Short History of World War II - James L. Stokesbury [88]
The American armed forces had indeed sent out an alert which was billed as a “war warning,” but they thought again that it applied more to the Far East than anywhere else. There was some consideration of a possible attack on the Panama Canal. Hawaii, however, was well prepared, and the chief danger anticipated there was sabotage. The military and air force garrisons responded to this threat by lining up all their planes and equipment in neat rows so they could be more easily guarded.
Most of the fleet was in port for the weekend. The navy was involved in a heavy training schedule, and Saturday night was time for some relaxation. The three aircraft carriers of the Pacific Fleet were at sea, one on the West Coast, two delivering aircraft to mid-Pacific garrisons. One battleship, Colorado, was in the States having an overhaul. The remaining eight were at Pearl, seven lined up along Battleship Row, just off the naval airfield on Ford Island.
The fates conspired against the United States that morning. The Japanese first attack wave was picked up on a vintage radar set, but there was a flight of new bombers due in from the West Coast. Even though these planes were coming from the wrong direction, no one reacted.
Not until the first wave struck, and the first bomb dropped, at 0755, did the Americans realize they were in a war. There were about 190 planes: fighters, dive-bombers, high-level bombers, and torpedo planes. The pilots of the latter had been especially trained and equipped to make their attacks in the shallow waters of Pearl Harbor. While the fighters attacked the air stations around the island, the rest went for the fleet. Within minutes, Battleship Row was a shambles: Oklahoma capsized, West Virginia was hit by torpedoes; counterflooding allowed her to settle on the bottom, her guns still firing. California too lodged on the mud. Nevada alone, at the inboard end of the row, got underway, but was badly hit and beached before she could clear the harbor. Arizona took several torpedo and bomb hits, including one in her forward magazine; surrounded by burning oil she sank with more than a thousand of her crew trapped inside.
The first Japanese attack cost them only nine planes. The second wave came in after a lapse of about twenty minutes, and was hit by everything the Americans could throw at them; it was not much, but it brought down another twenty planes, and several more had to be written off after they got back to their carriers.
In an hour the United States forces lost about 150 planes, and another hundred damaged. Every battleship at Pearl was damaged, though only two, Oklahoma and Arizona, were total losses. Several smaller vessels were sunk or damaged. There were 4,575 casualties. Perhaps more important than what the Japanese hit was what they missed. The carriers were at sea, and they would prove the queen of naval warfare. The repair facilities were not seriously damaged, and Pearl remained a usable base; most of the fuel storage was intact.
Still, Yamamoto’s six months of victory had gotten off to a tremendous start. Pearl Harbor was one of the greatest surprise attacks of all time, a fair rival to Hitler’s invasion of Russia. The Japanese could unroll the map of conquest, with very little to challenge them from San Francisco all the way to Suez. In the first two hours of hostilities they had swept the board almost clean. But in London, Winston Churchill’s first thought was “We have won the war!” and he later wrote that that night he went to bed and slept “the sleep of the saved and the thankful.” All reservations cast aside by the galvanic shock of Pearl Harbor, the United States was in at last.
PART III: “THE HOUR WHEN EARTH’S FOUNDATIONS FLED….”
15. Allied Conferences and Plans
THE COALITION THAT FOUGHT the Second World War was probably