SCARS REMAIN AT PEARL HARBOUR AFTER 25 YEARS

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31237, 8 December 1966, Page 21

SCARS REMAIN AT PEARL HARBOUR AFTER 25 YEARS

(N.Z.P.A.-Reuter—Copyright)

HONOLULU, December 7.

Twenty-five years after the surprise attack that devastated it, Pearl Harbour remains America’s most important military base outside the continental limits of the United States.

The scars of the attack remain—buildings still bear the neat, deadly rows of holes made by Japanese machine-guns, and out in the harbour itself is a striking white memorial to United States Navy men killed in the attack on December 7, 1941.

The attack was a surprise, but hardly a success. In spite of the havoc, the ships sunk and the Americans killed, the Japanese blundered. Pearl Harbour is evidence of how badly the Japanese militarists erred.

Few people outside Navy circles had heard of Pearl Harbour until 1941, and on the day that President Roosevelt called “a day that will live in infamy” Japan needed oil. Until 1941 that oil came from America, but that year the United States Congress denied oil to Japan because of Japan’s apparent aggressiveness.

To get oil Japan would have to go all the way to the Dutch East Indies, fighting her way through the Philippines and other, smaller islands.

Order Given

Looming in Japan’s way was the United States Pacific Fleet. The decision was made in Tokyo to destroy the backbone of that fleet by an attack on Pearl Harbour. The order for the assault was issued on November 5, 1941. Eleven days later in the

chill seas off the Kuriles, ViceAdmiral Chuichi Nagumo began assembling a task force of 33 ships, including six modern aircraft carriers. The task force sailed on November 26, and 11 days later Japanese aircraft roared off the carrier decks into battle formation and into a place in history. There were 97 ships in Pearl Harbour that Sunday morning, 46 of them destroyer class and heavier.

There were eight battleships in the harbour. The first bombs fell at 7.55 a.m.

The battleship California was hit first, but it was three days before she sank after frantic efforts to save her. The battleship West Virginia, hit by six bombs and two torpedoes, sank at her moorings. The former battleship Utah, being converted to an auxiliary, was hit by three aerial torpedoes, went down, and became a tomb for 58 men.

The battleship Oklahoma was hit by four aerial torpedoes, capsized and sank within 20 minutes.

The battleships Tennessee, Pennsylvania and Maryland were heavily damaged. The battleship Nevada, suffering a direct torpedo hit, nevertheless got under way in 45 minutes and headed for the 400 ft navigable portion of the 800 ft Pearl Harbour channel. Ran Aground

The Nevada’s skipper, his ship afire and sinking, deliberately ran the proud ship aground on a sand bar to keep her from sinking in the channel and possibly blocking

other ships from putting to sea.

The battleship Arizona, after many hits, took a 20001 b delayed action armour-pierc-ing shell through her forward decks and into the fuel storage area.

The resulting fire spread to the powder magazines, and the Arizona literally erupted like a volcano.

The ship leapt half-way out of the water, broke in half, and sank in less than nine minutes. There were more than 1500 men aboard the Arizona that day: 1102 of them, including a rear-admiral and the ship’s commanding officer, are still entombed aboard.

For two hours 353 Japanese

planes battered Pearl Harbour and other military installations on Oahu. When they departed they left behind more than 300 United States planes destroyed or damaged, 18 warships sunk or heavily damaged, and 2409 Americans dead. Not all of the casualties were military. Fifty-seven civilians were killed outright in the attack and another 50 seriously wounded. Some of the wounded died in the next few days. Hurt, but less gravely, were more than 200 other civilians.

The Japanese losses were 29 airplanes, five midget submarines, and 64 men.

In spite of their record of destruction, the Japanese had blundered at Pearl Harbour. They did not bomb the fuel oil supply, they did not heavily damage the shipyard, and—most important of all—they did not seriously damage the Pacific submarine fleet’s operating base. Before World War II had ended, United States submarines accounted for 65 per cent of the total Japanese shipping that went down.