Attack on Pearl Harbor
-Jason
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Pearl Harbor nestled in the Hawaiian Islands, has been viewed as either a paradise or a living hell that witnessed the opening gambit of a brutal new frontline of World War II.
As of December 1941, the United States had not yet officially entered the Second World War though there had been two years of the conflict. Despite its declared neutrality, American weapons, food, and equipment were being supplied to Great Britain to ensure the island nation’s survival. The situation for the Allied powers had become dire: most of Western and Eastern Europe had been overrun by Germany and Italy, and Asia was teetered towards Japanese domination.
While maintaining its neutrality, the United States was preparing for war by redeploying military assets to forward bases and exercising economic measures to stymy Axis advances. The Fall of France in May 1940 left the extensive French overseas empire, especially French Indochina, vulnerable to Japanese attention. With no way of reinforcing their Pacific territories, the Vichy French government bowed to Japanese pressure and surrendered the region to Imperial Japan. This was a major warning sign for American military and civilian leaders that the Pacific Ocean would become a new theater of Second World War.
The United States used multiple tactics to imply their displeasure at Japanese expansion in Asia and the Pacific. An embargo against Japan of scrap metal and oil, and the eventual freezing of all Japanese assets, had been established by November 1941; these materials were supplied by the United States and with no resupplies, the Japanese economy would collapse. When these embargoes were announced, the Japanese Army and Navy discussed plans for attacking American, British, and Dutch possessions throughout the Pacific to gain access to the resources their nation craved.
The United States also shifted military assets to strengthen their hand in the Pacific Ocean. Aircraft were sent to the Philippines, Wake Island, Midway Island, Guam, and Hawaii to reinforce their garrisons. The United States Pacific Fleet was also relocated from its usual base of San Francisco, California, to the naval base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. The warships that made up the bulk of the US Pacific Fleet were positioned to be much closer to their Japanese counterparts. The United States hoped that this show of force would curb Axis ambitions; they were to be sadly mistaken.
During the 1920s and 1930s, the United States had developed operational plans to fight Japan in the case of warfare. This plan was known as War Plan Orange; it envisioned the US Pacific Fleet fighting from Pearl Harbor across the Pacific Ocean to a decisive engagement somewhere off the Philippine Islands. War Plan Orange relied on the outlying US military bases to withstand Japanese attacks while American battleships destroyed the enemy fleet.
While this plan appeared sound on paper, it did not consider the changing tactics, technologies, and weapons that would be developed between the wars. The Washington and London Naval Treaty placed limitations on the number and size of warships countries could build in the 1920s and 1930s. While battleships were restricted in size and number, aircraft carriers were a relatively new concept, and few limitations had been placed upon their construction. Both the United States and Japan built aircraft carriers and added them to their war fleets. This widespread availability, and the flexibility provided by aircraft carriers, nullified the age-old principal of having to be within eyesight of an enemy fleet to engage it.
The United States Navy was not completely unfamiliar with the threat aircraft carriers represented to their ships. During the 1930s, multiple wargames were held in which the American aircraft carriers launched mock air raids on both Pearl Harbor and San Francisco where they “destroyed” the US Pacific Fleet. These lessons were ignored as the “Battleship Admirals” complained that the wargames were “rigged.” Pearl Harbor and San Francisco received additional anti-aircraft weapons and fighter squadrons during 1940, but the threat of surprise air raids by the Japanese as discounted.
The Japanese Navy took note of these American wargames and used the information in planning. The Imperial Navy had six large aircraft carriers with highly skilled aircrews that operated as a combined strike force. This gave the Japanese a key advantage: veteran pilots who were highly motivated, trained, battle hardened, and used to operating together. They also had a brilliant officer whose unorthodox tactics confounded both his allies and enemies: Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto. Yamamoto was an advocate who pushed for additional aircraft carriers and planes to be supplied instead of the completion of new, larger battleships.
Yamamoto and his fellow admirals also observed an incredibly destructive air raid launched against the Italian naval base at Taranto. British aircraft were launched from HMS Illustrious on the night of 10-11 November 1940. The British aircraft had been equipped with specially modified torpedoes that could be used in the shallow waters of the base. With only 21 planes, the British managed to cripple multiple Italian battleships while they were laying at anchor. The Taranto Raid effectively destroyed the major units of the Italian Fleet with few casualties being suffered by the British attackers. Yamamoto closely studied the British tactics and weapons, while also looking at the layout of Italian defensive measures to help perfect the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.
The United States Pacific Fleet sat at anchor with a false sense of security through November and the beginning of December 1941. The soldiers, sailors, and airmen had been told, and they believed, that Pearl Harbor was too secure for a Japanese attack. The battleships that comprised the core of the American Fleet were clustered around Ford Island. Multiple cruisers and destroyers were also present for resupply. The USS Pennsylvania was in dry dock undergoing repairs with two destroyers also nestled in front of the battleship. Submarines and their tenders were scattered while they too received supplies before setting out on their peacetime patrols. The aircraft carriers that Yamamoto hoped to destroy were not present: the Americans were using them to shuttle planes to their other Pacific military bases.
The Japanese Imperial Navy assembled its six large aircraft carriers into a strike force in November 1941. In secret, they sailed from Japanese home waters and took a circuitous route across the northern Pacific Ocean on their way to attack Pearl Harbor. While this strike force was enroute to Hawaii, other elements of the Imperial Navy were moving towards their targets spread throughout the Pacific Ocean. To further confuse American military intelligence agencies, the Japanese relayed fake radio signals for the missing aircraft carriers indicating that they were still located in their home bases.
Japanese diplomats were in Washington, D.C. trying to negotiate some form of peace between their nation and the United States. They were scheduled to meet with US Secretary of State Cordell Hull before the attack on Pearl Harbor was to take place. They had instructions to give a warning to Hull that Japan would conduct military operations against the United States if the embargoes were not lifted and Japanese assets freed. However, their meeting was delayed until after the air raid on Pearl Harbor had already been launched.
As the sun was rising on 7 December 1941, the Japanese launched 353 aircraft in two waves consisting of a mixture of fighters, level and dive bombers, and torpedo bombers. The formations were picked up by an American radar station, but this warning was disregarded due to a flight of B-17 bombers was expected to land at Ford Airfield that morning. The America servicemen and civilians who were enjoying a lazy Sunday were suddenly confronted by war.
By 7:48 am the first wave of Japanese planes split to attack their individual targets. Fighter aircraft turned towards Ford Island, Hickam, and Wheeler Airfields where they found the American planes sitting wingtip to wingtip. American military commanders had ordered this formation as a security precaution against sabotage; this simply made the planes easier targets. Japanese fighter aircraft destroyed most of the American aircraft while they were sitting on the runway.
Japanese level, dive, and torpedo bombers split between attacking their assigned targeted warships and military facilities. The Japanese had developed two modified weapons that ensured maximum destruction: converting armor-piercing naval shells into high-level bombs, and torpedoes specifically designed to operate in shallow water. These proved to be devastating when employed against the anchored American warships. The armor-piercing shells had become heavy bombs that punched through the ventral armor plates protecting the decks of battleships before detonating. The shallow-operating torpedoes crippled Battleship Row.
The Japanese attack lasted ninety minutes and left Pearl Harbor shattered. 2,403 Americans were killed and another 1,178 wounded by the end of the air raid. The American battleships USS California, USS Nevada, USS West Virginia, USS Pennsylvania, USS Maryland, and USS Oklahoma were heavily damaged. The gunnery training ship USS Utah was also severely damaged and capsized trapping surviving crewmembers underwater. The USS Arizona was destroyed with the loss of nearly the entire crew after her ammunition magazines exploded. Several destroyers were similarly annihilated destroyed by denotations after being hit. The surface of the harbor was covered in burning oil as well as the dead and wounded. It would be months before many of the warships damaged at Pearl Harbor could be refloated and repaired.
Despite the devastating casualties and material losses suffered at Pearl Harbor on 7 December 1941, the Americans were not completely crippled. The submarines, dry docks, and oil depots had not been destroyed by the Japanese and these proved vital to the continued operations of the US Pacific Fleet. Because the American aircraft carriers were not in Pearl Harbor during the attack, these valuable ships were available to counter Japanese advances. Six of the eight American battleships sunk at Pearl Harbor were raised and repaired by 1944. These veterans gained their revenge during the Liberation of Philippines where they conducted the last battleship vs battleship fight at the Battle of Surigao Straits on 24-25 October 1944.