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  CONTENTS

  TITLE PAGE

  COPYRIGHT NOTICE

  DEDICATION

  EPIGRAPH

  1 // DISASTER

  2 // TOO THIN A SHIELD

  3 // OPPOSITE NUMBERS: YAMAMOTO AND KIMMEL

  4 // THE BREWING STORM

  5 // AN AIR OF INEVITABILITY

  6 // WAR WARNINGS

  7 // CLIMB NIITAKAYAMA

  8 // IMPERILED

  9 // THIS IS NO DRILL

  EPILOGUE

  NOTES

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  INDEX

  ALSO BY MICHAEL GANNON

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  COPYRIGHT

  To the memory

  of Esteban,

  who served in the Pacific

  Betray v. To be disloyal to another. To prove false to another. To disappoint the expectations of another. To violate a trust.

  Oxford English Dictionary

  ONE

  DISASTER

  Friends back home used to ask about the Japs. “Hell, we could blow them out of the water in three weeks!” But here we are with our pants down and the striking force of our Pacific Fleet is settling on the bottom of East Loch, Pearl Harbor. Who wouldn’t be ashamed?

  Diary of 1st Lieutenant Cornelius C. Smith,

  U.S. Marine Corps Reserve

  Entry of 7 December 1941

  A visitor to the navy yard at Pearl Harbor on Oahu Island, Territory of Hawaii, at sunrise, on Sunday, 7 December 1941 would have experienced one of the most dramatic daybreak scenes in the Pacific Ocean. On the south the yard bordered one of several channels of a large, cloverleaf-shaped body of water that, as morning twilight gave way at 0626 (6:26 A.M.) to light orange sunlight, presented still-dark shades of blue and gray. A slight breeze rippled its surface. On Makalapa Heights to the immediate east across East Loch and on Aiea Heights in the distant northeast, the new light picked out lush green growth on purple slopes. Overhead, cottonball clouds from the trade winds floated beneath the brightening sky.

  So far this was a scene that might be repeated at any Pacific island port. But if the visitor walked out onto the yard’s Ten-Ten Dock, so-called because of its 1,010-yard length, his or her eyes would behold a parade of images unlike any to be seen elsewhere for 3,000 miles around. Visible at the base of Ten-Ten, in Dry Dock No. 1, were the upper hull and superstructure of an impressively huge, gray, spectral United States Navy battleship, USS Pennsylvania (BB-39), flagship of the Pacific Fleet. While walking out toward the pier’s end, past, to port, the moored light cruiser USS Helena (CL-50) and the minelayer USS Oglala (CM-4) secured alongside her, the visitor would begin to discern ahead the outlines of seven other majestic, gray-bathed battleships. They were moored to individual concrete quays set in a line some two hundred yards off the southeast shore of a small inland island named Ford that rose in the center of the harbor.

  Two of the battleships would be difficult to see at first because they were berthed inboard of other battleships at the same quay. Toward 0700, when waxing light made it possible, the visitor could make out the precise silhouettes of all those ships’ stately hulls, their jutting guns, and fighting tops. It was the rare visitor who did not find the bloodstream quickening at such a sight. The pride of the Pacific Battle Force, the battleships were, in order of station, USS California (BB-44) nearest to the drydocked Pennsylvania; Oklahoma (BB-37) outboard and Maryland (BB-46) inboard; West Virginia (BB-48) outboard and Tennessee (BB-43) inboard; Arizona (BB-39); and Nevada (BB-36).

  It was America’s famed Battleship Row.

  At an hour past dawn the battleships were beehives of activity, white-uniformed officers and sailors seen everywhere about their decks and tops. Well over half the officers and an average of 90 percent of the ships’ enlisted complements were on board. Only a few men were ashore on other duty or liberty. The morning watches were completing their watch-keeping, cleaning, and polishing duties. They and the crewmen who manned the anti-aircraft (AA) guns—two machine guns were continuously manned around the clock with two cases of .50-caliber ammunition at hand, and other crews stood by two 5-inch AA guns with fifteen rounds of ammunition for each—prepared to be relieved by the forenoon watches at 0745. At exactly that minute the forenoon crews, having breakfasted, took their assigned stations, while the morning watches went below to chow down.

  Bands and guards prepared for morning colors at 0800. Catholic and Protestant chaplains laid out their sacred vessels or their hymnals for services to be held on deck following colors. One could hear, faintly, the bells of the Cathedral of Our Lady of Peace in nearby Honolulu calling worshipers to eight o’clock mass.

  The Navy bands and Marine color guards paraded to their places on the main decks aft. At the stern flagstaffs seamen fastened American flags to the halyards, furled and ready to break. At the same time, other details prepared to hoist the Union Jacks—forty-eight stars on a blue field—on the bow staffs. Officers on the signal bridges looked keenly to Pennsylvania. When the flagship hoisted the Blue Peter, or “Prep” flag, at 0755, boatswains on that and all other ships of whatever type in the harbor piped the preparatory signal for the hoisting of colors and the playing of the national anthem. But during the interval of the following five minutes something went terribly wrong.

  * * *

  At the naval air station on Ford Island, Lieutenant Commander Logan C. Ramsey, operations officer of naval aviation Patrol Wing 2, watched with the staff duty officer in the command center as an aircraft made a shallow dive over the seaplane ramp and Hangar 6 at the south end of the island. The pilot should not have been interfering with the ceremonial silence of morning colors in the first place. In the second, he was “flathatting”—showing off at low altitude—in violation of flight rules. While Logan and the duty officer discussed the difficulty of getting the aircraft’s fuselage number, a delayed-fuse bomb that the plane had dropped at 0757, which the two naval airmen had not seen fall, exploded. In Ramsey’s words: “I told the staff duty officer, ‘Never mind, it’s a Jap.’ I dashed across the hall into the radio room [and] ordered a broadcast in plain English on all frequencies, ‘AIR RAID, PEARL HARBOR. THIS IS NO DRILL.’”1 The transmission time was 0758.

  Quickly afterward, eight other green-painted dive-bombers could be seen gliding rather than diving from the northeast toward parked aircraft in the vicinity of Hangar 6. As they pulled out, as low as four hundred feet off the deck, naval personnel on the ground could plainly see red roundels on the undersides of their wings. They were Japanese all right! They had to have come from carriers. As their bombs exploded, thirty-three out of a total of seventy U.S. naval aircraft of all types were destroyed or damaged.

  The signal tower in the yard repeated Logan’s alert to ships in harbor at 0800. But by that time, in mid-colors, when the hoarse klaxons sounded general quarters on all vessels, two ships in the harbor had already been struck by very-low-flying torpedo bombers, barely detectable against the horizon, sixteen in number, which swooped in from the Pearl City peninsula to the northwest over that part of the water called West Channel. Their targets were warships other than battleships that were moored to quays along Ford’s opposite, or northwest, side. The first six attackers to drop aerial torpedoes took aim at an antiquated target and training ship, USS Utah (AG-16), and at the light cruiser USS Raleigh (CL-7). Three of the missiles missed and ran aground in the mud off Ford. But two hit
Utah on her port side and one struck the portside of Raleigh, moored in line ahead. Raleigh would survive, but Utah was mortally wounded. The torpedo hitting Raleigh blew a hole in her hull thirteen feet below the waterline in the area of frames 50–60. Inrushing water flooded two forward boiler rooms and the forward engine room. As she listed to port, a fleet tug, USS Sunnadin (ATO-28), came alongside to steady her. That and the energetic work of her crew in counterflooding below kept Raleigh from capsizing. She would be holed again by a dud bomb an hour and ten minutes later.

  For Utah the end came quickly. Two torpedoes in quick succession punctured her hull at frames 55–61 and 69–72.2 Within a matter of a few minutes, Utah listed 80 degrees to port, then capsized, the two layers of 6-by-12 timbers that protected her deck from dummy practice bombs rolling overside. Ordered to abandon ship, crewmen hustled out of portholes and ran up the starboard side to her keel as, at 0810, the old vessel went belly-up. Some men were trapped inside the overturned hull, which they banged on with hammers. Despite immediate efforts to rescue them, using cutting tools borrowed from the damaged Raleigh, only one trapped crewman, a fireman second class, was saved. The total number of deaths on Utah was fifty-eight. The wreck itself sank to the bottom, where it still rests.

  Directly after those hits, five torpedo bombers from the same flight, crossing over Ford Island to the East Channel, made drops at 0801 against the light cruiser Helena, moored inboard of the minelayer Oglala at Ten-Ten Dock. Helena was probably selected for attack by error; she was temporarily occupying the berth previously held by the now drydocked flagship Pennsylvania. Again, Japanese marksmanship was less than perfect as only one torpedo hit home. That successful missile, running at a depth of twenty feet, passed under the minelayer and exploded below the armor belt on Helena’s starboard side in the area of frames 69.5–80.5. Twenty men were killed instantly by the blast; thirteen more died in the fires and smoke resulting. But the remaining crew saved the ship. The same cannot be said for Oglala, whose thin portside plates were stove in by the same blast effect. Too flooded to remain afloat, she capsized, but not before two civilian contract tugs towed her clear of Helena.

  The remaining five torpedo bombers of the northwest flight similarly crossed over Ford but, after passing the yard, swung around to join a larger fleet of twenty-four torpedo bombers that was coming in from the southeast. The target now was Battleship Row. In three groups of twelve, twelve, and five, the attackers approached over Merry Point and the submarine base pier, making 160 knots at an altitude over water of sixty-six feet. At the optimal distance from targets, the aircraft successfully dropped three torpedoes on California, twelve on Oklahoma, nine on West Virginia, and one on Nevada. None was dropped on Maryland or Tennessee because they were berthed inboard of Oklahoma and Virginia, respectively. None was dropped on Arizona, which was moored at quay F-7 with a repair ship, USS Vestal (AR-4), outboard, covering most of her 608-foot length. It is thought that a torpedo could have passed under Vestal as one had passed under Oglala, but the official Japanese history of the attack states that no such attempt was made, and, after the attack, U.S. Navy divers did not find evidence of torpedo damage.3 In no more than ten to twelve minutes the only torpedo attacks of the day were over. But that was more than enough time for the Japanese pilots to leave behind heavy losses of flesh and steel.

  Nine of the twelve torpedoes launched against Oklahoma at berth F-5 hit their mark, the initial strikes opening holes portside about twenty feet below the water’s surface at frames 64 and 47.5. The ship immediately took on water and began to list to port. Succeeding strikes were made at other frames from 42 to 70. As the ship’s list increased, four of the last five torpedoes exploded high on the hull’s armor belt, and the last, the most damaging of all, hit at the level of the main deck. Oklahoma was now listing 35 to 40 degrees.4 Damage to the forward generator compartment cut off power and light throughout the ship. Tumbling officers and men made their way about with hand lanterns and flashlights. As many as possible of the crew of 1,200 slid down the ship’s side into the water. When, finally, the ship turned turtle, having rolled through an angle of about 135 degrees to port, many crewmen, trapped in interior compartments, suffocated or drowned. Thirty-two others were reached by civilian workers from the Yard who made an opening in the bottom of the hull with cutting torches and released those fortunate survivors around noon on the following day. Altogether, 415 men died on Oklahoma.

  At the time of the attack the ship above the third deck was in Condition Xray of material readiness. That is, she was in cruising condition, the lowest level of watertight integrity. All double bottoms and lower compartments were closed, but living compartments were open and intercommunicating passageways were open to permit free passage. On the third deck and below she had made additional closings as mandated by an intermediate level of readiness called Yoke. In the highest level of material readiness on board a ship, Condition Zed, all compartments, passageways, and access openings were closed except those necessary to fight the ship. We know that at the outset of the attack Boatswain Adolph Marcus Bothne passed the word on loudspeaker for general quarters and set Condition Zed.5 That condition apparently was set in some spaces—the ship’s log was lost in the sinking—but the rapid flooding and capsizing of the ship prevented her personnel from making proper closures throughout.

  Nine torpedoes also struck West Virginia at berth F-6, outboard of Tennessee, port side to stream. The “Weavy,” as she was affectionately known in the fleet, was luckier than Oklahoma in that all but one of the torpedoes dropped on her ran at a more shallow depth and thus expended their explosive strength on the armor belt. The one deep-running missile (twenty feet) struck the rudder at frame 145.6 At the date of this writing, Howard Huseman still remembers vividly those moments. An aviation radioman in shipborne Vought-Sikorsky OS2U Kingfisher observation planes, Huseman was getting ready to go into Honolulu on liberty, when the fire alarm and horn went off. He went up to the quarterdeck to find that one of the ship’s two OS2Us had been blasted off its catapult and was barely hanging over the side; the other was on fire. General quarters sounded. His auxiliary station in drills was in the damage control center in the post office compartment on the port side, but he found no one there. He then went looking for a place where he could be of help. While he was searching, seven torpedoes in quick succession blasted against the port side. He decided to go back to the post office compartment. It was gone!

  Simultaneously, West Virginia was hit from above by dive-bombers. One bomb passed through the firetop and the boat deck before exploding near the port side on the main, or second deck. This bomb may have accounted for the disappearance of the post office compartment. The explosion led to a fierce powder and oil fire that extended to the foremast structure up to and including the bridge. A second bomb passed through the six-inch top of turret 3 but did not explode.

  Huseman caught only a brief glimpse of the attacking aircraft. His chief concern was that the ship was sinking. But thanks to expert counterflooding by crewmen below, she sank on an even keel. As West Virginia reached bottom, her top deck still above water, Huseman took refuge on a gun turret until picked up by a motor launch and taken ashore. He recalls that the battleship’s antiaircraft guns were in action only a few minutes after the first torpedo hit, and that, apparently, they gave a good account of themselves.7 One hundred and six men died on West Virginia.

  Astern, though not directly because she was inboard of the repair ship Vestal, stood the proud 33,100-ton Arizona, constructed in 1915 as the second and last of the Pennsylvania class. Moored to quay F-7, headed down channel, Arizona’s bow was very close to Tennessee’s stern and her stern to Nevada’s bow, the distance in each case being two hundred feet. Not targeted by the torpedo bombers, she was still vulnerable to dive-bombers and to high-level (or horizontal) bombers that crisscrossed the sky above with 1,760-pound armor-piercing bombs. One-fourth of her AA battery was manned with ammunition available in ready boxes at the start of the a
ttack.8 Eyewitnesses later reported that all Xray doors and fittings were closed with very few exceptions. Many Yoke doors and fittings were also closed from the previous night. And many engineering spaces, including the shaft alleys, engine rooms, and firerooms, were in Condition Zed and locked. A gravity bomb attack on the ship was so sudden, however, that little time was allowed for setting Zed throughout the rest of the ship. Probably most of the third deck armored hatches were still open.

  No fewer than eight bombs descended on Arizona during the middle of the torpedo launches against other vessels. (Bombs were also dropped on West Virginia, Maryland, and Tennessee, as well as on the repair ship Vestal, at the same time.) All fell between 0815 and 0820, causing damage of varying severity.9 In one major action a bomb hit and detonated close to the port leg of the tripod of the foremast structure, causing its collapse. But by far the most severe damage—cataclysmic by comparison with anything else that winged death brought that day—was caused by a bomb dropped on the forecastle deck in the vicinity of either turret 1 or 2 that caused an intense fire that quickly engulfed the entire ship forward of the mainmast. Approximately seven seconds after the start of the fire—the time interval was determined by Navy analysts in 1944 on the basis of a motion picture film of the bomb hit and fire that ran at a rate of twenty-four frames per second—the ship forward of the mainmast erupted in a massive orange-black fireball that destroyed the ship forward of frame 70 and cast debris as far as West Virginia, Tennessee, Nevada astern, and Ford Island. Observers reported that the ship shuddered and jumped up in the water.

  Arizona had on board her full allowance of smokeless powder arranged forward in six magazines to supply gun turrets 1 and 2. These surrounded 1,075 pounds of black powder in magazines on the centerline between frames 37 and 39. It was clear to the Navy analysts who in 1944 investigated the cause of Arizona’s horrific explosion that both the smokeless and black powder detonated. But it was difficult to detonate smokeless powder with fire—and time-consuming, taking certainly more than seven seconds—whereas the ignition of black powder almost always resulted in an instantaneous explosion. That fact led investigators to theorize that a modified 16-inch (1,760-pound) armor-piercing projectile used as a bomb by the Japanese high-level bombing aircraft penetrated the armored deck and ignited the black powder, which in turn detonated the smokeless powder. But the theory proved “improbable.”* “More probable” was that the fire passed down through the five armored hatches left open on the third deck, one of which was almost directly over the black powder magazine.