to war with the United States had been long and virtually inevitable. Since the turn of the century, the island nation had exerted growing political influence in the Pacific. In the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-1905, its armed forces became the first Asians to vanquish the military of a traditional European power, inflicting a humiliating defeat on czarist Russia. Since 1910, Japan had exercised rule over Korea by mandate. Following World War I, former German possessions in the Pacific, including the islands of the Marshalls, Carolines, and Marianas, came under Japanese administration as well. Since the early 1930s a wave of militarism had gained influence in the halls of Japan’s government. Though subservient to Emperor Hirohito, the virtual “God-Man” who sat on the Chrysanthemum Throne, the militarists led by General Hideki Tojo held sway in the political arena. Touting “Asia for Asians,” the militarists intended to eject Western influence from the Pacific and the Asian mainland. Referring to their initiative as the “Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere,” the Japanese interpretation of “Asia for Asians” was better understood as “Asia for the Japanese.” In 1931, the Kwantung Army invaded northern China and took control of the region of Manchuria, renaming it

BY MICHAEL E. HASKEW 26

This painting by James Dietz captures the magnitude of destruction inflicted on the U.S. fleet at Pearl Harbor by the Japanese airborne attack. The American flag flying at lower right reminds the viewer that this was not the end, but rather the beginning of America’s involvement in the war.

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Painting © James Dietz

Japanese planes attacked Pearl Harbor and other installations on the island of Oahu and plunged the United States into World War II.

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Manchukuo and installing a puppet government friendly to Japanese interests. By 1940, negotiations with the Vichy government of France allowed Japanese troops to occupy northern Indochina, positioning them dangerously close to the resources of oil, rubber, and tin in the Dutch East Indies. Secretly, Japan continued to expand its military capability during the 1930s, contravening the Washington Naval Treaty of 1923 and eventually repudiating its terms by the end of 1934. The treaty limited U.S., British, and Japanese naval tonnage and the ratio of warships each country could build to 5:5:3 respectively. Ostensibly, this was because the United States and Britain were responsible for greater expanses of the world’s oceans. The Japanese considered the treaty an affront to their preeminence in the Pacific. Meanwhile, in May 1940, President Franklin D. Roosevelt ordered the Pacific Fleet to relocate from its primary base in San Diego, California, to the anchorage at Pearl Harbor, an obvious indication to the Japanese that the United States would respond to continued

aggression with force if necessary. On July 19, Congress passed the Two-Ocean Naval Expansion Act in response to the Japanese threat and the real possibility that Great Britain, standing alone, would succumb to Nazi Germany. The legislation authorized the U.S. Navy to construct 18 fleet aircraft carriers, 11 battleships, six battlecruisers, 27 cruisers, 115 destroyers, and 43 submarines. These were to complement the existing 358 surface and submarine units already active as well as an additional 130 vessels under construction at the time. It was an ominous development for the Japanese. The United States countered continuing Japanese expansion with a series of economic sanctions. In the summer of 1940, an embargo on shipments of aviation fuel and scrap iron to Japan was imposed. On September 27, Japanese diplomats signed the Tripartite Pact, joining the Axis powers of Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy. Following the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union on June 22, 1941, the Japanese occupied all of Indochina. President Roosevelt froze Japanese assets in the United States. Sanctions were escalated with embargoes of other mate-

“FLIGHT DECKS VIBRATED WITH THE ROAR OF AIRCRAFT ENGINES WARMING UP. NOW A GREEN

U.S. Navy

LAMP WAS WAVED IN A CIRCLE. ‘TAKE OFF!’”

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rials such as steel, copper, bronze, machinery, and oil; Japan imported at least 80 percent of its oil from the United States. Soon after, the U.S. demand that Japan withdraw its forces from China and Indochina placed the government of Tojo, who ascended to the office of prime minister in October 1941, at a crossroads. Withdrawal from the Asian continent meant loss of face and the surrender of all territorial gains the Japanese had won since 1937. Moderates in the government were muzzled. For the militarists, the only option was war. Yamamoto, the principal architect of the Pearl Harbor operation, was well aware of the risks posed by such an offensive action. At 57, he had lost two fingers on his left hand at the great naval Battle of Tsushima in 1905, earned his naval pilot’s credentials at the age of 40, and trained airmen for the Imperial Navy. He had traveled to the United States in the 1920s as a naval attaché and studied at Harvard University. He had seen the tremendous industrial capacity of the United States and warned that a prolonged war would almost certainly have unfavorable consequences for Japan. Candidly, Yamamoto once told colleagues, “If I am told to fight regardless of the consequences, I shall run wild for the first six months or a year, but I have utterly no confidence for the second or third year.” Although the staff of the Combined Fleet began planning in earnest for a strike against Pearl Harbor in January 1941, the premise had been discussed, tested during war games, and shelved several times during the years between the world wars. Lt. Cmdr. Minoru Genda, perhaps the best known and most respected aviator in the Japanese military, had observed American carriers operating cooperatively in a single strike force and attended war games in 1936 during which a Pearl Harbor attack scenario had played out negatively. Nevertheless, Genda was one of a few officers who saw the potential for a carrier task force to deliver a successful blow against an enemy fleet at anchor. In November 1940, the attack by British Fairey Swordfish torpedo bombers against the Italian naval anchorage at Taranto bolstered Japanese confidence. The 21 antiquated British biplanes had sunk one Italian battleship and damaged two others in the harbor. As Japanese aircraft carrier strength reached sufficient levels to support a Pearl Harbor attack, Yamamoto instructed Admiral Takajiro Onishi, chief of staff of the Eleventh Air Fleet, to order Genda to evaluate the potential for success with “special attention to the feasibil-

ity of the operation, method of execution, and the forces to be used.” By August, the basic plan had been approved. The six aircraft carriers of the First Air Fleet were to be accompanied by an armada of two battleships, two heavy cruisers, a light cruiser, nine destroyers, three submarines, and eight tankers, a total of 31 vessels, sailing from Hitokappu Bay in the Kurile Islands on November 26. The fleet was to take a northerly course in order to avoid well-traveled trade routes and merchant shipping, maintain strict radio silence, and launch its aircraft in two waves from a point 230 miles north of Oahu on December 7. A cordon of fleet submarines was positioned around Oahu to attack any U.S. ships that might be at sea near the harbor, and five midget submarines were to be launched from their mother submarines hours before the aerial attack with the hope of infiltrating the harbor and launching torpedoes at anchored vessels of the Pacific Fleet. Training was exhaustive. As Japanese pilots executed mock torpedo, level-bombing, and dive-bombing attacks against stationary targets, there were two significant ordnancerelated issues to overcome. The standard level and torpedo bomber of the Japanese Navy, the Nakajima B5N “Kate,” had to be modified to carry and deliver the 1,760-pound Type 5 armor-piercing bomb, adapted from a 16-inch naval artillery shell, while the principal-dive bomber, the Aichi D3A1 “Val,” was refitted to carry the 550-pound Type 99 bomb. Further, the waters of Pearl Harbor were shallow—in some areas the depth was less than 40 feet. Therefore, the Kate’s standard 1,750-pound aerial torpedo could be expected to plunge into the mud of the harbor before stabilizing to run. This problem was solved with the addition of wooden fins to allow the torpedoes to quickly stabilize and run at a more shallow depth. Early in September, senior Japanese officers convened at the Naval War College in Tokyo and finalized plans for the attack. The following month, senior pilots were informed of the target against which they had been training so strenuously. Combined Fleet Top Secret Operational Order No. 1 was issued on November 5, followed 48 hours later by Order No. 2, authorizing the fleet to sortie at the end of the month and to execute the attack on Pearl Harbor. When the fleet set sail, Admiral Kichisaburo Nomura and special envoy Saburo Kurusu were in Washington, D.C., conducting last-ditch negotiations with Secretary of State Cordell Hull and President Roosevelt. In the event that these

Both: U.S. Navy

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TOP: Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto studied at Harvard after World War I and later had much to do with the Pearl Harbor attack. ABOVE: Admiral H.E. Kimmel at right confers over maps with his operations officer, Captain Walter DeLany, on December 2. OPPOSITE: Japanese airmen ready their bombers and torpedo planes for the attack.

negotiations failed, specific orders to launch the attack would be issued to Nagumo at sea, while the emissaries were instructed to deliver a message to the U.S. government officially terminating the negotiations and essentially declaring war a half hour before the Japanese aircraft appeared in the sky above Pearl Harbor. For the United States, the coming of war with Japan was the culmination of a steady stream of provocative moves on the part of the upstart Asian nation. Not only had the Japanese conquered vast areas of China, a country whose sovereignty the United States had served as something of a self-appointed guarantor for half a century, but they had also bombed and sunk the gunboat USS Panay on the Yangtze River in 1937. A half-hearted apology and reparations

payments did little to improve relations between the two countries. The signing of the Tripartite Pact and occupation of all of Indochina were followed by a series of Japanese demands delivered by Nomura and Kurusu on November 17, 1941. To maintain the tenuous peace, the Japanese would require that the United States recognize the state of Manchukuo; allow a free hand for Japan to move militarily, diplomatically, or both against the Dutch East Indies and its natural resources; pledge to refrain from interference with Japanese operations in China; end its military and civilian aid to the Chinese; recognize the “Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere”; and lift the damaging trade embargo imposed against Japan. Nine days later, as Nagumo sailed from Hitokappu Bay, the U.S. response was predictable. American demands were forthright. The Japanese were to repudiate the Tripartite Pact, recognize the Nationalist Chinese government of Chiang Kai-shek, agree to a nonaggression pact among the nations of the Pacific, withdraw their armed forces from China and Indochina, guarantee the territorial integrity of China, and agree to abide by the rules of international law in their foreign relations. On November 30, following a final conference in Tokyo that rejected the U.S. terms issued four days earlier, a message was sent to Nomura and Kurusu. Reading, “East Wind, Rain,” it was coded instruction for Japanese diplomats to destroy their sensitive or classified documents. On December 1, the irrevocable order confirming the attack on Pearl Harbor, “Climb Mount Niitaka,” was received by Nagumo. A personal appeal from Roosevelt to Hirohito went unanswered. Neither of the Japanese envoys realized that they were merely pawns in their government’s march toward war. They had requested an audience with Secretary Hull at 1 PM on December 7 to dutifully deliver a note rejecting the American demands. Hull agreed to receive them at 1:45, and they arrived 20 minutes late. They waited another 15 minutes before entering the secretary’s office. When they handed Hull the note, he was already aware that the attack on Pearl Harbor was under way and delivered a blistering response. “I must say that in all my conversations with you during the last nine months,” he roared, “I have never uttered one word of untruth. This is borne out absolutely by the record. In all my 50 years of public service I have never seen a document that was more crowded with infamous falsehoods and distortions—infamous false29

hoods and distortions on a scale so huge that I never imagined that any government on this planet was capable of uttering them.” Dumbfounded, Nomura and Kurusu were shown the door. When Admiral Joseph Richardson, commander of the Pacific Fleet, opposed Roosevelt’s order to relocate his warships from San Diego to Pearl Harbor, he was relieved in February 1941. His replacement, Admiral Husband E. Kimmel, was a veteran of nearly 40 years’ service with the U.S. Navy. Kimmel commanded an imposing force of three aircraft carriers, the Lexington, Enterprise, and Saratoga; nine battleships, Arizona, California, Nevada, Maryland, West Virginia, Oklahoma, Tennessee, and Colorado, which was being overhauled at the Puget Sound Navy Yard in Washington at the time of the attack; 12 heavy cruisers, nine light cruisers, 53 destroyers, and a complement of submarines and auxiliary and service vessels. Kimmel was faced with the daunting task of supply and security in a confined harbor that required some smaller warships to be clustered together. Ships in need of complicated repair were obliged to return to the West Coast, and the logistical lifeline from the mainland of the United States was long. Kimmel’s Army counterpart, Lt. Gen. Walter C. Short, had been appointed in February and was responsible for the island’s air defenses. His greatest concern was sabotage, particularly since a large percentage of the population of Oahu was of Japanese ancestry, and he ordered the 230 Army aircraft across the island to be parked wingtip to wingtip so that they were more easily guarded against Japanese sympathizers who might take up arms. Both Kimmel and Short were held responsible for the debacle at Pearl Harbor, and no fewer than eight commissions conducted hearings into the performance of the commanders prior to the attack. The most prominent of these, the Roberts Commission, convened in late December 1941 and found both men guilty of dereliction of duty. Forced into retirement, they spent the remainder of their lives attempting to clear their names. Even after their deaths, family members continued the battle in the halls of Congress. Finally, on May 25, 1999, Kimmel and Short were exonerated by the U.S. Senate in a 52 to 47 vote. The controversy continues to this day, and defenders of the maligned commanders assert that neither was fully informed as to the steady deterioration of the negotiations with the Japanese. Neither was allowed access to the 30

Both: U.S. Navy

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ABOVE: A Val goes down in flames as the Americans fight back with determination. TOP: A Japanese Val releases one of its bombs in the attack to put the U.S. fleet out of action as a force in the Pacific Ocean.

decrypts of Japanese diplomatic messages, which U.S. cryptanalysts had been intercepting and reading for some time. The interpretation of some orders had been considered to reference the threat of sabotage rather than defensive measures against a full-scale enemy attack. At best, the orders from Washington, D.C., had appeared at times to be contradictory. Detractors maintain that both Kimmel and Short knew or should have known that their commands were vulnerable to Japanese attack. In January 1941, Secretary of the Navy Frank Knox had written to Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson in reference to Hawaii, “If war eventuates with Japan, it is believed easily possible that hostilities would be initiated by a surprise attack upon the fleet or the naval base at Pearl Harbor…. The dangers envisaged in their order of importance and probability are considered to be: (1) Air bombing attack, (2) Air torpedo plane attack, (3) Sabotage, (4) Submarine attack, (5) Mining, (6) Bombardment by gunfire.” A copy of the Knox letter and subsequent communications were delivered to both the commanders on Oahu. Still, many believed that the Japanese would strike first in the Dutch East Indies, Singapore, or the Philippines. On the morning of December 7, an urgent telegram from General George C. Marshall, U.S. Chief of Staff, warning of the breakdown in negotiations, was being delivered by RCA to Pearl Harbor through normal commercial means. Atmospheric interference had prevented

the message from being delivered through military channels. As the courier pedaled a bicycle toward the military base, the hour approached 8 AM local time, 2 PM in Washington, D.C., Japanese planes were already poised to drop their deadly cargoes. Lieutenant Commander Mitsuo Fuchida, commander of the air groups of the First Air Fleet, was assigned the task of allocating aircraft to specific targets, organizing the two waves of planes to coordinate their strikes, and providing fighter protection against any American aircraft that might make it into the sky to give battle. Fuchida placed 185 aircraft in the first wave. It consisted of 49 Kates carrying armor-piercing bombs, 40 Kates with aerial torpedoes, 51 Vals with general-purpose bombs, and 45 superb Mitsubishi A6M2 Zero fighters. Armed with a pair of 20mm cannons and twin 7.7mm machine guns, the highly maneuverable Zero was arguably the finest aircraft of its type in the world and dominated the skies early in the Pacific War. While the Kates hit the warships anchored in Pearl Harbor, 25 Vals were detailed to strike the primary American fighter base at Wheeler Field. Seventeen more Vals targeted Ford Island’s patrol plane and fighter base, and nine were to strike American bombers based at Hickam Field. The Zeros of the first wave were to provide fighter cover and strafe targets of opportunity. The second wave included 54 Kates armed with 550- and 125-pound bombs to strike the airfields, 80 Vals with 550-pound bombs to attack the warships in the harbor, and 36 marauding Zeros. Fuchida recalled an intelligence message received on the day before the attack was launched. Tinged with both optimism that the element of surprise would be achieved and disappointment that the three aircraft carriers were not present at the anchorage, it read, “No balloons, no torpedo defense nets deployed around battleships in Pearl Harbor. All battleships are in. No indications from enemy radio activity that ocean patrol flights being made in Hawaiian area. Lexington left harbor yesterday. Enterprise also thought to be operating at sea.” The Lexington was headed to Midway Atoll to deliver a squadron of Marine bombers. Delayed by a storm, Enterprise was returning to Pearl Harbor after delivering supplies to Wake Island. The third aircraft carrier, Saratoga, was steaming into the harbor at San Diego as the Pearl Harbor attack got underway. Just before dawn, the first Zero fighter rose from the deck of Akagi. Fuchida watched the

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Ward fired two 4-inch shells. The first, from Turret No. 1, missed, directly overshooting the conning tower. The second, from Turret No. 3, scored a direct hit. This was followed by a pattern of depth charges. An oil slick was observed, and at 6:45 Outerbridge sent a message to the Commandant of

the Fourteenth Naval District that read, “We have attacked, fired upon, and dropped depth charges on a submarine operating in defensive sea areas.” The message was delayed for 23 minutes during decoding, and it was not distributed in time to provide any appreciable warning of the impending attack. Ironically,

BELOW: The Japanese caught most of the American planes on the ground and made short work of turning them into twisted hulks. BOTTOM: The USS Shaw explodes in a fierce and roiling fireball, the USS Nevada nearby.

Both: National Archives

scene unfold. “The battle flag was now flying at each masthead,” he later wrote. “There was a heavy pitch and roll that had caused some hesitation about taking off in the dark. I decided it was feasible. Flight decks vibrated with the roar of aircraft engines warming up. Now a green lamp was waved in a circle. ‘Take off!’…. Within 15 minutes 183 fighters, bombers and torpedo planes had taken off from the six carriers and were forming up in the still dark sky, guided only by the signal lights of the lead plane. After circling over the fleet formation, we set course due south for Pearl Harbor. The time was 6:15 AM.” Two Zeros of the first wave were lost early in the operation. One crashed on takeoff, and the other aborted with engine trouble. On the evening of December 6, 1941, the band of the battleship USS Arizona performed in the Pacific Fleet competition at Pearl Harbor. Military personnel frequented the bars, restaurants, and other establishments rendering hospitality in Honolulu. Officers and their wives dined and danced. The moon glistened on the calm waters lapping the beach at Waikiki. Soothing island music streamed across the airwaves from radio station KGMB, heard by both those on the island of Oahu and the Japanese naval personnel aboard warships surging through rough seas. The large clock at the height of Aloha Tower ticked away the last hours of peace. Moored along Pearl Harbor’s Battleship Row at the eastern end of Ford Island were the battleships Maryland inboard of the Oklahoma, Tennessee inboard of West Virginia, Arizona inboard of the repair ship Vestal 200 feet from the stern of Tennessee, and Nevada astern of Arizona. Just to the west lay the battleship California. The Pennsylvania was in Drydock 1 along with the destroyers Cassin and Downes. On the western side of Ford Island were moored the old target battleship Utah, the light cruisers Detroit and Raleigh, and the seaplane tender Tangier. Altogether, 96 warships of the U.S. Navy were present in Pearl Harbor. At about 3:45 AM on the fateful morning of December 7, the destroyer USS Ward, on routine patrol outside the entrance to the harbor, was informed by the minesweeper Condor that a submarine had been sighted. The destroyer responded but found nothing. Three hours later, the cargo ship Antares approached the entrance to Pearl Harbor with a barge in tow. The watch aboard Antares spotted a conning tower and periscope and summoned the Ward once again. This time, the destroyer’s skipper, Lt. Cmdr. William Outerbridge, ordered an attack. The

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instead of the Japanese, it was a U.S. destroyer that fired the first shots of the Pacific War, and the first casualties were the two Japanese sailors aboard the midget submarine. A scant 15 minutes after the Ward sent news of its encounter with the Japanese midget submarine, two soldiers were operating a new radar station at Opana above Kahuku Point on the north shore of Oahu. Rather than shutting down at their appointed time of 7 AM, the soldiers reportedly continued to operate the radar for a few more minutes. Suddenly, a collection of blips appeared on their screen. One of the soldiers later recalled that collectively the formation was much larger than anything he had

ever seen. The first wave of Japanese attackers had been discovered. The contact was reported to Lieutenant Kermit Tyler, the duty officer at the aircraft tracking center at Fort Shafter. Tyler was aware that a flight of Boeing B-17 bombers was due to arrive from California that morning and assumed that the radar blips were these friendly aircraft. It was Tyler’s second day on the job, and the only soldier with him in the center that morning was a private operating the telephone switchboard. “I knew the equipment was pretty new,” Tyler said in a newspaper interview years later. “In fact, the guy who was on the scope, who

“SUDDENLY A COLOSSAL EXPLOSION OCCURRED IN BATTLESHIP ROW. A HUGE COLUMN OF DARK RED SMOKE ROSE TO 1,000 FEET, AND A

National Archives

STIFF SHOCK WAVE REACHED OUR PLANE.”

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first detected the planes, it was the first time he’d ever sat at the scope. So I figured they were pretty green and had not had any opportunity to view a flight of B-17s coming in. Common sense said, ‘Well, these are the B-17s.’ So I told them, ‘Don’t worry about it.’” A board of inquiry cleared Tyler of any wrongdoing on December 7, 1941, and he served in the U.S. Air Force another 20 years, retiring with the rank of lieutenant colonel. He died in 2010 at the age of 96, haunted for decades by the events of that morning. Regardless, had anyone realized that the radar contact was an approaching hostile force, there would have been precious little time to alter the course of events. At 7:40 AM, the north shore of Oahu came into Fuchida’s line of sight. He signaled to Nagumo, “Tora! Tora! Tora!”—confirming that complete surprise had been achieved. He fired a pistol flare, indicating that the torpedo bombers should attack first; however, the divebombers were confused and began their attacks, their leader, Lt. Cmdr. Kakuichi Taka-

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hashi, climbing to 12,000 feet. The torpedo planes of Lt. Cmdr. Shigeharu Murata descended to make their runs against Battleship Row. Fuchida and the level bombers moved west to south in a great arc toward the harbor. Zero fighters under Lt. Cmdr. Shigeru Itaya opened the Japanese attack, strafing Kaneohe Naval Air Station at 7:48. Seven minutes later, Ford Island and Hickam Field were under attack by the dive-bombers. At 7:57, the first torpedo planes released their weapons. The level bombers attacked the harbor at 8:05. As the Japanese attack roared across Oahu, sailors aboard ships in Pearl Harbor were preparing to raise their colors. Sunday morning church services were about to get under way, and awnings had been stretched across the decks of some ships to provide relief from the morning sun. Within moments, chaos reigned. Torpedo-laden Kates under Lieutenant Jinchi Goto, flying as low as 50 feet, lined up on the Oklahoma and slammed three torpedoes into her port side. Almost immediately, the battleAntiaircraft fire mingles with smoke from burning U.S. ships. The attack on the fleet at Pearl Harbor was a shock that had enormous repercussions. It drew the United States into war and, eventually, world leadership.

ship began to list to 45 degrees. Two more torpedoes found their mark, and the great vessel rolled over and capsized, trapping a number of sailors below decks. The West Virginia was struck by a total of seven torpedoes and also began to list; however, alert counterflooding allowed the ship to settle to the bottom of the harbor on an even keel. On the other side of Ford Island, the Utah took two torpedoes and capsized. A third torpedo hit the Raleigh below the bridge, flooding its forward engine room. When it was apparent that the West Virginia was sinking, two torpedo planes veered southward and scored hits on the California, which began to blaze and take on water. The destroyer Bagley shot down one Kate making a torpedo run against the Nevada, but a second succeeded in hitting the battleship forward near its main 14-inch gun turrets. Fuchida watched the growing carnage and remembered, “As my group made its bomb run, American antiaircraft from shipboard and shore batteries suddenly came to life. Dark gray bursts blossomed here and there until the sky was clouded with shattering near misses that made our plane tremble. The counterattack came less than five minutes after the first bomb had fallen…. “Suddenly a colossal explosion occurred in Battleship Row. A huge column of dark red smoke rose to 1,000 feet, and a stiff shock wave reached our plane.… Studying Battleship Row through binoculars, I saw the big explosion had been on the Arizona. She was still flaming fiercely, and since her smoke covered the Nevada, the target of my group, I looked for some other ship to attack. The Tennessee was already on fire, but next to her was the Maryland. I gave an order changing our target to this ship. “As the lead bombardier dropped his bomb, the pilots, observers and radiomen in the other planes shouted, ‘Release!’ and down went all our bombs. I lay flat on the floor to watch through a peephole. Four bombs in perfect pattern plummeted like devils of doom. They grew smaller and smaller until they looked like poppy seeds and finally disappeared just as tiny white flashes appeared on and near the ship. “From a great altitude near misses are much more obvious than direct hits because they create wave rings in the water which are plain to see. Observing two such rings and two tiny flashes, I shouted, ‘Two hits!’” The catastrophic explosion Fuchida witnessed had indeed taken place aboard the 32,500-ton Arizona. One of the best known

ships in the U.S. Navy, she had been featured in the 1934 Warner Brothers film Here Comes the Navy, starring James Cagney. Several Japanese bombers attacked the Arizona, scoring two hits. The first bomb damaged air intakes and caused a shaft of smoke to rise from the stack. The second bomb struck the ship slightly aft of Turret No. 2, passing through the main and second decks, crew quarters below, and exploding on the third deck directly above the powder magazines for the 14-inch main batteries. This deck was armored with five inches of steel. Some conjecture continues to surround the horrific explosion that doomed the Arizona. A report by the naval Bureau of Ships concluded three years after the attack that the magazines had been detonated through a series of unfortunate events. It surmised that ruptured oil had seeped from the forward tanks and ignited around the turrets. Five hatches led to the magazines from the third deck, and one of these contained 1,075 pounds of black powder that was used to operate the catapults for the battleship’s three scout planes. Apparently, the fire ignited the black powder through one of the five hatches that had not been secured. That initial explosion in turn touched off six magazines, each stuffed with 10 tons of powder for the 14inch guns, and three magazines, each with 13 tons of powder, for the forward 5-inch guns. Within seconds, more than 1,100 men were killed or mortally wounded. Twenty sailors were trapped for a few harrowing moments inside one of the Arizona’s 14-inch turrets. With only a single flashlight to pierce the dark in the smoke-filled space, one sailor found a ladder to a hatch. When it was opened, these fortunate few spilled onto the shattered deck and made their way toward Ford Island. A single heroic officer returned to the holocaust several times, helping to rescue badly burned sailors. “Of the 50 or 60 men manning the station where I was, I think only about six of us survived,” remembered Seaman Don Stratton. “I was burned over 60 percent of my body. The Vestal, a repair ship that was tied up alongside us, threw us a line and we went across hand over hand, 45 feet up in the air.” In the space of a few minutes, more than 2,000 Americans were dead. Among them was Captain Mervyn Bennion of the West Virginia. Calmly directing the damage control and antiaircraft efforts of his crew, Bennion was seriously wounded by shrapnel from a bomb blast. He refused to be evacuated and continued to issue orders while holding his wound closed with one hand. Bennion eventually bled to 33

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death and was awarded a posthumous Medal of Honor for his gallantry. Rear Admiral Isaac C. Kidd, commander of Battleship Division One, and Captain Franklin Van Valkenburgh, commander of the Arizona, each received a posthumous Medal of Honor for heroism on December 7. Kidd stood on the signal bridge of the Arizona and issued orders until he was killed in the devastating magazine explosion. Although his body was never found, Kidd’s ring from the U.S. Naval Academy class of 1906, fused by the searing heat to one of the battleship’s steel bulkheads, was later located by Navy divers. Van Valkenburgh reached the navigation bridge and was quickly urged by a junior officer to move to the conning tower, away from intense Japanese strafing. The captain refused. A single man survived the violent explosion that raked the navigation bridge with debris, and Van Valkenburgh’s ring from the Naval Academy class of 1909 was later recovered. As the first bombs fell on Ford Island Naval Air Station, Lt. Cmdr. Logan Ramsey, the operations officer of Patrol Wing Two, ordered the radio room to send the plain language message: “Air Raid Pearl Harbor. This Is No Drill.” One hangar took five bomb hits, and others were damaged. At Hickam Field, 35 men were killed while they were eating breakfast when a Japanese bomb smashed the mess hall. More than 20 others were killed as they readied bombers for training flights. A large barracks and other installations were utterly destroyed. At Wheeler Field, where most of the island of Oahu’s fighter strength was stationed, 25 Vals followed by strafing Zeros destroyed most of the 140 aircraft parked in neat rows rather than in earthen revetments designed to protect them against bombs and machine-gun fire. The 36 Consolidated PBY Catalina seaplanes at Kaneohe were shredded by a dozen Zeroes in an attack that lasted only eight minutes. Only three planes at Kaneohe escaped damage from the two attack waves. Bellows Field was strafed by a single Zero at about 8:30, following a warning by one enlisted man that Kaneohe had been “blown to hell!” Most of the 48 planes at Ewa Marine Corps Air Station were Douglas SBD Dauntless dive-bombers and Grumman F4F Wildcat fighters. Twenty-nine of these were destroyed by a flight of 21 Zeros that strafed for more than 20 minutes. Lt. Col. Claude Larkin, the base commander, was wounded by shrapnel when his car was strafed by a Zero as he dove into a ditch for cover. Although nearly 400 military aircraft were stationed on Oahu, only 38 were able to get 34

airborne during the attack. Ten of these were shot down. However, a handful of American fighter pilots scored aerial victories. Among them were Lieutenants Ken Taylor and George Welch of the 47th Pursuit Squadron based at Wheeler Field. The two pilots had attended a dinner and dance the previous evening and had gotten into an all-night poker game. They had slept less than an hour before the sound of gunfire and distant explosions woke them. Taylor phoned the auxiliary fighter base at Haleiwa, 10 miles away, and ordered two Curtiss P-40 Tomahawk fighters readied for action. The pair then jumped into Welch’s new Buick and drove nearly 100 miles per hour as they streaked toward Haleiwa. They were quickly airborne, and in the ensuing melee shot down or damaged three enemy planes. With more ammunition and fuel, they made a second sortie. Taylor had been wounded but refused to stay out of the fight. When they landed again, still wearing their mess uniforms from the night before, they had shot down at least six Japanese planes between them and damaged others. Official records credit Welch with four kills and Taylor with two. By the time the Japanese aircraft of the first wave headed back toward their carriers, most of the military installations on Oahu were a shambles. The attackers had lost only three fighters, a single dive-bomber, and five torpedo planes. The 170 Japanese planes of the second wave were 45 minutes behind the first and reached Pearl Harbor just before 9 AM. Eighty Vals, led by Lt. Cmdr. Takeshige Egusa, attacked Pearl Harbor. The Japanese pilots observed a scene of incredible destruction. The crew of the Tennessee was working feverishly to fend off flaming oil that had leaked from the torpedoed West Virginia. The Arizona was a blazing hulk. Finding the holocaust of Battleship Row shrouded in smoke, the aircraft of the second wave concentrated on the Nevada, the only battleship to get under way during the attack. She had sortied at 8:50, and as many as 15 bombs exploded near the ship, five scoring hits. The Nevada was also down by the bow from a torpedo hit suffered at 8:10 during the first wave, and the Japanese hoped to sink her and block the entrance to the harbor in the process. Eventually, the battleship was beached at Hospital Point with 50 dead and 109 wounded. In the floating drydock, three bomb hits ignited the forward magazines of the destroyer Shaw, which erupted in a spectacular explosion that blew off the ship’s bow just behind the bridge. A bomb hit on the battleship Pennsyl-

The Japanese caption to this picture read, “Alas, the spectacle of the American battleship fleet in its dying gasp.”

vania killed 15 sailors and wounded 38. Several near misses rattled the cruiser Helena, which had already taken a torpedo during the first wave. The cruisers Honolulu and St. Louis, the destroyer Cummings, and the repair ship Rigel were damaged by near misses. The destroyers Cassin and Downes, in drydock with the Pennsylvania, were severely damaged by bombs. Raleigh, listing from a torpedo hit suffered in the first wave, was struck by a bomb aft, and two more bombs missed the Detroit by a scant 30 yards. The seaplane tender Curtiss took a bomb hit near its No. 1 crane, and moments later a flaming Val crashed into the ship. Aboard the Raleigh, Seaman First Class Nick Kouretas manned an antiaircraft gun. “A lot of times planes were coming at us from all angles,” he remembered. “I’d try to concentrate on one target. They’d say, ‘Get this guy!’ you know, and I’d lead him, hoping I could get him. I know I was scared as hell.” The Kates and Zeros of the second wave attacked the air installations on Oahu again. At

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Hickam Field, Hangars 13 and 15 were heavily damaged by 550-pound bombs, and repair shops, armament buildings, and the steam plant were damaged. Kaneohe was hit by Kates that destroyed a hangar and four seaplanes. Fighters strafed the field twice more, and Japanese pilot Fusata Iida attempted to crash into the base armory when he realized his plane was hit and that he would not be able to return to his carrier. Instead, riddled with machine-gun fire, his Zero crashed into a hillside. Wheeler Field was spared a major attack during the second wave when Zeros that had hit Kaneohe and then flown on to strafe Wheeler were intercepted by six American P-40s and scattered. At Bellows, nine Zeros strafed the field for 15 minutes, destroying or further damaging the 12 Curtiss P-40s of the 44th Pursuit Squadron. Three P-40s were shot down as they attempted to take off to defend Bellows. The second wave had encountered substantial antiaircraft fire from defenders on full alert and had to contend with a few American

fighter planes. When they finally turned toward their carriers, the raiders had lost six Zeros and 14 Vals. A total of just 29 Japanese planes were shot down during the raid. Around 9:45 AM, the cruiser St. Louis neared the open sea after a Herculean effort to raise steam and escape the confines of Pearl Harbor. Just outside the harbor mouth, the wakes of two torpedoes were spotted bearing down on the ship, running straight and true. However, a coral outcropping saved the vessel from serious damage, exploding the torpedoes harmlessly. A lookout spotted the conning tower of a Japanese midget submarine at a range of 1,000 yards. Two hits from the cruiser’s 5-inch guns dispatched the submarine quickly. Each of the five Japanese midget submarines deployed against Pearl Harbor came to grief. Aside from those sunk by the Ward and St. Louis, a third was rammed and sunk by the destroyer Monaghan inside the harbor. The story of a fourth midget submarine may never be fully

known. It has been speculated that the sub entered the harbor, fired its two torpedoes at American warships, and was then scuttled in the harbor’s West Loch. Its remains were found in 2009, three miles south of Pearl Harbor amid the debris dredged and removed from the harbor following an explosion that occurred in 1944. The fifth midget submarine experienced problems with its gyroscope and was grounded at Waimanalo Beach, near Bellows Field. One crewman, Kyoshi Inagaki, drowned. The other, Ensign Kazuo Sakamaki, attempted to destroy the submarine with explosives. When the charges failed to detonate, Sakamaki was rendered unconscious trying to fix the problem. Fortuitously, he was washed up on shore, captured, and became the first prisoner of the United States during the war. The nine midget submariners who perished were memorialized in a fanciful rendering, their portraits surrounding a scene of the harbor under attack. Sakimaki’s portrait is noticeably absent. He had been expected to give his life for 35

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the emperor. For him, survival meant dishonor. After the war, Sakimaki went to work for Toyota and became the head of the auto manufacturer’s Brazilian operations in the late 1960s. He died in Japan in 1999 at the age of 81. As the last Japanese planes sped away from the wreckage of Oahu, Fuchida lingered to assess the morning’s work before ordering his pilot away to the northwest and a rendezvous with Akagi. The damage was horrific. A total of 2,403 were dead, 68 of them civilians. Nearly 1,200 were wounded. The majority of the Navy casualties were sustained during the explosion aboard the Arizona and the nine minutes it took the battleship to sink. The greatest loss of Army personnel occurred at Hickam Field. More than 100 Marines were killed at Ewa and aboard the naval vessels. Some of the civilian casualties occurred as errant shells exploded or rained shrapnel on residential areas. One islander lost his home when a Japanese plane crashed into it, setting the structure ablaze. The Arizona and Oklahoma were sunk, total losses. California and West Virginia were sunk but later repaired. Nevada, Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Tennessee had each sustained significant damage. The Utah was sunk and never salvaged. The destroyers Cassin and Downes were damaged beyond repair, while the Shaw was eventually returned to service. The cruisers Raleigh, Honolulu, and Helena were damaged but repaired. The repair ship Vestal and seaplane tender Curtiss survived with heavy damage. The aged minelayer Oglala, sunk by the concussion of a torpedo that passed under her keel and struck the Raleigh, was raised and repaired. A total of 165 U.S. aircraft were lost, including four Wildcat fighters from the Enterprise that were shot down by friendly fire in the confusion of gathering darkness as the painful day came to an end. Four years later, during the Battle of Leyte Gulf, the guns of the California, Tennessee, Pennsylvania, Maryland, and West Virginia thundered in Surigao Strait, exacting a measure of revenge by decimating a Japanese task force intent on ravaging the U.S. landing beaches in the Philippines. Rescue and salvage efforts were under way even before the Japanese departed. Garbage lighters, tugboats, and small launches played water hoses on the fires aboard West Virginia and other ships and plucked badly burned men and those swimming for their lives from the water. Individual acts of heroism were commonplace. Aboard the Oklahoma, Seaman 36

Admiral Chester W. Nimitz, Commander-in-Chief, Pacific Fleet, pins the Navy Cross on Doris Miller, Steward's Mate at a ceremony on board a U.S. Navy warship in Pearl Harbor, May 27, 1942.

First Class James Ward steadily held a flashlight inside a turret. While others escaped the potential tomb, Ward died when the battleship capsized. He was awarded a posthumous Medal of Honor. Cook Third Class Doris Miller was collecting laundry aboard the West Virginia when the attack began. He picked up the severely wounded Captain Bennion in an attempt to carry him to safety. When Bennion refused to leave the bridge, Miller went to a .50-caliber machine-gun position and fired at Japanese planes until he ran out of ammunition. For his heroism, Miller became the first black sailor to receive the Navy Cross. He was killed in November 1943 when the escort carrier Liscome Bay was torpedoed off the Gilbert Islands. Aboard the Oklahoma, sailors with acetylene torches cut through the upturned hull, trying desperately to reach those trapped beneath. Thirty-two men were freed. Others, however, tapped forlornly on the hull for several days before they succumbed. More than 400 perished aboard the ship. Immediately after landing on Akagi, Fuchida was summoned to the bridge. Reporting to

Nagumo, he urged another strike against Pearl Harbor, informing the admiral that a number of targets remained. Nagumo, however, was in no mood to press his luck and ordered the First Air Fleet to retire at high speed. News of the successful attack was relayed to Tokyo, and great celebrations were held. Although Pearl Harbor was a tremendous tactical victory for the Japanese and had crippled the U.S. Pacific Fleet, a thorough examination of the raid renders sobering facts. True enough, ships and planes were destroyed or heavily damaged and there had been great loss of life. However, the three American aircraft carriers were not touched. Lexington and Enterprise would carry the fight to the Japanese at Coral Sea and Midway months later. Though Lexington was lost at Coral Sea, planes from the deck of Enterprise were among those that sank four of Japan’s Pearl Harbor carriers, Akagi, Kaga, Soryu, and Hiryu, during the Midway battle in June 1942. The Japanese raiders had failed to destroy stockpiles of oil and aviation fuel. Machine shops and other repair facilities at Pearl Harbor were largely left intact. The submarine base had escaped serious damage. Therefore, the pace of the American recovery was quickened. Despite the apparent magnitude of the victory, Admiral Yamamoto brooded. In his book, The Reluctant Admiral, author Hiroyuki Agawa asserts that in January 1942, just days after the Pearl Harbor attack, Yamamoto wrote to an optimistic fellow officer, “A military man can scarcely pride himself on having smitten a sleeping enemy. It is more a matter of shame, simply, for the one smitten. I would rather you made your appraisal after seeing what the enemy does, since it is certain that, angered and outraged, he will soon launch a determined counterattack.” Yamamoto did not live to see his nation’s final defeat; he was shot down in flames by American fighters over the island of Bougainville in 1943. However, he was well aware by that time that the tide of war had turned inexorably in favor of the United States. A resilient people, stirred to action, remembered December 7, 1941, and the long road to victory ended four years later in Tokyo Bay. ■ Author Michael E. Haskew is the editor of WWII History magazine. He has written and contributed to numerous books on the topic of military history, and his latest offering, DeGaulle: Lessons in Leadership from the Defiant General, was recently published by Palgrave Macmillan. He resides in Chattanooga, Tennessee.

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Selfless acts of bravery saved lives in the wake of the Japanese attack. DURING THE PEARL HARBOR ATTACK, both Utah and Oklahoma capsized after suffering multiple torpedo hits. Utah had been converted to a training ship, and to the Japanese pilots, her modified deck resembled that of an aircraft carrier. As the attack raged, Fireman Second Class John Vaessen stayed at his post in the ship’s forward distribution room, maintaining power for the ship as long as he could. His work kept the lights on and allowed many of the crew to find their way up and out. But when Utah had rolled 80 degrees to port, Vaessen was wounded and trapped. With a flashlight and a wrench, he moved to the very bottom of the ship on the starboard side and started banging on the hull. Men who had swum from the ship to nearby Ford Island heard him. A search party led by Machinist S.A. Szymanski returned to the ship. The crew of the cruiser Raleigh lent them equipment to cut into the hull. Syzmanski’s team eventually reached Vaessen and brought him out. Sadly, he died of his injuries shortly after being rescued. Oklahoma had been preparing for an inspection, which was to take place on the morning of Monday, December 8. As a result, many doors and hatches were wide open when the Japanese attack came. She was hit by at least four torpedoes on her port side. She had flooded so quickly that when the word came to abandon ship, not every man could. Stephen Bower Young was one of them. He had joined the Navy in the summer of 1940, hoping to go to the Naval Academy. Less than five minutes after the attack began, Young and 10 of his friends were trapped in a compartment beneath the No. 4 gun turret, which, now inverted, was beneath the harbor’s surface. They remained there for 25 hours, with no power, diminishing air, and rising water. Praying someone would hear, they took turns banging on bulkheads with a wrench. “The real effort to free us began sometime after 0100 on 8 December,” Young later wrote. “Sailors from Oklahoma and other ships and civilian workers from the Navy Yard brought in air compressors, pumps, chipping tools and torches alongside the part of the hull above water. It would be some

The hull of the capsized battleship USS Oklahoma. Visible behind is the USS Maryland.

time before [we] could hear their efforts to free [us]. We had no knowledge that any attempt at rescue was even being made until the first sounds of the air hammer were heard as dawn came over the islands.” “It was mostly a Navy Yard effort,” said Young. “They had brought the blueprints and most of the equipment, and they knew what they were doing.” Twenty men from Yard Shop 11 began the exhausting job of cutting through bulkheads in different parts of the ship. In charge was Leading Man Julio DeCastro, a Honolulu native. He and two other men worked their way down toward Young and his friends. At each breakthrough, DeCastro listened for the sound of the banging wrench to determine their proximity to the trapped men. A full day after the ship capsized, Yard worker Joe Bulgo cut through to sailors in the No. 4 radio compartment. “There’s some guys trapped in there,” one sailor said, pointing to the wall behind him. “We’ll get ’em,” said DeCastro. Young yelled to the rescue team on the other side. DeCastro’s calm voice came back, promising he would get them out. But he was worried about air pressure. Cutting through the bulkhead would release air from Young’s compartment, and water inside would rise. There was no choice. DeCastro drilled a hole, and air hissed through. “Hurry up! Burn us out!” one sailor

screamed. “We can’t. You’d suffocate in there,” DeCastro told him. “Jesus, we’ll drown if you don’t!” Young’s friends scrambled to close a waterproof hatch as Bulgo slashed into the bulkhead with the chipping hammer. As the rectangular cut grew, the water rose higher. The racket was staggering. The sailors gritted their teeth, trying to stay calm. Bulgo was 21 years old and strong as an ox, but this was the toughest pace he had ever set. After 60 agonizing minutes, he finished the third side of the cut. The water streaming through had reached his knees. By then, the Oklahoma men were ready to tear the metal away with their fingers. “Look out for your hands, boys,” Bulgo said. With a sledgehammer he pounded in the section of wall. The sailors scrambled through and were guided up and out by DeCastro’s men. “It was a beautiful day,” recalled Walter Bayer, one of the thousands of civilians who worked in the Navy Yard. “And these poor guys had been down in that black hole. Completely entombed. And when the workers got them out, you should’ve seen it. It was just wonderful. There they were, out in the bright sun and fresh air. It was just like a new life.” In all, 32 Oklahoma sailors were saved. For the rest of their lives, they had only praise for their rescuers. When asked 60 years later what kind of man Julio DeCastro was, Young said simply, “He was a leader of men.” ■ 37

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Pearl Harbor P A R A D O X The towering geyser of an aerial torpedo striking home is evident in this image of Battleship Row at Pearl Harbor under attack by Japanese aircraft on the morning of December 7, 1941. A Japanese plane is also visible as it banks away from the unfolding holocaust. The former battleship USS Utah was moored on the other side of Ford Island that fateful morning.

ery few among the throngs of visitors to Pearl Harbor on the island of Oahu are aware of an anomaly, but it definitely exists. On the east side of Ford Island in the middle of the harbor lies one of the world’s most visited tourist attractions. A gleaming white, architecturally unique memorial straddles the submerged hulk of the U.S. battleship Arizona. The memorial was constructed in 1962 to honor the Arizona’s 1,177 sailors who died when the ship exploded during the surprise attack by

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Japanese aircraft on December 7, 1941. Visitors to the Arizona Memorial from around the world number over a million annually. On the western shore of Ford Island, a scant mile away, is a second memorial. This, too, honors the dead members from the crew of a U.S. battleship, sunk during the same attack, and almost to the minute of the USS Arizona. Both ships rest on the harbor bottom with part of their superstructure exposed, and both still entomb many of their deceased crew within their hulls. However, the contrast between the elegance of the Arizona Memorial and the starkness of

the open concrete platform and walkway of the other memorial could not be more profound. Although U.S. Navy launches carry hordes of visitors to the Arizona Memorial daily, the general public does not enjoy similar access to the second memorial. Most visitors to the Arizona Memorial are not even aware that there is another memorial—the USS Utah Memorial— in Pearl Harbor. Therein resides the paradox of Pearl Harbor. The USS Utah (BB-31) enjoyed a noble career that spanned more than three decades and included considerable international service.

The target ship USS Utah, a memorial to the dead of December 7, 1941, exists in relative obscurity. Like other U.S. battleships of the early 20th century, its design was greatly influenced by the first all-big-gun British battleship, HMS Dreadnought, which revolutionized naval warfare. The Utah, one of the two-ship Florida class, was laid down on March 9, 1909, at the New York Shipbuilding Yard in Camden, New Jersey. It was an imposing design for its time, with a length of 521.5 feet, a beam of 88.2 feet, a displacement of 21,825 tons, and a speed of 20.75 knots. It was comparable to any battleship in the world and could operate on either coal or oil. Although designed for 14-inch main batter-

ies, because of supply problems it was fitted with 10 12-inch/45 guns. Secondary armament consisted of 16 5-inch/51 guns and two 21-inch torpedo tubes. Utah was launched on December 23, 1909, with Mary Alice Spry, 18-year-old daughter of Utah Governor William Spry, christening the ship. The Utah was completed in 1911, and after sea trials off the coast of Maine, was commissioned on August 31, 1911. Utah then took her place in the battle line of the U.S. Navy. After several years of maneuvers, exercises, and midshipman cruises, Utah participated

BY RICHARD KLOBUCHAR

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in her first major action in 1914. With a revolution sweeping Mexico, President Woodrow Wilson embargoed arms and military supplies to the country’s dictator, General Victoriano Huerta. When Germany agreed to furnish arms to Huerta, a task force including Utah was ordered to Vera Cruz to intercept the shipment. With Utah’s contribution of 384 officers and men, a task force brigade landed at Vera Cruz on April 21. In spirited fighting, this force captured vital warehouses and forced the rebels to surrender. Eventually, General Huerta fled to 39

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U.S. Navy

Germany and the revolution ended. Utah continued to operate in Atlantic and Caribbean waters until the United States entered World War I in 1917. Fearing German attacks on Atlantic troop convoys, a squadron of U.S. battleships was dispatched to Bantry Bay, Ireland, in August 1918. With Utah as flagship and leading Nevada (BB-36) and Oklahoma (BB-37), this force provided protection for convoys approaching the British Isles until war’s end. Utah continued in the Atlantic Fleet until 1931, taking part in a number of important diplomatic missions to Europe and South America by carrying top government officials. Her days as a battleship ended on July 1, 1931, when, under the terms of the 1930 London Naval Treaty, she was designated to be converted to a noncombatant ship. Her 12-inch guns and other armament were removed, but her huge, empty turrets remained. She was also fitted with modern electronics and other equipment for her new role as a fleet target ship. She was recommissioned in that configuration as AG-16 on April 1, 1932. For the following nine years, Utah operated with the Pacific Fleet, usually based at Long Beach, California. Her new equipment allowed her engines and steering gear to be operated either manually or by remote control from another ship. In this role, Utah provided realistic training for the fleet’s pilots in dive-, torpedo-, and high-level bombing. All bombs and torpedoes used were inert, water-filled projectiles. However, even small inert bombs dropped from high altitudes could cause damage to the Utah’s deck and other features. Large 6-inch by 12-inch timbers were laid on the deck, giving it a foot of added protection. Crewmen who remained on the ship during target practice found refuge below deck or in the armored conning tower near the bridge. Utah also provided practice for the fleet’s big guns. She towed target sleds, which allowed battleship and cruiser batteries to hone their skills at long range using live ammunition. In 1935, Utah became even more versatile. In recognition of the new threat posed by modern aircraft, the Navy established a fleet antiaircraft school on the ship. The fleet’s most experienced machine gunners were assigned to the Utah as instructors for the course. Utah provided .50caliber training for the first year and added quadruple 1.1-inch mounts the following year. By 1941, the mainstay of the fleet antiaircraft weaponry had become the 5-inch gun, and during an overhaul in Bremerton, Washington, 40

Naval Historical Center

TOP: Chief Water Tender Peter Tomich is seen in the only photograph of him known to exist. Tomich sacrificed his life while securing the boilers aboard the USS Utah as the ship began to keel over. ABOVE: Converted to a target ship in 1930, the battleship USS Utah is shown during World War I in a camouflage scheme intended to confuse enemy range finders.

four 5/38 and four 5/25 guns were added in single mounts. Utah was now not only a mobile target ship, but the primary fleet antiaircraft training ship as well. When the ship was in target mode, its cranes placed steel housings over the 5-inch guns to protect them from damage during bombing practice. Smaller guns were moved below deck. Utah was ordered to Hawaii in September 1941 to help train the Pacific Fleet’s antiaircraft gunners and carrier bomber pilots. On December 4, the target completed a three-week assignment and returned to Pearl Harbor for routine maintenance and replenishment. Docked at berth Fox 11 on the west side of Ford Island, the ship occupied a berth usually reserved for an aircraft carrier. Her crews worked on December 5 and 6 to unfasten the huge timbers so they could

be offloaded in the Navy yard the following week. She would never reach the Navy yard. Utah was still berthed at F-11 on the morning of Sunday, December 7, her crew anticipating a leisurely day. She had company along the west side of Ford Island, including the seaplane tender Tangier immediately astern and cruisers Raleigh and Detroit directly ahead. Like most men of the Pacific Fleet, few of Utah’s crew thought that war would come to Hawaii. It was too isolated for attack from the air, and Pearl Harbor’s destroyers and battleships were capable of dealing with any submarines or surface ships foolish enough to approach the islands. The harbor thus appeared safe from any threat. Just before 0800, men on deck noticed aircraft circling over the south end of Ford Island. Although Sunday morning exercises were not common, they did occur. Even when explosions were heard, Utah’s observers assumed that the exercises were simply a bit more realistic that morning. That assumption evaporated at 0755, when a roar out of the southwest shattered the stillness of the new day. Sixteen aircraft flying extremely low in squadrons of eight approached the Utah. The planes were Kate torpedo bombers from the Japanese aircraft carriers Hiryu and Soryu. Their pilots had been alerted before takeoff that they were to attack only battleships and aircraft carriers and that none were expected to be moored on Ford Island’s west side. Nevertheless, six of the Soryu pilots misunderstood the orders and attacked. Two launched their torpedoes at Utah, two at Detroit, and two at Raleigh. Both torpedoes aimed at Detroit missed and buried themselves in the mud of Ford Island’s shore. Raleigh was hit by a single torpedo and began to list immediately. Both missiles directed at Utah hit amidships, only seconds apart at 0801, and ripped open her hull. Without watertight integrity, Utah began to list within minutes. At 0805 the list reached 40 degrees, and it was apparent that the ship would soon capsize. The attacking aircraft were part of a force of 350 planes from six Japanese aircraft carriers, striking Oahu’s military installations in two waves an hour apart. Many of the first-wave bombers congregated on the east side of Ford Island where the fleet’s eight battleships, their principal targets, were moored. Within minutes, most of these had taken multiple torpedo or bomb hits and were settling on the harbor bottom or blazing from fires fed by the fuel and ammunition stored within them.

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noticed the red spot forming on the hull from the acetylene torch. He knew it would be a close race to see which reached him first—the water or the rescuers. Minutes later, the men outside completed the cut and knocked the circular remnant through the hole. As they pulled Vaessen out, battered and burned but still alive, water was licking at his heels. He was the only crewman rescued through the hull. Not every crewman caught below deck when the torpedoes struck chose to seek safety topside. Chief Water Tender Peter Tomich recognized that if cold water reached the hot boilers, they would explode, endangering everyone still aboard the ship. Someone had to stay behind to secure the boilers. As the Utah began to roll over, Tomich knew what he had to do. He ordered all boiler room personnel to leave at once. “Get out, now. Leave immediately!” he yelled. He then ignored his own order and began to work. As his men turned one last time to watch

United States citizen. Ten days after discharge in 1919, he enlisted in the U.S. Navy and served continuously for the next 22 years. He became one of the most proficient men at his position in the entire Pacific Fleet. Except for a cousin in New York, his only family was the sailors he served with, and the Navy his only home. For his actions in knowingly sacrificing his life to save others, in 1942 Tomich was awarded a posthumous Medal of Honor. A letter sent to his cousin, John Tonic, announcing the award was returned stamped “address unknown.” Tonic had returned to Europe 20 years earlier. For the next 64 years, Tomich’s medal was displayed in a number of locations, including the USS Tomich, a new destroyer-escort named after him in 1943; the Utah State House; a Navy museum in Washington, D.C.; and Tomich Hall, a new academic building at the Senior Enlisted Academy in Newport, Rhode

While serving as a target ship off Long Beach, California, on April 18, 1935, the USS Utah lies at anchor. The aging warship’s armament had been previously removed to comply with the terms of the London Naval Treaty.

him, he was already turning valves and setting gauges. The ship continued to roll as he worked, and he knew that by the time he completed his task, escape would be impossible. That thought did not deter him, and he continued with his lifesaving efforts even though he realized that his own death was now only minutes away. Tomich was an extraordinary man. Born Peter Tonic in 1893 in Prolog, a small village in what is now Herzegovina, he emigrated to the United States at age 20. He served in the U.S. Army for 18 months, and while in the service became a

Island. There it served as an inspiration to the hundreds of chief petty officers who attended the school annually. A lengthy search through the years for a Tomich relative bore fruit in 1997, when representatives of the New York Naval Militia visited Croatia. There they located Srecko HercegTonic, a retired lieutenant colonel in the Croatian Army. Tonic was the grandson of Tomich’s cousin, John Tonic. A nine-year bureaucratic and legal battle ensued over the proposal of the New York Naval Militia to have the Tomich medal

U.S. Navy

On the west side of Ford Island, the torpedo hits triggered a variety of reactions from Utah’s crew. Those on deck knew quickly that the ship would turn over, and their decision to leave was hastened by machine-gun bullets slamming into the ship’s deck. Many, like Radioman 3rd Class William Hughes, dove off the ship and swam to nearby concrete mooring quays where they found refuge. Others, like Pharmacist’s Mate 2nd Class Lee Soucy and Electrician’s Mate 3rd Class Warren Upton, slid down the barnacleencrusted hull, swam to shore, and dove into a newly excavated utility trench. Even though he had left his first-aid kit on the ship, Soucy spent most of the day treating wounded men. Below deck, Electrician’s Mate 3rd Class Dave Smith, one of the ship’s crane operators, heard the roar of aircraft engines and glanced out of a porthole in time to see the red circles on the aircraft that had just dropped torpedoes at Utah. “I suddenly realized that we were being attacked by Japanese planes,” he explained. “When the torpedoes hit and the ship began to list, I scrambled up to the main deck, climbed down the starboard side, and swam to shore.” Seaman John Vaessen also felt the torpedo hits below deck and the ship beginning to list. He stopped to secure fans and other electrical equipment and turn on emergency lighting. As the ship capsized, Vaessen was forced to evade a rain of dislodged equipment that now became deadly missiles. As the ship settled in the mud, Vaessen was still alive, but trapped in a dark, frightening, upside-down world. He knew that his only chance of survival was to reach the bilges, since they would be above water in the shallow harbor. He headed for the nearest bilge hatch using the light from a flashlight that he had been working on when the torpedoes hit. As he reached the hatch, he was blessed with another miracle when he discovered that the huge wrench needed to loosen the cover was still hanging in its place. Crawling through the hatch, Vaessen could see water rising behind him. Upon reaching the hull, he began rapping with the hatch wrench he kept for that purpose. He continued rapping even after painful blisters formed on his hand. The water was now only eight feet behind him and still rising when he heard rapping and voices outside the hull. Crewmen on shore had heard Vaessen’s rapping and returned to the hull to locate the noise. Taking a launch to the Raleigh, they returned with a cutting torch and operators. The water was only three feet from Vaessen when he

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© 2011 Philip Schwartzberg, Meridian Mapping, Minneapolis, MN

presented to Herceg-Tonic. In 2006, the knotty issue was finally resolved when the U.S. Navy agreed to relinquish the medal. In an hour-long ceremony aboard the carrier USS Enterprise (CVN-65) in Split, Croatia, on May 18, Enterprise sailors and a contingent of its chief petty officers witnessed Admiral Henry Ulrich, Commander, U.S. Naval Forces in Europe, presenting Peter Tomich’s Medal of Honor to a beaming Srecko Herceg-Tonic. “Peter Tomich is one of only 39 chief petty officers in all naval history to receive the Medal of Honor,” explained Enterprise’s Command Master Chief, Paul Declerq. “He’s one of us.” Like Tomich himself, the medal finally found a permanent home. Although 54 Utah crewmen are still interred in the hull, in 2000 the amazing discovery was made that there are actually 55 sets of remains on the ship. Mary Wagner Kreigh, daughter of former crewman Albert Wagner, revealed an incredible story she had kept hidden for almost 60 years. She told the world that the ashes of her twin sister, Nancy Lynne Wagner, had been buried within the Utah since the ship sank in 1941. Nancy had died at birth in 1937 at Makati in the Philippines; Mary, although hospitalized for several months, survived. Wagner had Nancy cremated and later brought the urn aboard the Utah. He intended to have her ashes scattered at sea when a chaplain was assigned to the ship. That day never came. Burials at sea were a tradition in the Wagner family. In 1936, while serving aboard the battleship USS Pennsylvania (BB-38), he had such a burial for another daughter, Helen, who had also died at birth. Divers inspecting the Utah several weeks after it sank tried to enter the quarters of Chief Yeoman Wagner to retrieve Nancy’s urn. They were unable to penetrate the wreckage. It would remain there for eternity and serve as the burial at sea that Chief Wagner had intended for his daughter. Although Mary kept the secret of Nancy’s ashes for decades, she made many trips to the Utah to visit her sister’s grave. Since 1990, she has visited it annually. Finally, on December 6, 2003, 66 years after she died, Nancy received a formal burial. Mary, her daughter Nina, friends, and reserve and active duty Navy personnel attended a service at the Utah Memorial overlooking the ship. Mary felt relieved that a huge burden had been lifted from her shoulders. As she put it, “For 62 years the courageous crew of the Utah 42

ABOVE: Moored across Ford Island from Battleship Row, the USS Utah was struck by Japanese torpedoes during the opening moments of the attack on Pearl Harbor. OPPOSITE: The simple memorial constructed at the grave of the USS Utah in 1972 commemorates the 54 sailors who lost their lives aboard the vessel on December 7, 1941.

has watched over a tiny copper urn in my father’s locker. Nina and I are so grateful that my twin sister has finally received God’s blessing in the presence of men and women of the United States Navy. Our tears are tears of joy, not sadness. One day I hope to join her aboard our beloved ship.” Mary has remained active in the USS Utah Association, has hosted its recent reunions, and is currently its public relations director. Utah’s crew numbered just over 500 at the time of the attack. When it was over, 58 crewmen had been killed by strafing, flying timbers, or drowning within the hull. Only the battleships Arizona, California, West Virginia, and Oklahoma (which also capsized) suffered a greater number of fatalities. Four of the dead were recovered and buried ashore, leaving 54 to serve their eternal watch within the Utah. Efforts to salvage the sunken ships began within days of the attack. Most of the effort centered on the east side of Ford Island where four battleships and several other ships had sunk. Little was done on the Utah until 1943 because of the low potential for returning the ship to useful service. The Oklahoma was righted that same year, floated, and moved to a drydock to make her seaworthy. The complicated derrick system used to right the Oklahoma was then installed on the Utah after her guns, fuel oil, and other upper works were removed to lighten the ship. A righting operation began in February 1944 and was only partially successful. It did pull the hulk closer to shore and away from the shipping channel, but instead of righting, the hull merely slid along the bottom and settled deeper in the mud. Righting operations then ceased. When

another attempt to free the anchorage location was rejected in 1956, the Navy declared Utah to be a permanent grave site. For over a decade, nothing further occurred at the Utah site. At the Arizona site, however, the Navy erected a wooden platform in 1950 to allow a daily flag raising to honor her 1,177 dead. A commemorative plaque at the base of the flagpole served as a memorial. On May 30, 1962, after years of planning and fundraising, a permanent memorial constructed over the Arizona’s hull was dedicated. This gleaming white structure draws thousands of visitors daily and has become the focus of activities honoring all who died at Pearl Harbor. On October 10, 1980, a $4.5 million Visitor Center complex was opened on Pearl Harbor’s shore to service the crowds of Arizona Memorial visitors. On that day, operations of the Arizona Memorial and Visitor Center were turned over to the U.S. National Park Service. Commemorative activities at the Utah were much more austere. A bronze plaque was attached to Utah’s deck in 1950. Its simple message was, “In Memory—Officers and Men— USS Utah—Lost in Action—7 December 1941.” Since visitors did not have access to the ship, no one could actually read this plaque. A readable second plaque was then placed on a wharf just to the north of the ship. The plaques served as the principal memorials until 1972, when a permanent memorial was finally constructed. It consisted of a 15- by 40-foot concrete platform connected to shore by a 70-foot walkway. Neither the platform nor the walkway touches the Utah. A flagpole in a corner of the platform allows a daily flag raising. The memorial was formally dedicated on May 27, 1972. The Utah Memorial remained basically unchanged until 2005, when a $900,000 Navy construction project provided needed structural repairs to the memorial’s foundation, as well as other improvements. Both Utah and Arizona were destroyed in the same action and sank within two minutes of each other. Both still have crewmen entombed within them and are the only ships in the harbor remaining from the attack on December 7. On May 5, 1989, both were designated as national historic landmarks, which provides them with special consideration for preservation. Like the Arizona, survivors of the Utah are now permitted to have their ashes interred within their ship when they die. Five have chosen to do so. In spite of these similarities, comparisons

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an active military installation. Civilians are allowed on the island only with a formal permit. Although this is possible, the visitors to the Utah Memorial in recent years have numbered only in the dozens annually, a far cry from the million and a half who visit the Arizona Memorial. Most visitors to the Arizona Memorial are not even aware of the existence of the Utah Memorial less than a mile away. Ironically, if the Navy had been successful in removing the Arizona’s hull in 1942, Utah would have been the sole attack victim remaining in Pearl Harbor. It, then, would have been the recipient of the public attention and the focus of efforts to establish a permanent memorial there. It is not envy that prompts Utah survivors to seek increased public awareness of their ship’s existence. They fully understand the relationship between the two ships and are supportive of the attention given to the Arizona. They are, however, interested in seeking changes to current operations within the harbor to permit visitors to at least view Utah’s remains. This would be a logical first step in increasing public knowledge of the ship’s fate on that terrible Sunday in December 1941.

A modest expansion of the Utah Memorial’s platform and allowing direct visitor access to it appear to be feasible and fundable solutions. Access could be provided either by water or by land using shuttle buses like those carrying visitors to the battleship USS Missouri (BB-63), moored near the Arizona Memorial. Visitors would then be able to view both national historic landmarks and both burial sites in Pearl Harbor. An additional step to improve access to the Utah would be to transfer the Utah Memorial to the National Park Service, thus placing both memorials under the umbrella of the same federal jurisdiction. The income generated by the visitor center could then be used to support both memorials. Then, the Utah might no longer be known as “the other memorial,” and the paradox of Pearl Harbor could finally cease to exist. ■ Richard Klobuchar is the author of the books Pearl Harbor: Awakening a Sleeping Giant, which is sold at the Pearl Harbor Visitor Center, and USS Ward: Operational History of the Ship That Fired the First American Shot of World War II, published in March 2007.

Mark Else

between the two ships are usually one sided. Utah was not sunk by a spectacular explosion as was Arizona; it capsized over a period of 11 minutes. While Arizona was a principal target of the attack, Utah was attacked by mistake. Arizona lost 1,177 men, about 85 percent of the crew on board during the attack. Utah’s death toll of 58 was 12 percent of her on-board crew. Approximately 1,002 of Arizona’s crew are still on board, while 54 of Utah’s crew still remain. These statistics should not belittle the lives or achievements of the Utah or her crew. They fought as gallantly as men on any ship in the harbor on that morning. The sight of the incredible explosion as Arizona’s forward magazine blew up, and the huge and instantaneous death toll rightfully focused the world’s attention on that ship. It properly became the symbol of the “day of infamy.” That symbolism was eventually responsible for creating the magnificent structure and shore facilities at the Arizona site. The greatest frustration of Utah survivors and their families is that the public has no similar direct access to the Utah Memorial. No Navy launches stop there, and access may be gained solely from Ford Island, which is still

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SCOUT SQUADRON6 at Pearl Harbor

A pair of Douglas SBD Dauntless dive-bombers depart a carrier in the Pacific as they embark on a mission in late July 1944.

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On the morning of December 7, 1941, a flight of 18 dive-bombers from the carrier USS Enterprise flew straight into the Japanese attack.

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any people have heard of the six American Curtiss P-40 Tomahawk fighters that actually got off the ground and contested the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, December 7, 1941. Some know about the 11 Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress bombers winging toward Pearl Harbor from California unarmed and out of gas. A few are aware of the six obsolete Curtiss P-36 Hawks that were able to take off. However, almost no one knows the story of 18 Douglas SBD Dauntless dive-bombers from the aircraft carrier Enterprise that arrived over Pearl Harbor simultaneously with the Japanese. These were the planes of Scouting Squadron Six. Three U.S. aircraft carriers were operating in the Pacific that day. The Saratoga (CV3) was being overhauled in San Diego. The Lexington (CV2) had just left Pearl Harbor to deliver 18 Vought SB2U Vindicator dive bombers to Midway. The Enterprise (CV6) was just returning from a similar delivery of 12 Grumman F4F Wildcats to Wake Island. She was due back at Pearl on December 6. Fortunately, a storm loomed, so Halsey reduced speed and the ship did not actually reach port until the 8th. Halsey knew war was imminent. Drills had been conducted regularly over the past few months, the most recent on November 27. When Halsey was given his orders to reinforce Wake, he had deliberately asked, “How far do you want me to go?” Admiral Husband E. Kimmel, commander of the U.S. Pacific Fleet, replied, “Use your own common sense.” That was all Halsey needed to hear. In his famous “Battle Order Number One,” the first item read, “The Enterprise is now operating under war conditions.” When his operations officer challenged this order, Halsey replied, “I’ll take [responsibility]. If anything gets in the way, we’ll shoot first and argue afterwards.” He intended to bomb anything on the sea and shoot down anything in the sky. It was ironic. Unlike the rest of the Navy on December 7, the Enterprise fliers saw the enemy

first. Their guns were loaded. Their crews were trained. But still, like everyone else, they did not quite expect an attack at home. They were looking for submarines. When they arrived, they thought the smoke was from burning sugar cane fields. They thought the shell fire was just a drill. They thought the stacks of green aircraft belonged to the Army. Only when they saw the antiaircraft blossoms over Pearl did they realize the truth. Both the Japanese and American forces had launched aircraft at first light. At 0615 on December 7, the Japanese carriers sent their first attack wave aloft 250 miles north-northwest of Oahu. At exactly the same moment, the Enterprise launched what was thought to be a routine patrol directly in front of the ship’s advance. As usual, the patrol would search a hemisphere of 180 degrees directly ahead of the task force. The flight consisted of nine pairs of SBD-2 Dauntless divebombers, mostly from Scout Squadron Six, but including a few planes from Bomb Squadron Six. Each pair of aircraft would conduct a zigzag search in an arc 150 miles long and approximately 10 degrees wide. Instead of returning to the ship, they would then continue on to land at Ford Island, thus getting a jump on shore leave. At 0645, the destroyer USS Ward fired on and sank a Japanese midget submarine operating within the defensive perimeter of Pearl Harbor. Seventeen minutes later, the Army radar station at Opana Point picked up the first wave of Japanese attackers. Thirteen minutes later, the second Japanese wave was launched. At 0748, Kaneohe Airfield was strafed and bombed. At 0752, Lt. Cmdr. Mitsuo Fuchida, tactical commander of the first wave, sent the message, “Tora, Tora, Tora,” meaning that surprise had been achieved. At the same time Scouting Six planes began to arrive over Oahu. To maintain radio silence, Halsey had not informed Pearl Harbor of his location or of his reconnaissance patrol. When news of the attack reached him, his first thought was, “My God, they’re shooting at my own boys!” One of the first two-plane sections to arrive was

BY RICHARD L. HAYES

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ABOVE: Flying in formation, a squad of Dauntless divebombers from Scout Squadron Six return to the USS Enterprise. OPPOSITE: Pilots and crewmen from Scout Squadron Six pose for a group photo. Several of these airmen fell vicitm to friendly or enemy fire during the attack on Pearl Harbor.

aircraft 6-S-16, piloted by Frank A. Patriarca with a gunner named DeLuca, and 6-S-15, piloted by Ensign W.M. Willis with gunner Fred J. Ducolon. They almost made it to Ford Island. The two had passed Barbers Point, rounded Ewa Field, and were actually lining up on their landing approach when the attack began. They noticed the antiaircraft fire, but it was not until a Japanese Aichi “Val” divebomber winged over and flashed the rising sun insignia that Patriarca knew something was very wrong. At the same instant, tracers began whizzing past his plane. Immediately, Patriarca opened throttle, diving back toward the coast. He had decided to try and make it all the way back to the Enterprise when he realized he was alone. After searching for 6-S-15, his fuel was low, so he landed at Burns Field on Kauai. Willis and Ducolon were never found, although Mitsubishi Zero fighters led by Lieutenant Masaji Suganami from the carrier Soryu would later claim three SBDs. At about the same time, S-B-3 and S-B-12 approached Pearl Harbor. Ensign Manuel Gonzalez and gunner Leonard J. Kozelek were in S-B-3, and S-B-12 was piloted by Ensign Frank T. Weber with a gunner by the name of Keany. Their segment of the search had finished 20 miles north of Kauai, whereupon they 46

turned and headed toward Oahu and Pearl Harbor. No one knows exactly what happened to Gonzalez that day, but when the two planes were about 25 miles off Oahu, Weber noticed a group of 40 to 50 planes he thought belonged to the Army circling at about 3,500 feet. Although he had been flying just 500 feet above and behind S-B-3, when Weber looked back Gonzalez was gone. Gonzalez’s last message, which several other aircraft heard, was something like, “Do not fire. We are American aircraft,” or words to that effect. Moments later, Gonzales was calling to his gunner to break out the rubber raft. Nothing else was heard from them, and no trace was ever found. It seems incredible that an aircraft could have shot down Gonzalez and missed Weber, but such may well have been the case, since Weber innocently began a search of the area and performed four or five slow “S” turns looking for his comrade. It was just Weber’s bad luck that he had told his radioman to change frequencies and get some homing practice on the approach into Pearl, thus missing Gonzalez’s last message. Still unaware of the attack and unable to spot S-B-3, Weber continued on toward Pearl until he noticed an aircraft about 2,000 feet directly ahead of him. Thinking it was Gonzalez at last, he increased speed and attempted to form up on him when the unknown plane suddenly turned 180 degrees and approached. Weber performed a slow, wide turn to help close on the approaching aircraft. Only when it was close off his starboard bow and finally made a flipper turn was Weber able to see the

red circles that identified it as Japanese. He immediately increased speed and dove to an altitude of 25 feet. The Japanese pilot did not follow, and Weber flew on to Barbers Point where he formed up on 6-S-10, piloted by Lieutenant W.E. Gallaher, and began circling a few miles off the coast as other Enterprise planes were arriving. Weber described the Japanese plane as resembling a German Junkers Ju-87 Stuka type dive-bomber. Such a description would seem to describe the Japanese Val dive-bombers operating over Pearl Harbor. A Japanese report confirms that Vals from the aircraft carrier Shokaku were returning to sea after bombing Hickam Field and were 20 miles off Kaena Point when they shot down an SBD. At about 0820, 6-S-14, piloted by E.T. Deacon with gunner Audrey G. Coslett, and 6-S9, flown by W.E. Roberts with gunner D.H. Jones, arrived off Kaena Point. There they noticed about 30 aircraft in a long column at an altitude of 100 feet and only 400 feet away. Roberts saw their green camouflage and assumed they were U.S. Army aircraft. One plane came so close that the Japanese pilot even waggled his wings as he flew by. “The significance of the red circles on the wings did not occur to me until later,” said Roberts. The column of planes did not attack, and neither did the Dauntlesses. At the same time, the Dauntless pilots noticed the large amount of smoke and geysers of water produced by coastal antiaircraft guns. Dauntlesses 6-S-14 and 6-B-9 kept flying toward Ford Island until they heard the “Don’t shoot” call of Ensign Gonzalez. Then they charged their guns and climbed to 1,000 feet, observing about 20 Japanese fighters over Pearl Harbor. Worse, coming straight toward them were 25 divebombers that had just completed their dives. Both Deacon and Roberts dove to the water and headed for Hickam Field, flying directly over Fort Weaver. When the American pilots were just overhead at an altitude of 200 feet, Army gunners opened fire on them with 20mm cannon and .50-caliber machine guns. Beginning to sputter and trail smoke, 6-S-14 turned back toward the water. Two hundred yards past the beach, Deacon splashed down in two feet of water. The fliers were still under rifle and machine gun fire when Coslett was hit in the right arm and neck. Deacon was nicked in the thigh, and another shot cut through his parachute harness. Stumbling out of the swamped Navy

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glanced off his wings. Closing on Young, the Japanese pilot opened fire at close range. Young remembered that the cascade of bullets was instantaneous with his realization that Pearl was under attack. He immediately dove away and zigzagged. Again there was no damage. Two American divebombers flying straight and slow had been attacked at close range by a veteran Zero fighter pilot who missed. Young and Teaff remained together. Since it was obvious they would be fired on no matter what direction they went, they continued toward Ford Island. At about 0835, both planes landed safely. Even though they had their wheels down and flashed recognition signals, they endured heavy antiaircraft fire all the way. Young recalled, “I was under fire until my wheels touched the ground on Ford Island—some of the guns being not more than 50 yards distance from me.” Even more incredibly, no one was injured, nor was either plane seriously damaged, although Teaff’s took a few .50-caliber slugs in the tail and the hydraulic system was hit. Since the Enterprise was still under radio silence when the men hopped out of their aircraft, the commander of Ford Island, Captain George Shoemaker, rushed to the pilots and shouted, “What the hell goes on here?” Only then was Young

able to disclose the location of the Enterprise, the presence of the 18 SBDs, and their mission. The next planes to make contact apparently were 6-S-4, piloted by Lieutenant Clarence E. Dickinson with gunner William C. Miller, and 6-S-9, piloted by Ensign John R. “Bud” McCarthy with gunner Mitchell Cohn. At about 0825, they were approaching Barbers Point when they saw thick smoke from what turned out to be the stricken battleship USS Arizona. Then they saw splashes in the water. Like the others, Dickinson thought the smoke was from burning cane fields and the splashes were just an Army gunnery drill. The firing was so wild that he thought, “Just wait. Tomorrow the Army will certainly catch hell for it.” Finally, he realized the harbor was covered with antiaircraft blossoms. Dickinson immediately ordered his wingman to close formation and climb to 4,000 feet, where McCarthy was attacked by two fighters. Together, the SBDs dove back down to 1,000 feet where four more fighters attacked. Looking aft, Dickinson saw McCarthy’s plane catch fire “from the right side of the engine and the right main tank. It lost speed and dropped about 50 yards astern and to the left. I could see it still attempting to fight as it slowly circled to the left losing altitude.” The plane lost speed and crashed. Dickinson saw only one parachute. McCarthy had managed to get out, although he broke his leg, presumably after hitting the rear

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plane, he used a radio cord to tie off Coslett’s wound and broke out the life raft to escape. After paddling about 100 yards from their plane, the two were picked up by a rescue boat. Meanwhile, aboard 6-S-9, Roberts and Jones had also noticed the tracers streaming upward but were able to land at Hickam even though their left wing was streaming gasoline. They stayed there until the second wave of Japanese attackers arrived. Jones fired his rear-mounted guns until all his ammunition was expended. Lieutenant Commander Howard L. “Brigham” Young, commander of the Enterprise air group, was flying with Lt. Cmdr. Bromfield B. Nichols, one of Halsey’s tactical officers, in the gunner’s seat. Young’s wingman was 6-S2 piloted by Ensign P. L. Teaff with a gunner by the name of Jinks. When they neared Barbers Point, they too saw a large column of “Army” planes and gave them a wide berth, continuing toward Ford Island. Teaff was above and behind Young, watching attentively as one of the Japanese planes winged over and attacked. Although he saw the fighters approaching from behind, he made no effort to maneuver. At a range of 75 yards, one of them opened fire. Teaff pulled to the right, allowing Jinks to get off a short burst as the plane passed them by and concentrated on Young. Neither Teaff nor Jinks was hit, but their plane was “liberally sprinkled” with slugs. Teaff even noted that a few were shot at such an angle that some of them

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ABOVE: Aircraft prepare to launch from Shokaku to attack Pearl Harbor. OPPOSITE: A Japanese B5N torpedo bomber from the carrier Kaga in flight over Hawaii, December 7, 1941.

stabilizer on the way out. Cohn did not make it. Meanwhile, Dickinson was still under attack by as many as five Zeros. As he dove, his gunner returned fire and said, “Mr. Dickinson, I have been hit once, but I think I have got one of those sons of bitches.” When Dickinson glanced rearward, he saw a Japanese plane on fire losing altitude and speed. It was the first Navy aerial victory of the war. A few minutes later, Miller reported that all six cans of his ammunition were gone ... and then he screamed. As the attacking fighter sped past, Dickinson was able to get in two short bursts from his forward guns, but they had little effect. The attacks continued, and he could only watch helplessly as holes began appearing in his wings. Amazingly, he was not hurt, but his ankle was nicked and there were horizontal cuts in his sock. Soon, his left fuel tank was on fire, he lost all control of his plane, and it began to slip to the right. As it started to spin, Dickinson called for Miller to bail out and then jumped at an altitude of 800 feet. He landed alone and unhurt near Ewa Field. On the ground, Dickinson was able to catch a ride with an elderly couple in a blue sedan who had not quite realized what was going on. They were going to a picnic and did not want to be late. How unfortunate that the military was causing all this fuss. They finally figured things out when a van just ahead of them was 48

rocked by machine-gun and cannon fire. Moments later, it careened off the road on flat tires, coming to rest covered in dust and peppered with holes. The couple dropped Dickinson off at Ewa Field where the sentries told him that some Japanese planes were so low they had thumbed their noses at them as they flew by. Another had clasped his hands together over his head in a victory salute. Be that as it may, Dickinson kept going until he got to Pearl Harbor, just in time to see the destroyer USS Shaw go up in a ball of flame. A bomb had penetrated the forward magazine and blown off the ship’s bow. Lieutenant Commander Halstead L. Hopping was piloting 6-S-1 with a gunner named Thomas, while 6-S-3 was piloted by Ensign J.H.L. Vogt with Sidney Pierce as gunner. While on their patrol, Hopping spotted a ship and left Vogt’s company to investigate. When he returned, he was unable to locate 6-S-3 and continued alone. Landing at Ford Island during the dive-bombing attack, 6-S-1 endured heavy friendly antiaircraft fire. Miraculously, his aircraft was only hit once, a bullet in a battery that did not have any effect. Vogt, having been left by Hopping, continued alone and ran into a flight of Zeros probably led by Lieutenant Yoshio Shiga from the aircraft carrier Kaga. Eyewitnesses near Ewa Field stated that Vogt’s SBD attacked and clung tenaciously to the tail of a Zero, firing constantly until it pulled up and stalled, causing

Vogt to slam into it. The two planes fell entangled to the earth. Some say the action was a simple collision, but others remember it as a twisting dogfight. This is a particularly interesting version of a combat sequence, given the mismatch of the relatively slow SBD and the highly maneuverable Zero. Ensign Carlton T. “Misty” Fogg was piloting 6-S-11 with a gunner named Dennis, and 6-S-8 was piloted by Ensign E.J. Dobson with a gunner by the name of Hoss. They tried to land at Ford Island, but realizing it was under attack, they returned to Barbers Point and joined up with the other circling Enterprise planes for about 45 minutes. At that time, they all tried to land at Ford but were met with such heavy antiaircraft fire that the formation scattered. Fogg turned back, while Dobson actually made it in. Having landed at Ewa, Fogg kept watch with a field phone from inside the metal scoop of a steam shovel during the second attack wave. Dauntless 6-S-7, piloted by H.D. Hilton with a gunner named Leaming, and 6-B-5, piloted by Ensign E.J. Kroeger with a gunner by the name of Chapman, arrived off Barbers Point at about 0845. They could not see the attack at Pearl but did notice two large groups of aircraft. They circled with the others for a while and then tried to land at Ewa Field where “definite evidence of the attack was first noted.” They were immediately waved off for fear they would draw strafing Japanese planes, and the SBDs headed for Ford where they met heavy antiaircraft fire. Both planes broke off and returned to Ewa where they were refueled and loaded with 500-pound bombs. Dauntlesses 6-S-10, piloted by Lieutenant Gallaher with a gunner named Merritt, and 6S-5, piloted by Ensign W.P. West with a gunner named Hansen, also passed over Kauai as they approached Oahu from the northwest. Ensign West noticed approximately 10 monoplanes marked in bright colors but mistook them for Army observation planes. These Dauntlesses also continued along until they reached Barbers Point and saw what they thought were burning cane fields. Only when they got closer to Pearl did they realize the truth. With the others, they landed at Ewa and then left immediately for Ford Island. Enemy planes circled above Barbers Point at 3,000 to 4,000 feet. About 10 miles further out to sea, even more Japanese planes formed up and waited. In all, seven of the Enterprise planes gathered and eventually tried to land at Ewa but were waved off by the ground crew

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and flew on to Ford Island. The formation which included Gallaher, West, and Dobson actually managed to land, while the others broke off and returned to Ewa where this time they were refueled and rearmed. By now, the Japanese had retired completely, and at 1030 Hopping took off alone from Ford Island to investigate a report of two Japanese carriers 25 to 40 miles west or southwest of Barbers Point. He returned at 1145. He met with light antiaircraft fire both on takeoff and landing. At 1115, Hilton, Kroeger, and Weber were ordered to accompany an attack flight of Army bombers from Hickam Field. After receiving some antiaircraft fire at takeoff, the three approached Hickam and found no Army bombers to join with, so they returned to Ford Island. Other sightings abounded. Both the heavy cruisers Minneapolis and Indianapolis, operating separately, were identified as Japanese carriers. Even the Enterprise herself was rightly identified as a carrier, but wrongly attacked. Army Captain Brooke E. Allen, having saved his B-17 from destruction by taxiing it away from the flight line at Hickam, rose alone into the afternoon sky with orders to search to the southwest. There he found “this beautiful carrier” that opened fire on him. Accordingly, he began a bombing run but, “God had a hand on me, because I knew this was not a Jap carrier.” Thirteen Enterprise planes were launched from their new land base at 1210: nine planes in three flights to search to the north and four planes to search south. The northern search consisted of Hopping, Teaff, and Kroeger; Gallaher, West, and Dobson; Dickinson, Hilton, and Weber searching an area from 330 to 030 degrees and extending 200 miles north of Oahu. No contacts were made, and the flight returned at 1545. A search patrol from the Enterprise to the south included Ensign C.R. “Bucky” Walters and Ensign Ben Troemel of Bomb Squadron Six. Walters made contact with what he described as a Soryu-class Japanese carrier. As he investigated the ship, he “found an enemy plane closing on my starboard quarter. The plane was a silver twin-engine monoplane carrying two vertical stabilizers. Attack was evaded by applying full throttle and diving to within 25 feet of the water.” He then spotted a Japanese cruiser of the Jintsu class, which he followed for some time until ordered to return. No Japanese ships or aircraft were in that area, and what he actually saw is unknown.

The two ensigns were unable to return to the ship and headed for Kauai and then on to Oahu to land at Kaneohe Naval Air Station after dark. The field had been badly shot up in the morning and was now blacked out. Walters and Troemel managed to land successfully but had to maneuver violently to avoid hitting all the vehicles that had been deliberately parked on the runway. Troemel came to rest directly beneath a boom crane, while Walters almost ran into a cement mixer. The base commander explained that he had

ghost of a chance” Another witness stated, “You could read a newspaper by the light of the tracers.” When the guns opened up, one of the Wildcats radioed, “What the hell is going on down there?” To which the tower replied succinctly, “Turn off your lights and beat it.” Wildcat pilot Ensign James Daniels tried a novel defense when the firing started. Upon seeing the tracers, he headed his plane directly toward the antiaircraft gunners, hoping that the glare of his landing lights would momen-

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put the vehicles there to prevent the Japanese from landing and was a little upset that the two SBDs had managed to do so. It was not until 1700 that a viable attack force was organized by the Enterprise. Eighteen Douglas TBD Devastator torpedo bombers; the remaining six Dauntlesses of Bombing Six, which were fitted with smoke generators to mask the torpedo planes; and an escort of six Wildcats were launched to attack a force supposedly 100 miles southeast of the Enterprise and her escort vessels, which were still west of Hawaii. Nothing was located, and the Devastators and SBDs returned to the Enterprise. By this time it was dark, and the Enterprise did not turn on landing lights. Instead, the Wildcats were ordered to land at Pearl Harbor. Although both the Army and Navy had been informed several times about the six approaching Wildcats, the night sky tragically filled with tracers. One sailor noted, “ Everything in Pearl Harbor opened up on them. They didn’t have a

tarily blind them. It worked. The firing became erratic, and Daniels was able to circle around, turn off his lights, and land on Ford Island in the dark. However, Ensign Gayle Herman took a 5-inch round in his engine. Miraculously unhurt, he bailed out over a golf course. Ensign David Flynn kept out of range until his plane ran out of gas and then parachuted into a cane field. Ensign Herbert Menges, Lieutenant Francis Hebel, and Lieutenant Eric Allen, Jr., all died. Allen was shot out of his parachute. As December 7, 1941, passed into history, the consequences and mistakes of the day would be evaluated many times, but the men of Scouting and Bombing Squadron Six had reason to be proud of their role in the days’ events. They reacted well to a confusing situation, fought hard, and then persevered under heavy fire, most of it friendly. ■ Richard L. Hayes is a freelance writer from Chicago. He has been published in numerous military history magazines. 49

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U . S . F O R C E S I N T H E P H I L I P P I N E S F E LT T H E B R U N T OF J A PA N E S E M I L I TA RY MIGHT ON DECEMBER 8, 1941.

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the popular history of World War II, the assertion that the United States was caught unprepared in Hawaii and the Philippines has become widely accepted as fact. However, in the case of the Philippines, the proper word should be “underprepared,” as this term more accurately represents the true situation that existed in the Philippine Islands in the early morning hours of December 8, 1941. While neither the War Department nor the U.S. Navy expected the Japanese to attack the Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbor, for several months before the day that President Franklin Roosevelt prophesied would “live in infamy,” authorities in Washington, D.C., had been planning for war to break out in the Pacific. When it did, they fully expected that the Philippines would be involved, so preparations were being made to defend the islands. Unfortunately, the Japanese attack came before the preparations had begun in earnest. The allegation has also often been made that General Douglas MacArthur facilitated the destruction of the Army Air Corps in the Philippines through indecision. This is also more myth than fact. In 1941, the Philippine Islands were a possession of the United States and had been for four decades. The islands had come into U.S. hands as a condition of the treaty with Spain that ended the Spanish-American War in 1898. Since that time there had been mixed emotions on the part of the Filipino people. While many had come to love the United States, which was a benevolent master in comparison to Spain, they also yearned for independence. Located just off the Asian main-

land and stretching from the northernmost island of Luzon to Mindanao, the islands were the United States’ westernmost possession in the Pacific. The Japanese-owned island of Formosa lay some 450 miles to the north of Manila, the Philippine capital, while portions of mainland China that had been occupied by the Japanese were only a few hundred miles further, but to the west. The oil-rich East Indies lay to the south. During the years between the world wars, the United States developed a series of contingency plans in the event of war with one or more foreign powers. These contingency plans were known as the Rainbow series. Planning for a potential war in the Pacific was found in the Rainbow No. 5 war plan, which basically called for the United States to fight a defensive war against Japan while concentrating the main effort on an offensive in Europe. Under the provisions of Rainbow No. 5, the Philippines would be written off and abandoned to the enemy, while all U.S. forces would withdraw to a defensive line running from Alaska through Hawaii. Rainbow No. 5 was approved in the spring of 1941, but the plan was revised as the threat of war intensified. Because of their proximity to Japanese territory in the Pacific, the War Department decided that the Philippines was revised to one of strategic importance in the defense of the region. Prior to 1941, the War Department paid little attention to the Philippines except for maintaining the garrison forces at Fort Stotsenberg and cavalry and infantry troops made up of Filipinos led by American officers. The Navy maintained facilities at Cavite on Manila Bay, where a few destroyers

Caught on the G BY SAM MCGOWAN

Fred Bamberger

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t Ground

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The attack on the Philippines is starkly depicted in this captured Japanese painting. OPPOSITE: U.S. forces in the Philippines received the Curtiss P-40 Tomahawk fighter as a replacement for the aging P-26.

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and PT boats were based, along with a seaplane squadron equipped with Consolidated PBY Catalina flying boats. As late as the spring of 1940, Army Air Corps assets in the islands consisted of a few obsolete open-cockpit, fixed landing gear Boeing P-26 pursuit planes, a handful of B-10 bombers, and three more modern Douglas B-18s. Things began to change in the Philippines in the late summer of 1941 as American relations with Japan deteriorated. When Japanese forces occupied French Indochina, President Franklin Roosevelt responded with an embargo on the sale of oil and other products to Japan, in keeping with previous economic sanctions against the country. The move precipitated worsening relations, and it soon became apparent that war in the Pacific was inevitable—and that the Philippines would be in the line of the Japanese advance southward toward the oil fields in the Netherlands East Indies. The United States began to build up its Philippine-based forces, and former U.S. Army Chief of Staff General Douglas MacArthur, who had retired in the Philippines where he served as field marshal of the Filipino military, was recalled to active duty to take command of all military forces based there. Several U.S. Army air and ground units were alerted for movement to the Philippines. The buildup of air strength in the islands was crucial to the new American plan. New Curtiss P-40 Tomahawk fighter planes were sent to replace the outmoded P-26s, along with two squadrons of Seversky P-35s. While the P-35s were of a more recent design than the open-cockpit P-26s, they were already obsolete by 1941 standards. Additional B-18s were sent to replace the antiquated B-10s in the 28th Bombardment Squadron. By August 1941, Air Corps strength in the Philippines consisted of one squadron of P-40s, two squadrons of P-35s, and two squadrons of B-18s. One Filipino squadron was still equipped with P-26s. The B-10s had also been transferred to the Philippine Air Force. More modern aircraft were on the way; the newly created Army Air Forces Headquarters believed that the presence of a large force of heavy bombers would serve to secure the islands and perhaps deter Japanese threats to the region. The theory would soon be proved unfounded, but in 1941 four-engine Boeing B-17 Flying Fortresses and the newly developed Consolidated B-24 Liberators that had been designed as their replacements were believed to be capable of destroying powerful naval forces while the ships were still at sea. 52

Map © 2011 Philip Schwartzberg, Meridian Mapping, Minneapolis, MN

Additional fighter planes were authorized for delivery direct from the factories to the Philippines, with others to be taken from operational units in the United States. War Department plans for the Philippines called for four heavy bomber groups with 272 operational airplanes and an additional 68 in reserve along with two pursuit (fighter) groups of 130 airplanes to be in place by April 1942. In May, elements formerly with the 19th Bombardment Group arrived at Hickam Field, Hawaii, for duty with the Hawaiian Air Force. At that time, they were the only U.S. heavy bombers stationed outside the United States. In late July, the Army Air Corps relocated the entire group to the Philippines, with a provisional squadron from the Hawaiian Air Force making the initial move. On the morning of September 5, 1941, nine Flying Fortresses with 75 air and ground crew members aboard left Hickam for Midway Island on the first leg of a journey that would take more than a week to complete. From Midway, Major Emmett “Rose” O’Donnell led the flight of B-17s on to Wake Island, then south to Port Moresby on Papua,

New Guinea. This leg of the flight brought the bombers over territory that belonged to Japan by mandate. The flight departed Wake at midnight so the bombers would be over Japanese territory during the hours of darkness to avoid detection. Their final stop before proceeding northward to their destination at Clark Field in Central Luzon was Darwin, a town on the north coast of Australia. The arrival of the B-17s reassured the senior officers in the War Department in Washington that the Philippines could, in fact, be reinforced by air if need be. Impressed by the flight, General MacArthur authorized the establishment of refueling sites in New Guinea and Australia in preparation for future movements. Plans were made for the transfer of additional Army Air Forces groups to the islands. In November, the Rainbow No. 5 plan was revised somewhat in that military strength in the Philippines was to be increased substantially, including a major buildup of air power. By the end of the month, the U.S. Army in the Philippines was to receive an additional 26 B17s to fill out the complement of the 19th Bombardment Group. In addition, the 27th Bombardment Group (Light) was to arrive aboard ship, with its complement of 52 Douglas A-24 dive-bombers to follow. Although the United States military was strapped for personnel and equipment, the defense of the Philippines was given the highest priority. The War Department scraped the bottom of the barrel to find units to deploy, while additional air assets and ground troops were being trained for movement to the islands. Since the Wake Island-to-Moresby route came in close proximity to Japanese territory, a new South Pacific ferry route was considered. Plans were also made for a route over which fighters could

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It was a burdensome system made even more so by the primitive Filipino communications. During early tests, it took nearly an hour for word of spotted aircraft to reach the interceptor command post at Nichols Field. Iba was not the only airfield that the Far East Air Forces elected to develop in its plan for the defense of the Philippines. Members of Brere-

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35th Pursuit Group, although that group’s headquarters was still at sea when the Japanese attack came. By the end of November, all of the pursuit squadrons had been equipped with either P-40Bs or Es, except for the 34th Pursuit Squadron, which was still flying P-35s. To protect Luzon, the fighter squadrons were dispersed with the 17th and 21st squadrons

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be delivered to the Philippines from assembly points in Australia. After the initial deployment of the 14th Bombardment Squadron, the entire 19th Bombardment Group was alerted in mid-October for movement to the islands. The group’s remaining 26 Flying Fortresses departed Hamilton Field, California, and had arrived at Hickam by October 22. By November 6, barely a month before the outbreak of the war, 25 B-17s had arrived at Clark. One airplane was temporarily grounded at Darwin but arrived within a few days. Only two squadrons of the 19th Bombardment Group made the trip to the Philippines. The 28th Bombardment Group, which had been in the Philippines for more than a decade, joined the unit along with the 14th Bombardment Squadron, which had arrived from Hawaii in September. Personnel from the 28th gave up their twin-engine B-18s and joined the 19th to fly B17s. The B-18s were reassigned to liaison duty. With the arrival of the additional B-17s, U.S. heavy bomber strength in the islands was up to 35 airplanes and more were scheduled to make the trip. Maj. Gen. Lewis H. Brereton was sent to Manila to take command of all air units in the islands and assume a place on General MacArthur’s staff. On November 16, the Far East Air Force (FEAF) was activated under Brereton’s command. Authorization had been given for the establishment of the Fifth Air Force, but the headquarters had not been activated before the war broke out, although the bomber and pursuit commands were. The new FEAF included V Bomber Command under Lt. Col. Eugene L. Eubank and V Interceptor Command under Brig. Gen. Henry B. Claggett. In early November, an order was put out that all “modernized” B-17s would be sent to the Philippines. Additional heavy bomber squadrons, including some that were set to be equipped with the new B-24 Liberator, were also ordered to the islands. The 7th Bombardment Group was on its way to Clark Field, with the ground components setting sail from San Francisco on November 21. The first flight of B-17s was scheduled to depart California in late November and early December. Additional B-17s and B-24s would follow as they were delivered from the factories. While the arrival of the heavy bombers would give the American forces in the Philippines the power to strike at Japanese positions on Formosa and in parts of China, the increase in pursuit capabilities would provide protection from air attack. In early October, the Air Corps activated the 24th Pursuit Group in the Philippines. A month later it was joined by elements of the

ABOVE, LEFT to RIGHT: Lt. Col. Eugene L. Eubank; Lieutanant Joseph H. Moore (pictured as Lt. Gen.); Maj. Gen. Lewis H. Brereton. OPPOSITE: Several American pilots pose at Clark Field in August 1941. Standing left to right are: Carl Gies, Max Louk, Erwin Crellin, and Varian Kieler.

operating out of Nichols Field outside Manila and the 20th at Clark Field. The 3rd Pursuit Squadron was based at Iba, a small grass field on the China Sea across the 2,000-foot Zambales Mountains from Fort Stotsenberg and Clark. Iba Field was barely large enough to accommodate the 18 Curtis P-40Es that made up the 3rd Pursuit Squadron, but it was the closest fighter airfield to the approach routes to the American military installations around Manila. Previously, Iba had been used primarily as an advanced field for gunnery training on the ranges in the nearby Zambales. Along with the basing of the 3rd Pursuit Squadron at Iba, General Brereton stationed an aircraft early warning radar team there, although the technology was still new and the operators were just learning their trade. Because of its location, Iba was a logical choice for a radar site. In all, seven radar sets had arrived in the Philippines by early December, but Iba was the only one operational. Another at Manila was in the process of being set up when war came. General MacArthur borrowed from the Chinese practice of establishing a rudimentary aircraft warning system that depended on Filipinos stationed at crucial locations and connected to V Fighter Command by telephone and telegraph. Information received from the sites would then be transmitted to a plotting center at Clark Field.

ton’s staff felt that a heavy bomber base in the Southern Philippines on Mindanao was needed, a proposal that was initially opposed since the Rainbow No. 5 plan did not call for ground forces to be used to defend that particular island. But the soil on Mindanao was ideally suited for all-weather runways, a factor that weighted the argument in favor of a southern base. Until a new airfield could be constructed, a temporary base was set up at the airstrip on the island’s Del Monte pineapple plantation. On December 5, two squadrons from the 19th Bombardment Group, half the heavy bomber strength then in the islands, deployed to Del Monte Field. Brereton’s operations plan called for the bombers to be based on Mindanao but to stage through Clark on missions against Japanese positions on Formosa if war came. The Fifth Air Base Group arrived at Manila aboard the transport ship USS Coolidge in early December and was sent immediately to Mindanao by island steamer to support the B-17s. The United States initially based its buildup in the Philippines on a timeline that would see war with Japan beginning sometime in the spring of 1942. However, a worsening diplomatic situation was leading to an increase in the potential for hostilities—to the point that by November it was apparent that war could break out at any moment. In early November, the War Depart53

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MORE FIGHTERS WOULD BE LOST IN THE BATTLE FOR THE PHILIPPINES TO ACCIDENTS AND MECHANICAL FAILURE, OR SIMPLY RUNNING OUT OF FUEL, THAN TO COMBAT. In late November, in response to a British suggestion, the War Department notified General MacArthur that two long-range B-24 Liberators equipped with photographic equipment would depart for the Philippines by November 28. Their mission would be to photograph Japanese installations in the Marshall Islands and the Carolines. As it turned out, the departure of the modified Liberators was delayed and the first arrived in Hawaii on December 5. It was held at Hickam Field for armament modifications and would become the first American aircraft loss of the war when Japanese planes struck Hickam on December 7.

The Air Corps intensified its preparations for war in early November, and General Brereton ordered all of his commanders to be prepared for any emergency. Aircraft were to be dispersed and kept on an operationally ready status, with their crews on two-hour alert day and night. The 19th Bombardment Group was ordered to maintain one squadron for reconnaissance and bombing missions at all times, while the 24th Pursuit Group was to have three planes from each squadron on alert from dawn until dusk. The orders were put into effect on November 10, nearly a month before war broke out. Within less than a week, all pursuit aircraft in the islands were placed on constant alert, with the airplanes fully armed and the pilots on a 30-minute alert. Some fighter pilots slept by their airplanes. Early December saw an increase in the effort to beef up American air strength in the Philippines. While only 35 heavy bombers had arrived in the islands, others were on the way, along with 52 A-24 dive-bombers for the 27th Bombardment Group and 18 additional P-40s that were bound for the islands aboard ship. On December 1, Army Air Corps commanding general Henry H. Arnold notified the commander of the Hawaiian Air Force, “We must get every available B-17 to the Philippines as soon as possible.” On December 6, a flight of 13 B-17s left Hamilton Field for Hickam on the first leg of their journey to Clark. Their arrival at Clark would have continued the buildup of the heavy bomber force that was expected to be at full strength by April 1942. Unfortunately, time was running out at a rate much faster than expected. Even though new aircraft were arriving in the Philippines on a regular basis, that did not mean they or the men who flew them were operationally ready. The fighters arrived in crates and required assembly and maintenance before they were combat ready. Engines had to be broken in and slow-timed, while guns had to be bore

A Boeing B-17D Flying Fortress sits on the tarmac at Clark Field in 1941. B-17s and other heavy bombers gave U.S. forces the ability to strike targets in China and Formosa.

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sighted. Many of the fighters were still not operationally ready when war broke out. A major problem for the fighter pilots was the lack of a source of oxygen in the islands, which restricted the P-40s to sustained operations at altitudes of 15,000 feet and below. The pilots themselves were inexperienced, which was a factor in what happened when war came. Most were fresh from pilot training and had very little experience in the P-40s they were to take into combat. More fighters would be lost in the battle for the Philippines to accidents and mechanical failure, or simply running out of fuel, than to combat. Their radio equipment was primitive, and everyone in the islands used the same frequencies. Even though the P-40s were first-line fighters, one squadron, the 34th Pursuit, was still equipped with obsolete P-35s. During the more than 60 years since December 7, 1941, many historians have concentrated on the “lack of decisiveness” on the part of General MacArthur during the first hours of the war. They have given the impression that no action was taken by the air forces in the Philippines, that the Japanese caught the air force on the ground and destroyed it within minutes. In reality, nothing could be further from the truth. The American forces in the Philippines learned of the attack on Pearl Harbor within an hour after it started, not through timely notification by the War Department, but through a local radio station that picked up a broadcast from a Honolulu station and contacted the military. The Navy already knew of the attack but had failed to inform MacArthur’s headquarters in Manila. Upon receiving the news, MacArthur immediately informed his subordinates that the country was at war and instructed them to take appropriate action. The Army Air Forces squadrons were informed. They were already on a status of high alert and had been for several weeks. On the evening of December 7, the officers of the newly Robert F. Dorr collection

ment sent a message to commanders in the Pacific advising that war with Japan was imminent but that it was extremely important for the Japanese to carry out the first hostile act. Apparently, the leadership in Washington believed the American public would be more likely to support a war if the Japanese attacked first. General MacArthur apparently interpreted this letter to include any action that could be considered hostile and forbade reconnaissance missions over Formosa even when unidentified aircraft were reported around and over Luzon.

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Questions linger concerning the deployment of U.S. heavy bombers on the first day of World War II. Ever since word of the disaster in the Philippines reached the rest of the world, there has been much speculation about what would have happened if the B-17s had been launched against the Japanese airfields on Formosa immediately after word of the attack on Pearl Harbor reached the islands. Many, including his biographer, William Manchester, have accused General Douglas MacArthur of being personally responsible for the failure to mount an attack. But those who make the accusations fail to consider the true situation of the bomber force in the Philippines on December 8, 1941. For one thing, only half of the 35-plane heavy bomber force was on Luzon that morning. Two squadrons had been transferred some 500 miles south to Mindanao. Even if all of the B-17s at Clark had been able to take off for a mission against the Japanese airfields, they would have made up too small a formation to effectively defend themselves against the hordes of Japanese fighters they would have likely encountered over Formosa. The two squadrons at Del Monte would have had to fly to Clark or San Marcelino to refuel and take on bombs and ammunition for their guns before they could fly a mission. Another consideration is the weather that lay over the Japanese airfields. The same fog that kept the Japanese naval aircraft on the ground until midmorning would have also prevented the American B-17 crews from finding the airfields and the bombardiers from successfully bombing the targets. Furthermore, all of the B-17s at Clark had been ordered into the air in the early morning so they would not be caught on the ground by the inevitable Japanese attack. In fact, it was the decision to recall them to refuel and rearm for an attack on Formosa that caused them to be on the ground when the Japanese bombers and fighters struck Clark. The gift of hindsight indicates that the best course of action would perhaps have been to send the bombers south and keep them aloft until after the attack. They could have then been recalled to Clark, along with the two squadrons that were at Mindanao, for a night or early morning attack on the Japanese airfields on Formosa. Or, the bombers could have been held in reserve at Clark to attack the Japanese invasion fleet when it came. Still, either action would have merely prolonged the inevitable. The U.S. Pacific Fleet was in such disarray after the attack on Pearl Harbor that reinforcement of the Philippines had become impossible. It is unlikely that the B-17s could have done anything to change the eventual outcome.

arrived 27th Bombardment Group, which still had no airplanes, threw a party for General Brereton at the Manila Hotel. Brereton was called out of the party for conferences with Admiral W.R. Purnell, the senior naval officer in the islands, and General Richard Sutherland, chief of staff for MacArthur, who informed him of a message from Washington advising that war could break out at any moment. Brereton notified his air units and canceled a training operation for the B-17s that was scheduled for the next day. Within an hour after the party broke up at 2 AM (December 8, Philippine time) word reached the Philippines that Hawaii was under attack. Within 30 minutes after the first word of the attack reached Manila, the Army Air Forces radar site at Iba picked up a large formation of unidentified airplanes about 75 miles offshore

and plotted their track toward the island of Corregidor. The 3rd Pursuit Squadron dispatched its fighters to make the intercept, and they were tracked by radar as they flew toward the unknown formation. The radar operators saw the blips merge on their scope, but the fighter pilots never saw the unknown aircraft in the predawn darkness. Apparently, they had flown beneath the Japanese. After failing to locate the unidentified aircraft, they returned to Iba and breakfast. What the Japanese did is unclear, since the first attacks were still several hours away. Apparently, they were on a reconnaissance flight. The U.S. forces in the Philippines were officially notified at 5 AM Manila time that Pearl Harbor had been attacked. At this point the record becomes confused. Air Force historians Wesley Craven and James Cate point out that

no real record exists of the events of December 8, 1941, as they took place in the Philippines. What records were kept were lost during the coming events in the islands, while unit histories were written after the fact and were possibly—even probably—considerably contrived. At the request of General Arnold, author and historian Walter D. Edmonds eventually took over a project, which had begun in 1942, involving interviewing participants in the battles for the Philippines and Java. Edmonds interviewed dozens of airmen and carefully scrutinized diaries and combat reports. He published the results in the book They Fought With What They Had, which was originally published in 1951. Edmonds believes that the official records were compiled after the fact and were sometimes doctored so they agreed with the positions of certain senior officers. General Brereton published his Brereton Dairies right after the war, and General MacArthur promptly denied some of the information contained therein. General Arnold claimed that he never really knew what happened in the Philippines on December 8 even though it was widely known that a detailed report was sent to him within days of the event. Many historians focus on the Japanese 11th Air Fleet being grounded at its airfields around Tainan on Formosa due to a thick fog. While the Japanese naval aircraft did not launch until the fog lifted, Army bombers were not hampered by the weather. A formation of twinengine bombers attacked Baguio at around 9:30. Accounts differ as to when Iba was attacked. Although most historians record that the field was attacked simultaneously with Clark, other reports indicate that Iba was first struck at daybreak, shortly after the 3rd Pursuit Squadron returned from its attempted interception of the Japanese formation just before dawn. Based on reports from those interviewed by Edmonds, the Iba attack came shortly before the attack on Clark. At 5 AM General Brereton was at General MacArthur’s headquarters at Manila. The Air Corps commander wished to gain permission from MacArthur for a strike on the Japanese airfields on Formosa, or so he said in his memoir. According to legend, General Richard K. Sutherland, MacArthur’s chief of staff, kept Brereton from meeting with his boss. MacArthur claimed that he was never consulted about an attack and that he would not have approved it anyway, as it would have been futile. Whether MacArthur’s observation was 55

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based on the reality of the time or came through the gift of hindsight, it was pretty astute. Regardless of what really happened, at 10:14 Brereton reported that he received a phone call from MacArthur authorizing him to carry out an attack on Formosa in late afternoon at his discretion. A few minutes before the phone call, Lt. Col. Eugene Eubank, the commander of V Bomber Command, left for Clark with orders to dispatch a reconnaissance flight over the Japanese airfields on Formosa in preparation for a strike. There is reason to believe that Brereton

UNFORTUNATELY, THE EFFORT OF THE AMERICAN P-35 AND P-40 PILOTS WAS TOO LITTLE AND PERHAPS TOO LATE. THE DEVASTATION TO THE AIR CORPS AT CLARK WAS OVERWHELMING. received authority, possibly from Sutherland, to mount an air strike against Japanese installations on Formosa as early as 8 AM. Instead of taking no action, as so many have asserted, the Army Air Forces in the Philippines were very active from the moment they were notified of the attack on Pearl Harbor and Hickam, and even earlier in the case of the squadron at Iba. Fighter patrols were in the air within an hour of the notification that war had come. Around 8 AM, at the insistence of Colonel Harold George, the chief of staff of V Fighter Command, all of the B-17s at Clark were ordered to take off so they would not be caught on the ground by an expected Japanese attack. The detachment at Mindanao was notified to prepare to return to Clark for a bombing mission. At 9:23, Colonel George reported that two formations of multiengine bombers were over northern Luzon. The 20th Pursuit Squadron was directed to make the interception, but the Japanese turned east and struck the Filipino summer capital of Baguio instead of continuing south toward Clark Field or Manila as expected. Other Filipino cities were reportedly bombed during the morning hours, including Tarlac, a town just north of Clark Field, and Tugegararo, a city in northern Luzon. American P-40s from the 20th Pursuit Squadron had expected to 56

intercept the Japanese fighters over Rosales, a town south of Baguio, but failed to make contact with the enemy. By all indications, Iba was the first Air Corps field to be attacked. Some have written that the tiny airstrip was attacked shortly after dawn as the P-40s from the 3rd Pursuit Squadron were returning from their predawn attempted interception over the China Sea. Such, however, apparently was not the case. Nor were all of the 3rd airplanes destroyed on the ground. In fact, only one was on the ground when the Japanese bombers appeared overhead. The rest were still airborne. Edmonds reports that the telephone line between Iba and Clark went dead at 11 AM, leaving radio contact as the base’s only means of communicating with other units. Thirty minutes later, the Iba radar picked up a large formation about 100 miles out to sea. The 3rd Squadron commander, Lieutenant H.G. Thorne, ordered his pilots to start their engines, but to remain on the ground since the Japanese seemed to be milling around over the ocean. Shortly after the 3rd Pursuit pilots manned their aircraft, they received an order from Interceptor Command headquarters to take off and climb to 15,000 feet and to remain over Iba. All 18 airplanes took off, in three flights of six airplanes each, but they never assembled as a squadron, apparently due to the difficult communications from the radio clutter on the fighter frequency. At the time, there were fighters in the air all over Luzon, and all were trying to obtain instructions. One flight from Iba headed for Manila in hopes of receiving explicit instructions. After circling over Nichols Field for a while and receiving no orders, the flight commander led them back toward Iba as their fuel supply began to dwindle. They arrived over Iba to discover the field under attack. The P-40s dove into the Japanese and broke up a strafing attack before it got started, but their fuel was low and they had to get on the ground. Four were shot down while trying to land at Iba; one pilot crashlanded in the sea just off the airfield, and one flight went to Clark and joined the combat there. Several 3rd Squadron airplanes found safety at Rosales, a strip near Lingayen Gulf. Even though the P-40s broke up the Japanese strafing attack, the level bombers hit the field with pinpoint accuracy, destroying the radar site, killing the operators, and hitting the few buildings on the field. Casualties were reported as 50 percent either wounded or killed, and the airfield was rendered useless. The flight surgeon, Lieutenant Frank Richardson, rounded up as

many trucks as he could find and loaded them with wounded. He then set out down the coast for Manila. Lieutenant F.C. Roberts, the pilot who crashlanded on the beach, organized the uninjured survivors and led them on a march through the mountains toward Clark. Failing to find a cart track leading toward Fort Stotsenburg, many of the men got lost and wandered in the junglecovered mountains for several days. After receiving approval to launch an attack on Formosa, Brereton recalled the bombers to Clark to refuel and rearm. He ordered Eubank to have the B-17s armed with 100- and 300pound bombs and to have the crews briefed for an attack on Japanese airfields in southern Formosa late that evening. He also sent word to Del Monte ordering the two squadrons of B-17s that were there on deployment back to Luzon in preparation for an attack the next morning, but to use an emergency strip at San Marcelino rather than Clark itself. They were to be prepared to fly a mission at daybreak the following morning. Two B-17s were dispatched on reconnaissance missions over Formosa. It was not until 11:30 that the last bomber landed. Although it is commonly believed that the attack on Clark came without warning, in fact the radar report from Iba of a large formation over the China Sea had been sent to Fighter Command. The target was believed to be Manila, and the 17th Pursuit Squadron was ordered into the air to patrol over Manila Bay. The 34th Pursuit was supposed to take off and cover Clark but failed to get the word. When Japanese planes appeared over Clark, the 21st Pursuit took off to intercept them but was diverted to patrol over Cavite. The 20th Pursuit was on the ground at Clark refueling after its fruitless mission over northern Luzon in the morning. The 19th Bombardment Group B-17s were in the process of refueling and rearming. Some of the crews had gone to the mess tent for the noon meal. The first attack on Clark came from a 54plane formation of level bombers, which flew over at 18,000 feet. The bombs impacted across the field diagonally, and most of the buildings were hit. The flight line where the B-17s were parked received very little damage from the attack, but most of the P-40s were hit. When the bombs began falling, Lieutenant Joseph H. Moore led a four-plane formation of P-40s off the ground. Ten others were behind them preparing to take off. They were caught in the bomb pattern, and most were destroyed without getting off the ground.

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Lloyd Stinson via Robert F. Dorr

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TOP: Built for Sweden but diverted to U.S. forces after a 1940 embargo on overseas sales, P-35s of the 20th Pursuit Squadron fly over Clark Field in the summer of 1941. ABOVE: A Mitsubishi Ki-51 Type 99 “Sonia” dive-bomber, comparable in size and performance to the German Stuka Ju-87 photographed after a raid against targets on Luzon.

At this point, the B-17s were still largely undamaged, but the bombing was followed several minutes later by a vicious strafing attack by Japanese fighters that came right down on the deck, pouring cannon fire into the parked bombers. The Japanese were not unopposed.

The first flight of Zeros was intercepted by Joe Moore and his three wingmen. Lieutenant Randall D. Keator promptly shot down a Zero and was awarded the Silver Star for the first recorded American victory of the Southwest Pacific War. Moore got two more.

The P-35s of the 34th Pursuit took off from Del Carmen for Clark and were promptly intercepted by Japanese fighters. Although the victories could not be confirmed, 34th pilots claimed to have shot down three of the Japanese fighters. Another interception was made by the six P-40s of C Flight from the 3rd Pursuit which had rushed to Clark after receiving word that it was under attack. Unfortunately, all six airplanes were low on fuel and one pilot bailed out when his engine quit. He was strafed by Zeros while he hung in his parachute. One P-40 flew into the side of Mt. Ararat, a huge volcano just east of Clark Field. Lieutenant Herbert Ellis had to bail out of his burning airplane, but not before he shot down three Japanese fighters. Unfortunately, the effort of the American P35 and P-40 pilots was too little and perhaps too late. The devastation to the Air Corps at Clark was overwhelming. All of the B-17s on the ground were severely damaged in the strafing attack, but three would be repaired. Damage to the fighter force was equally great, although many of the fighters were lost to causes other than enemy action. Several ran out of fuel and others crash-landed due to engine trouble because they had not been properly broken in. Nearly every airplane on the ground at Clark was destroyed, with the most serious losses being the B-17s and the 10 P-40s that were caught in the bomb pattern before they could get off the ground. The disaster at Clark was not caused so much by a lack of preparedness on the part of the military as by a combination of factors that stacked up against the U.S. forces. Had the B-17s remained aloft or been sent south to Mindanao until the Allied force could get organized, they would have been spared. Had the fighters from Nichols Field continued to Clark, they might have broken up the strafing attack as the 3rd Pursuit P-40s did at Iba. The loss of the 10 P-40s from the 20th Pursuit was more a matter of timing than anything else. The airplanes were refueled, armed, and ready to go, but they started taking to the air a few minutes too late. Regardless of the reasons, the Air Corps at Clark had suffered grievously. The remaining pilots would fight gloriously over the next few weeks and months, but the ultimate fate of the Philippines had been determined long before the first bombs fell at Clark Field. ■ Sam McGowan is the author of The Cave, a novel of the Vietnam War. He has also written extensively on the subject of air power during World War II. 57

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P R E S A G I N G

W

hen Lt. Cmdr. Matsuo Fuchida, commander of the Japanese strike force at Pearl Harbor, arrived over the naval base on the morning of December 7, 1941, the sight that greeted him—enemy battleships resting placidly at anchor—put him in mind of an earlier war. Have these Americans never heard of Port Arthur? he thought, just before sending an encoded radio transmission (Tora! Tora! Tora!) informing his superiors that Japan had achieved surprise at the beginning of this war as well. Military historians analyzing the Pearl Harbor operation in the larger context of a “Japanese way of war” owe Fuchida a debt of gratitude for his observation. In referencing the incident that kicked off the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-1905, Fuchida

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BY STEVEN WEINGARTNER

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greatly simplified the historians’ job of establishing historical links needed to legitimize and explain the idea of a Japanese way of war. Nevertheless, the Port ArthurPearl Harbor analogy is pretty obvious, so much so that Fuchida’s acumen would be open to question had it escaped his notice. But here the obvious tends to obscure what is truly important. Port Arthur specifically, and the Russo-Japanese War generally, presage Pearl Harbor and the Pacific War in ways that Fuchida (and most historians) failed to detect. Fuchida is to be pardoned for this failure: he was, after all, busy at the time. Otherwise it might have occurred to him to ask the same question from the Japanese perspective: Have we, the Japanese, never heard of Port Arthur? The answer, fully considered, should have given him and his countrymen pause. First, one must consider the political context of the Port

H A R B O R Arthur attack. On February 2, 1904, Vice Adm. Heihachiro Togo, commander of the Japanese battle fleet, received a telegram from his Navy chief of staff informing him that a formal declaration of war could come only after the attack on the Russian naval installation had been executed. On February 6, two days before the attack, diplomatic ties between the two countries were severed, producing a de facto state of war. (Formal declarations of war would not be issued until February 10.) The shooting war actually began in the harbor of Chemulpo (Inchon), north of Port Arthur, at about 2:30 PM on February 7, when Russian gunboat Koreetz exchanged fire with attacking Japanese warships. On the morning of the 8th, Japanese warships engaged and sank Koreetz, cruiser Varyag, and Russian merchantman Sangori in an action that concluded around noon.

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EARL HARBO : P R A

R E A S S E S S M E N T

O F

T H E

JAPANESE WAY OF WAR

The USS West Virginia, Tennessee, and Arizona smolder and smoke in the aftermath of the surprise aerial attack by a fleet of Japanese aircraft carriers.

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Togo’s fleet did not strike Port Arthur until about 11 PM that same day, more than 12 hours after the first major naval engagement of the war and some 19 hours after the first shots had been fired. Hence the operation at Port Arthur was a tactical surprise but not a diplomatic surprise. When the attack came, the two belligerent nations were in an acknowledged and real state of war. It is important to grasp that the Port Arthur operation achieved little of substance. Serious damage was inflicted on Russian cruiser Pallada and battleships Retvizan and Tsarevitch; all were grounded, all were raised and repaired and would participate in subsequent engagements with Togo’s ships. The Japanese coup de main failed to deliver the knockout blow they had sought. The Port Arthur squadron survived the Japanese surprise attack, and in so doing helped prolong Russian resistance in the siege that followed, thus extending the war as well. The tactic of surprise had proved to be a nonstarter. Yet it would remain a key element of the Japanese way of war, so much so that it would be elevated from the tactical to the strategic level, becoming a cornerstone of Japanese strategy formulations for the Pacific War of 1941-1945.

“Rashness in war is prudence,” Admiral Sir John Fisher declared, “prudence in war is imbecility.” This is the sort of oratorical broadside for which Britain’s habitually colorful First Sea Lord (1904-1910) was famous. One scarcely knows what to make of it. When Fisher wanted to make a point he was liable to say anything. Some paid more attention than others. The Japanese, for instance: Fisher was their prophet of naval warfare, his utterances accepted as gospel. In practice during the Russo-Japanese War the “rashness as prudence” policy provided the Japanese Navy with a measure of overall success. But only a measure: although the defeat of the Tsar’s navy in Far Eastern waters was nearly total, it was not timely and, at Port Arthur, it was not even achieved by the Japanese fleet. The destruction of the Port Arthur squadron was achieved by the Japanese Army, specifically by the Army’s big siege guns. Curiously, the bombardment that ended the squadron’s existence began on December 7, 1904—37 years to the day before Fuchida and his fellow aviators appeared in the skies over Pearl Harbor. The subsequent annihilation of an entire Russian fleet in the Straits of Tsushima was 60

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A LACK OF PRESCIENCE

TOP: Japanese soldiers in the 1904-1905 war against the Russians. They relied a great deal on aggressiveness. ABOVE: A Japanese officer, hand on sword, leads infantrymen against the Chinese. The samurai mystique pervaded the armed forces. OPPOSITE: Japanese leadership in the late 1930s. Emperor Hirohito is at right front, Hideki Tojo second row middle.

stunning, and Togo’s maneuverings in the battle could certainly be interpreted as rash. Anyway, by then the war had been pretty much decided. And though Japan was the undeniable victor, the war was not decided entirely in her favor. Nor could it be. In Manchuria, of which Port Arthur was a southern port, Japan had won but she had not conquered. By war’s end, her manpower reserves were dwindling; she was running out of materiel (particularly battleships) and money, along with nations and banks willing to provide more of both; and Russian forces

in Manchuria remained, quite improbably and despite multiple defeats on the battlefield and revolutionary ferment on the home front, a threat to Japanese interests in Asia. Here one would point out that the European great powers and the United States were unanimous and quite enthusiastic in their support for Japan; they were all to varying degrees hostile to Russia and quite favorably disposed to the Japanese. In the months leading up to the outbreak of war, Europe and the United States did not even bother to conceal their favoritism: All wanted to see the “plucky Japanese” (an oft-

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used term at the time) defeat Russia. Indeed from achieving what would have been a deci- were unfavorable, at least seemingly so to the Japanese in light of what they thought and Japan would not have dared go to war against sive victory against the Japanese Army. The Japanese were quite cognizant of the sit- what their own propaganda told them was a Russia unless she had previously secured the approval of the United States and Europe, Great uation’s grim potentialities. In fact, they had comprehensive victory against Russia. This Britain in particular. If Great Britain had told gone to war worried that this was the course it prompted bitterness among Japanese military Japan that the latter should forbear from hos- would take, more or less. Just days before the elites and nationalists, who subsequently protilities, there would have been no Russo-Japan- attack at Port Arthur, the Japanese government moted the canard that they had been ill-served ese War. But Great Britain was then hostile to had arranged for a diplomat to be sent to the by a willfully malevolent United States. Coming to terms at Portsmouth, however, Russia and so gave the Japanese the green light. United States. And so, even before the outbreak Given that this was the case, it should come of hostilities, the Japanese were anticipating may have been the wisest strategic move Japan as no surprise that the Japanese obtained much that they would not win the war decisively, that made in that war. It was predicated by the of their wartime financing in the form of loans a negotiated settlement, brokered by President recognition of eventual failure—the failure to provided by Kuhn, Loeb, and Company, a New Theodore Roosevelt, would be needed to end beat Russia decisively. The Japanese knew they York City banking firm headed by Jacob Schiff. the fighting. The diplomat had been sent ahead did not have the resources to fight a long war Securing these loans while the war was ongoing to represent Japanese interests and otherwise against a determined foe and had planned their was vital for the Japanese, who had run out of lay the groundwork for a favorable settlement. war-termination strategy accordingly. Japan’s When the peace conference convened in 1941 leadership lacked such prescience. Nor money and would have been unable to purchase arms, munitions, and related materiel on the Portsmouth, NH, on August 8, 1905, the was the option of a negotiated settlement brointernational market without the monies they Japanese were desperate to bring it to a swift kered by a Western power available to them. provided. The Japanese had gone to war in conclusion. Of course the terms they received The nations that had been most sympathetic to the Japanese in 1904 (notably, Britain expectation of gaining a swift victory and the United States) became her over Russia, despite the fact that main enemies in 1941. Unfortunately nobody ever achieves a swift victory for Japan, her war-fighting capabiliover Russia. They had planned for a THE JAPANESE HAD GONE ties remained, in relative terms, short war that would not cost too unchanged from 1905. She still much. They had neither the resources TO WAR EXPECTING A SWIFT lacked the resources to fight a long nor the finances to fight the sort of VICTORY OVER RUSSIA, war against a determined foe. war in which they soon found themThe Japanese would not admit to selves embroiled. As it happened, DESPITE THE FACT THAT this deficiency. It was more imporhowever, Jacob Schiff and his coltant, in 1905, to claim victory over a leagues were Jews who were eager to NOBODY EVER ACHIEVES A Western power. Thus they did not see the virulently anti-Semitic Russian and would not come to grips with empire humbled by the Japanese. The SWIFT VICTORY OVER RUSSIA. fundamental flaws in their thinking Easter Sunday 1905 massacre of Jews about the way wars could and should in Kishniev (near Odessa), which was be fought. A pattern was set: a patconducted by civilians but tolerated tern of rashness as prudence, pruby the police, gave the bankers further dence as imbecility. The Japanese motivation to provide additional would try it again, first at Peking’s funding to the Japanese, even though Marco Polo Bridge in July 1937, then it was obvious that Japan would have at Pearl Harbor in December 1941. a hard time making good on the The result in the short term would be loans. When the funding dried up, the victory; in the long term, defeat. Japanese sought an end to the war. Why did the funding dry up? Because the Japanese were not PREDICTIONS achieving decisive results in AND PESSIMISM Manchuria, such results being the In the Russo-Japanese War, and again condition for securing further loans. in the euphemistically termed 1937 One may well argue that Russia “China Incident,” and finally in the would have won the war had it conPacific War, Japan’s limited resources tinued for another six months. The imposed restrictions on her military military situation in Manchuria was strategy and on the thinking used to turning against Japan and it was only devise strategy. Japanese strategy for domestic upheavals far to the West in fighting the Pacific War was worse European Russia that prevented the than unimaginative; it was virtually Russian military, which was eagerly nonexistent. The Pearl Harbor operdisposed to the war’s continuation, ation has been often described as a 61

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bold and daring stroke. It was not. To be sure, Japanese aviators displayed skill and daring in their actions. And the cross-ocean movement, in secret, of the Japanese strike force was a nervy endeavor, executed to near perfection. But the attack itself was essentially a repeat performance of the 1904 operation at Port Arthur, where tactical surprise was gained and little of substance was achieved. At Port Arthur the Japanese used tactical surprise to achieve what they hoped would be a strategically decisive victory. Pearl Harbor is a different matter. It is difficult to ascertain precisely what the Japanese hoped to achieve with a surprise attack on the U.S. Pacific Fleet. The historical record is not helpful in this regard.

Japanese; but, as British military historian H.P. Willmott has observed in communications with this author, a third strike on December 7 or in the two days following was never seriously contemplated because it was beyond Japanese capabilities: “Regarding criticism of [the Japanese] for not ordering a follow-up strike against the shore installations of Pearl Harbor,” writes Willmott, “there are three points to be made. First, not enough aircraft were available for a follow-up strike. Second, such a strike was rendered impracticable—consider the question of timing of such a strike in light of the relative lateness of the hour when the Japanese carriers completed the recovery of aircraft and the state of

WHAT DID THE JAPANESE COMMANDERS OF THE PEARL HARBOR FORCE THINK THEY HAD ACCOMPLISHED UPON THE RETURN OF THEIR SECOND WAVE? Nor could it be. A study of the period and events leading up to the outbreak of the Pacific War reveals no clear sense among the Japanese of the strategic purpose for the attack. The tactical objectives are not in dispute: The Japanese wanted to sink ships, destroy aircraft and infrastructure, and thereby incapacitate the Pacific Fleet for a limited period, during which they might carry off their conquests of the Dutch East Indies, British Malaya, and the American Philippines with minimal interference from Allied naval forces. But to what ultimate end? The Japanese could not answer this question even to their own satisfaction. Their war aims were uncertain; they were not sure what the war should or could accomplish. They had no real plan for winning the war, much less ending it. Their strategy was tautological: They wanted to fight a war to gain oil in order to fight a war. That being the case, the Pearl Harbor operation may be seen as little more than a means for the Japanese to effect an advantageous start to the war. In this they were successful, but the advantages gained thereby were not impressive. Two strikes against Pearl Harbor proved insufficient to neutralize American power in the Pacific for an indefinite period. A third strike would have bought more time for the 62

the escorting destroyers with regard to oil. [By then the destroyers would have needed refueling.] Third, and most importantly, despite various claims and the account of proceedings that have been written, a follow-up or third strike was never considered in the Akagi once the recovery of aircraft was completed. . . . The various claims that have been made to the effect that on 8 December 1941 the Imperial Navy had an opportunity, that never again presented itself, to inflict telling strategic damage on the United States by means of a third strike bears precious little accord with the reality of losses incurred in the course of the two attacks of the morning of December 7, 1941. The task force as a whole must have incurred a considerably higher number of damaged aircraft overall.” According to Willmott, in two strikes the Japanese suffered damage to as many as 112 aircraft, of which 65 were the potent Val divebombers. “Given that American antiaircraft fire that greeted the second-wave attack prompted the decision that any follow-up attack [i.e., a third strike] would not include Kate torpedo bombers, the whole question of another attack really must have been problematic. The figures would suggest that 15 Vals were lost and 65 were damaged—from a total of 135. This would mean that the number of aircraft that

could have been made available for a third strike would be relatively few.” At Pearl Harbor the U.S. Pacific Fleet was crippled but the damage to it was by no means irreparable. The Japanese should have known going in that this would be the result: It was one of the lessons they should have learned at Port Arthur. Ships sunk in shallow harbor waters can usually be repaired, refloated, and restored to active duty. (At Pearl Harbor Arizona was the exception that proved the rule: She blew up, probably because a bomb exploded in one of her magazines. Hers was an unusual fate. In the modern era most battleships lost in combat sank without first blowing up.) The lack of intent by the Japanese to launch a third strike indicates both strategic shortsightedness and tactical rigidity. As well it implies a lack of confidence in their ability to achieve their tactical aims. One therefore wonders what, precisely, the Japanese thought to accomplish at Pearl Harbor other than the sinking of some battleships (and, they hoped, aircraft carriers) plus the destruction of a few score aircraft. At this juncture it is well to recall Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto’s famous prediction about the possible course of the war. On September 12, 1941, Yamamoto, meeting with Prince Fuimaro Konoye (then prime minister of Japan) at the latter’s home in Tokyo, told his host that, in the event of war, Japanese forces could be expected to “run wild for a year or a year and a half.” An optimistic assessment, to be sure. But it came with an ominous disclaimer: “I cannot guarantee anything after that.” Implicit and obvious in Yamamoto’s remark is a deep-seated pessimism. It would seem that the so-called architect of Japanese strategy feared that the edifice of victory he designed could not withstand the storms of war that would eventually rage against it. The reason for his pessimism was not apparent in the aftermath of the Pearl Harbor operation. The raid on the naval base posted results that were deceiving to attackers and defenders alike. Initially, the crippling of the U.S. Pacific Fleet, along with the attendant loss of life and destruction or damage to port facilities, aircraft, and assorted materiel, suggested to almost everyone on both sides of the newly begun conflict that the Americans had suffered disaster. Events in the six months that followed seemed to confirm this view—and Yamamoto’s prediction. From December 7, 1941 through May 1942, the Japanese inflicted a series of defeats on Allied forces from the Hawaiian Islands in the east to Burma in the west. Then came the battles of

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Coral Sea and Midway, reverses in New Guinea, and the American landings on Guadalcanal. It was much as Yamamoto had foreseen, except that the bad times for Japan began much sooner that he anticipated. By the summer of 1942 he could not guarantee anything and achieved nothing of importance. In April 1943, he was killed when American fighters shot down the bomber in which he was a passenger.

THREE STRIKES AND OUT This brings us back to the subject of the nonoccurring third strike at Pearl Harbor. If the Japanese never intended to launch a third strike, even if the opportunity to do so had presented itself and even if a third strike would have yielded important results, then it would seem reasonable to surmise that many of Japan’s military leaders shared Yamamoto’s pessimism, either consciously or otherwise. The Pearl Harbor operation was an audacious undertaking but evidently the Japanese were not audacious enough. In fact, they played things very safe. One might say that their nerve failed them in both the planning and the attack

stages of the operation. This seems to be a common theme in Japanese military operations. They often conceived bold and risky operations but did not execute them past a certain point where greater risk would have been encountered and, by the same token, where truly great results might have been achieved. What did Japanese commanders of the Pearl Harbor force think they had accomplished upon the return of their second wave? Did they really believe they had inflicted a shattering and possibly strategic defeat on the Americans? If so, what was the basis for their belief? And if they were unclear about what they had accomplished, why did they not try to determine the extent of the damage? Did they even consider such an undertaking (presumably through aerial reconnaissance and signals intelligence), or were they so wedded to the notion of “two strikes and out” that they did not give it a first, much less a second, thought? The Japanese did not keep good written records, so it is impossible to answer these questions with certainty. If, indeed, the destruction of Pearl Harbor’s oil-storage facilities—the presumptive target of

a third strike—might have accomplished something on the order of a strategic victory, then it takes one’s breath away to realize that the Japanese war-fighting system was too inflexible to take advantage of the circumstances. One may well regard this inflexibility as a sign or manifestation of pessimism. Yamamoto was not alone in this regard. When one makes reference to a war-fighting system one is talking about the many rather than the few, or the solitary. It is evident that a number of Japanese military and civilian leaders harbored the same or similar forebodings as Yamamoto’s; that the pessimism Yamamoto felt must have been deepseated and endemic in the Japanese ruling and military castes. So much so that their war plans and the execution of those plans were negatively affected on every level of warfare—the tactical, operational, and strategic. Yamamoto did not offer a scenario for the latter stages of the war: He did not guarantee anything, neither victory nor defeat. To offer specifics would have been out of character for the Japanese. Such opinions were best expressed elliptically. Which is not to say that Yamamoto

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Japanese airmen take to their planes for the attack on Pearl Harbor. The Japanese fleet sailed through storm and fog across the North Pacific and away from the normal sea lanes to arrive undetected two hundred miles away from Hawaii on the morning of December 7.

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was obfuscating. His meaning must have been clear to his peers and colleagues. His prediction was an admission of the likelihood of defeat—a sense that Japan was doomed from the start. His refusal to directly and unequivocally articulate this dire assessment is mirrored on a broader scale by the failure of Japanese military leaders to articulate anything like a strategy for winning the war, much less to adequately prepare for a prolonged conflict. This is a telling failure, one that reveals much about what could be termed the Japanese way of war. The Japanese knew or suspected before Pearl Harbor that they would enjoy early victory but suffer ultimate defeat. That being the case, the decision to go to war becomes irrational, even insane, and victory at Pearl Harbor becomes the harbinger of disaster, hence an integral part of the catastrophe it helped to create. The attack on Pearl Harbor had within it the makings of a disaster, not for the Americans but for the Japanese. The Japanese went to war like gamblers to a gaming table, willing to bet all their money on a few throws of the dice, knowing that the odds were heavily against them— knowing that, in the end, the house always wins. It is said that compulsive gamblers have a deep-seated desire to lose—that their gambling is an addiction, a sickness, a form of insanity. The same symptoms might well be applied to a description of the Japanese way of war. Pearl Harbor was not the first time the Japanese gambled at war; rather, it marked the beginning of the end of a long string of victories at the roulette wheel of war. In the end, the house always wins: In the Pacific War of 19411945, the house won; the gambler was finally busted out.

RACISM AND THE JAPANESE WAY OF WAR In lieu of strategy the Japanese had racism. The Japanese plan for winning the war was based on a racist assumption; that is, that they would give Westerners (Americans and British especially) and the Chinese such a beating at the start that we would not want to fight on to the bitter end. It thus bears repeating: At its core the entire Japanese plan for fighting and winning the war was based on the assumption of their racial and cultural superiority over Caucasians and Chinese. In particular they were counting on the fact that Americans and their Allies didn’t have the will or the fortitude to further contest the victories the Japanese would certainly achieve in the first six months or so after Pearl Harbor. Whether they truly believed that this 64

would prove to be the case is a question well worth asking but certainly unanswerable. At the risk of indulging in dime-store psychologizing, one might say that they were collectively, as a nation and a people, in a deep state of denial about the true nature of their enemies and how they were likely to react. Did this same mind-set also contribute to the failure of imagination evident in their belief that battleships sunk in the shallow waters of Pearl Harbor would stay sunk? Or that the destruction of several score of mostly obsolescent aircraft at Hickham Field constituted a big victory—that American industry could not quickly make good these losses? H.P. Willmott speculates, purely for the sake of argument, that the Japanese might have achieved better results with a two-strike attack on the shore facilities that would leave the ships untouched. Of course, an untouched U.S. Pacific Fleet would have left the Japanese more vulnerable to a counterstrike. But what if the Japanese had incorporated the expectation and realization of such a counterstrike into their operational planning? In other words, strike first at the base facilities and thereby achieve strategic aims of destroying reserve oil supplies, repair facilities, and the like; then lure the American fleet into open waters and there engage it in a decisive battle employing surface warships and aircraft carriers. Had the Japanese been truly daring they would have devised a plan to lure the U.S. Pacific Fleet out of Pearl Harbor in order to engage and annihilate it in the old-fashioned and decisive Tsushima-style battle that most senior commanders in the Japanese Navy (and the U.S. Navy as well) truly desired. Was it not prewar doctrine for both Japan and America to decide a war between the two nations with a climactic mid-Pacific fleet encounter? Why did the Japanese not attempt this instead of resorting to the safer course of sinking American ships in the shallows of Pearl Harbor? Can one not surmise that Japanese civilian and senior military commanders lacked confidence in the Japanese Navy’s ability to achieve victory in such a fleet-to-fleet encounter? Another question bears asking: Why did the Japanese not seek a decisive fleet-to-fleet encounter with the Americans, if not immediately after Pearl Harbor then in the weeks following the attack? A possible answer is that the Japanese themselves, by the temporary damage they inflicted to the Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbor, ensured that there would not be an American fleet to fight, at least for the time being. But if

this were the case, why did they not adopt a forward offensive policy in the Eastern Pacific, that is, in the zone between Pearl Harbor and the West Coast? Why did they not undertake subsequent operations against Pearl Harbor— before Midway? Would not the possible success of such an approach have also led to the isolation and capture of the vital Dutch East Indies? In sum, one may well ask whether there were alternative strategies that the Japanese might have pursued in the first weeks of the war that would have proved more successful to their war effort in the long run. The Japanese in the Pacific War have always been portrayed as bold gamblers, yet the truth is they were anything but. They hedged their bets and this trait played a major role in their downfall. Their real recklessness lay in their decision to go to war absent the will to prosecute the war in a manner that would achieve something at least resembling success. Thus, in the final analysis, Pearl Harbor was more of a publicity stunt than a military victory. The aforementioned lack of will is evident in their failure to plan for a third strike. And this failure is in turn emblematic of the bankrupt nature of Japanese war plans and execution. It would seem that deep down the Japanese never believed they would or could win. Underlying their sense of cultural and racial superiority was a sense of inferiority. The war was to be a death ride. One would therefore contend that the Pearl Harbor operation, a tactical victory with favorable results in the short term, was the beginning of a disaster in the long term: in other words, a disaster in the making. One would further contend that the flawed nature of the Pearl Harbor operation, so reminiscent of previous wars fought by Japan, was symptomatic of the Japanese way of war. ■ Note: The author wishes to thank H.P. Willmott for contributing his insights, ideas, and information to this discussion. Any flaws in the interpretation of Willmott’s remarks are the fault of the author. Willmott is the author of numerous books on the military history of World War II, notably Empires in the Balance: Japanese and Allied Pacific Strategies to April 1942, and The Barrier and the Javelin: Japanese & Allied Pacific Strategies, February to June 1942. Steven Weingartner is editor of the Cantigny Military History Series and author and editor of books and articles on military affairs and related topics, including Lala’s Story: A Memoir of the Holocaust (Northwestern University Press, 1997).

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Remembering Pearl Harbor: Where Conspiracy Theories go to Die States had several warnings and indications, we refused to believe that it could happen. A closer look at the attack reveals the following: Roosevelt did not line up the airplanes bumper to SEVENTY YEARS HAVE PASSED bumper so that they could be since the Japanese attack on Pearl destroyed. He did not open the Harbor. In the perspective of hisantisubmarine nets at Pearl Hartory, the span of 70 years is only a bor so that Japanese subs could flash, but it is a long time in the life sneak in. He did not spot the of an individual. Those today who Japanese airplanes on radar and remember Pearl Harbor as a direct mistake them for his own planes. experience have attained senior He did not allow scout planes to citizen status, yet the subject continues to fascinate them and others. The Japanese midget sub of Ensign Kazuo Sakamaki was damaged during the attack fly over Pearl Harbor two hours and washed ashore near Bellows Field. Sakamaki was the first Japanese captured by before the attack and report that Instead of clarifying the subject, the United States. Pearl Harbor slept. He was not however, the years have comresponsible for the failure to do pounded it and, as Admiral Kimanything about the midget submarine sighting the attack and let it happen so that the United mel’s lawyer once told me, “Pearl Harbor and sinking just before the attack. He did not States could enter the war on the side of the never dies and no living person has seen the Allies; and that the two commanders, Admiral order the carriers out to sea, nor did he end of it.” change the alert system to the confusion of Husband Kimmel and Lt. Gen. Walter Short, Many questions were raised then. How the leaders in Washington. All these changes were sacrificial lambs for the president. could it have happened? How could the and errors were made by and under the comHence, instead of concentrating on the Japanese sail more than 4,000 miles across mand at Pearl Harbor—Admiral Husband attack itself and what could be done to prethe Pacific without being detected? How Kimmel and Lt. Gen. Walter Short. vent such an attack from happening again, could they have developed a torpedo that It is true that FDR wanted to get into authors have tended to write about the conwould not sink in the mud of Pearl Harbor, World War II, but he wanted to fight in spiracy theory. Thus a spate of books have which was less than 40 feet deep? How could Europe, not Asia. Hitler did him the favor of been written about Pearl Harbor indicating they have developed a bomb that would pendeclaring war on the United States four days that FDR and his staff knew the attack was etrate the decks of American battleships? after Pearl Harbor. coming and let it happen. In short, how could they come into the In the coming years, papers will be released Along with my mentor, Gordon W. Prange, very heart of the great American Navy, sink from the British archives that may shed new and my assistant, Katherine V. Dillon, I have or damage eight battleships, kill more than light on this important subject, but after 70 been studying the Pearl Harbor attack for 2,400 people, wound 1,178 more, destroy years there is no proof that FDR knew the more than 50 years and nowhere could we 164 aircraft, damage another 128, and lose Japanese attack was coming. However, there find one document that actually implicates only 29 aircraft and 59 men, one large subare still many unanswered questions. Doubt FDR. What we have found are generalities marine, and five midget subs, and not be will probably always linger. It does keep peosuch as “would have,” “could have,” caught? ple interested, and it does sell books. Where were the U.S. aircraft carriers? What “should have,” “must have,” and “might In the military, the man in charge—the one have.” We have read every telegram, every about the U.S. radar? How much did Presion the bridge—is the one responsible. It may document, and every message we could find dent Roosevelt know? Was there a third not be fair, but that’s the way it is. Kimmel on the attack—all to no avail at uncovering wave? Why didn’t the Japanese finish off the and Short were not the only ones who bear any conspiracy. Americans when they could have? How responsibility. There were others who What we have found is several messages about the breaking of the Japanese code? that indicated the Japanese might attack Pearl dropped the ball, but Kimmel and Short were Most important: Could it happen again? the ones in charge. Harbor, but they were either entered into the After 70 years, these and many other quesIn the final analysis, like the attack on the record late or translated after the attack. In tions remain. Deriving from these questions World Trade Center on September 11, 2001, short, using an old sports adage, if we had were the myth and theory, which still exist the enemy caught us asleep and, unfortuknown Sunday what we knew Monday, we today, that the Japanese could not have possinately, At Dawn would have thrown the ball to the tight end bly launched the attack without being We Slept. ■ detected; that President Roosevelt knew about and won the game. Even though the United BY DONALD M. GOLDSTEIN Professor of History Emeritus, University of Pittsburgh, and coauthor of At Dawn We Slept.

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The battleships U.S.S. West Virginia (foreground) and U.S.S. Tennessee burn after the Japanese attack in this famous colorized photo.

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A

THE SALVAGE OPERATIONS THAT FOLLOWED THE JAPANESE ATTACK ON PEARL HARBOR WERE AN EPIC OF SKILL, BRAVERY, AND INGENUITY.

MAGNITUDE NEVER IMAGINED

THE PEARL HARBOR DISASTER presented the U.S. Navy with a sobering question: how to recover? More than 2,000 men had died. Nearly half as many were wounded. Eighteen ships were damaged or sunk. “The scene to the newcomer was foreboding indeed. There was a general feeling of depression throughout the Pearl Harbor area when it was seen and firmly believed that none of the ships sunk would ever fight again.” This was a haunting sentiment from Captain Homer Wallin, the man who would lead the salvage effort. Admiral Chester Nimitz, named Commanderin-Chief of the Pacific Fleet (CINCPAC) days after the attack, flew to Hawaii to take command. He landed in Pearl Harbor on Christmas Day. His briefings had prepared him, or so he thought. Awestruck, he remarked, “This is terrible seeing all these ships down.” The ceremony installing Nimitz as CINCPAC was held on the deck of the Grayling, a submarine he had once commanded. Cynics commented that it was the only deck fit for the ceremony. The days of the Battleship Navy were over. The Japanese made the point again on December 10, sinking the British battleship Prince of Wales and the battlecruiser Repulse off Singapore. Nimitz’s aircraft carriers were now the heart of his strategy. Yet with proper escort, the battleships could

still be effective weapons. If they could be saved, Nimitz would give them work. The salvage effort began on December 7 when crews manned hoses to fight the fires while the attack was still under way. These firefighters were aided by boats, tugs, and even a garbage hauler. Men from the fleet’s base force brought pumps to battle the flooding. Rescue teams searched for sailors trapped in the capsized battleships Oklahoma and Utah. On January 9, 1942, Captain Wallin took charge of the Salvage Division, itself a new branch of the Navy Yard. A native of Washburn, ND, Homer Wallin had spent half his life training for this. Like many men raised far from the sea, he sought a naval career. He went to the U.S. Naval Academy in 1913, then served aboard the battleship New Jersey during World War I. He joined the Navy’s Construction Corps in 1918, and studied naval architecture at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. After completing his master of science degree in 1921, he spent the next 20 years in the New York, Philadelphia, and Mare Island Navy Yards, as well as at the Bureau of Construction and Repair in Washington, DC. Wallin’s Salvage Division had three clear goals: Rescue the men who were trapped aboard the ships, assess the damage to each

BY MIKE MCLAUGHLIN 67

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ABOVE: In dry dock, the hull of the battleship West Virginia shows the gaping hole blasted by a Japanese torpedo during the Pearl Harbor attack. OPPOSITE: In January 1942, the destroyers Cassin and Downes lie stripped of equipment in Dry Dock Number One.

ship, and repair as many as possible. The task was to fix each enough to be able to travel to the larger yards on the West Coast for complete restoration. The Japanese would come to regret leaving two vital areas of the harbor intact. The first was the fleet’s fuel supply—over 4.5 million gallons. The other was the Navy Yard, whose shops had a vast capacity to fix or build almost anything. “They built liberty boats, 25-foot motor whaleboats, any kind of harbor craft,” recalled Walter Bayer. “They could overhaul a 14- or 16-inch gun. Just pull them around on those big cranes, and handle them like they were toothpicks in those big buildings. They were enormous buildings. They still are.” Bayer grew up on the Hawaiian island of Kauai. In 1940, he became a civil service employee and went to work in the compressed gases plant in the Navy Yard. He was an assistant supervisor by December 1941. After the attack, demand for his services soared. “When 68

they organized to cut through the bottom of the Oklahoma—she had a double hull—the welders came to us to get acetylene and oxygen for their cutting torches. And they’d use it like water. It would just go in no time.” The new commandant of the yard was Admiral William Furlong. He and Nimitz were in the same class at Annapolis. Until December 25, 1941, Furlong had been Commander Minecraft, Battle Force. His flagship, the mine layer Oglala, had been sunk off the yard’s main pier, 1010 Dock. Furlong gave Wallin everything he needed: personnel, equipment, and waterfront work space. With a fleet of small vessels roaming the harbor, Wallin could send men and machinery wherever he needed them. He had experts to remove ammunition and ordnance materiel. He had divers trained to operate inside sunken ships. Plus he had the Pacific Bridge Company, whose men were contracted to build Navy facilities across the Pacific. One Navy diver was Metalsmith First Class

Edward Raymer. He had joined the service to escape the quiet life in Riverside, Calif. In 1940, he trained at the diving school in San Diego. His work clothes were rubberized coveralls with gloves, a lead-weighted belt (84 pounds), lead-weighted shoes (36 pounds each), and a copper helmet attached to a breastplate. Above water, the suit was awkward. Submerged, the weights counteracted the suit’s buoyancy, permitting the diver to move fairly easily. An air hose ran from the helmet to a compressor monitored by men on the surface. The diver carefully moved the hose with him while working within sunken ships. He often worked in total darkness. He took directions from the surface via telephone cable and needed heightened senses of touch and balance to work with welding torches and suction hoses. On December 8, 1941, Raymer’s team flew to Pearl. “Welcome to the Salvage Unit,” a tired warrant officer told them. “You will be attached to this command on temporary additional duty, which may not be temporary from the amount of diving work you see before you.” The team’s first assignment was to determine if men were trapped below the water level in the battleship Nevada. “To accomplish this,” Raymer remembered, “we lowered a diver from the sampan to a depth of 20 feet. Swinging a five-pound hammer, he rapped on the hull three times, then stopped and listened for an answering signal. We took turns for hours. No answering signal was ever heard.” Frustrating as this was, other search parties successfully freed men from the Oklahoma and Utah. The last of them were brought out by December 10. “Lesser damaged” was the term applied to the condition of the battleships Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Tennessee; the cruisers Honolulu, Helena, and Raleigh; the repair ship Vestal; the seaplane tender Curtiss; and the destroyer Helm. Pennsylvania was in Dry Dock Number One during the attack, behind the destroyers Downes and Cassin. One bomb hit the battleship, damaging a 5-inch gun and passing through two decks before exploding. The blast wrecked bulkheads, hatches, pipes, and wiring. Her hull and power plant were sound, though. On December 12, she went to the Navy Yard. The damaged gun was replaced with one from the West Virginia, whose decks were awash after she settled into the mud on the bottom of Battleship Row, the victim of several Japanese torpedoes. On December 20, the Pennsylvania sailed for Puget Sound, Wash. A bomb had struck the pier beside Honolulu.

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pumped from the ship. Divers placed explosive charges on the quays. These were detonated on December 16, finally freeing Tennessee from her trap. She spent two months at Puget Sound and eventually returned to duty on February 29, 1942. Outboard of Arizona was Vestal. Two bombs found her, falling from a thousand feet or higher, smashing straight through her, and exploding underwater. The flooding made her list to port and settle heavily at the stern. To escape the burning Arizona, the Vestal’s captain backed his ship away. Vestal was 33 years old, and her watertight integrity was not enough to keep her afloat. Two tugboats guided her east to shallow water, beaching her at Aiea Shoal. Being a repair ship, Vestal had the resources for crew to begin mending her, but she had to wait her turn for dry-docking. It came two months later. Vestal returned to duty on February 18. A torpedo flooded Raleigh’s engine room. A

bomb ripped through three decks and out her side. It exploded uncomfortably close to a compartment storing aviation fuel. When the cruiser’s captain ordered counterflooding to balance the ship, several doors failed. The tugboat Sunnadin and a barge were tied to her port side to save her from sinking. Men from repair vessels helped the crew rebuild the decks and transfer fuel and water from the Raleigh. She went into Dry Dock Number One on January 3. Running on one engine, she sailed for Mare Island on February 14. After receiving a new engine and electrical parts, she returned to duty on July 23. Curtiss had no armor and suffered for it. One bomb hit. Three missed, but not by enough. A damaged Japanese plane struck her starboard crane and exploded. Smoke from burning cork insulation made it more difficult for the crew to fight the fires. Dry-docked from December 19 to 27, Curtiss had to vacate early, making way for higher

U.S. Naval Historical Center

The blast bent in 40 feet of hull on the port side, causing shrapnel damage and flooding. Yard workers began patching the hull, while Honolulu’s crew worked within. With them was Seaman First Class Stephen Young from Methuen, Mass. Young had just transferred from the Oklahoma. He had endured 25 hours trapped in the battleship. Having survived that, he was impressed by his new job, helping to remove damaged powder cases from the cruiser’s magazine. Shrapnel had punctured many of them, spilling explosive powder on the decks. “Why they never went off, I don’t know,” Young recalled. Honolulu moved to Dry Dock Number One on December 13. On January 2, she went to the yard for further work. Ten days later, she returned to service. Helena took a torpedo on her starboard side, flooding an engine room and a boiler room. On December 10, she entered Dry Dock Number Two, which was still under construction. Pacific Bridge personnel borrowed wooden blocks from the yard for the ship to rest upon. After 11 days, she moved to the yard. On January 5, Helena left for the Mare Island Navy Yard in San Francisco. Maryland was moored inboard of Oklahoma and had escaped torpedoes, but one bomb hit her forecastle. Another struck her port side at water level. No dry dock was available, so repairs were performed at the quays. The yard’s workshops built a wood and metal patch for the rupture in the hull. A bargemounted crane lowered the patch into the water, and divers fitted it in place. The water was pumped away, and repairs continued inside the ship. On December 20, she left for Puget Sound. Her final repairs were completed there on February 26, 1942. Tennessee was inboard of West Virginia. Multiple torpedo hits had sunk the outer ship, trapping Tennessee against the concrete mooring quays. A direct hit to the battleship Arizona’s magazines had sunk that vessel and thrown burning debris on the Tennessee’s decks. Arizona’s burning oil spread across the water, engulfing Tennessee’s stern. Crewmen fought with hoses to keep the fires away. Her forward magazines were flooded to keep them from exploding. The ship’s propellers were turned at speeds up to 10 knots in an effort to keep flaming oil away. The crew was forced to abandon her. Men from the yard and the repair ship Medusa welded Tennessee’s heat-warped stern plates. A total of 650,000 gallons of oil was

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priority jobs. She could not return until April 26, and was substantially repaired by May 28. Helm had escaped the harbor, but while searching for submarines she was bracketed by two bombs. The shock caused flooding forward and tripped circuit breakers. With the dry docks full, Helm went to the yard’s marine railway on January 15. There she was hauled out of the water for welding and patching. At the end of the month, she left for San Diego. Each accomplishment brought another part of the Pacific Fleet to life. But these successes were modest compared to what lay ahead. Six battleships, one cruiser, three destroyers, and a mine-laying ship had received severe attention from the Japanese. Destroyers were desperately needed to protect Allied merchant shipping from enemy submarines. Commander John Alden, himself a submariner, wrote, “In addition to the mere urgency of obtaining ASW [antisubmarine warfare] vessels, other factors added weight to the balance. One was the fact that of all the material needed to build new destroyers, most critical and hard to obtain were main propulsion plants. In the effort to break the bottleneck, DE’s [destroyer escorts] and frigates were designed around every conceivable type of power plant … but there was no substitute for the steam turbine in destroyers.” In addition to the catastrophic loss of the Arizona, one of the most spectacular of the December 7 victims was the destroyer Shaw. She had been on blocks in Floating Dry Dock Number Two. Three bombs struck the ship, rupturing fuel tanks. Fire swept through the ship to her magazines. A tremendous blast wrecked her entire forward section. Twentyfive men died, and 15 more were injured. Five bombs hit the dry dock. To protect it, workers submerged the dock, and the tugboat Sotoyomo sank with it. To casual observers, Shaw seemed a total loss. Her bridge was destroyed, and her bow was literally gone. But her engineering machinery was intact. She was towed to the marine railway on December 19. Hull repair experts took measurements and set to building a temporary bow. Navy divers sealed more than 150 holes in the hull of the dock. It was raised on January 9, and ready for service on January 25. Six months later, so was Sotoyomo. Shaw was the first ship back into the dry dock. The next day, her new bow was attached along with a new mast and a temporary bridge. This made her look more like an overgrown PT boat than a 70

destroyer, but it worked. On February 4, Shaw left the harbor for power trials. Five days later, with cheers shouted from all over Pearl, she left for Mare Island. A permanent bow awaited her there. Of the badly wounded ships, Shaw was the first to return to sea. The destroyers Helm and Henley escorted Shaw eastward. Seaman First Class Arthur Schreier from Watertown, Conn., was on Henley’s No. 4 gun mount. He spent many hours watching Shaw plow through the waves. “I felt so sorry for those guys,” Schreier recalled, “because without a bow, you know—they had this little stubby thing welded on. Boom. Boom. Boom. Every wave, for six days.” Fireman First Class Alfred Bulpitt from Centerdale, RI, was aboard the Shaw. Manning the port engine throttle, he knew she was traveling at only a third of her top speed. “It took us quite a while. We only had one fire room and one screw working. And we had a reduced crew. But I don’t remember anyone saying we wouldn’t make it.” They did make it, arriving at Mare Island on February 15. Waiting for Shaw was another dry dock and her new bow. She was ready by July, returning to duty as an escort for convoys to Pearl. By the fall, she headed west to join the fight for Guadalcanal. Destroyers Downes and Cassin had similar troubles. “They had gone through every kind of ordeal which ships could be subjected to,” Wallin wrote. “From bomb hits to severe fires, to explosions, to fragmentation damage, etc. These vessels were the only ones of the Pearl Harbor group that suffered all the kinds of damage enumerated.” A bomb had ripped through Cassin to explode on the floor of Dry Dock Number One. Two more hit the dock, one on each side of the ships. A fourth blasted Cassin again. A fifth destroyed Downes’ bridge. Fragments punctured fuel tanks on both ships. Fire spread through the dock, detonating fuel and ammunition on Downes. Part of a torpedo landed 75 feet away. Without power or water, no one could fight the fires, which now threatened the neighboring Pennsylvania. Her captain ordered the dock flooded, but as the water rose, so did the flames. Cassin came afloat at her stern and finally collapsed onto Downes. Both destroyers remained in the dock for two months. Other ships came in for repairs. Each flooding and draining made the destroyers sway and roll, hurting them more. On February 5, Cassin was carefully reset on her blocks.

The next day, Downes was towed to the Navy Yard. Cassin followed 20 days later. The destroyers’ hulls were ruined, but their propulsion machinery was sound. Nimitz, the Bureau of Ships, and the Chief of Naval Operations debated the question: repair them or scrap them? On May 7, the Bureau of Ships found the solution. “Recommend new hulls be built at Mare Island. The Bureau considers that sufficient of the original Cassin and Downes material can be worked into the [new] hulls to thoroughly justify the retention of the original names for the new ships.” Through the spring and summer, nearly 1,000 tons of useful equipment was removed, carefully catalogued, and shipped to Mare Island. By August, what remained of Downes was scrapped. The Cassin followed suit by October, but the hearts of both vessels, including the 37-ton stern sections bearing their names, were saved. On May 20, 1943, Downes was “relaunched.” So was Cassin on June 21. There was no precedent for this in Navy history. Never had a ship been launched twice. “In both cases there was a minimum of fanfare,” Alden wrote. “Like a quiet ceremony with discreet minimized publicity for a bride being led to the altar for the second time.” Of the battleships, only Nevada had been able to run for the sea. However, she took hits from a torpedo and at least seven bombs. One smashed her forecastle, blowing a 25-foot triangular hole on the port side. Another crashed through the ship—piercing a gasoline tank without igniting it—and detonated beneath her. Flooding was too heavy to be stopped. Watching from Oglala, Admiral Furlong ordered two tugboats to move Nevada to the shallows at Waipio Point above the harbor entrance, where she was beached. Her bow settled until the deck was nearly awash. Admiral Nimitz’s inspection of Nevada was a grim one. The ship had been wrecked by blasts and fire and fouled with oil and polluted water, but her men were determined to win. Nimitz consented. Using measurements from Nevada’s sister ship, Oklahoma, yard shipwrights built a patch to cover the holes. It was a huge piece of craftsmanship, 55 feet long, 32 feet deep, and curved to fit the ship’s bilge. The divers had a frustrating time securing the patch. The explosions had warped the hull, and it was impossible to seal the patch completely. It had to be discarded. The alternative was to gamble on the strength of Nevada’s bulkheads. Divers tightened every door and hatch in the

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Members of the salvage team assigned to the battleship California discuss their next move. Captain Homer N. Wallin is fourth from the left.

ruptured compartments and bolted patches over smaller holes in the hull. Removing water from the ship was a headache, too, given the number and types of pumps available. The strongest could pump 4,000 gallons a minute, but there were not enough of them. Some could draw water up about 15 feet, but no higher. To compensate, engineers arranged them so that the smaller ones brought water to areas where the stronger pumps could move the water up and out of the ship. This was done with care. If one section drained much faster than others, Nevada could list or capsize. Although the pumps gradually moved water out faster than it came in, the ship remained in danger until dry-docked. The drying compartments sobered the most hardened men. The filth was appalling. A mixture of oil, mud, paper, clothes, and rotting food filled every part of the ship. And there were the bodies of men who had died in the attack. They were taken to the naval hospital for identification and burial. Then work parties brought in hoses and sprayed every object and surface with sea water, followed with Tectyl, a cleaning chemical that absorbed water from anything it touched. To increase buoyancy, Nevada’s crew transferred the remaining stored oil from the ship. Wreckage was cleaned away. Guns, ammunition, electric motors, and auxiliary equipment were brought out. Much of it was salvable, despite

being submerged for nearly three months. The optimism of the salvage crew was tempered by the discovery of hydrogen sulfide, an odorless toxic gas created when oil and polluted sea water are mixed under pressure. On February 7, one man opened a gas-filled compartment and collapsed from a fatal dose. While trying to rescue him, five more sailors were also overcome. Only four recovered. Increased ventilation became top priority. No man was permitted on the ship without a gas mask and a litmus paper badge to indicate if the gas was present. One week later, Nevada was afloat. A last inspection was made of every bulkhead and hatch. Any serious leak would send the battered battleship to the bottom. On February 14, two tugs brought the Nevada to Dry Dock Number Two. Nimitz and Furlong were with the cheering crowd that welcomed her. On April 22, 1942, she left Pearl Harbor for Puget Sound Navy Yard for final repairs and modernization. California posed greater problems. She had been hit by two torpedoes and one bomb and jarred by several near misses. Arizona’s burning oil had forced California’s crew to abandon her. She took three days to sink to the bottom, settling with a list to port. Her main deck was 17 feet beneath the surface. The Yard Design Section feared that patching and pumping out the ship would fail. As she regained buoyancy, the weight of the water

above her decks might collapse them. One option was to build a cofferdam around the ship. A barrier of pilings driven into the harbor bottom would permit men to drain the water within and effect repairs. It was a good plan, but expensive and complicated. An alternative was found: build two cofferdams attached to the ship to enclose her forecastle and quarterdeck. Barge cranes lowered huge wooden planks along the ship’s sides. Pacific Bridge divers bolted them to the hull and sealed them with lengths of hose filled with sawdust and oakum (hemp mixed with tar). The planks were 30 feet high and varied in width and thickness. They were weighted down with sandbags and reinforced to endure external water pressure as the interior was pumped out. The divers plugged more holes. One needed a 15-by-15-foot patch. As with Nevada, the pumps eventually caught up to the leaks, then passed them. Oil was skimmed from the surface and transferred from the bunkers to a barge alongside. Eventually, over 200,000 gallons were recovered. By the end of March, California had risen to a nearly even keel, but on April 5 an explosion blew out the hull patch. She began settling at the bow. Gasoline vapors had leaked from a fuel tank and ignited. The patch was ruined, and there was no time to build another. Another battleship was coming in for repairs, and California had to meet the tight schedule for dry dock time. Raymer’s team contained the flooding on the ship’s third deck. The men took turns welding a warped hatch shut. After 12 hours, it was secured and the flooding stopped. Four days later, California entered Dry Dock Number Two. She was on time. California’s electric drive engines had suffered heavily from the saltwater. The job of rewrapping miles of wire called for specialists not available at Pearl. A team of engineers flew in from the General Electric Company in Schenectady, NY. Through the summer they concentrated their efforts on one alternator and two motors— just enough to get the ship to Puget Sound. They finished in the autumn. California headed for Puget Sound on October 10, 1942. West Virginia’s problems were even worse. Two bombs and at least seven torpedoes sank her, killing over a hundred men. She, too, had electric drive. Her steering system was ruined, and her rudder was blown off. Over 200 feet of her port hull was wrecked. Raymer wrote, “Raising West Virginia would be far more difficult than either the Nevada or the California had been. It would test the ingenuity and salvage expertise of 71

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ABOVE: The hulk of the capsized USS Oklahoma is shown while operations to right her were under way on March 19, 1943. BELOW: Divers pose in front of a decompression chamber during salvage efforts at Pearl Harbor.

every faction involved in the operation.” Yard craftsmen came through again, building 14 hull patches in sections 13 feet long and over 50 feet wide. Curved at the bottom to fit the ship’s bilge, they straightened to climb the sides to high above the surface. Like the walls of a fortress, each was made of metal beams and 12-by-14-inch timbers, with four-inch planking beneath. Several had access doors so divers could enter the hull. To counteract its buoyancy, each was weighted with lead. After each section was fitted in place, the lead was removed. Divers filled the seams with 650 tons of underwater concrete. Since this added more weight than the hull could endure after drydocking, the divers finished by welding steel reinforcing rods to the hull. After the patches were secured, the pumps lowered the water within by a few feet, but no more. “No further headway was made in dewatering,” Raymer recalled. “Most of the leakage was found to occur in the areas contiguous to the patches from leaking seams, 72

shrapnel holes, and loose rivets.” Every hole mattered. Raymer’s men sealed all they could find with smaller patches or wooden plugs. Salvage crews moved deeper into the ship, mindful of the hydrogen sulfide threat. A medical officer worked with them, maintaining a bulletin board showing which compartments were safe. They brought out more oil, ammunition, and machinery along with the bodies of 66 men who had died in December. The bodies of three sailors were found in a dry storeroom. With them was a calendar. The days from December 7 to December 23 were crossed off. The men had food and drinking water, but their oxygen had run out. “The discovery of these three men in an unflooded compartment caused a profound sense of anguish among our divers,” Raymer said. “Especially shaken were Moon and Tony, who had sounded the West Virginia’s hull on December 12 and reported no response from within the ship.” The men had been in the starboard side, hard against Tennessee’s port side. It had been

impossible for divers to reach that area. Recalling his part in the salvage, Electrician’s Mate Second Class Claude Miller wrote, “This consisted mainly of endless days of chipping the years of paint coats from the bulkheads. This paint was in many places a full one inch thick or more, and shattered like cement when chiseled by air-driven chipping hammers.” A native of Trenton, Mo., Miller had traveled far with the Navy, with no shortage of work. He had been with the aircraft carrier Yorktown at the Battles of Coral Sea and Midway. After his carrier was sunk, he and many of his friends were reassigned to Pearl to assist with the recovery work there. “We worked in very hot and sometimes toxic spaces in half-hour shifts,” he added. “Then we would go up to topside for about half an hour, for fresh air and pineapple juice. Later on I was assigned to clean, rewind, and restore small electric motors, and also manage the engineers’ tool room.” On May 17, West Virginia rose from the bottom. Work continued over the next three weeks to reduce her draft. Finally, it was down to the required minimum, 33 feet. She just fit into Dry

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with steel. Pumping above and from within the ship resumed. On June 23, Oglala floated. On the night of June 25, several pumps became fouled with debris, and Oglala’s bow sank. Her stern followed. The pumps were cleared, and the vessel was refloated once more on June 27. She sank a third time on June 29 when the cofferdam failed again. By then Oglala had earned the nickname “the Jonah ship.” She was returned to the surface again by July 1. Fire broke out aboard Oglala that night when a technician spilled gasoline on a pump’s exhaust manifold. He then dropped the burning gas can into the water, igniting the oil on the water’s surface. It took 20 minutes for men

from Ortolan and the Navy Yard Fire Department to extinguish the blaze. To their weary relief, the salvage men found that damage to the cofferdam was superficial. On July 3, Oglala entered Dry Dock Number Two. To Wallin, the ship looked like Noah’s Ark without a roof. Despite her troubles, her hull was in better shape than expected. She eventually returned to service as a repair ship, aiding many other vessels throughout the war. The remaining victims of December 7 were beyond saving. Arizona had suffered several bomb hits. She had sunk with the loss of more than 1,100 men. One bomb hit had detonated her forward magazines and broken her back.

ABOVE: The twisted superstructure of the battleship Arizona shows the effects of the giant blast that killed more than 1,100 members of her crew. BELOW: Divers pose in front of a decompression chamber.

Both: National Archives

Dock Number One on June 9. She went to the yard a few days later and stayed for 11 months. In April 1943, as Miller put it, “The old warrior finally was made ready to move on her own, and we sailed to Bremerton Navy Yard for the balance of the restoration.” Oglala came last. On December 7, a torpedo had passed beneath her to strike the inboard Helena. Since the ships were tied together, the explosion ruptured Oglala’s bilge. Two hours later she capsized to port. Only her starboard side amidships remained above water. This led to the cynical joke that when she saw Helena get hit, Oglala died of fright. Originally a coastal steamer, Oglala had joined the Navy in World War I. She was 34 years old, and her compartments were not designed to endure battle damage. The merits of raising her seemed thin. She was blocking valuable pier space, and scrapping seemed the best option. However, since demolition experts and equipment were unavailable, men from the yard and the repair ship Ortolan set out to rescue her, employing three elements. The first was a set of 10 submarine salvage pontoons. Each was a giant metal cylinder that could be flooded and sunk, then attached to massive chains placed under the hull by divers. When pumped out, each pontoon would exert nearly 100 tons of lifting power. Second was a barge with winches to haul cables attached to Oglala. The third was compressed air, pumped into the hull to displace some of the water within. This required extreme care, given the hull’s weakened condition. On April 11, bridles linking the chains to the pontoons broke. The pontoons floated free. They were resunk and new bridles were attached. Another attempt was made on April 23. Oglala rolled up to rest on her bottom with a 20-degree port list. Further work reduced this to 7 degrees, but her bow remained 6 feet below the surface and the stern was 19 feet deeper. Cofferdamming came next, using wood and steel from the California salvage. Divers secured the sections and patched the port bilge, where the worst shock damage was. They cut free the wooden deck house, and a barge crane hoisted it away. The cofferdam was completed in June, and pumping began. After the water had dropped seven feet, a section of the dam failed. Captain Wallin dryly noted, “This was not a design failure, but resulted from the action of some ‘practical men.’” The men in question had substituted 12-inch-square timbers for the steel H-beams specified in the designs. The wood was replaced

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Her armament and fuel were taken ashore, and Arizona was left where she sank. More than 20 years passed before the famed memorial was built above her. Many torpedoes had struck Oklahoma. “I can vouch for five,” Young recalled. The blasts disintegrated much of her port hull. Fifteen minutes after the attack began, she capsized. She stayed that way for nearly six months. When men and resources were finally available, the most spectacular chapter of the Fleet salvage began. The man responsible for leading the staggering effort to raise the Oklahoma was Commander F.H. Whitaker. Born and raised in Tyler, Tex., Whitaker was a naval construction expert who, like Wallin, had graduated from Annapolis and M.I.T. Whitaker and his staff spent months running tests to determine the most effective method to raise the ship. Experiments with a 1/96 scale model of the battleship in Pacific Bridge’s laboratory in San Francisco demonstrated that the Oklahoma could be gradually rolled into an upright position. Divers placed pontoons at key points where the superstructure was buried in the mud. They also tested the strength of the mud. It had to be hard enough, or the ship might drag along the bottom as the winches turned. Fortunately, it was. The divers placed an additional 4,500 cubic yards of coral soil along the inshore side of the ship’s bow. Twenty-one concrete foundations were poured near the water’s edge on Ford Island. Seated in them were electric

winches. With a system of hauling blocks and pulleys, the winches’ combined strength could exert a titanic 345,000 tons of pulling force. Forty-two miles of one-inch wire ran from the winches, through the blocks, out over a row of 40-foot A-frame towers built on Oklahoma’s hull, and finally to pads welded to the ship. It looked like something from Gulliver’s Travels, but the objective was to free a giant, not restrain it. The righting began on March 8, 1943. “With a lurch and a groan the Oklahoma started her slow but steady rotation,” Raymer wrote. “Everyone was jubilant. They cheered lustily as they observed the ship’s movements, drowning out for the moment the sounds of metal being crushed and torn.” Inexorably, almost invisibly, the ship began her roll to starboard. Turning at a snail’s pace, the winches reeled in cable for more than three months. Finally, on June 16, the battleship reached an upright position, listing only 3 degrees to port. Pacific Bridge divers placed cofferdam patches over 200 feet of the Oklahoma’s hull. They sealed them with 2,000 tons of underwater concrete and added four more pontoons to offset the weight. Tragically, this led to the deaths of two men. Rusting inside one pontoon had removed the oxygen from the air. While working alone inside it, a Navy chief collapsed and died. A Pacific Bridge diver drowned when the wake from a passing boat drove another pontoon against Oklahoma, severing his air hose. Dewatering revealed the remains of the

National Archives

ABOVE: The heavily damaged destroyer Shaw floats in dry dock on December 8, 1941. OPPOSITE: The Arizona Memorial sits astride the sunken vessel where hundreds of her crew are entombed.

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sailors who had died a year and a half earlier. Identifying them was impossible. Bringing out what remained of over 400 men was unquestionably the salvage team’s hardest job. Oklahoma was refloated on November 3, 1943. On December 28, she entered Dry Dock Number Two. After moving to the yard, she was stripped of every useful piece of equipment. Whitaker later wrote a detailed study of the project for The Society of Naval Architects and Marine Engineers. Outlining in detail the full extent of this fantastic achievement, he concluded with what it meant for America. “All of us felt, I believe, that aside from the practical aspects, the salvage of the Oklahoma was symbolic of the Navy’s and the country’s recovery from the treacherous Japanese attack.” On September 1, 1944, the Oklahoma was decommissioned. The hull was sold for scrap a year later. On May 10, 1947, two tugboats brought her out of Pearl, heading for the West Coast. She sank in a storm the following week. The men who had served in her were pleased. It was a better end than being cut to pieces for scrap. Utah fared no better. She had capsized at her berth on the west side of Ford Island, and 58 men had perished. Over 30 years old, she had been converted to a training vessel for gunnery and aircraft exercises. The Navy deemed her a nonessential ship occupying nonessential space. The effort to right her was delayed until November 1943. The result was a shadow of the work done for the Oklahoma. By March 1944, the Utah had been partly righted, listing 47 degrees to port and almost completely submerged. Further work being too costly, the Navy left her as she was. Utah remains there today, a training site for divers. During their time in the West Coast yards, each ship received not only final repairs but modernization. They emerged with sleek superstructures, better armor and armament, especially antiaircraft guns. Some underwent more than one refit and upgrade of their armament and other systems. They had the latest radar and radio equipment. Their power plants were greatly improved. They went on to exact a measure of revenge against the Imperial Japanese Navy. The revitalized ships distinguished themselves in countless ways. Cassin, for instance, earned six battle stars for carrier escort and invasion support duty in the Philippines and at Iwo Jima. Shaw won 11 stars, fighting from the Santa Cruz Islands to the Philippines. On January 7, 1945, Shaw and the destroyers Ausburne, Russell, and Braine sank a Japanese destroyer off

Luzon. “It was the last surface action of the war,” Bulpitt noted. “We were there at the beginning, and we were there at the end.” Vestal repaired ships in the Solomons. This was incalculably important. By contributing to the repair of other vessels when the future of the Pacific War was still in doubt, she paid many times over for the effort to save her at Pearl. Nevada, Tennessee, and Raleigh joined the Aleutian Islands operation of 1943, reclaiming Attu and Kiska from the Japanese. Nevada went east to join the Atlantic Fleet, supporting the invasions of Normandy in June 1944, and then southern France in August. Tennessee joined West Virginia, California, Maryland, and Pennsylvania to participate in the Battle of Leyte Gulf in October 1944. The Japanese had summoned the majority of their dwindling naval forces to attempt to disrupt the American landings at Leyte in the Philippines. It was the largest naval campaign in history and marked the end of the Japanese Navy as an effective fighting force. In a series of torpedo attacks, American destroyers ambushed a Japanese battleship force on the evening of October 25 at Surigao Strait. Using their new fire-control radar, Tennessee, West Virginia, and California followed up, firing more than 220 rounds from their main batteries. Maryland’s older radar system could track where the rounds fell, and with that she added 48 shots of her own. By dawn, two Japanese battleships, Fuso and Yamashiro, had been sunk, along with three destroyers. The badly damaged cruiser Mogami was finished off by American torpedo planes. Surigao Strait was the last surface action fought between opposing battleships. Having waited almost three years for it, the veterans of Pearl Harbor savored the victory to the fullest. “It was a matter of great satisfaction to many Americans,” Wallin wrote. “And it must have been a bitter pill for the Japanese.” Helena fought in the battles of Cape Esperance and Guadalcanal. During a night action, she fought off Japanese warships that were shelling Henderson Field on Guadalcanal. On September 15, 1942, she rescued survivors when the aircraft carrier Wasp was sunk, but her luck did not last. Helena was torpedoed during the Battle of Kula Gulf on July 6, 1943. She broke apart and sank. Approximately 170 men died with her. The other ships served to the end of the war. Following the Japanese surrender, California, West Virginia, and Tennessee remained on station in Japan. But by the autumn of 1945, the

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U.S. Navy was the largest in the world, and the most expensive. Peace meant shrinking military budgets. All but one of the ships that rose from ruin at Pearl Harbor were decommissioned and consigned for scrapping by 1947. Only Curtiss endured. She served in the Korean War. As a science vessel, she took part in nuclear weapons tests in the Central Pacific and research work off Antarctica. She was decommissioned in 1957 and finally broken up in 1972. It all seemed heartless, and still does, to the men who lived and fought on these ships. Still, financial considerations aside, the ships were old. Despite their upgrading, it was becoming difficult for them to keep pace with newer ships coming into service, let alone those on the drawing boards. They had done their work. Over 30 years after the Pearl Harbor attack, Ed Raymer retired from the Navy. Looking back, he readily acknowledged that he was part of a tremendous accomplishment. In 1996, Commander Raymer wrote, “Navy divers and Pacific Bridge civilian divers formed one leg of a salvage triad; salvage engineers and the Pearl Harbor Naval Shipyard comprised the other two. One leg needed the assistance and support of the other two to be effective.” Vice Admiral Homer Wallin retired in 1955, finishing a career spanning 40 years. He had left Hawaii in July 1942 for a new assignment.

During an awards ceremony on the deck of the aircraft carrier Enterprise, Admiral Nimitz presented Wallin with the Distinguished Service Medal. As Wallin wrote, “Admiral Nimitz read the citation for the work performed by the Salvage Organization and ended by adding, ‘for being an undying optimist.’ The Medal was accepted by me in the name of the organization which I had the honor to head.” Wallin meant it. He knew the value of every man who helped him. “Enough cannot be said in praise of the salvage crew,” he asserted. “They worked hard and earnestly. They soon saw that the results of their efforts exceeded the fondest hopes of their supporters and they were urged on by their successful achievements.” Without question, the Pearl Harbor salvage operation was the largest in naval history. The men behind it lived up to their creed: “We keep them fit to fight.” ■ Mike McLaughlin lives with his wife Geralyn, a Boston public school teacher, in Winthrop, Massachusetts. He interviewed several New England men who participated in the Pearl Harbor salvage effort. He was assisted by the Pearl Harbor Survivors Association and Pearl Harbor Historical Associates. In addition to WWII History, Mike also writes for American Veteran, American Heritage, and Maxim. 75

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A DIVERSE ASSEMBLAGE OF BRITISH, CANADIAN, SCOTTISH, AND INDIAN TROOPS MADE THE JAPANESE PAY DEARLY FORTHE CROWN COLONY’S CAPTURE.

HEROIC DEFENSE OF HONG KONG With rhythmic tread, the Canadian soldiers marched behind the bagpipers of the Royal Scots up Nathan Road. All along Kowloon’s main shopping street, European and Chinese civilians cheered and applauded the Canadians. Hong Kong’s Chinese and European population knew that the two battalions would be more than enough to protect them from Japanese invasion. It was November 16, 1941, 40 days before Christmas, and 40 days from defeat and surrender to the Japanese. BY DAVID H. LIPPMAN Hong Kong, cut off from China by Japanese forces, had a population of 1.2 million, including more than a million Chinese refugees from the Sino-Japanese War. The 20,000 Britons who administered Hong Kong or dominated its commerce lived in luxury in Victoria and the Peak, with servants, restricted clubs, new airconditioners, and garden parties. Down below the Peak, Chinese residents lived in poverty, doing backbreaking jobs. Many were illiterate, living 12 to a room, or even on the streets. Every morning, one-ton government 76

trucks rolled through grubby neighborhoods in Wanchai or Kowloon to empty public outhouses or pick up the bodies of refugees who had died of illness, starvation, or violence. Nonetheless, how Britain’s obligation to defend Hong Kong was to be met was a source of controversy in Whitehall. In early 1941, Prime Minister Winston Churchill decided that Hong Kong was impossible to hold and suggested that its defenses be reduced to a symbolic level, saying: “We must avoid frittering away our resources on unten-

able positions.” A 1938 assessment by the General Officer Commanding, General A.C. Bartholomew, was equally harsh: “The chances of effecting a prolonged resistance even in the best circumstances seem slight.” But Bartholomew’s successor, Maj. Gen. A.E. Grasett, disagreed. He believed the Japanese forces that sealed off Hong Kong to the north were inferior to the British forces. When he flew back to London in September 1941, after being replaced by Maj. Gen. Christopher

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Maltby, Grasett convinced the War Cabinet that Hong Kong could be held if it was reinforced with two battalions of infantry, possibly Canadian units. At the time, Hong Kong’s defenses consisted of two Indian infantry battalions (the 5/7th Rajputs and the 2/14th Punjabis) and a British infantry battalion, the 2nd Royal Scots. The 1st Middlesex, a machine-gun battalion, backed them up. The defenders also fielded the Hong Kong Volunteer Regiment’s reservists, two regiments of fixed coast artillery, and the Hong Kong

and Singapore Artillery Regiment’s mobile guns. The 2nd Royal Scots had served the Crown since 1633, but the regiment’s best men were serving in England. Most of the 2nd Battalion suffered from malaria. The 5/7th Rajputs and the 2/14th Punjabis were also veteran outfits, but their best men had also been “milked” for Indian forces in the Middle East. Some 40 percent of the Rajputs had just joined the battalion. Some Punjabis had yet to see even a 3-inch mortar, let alone fire one. The Hong Kong Volunteer Defence Corps’

manpower reflected Hong Kong’s cosmopolitan nature, with companies of Free Frenchmen, Russians, Portuguese, Scandinavians, and Americans. There was even a company of men aged over 55. The best unit in Hong Kong was the 1st Middlesex, “The Die-Hards” of Peninsular fame, which had spent 10 years overseas. Well trained and full of “Old Sweats” from London’s East End, it was equipped with Vickers machine guns. The Volunteers were a colorful outfit, under Colonel Henry Rose, a 30-year veteran and one

U.S. Army Center of Military History

From the vantage point of the high ground in Kowloon, Japanese artist Hoshun Yamaguchi painted Victoria under attack in December 1941 from sketches he did there during the Occupation.

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of the few surviving “Old Contemptibles” of 1914, and Regimental Sgt. Maj. “Wacky” Jones. Playing at soldier was great fun and a means of social climbing for the Volunteers. The key to holding Hong Kong was a string of pillboxes and trenches along the hills just north of Kowloon, named the “Gindrinkers Line” for its terminus at Gindrinkers Bay in the west. The strongpoint of this line was the Shing Mun Redoubt at the southern end of the Jubilee Reservoir, which overlooked the bottleneck of roads that led to Kowloon. The redoubt consisted of several bunkers and observation posts, connected by trenches, tunnels, and staircases covered with concrete, all named for London streets such as Haymarket and The Strand. Shing Mun’s five pillbox embrasures were so constructed that it was impossible to depress a Bren gun low enough to cover the hill’s steep slopes. The craggy terrain offered attackers numerous ravines for cover and prevented the pillboxes from giving each other covering fire. Shing Mun was designed to be held by a full rifle company for at least a week. Shing Mun was no Maginot Line, but Grasett said it didn’t have to be. With three infantry battalions, Hong Kong could be held against attack from the north. Two more infantry battalions and the machine-gun battalion would man defenses on Hong Kong Island to prevent seaborne invasion. Maltby shared Grasett’s view, and the War Cabinet was sold. On September 15, 1941, Churchill agreed to a proposal by the Chiefs of Staff that Canada provide two battalions and a brigade headquarters. So far Canada’s Army had seen no action, and there was political pressure to get them into the fight. With all first-line Canadian battalions earmarked for Europe, the only outfits available were those that had not been fully trained. Two of these were the Royal Rifles of Canada, a French-speaking outfit from Quebec, and the Winnipeg Grenadiers. The Royal Rifles had spent most of the war patrolling Newfoundland to prevent Nazi U-boats from landing spies and saboteurs. The Winnipeg Grenadiers were in Jamaica, guarding a POW camp. Many of the men in the two battalions had never fired a mortar or thrown a grenade. But there were no other available battalions in Canada. To fill the battalions up, Canadian authorities assigned them 436 reinforcements, which included 16- and 17-year-olds with less than six weeks’ service. Captain Wilfred Queen-Hughes, a Grenadier transport officer, was shocked. “We got the odds and sods. Literally the sweepings of the depots. Men no other command had wanted 78

and rejected. There was even a hunchback!” The two battalions were shipped by rail to Vancouver. The Royal Air Force at Hong Kong had only three ancient Vildebeeste torpedo bombers (which flew at less than 100 mph) and two Walrus amphibians. The Royal Navy had withdrawn most of the China Squadron, leaving behind Commodore George Collinson commanding the old (1918) destroyer HMS Thracian, the eight gunboats of 2nd Motor Torpedo Boat Flotilla, and four river gunboats. The MTBs could do 32 knots but leaked, were cramped, and had no torpedoes. Instead they were armed with machine guns. Eight fixed 9.2-inch guns and 15 6-inchers prevented seaborne invasion, but the mobile artillery was outdated. On paper, Hong Kong was to have 32 heavy and 30 light antiaircraft guns, but only 14 heavy and two light were on hand, with no radar. In Canada, Colonel John Lawson, a decorated World War I veteran, was promoted

WHILE HUNDREDS OF BRITISH, CANADIAN, AND INDIAN TROOPS YANKED ON THEIR KHAKI UNIFORMS AND RAN TO THEIR STATIONS, 48 JAPANESE BOMBERS BEGAN HONG KONG’S PORTION OF THE WAR AT 7:57 AM. brigadier and appointed to command the force. Lawson, who had risen from private in the 101st Edmonton Fusiliers to field rank, was a 51-year-old who studied military history. Lawson did not share his superiors’ contemptuous view of the Japanese. He believed that they were a powerful force. He was right. British intelligence believed the Japanese had only 3,000 men over the frontier. They actually had closer to 25,000 attackers in the 23rd Army, under Lt. Gen. Takashi Sakai, a 52-year-old factory worker’s son with six years’ experience in China. The attack was assigned to the reinforced 38th Infantry Division, under Lt. Gen. Sano Tadayoshi.

The 38th Division was organized in September 1939, in Nagoya. It was backed up by all of the 23rd Army’s artillery—the 1st Siege Regiment with 150mm howitzers, the 20th Independent Mountain Artillery Battalion, the 21st Independent Mortar Battalion, two antitank battalions, and the 38th Engineer Regiment. Air cover consisted of a squadron of Ki-43 Nate fighters, another of Ki-36 Ida light bombers, and one of Ki-48a Lily attack planes. The Japanese consulate in Hong Kong provided useful information on the location of pillboxes and guns. When British counterintelligence pulled the plug on them, the Japanese turned to more romantic means of spying, such as Wanchai prostitutes … a Japanese jeweler in the Queen’s Arcade … an Italian waiter at the Peninsula Hotel … and the Japanese barber at the Hong Kong Hotel. The Japanese also infiltrated hundreds of Chinese fifth columnists, with orders to commit acts of sabotage and sniping. Sakai’s plan to take Hong Kong was simple. The 38th Division would cross the border on X-day. The 230th Infantry Regiment was to swing right and hit the Shing Mun Redoubt. The 228th Regiment would hit the center of the Gindrinkers Line and grab Kai Tak Airfield. The 229th Regiment on the left would cross Tide Cove in sampans, break through the defenses, and reach Kowloon Bay. Speed was the vital factor. As soon as Hong Kong was secured, the 38th’s next destination was the Dutch East Indies and its vital oil fields, by Christmas Day. While the Japanese planned, the Canadians sailed for Hong Kong, leaving Vancouver on October 27 on the transport Awatea and the escorting cruiser HMCS Prince Robert. Awatea could not accommodate Lawson’s 212 vehicles, which included 104 trucks, 57 Bren carriers, and 45 motorcycles. The vehicles were loaded on the American freighter Don Jose a week later. It reached Manila in the Philippines on December 12, when the vehicles were stranded by the outbreak of war. General Douglas MacArthur requested the vehicles for his command, and the defenders of Bataan wound up using them. On Sunday, November 16, Awatea sailed into Hong Kong, greeted by three RAF planes and five MTBs. After that, the Canadians settled in. By day, they dug trenches, manned pillboxes, attended lectures, and square-bashed (performed closeorder drills). Private George Merritt of the Winnipeg Grenadiers bought a Chinese girl from her family for $10 a month. She did his laun-

Imperial War Museum

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dry, shined his shoes, and shaved him in her family home, while her mother cooked dinner. Grenadier Private Ted Schultz and his buddies got drunk in bars and slugged it out with Royal Rifles, to the dismay of the Military Police. Grenadier Corporal Sam Kravinchuk read Asian history in Hong Kong libraries, while Corporal Lionel Speller attended nightly prayer meetings run by the Plymouth Brethren at the Duddell Street Gospel Hall. Private Barron was surprised to see people pulling cement mixers by hand and shocked to see people defecating in the street. Meanwhile, Maltby struggled to keep his men focused and battled the British hierarchy’s complacency. When he wanted to mobilize the 2,000 men of the Hong Kong Volunteer Defence Corps, an executive of the Hong Kong and Shanghai Bank said, “Don’t be ridiculous. Most of our male employees are Volunteers. The bank would have to close. There is no war, sir, and there never will be. The Japanese have more sense than to attack a British colony.” An irritated Maltby retorted, “If my guess is right, it will be a long time before any bank in Hong Kong opens again.” Still, Maltby tried. With his senior officers, he

Indian soldiers man a coastal defense gun at Hong Kong. The city was well equipped for an attack by water, but did not have the resources to defend against a land invasion.

tramped the length of the colony, studying geography, inspecting defenses, siting positions. On Saturday, December 6, the Royal Scots band performed at the Happy Valley Racetrack. While betters checked racing forms and big shots drank whiskeys and soda, military policemen went through the crowds, advising troops to return to barracks immediately. At the Royal Navy’s home away from home, the China Fleet Club, sailors hoisted beer and played Tombola. Sunday, December 7, began with a church parade at the Church of England Cathedral near Victoria Barracks, the Fortress Headquarters in the city center. The Royal Scots bagpipes and Middlesex band led the men out of their colonial-era barracks to the services. Catholic, Muslim, Jewish, and atheist Tommies attended services rather than spend the morning peeling spuds. Maj. Gen. Maltby read from the Book of Matthew. While British troops sang “Praise my Soul, the King of Heaven,” Sakai’s 60,000 attackers moved into position. A patrol of Punjabis on the frontier spotted the Japanese and reported

it up the chain of command to Maltby in his pew. The service had not even reached the Prayers for Peace. “The Punjabis say there are at least 20,000 soldiers in the area, perhaps even more,” an aide told Maltby. “They must be exaggerating,” Maltby said. “Our intelligence people are certain there are only 5,000 at the most.” But Maltby summoned his senior officers outside individually and told them to alert the whole garrison. By 5 PM every one of Hong Kong’s 14,000 defenders—8,919 Britons and Canadians, 4,402 Indians, and 660 Chinese— was at his post. Maltby’s plan divided his six battalions into two ad hoc brigades. The Mainland Brigade under Brigadier Cedric Wallis comprised the Royal Scots, the Rajputs, and the Punjabis, whose job was to hold the Gindrinkers Line as long as possible. The Royal Scots occupied the main position atop Golden Hill at the Shing Mun Redoubt. Lawson’s Island Brigade comprised the two Canadian battalions and the 1st Middlesex. Their job was to fend off a seaborne invasion of Hong Kong Island. Lawson set up 79

his headquarters at Wong Nei Chong Gap in the center of the island, the only road connecting its north and south sides. The Volunteers were divided between the two commands to carry out demolitions and guard against sabotage. Maltby ordered his senior officers to spend the night at headquarters at Victoria Barracks’ Flagstaff House, the Kiplingesque headquarters in central Hong Kong. At the Peninsula Hotel, night clerk Harold Bateson talked with a Swiss businessman, puzzling out two mysteries: the two Japanese cleaning girls who normally worked the late shift at the Peninsula had called in sick, and the Japanese-owned Matsubara Hotel was closed. The answer came at 4:45 AM on Monday, December 8, when Major Charles Boxer, the senior intelligence staff officer, relieved Royal Marine Major “Monkey” Giles as duty officer. Boxer, who spoke fluent Japanese and even lectured on Japanese history, turned the radio set to Tokyo’s frequency and heard the announcer break in to the program to read an Imperial Rescript: Japan had declared war on the United States and the British Empire. Boxer woke Giles, saying, “Get up, there’s a war on!” “I know,” Giles answered. “With a chap called Hitler. Shocking type.” “We’re at war with Japan,” Boxer said. Giles shot upright and answered, “It’s out of the question. I’m playing golf this afternoon. Anyhow, I haven’t got a tin hat.” Giles immediately phoned Maltby’s aide, Lieutenant Iain MacGregor, to spread the word. MacGregor was junior partner in the family’s wine and spirits trading firm, and thus knowledgeable about Hong Kong’s social world—critical for a peacetime aide-de-camp—but no fool. He started hammering on doors throughout Flagstaff House, to alert the top brass. Soon everybody got the word. Captain Christopher Man, who commanded 1st Middlesex’s Z Company—an ad hoc outfit of cooks, bandsmen, buglers, drummers, drivers, and mess waiters—was lying in bed with his wife of six months, Topsy Marr. Man’s reaction was to jump out of bed and into his clothes. With his orderly present, there was no time for a romantic good-bye, so he just said, “Put your tin hat on.” He didn’t see Topsy again for three years and eight months. While hundreds of British, Canadian, and Indian troops yanked on khaki uniforms and ran to their stations, 48 Japanese bombers began Hong Kong’s portion of the war at 7:57 AM, as a dark smear of Ida and Lily attack bombers roared over the New Territories. The 80

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After landing in Hong Kong in November 1941, Canadian troops march to join the garrison.

Japanese swooped down on Kai Tak, defended by four machine guns, and blasted the airfield. The remaining bombers turned on Sham Shui Po Barracks. Most of the Canadian troops based there were gone, but Father F.J. Deloughery was giving morning Mass, and Sergeant Routledge and Signalman Fairley became the first two Canadian soldiers to be wounded by enemy action in the war. The Japanese ground attack fell on Major George Gray’s C Company of 2/14th Punjabis on the border, who provided covering fire for Volunteer engineers, busily wiring bridges over the Sham Chun River. At 9 AM, the bridges blew. Gray withdrew, and the Japanese began building replacement bridges. Chinese fifth columnists acted as guides, leading Japanese troops up mountain tracks and around obstacles. Sakai’s men advanced through Hong Kong’s hills and villages, delayed by demolitions and British patrols. As the Japanese advanced, they looted and raped, as was their practice earlier during the Sino-Japanese War. Captain Khan

Sherin of the Punjabis was astounded to see Japanese troops advancing toward his position, prodding Chinese civilians ahead of them as human shields. He asked Gray what to do, and the major said to open fire. “Will I also kill the women, major?” Sherin asked. “It’s their bad luck. Now, get on with it.” Sherin’s men opened fire. After delaying the enemy, they continued to withdraw. At 6:30 PM, Royal Engineers blew up the railway tunnel south of Tai Po. The Punjabis dug in for ambush and saw the Japanese advancing in the bright moonlight. While the Punjabis machinegunned the advance, 150 more Japanese landed behind them. Gray withdrew again. In all, the Punjabis covered 16 demolitions and killed more than a hundred Japanese that day. The gunboat HMS Cicala was sent to Castle Peak Bay to use her 6-pounder guns to support troops ashore. Cicala came under repeated air attack by Japanese seaplanes, starting at 11 AM. Her one-armed skipper, Lt. Cmdr. John Boldero, skillfully navigated the gunboat and

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avoided all the bombs. “It was a frightening, but at the same time, an intensely exhilarating experience,” he said. The repeated bomb blasts left a shoal of dead fish floating around Cicala, and the cooks hauled them in. “Think yourself bloody lucky them Japs come over,” Able Seaman Wilkinson told his shipmates. “If they hadn’t, we’d be eating tinned stew and beans.” Nonetheless, Cicala found no surface targets that day. On Hong Kong Island, an emergency hospital was set up at Happy Valley Racetrack to care for victims of the morning’s bombings. It faced bizarre shortages. Canadian nurse Kay Christie had to boil tongue depressers and re-use them. Chinese fifth columnists and bandits sniped at passing British vehicles. One sniper put a bullet through the windshield of a 1936 Ford truck delivering supplies in urban Victoria, narrowly missing Corporal Ed Bergen’s head. His frightened Chinese driver floored the accelerator, and the truck roared through the narrow street at 50 miles an hour. By dawn on Tuesday, December 9, the British were dug in on the Gindrinkers Line, while Sakai’s men were advancing on it, delayed by British demolitions. The Japanese also kept attacking Cicala, to no avail. The gunboat spotted a Japanese bus and truck near Brother’s Point and set them ablaze. Japanese bombs also rained down on the drydocked Tern, whose crewmen broke out the gunboat’s Lewis guns to answer the attackers. On the night of December 9, Shing Mun was held by No. 8 Platoon of the Royal Scots under Lieutenant “Potato” Thompson, its men all weakened from malaria. That afternoon, Colonel Teihichi Doi, commanding the 228th Regiment, surveyed the valley with his field glasses and figured it was lightly defended. His orders were to pressure the British by night to wear them down and attack at dawn. He was short of artillery and his men were tired from long marches. Doi sent his 3rd Battalion up the hill in rubber-soled shoes, through the rain, in single file. At 11 PM, the 3rd Battalion went in from the northeast, using satchel charges to blast holes in ventilating shafts. The Japanese charged into the tunnels and sealed off the northernmost pillboxes. Hand-to-hand fighting raged in the trenches and tunnels. The Scots shot up 3rd Battalion’s HQ with machine-gun fire, but it wasn’t enough. The Japanese overwhelmed the scattered pillboxes and hurled grenades down ventilation shafts. Then they surrounded the command post and silenced its defenders with

more grenades. With the exception of Pillbox 402, which held out for 11 hours before a British shell caved it in with a direct hit, Shing Mun Redoubt was cleared by 3:30 AM. Lt. Col. Gerald Kidd, commanding the Punjabis, asked Wallis for permission to counterattack. “We’ve got to get that hill back! It gives the Japs command of the whole valley!” “Forget it,” Wallis answered. “If you send

“AS LONG AS THEY’VE GOT THEIR FAGS, THEY’LL HOLD THE BLOODY ISLAND FOR YEARS.” your men up there, it will only weaken the Gindrinkers Line somewhere else. We can’t afford to lose another key position.” Doi’s men, victorious, charged after the Indians behind the Scots and raised the Rising Sun over Shing Mun. When Doi saw the flag go up, he radioed Sakai to announce his victory. Incredibly, Sakai was angry. Doi’s regiment had crossed into the 230th Regiment’s zone of operations and disobeyed orders to attack at dawn, and in the tradition-bound Japanese army, disobedience was a major offense. More importantly, Sakai was afraid that other officers might launch half-cocked attacks with disastrous results. Doi, however, refused to retreat. Soon the two officers were swapping angry messages back and forth, and court-martial threats were exchanged before dawn. Finally, Sakai agreed to let Doi stay on the hill provided that no other officer launched an attack without express permission. Meanwhile, the British struggled to react. Maltby sent his reserve, Winnipeg Grenadiers Company D, across to Kowloon by Star Ferry to cover evacuation if necessary. Company D hiked up to a road junction three miles south of Shing Mun and started digging trenches; they were the first Canadian ground troops to see combat in the war. On the 10th, the Japanese continued to jab at the Gindrinkers Line. They sent two sampans full of troops in Chinese dress to attack Tide Cove, and the sampans were machinegunned. When the 228th Regiment attacked

the 5/7th Rajputs, Captain Bob Newton’s company held out. Newton told his men, “Now then, who’s going to win the Victoria Cross? Stand fast and shoot straight. There will be much killing to be done soon.” The Japanese hit Newton’s men with a frontal assault, believing the Indians to be no better soldiers than the Royal Scots. But Newton’s men, backed by the Hong Kong and Singapore Royal Artillery, gunned down the attackers and sent them fleeing. Having defeated the Japanese, the defenders made rude jokes about the Royal Scots’ poor performance, with tales of frightened Scots loaded with ammo fleeing all the way to brigade headquarters. It was a sorry page for the British Army’s oldest regiment, with the “First of Foot” being known as the “Fleet of Foot” in the battle. The fact that the outfit had a hundred men in the hospital with malaria and most of its others were untrained recruits made no impact. Major Stamford Burn, the secondin-command, was so upset by the stories that he shot himself. Also having trouble with the heavy barrage of Japanese bombs and shells were the Canadian battalions, most of whom were squatting in pillboxes and trenches on Hong Kong Island. It was their first exposure to war. Royal Rifleman Sidney Skelton wrote in his diary, “Two of our boys have gone crazy in the head. The bombing has snapped their minds.” At sunset, the Royal Scots were ordered to withdraw to a position in front of Golden Hill. The Scots struggled up the hill, loaded with equipment, weakened by malaria, to “prepared positions,” finding them to be three-year-old weapons pits surrounded by rusted barbed wire. Cold, hungry, and disgusted, the Royal Scots dug in to await the enemy’s night attack. The 230th Regiment advanced on Golden Hill fully camouflaged. A Royal Scot said, “You couldn’t see a Jap until he was on the end of your bayonet.” The Japanese gave the Royal Scots sniper fire, mortar rounds, and colorful invective to keep them jumpy. Doi’s plan was to break through the Royal Scots and cut off the two clearly tougher Indian battalions. At dawn on the 11th, the 230th Regiment assaulted the Royal Scots’ position supported by heavy mortar fire. Bayonets fixed, the Japanese swarmed all over the Royal Scots in waves. They killed more than 60 men. C Company was cut from 35 to 10 men. The Royal Scots fought hard, determined to regain their reputation, killing hundreds of Japanese. Wallis told the Royal Scots’ com81

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manding officer, Lt. Col. Simon “Scram” White, that the battalion’s good name was at stake. A counterattack was an absolute necessity. White’s men could not comply. He pleaded with Wallis to cancel the order, and Wallis agreed. But the order to cancel did not reach Captain David Pinkerton and D Company, the Royal Scots’ reserve, which had not yet been engaged. He told his men, “We’re going to get those bastards. Golden Hill belongs to us.” The Japanese had more men and weapons, but Pinkerton’s company stormed to the top. Pinkerton personally led the assault, hurling grenades, firing his revolver, and shouting insults at the Japanese. He survived a mortar explosion, a bayonet lunge, and a bullet that grazed his temple. A soldier tied part of his shirt around Pinkerton’s head to stop the bleeding, and the company regained Golden Hill. Pinkerton was awarded the Military Cross. When Sakai heard of the rout, he told his officers that the price of defeat by an inferior enemy was hara-kiri, but the reward for victory was eternal glory. The officers got the message. The Japanese launched another fanatical charge on Golden Hill, and this was too much for Pinkerton’s band. At 10 AM, the Japanese had retaken Golden Hill. The Japanese could now swing in from behind the Rajputs and the Punjabis and destroy them in detail. At noon, Maltby ordered withdrawal from the mainland. “The evacuation order was given on regrettably short notice but was unavoidable owing to the rapidity with which the situation deteriorated,” Maltby wrote in his official dispatch. The Rajputs and Punjabis would withdraw east to Devil’s Peak Peninsula, where HMS Thracian would cover their evacuation. All other units would fall back to Kowloon, where Star ferries and every available launch would be ready. Brigadier Wallis told all this to a lieutenant commanding a unit of 50 Indians. “The lieutenant looked excited and had a strange look in his eyes,” the brigade diarist wrote. “He spoke somewhat incoherently and said, ‘Are you sure this is necessary?’ The Brigade Commander noticed the lieutenant’s hand creep to his revolver. From the look in his eyes Wallis realized this young officer was about to shoot him. He rushed the lieutenant who was drawing his pistol, knocked it from his grip, and ordered him to hospital.” With the withdrawal ordered, the Royal Engineers and Hong Kong Volunteer Defence Corps set demolitions and blew up the cement works, the China Power and Light Station, the railway 82

terminal, the Kowloon docks, and all remaining British merchant ships, including a Swedish vessel. At HMS Tamar, Chinese crewmen from HMS Cicala deserted, so the crew and guns from the drydocked HMS Moth were removed for Cicala. The drydock was flooded, and HMS Moth was scuttled. Also cut—the Eastern Telegraph Cable Company’s links to the outside world. Tamar herself was also scuttled. At the ferry terminals, panic reigned. British officials and Hong Kong police struggled to issue channel-crossing permits to mobs of frenzied Chinese. White residents of Kowloon shoved fistfuls of money at sampan owners to float them across to the island. The roar of explosions added to the din and fear. Meanwhile, the infantrymen withdrew. The Royal Scots and D Company of the Winnipeg Grenadiers fell back on Sham Shui Po. When the men formed up, buses took them to the ferry pier, where launches and Star ferries waited. “We looked across the water, usually ablaze with the lights of the island,” wrote a Royal Scots officer. “That night there was nothing but darkness ahead.” By 10:30 PM, the Royal Scots were back in Victoria Barracks. Three hours later, D Company reached the Star ferry terminal, finding no ferries. Captain Allan Bowman, commanding D Company, phoned Captain Wilfred QueenHughes on the opposite bank to report stationary ferries in Victoria. Queen-Hughes stomped up to a ferryboat and ordered the Chinese captain to make the crossing. He refused. Queen-Hughes shoved his pistol in the captain’s face, and the ferryman cranked up his engine. A few minutes later, D Company shoved its way onto the ferryboat, along with hundreds of fleeing Chinese—including a funeral cortege with a black hearse. All night long, the ferries ran back and forth between Victoria and Kowloon. At the Victoria docks, the Chinese launch crews deserted, and many boats were damaged by shells. British and Canadian troops worked with civilian volunteers to man the gaggle of launches. Among them was a Canadian who claimed to be the Class A dinghy champion of Montreal. The Indian battalions, exhausted from the fighting, hauled their gear over mountain tracks. Some of their mules, laden with food and water, took fright and ran off. The Indian troops entered Kowloon a few minutes ahead of the Japanese. HMS Thracian, battle ensigns snapping and 4-inch guns blasting, oversaw the evacuation. Indian troops rowed, waded, or swam out, clutching their rifles. Thra-

cian Petty Officer Peter Paul was awed by the Rajputs’ discipline in the face of disaster. When the Punjabis reached the ferry, they refused to leave until the last civilians had been withdrawn. They set up a rear guard under Lieutenant Nigel Forsyth to hold the enemy off until the last ferry. Forsyth himself was the last man off, jumping into the boat’s stern. With his Indian gunners, he kept up rapid fire on the advancing Japanese, some of whom even tried to jump into the ferry from quayside. They missed their footing, and Forsyth’s men machine-gunned them as they fell into the water. The British withdrawal left anarchy behind. Looters attacked ruined and blasted shops, even taking wooden shelves, doors, window frames, and floorboards to use as firewood now that the gas mains were gone. British homes were stripped bare. Chinese fifth columnists put sand in rice and kerosene in fire buckets. At 9:20 AM on the 13th, HMS Thracian took off the last Rajputs. Two Indian soldiers were cut down by Japanese rifles as they raced toward the destroyer. Thracian sailed for the back-up base at Aberdeen, where Maltby him-

A famous photograph shows Japanese infantry charging into Hong Kong.

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Sakai’s letter to Major Boxer. “I have a letter for your governor [Sir Mark Young],” Tada said. “We wish you to surrender. I will wait for a reply.” Failure to surrender would unleash a massive artillery bombardment. Boxer drove off with the letter while Tada unloaded his hostages. One was Mrs. MacDonald, Russian and pregnant, who was allowed to leave for the hospital. The other was Mrs. C.R. Lee, accompanied by her two dachshunds, Otto and Mitzi. The wife of Governor Young’s secretary, she was being kept to assure the truce boat’s safe passage. Mrs. Lee handed her dogs over to a British soldier. Captured the night before, Mrs. Lee had been ordered into the party. Dew asked interpreter Othsu Dak what the terms of surrender were. “Equable terms for both sides and safe conduct for all,” he replied ambiguously. Fifteen minutes later, Boxer returned with Young’s answer. It was one word: “No.” Tada said, “It would be a pity if we have to level this beautiful city.” Then he stepped back, saluted, and returned with Mrs. Lee to his boat. Sakai was more impressed. “I am amazed

the governor has so much courage,” he wrote in his diary. Then he ordered a merciless twoday bombardment. Maltby reorganized his defenses. The Mainland and Island Brigades became the East and West Brigades. The Royal Rifles and Rajputs were placed in East Brigade under Wallis, with the Winnipeg Grenadiers and Punjabis into the West. Lawson was annoyed—years later both he and the Canadian official historian viewed splitting up the Canadians as a mistake—but he set up Brigade HQ at the Wong Nei Chong Gap, the notch in Hong Kong’s hills that enabled the main road to go from Victoria to Aberdeen. The Middlesex men still held their pillboxes under Fortress Command. Five batteries and seven rifle companies of Volunteers were the reserve. The East Brigade set up shop in the Tytam Gap, on the road from Sai Wan Hill to D’Aguilar Peak and Stanley. The Japanese began their bombardment with a variety of heavy guns, 4-inchers and 9-inchers and 150mm and 75mm field pieces. Forced coolie labor carried the ammunition, and those who did not keep up the pace were shot.

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self congratulated the Rajputs in Hindustani. Another general was using strong language that morning—Sakai. He was having all kinds of troubles: badly cooked prawns had given him a migraine headache. The white horse rounded up for the victory parade was gray and flea-bitten, and his orderly had not properly polished his samurai sword. More importantly, his invasion of Hong Kong was not moving as quickly as planned. British battalions that were supposed to be destroyed were slipping away in the dark. Casualty lists were frightful. However, the British were on the run. One good psychological shove might be enough to convince the weak Westerners to surrender. At 9 AM, Sakai sent a launch with three officers, an interpreter, and two female hostages under a white flag and a white banner that read “Peace Mission” on the bow. British troops cordoned off the Victoria Pier with bayonets, and senior officers came to greet the emissaries, joined by Detroit News correspondent Gwen Dew. In a flurry of salutes and protocol, Colonel Tokuchi Tada presented

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Japanese shells rained down on Victoria and Wanchai, blasting apart buildings, starting fires. The north shore was covered with black smoke, and the firefighters were overwhelmed. Dead bodies and garbage lay heaped in the streets. Sanitation crews tried to burn the refuse and haul off the corpses. One shell blasted a 9.2inch gun on Mt. Davis on the northwest shore. Another Japanese 9-inch shell entered the Fortress HQ plotting room but failed to explode. Sappers dislodged the shell to find it stamped clearly, “Woolwich Arsenal, 1908.” Other shells landed amid the hospital set up at the Happy Valley Racetrack, though it was clearly marked with the Red Cross, killing and wounding doctors, medics, patients, and horses alike. Japanese guns also shredded mansions on The Peak, ripping up 50 years of British power with a few well-aimed shells. Emily Hahn hid in the basement of the Selwyn-Clarke villa with her infant daughter Carola and other local residents, listening to shellfire and a BBC radio newscast voice saying, “The gallant fortress of Hong Kong is holding up well against the enemy assault.” The BBC’s morale-boosting rhetoric was echoed in London by Fleet Street, whose newspapers spewed out stories saying Hong Kong was dug in to withstand a six-month siege and extolling Young’s defiance. December 13 became December 14. Late in the day, HMS Thracian finished refueling at Aberdeen and sailed back into Kowloon Bay, hoping to make a hit-and-run raid on the Devil’s Peak. One mile short of her target, the old destroyer ran aground in the moonless night, hitting offshore rocks with a shuddering crash. They pierced her forward compartment. Lt. Cmdr. Pears, the skipper, backed out, but as he was about to head home for repairs, his lookouts saw two large motorized junks jammed with Japanese troops dead ahead. Thracian’s guns opened fire and exploded the first junk immediately; the second one sank minutes later. The battered destroyer steamed home. Next day, the Japanese answered Thracian’s impertinence by bombing her at Aberdeen, which required her to be drydocked. Young grappled with hysteria, shelling, and food shortages. Many key Chinese workers had deserted gun emplacements and hospital jobs. Panicking refugees raided private kitchens, sometimes killing the occupants. Armed robbers worked through the air-raid shelter tunnels. Others robbed refugees sleeping on the streets and British civilians going in and out of 84

government buildings. Even essential businesses closed down rather than face armed robbery. Shells knocked out the electrical power and that in turn shut off air raid sirens. Hour-long queues for free rice were subject to bombing, shellfire, and random strafing. A Japanese shell fell on a long queue of people waiting for their rice issue, the shrapnel cutting them down where they stood. Young imposed a 7:30 PM to 6:30 AM curfew

“WE SHOWED THAT THE ENEMY COULD NOT KEEP JAPANESE SOLDIERS OFF THE ISLAND. THEY WERE TOO FAT, TOO DECADENT. THEIR DESTRUCTION WAS INEVITABLE.” and ordered the police to round up suspected fifth columnists, and even asked the leading Chinese Triads—Hong Kong’s version of organized crime—to crack down on the youthful hoods causing chaos. The Triads were happy to do so. They saw the street gangs as upstarts threatening to take over their lucrative prostitution, opium, and gambling operations. Looters were shot. That evening, 300 Japanese soldiers in rafts, sampans, a motorized junk, and inflatable rubber boats started crossing the Lye Mun Strait. The men sent over were not the 38th Division’s best: Sakai used his sad sacks, theorizing that if they could establish a beachhead, then the 7,500 men behind would roll over the British. Besides, it was a cheap and effective way to rid himself of the incompetents that plague any army. The Japanese believed the Lye Mun barracks were deserted and the coast defenses devastated. They were wrong. The British had observed the preparations and reinforced the Royal Rifles and Rajput defenders with three platoons of Volunteers and two searchlights. Soon the British heard the junk’s motor. The Volunteers flipped on the searchlights and caught the Japanese. The Volunteers’ 6-inch howitzers blasted the junk, while the Rajputs and Canadians opened up with Bren gun and

rifle fire, massacring the enemy. Japanese soldiers tumbled out of rafts and sampans and drowned. Japanese artillery knocked out one searchlight. At 2:45 AM, the Japanese tried again, and the surviving searchlight caught them once more. The Japanese again took a beating, but did not shell the searchlight. There was a bizarre reason for that. Lieutenant Minoru Okada, a 32-year-old martial arts master who had written two novels on samurai heroes and was a 1936 Olympic athlete, was to lead four swimmers across the bay and destroy the searchlight at close range. Okada theorized that if the Japanese simply shelled the searchlights, the British would replace them. But if his team destroyed the searchlight up close, they could kill the crew, destroy the position, and the British would be too demoralized to replace the light. The Japanese commander valued samurai spirit over military logic and gave Okada and his volunteers the go-ahead. Swimming in underwear through the straits with bundles of dry clothing, grenades, and explosives on their backs, the five made it to the island. There, they pulled on their Chinese coolie outfits and crawled through barbed wire, past a snoozing Volunteer in a truck. At 4 AM, Okada reached the searchlight, and his group hurled grenades over the sandbags at the target. They blew up everything but the searchlight. The defenders opened fire and killed one Japanese soldier. Okada and the rest ran back to the sea and swam back to the north side. “The searchlight was of little significance,” Okada wrote in 1954. “What mattered was the deed. We showed that the enemy could not keep Japanese soldiers off the island. They were too fat, too decadent. Their destruction was inevitable.” Sakai was less impressed by Okada’s bravado, but he reasoned that the British had to be short of ammunition and supplies. Furthermore, lantern signals from fifth columnists on the island were giving wildly inflated casualty counts for the British. One spy reported British losses as 1,500 dead and 2,000 wounded. Actually it was 55 dead, 95 wounded, and 65 missing. Sakai figured one more surrender offer might do it. He decided to shell the British on Tuesday (December 16), demand surrender on Wednesday (December 17), and storm ashore with all three regiments on Thursday, December 18. The bombardment went on. The defenders were very tired—at Bowen Street Hospital the medical staff had slept about seven hours in

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Japanese soldiers watch from Kowloon as their shells fall on Victoria.

four days. The wards were overflowing. There was little cheer elsewhere, the pillboxes being methodically destroyed and now even water was short. Young rationed water, opening the mains from 6 AM to 9 AM and 3:30 PM to 6:30 PM daily. Civil defense workers and firefighters scoured Hong Kong Island to find wells. Next, Young banned sales of petrol to private car owners, requisitioned all buses, and shut down the 40-year-old streetcars, which had been grinding along Queen’s Road from sunup to sundown since the war started. Even rickshaw drivers abandoned their jobs. With the gasoline shortage, garbage drivers could not go out, and people dumped their refuse openly. Also deadlined were trucks that picked up excrement from public lavatories, which created health hazards. Yet life went on. A Chinese tailor hiked up the Peak to deliver a suit. A civil servant bawled out his secretary for arriving to work 20 minutes late. The British-American Tobacco Company presented 1st Middlesex’s C Company with 25,000 cigarettes, which prompted one soldier to say, “As long as they’ve got their fags, they’ll hold the bloody Island for years.” At 11 AM on Wednesday morning, Sakai and

his naval counterpart, Vice Adm. Masaichi Nimii, sent another “Peace Mission” boat to Victoria. Colonel Tada, in his dress uniform, and interpreter Othsu Dak, in his black suit, led the four-man party. No hostages this time, and both got directly to the point: Sakai wanted a British surrender by 4 PM. There would be a cease-fire until then. Once again Boxer took the letter. He told Tada to return at 2:30. At that time, everyone reassembled to read Young’s response. Boxer read sonorously, “The Governor and Commander-inChief, Hong Kong, declines most absolutely to enter into any negotiations for the surrender of Hong Kong and he takes this opportunity of saying he is not prepared to receive any further communications on this subject.” The Japanese were stunned. Sakai could not believe the British were such masochists. He was supposed to have led the victory parade on December 17; now he would lose face in Tokyo. Japanese generals who failed were not expected to outlive their failures. Fortunately, Tokyo showed sense. Since the British were fighting on, Sakai’s deadline was extended until New Year’s Day. The 38th Division’s role in the invasion of

Java was pushed back until February. Maltby was also cheered. He believed two Japanese surrender demands in four days meant the Japanese were afraid of attacking the island, were suffering pressure in their rear from the Chinese, and were reluctant to attack. His belief was echoed in the British and Canadian press. “Young’s reply to the Japanese should be read in every public place and school throughout the Empire,” gushed The Times of London. “Hong Kong, braced and exhilarated by the roar of her great guns, tersely rejected a second Japanese request to discuss surrender terms,” said the Daily Mail. The Canadian press talked up a Chinese breakthrough, reporting savage attacks. Actually, they were guerrilla raids. Chiang Kaishek’s forces were not attacking anyone. Sakai, however, had had enough. H-hour would be 10 PM on December 18. Shoji’s 230th Regiment would embark from a point north of Kai Tak and land 400 yards east of North Point. Doi’s 228th Regiment would embark from east of Kai Tak and land in the center at Braemar. Tanaka’s 229th Regiment would embark from Devil’s Peak and land at Sau Ki Wan. Each reg85

iment would attack in two waves: the first in 14-man collapsible rowing assault boats, the second and the rest in powered landing boats. Each regiment would send in two battalions, leaving three battalions in reserve. The bridging engineers were to provide the landing craft. With one hour to get the first wave across, speed and surprise were essential. Once ashore, the Japanese would grab Mount Nicholson, Wong Nei Chong Gap, Jardine’s Lookout, Mount Butler, and Mount Parker. On Thursday, December 18, the skies opened, drenching both sides with rain. Rain, fog, and smoke from the burning Anglo-Persian oil refinery and paint factory cut visibility on the north shore to nil. The Japanese battered the waterfront defenses with shellfire, closing down the main road from Causeway Bay to Shau Ki Wan. Blasted trolleys, wrecked trucks, and shredded and live power cables made movement impossible. The ceaseless shelling was having its impact on the defenders. “This day has been the worst yet. Our position has become a living hell,” wrote Sydney Skelton. “My nerves are on edge. I could eat a horse. Shell landed 30 feet from where I was standing. One fellow got shrapnel in the side. My head swam and my nerves seem to be all gone. More lads were wounded again today. The sky is as red as blood.” Some Canadians had not had a hot meal for 24 hours. Father DeLoughery, the chaplain, visited the men by day and hospitals by night, offering Holy Communion and comfort. As 2nd Battalion/228th clambered into its assault craft, Skelton wrote, “Huge fires are raging in Victoria. The bombardment is still on. This is one day I shall never forget. Tomorrow will tell another story.” At 7 PM, 3,500 Japanese troops moved out in junks, sampans, rubber boats, and anything that could float. Another 4,000 Japanese troops waited to go over in the second wave. The defense opened up with machine-gun and artillery fire, which broke up the Japanese attack order and flipped boats in the air and their human cargo overboard. Oars broke and men rowed with rifles and entrenching shovels through smoke, haze, and rain. When the 228th reached their beaches, company and platoon leaders were cut down by British fire. The Japanese reacted in samurai tradition: They fixed bayonets and charged the enemy. As soon as the first wave landed, the second wave moved across. They hit the beach and were pinned down. Shoji’s and Tanaka’s regiments fared little 86

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The Japanese breached the Gindrinkers Line, pushed the Commonwealth defenders toward evacuation, landed at several points on mountainous Hong Kong Island to the south, and eventually wore down the remaining British, Canadian, Scottish, and Indian troops defending the Crown Colony.

better. Shoji captured British pillboxes but was soon pinned down by artillery. Tanaka, under Rajput machine-gun fire, told his men to take no prisoners. Tanaka’s men also stormed Sai Wan Hill, held by the Volunteers’ 5th AA Battery. The 29 defenders were surrounded and outnumbered. A Japanese officer shouted in English, “Surrender and we will save you! Come out all men, and you will be released.” The British, Chinese, Eurasian, and Portuguese defenders came out, hands up, one at a time. The nearest Japanese soldier bayoneted the first man … then the next man … and the next. One Volunteer who saw what was hap-

pening tried to run and was cut down by rifle fire. The rest of the men were tied up and held for two hours in a small room. Then they were led out, flung on the ground, and used for bayonet practice. The Japanese hurled the dead and dying into a nearby pit. Only two survived— gunner Chan Yam-kwong and bombardier Martin Tso Hin-Chi—by hiding among the rotting bodies for three days, before escaping when a Japanese guard turned his back. There was horror at Captain Martin Banfill’s first-aid post at the Salesian Mission in Shau Ki Wan, too, when Tanaka’s men stormed up. A Japanese patrol kicked in the front door and rounded up the 25-member staff. The women

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were not harmed, but a Japanese officer ordered the men to hand over their watches, rings, and wallets to the invaders. Then the men were marched 200 yards down the highway, where Banfill, as the CO, had his hands tied and a rope around his neck. “We are medical personnel,” Banfill said, “Noncombatants.” “Soldiers first, medical second,” retorted the Japanese officer, a Lieutenant Honda. “We have instructions from our commander-inchief. You must die.” They shot five doctors, sparing Banfill. “I will kill you later. First you are to be questioned,” Honda said. He took Banfill away, while his troops bayoneted and beheaded the remaining medics. Incredibly, Corporal Norman Leath of the Royal Army Medical Corps and Dr. Osler Thomas survived the bayonets, living to give testimony that sent Tanaka to the scaffold. Leath, in pain from his wounds, survived for eight days, walking across Hong Kong’s hills and drinking muddy water from streams, before stumbling into an internment camp. Meanwhile, Honda took Banfill over the hills to a Japanese encampment. En route they spotted a wounded Rajput lieutenant and bayoneted him. At the camp, a senior officer interrogated Banfill and found out he knew nothing about the defenses. The doctor wound up in a POW camp. Chinese fifth columnists grabbed Fort Sai Wan and started spraying the Royal Rifles’ encampment with captured Lewis machine guns. Major W.A. Bishop called Fortress Headquarters to ask them to fire artillery on the fort, and they refused. “We have it down on paper that friendly troops occupy the fort. We cannot shell it.” “Well, they sure as blazes aren’t acting in a friendly manner,” retorted Bishop. Meanwhile, Japanese troops entered the Lye Mun barracks, meeting up with the Royal Rifles. Bishop grabbed a Tommy gun and went off with another officer to find out what was going on. He bumped into a Japanese patrol. Bishop cut loose with his Thompson, killing seven Japanese and earning a Distinguished Service Order. All along the north shore the Japanese invasion stormed. Tanaka’s men, between beheadings, clambered up Mount Parker and Mount Butler. Captain Bob Newton’s D Company of Rajputs, down to a hundred men, faced Shoji’s regiment with valor and determination. The Rajputs had enjoyed only one night’s sleep since the battle began. Worse, fifth columnists had cut the Rajputs’ barbed wire. Nonetheless, the Rajputs gave the Japanese a warm greeting with

mortar and machine-gun fire and then launched a bayonet charge in the smoke and rain. But the Japanese rolled grenades down ventilation shafts into pillboxes. Newton himself was cut down by enemy fire while shouting encouragement to his men. When Newton’s body was found, his revolver was empty, and he was surrounded by six dead enemy soldiers. Once Newton died, the Rajputs began to waver and had to withdraw at 2:30 AM. The slaughtered company numbered only 35 men and was ordered to join Company B at Leighton Hill, northeast of Happy Valley Racetrack. Shoji’s regiment climbed up the hills, heading for the summit of Jardine’s Lookout, two miles from their beach, which overlooked the Wong Nei Chong Gap. By 3:30 AM, Shoji himself had caught up with his 3rd Battalion on the Lookout’s northeast slopes, which were held by two platoons of Volunteers. Another roadblock to Shoji’s advance was the power station at North Point, held by the Hughes Group, under Lt. Col. H. Owen Hughes, in peacetime the chairman of the Union Insurance Company of Canton. The Hughes Group was composed of men too old to qualify for normal service, all 55 and over. What they lacked in youth they more than made up for in morale, enthusiasm, and weapons accuracy. A total of 72 “Hughesiliers” were assigned to hold the Power Station against saboteurs, under Major The Honorable J.J. Paterson, a colorful legislator and social lion who held a private box at Happy Valley. He was also a veteran of the African Camel Corps in 1917. The defenders included T.A. Pearce, the 67-year-old secretary of the Royal Hong Kong Jockey Club; Private Sir Richard Des Voeux, secretary of the powerful Hong Kong Club; “Pop” Hingston, head chef of the Hong Kong Hotel; and the jaunty, aristocratic Free French Captain Jacques Egal, who had been wounded and captured in World War I. Hingston had fought with the Canadians at Vimy Ridge. The Hughesiliers were reinforced by a platoon of Middlesex men and 30 British technicians from the Hong Kong Electric Company. At 1:45, the power station and its motley defenders were surrounded. Paterson told his men, “By rights, half of you ought to be dead now. If a man can’t stay in his position alive, he’ll stay in it dead. Those are your orders; now give ’em hell.” The exhortation worked. The slow-moving and myopic defenders of the Power Station held off repeated bayonet charges by the

Japanese, who had a 20:1 manpower advantage. At dawn, the Hughesiliers gaped at masses of sprawled Japanese bodies lying around them, and the enemy was gone. It reminded R.G. Burch of the Boer War: “The Boers had a nasty trick. They’d pretend they were gone and then come at you with everything they had. These chaps could be doing the same thing.” Des Voeux answered, “It’s quite possible, all right. But I’ll tell you one thing. I’d sooner die here fighting than rot in a lousy prison camp. Anyway I’m threescore and 10 and living on borrowed time now.” Sure enough, the Japanese launched a mortar barrage five minutes later, smashing the concrete walls, killing Des Voeux. The Japanese charged through the barrage and smoke, tossing grenades through windows and holes. Tam Pearce, seeing that the building was on fire, pointed at a wrecked double-decker bus nearby, and said to Paterson, “If it’s all right with you, I’d prefer dying there than being roasted alive.” Paterson said, “My dear fellow, there’s a great deal to what you say.” Pearce and five Hughesiliers took up position in the bus and held it for two hours against bayonet charges. Finally, the Japanese brought up three machine guns and shredded the defenders, killing everyone but Private C.E. Geoghan, who drove off an enemy attack singlehanded, killing an officer and four men with five rounds before the Japanese shot him, ending “The Battle of the Bus.” In the power station, Paterson and his crew hung on. Unbelievably, the last 12 ancient warriors fought on until 4 PM, when they ran out of ammunition and surrendered. The Japanese roped up the old men and marched them off. “The delay the force imposed was very valuable to me,” Maltby wrote later in his report. As the Japanese advanced, the war came closer to Hong Kong’s Central District. Wounded Chinese civilians filled the Jockey Club, which had been converted into a hospital. Bowen Road Hospital took 111 hits during the siege. Wounded victims were wheeled in assembly-line fashion into surgery, where doctors worked for 36 hours straight. With most Royal Navy ships out of action, there were a lot of sailors without jobs. They were organized into 30-man combat groups, issued rifles and tin hats, and sent to fight as infantry. Royal Marine Major “Monkey” Giles was given command of sailors from the naval base, one of whom was a clerk whose rifle was 87

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filled with dirt. “You’ll have to clean that before you start fighting,” Giles said. “Yes, sir. Please, sir, how?” the clerk answered. Meanwhile, as December 19 advanced, so did the Japanese on Wong Nei Chong Gap and its police station at the gap’s summit. Corporal Sam Kravinchuk and the Winnipeg Grenadiers’ A Company, under Major A.B. “Granny” Gresham, were sent to take and hold Mount Butler and the Tai Tam Reservoir. Drenched from pouring rain, the Grenadiers occupied the high ground. At dawn, the Japanese attacked. Kravinchuk and his company fixed bayonets and drove the Japanese back. A sniper killed Gresham. The company held on, as Company Sgt. Maj. John Osborn personally killed six Japanese with his bayonet and tossed live enemy grenades back at the Japanese. Volunteer Corporal M.S. Lau and three men held on until 7:30 AM when all but Lau were killed. But the Grenadiers had to retreat. During the withdrawal, Kravinchuk had to escort two wounded pals to a first-aid post in a pillbox. When the three Canadians reached it, Kravinchuk rapped on the door, saying, “Hello, anybody home?” The door flipped open, and two Japanese soldiers shoved bayonets at him. The Japanese prodded the three Canadians across the clearing to a shack full of other Canadian and British prisoners. By dawn on Friday, December 19, the Japanese were nearly halfway across the five-mile Hong Kong Island. Their objective was the island’s reservoirs in the center. That would cut the defenders in two and cut off their water supply. The Rajputs were nearly obliterated, and Japanese forces were on the move. Victory seemed near. Lawson probably agreed. He burned his code books and radioed Ottawa: “Situation very grave. Deep penetration made by enemy.” Maltby, however, said, “Japanese will undoubtedly try to ferry more men over tonight and continue infiltration, but I hope to be in a position to launch a general counter-attack tomorrow morning.” Maltby, seeing that East Brigade was down to the Royal Rifles, two companies of Volunteers, and some Middlesex machine guns, ordered it to withdraw to the south coast, holding Stanley Fort. There it would regroup and counterattack, backed by the fort’s mobile guns. Lawson’s West Brigade would withdraw from Wong Nei Chong Gap. Maltby gave the message to Corporal Lionel Speller, who fired up his BSA 500 motorcycle for the five-mile trip. Speller had been on the go 88

all morning. His previous “vital mission” was to deliver a package of dog food to a British colonel in a pillbox. Speller, a keen motocross driver, struggled through sniper fire to reach Lawson’s Tac HQ by 8 AM, earning a Military Medal for his valor. At 9 AM, he went back to Fortress Headquarters. At 10 AM, the Japanese attacked Lawson’s HQ, surrounding it. Two truckloads of beached sailors from the now grounded HMS Thracian under Lt. Cmdr. Pears were rushed up, but were caught in an ambush. Most of the Thracian sailors were cut down as they jumped out of their trucks. Petty Officer Peter Paul rolled down the slope and hooked up with some Royal Scots eight hours later. Four sailors held out in a house against Japanese fire for two hours. When their ammo was gone, they waved a white handkerchief. The Japanese took them out and bayoneted three of them. The fourth, Able Seaman Ronald Mattieson, yanked the rifle out of a Japanese soldier’s hands and dived head-first over a cliff. He fell 50 feet, broke his collarbone, and landed next to a cave, which he hid in for the next 30 days. Under heavy machine-gun fire in his pillbox, Lawson phoned Maltby to say, “They’re all around us. I’m going outside to fight it out.” Lawson and his staff officers ran out of the pillbox, and Sergeant Bob Manchester saw Japanese machine guns cut them all down. When Shoji heard that a British brigadier was among the bodies at Wong Nei Chong, he ordered the body wrapped in a blanket and temporarily buried “on the battleground on which he had died so heroically.” Captain Allan Bowman died rushing a Japanese patrol, firing his Thompson. Captain Bob Phillips, an eye knocked out, fought on until his ammo ran out. Lieutenant Len Corrigan saw a Japanese officer advancing brandishing his samurai sword, wrestled him to the ground, and strangled him to death. Up on Mount Butler, Osborn led 35 men of A Company of the Grenadiers down from the heights, with hundreds of Japanese in pursuit. A career soldier, father of five, and devoted family man, Osborn was cool and efficient. His platoon struggled down a slope into a ravine, seemingly having avoided the Japanese. Suddenly a Japanese soldier tossed a grenade into the group that landed three feet from Osborn. The sergeant major yelled “Clear out!” and flung himself on the grenade, absorbing the full blast. The platoon, stunned by Osborn’s self-sacrifice, ran on. Private Stanley Baty tripped and fell on his face—which saved his life. When he

hit the ground, Japanese rifles and automatic weapons opened fire, killing everyone near Baty. He and 14 survivors broke out their rifles and Bren guns and shot back. After 20 minutes, the Grenadiers decided to surrender. One of them waved a white handkerchief. He was shot down. “We’ve had it boys,” Baty said. “Those buggers are aching to do us in.” They fought on as long as the ammo lasted— 10 more minutes—and then ripped out their rifle breeches. Then they all stood up, expecting to be shot. The Japanese rose, bayonets pointed. An officer pointed a sword at a man near Baty. Two soldiers grabbed the Canadian, hauled him off, and bayoneted him to death. The message: Everyone else would suffer the same fate unless they did what they were told. The Japanese stripped the Canadians of their rings, watches, and wallets and marched them north. By dusk, Baty and his pals were jammed in a one-room building packed with British, Canadian, and Indian POWs. There was no food, water, or sleep. They endured “The Black Hole of Hong Kong” for 20 hours. Osborn’s body was never identified. His name was chiseled on the memorial to the missing at Sai Wan. When the Canadian government learned of his deed after the war, he was awarded a posthumous Victoria Cross—the only one of the battle. The Royal Navy was in action, too. MTB-7 and MTB-9 were ordered to sail into Hong Kong Harbor at 8 AM and shoot up enemy vessels with machine guns and grenades. Lieutenant R.W. Ashby, skipper of MTB-7, laconically reported, “I opened fire on the enemy landing craft with all my guns at 100 yards range with excellent results, and passed down the leading string at a distance of about five yards, firing continuously. I dropped two depth-charges which failed to explode. I then came under machine-gun, howitzer, and light artillery fire from both shores and also from cannon and machine-gun fire from aircraft. The boat was hit several times and a cannon shell exploded in the engine room putting my starboard engine out of action and killing my Leading Stoker … my speed was reduced to 22 knots. However, I turned and attacked a second bunch of landing craft with machine-gun fire at point-blank range with most satisfactory effect.” Ashby received the Distinguished Service Cross. MTB-7 lost its port engine to shellfire, and the third one later. MTB-9 towed its sister to safety. MTBs 11, 12, and 26 were less lucky, all being sunk. Lieutenant D.W. Wagstaff of MTB-

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26 ignored the signal to withdraw, and the boat was last seen stopped dead off North Point, her Lewis gun blazing away. MTB-18 took a direct hit that wrecked her propeller. At top speed, she shot into the Kowloon seawall and exploded. There were no survivors. The Punjabis and the Royal Scots tried to counterattack at 3 PM, with little success. The Royal Scots had a lot to prove after the fiasco at Shing Mun. They had not slept or eaten proper food in days, but were angry and insulted. Captain David Pinkerton, recovered from his Golden Hill wounds, again led the assault. The Scots advanced against heavy machine-gun fire and got nowhere. Pinkerton was wounded again on the steps of the police station and had to be removed from the battlefield, cursing horribly. Casualties were immense, and command devolved on four subalterns. Of the 500 men who went into Wong Nei Chong Gap, only 175 returned after the battle. The Royal Scots had regained only their reputation. “This is the worst day my men had in all the Hong Kong fighting, and as an officer in battle the worst day I ever experienced,” wrote a Royal Scots subaltern. The British tried again with two Volunteer armored cars and a hundred Indian artillerymen who had lost their guns. They reached the police station but could not hold it. In control of the gap, the Japanese beat and bayoneted the wounded defenders they captured.

ABOVE: A formation of Japanese planes flies over Causeway Bay and heavily populated areas along Hong Kong’s northern shore. Mount Parker can be seen in the background.

By dusk on the 19th, the wrecked East Brigade had fallen back to Stanley. Royal Engineers blew up the two 6-inch guns at Collinson and the two 9.2-inchers at Cape D’Aguilar. The soldiers were tired and dispirited from days of bombardment and had neither the strength nor training for cross-country operations. As night fell, both sides gasped for breath. Shoji scribbled out his report to Sakai, apologizing for the loss of 800 men to the Winnipeg Grenadiers. The stout defense by the green, scattered, and poorly supplied Canadians lifted Maltby’s spirits, but he could not counterattack yet. The Japanese were pressing on Repulse Bay Hotel and the Aberdeen dockyards. They would have to be held. He placed Colonel Harry Rose in charge of what was left of the West Brigade. Early on the 20th, Wallis ordered the Royal Rifles to move along the south shore by Repulse Bay to counterattack toward Wong Nei Chong and hook up with West Brigade. Backed by his only two mobile 3.7-inch howitzers, A Company shuffled off to take Violet Hill, only to find the Japanese 3rd/229th had beaten them to it. In peacetime, Repulse Bay Hotel offered its guests five-course meals, sandy beaches on a crescent-shaped bay, and beautifully tended gardens. It stood on the edge of a cliff and the

foot of a mountain slope. The three-day battle for the hotel began in bizarre fashion. At 7:40 AM, four Japanese officers in white gloves and pressed uniforms turned up at the end of the driveway, staring at the terrain. Hotel guests eating breakfast on the terrace stared back in amazement. The officers vanished, replaced by 25 soldiers, who took over the hotel’s gas station and captured six Royal Navy sailors. Fortunately, the hotel also had 200 British, Canadian, and Indian troops among its guests, soldiers who had been sent there for a few days’ rest from battle. They dug in immediately. The civilian guests—paying £10 a day—were less prepared. They included the ubiquitous Gwen Dew, Baron and Baroness Guillaume, American author L.C. Arlington, Peak society matrons, and a collection of Swiss, French, Russian, German, and Chinese families. The socialites disliked the Chinese and complained about them to manager Marjorie Matheson, demanding they be put in the basement. Instead, Matheson put civilians in the basement while the battle raged. British and Japanese soldiers traded rifle fire between the gas station and the hotel. Lieutenant Peter Grounds, commanding the defenders, led an attack to capture the gas station. He was killed 89

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leading it, but the sailors were freed, tied up but unhurt. The siege continued. The defenders slept in the ping-pong and card rooms, rifles beside them, while the civilians huddled in the basement with rationed water. The hotel nurse, Elizabeth Mosey, tended shrapnel and stomach wounds. Luckily she had done that precise job in World War I. The senior staff cook and the female guests kept a flow of soup, coffee, sandwiches, and biscuits to the troops, holding back the caviar and lobster for a victory party. By nightfall, the hotel battle was a stalemate, but Wallis was determined to recapture the Wong Nei Chong Gap. With rain drenching down, he decided to wait until dawn. Next morning, Sunday, December 21, Major Robert Templer of the 8th Coast Artillery, a 20year veteran, was sent to take over the Repulse Bay Hotel. “There’s a hell of a mess down there,” Maltby told Templer. “Try and clean it up, will you.” With two Rifles platoons, Templer marched into the battered hotel to find the highest ranking officer hiding in the hotel bar, drunk, singing “The Maple Leaf Forever.” Templer ordered all defenders to shave immediately and moved HQ to the hotel lobby. He restored order and boosted morale with personal leadership. Then he took two truckloads of Rifles up to attack a Japanese encampment, but found the enemy too numerous. That evening, Templer sat down for some turtle soup, supreme of turbot, and filet mignon, when Bombardier Harry Guy reported, “Sir, them bloody Japs are in the West Wing.” “The devil they are,” Templer retorted. “Come on.” He and a group of defenders went over with as many hand grenades as they could find. A Japanese patrol had set up a machine gun at the end of a long, red-carpeted corridor, and were blazing away at the walls. Templer and his men rolled grenades down the floor to destroy the machine gun. The few guests left bailed out through the windows. The battle for Wong Nei Chong Gap raged on. Grenadier Companies B and D, reinforced by some Royal Scots, Punjabis, and beached sailors, were sent to take back the police station. It took 10 hours to cover half a mile. Major Ernie Hodkinson led from the front, shouting, hurling grenades, and firing his revolver. When two armored cars came up to support the attack, Japanese mortars and machine guns shredded them. The platoon was halfway up the steep slope when the Japanese 90

attacked from the crest, hurling grenades and screaming. Hodkinson was hit and blacked out. When he woke up, he was in Queen Mary Hospital, and he knew the attack had failed. The Japanese continued their advance. Doi’s troops captured Mount Nicholson, breaking the defense line. HMS Cicala was sent to Deep Water Bay to

“DEATH AND BLOOD ALL AROUND ME. NOISE ALL AROUND. THEY ARE COMING CLOSER. OH, GOD, IT DOESN’T SEEM THAT I CAN STAND IT ANY LONGER.” provide fire support. She came under enemy mortar fire and silenced the mortars with 6pound shells. “No more trouble from that quarter,” Boldero observed. But the Japanese came back with six bombers, and Cicala’s luck finally ran out. Bombs blasted her open. She was sinking by the stern when more bombers came streaking in. Boldero signaled MTB-9 to ask what to do, and was told to “drop depth charges and make sure she sinks.” Boldero was the last man onto the Carley floats. The depth charges blew up, and HMS Cicala sank at last. The sailors rowed back to Aberdeen, where they were issued rifles and tin hats. Four hours later, they were fighting as infantrymen on Bennett’s Hill. Lieutenant Colonel Gerald Kidd personally led his Punjabis to fight their way through from Aberdeen to Repulse Bay. With only 25 Sikhs and a dozen sailors, Kidd attacked Shouson Hill, which was topped by a mansion belonging to Sir Shouson Hill, a Chinese millionaire. Captain Alastair Thompson and Lieutenant Nigel Forsyth led their men into action, which was fought at close range. A Sikh sergeant bayoneted three Japanese and hurled their bodies over his shoulder like sacks of hay. Another corporal killed five with a single Thompson burst. Two sepoys held off 20 Japanese with their rifles until they were killed. But the hill had no cover, and the British had no artillery support. The attack failed, and Kidd lay among the dead. Thompson was also wounded, but Forsyth emerged unscathed. The

surviving eight Sikhs pulled out for tea and rum. All day the Canadians launched piecemeal counterattacks, taking heavy casualties. They were joined by all the rear-echelon men Western armies rely on. All failed. No help was coming. Chiang Kai-shek radioed that he could not attack toward Hong Kong for another 10 days, if at all. The War Office ordered Maltby to destroy all installations. Volunteers set the Texaco, Shell, and Royal Navy oil tanks ablaze, covering Victoria in blue flame and smoke. Grenadier Sergeant Howard Donnelly was ordered to destroy a liquor warehouse, and he did—but not before stuffing his tunic with bottles. The battle of the Repulse Bay Hotel resumed on the 22nd. Guests volunteered to help. Millionaire Henry Marsman slapped on a tin hat and went out with two Chinese bellboys in red caps and gold-buttoned uniforms to dig in the garden to fill sandbags. Hong Kong’s best jockey, Victor Needa; British businessman D.A. Baker-Carr; and Canadian oil executive W.M. Wilson drove a bullet-riddled car half a mile to the Lido Beach Club to pick up a British ammunition cache. Miraculously, all three survived. The hotel itself was now a mess—full of broken walls and floors, shattered glass, falling plaster, wrecked silverware, and bullet-riddled furniture. The Japanese cut off water and power, and Templer rationed water to a cupful per day. Dew and Mosey—the latter in her old uniform—washed bandages in the same water over and over again. Hearing about this situation by radio, Maltby ordered Templer to withdraw the troops and leave the guests and wounded men to surrender. Maltby feared that if any more fighting took place in the hotel civilians would die needlessly. Templer was appalled. “It was the most terrible order I have ever had to give— the order to abandon women and children to the Japanese. But I realized that Maltby had been right: Stanley was hardly the place for 200 unexpected civilian guests.” He had to repeat his orders in Hindustani for the Indians and French for the Canadians. The troops destroyed the liquor stores and withdrew during the night of the 22nd. They said nothing, to prevent panic, but some of the civilians came to see them off. Businessman Andrew Shields told Templer, “You’ve got to go. We all realize that. Only men with rifles are important in Hong Kong now.” Templer nodded, turned on his heel, and gave the order: “Ready to move.” The men slipped down the drain tunnel to the beach, then south along the

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Major General Christopher Maltby (standing with surrender flag) and Sir Mark Young, Governor and Commander in Chief of Hong Kong (seated at right), surrender to Japanese General Takashi Sakai (at left with glasses) in the Peninsula Hotel ballroom, December 25, 1941.

road to Stanley Fort, sneaking past a patrol of 20 Japanese. Every man took off his heavy hobnailed boots to reduce the noise, and all made it to Stanley. At dawn on the 23rd, guests awoke to see a white pillowcase fluttering from the garden flagpole that had flown the Union Jack. The Japanese arrived three hours later through the back windows, suspecting a trap. Businessman Andrew Shields said in poor Japanese, “There are no soldiers here, soldiers gone.” Six Japanese pointed their bayonets at the cocktail bar where 40 men lay wounded. Mosey looked up from a dying Alberta soldier who was talking lucidly of his family back home. She snarled, “Go away. These are sick men. If you want to kill them, you’ll have to kill me first.” The Japanese retreated. “That’s better,” she said, returning to the Canadian. There were no killings at the Repulse Bay Hotel. The British were pulling out of the Ridge, south of Wong Nei Chong Gap, as well. Lt. Col. MacPherson was holding the place with a collection of Royal Army Ordnance Corpsmen. They spoke in French to prevent listening Japanese from understanding the orders. Again, the British left their wounded behind, but when the Japanese stormed into the house, they tore down the white flag, bayoneted the interpreter,

and sprayed a room full of 30 wounded men with machine-gun fire and grenades, killing most of them. Six days later, the bodies were found, heaped in a pile like rubbish. The same day, 53 Rifles and British POWs were marched to a seaside cliff near the Repulse Bay Hotel. There the Japanese bound the men, and then shot, bayoneted, and beheaded them in groups. Fifth columnists led Japanese troops to the Happy Valley Racetrack. There, 50 defenders were assembled to hold the valley, including civilian police. Thirty-five Middlesex men and seven Volunteers held Leighton Hill with rifles and machine guns, taking all the artillery the Japanese could muster in Kowloon. They only withdrew on Christmas Eve. In Wanchai, Royal Scots and Volunteers fought for four hours to hold Jimmy’s Beer Kitchen, a fourstory building that was normally the troops’ favorite bar. All along the mountains the fighting raged on. Doi was stunned by the Canadian ferocity. He thought he was up against 400 men in one fight, when the Grenadiers only numbered 100. Doi’s men took 40 percent casualties and ran out of ammunition. They hurled rocks at the Canadians. The Grenadiers, also short of ammunition, threw packing crates and machinery back.

As the casualties mounted, organization disintegrated. Japanese shellfire blasted the phone lines. Runners got lost and shot. With food and ammunition short, Canadians jumped enemy sentries to steal their food. Grenadiers went three or four days without eating. Winston Churchill was worried, too. From the battleship HMS Duke of York, taking him to a conference in Washington, he signaled Hong Kong on the 21st: “Every day that you are able to maintain your resistance you help the Allied cause all over the world, and by a prolonged resistance you and your men can win the lasting honor which we are sure will be your due.” Strong words, but the Japanese had taken three reservoirs and bombed the fourth, cutting off the water. Victoria’s 1.7 million residents had only wells and rooftop tanks. Enterprising Chinese sold jugs of dirty water for $10 a bottle. Grenadier Sergeant Howard Donnelly grabbed a gasoline tanker to bring water from a well to his Peak depot and used the water to cook food. The eggs tasted of gasoline, but he touched a match to them and they didn’t catch fire. Victoria itself was a nightmare. Refugees lined up for food amid rubble and the bodies of shot looters, left by police as a warning. Black marketeers sold flashlights, blankets, and food. Women guarded their homes with guns, and 91

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white residents carried the bodies of relatives and friends killed in the shelling up slopes, looking for somewhere to bury them. With Victoria collapsing, Doi hurled his men at the center of the British line, Mount Cameron, on the night of the 23rd. One thousand men of the 228th Regiment stormed a hill held by a hundred Grenadiers. The Canadians were scattered, but regrouped. The Royal Scots also fought hard, losing 390 of 500 men in the center of the island. At Stanley peninsula, the Volunteers and Royal Rifles held on against Tanaka’s 229th Regiment. Middlesex 2nd Lt. Charles Cheesewright held his pillboxes until midnight on the 22nd, when he was ordered to withdraw. Incredibly, his No. 11 Platoon did not suffer a single casualty. Major Rusty Forsyth led No. 2 (Scottish) Company of the Volunteers in a fierce stand against Japanese troops and tanks. He was wounded twice but continued to fight. Above the din of battle came the sound of bagpipes as Pipe Major Alexander Mackie skirled away. The company was ordered to withdraw, but nobody obeyed the orders. Forsyth was killed, and Mackie played on. The Japanese yelled, “Surrender, Englishmen!” The Scots yelled back, “Englishmen be damned!” The next round of Japanese gunfire killed Mackie. The Royal Rifles were exhausted, too. Some Canadians were passing out and falling asleep where they stood, oblivious to bombardment. Issued new entrenching tools, they were too tired to dig. The Rifles lost Stone Hill, Palm Villa, and Sugar Loaf Hill. Stanley Mound changed hands three times. Private Sidney Skelton wrote in his diary: “Death and blood all around me. They just got Jack next to me. We were talking when suddenly a shell made a mess of him. Today Mother’s birthday. I wonder if she’s thinking of me. Noise all around. They are coming closer. Oh, God, it doesn’t seem that I can stand it any longer.” Skelton was wounded soon after, and taken to St. Stephen’s College in Stanley, which was being used as a hospital. At 10 PM on Christmas Eve, Rifles CO Lt. Col. Home radioed Maltby to ask for a 48hour stand-down for his exhausted battalion. Home told Maltby he could not answer for his battalion without a break. Maltby consented. The Rifles staggered into Stanley Fort and collapsed in the barracks. At 2:30 AM on Christmas Day, Maltby 92

ordered Home to have his men occupy the high ground overlooking Stanley village. The Japanese were about to break through. Home woke up men who had the most sleep—three or four hours—and they double-timed to the 700-foot-wide point that joined Stanley to the island. Three Japanese tanks were advancing against a Volunteer antitank gun. The gun destroyed the first two and damaged the third, sending it packing. The Japanese attacked again, this time with infantry, and stormed the village. The battle raged amid a police station, post office, soccer field, and tennis court. Two Scottish platoons were slaughtered and half the Rifles. The British forces withdrew slowly, inflicting hundreds of casualties. Tanaka brought up flamethrowers. The British pulled back to the fort for a last stand. On Christmas morning, 200 Japanese soldiers moved on St. Stephen’s College, which was being used as a hospital for 95 wounded Britons and Canadians. The advancing Japanese had apparently raided a Stanley bar and were drunk. Dr. George Black, the ancient civilian in charge of the hospital, waved a white bed sheet at the front entrance, saying: “This is a hospital. You mustn’t come in. Leave us in peace.” A Japanese soldier shot Black in the forehead. Then the Japanese ran in and bayoneted 56 wounded men in their beds. Sidney Skelton, lying in a classroom with 20 other wounded men, had just received preoperation anesthetic and was losing consciousness. He saw 12 Japanese soldiers storm into his room and start bayoneting men. Skelton threw himself onto the floor, feigning death. The Japanese dragged him out and kicked his face. He didn’t move. They figured he was dead, and left him. Skelton bandaged his arm and lay among the corpses for half an hour. At that time, a British voice said, “They say anyone who can get to the front door will be spared.” Skelton crawled to the front door. There he saw a Japanese soldier grab a Volunteer from a line of POWs and bayonet him for still having his knife. An officer took Skelton’s wristwatch, slapped him in the face with his sword, and sent Skelton upstairs to a windowless room with 40 male captives. All day long, the Japanese pulled men out of the room and bayoneted them. Then they went to the room where they were holding the women, and raped and bayoneted three English and four Chinese nurses. The rest were gangraped. A British lieutenant asked a Japanese

captain if he could see his wife. The captain led the Briton to a pile of bodies in the bushes. There, he saw his wife among the corpses. It was a dreadful Christmas all across the island. The South China Morning Post put out a one-page edition, headlined “Day of Good Cheer.” Three Grenadier privates, in a villa owned by the Dutch consul, found the kitchen fully stocked, but that was all the food to be had. Maltby shared asparagus and a halfempty bottle of wine with McGregor. Captain Bill Price of the Royal Rifles ate tinned beer and bully beef and biscuits with Captain Charles Pope of the Royal Engineers. Dr. Gordon Grey passed out some fruitcake his mother had given him to patients at the Bowen Street Hospital. Grenadier Bob Lyttle caught a pig, but they could not cook it, so they ate it raw. Gwen Dew and the Repulse Bay captives, held in a paint factory, were given three cans of beer and a box of soda crackers by a Japanese officer who said, “Merry Christmas.” A Middlesex platoon’s roasting chickens were destroyed by a shell before they were ready to eat. Australian Major Arthur Dewar, leading a group at Little Hong Kong, was too busy to eat. His group of sailors inflicted massive casualties on the enemy, but they ran out of mortar bombs and machine-gun ammunition. At 9 AM, two civilians caught at Repulse Bay, Andrew Shields and Charles Manners, arrived at Fortress Headquarters under a white flag. Sakai was offering a three-hour cease-fire so Maltby could consider surrendering. Maltby discussed the situation with his aides. The Japanese were moving in on Peak mansions. The Aberdeen naval yard defenders were down to 60 rounds of ammo. There were only six mobile guns left, with 150 rounds between them. The last radios had been destroyed. The defenders were exhausted and short of water, food, and ammunition. But nobody wanted to surrender. Maltby told the messengers the offer was rejected. After they left, however, Maltby had second thoughts. At 2 PM, he phoned Stewart, the Middlesex commander, and asked how things were for the men in the North Point pillboxes. “How long do you think they can hold out?” That was tough for Stewart. He wanted to say “As long as I tell them to.” But he couldn’t. “One hour at the outside,” Stewart answered. “Do you have any reserves at all?” No, Maltby answered. He had gone to Young at Government House at 3 PM, and said, “It’s a hopeless situation, Mark. Once the pill-

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boxes are gone, the enemy will flood into Victoria. We haven’t the strength to stop them.” Young had no choice. At 3:15 PM, he ordered his men to ground arms and give themselves up at the nearest Japanese position. The battle of Hong Kong was over. Communications were so bad, isolated British and Canadian platoons did not know about the surrender, and some went on fighting for days. In Victoria, mothers hid their daughters in closets, consular and government officials went on a frenzy of burning documents, and black marketeers sold homemade Japanese flags to welcome the invaders. At Aberdeen, the China Fleet Club passed out 50,000 cigarettes to the troops and began to destroy its store of liquor: 500 cases beer, 75 cases brandy, 75 cases whisky, 100 cases gin, 75 cases sherry, and 70 cases rum were all smashed, in an orgy of destruction that took 12 hours. At St. Stephen’s College, the Japanese opened the storeroom door and ordered their POWs out to cremate the corpses. Quebec-born priest James Barrett wanted to bury the 70 dead, but the Japanese refused. Corporal Lionel Speller buried his revolver beneath an elm tree outside Fortress Headquarters and walked off with a white sheet to surrender. The 1st Middlesex and 2/14th Punjabis buried their colors on the grounds of Flagstaff House, and nobody ever found them—even a detachment of Royal Engineers armed with metal detectors in 1978. Howard Donnelly and his unit smashed their rifles. James Bertram and his Volunteers marched into captivity, whistling “Tipperary.” Wallis, cut off from Maltby, did not learn of the surrender until the 26th, so his men endured more bombardment, which wounded Wallis. The British were driven back to within 100 yards of the fort. Just after midnight, one of Maltby’s staff officers reached Stanley under a white flag with the message. Wallis surrendered at 1:45 AM. When surrender neared on Christmas Day, Collinson signaled his MTBs, “Go all boats,” and the five surviving MTBs rendezvoused west of Aberdeen Island and sailed at 22 knots toward the Chinese mainland. Another group of 83 Chinese and British refugees, led by Vice Adm. Andrew Chen Chak, sailed off in a commandeered motor launch. Chen Chak was the president of the Southern Kuomintang and a colorful seadog, complete with artificial leg. The Japanese caught Chen Chak’s launch and sank it, but the MTBs reached the scene

Japanese troops march on Queen's Road, Hong Kong led by Lieutenant General Takashi Sakai and Vice Admiral Masaichi Niimiin in December 1941, shortly after the British surrender.

and saved 67 refugees, including Chen Chak, who unscrewed his useless leg before jumping overboard. The MTBs sailed on to Mirs Bay, where they were scuttled. Chen Chak, knowing the local terrain and guerrillas, led the sailors and refugees through 80 miles of enemy territory in 72 hours, reaching free China. Boldero and his Cicala survivors were less fortunate. They were taken prisoner. The Japanese troops declared all Chinese girls to be prostitutes and went on an orgy of rape and looting. They robbed stores and seized fountain pens and watches. Sakai got his parade, too. On the 27th, he rode his stallion through downtown Victoria, beneath 62 planes. Thousands of Chinese lined the streets, waving their black market banners, giving fake smiles. The Canadians lost 23 officers and 267 other ranks in battle. Twenty-eight Canadians and 465 other ranks were reported wounded. The British, Colonial, and Indian forces lost about

955 dead and 659 missing. The 2nd Royal Scots were slaughtered: out of 500 men, the battalion had only four officers and 98 other ranks at the surrender. The Japanese claimed to have lost 675 killed and 2,079 wounded, but their losses were probably higher. But these events were far from Maltby and Young’s minds on the evening of December 25, 1941. As their troops destroyed guns, armored cars, artillery, and equipment, Maltby and Young sailed across the harbor in an MTB under a white flag. All around them lay wrecked ships, ferryboats, and junks. General Sakai was waiting for them in the Peninsula Hotel’s ballroom, and by candlelight, Maltby and Young signed the documents that surrendered Hong Kong to the Japanese. ■ Author David H. Lippman writes a day-byday history of World War II for a Web page from his Newark, N.J., home. He visited Hong Kong’s battlefields in 1992 and 1994 as part of his research for this article. 93

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In the opening days of the war, the heroic defense of a Pacific island gave America hope. mid-December 1941, the 400 U.S. Marines who called the island outpost of Wake home stood a lonely sentinel in the watery Central Pacific wilderness, like a cavalry fort in an oceanic version of the Western frontier. As the Japanese juggernaut spread the Greater East Asia CoProsperity Sphere to the farthest reaches of the Pacific Ocean, most of America’s Pacific battle fleet, the backbone of the nation’s power in the hemisphere, rested on Pearl Harbor’s muddy bottom along with almost 2,000 young American sailors. Marines on Guam and British infantry in Malaya were fighting futile holding actions against swarms of enemy troops. In the Philippines, Japanese bombers demolished General Douglas MacArthur’s air force before it lifted from the ground, and Japanese infantry forced his troops into a disastrous retreat toward the Bataan Peninsula. Hong Kong and Singapore were poised to fall, and the crowning blow—the destruction of the battleship HMS Prince of Wales and the battle cruiser HMS Repulse at the hands of Japanese planes off Malaya—caused British Prime Minister Winston Churchill to lament, “Over all the vast expanse of waters Japan was supreme, and we everywhere were weak and naked.” Barely 600 miles—less than two days’ steaming time or four hours’ flying time—from the closest Japanese base, Wake was next on Japan’s timetable of conquest. Wake, a coral atoll comprising three islands, whose highest point was barely 20 feet above sea level and whose vegetation consisted of scrubby trees and brush, covered four square miles of total land area. Yet, even this tiny real estate, with 10 miles of beach, offered too much territory for the tiny garrison to cover. Should the Japanese crash ashore in one of the numerous gaps between gun emplacements, the Americans would be swiftly overrun. A desperately needed radar system had not yet arrived. Fearing that he could not withstand even the feeblest of assaults, Major James P.S. Devereux, the Marine commander, asked his superiors what he should do if Wake were actually attacked. He received the disconcerting response, “Do the best you can.”

IN

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THE FIGHT

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Painting © John D. Shaw, www.libertystudios.us

In this painting, “The Magnificent Fight,” by John Shaw, F4F Wildcats of VMF-211 prepare for battle on Wake Island. In the cockpit of one of the only four flyable aircraft available, Capt. Hank Elrod confers with fellow pilots John Kinney and Frank Tharin, before embarking on a mission December 11, in which he inflicted damage sufficient to sink the enemy destroyer Kisaragi.

BY JOHN WUKOVITS

FOR WAKE

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Why would one of the war’s most noble actions occur at a minuscule Pacific wasteland more suitable for rodents than humans? It boiled down to the airstrip, which dominated the V-shaped group of three small islands. Control of that airstrip loomed more crucial with the deteriorating Japanese-American relations before Pearl Harbor. In U.S. hands, Wake posed a threat to the Japanese wall of defenses, which stretched across the Central Pacific. In Japanese hands, it offered a convenient home base for aerial reconnaissance of Hawaii, Midway, and other U.S. possessions.

Before the war, Admiral Husband E. Kimmel, the Pacific Fleet commander, sensed a chance to engage Japan’s fleet in the waters off Wake if an invasion force attempted to overrun the island’s defenders. To hold the enemy in the area, though, Wake’s feeble defenses had to be strengthened. Kimmel ordered in a Marine defense battalion under Devereux, and more than a thousand civilian construction workers converged on the desolate outpost to erect barracks, level roads, and fortify the island. On October 12, 1941, when Major Devereux stepped onto Wake Island, he brought addi-

Seeking Fortune, They Found Fame Foreshadowing the citizen soldier armies that would so ably augment the regular armed forces and fuel the American military to victory in World War II, the civilian construction workers played a key role in the Wake story. Benjamin Franklin Comstock, Sr. and his son, Ben, Jr., Iowans raised in the heartland of America, futilely scoured the Midwest and West in search of carpentry work. In early 1941, the struggling pair read an ad in an Omaha newspaper seeking construction workers for Pacific island military projects. The promise of $200 per month plus overtime enticed the Comstocks to sign a standard nine-month contract, even though it meant they would have to leave the United States. Hans Whitney’s path also led to Wake. Born in 1911, he hopped trains as a teenager to see the United States. He saw the relatively brief stint at Wake, with its attractive wages, as the vehicle for achieving his hopes. “I dreamed of being an independent citizen, depending on the whims of no man for a job,” claimed Whitney. “I had visions of a 96

young businessman driving to work. Saw his wife and kids in a good home, well dressed and well fed, enjoying life to the full.” Wake would be his ticket to the great American dream. The Comstocks and Whitney gathered in San Francisco, where they boarded a luxury liner for Hawaii. A leisurely cruise across the Pacific offered food and entertainment on a scale with which none were accustomed, and they received more of the same in Hawaii. “This is the life!” proclaimed Whitney of those magical days. The three construction workers heard in Hawaii that Wake’s hot, rainy climate taxed the endurance of most men, but they dismissed the negative chatter. “I figured I could stand nine months of it,” Whitney explained. “Then, a little business of my own and maybe get filthy rich.” A slow 2,000-mile trip to Wake ended on October 12, 1941, less than two months before war’s opening. The dismal-looking island presented little of the enchantment provided by Pacific isles of lore, with their sandy beaches, gorgeous

palm trees, and exotic birds. Wake offered sandy beaches, but instead of exotic birds, the island resounded to the movement and noise of land crabs and gooney birds. Instead of palm trees, scrawny scrub trees rose no more than 20 feet high. Suffocating heat greeted the men with an oppressive stickiness. “Suckers! Suckers! Suckers!” yelled a reception party of civilians already at Wake. Whitney wondered what he had walked into, then again reminded himself, “Oh well, I can stick it out for nine months, to heck with them.” Whitney relaxed when he noticed the amenities provided for the workers. A mess hall dispensed the finest of foods, including all the steaks, potatoes, and ice cream a man desired. A fine hospital, a theater, and decent living quarters offered a modicum of comfort. When rumors of Japanese aggression filtered in, the workers ignored them. Their world abruptly changed when the Japanese military suddenly unleashed its potent assaults. John Wukovits

tional reinforcements to join the original group of five officers and 173 enlisted men who had arrived August 19. A larger Marine force meant increased contact and inevitable friction with the construction workers. Not that fighting erupted or jealousies lingered. The two groups blended together relatively well, for, after all, as Marine Corporal Franklin D. Gross said, “We were Marines and we were disciplined and knew what we were supposed to do and what not to do.” But each day the Marines emerged from their Spartan tents to gaze across the lagoon at the more luxurious civilian quarters. While Marines supped on potatoes, civilians feasted. Marines chafed at the obvious differences. Devereux turned to his task with a fury, intending to transform this first line of defense in the Pacific into a bastion that could punish any approaching force. “When Devereux came out there, all hell broke loose!” declared Gross. “He evidently had orders to get those guns in, so we worked seven days a week. Before that, I’m not sure we even worked on Saturday.” The wiry major, who so meticulously planned details that a fellow officer said, “He’s the kind of guy who would put all the mechanized aircraft detectors into operation and then station a man with a spyglass in a tall tree,” quickly had his men laboring 12-hour days, seven days a week. Intentions are noble, but they must be backed with men, weapons, and supplies, and here Devereux suffered. The U.S. Congress had allocated money to improve Wake, but the work did not begin until early 1941. Shelters to protect aircraft from bombs lay incomplete. Devereux’s 3and 5-inch guns equaled the impact of a destroyer, but he commanded enough Marines to man only half the 24 machine guns situated about Wake. Instead of radar to give advance warning of attack, a man with a pair of binoculars on an observation post atop a water tower served as the island’s early-warning system. Communications wire connected different outposts, but since much of it was old and frayed, no one knew how it would stand up to a heavy bombardment. In the most extreme situations, when soldiers and Marines had little else with which to fight, they could always count on using their rifles. Not at Wake. At least 75 men lacked weapons because the military had failed to ship enough to the outpost. Devereux’s air arm offered minimal help. The 12 Grumman F4F-3 Wildcat fighters failed to arrive until four days before the war started. Since the ground crews and aviators had been

National Archives

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A Japanese artist created this image of his comrades moving warily forward on Wake Island.

working with biplanes instead of the fighters, they were unfamiliar with the capabilities of the aircraft. Mechanics rummaged through the crates of supplies that accompanied the planes for instruction manuals, but could find none. Someone at Pearl Harbor had forgotten to pack them. Spare parts for the aircraft were practically nonexistent, which meant that even minor damage could knock them out of the fighting. In the frontier wilderness of the Pacific, a damaged aircraft was as good as a destroyed aircraft. By late November 1941, although still far from complete, Wake had been bolstered sufficiently to earn the designation of naval air station. Commander Winfield Scott Cunningham arrived to assume overall command, with Devereux in charge of the Marines. Most Marines and civilians on Wake believed that war, if it occurred, would start elsewhere in the Pacific, probably closer to the Philippines or East Asia. When they learned on December 7 that Pearl Harbor, far to Wake’s rear, had been bombed, they reacted in disbelief. Devereux, expecting to be attacked at any moment, ordered each man to his post. Even with the precautions, war’s arrival on Wake shortly before noon on December 8 (December 7 in Pearl Harbor) came swiftly and suddenly. Construction worker Hans Whitney looked skyward to see a group of aircraft heading toward Wake. He mistakenly assumed they were American planes and said to a companion, “Look! Let the Japs come! We even have bombers, now!”

Without radar to give early warning, the tiny Marine garrison had barely 15 seconds’ notice, hardly enough time to ready their antiaircraft guns and jump into aircraft. Still, they replied. Gross’s position at the eastern end of Wake, called Peacock Point, sported four machine guns. “I was standing on top of my dugout talking to Colonel Hanna when 18 to 19 planes dropped out of a hole in the clouds. I said, ‘What’s this coming in?’ We thought they were B-17s, because they had been coming in for the last few months and we’d gas them. Suddenly these bombs fall out, and a runner near me started shooting, but we only got off 18 rounds. Then the planes were gone.” In that brief span the Japanese inflicted heavy damage and shock to Wake’s Marines. Four Marine aviators rushed toward their aircraft intent on offering resistance to the 36 Japanese twin-engine bombers that riddled Wake, but not one reached his plane. Bomb fragments fatally tore into Lieutenant Frank Holden as he sprinted onto the runway, while Lieutenant Henry G. Webb fell with lethal wounds to the stomach and feet. Lieutenant George Graves had climbed into his aircraft and prepared for takeoff when a direct hit engulfed him in flames. Lieutenant Robert Conderman evaded the bullets that spit into the coral airstrip until he reached his aircraft, then bomb fragments tore into his body. Fellow Marines rushed to his aid, but the dying Conderman pointed to other wounded

Marines lying about the area and said, “Let me go. Take care of them.” Benjamin F. Comstock, Sr. and his son, Benjamin, Jr., were working on a two-story, steel framework building when the Japanese aircraft suddenly appeared. In an action symbolic of the sacrifices to be made by millions of sons around the nation to protect their families, the son quickly tackled his father, shoved him behind a stairway in the unfinished building, then covered him with his body. “The planes were so close you could see the gunners’ teeth,” recalled Comstock, Jr. Bomb craters 50 feet apart spotted the ground with surgical precision, except for the airstrip. It remained untouched so the Japanese could use it after their conquest. Seven precious Wildcat fighters lay in smoldering ruins amid the lifeless bodies of 23 Marine aviation personnel. The Japanese blasted gasoline storage tanks, strafed the island’s Pan American Airways hotel, and peppered Pan Am’s huge flying passenger boat Philippine Clipper with 23 bullet holes. As if to add insult to injury, as the enemy aircraft completed their runs, “The pilots in every one of the planes was grinning wildly. Every one wiggled his wings to signify Banzai,” mentioned a defender. Marines and civilians emerged from foxholes and half-completed construction projects and quickly tended to the wounded and dying. Billowing smoke blotted out the sun and burning wreckage littered the landscape, but the men put 97

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aside their thoughts and focused on the job at hand, which was preparing for the inevitable invasion. They repaired severed communications lines, camouflaged and sandbagged gun positions, cleared the runway, and dug revetments to protect the few remaining aircraft. Civilians parked heavy construction equipment on the airstrip to prevent Japanese landings, while a Navy lighter was filled with

U.S. Navy

“WHEN DEVEREUX CAME OUT THERE, ALL HELL BROKE LOOSE! HE HAD ORDERS TO GET THOSE GUNS IN, SO WE WORKED SEVEN DAYS A WEEK.”

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concrete blocks, dynamited, and anchored in the center of Wilkes Channel to prevent small boats from entering the lagoon. Since they had little time to spare for burials, Marines stored the dead civilians and Marines in a large freezer room in one of the civilian buildings. The citizen soldier army, so heralded in contributing to victory in Europe and the Pacific, made its first appearance at Wake as 200 volunteers dropped their shovels or stepped down from bulldozers to stand side by side with the 400 Marines. They had traveled to Wake for monetary reasons, not to fire weapons, but when the chips were down they answered the call of duty like their Marine compatriots. Most were sent to undermanned batteries and given speedy instructions on how to fire the weapons. Hans Whitney was stationed at an antiaircraft gun, where he filled sandbags and waited for a renewed attack. Apprehension frayed nerves and exhausted even the sturdiest of men, who never knew when the main Japanese assault would come. Some believed the U.S. Navy would charge out of Pearl Harbor to their rescue, but others wondered if it even could. How severely had it been wounded on the war’s first day? Was Wake to be sacrificed by an impotent Navy, or would a rescue force save them?

In those perilous days immediately after December 8, Marine Pfc. Verne L. Wallace remembered a letter from his girlfriend back home that he had stuffed unread into his pocket. In a few quiet moments, he sat down and looked at the letter. The girl had sent it before December 7, and thinking that Hitler posed the real threat to American servicemen, she wrote, “As long as you have to be away, darling, I’m so very, very happy you are in the Pacific, where you won’t be in danger if war comes.” The irony of the situation did not escape Wallace, sitting in the middle of a Japanesecontrolled ocean, for danger crept closer as he read the note. In the predawn moments of December 11, the Japanese, invigorated by the list of triumphs already under their belts, commenced their first attempt to overrun Wake. Confident of victory over what they assumed was a ragtag group of civilians and a few Marines, the Japanese stepped into a trap cunningly devised by Major Devereux. Devereux outfoxed the enemy commander, Admiral Sadamichi Kajioka, into thinking he had surprised Wake. Since the Japanese force sported much larger guns than those on Wake, Devereux’s only hope was to hold his own fire and lure the enemy ships within range of his smaller 5-inch guns.

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peared beneath the waves until veteran Platoon Sgt. Henry Bedell turned their minds back to business by yelling, “Knock it off, you bastards, and get back on the guns! What d’ya think this is, a ball game?” When the Marines landed hits on three more destroyers and on a transport, Kajioka ordered

Admiral Kajioka absorbed a humiliating defeat at the hands of a vastly outnumbered foe. He lost two ships and at least 340 killed and 65 wounded against one Marine death. The Japanese limped away from the gunfight, while the United States celebrated its first victory of the war. Marines registered three “firsts” on Wake that day. For the first and only time in the war, an invasion had been repulsed by shore batteries. The first Japanese surface warship had been sunk. Most important, for the first time since the war started,

Map © 2011 Philip Schwartzberg, Meridian Mapping, Minneapolis, MN

Admiral Kajioka, in the flagship Yubari, cautiously led three light cruisers, six destroyers, and 450 soldiers in transports and old destroyers toward Wake. Optimistic reports from the returning bomber pilots and a lack of activity on Wake as his ships neared the island bolstered Kajioka’s confidence that taking Wake should be a breeze. Lookouts on Wake first spotted the Japanese at 3 AM. Kajioka swung west when his ships drew within 7,000 yards, opened fire at 5:30, and systematically raked the island as the flotilla boldly steamed along its coastline. When the Japanese ships reached Wake’s westernmost point, Kajioka reversed course, closed the distance, and again steamed offshore with guns booming. The lack of American return fire convinced Kajioka that he had caught the enemy by surprise. Marines at two gun batteries impatiently awaited Devereux’s order to fire as they watched the enemy shells inch alarmingly close and felt the vibrations from nearby explosions. A corporal manning Devereux’s phone spurned pleas to open fire by shouting, “Hold your fire till the major gives his word.” One Marine, dodging mounds of earth shaken loose from bombs, griped, “What does that dumb little bastard want us to do? Let ’em run over us without spitting back?” Devereux coolly waited for another 30 minutes. When the unsuspecting Kajioka drew into point-blank range, he ordered all batteries to commence firing. Like Wild West gunslingers glaring at their foes, his gunners on batteries A, B, and L poured accurate salvos into the Japanese ships barely 4,000 yards away. Shells smashed Japanese hulls, and shrapnel felled Japanese sailors. The enemy attempted to fire back, but the Marines continued to pummel the attacking ships. The only thing more stunning than the cascading Marine fire that broke the darkness was the look of dismay on Kajioka’s face as he realized he had been lured into the Marine guns. An initial salvo screamed over the Yubari, and as destroyers hurriedly spread covering smoke to shield the flagship, a second salvo straddled the ship. Marine gunners pumped four successive shells into the hapless cruiser, enveloping one side in fire and smoke. Three shells from a second battery sent the destroyer Hayate and its crew of 168 to the bottom. Marines lustily cheered as the ship disap-

ABOVE: The first Japanese assault on Wake ended in an embarrassing repulse. However, the attackers returned days later. OPPOSITE: Photographed in the spring of 1941, this aerial view of Wake was taken from the northeast.

his force to retire. Major Paul A. Putnam, commander of Wake’s air squadron, now jumped into the fray. Putnam’s Wildcats pounced on the retreating Japanese ships in a series of attacks. Captain Henry Freuler damaged a transport, while Captain Henry Elrod and Captain Frank Tharin scored hits on the cruisers Tenryu and Tatsuta. Another aircraft machine-gunned the Yubari, barely missing Admiral Kajioka. The destroyer Kisaragi, which lagged behind the rest of Kajioka’s force, paid the highest price. Her tardiness in leaving proved to be her undoing when a bomb, attributed to Elrod, hit the destroyer’s quarterdeck and ignited the ship’s depth charges. Explosions ripped apart the destroyer, which sank within minutes.

the Japanese had been stopped in their desire to gain an objective. The defenders on Wake erupted in joy, dumping water on each other and behaving like schoolboys. Cunningham later compared the celebration to a “fraternity picnic. War whoops of joy split the air. Warm beer was sprayed on late arrivals without regard to rank.” At the end of the day Devereux’s radio operator remarked, “It’s been quite a day, Major, hasn’t it?” But their reaction was nothing compared to the reaction back home, where victory-starved civilians, still in shock over Pearl Harbor, received the news with elation. People had already begun wondering where the U.S. Navy was, since it had not made an appearance since the December 7 debacle, but they at least knew where the U.S. Marines stood—on a tiny Pacific 99

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speck where American military forces repelled the seemingly invincible Japanese. Headlines proudly proclaimed, “MARINES KEEP WAKE,” and compared its gallant defense to the valiant stand at the Alamo. They took heart in the news of Wake’s heroic stand, for if such a small garrison on a barren isle could perform that well, what might the Japanese expect once the United States sent its vast, well-supplied armies into conflict? Americans finally had something to cheer about, and while they hated to think of loved ones being killed or wounded, they

Every Marine on Wake knew that the Japanese would return for a second assault, this time with enough men and ships to avoid another setback. The only question was when the attack would occur. The Pacific was fast turning into a Japanese ocean, with Japan’s only challenges coming from a weakened U.S. Navy and from Wake. With each passing day, the garrison became more isolated from the rest of the world. Over the next 12 days the men, already weary from the strain of war, turned spectral from the constant state of vigilance and from daily Japanese air raids. Not knowing when an invasion

and dead, and prepared for the next wave of bombing. Diarrhea afflicted many. The island’s huge native rats—bothered by the bombings— swarmed into shelters and foxholes, while innumerable dead birds had to be buried for sanitation purposes. Supplies dwindled with each raid. Devereux called this period the “foggy blur of days and nights when time stood still,” when men ached for laughter and one decent night’s sleep. “The days blurred together in a dreary sameness of bombing and endless work and always that aching need for sleep. I have seen men standing with their eyes open, staring at nothing, and they

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Photographed after Wake Island fell to the Japanese on December 23, 1941, these U.S. Wildcat fighter planes of Squadron VMF-211 were disabled during the fighting.

knew that once their sons were organized and marched to war, momentum would swerve to the United States. Immediately after the battle a Japanese Naval officer assessed Kajioka’s performance against the garrison at Wake. He concluded that Wake proved to be “one of the most humiliating defeats our navy ever suffered.” Wake’s defenders had taken Round 1. Round 2 was about to begin. 100

force might suddenly loom offshore, Marines and a handful of civilians had to remain around the clock at their gun positions, where hot food and a chance to relax were luxuries from a past that had disappeared. No man could catch more than a few moments’ rest, since daily waves of fighters and bombers gave them little respite from combat conditions. Like automatons, exhausted men emerged after each raid, hastily repaired what they could, removed the wounded

did not hear me when I spoke to them.” The only thing that counted was survival. Marines and civilians rose from their shelters after each bombing, looked around at the new devastation, then permitted a small smile to briefly appear. “It was like a great weight lifting from your chest,” wrote Devereux. “You wouldn’t die today.” Through these weary days of mind-numbing bombing, the men on Wake displayed a remark-

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able resilience and self-sufficiency. They bided by the old Marine saying, which warned, “Maybe you oughta get more, maybe you will get more, but all you can depend on getting is what you already got.” Devereux again outwitted his opponents by moving the antiaircraft guns almost every night. He correctly assumed the Japanese bombers would mark the gun emplacements for subsequent attacks, so following each raid he ordered his tired Marines to shift the guns. When the next attack occurred, bombs usually fell on the abandoned positions. Marine mechanics worked marvels to keep the four remaining fighters aloft, trading engines from one plane to another, stripping crashed aircraft for parts to build a hybrid version, and once even pulling a precious engine from a stillburning aircraft. Some civilians added their own contributions. Dan Teters, a World War I veteran, organized a delivery system that shuttled food to the men at their posts. Appreciative Marines fondly labeled it “Dan Teters’ Catering Service.” In the absence of a military chaplain, a Mormon lay preacher named John O’Neal visited foxholes or comforted the wounded. Others carried ammunition to gun positions. Earl Row took his turn at the nightly beach patrols, a duty he called “the most hair-raising thing I have ever done in my life.” Row, battling a mixture of fear and weariness, imagined lifelike forms in every rock, but he kept reminding himself not to fire at what he hoped were only illusions. Teters excused 186 men to fight with the Marines while keeping them on the payroll of Morrison-Knudsen, the civilian contractor that had hired them, and more than 400 civilians— the “citizen soldiers” of 1941—ultimately helped in one form or another. Meanwhile, citizens back home closely followed the Wake saga. Men jammed enlistment centers to join the military, including five Waterloo, Iowa, brothers named Sullivan, who later died together on the same stricken ship off Guadalcanal. In its December 22 issue TIME magazine trumpeted Wake’s feats, stating, “They had been there since the first day of war, beating off attack after attack by the Jap, shooting down his planes, sinking his surface ships, probably knocking the spots out of his landing parties.” Then came one of those moments that elevated Wake to heights few battles attain and contributed to the legend that formed. As reported in TIME magazine on December 29, 1941, “From the little band of professionals on Wake Island came an imprudently defiant message phrased for history. Wake’s Marines were

Dan Teters Ably Led the Civilians at Wake Major Devereux’s counterpart in the civilian construction camp cast as large a shadow among his men as Devereux did among his. Nathan D. “Dan” Teters built a reputation as one of the most organized, demanding foremen for Morrison-Knudsen, the civilian firm handling most of Wake’s construction. Born in Ohio in 1900, Teters joined the Army in World War I and helped build airstrips. After the war he earned an engineering degree from Washington State College in 1922, then embarked upon a career in construction that lasted until 1960. Among the projects in which he participated were the construction of the Boulder and Grand Coulee dams in the 1930s. The man was used to giant-sized challenges in out-of-the-way places, and Wake qualified on both accounts. Using a combination of firmness and common sense, Teters quickly had the 1,100-man force on Wake humming with efficiency. The workers knew he could be tough— “His word was law,” said one—but they also saw instances in which Teters went to extraordinary measures to make their lives on desolate Wake more bearable. He could be a stern taskmaster, but he cared enough to know every man by name. He demanded accountability, but made sure that everyone received overtime bonuses, even the cooks and mess attendants. Teters so impressed the Marines that one officer claimed Teters was “a tough, hard man who would be good to have along in a fight.” Those who survived the battle and endured the ordeal in prison camp until war’s end owed their lives to Devereux and Teters, who brought the same indomitable spirit to their captivity that they had shown on Wake Island. Devereux insisted on maintaining discipline just as if the men were in any Marine camp, and Teters followed in similar fashion with his construction workers. Through the lengthy confinement Devereux and Teters acted as the anchors that steadied the men, as the moral fibers that cemented their bonds and pulled them through. John Wukovits

asked by radio what they needed. The answer made old Marines’ chests grow under their campaign bars: ‘Send us more Japs.’” The phrase was precisely the tonic needed by a country weary of defeat. Patriotic pride and enthusiasm bubbled over these words, supposedly uttered by Devereux when asked by Pearl Harbor what they could do for him. In fact, those words had never been spoken. They were simply added as padding at both ends of a coded radio transmission to confuse Japanese cryptanalysts. Someone at Pearl Harbor extracted the phrase and turned it into the national rallying cry it became. American citizens learned after the war that Devereux had never used the words, but by that time the impact had long had its effect. While citizens in the United States cheered the phrase, Marines on Wake jeered when they learned of the incident. “We heard about the quote, ‘Send us more Japs,’ while we were on Wake,” explains Private Ewing E. Laporte. “We didn’t like it at all.” The last thing any Marine wanted was more of the enemy. What they needed was more aircraft. On December 22, the final two fighters were destroyed in combat. With their air umbrella gone, the Marines became the sole line of defense. Without ships, without planes, without relief, the Marines stood in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, surrounded by an enemy that burned with a desire to seek vengeance for December 11. From behind the sandbags of his hastily fashioned gun emplacement, Marine Corporal Ralph Holewinski wondered how he and his buddies would turn back a well-equipped Japanese task force. In the movies he watched back home, the good guys always won. But at that moment he asked himself, “Where’s the cavalry now?” Hopes that the Navy would speed to their rescue alternately soared then plummeted during these 12 days. Each time the cycle unfolded without help arriving, the sense of isolation gripped Wake more tightly. Wake’s Marines expected the Navy to come to their aid. After all, that is what fellow servicemen do. Commander Cunningham wrote, “We felt good, almost cocky. Surely, help would come from Pearl Harbor any day now, and meanwhile we could wait it out.” In fact, at Pearl Harbor, Kimmel had already prepared a daring plan to relieve Wake, centering on the aircraft carrier Saratoga. In the aftermath of December 7, however, Kimmel was quickly replaced by Admiral Chester W. Nimitz. 101

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Until Nimitz arrived from Washington, Vice Adm. William S. Pye, a man as cautious as Kimmel was daring, held the reins. Pye dreaded losing any more of the battered Pacific Fleet before Nimitz assumed command and thus acted with reticence toward anything that might endanger the ships. However, he reluctantly permitted the relief expedition, carrying 200 Marines, 9,000 rounds of 5-inch shells, and a squadron of aircraft, to steam out of Pearl Harbor on December 12. Back on Wake, Marines impatiently watched and waited. “Why the hell doesn’t somebody come out and help us fight?” Captain Elrod asked Major Devereux. Many civilians, certain that the Navy would evacuate them before the

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“NOW THE CHIPS WERE DOWN FOR THE LAST ROLL OF THE DICE, AND THEY KNEW IT, AND THEY KNEW THE ODDS WERE ALL AGAINST US.”

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Japanese arrived in force, made plans to depart. Their optimism seemed justified on December 20, when Ensigns James J. Murphy and H.P. Ady landed a seaplane in Wake’s lagoon and brought news that the relief expedition, due to arrive Christmas Eve, was already heading toward Wake. Every Marine brimmed with confidence that they could hold out for four more days. Meanwhile, Murphy and Ady prepared to fly out. Since Major Walter Bayler had orders to proceed to Midway at the earliest possible time, he joined the ensigns on the outward flight. Before leaving, Bayler told the other men he would forward any letters they cared to write to loved ones. Men penned letters to wives or parents, informing them that they were well and not to worry. “To Mrs. Luther Williams, of Stonewall, Mississippi,” wrote one Marine. “Solon is OK. Tough fight—but OK.” Cunningham wrote his wife, “You know I am waiting only for the time of our joining. Circumstances may delay it a little longer, but it will surely come.” Others declined. “We got the word to write a letter if we wanted to, and our corporal said he’d take them down from our station,” explained Laporte, “but I don’t think anybody there wrote a letter. I think a lot of us didn’t know what to say.” On December 22, Pye, concerned that Japanese carriers might be in the area and worried that he might lose the few remaining ships of the Pacific Fleet, recalled the relief expedition. The recall produced angry outbursts among

Marine and Navy personnel aboard the ships at sea, who urged superiors to ignore the order and continue on to rescue their fellow fighters.

THE

language grew so inflammatory on the bridge of the Saratoga that Rear Adm. Aubrey Fitch stormed off so he would not hear possibly mutinous talk and be forced to take action. One Navy officer aboard the carrier Enterprise dejectedly wrote, “It’s the war between two yellow races.” Even in Japan, propagandist Tokyo Rose ridiculed the Navy by sarcastically asking in a broadcast, “Where, oh where, is the United States Navy?” The order stood, however, and the task force reluctantly turned away from Wake. Wake’s defenders were now completely alone. They did not learn of the recall until much later, though, for they were now heavily occupied with problems of their own. On that same day, Japan launched the second landing attack. Admiral Kajioka took few chances this time. Four heavy cruisers escorted 2,000 men, and the aircraft carriers Soryu and Hiryu, returning from their victory at Pearl Harbor, provided air support. To avoid the damage sustained in the prior attack, Kajioka ordered his ships to remain beyond the range of Wake’s accurate shore batteries. Devereux spread his mixture of Marines, Navy personnel, and civilians throughout a 4.5mile defense line that ran along Wake Island’s southern shore. Machine-gun crews dug in at each end of the airfield, while other defenders manned their positions and waited for the attack to begin. In case the Japanese broke through the line, Devereux organized the only reserve force he could muster, eight Marines and four machine guns in a truck. In the early-morning stillness of December 23, the Americans gazed seaward with a fierce determination that had outlasted the tortuous days of bone-rattling bombing. “I noticed a strange thing,” wrote Devereux. “It was an unspoken thing, intangible, but it was as real as the sand or the guns or the graves. My men were average Marines, and they had bitched and griped among themselves like any soldiers. Now their nerves and bodies had been sapped by two almost sleepless nights. Now the chips were down for the last roll of the dice, and they knew it, and they knew the odds were all against us, but now they were not grumbling. There seemed to grow a sort of stubborn pride that was more than just the word ‘morale.’” Ewing Laporte sensed a difference as well. As the surf crashed against Wake’s shores and a stiff

Both: USMC

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ABOVE LEFT: For his heroic actions in defense of Wake, Marine Captain Henry T. Elrod was awarded the Medal of Honor posthumously. ABOVE RIGHT: Japanese troops pay respect to a fellow soldier killed in action on Wake. OPPOSITE: A Japanese pilot recounts his experience in aerial combat over Wake.

ocean breeze wafted the smell of salt water among the anxious defenders, the Marines waited with a new attitude. “There was that look on their faces. They weren’t the same guys anymore. It wasn’t a desperation look, but a look you got when you knew you had to do something. Of course, there was some fear involved, but every damn one of ’em was ready to do his duty.” While many civilians sought shelter from the fighting in the brush, some hardy souls lent their assistance. John P. Sorenson, a large, hard-edged construction worker over 50 years old, led a group of 22 civilians to a command post to offer assistance to the Marines. The officer, touched by their willingness to fight, knew their chances of surviving combat were slim and declined their offer. Sorenson smiled and replied, “Major, do you think you’re really big enough to make us stay behind?” As usual, a pre-invasion bombardment tore into the thin lines on Wake. Platoon Sgt. Johnalson E. “Big” Wright, an immense man weighing 320 pounds whose ability to down copious amounts of beer was legendary, stood in the open as bombs exploded, tightly clutching in his hands the lucky silver dollar he had carried for years. Other men begged him to seek shelter, but Wright counted on his lucky dollar to pull him through. Just as he was again telling the men to shut up, an explosion engulfed him. The dead Marine lay on the beach, still cradling the silver dollar. Around 2 AM Japanese soldiers landed in three places on Wake Island and the adjoining Wilkes

Island. They rushed forward with fixed bayonets, determined to shove the defenders out of their places and overrun Wake. Devereux’s communications with his outposts quickly broke down, due either to faulty wire or to being cut by the enemy. In the dark and without communications, Devereux could obtain no clear picture of the fighting, but he correctly guessed the location of the main thrust and ordered his small reserve force to the middle sector. Marines and civilians fired their weapons until the Japanese were on top of them, at which time they resorted to bayonets and bare hands. Major Paul A. Putnam, knocked to the ground in the melee, fired his .45 pistol at two Japanese soldiers at such close range that one slumped dead across him. A Japanese soldier saw one Marine “blaze away with a machine gun from his hip as they do in American gangster films.” “Two civilians—Paul Gay and Bob Bryan— were killed alongside of me,” explained Ralph Holewinski, still touched by the heroism of men who were not on Wake to fight. “As the Japanese moved closer to our gun emplacement— within 20 feet, close enough that when I hit one he spun around and the blood spurted out, just like in the movies—Bryan kept lobbing grenades from a box he tightly clutched.” After the battle, 30 Japanese bodies lay sprawled around the position defended by Holewinski and his civilian comrades. John Sorenson and his men fought side by side with the Marines in another foretaste of the “citizen soldiers” who would shortly be entering the

service to augment the regular military forces. The killing and maiming occurred from close quarters as opponents smacked into each other, clutched throats, bit hands, screamed in pain, and died with sudden violence. As Japanese soldiers advanced toward Sorenson’s position, bullets spitting from their rifles and hand grenades plopping into foxholes, Sorenson ran out of ammunition. Without hesitation he rose from his position, ran toward the enemy, and hurled expletives and rocks until felled by bullets. Marine aviator Captain Henry T. Elrod had earlier distinguished himself by sinking a Japanese destroyer on December 11, but his actions on December 23 earned the career officer a posthumous Medal of Honor. Reporting as a combat soldier after all the aircraft had been destroyed, Elrod stood with his fellow defenders as the Japanese swarmed toward them. Accurate American fire cut down swaths of enemy soldiers, but more quickly took their place. Marines and civilians died amid a hail of bullets and grenades, some grappling with their foe in brutal hand-to-hand combat. Looking like the classic image of Davy Crockett surrounded by Santa Ana’s troops at the Alamo, Elrod stood up in the midst of the fighting, shouted “Kill the sons of bitches!” and blasted away with his Thompson submachine gun. When that weapon ran out of bullets, Elrod picked up a Japanese machine gun and continued to fight. Finally, with Japanese bodies piling up at his feet, Elrod was killed as he prepared to toss a hand grenade. 103

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The Defenders of Wake Island Received High Praise “The eleventh day of December 1941 (the date of the first Japanese assault on Wake) should always be a proud day in the history of the Corps,” wrote Samuel Eliot Morison in his History of United States Naval Operations in World War II. “Never again, in this Pacific War, did coast defense guns beat off an amphibious landing. God knows America needed a victory before Christmas 1941.” “It was at Wake the Marines showed us how to fight,” said Commander William Masek, the Naval officer in charge of the operation to re-occupy Wake in 1945. “They have held the fort and kept Old Glory flying,” stated The New York Times on December 13, 1941. “They may be annihilated, but they have fought gallantly.” Enlistments in the Marine Corps soared, and “Wake Up!” became a national call to arms. The United States had struck back, the first in a lengthy series of triumphs that ended with ships bearing American flags steaming into Tokyo Bay. President Franklin D. Roosevelt paid homage to the battlers of Wake when he spoke to the nation in early 1942, shortly after the Marines and construction workers had been taken to prison camp. “Some of these men were killed, and others are now prisoners of war. When the survivors of that great fight are liberated and restored to their homes, they will learn that 130 million of their fellow citizens have been inspired to render their own full share of service and sacrifice.” John Wukovits

In numerous spots, other fighters recorded unheralded deeds. Gunner Clarence B. McKinstry rallied his small group by shouting, “Get going, move on! You don’t want to stay here and die of old age!” As the men rushed forward, McKinstry tossed hand grenades passed to him by an accompanying civilian. When he saw a supposedly dead Japanese soldier rise from the sand and kill an American, McKinstry bellowed, “Be sure the dead ones are dead!” Marine Corporal Alvey A. Reed and a Japanese attacker charged headlong in the melee, simultaneously plunged their bayonets into each other, and slumped to the ground, locked in a deadly stillness as the noise and fury continued about them. In spite of the valor, the small group of defenders could only hold on for so long against the much larger enemy force. Although cut off from forward positions since communications lines had been severed, Devereux knew the defense was being overwhelmed. When a civilian rushed inside, screeching in terror, “They’re killing them all!” Devereux decided to establish a last-ditch defensive line near his command post and manned it with clerks and communications personnel. With the battle deteriorating, Commander Cunningham realized that further resistance was futile. At 5 AM he had sent a message to Pye, stating, “Enemy on Island—Issue in Doubt.” Now, two hours later, he turned to Devereux and muttered, “Well, I guess we’d better give it to them.” 104

Cunningham then headed to his room, shaved and washed his face, put on a clean uniform, and headed out to meet the enemy. For one of the few times in Corps history, a group of Marines was surrendering to an enemy. The end of the fighting, just as the beginning, was orchestrated by Major Devereux, who stepped forward to arrange the surrender details. The heavy burden showed on the career officer’s face, and Sergeant Bernard Ketner consoled him at the command post, “Don’t worry, Major. You fought a good fight and did all you could.” Devereux walked out into the open to pass the order along to different units. When one Marine questioned him, Devereux snapped, “It’s not my order, damn it!” At Peacock Point, Franklin Gross at first refused to believe the fight had ended. “We were raised up in the school that Marines never surrender and the Japs would never take us prisoners. I sent one of my men over to the 5-inch guns, and he climbed up in the observation tower and he couldn’t see any Japs. “We took off down a path there, about 12 men. One of the guys found a can of pineapples, and we were eating it when we heard a shot. I don’t know whether this guy shot into us or over our heads, but I looked up and here were these Japs wearing all this camouflage and these hats. We had a white flag with us. They took us a little farther up and stuck us in the brush and made us sit down. They set up a machine gun in front of us, and knowing what

I had heard and read about the Japs all these years I knew they were going to kill us. “I stared at the gun barrel and knew as well as I was going to take another breath that they were going to kill us. I looked right at that barrel and thought, ‘Well, I’m going to see you spit your fire.’ “I didn’t say a prayer—you were beyond praying. You had to rely on yourself. If anyone was going to help you, it had to be you.” Meanwhile, Ewing Laporte endured his own little hell. He watched Major Devereux and another officer, holding a mop to which was attached a white rag, walk over and order Laporte’s group to surrender. After the fighting and dying, the shouting and the bombs, now the men were to lay down their weapons. “I didn’t believe that we were surrendering. I threw the bolt of my rifle away to make it useless for the Japs, then saw some Japanese on the road. It was the shock of my life to see them. They jerked our clothes off, took our rings, tied us up. They were small, but it don’t matter what size you are as long as you got a rifle. “We hated this. Can you imagine! Our creed was supposed to be you don’t surrender, but we had the order. It was hard to take.” After completing the exhausting duty, which was more difficult for Devereux than any he had carried out in his career, he collapsed to the ground in despair. Just then a haggard group of Marine prisoners trudged by, guarded by Japanese soldiers. One Marine, Sergeant Edwin F. Hassig, spotted his commander and barked to his men, “Snap outta this stuff! Goddamn it, you’re Marines!” The Marines quickly straightened up and marched by Devereux in perfect formation. Heartened by the sight, Devereux regained his composure and stood at the head of his Marine contingent. Some of the other men checked impulses to charge at the Japanese, who by now were running all about the camp, ransacking barracks and cheering in delight. When one Japanese soldier climbed the tower to lower the American flag, a few Marines took a step forward, but Devereux nipped any foolhardy actions. “Hold it. Keep your heads, all of you!” In angry silence, they glared at the solitary enemy soldier who tore down the Stars and Stripes. They had no reason to be ashamed, for the defenders of Wake exacted a high price for the island. Forty-nine Marines, three Navy personnel, and 70 civilians died in the melee, while the Japanese lost two ships and seven aircraft and suffered at least 381 dead. The Japanese tied each man’s hands high behind his back, with a wire looped around the

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the steady American advance through the Pacific. Supplies ran out, forcing the Japanese to eat grass for sustenance, and daily bombing made life miserable on Wake. People in the United States never forgot Wake Island and the valorous deeds performed there, but Japanese civilians and military officials gave little notice to the soldiers garrisoned on the island. The Japanese suffered quietly, ignored by their own government, until war’s end, at which time the United States returned and reclaimed the land. Partly out of a spirit of vengeance, on October 7, 1943, the hundred civilian construction workers still on Wake were bound, blindfolded, led to the beach, and machinegunned to death.

to Midway about 30 days. They had to go back and regroup, and it took them 16 days to take Wake, so it slowed their timetable. It was quite a feat, but any other bunch of experienced Marines would have done the same.” Gross may be right, but the Wake Island defenders, military and civilian alike, were extraordinary individuals. In times of stress they turned to one another, leaned on each other, and maintained faith that each would do his duty. They also clutched tightly to another faith. At a reunion 40 years after the attack, the author asked LeRoy Schneider what made him survive prison camp when others did not. The imposing Wake Marine, still muscular and dignified after all these years, answered with a few simple, yet

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neck. Any lowering of the arms tightened the wire, so each man battled pain and the sun to keep his arms elevated. After a few agonizing hours, the Japanese cut the bindings and ushered the men to the airstrip, where they detained them without food and water. “We got no food or anything for a while,” mentioned Laporte. “Christmas dinner was bread and jam. December 26 we had some food and we were marched into the barracks.” Admiral Kajioka’s chief of staff approached Devereux to ask where the hidden gun positions rested. When Devereux replied there were none, that the only gun positions on Wake were the visible ones, the Japanese officer refused to believe that so few guns had inflicted such dam-

In captivity at Shanghai, Marine Major James P. Devereux (center), commander of the American garrison on Wake, poses with other prisoners. The radios were presented as a propaganda ploy and rigged to receive only Japanese broadcasts.

age. Another Japanese officer asked Cunningham if Wake had actually sent the famous message, “Send us more Japs!” When Cunningham replied in the negative, the officer answered, “Anyhow, it was damned good propaganda.” On January 12, 1942, all the Americans, except for a group of civilians who remained on Wake as laborers, boarded transports for the long voyage to Asian prison camps. Before the transports reached their destination, the Japanese selected five Marines, led them on deck, and beheaded them as retribution for the fighting on Wake. Similar angry actions would become all too commonplace for the Wake defenders. After seizing Wake the Japanese stationed on the island were cut off from their homeland by

Four hundred Marines, five Army and 65 Navy personnel, and 1,076 civilians eventually left troop transports and slowly marched through the gates of Asian prison camps that were to be their homes for the next three and a half years. While they endured misery and hardship after performing bravely in the battle, the Wake defenders do not think they are heroes. At Wake and in prison camp they simply did their job—no more, no less. “People always say we’re heroes, and to most Wake Islanders it’s embarrassing,” explained Gross. “You know, any other group of Marines with the same amount of experience would have done the same thing. It’s no small thing we did, because we probably delayed the Japanese going

moving, words. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a well-worn Rosary that looked as if it had been used thousands of times. “It was this,” he said to me as he nodded toward the string of beads, the same one he had used in prison camp. “Each Sunday a group of us, including Major Devereux, gathered together, got down on our knees, and said the Rosary.” As tears welled in the aged warrior’s eyes, Schneider added, “That’s what got me through.” ■ A graduate of the University of Notre Dame, John Wukovits has published numerous articles and books about the Pacific theater, including a biography of Admiral Clifton A.F. Sprague. 105