PEARL HARBOUR IN RETROSPECT

Press, Volume XCV, Issue 28268, 4 May 1957, Page 6

PEARL HARBOUR IN RETROSPECT

Success Of Japan's Surprise Raid

[By JOHN KENNY] /"AN December 6, 1941, Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto, Commander of the Japanese Combined Fleet, radioed the striking force headed for Pearl Harbour: “The moment has arrived. The rise or fall of our Empire is at stake ...”

Some time after 6 a.m. on De- ( eember 7 Admiral Ryunosuke' Kus aka trembled like a leaf; he could not control himself. It had been a terrible strain getting the planes off in high seas. Finally, he sat on the deck—or, he thinks, possible, in a chair—and meditated, Buddha-fashion. Slowly he pulled himself together again as the planes winged off to the south.

At the main target of this on-| slaught the only sign of life was] a middle-aged housewife driving her husband to work. Mrs William Blackmore, headed through the main Pearl Harbour gate to the harbour craft pier, where Mr Blackmore, chief engineer of the tug Keosanqua, was to get under way at 6 a.m. “This,” Mrs Blackmore observed, “is the quietest place I’ve ever seen.” “You’d be surprised what goes on around here,” Blackmore replied.

Sure enough, when the Keosanqua moved out of the entrance channl at 6.30 a.m. a Navy PBY was circling about a mile away, apparently looking at something. The helmsman of the destroyer Ward also was looking at something.

The PBY dropped two smoke bombs to aid the rescue of what the pilot believed was a submarine in distress. The Ward, however, treated it as an enemy because it was well out of the designated area for friendly submarines and opened fire at point-blank range. Engineer Blackmore on the tug thought it was merely some early morning practice.

“Orders Were Orders” On the Ward, Lieutenant Goepner had a harrowing thought that after all it might have been an American submarine, but he consoled himself that orders were orders.

The PBY pilot, who had joined in the attack, reported the sinking and contemplated an empty future as “the man who sank the American sub.”

Closing time at the- newlyestablished radar station at Opana was 7 a.m.. but because the truck to take them to breakfast was late, privates Joseph Lockard and George Elliott kept the radar set running so that they could practice on it.

At 7.02 am. a blip far bigger than anything Lockard had seen before flashed on the screen. He thought the set was broken, but quickly realised there was nothing wrong with it—it was a huge flight of planes. Elliott telephoned the information centre and told the news to the switchboard operator. Private Joseph McDonald, who reported it to Lieutenant Kermit Tyler Tyler was unimpressed. McDonald called back Opana got Lockard. who insisted on speaking to Tyler. “Don’t worry about it,” Tyler told him. Lockard and Elliott followed the flight in until 7.39 a.m., 22 miles, when they lost it in the “dead zone” caused by the hills around them. Conveniently, the pick-up truck arrived to take them away for breakfast, which was violently interrupted about 16 minutes later. Japanese Story Commander Mitsuo Fuchida knew they must be nearly there. He flicked on the radio direction finder, picked up an early morning programme from Honolulu, corrected his course and the other planes followed suit. They were all around him. Behind were the other 48 horizontal bombers. To the left and slightly above were Lieutenant-Com-mander Kakwicki Takahashi’s 51 dive-bombers. To the right and a little below were LieutenantCommander Shigeharu Murata’s 40 torpedo planes. Far above. Lieutenant-Commander Shigeru Itaya’s 43 fighters provided cover. Then the. could see Pearl Harbour on their left Lieutenant Shiga was attracted b” the unusual colour grey of the warships. Commander Itaya was struck by the way the battleships were' “strung out and anchored two ships side by side in an orderly manner.” CommanderFuchida was more interested in counting—two, four, eight No doubt about it they were all there. “The Day of Infamy” Thus began the “Day of Infamy.” Walter Lord paraphrased President Roosevelt’s memorable words announcing the attack for the title of a record he has compiled from the personal accounts of 577 participants and official records. The book has just been publishe in New York by Henry Holt and Company. The Japanese striking force of 31 ships sent out 353 planes, which for the loss of 29 planes caused 3581 casualties, including 2403 killed, sank or seriously damaged 18 ships, and destroyed 188 planes and damaged 159. Lord’s diligent research has yielded a fascinating version of Pearl Harbour through the trivialtites as well as the dramatic experiences which participants recalled from that memorable day.

Joseph Harsch, renowned war correspondent of the “Christian Science Monitor,” was awakened in his Honolulu Hotel, eight miles away, by the sounds of explosions in the distance. He woke his wife and told her: “You have often asked me what an air raid sounds like. Listen to this—it’s a good imitation.” “Oh, so that’s what it sounds like,” she replied, and they dozed off to sleep again. At Kaneoke Naval Air Station Ensign George Shute burst into Ensign Hubert Reese’s room shouting: “Some damn Army pilot has gone buster—he’s diving on BOQ and shooting. He held out a warm bullet as evidence. The Japanese Side Lord has made exhausive inquiries for details of the Japanese side of the story, which began almost ten months earlier when

Admiral Yamamoto remarked almost casually to Rear-Admiral Takajiro Onishi, chief of staff of the Eleventh Air Fleet: “If we are to have war with America we will have no hope of winning unless the U.S. Fleet in Hawaiian waters can be destroyed.” In 10 days Yamamoto had the appraisal: “Risky, but not impossible.” For months the planning continued, faint hearts among the ; admirals notwithstanding. On September 13 the Naval Command issued the rough draft of a plan which combined Pearl Harbour, Malaya, the Philippines and the Dutch East Indies in one huge assault.

Training began. In low, short torpedo runs the torpedoes dived to the bottom and stuck in mud. Simple wooden stabilisers fitted to the fins adjusted this, even for the shallow 45ft bottom of Pearl Harbour. Meticulous intelligence pouring in from Consul-General Nagao Kita in Honolulu Showed that battleships often were moored in pairs; torpedoes could not possibly reach the inboard ship. Ordnance men fitted fins on 15inch and 16-in ch armour-piercing shells for bombers to drop through tough armour-plate decks.

Suguru Suzuki, aged 33, youngest lieutenant-commander in the service, had a stimulating job. Around the end of October he boarded the Japanese liner Taiyo Maru, which, instead of following her usual course to Honolulu, sailed far to the north, crossed over between Midway and the Aleutians and then cut south to Hawaii—exactly the course the striking force planned to follow to avoid detection. He took reams of notes. No Ship Sighted Suzuki observed that during the entire voyage the Taiyo Maru did not sight a single ship. Yamamoto set the date —December 8, or Sunday, December 7. Good for a number of reasons: favourable moonlight . . . perfect co-ordination with the Malaya strike . . . the best chance to catch the ships in port and the men off duty. Tankan Bay in the bleak, cold Kuriles was the secret rendezvous point for the Pearl Harbour striking force. One by one, battleships, carriers, cruisers, destroyers, supply ships, tankers left many different ports. At the great Kure naval base a lively radio traffic crackled from the rest of "the ships designed give the impression that the fleet was still at home.

On November 25 Yamamoto ordered the fleet to get going the following day, and inevitably Admiral Nagumo spent a restless night. At 2 a.m. he called in Lieutenant-Commander Suzuki, apologised for waking him and

said he had to check one point again: “You’re absolutely certain about not spotting the U.S. Pacific Fleet in Lahaina?” Suzuki reassured him and went back to bed deeply moved by the sight of the old admiral all alone with his worries, pacing away the night in his kimono.

The second day out, Nagumo suddenly blurted to Kusaka: “Mr Chief of Staff, what do you think? I feel that I’ve undertaken a heavy responsibility. If I had only been more firm and refused.” Kusaka came up with the right answer: “Sir, there’s no need to worry.” Naguma smiled. “I envy you, Mr Kusaka. You’re such an optimist.’’ On December 7 when Commander Fuchida landed in the Akagi at 1 p.m. he reported to the bridge. A heated discussion was going on. Another attack was not so certain after all. For a moment they postponed a decision while they heard Fuchida’s account. After he finished. Admiral Nagumo announced ponderously: “We may then conclude that the anticipated results have been achieved.”

Nagumo had always been against the operation, but he had given it his very best and was not going to stretch his luck.