Sleeping giant game

Swift and violent attacks would be used to decimate American military installations, ships, airfields, and warplanes. Although racked with internal doubts and conflicts about what he saw coming, Yamamoto felt that as commander in chief of the Combined Fleet, he must obey orders and do his duty——no matter how wrongheaded those orders were. In January , he began looking for ways that Japan could inflict the greatest damage on the United States while suffering the least amount of pain.

Gradually the tactical concept took shape. A force of six aircraft carriers would steam through the often-stormy waters of the northern Pacific, doing its best to avoid any sea or air patrols.

About miles north of Hawaii, the carriers would launch a combined aerial armada of torpedo planes, fighters, and bombers before dawn on a Sunday to catch the Americans at their most vulnerable; dawn attacks have always been the mainstay of military operations. The attackers would arrive in several waves, each with a specific mission. Midget subs would inflict further damage, and fleet submarines would lurk near Oahu to sink any American ships found coming or going.

With a divine grant of fortune, the American fleet would be crippled, American airpower destroyed, and American morale crushed, and within a matter of a couple of hours the attackers would return safely to their carriers, which would then slip away as secretly as they had arrived, safe from counterattack.

As the British did before Taranto, the Japanese modified aerial torpedoes to work in the shallow waters of Pearl Harbor. Spies in Hawaii fed Japan with a steady stream of information about what ships were in harbor and where they were berthed. While the physical assets were being assembled at naval bases across Japan, the personnel, too, were being selected and briefed on the ultrasecret operation. Commander Minoru Genda was named air officer in charge of the aerial assault.

His friend, Lt. Mitsuo Fuchida, was appointed to command the First Air Fleet and would lead the initial wave to the target. A relentless period of training and exercises commenced for the aircrews at Kagoshima Bay in southern Kyushu, an area that bore a strong resemblance to Pearl Harbor.

Using specially modified aerial torpedoes that would not lodge themselves in the bottom mud of shallow Pearl Harbor, the torpedo-bomber pilots practiced relentlessly. The dive-bombers and high-level bombers, too, dropped hundreds of dummy bombs to perfect their aim.

After months of intense training, the Japanese carrier pilots were, without a doubt, the best-trained aviators in the world. In the meantime, a flurry of messages flew back and forth between Hawaii and Washington, D. Whenever a new diplomatic message was received, translated, and interpreted, the people at the War Department and Navy Department would send updates to Hawaii; what they thought were alerts and warnings of possible impending hostile action by the Japanese were often viewed by the commanders in Hawaii as being vague and inconclusive, full of unhelpful contradictions and unsupported conclusions.

While Washington seemed to believe its warnings to Hawaii were clear enough, the Army and Navy in Hawaii were fumbling every opportunity to get ready to fend off the coming surprise attack. In early November, Japan had sent special envoy Saburo Kurusu, a hard-liner, to Washington to assist the mild-mannered Ambassador Nomura in the negotiations. The two diplomats were instructed to ensure that an agreement primarily aimed at getting the United States to end its freezing of Japanese assets and back down on its demands that Japanese forces leave China was signed by November Unknown to Nomura and Kurusu, if the agreement was not reached by then, Japan would give orders for Operation Z to proceed.

The deadline was later pushed back to November The United States refused to deal the cards that the Japanese had laid before them, and negotiations appeared to be at an end. Admiral Chuichi Nagumo, head of Kido Butai, received orders to put the plan into motion. True to expectations, the naval force sent by Japan toward Southeast Asia was spotted and watched intensely by the Western powers. At the end of November, during this bit of deception, the Kido Butai, consisting of six aircraft carriers, two battleships, two heavy cruisers, one light cruiser, nine destroyers, and several oilers, all under Admiral Nagumo, sailed undetected northward from Tankan Bay in the Kuriles, heading for Kwajelain and then the Aleutians.

The Japanese, for their part, had warned that they would sink any foreign ship they encountered. The Soviets, in turn, said they would declare war on Japan if the transport, loaded with Lend-Lease goods, were fired upon. If allowed safe passage, however, the Russians promised not to alert anyone to the sightings of a Japanese battle fleet in northern Pacific waters.

The message was then delivered by the captains to the crews of their various ships. A disturbing bit of information then arrived; intelligence reported that none of the five U. Although disappointed, Nagumo did not let the news cause him to cancel or delay the attack. The fact that plenty of battleships and cruisers and destroyers were in harbor was reason enough to proceed as planned. At this point, however, the historic waters get muddy. Some sources say that it became obvious that Pearl Harbor was the target of an intended Japanese attack and that President Roosevelt and others close to him pretended not to know in order to ensure American involvement in the war, while others say the opposite.

At any rate, Ambassadors Nomura and Kurusu were waiting at the Japanese embassy in Washington on that fateful Sunday, December 7, for instructions to arrive from Japan. The instructions were delayed, then had to be decoded, translated, and typed in English.

By the time Nomura and Kurusu were ready to meet with Secretary of State Hull, the strike force was in the air, approaching the island of Oahu. Radio silence was total; communication between ships was conducted by lamps and flags.

Preparations were then made for the launch. The planes were fueled and loaded with bombs, torpedoes, and machine-gun ammunition. With the first wave launched, the crews on the carriers hustled to bring the second wave up to the flight decks on elevators. Flying in the lead plane over black waters, Commander Mitsuo Fuchida was nervous, his mind and body in a heightened state of readiness.

Did the Americans know that he and his men were coming? Would they meet a wall of American planes as they approached Oahu? Would the crews on the ships at Pearl Harbor be on the alert, ready to fill the sky with anti-aircraft munitions?

If the Americans were on the alert, he would fire two flares, indicating that surprise had been lost and that the fighters were to go in first. Somehow the signals got botched. But the torpedo bomber pilots had seen the first flare and then the second and thought it meant that surprise had been lost and fell back in the formation.

In the end, the mix-up in signals made no difference. As Fuchida glided above Pearl Harbor, he saw that the sky was clear of American planes and the decks and AA gun tubs of the ships below appeared to be empty. His planes banked into the attack. Just minutes before, an unsuspecting Captain Howard D.

Bode, commander of the battleship Oklahoma , had left the ship for liberty and was being carried to shore by a launch; he had left Commander Jesse L.

Kenworthy, Jr. Furlong, whose quarters were aboard the old minelayer Oglala , berthed at Dock across the channel from the southeast side of Ford Island. He saw the initial flight of aircraft, assumed they were American, and cursed the pilot who was careless enough to allow an unsecured bomb to fall from his undercarriage and explode on the island.

He sounded the attack alarm and ordered all ships at Pearl to sortie. For most it was too late. Next came the airfields at Hickam, Wheeler, Bellows, Ewa, and Kaneohe; Genda knew that if the first attacking wave could knock out the American planes before they could get airborne, his pilots would have unfettered access to the ships anchored in the harbor and would only need to worry about the AA fire.

In Pearl Harbor, author H. Of these only 88 were fighters, but such was the fury and violence of the assault that only a handful of them were able to try to get into the air to give battle on equal terms. American pilots tried their best to scramble their planes and to get airborne to battle the Japanese formations, but almost all their efforts were in vain.

The Kaneohe Naval Air Station was hard hit, with all 33 of its aircraft destroyed on the ground. At Ewa, located west of the entrance to Pearl Harbor, 33 of the 49 aircraft stationed there were destroyed or disabled. By the time the attacks on the airfields were over, American aircraft had been destroyed and another damaged, although some estimates are even higher. At Haleiwa Fighter Strip, northwest of Honolulu at Kaiaka Bay, a small group of American pilots of the 47th Pursuit Squadron drove wildly in two cars from Wheeler Field, dodged strafing bullets along the way, jumped into their Ps, and took off.

Second Lt. George Welch scored four victories, while Kenneth Taylor and three other pilots downed three additional Japanese aircraft; some reports had Army pilots shooting down as many as 12 planes.

While the airfields were being hit, other planes went after Schofield Barracks, bombing and strafing the installation while American soldiers ran around in panic, searching for weapons and ammunition with which to fight back.

But the first ship to be attacked was Utah , an old battleship that had been planked over and converted into a gunnery training ship, moored on the opposite side of Ford Island at F She looked to the Japanese pilots like an aircraft carrier and soon caught the brunt of the attack, along with the cruiser Raleigh.

The enemy pilots slammed two torpedoes into Utah , causing her to almost immediately capsize. The attack killed at least 54 men, who still remain entombed within her. At Battleship Row, the torpedo planes came in low and launched their fish. West Virginia was hit at by Lieutenant Murata Shigeharu; Lieutenant Jinichi Goto, leading a second column of torpedo planes, set his sights on nearby Oklahoma , moored at F5 inboard of Maryland.

He and another pilot both struck home. These were followed by further attacks, and soon Oklahoma was ablaze and listing badly. At , a torpedo penetrated the hull amidships near frame 65 and an enormous belch of flame rocked every inch of her. The scene aboard Oklahoma was sheer bedlam. Sailors were running everywhere, some trying to get to their battle stations, some trying to get below to escape flaming fuel oil and flying ordnance, others jumping overboard.

Kenworthy gave the order to abandon ship, but it was too late. The ship quickly keeled over, dooming more than sailors trapped within her. As the Japanese planes continued swooping in and dropping more bombs and torpedoes, alarms were going off all over the harbor. Men barely awake and in various conditions of undress were suddenly energized by bursts of adrenaline and sprinted for their guns, retrieving the anti-aircraft and machine-gun ammunition, quickly loading, and peppering the sky that was now swarming with enemy planes.

One pilot, streaking low across Ford Island, took aim at Pennsylvania , moored in dry dock. The battleship Pennsylvania was in a somewhat protected position——in Dry Dock No. At about on the morning of December 7, he went below to the electrical shop on the third deck for muster at his duty station.

At precisely am, a flight of 18 aircraft from the carrier Enterprise , at sea miles to the west, arrived over Oahu, planning to land at Ford Island, and flew into the maelstrom. Murray, changed course and headed west, out of range of any potential attackers. Gunners on ship and shore did not bother to first check the identity of the new arrivals; they simply continued blasting away at anything that had wings, assuming all were foes. Several were shot down in the melee.

This is an American plane. Kozelek, to bail out: neither man was ever heard from again. Shortly after , the USS Arizona , tied to her mooring F7, caught the attention of the torpedo planes. Although aging, the 29,ton Arizona was still a powerful symbol of American naval might and a prime target of the Japanese, but, although protected outboard by Vestal , she was still not immune to the torpedoes; one slid under Vestal and slammed into her hull.

At , California , tied up alone at berth F3, was struck by two aerial torpedoes. Then the high-altitude bombers came over with their deadly ordnance. Men rushed with hoses to fight the flames, but with no water pressure, they were helpless.

At came the coup de grace for Arizona. A dive-bomber pilot, Tadashi Kusumi, and his bombardier, Noburu Kanai, took aim. Their lone Type 99 bomb struck near the No. Suddenly the old ship detonated in a terrible fireball and shockwave, throwing debris and pieces of sailors hundreds of feet into the air. Gone in an instant were 1, of her crew and Marine detachment, along with her skipper, Captain Franklin van Falkenburgh and Rear Admiral Isaac Kidd, both of whom had been on the bridge.

Two bombs also found Tennessee and West Virginia at F6, causing both to sink. A whirling piece of jagged debris from the exploding Tennessee scythed through the air and into the bridge of West Virginia , disemboweling her captain, Mervyn Bennion. When that proved impossible, he rushed to a.

For his courage, Miller was awarded the Navy Cross. While my group circled for another attempt, others made their runs, some trying as many as three before succeeding. We were about to make our second bombing run when there was a colossal explosion in Battleship Row [the Arizona ]. A huge column of dark red smoke rose to 3, feet. The shock was felt even in my plane, several miles away. In far-off Washington, D. President Franklin D. But the president reckoned it was probably true—it was just the kind of thing the Japanese would do at the very moment they were discussing peace in the Pacific.

All doubt was settled a few minutes later when Admiral [Harold] Stark [head of the U. Navy] called to confirm the attack. Back in Hawaii, the nightmare was continuing. The flight of a dozen unarmed Bs that Lieutenant Tyler mistakenly assumed were represented by the earlier radar sighting suddenly arrived in the midst of the battle.

Originally scheduled to land at Hickam, the flight leader told his pilots to land anywhere they could. All of the planes were attacked and hit, but only one was lost. All along Battleship Row, ship after ship was exploding, burning, dying. Nevada , moored alone at F8 at the northeast end of the row, had been under partial steam and she, along with five destroyers, was able to get underway.

Her skipper, Captain Francis W. Scanland, was ashore that morning, so Lt. Francis Thomas was at the helm as she made her way south to the exit channel. Seeing Nevada making a run for it, the Japanese descended upon her like hawks on a field mouse, hoping to sink her in the channel and bottle up the harbor. Suffering from a huge torpedo wound, Nevada , listing to port and down at the head, was slowing. Then someone on the bridge spotted signal flags that had been raised at the Naval District Headquarters, ordering the ship to stay clear of the channel.

So Thomas swung her in a wide arc and backed her into the shore on the Waipio Peninsula across from Hospital Point. Dead in the water and ablaze, Nevada continued to attract a crowd and received a further pummeling.

The old girl then settled onto the bottom of the shallow harbor where she would remain for the next two months while repairs were being made; she would fight again in support of the Allied landings in Normandy in June Of her crew of nearly 1,, 50 officers and men died on her on December 7, and were wounded.

At , the destroyer Helm , the first ship to get underway that morning, had reached the harbor entrance and encountered another midget sub outside. Although contact was lost, Helm radioed her sighting to the fleet. At , the destroyers Breese and Monaghan , and the seaplane tender Curtiss and repair ship Medusa , saw another sub and went into the attack, sinking it with deck-gun fire and depth charges.

The Japanese attack was building in intensity. At am, the second echelon, a flight of high-level horizontal bombers from the carriers Shokaku and Zuikaku , led by Lt. Even the naval hospital was not spared. Curtiss was then hit by a bomb that exploded on her main deck, killing 20 and wounding another Still in the fight, though, her gunners zeroed in on another bomber that crashed into one of her big topside cranes and exploded but caused only minor damage to the ship.

The Americans were now peppering the air with munitions of all types; the bombers had to fly through a thick storm of lead and steel being thrown up at them. Gunners on Maryland and Helena downed three of the attackers, and those on other ships chalked up further scores. Dark gray puffs burst all around. Just as taking a step backward could hurt a program trying to awaken after a long slumber. Contact Ron Kantowski at rkantowski reviewjournal.

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