The storm of iron and explosives that broke over Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941, was one of the finest applications of air power in all of World War II. For several hours on that beautiful Sunday morning in Hawaii, Japan’s elite naval aviators pummeled the American forces on Oahu, crippling the U.S. Navy’s battleship fleet and destroying the ability of the United States to intervene against other Japanese occupation efforts in the Pacific Basin. The Hawaiian operation was a flawed concept from the start, however, targeting only enemy naval vessels and aircraft, missing more strategically significant targets and setting the stage for Japan’s eventual defeat in 1945. Despite this, the attack on Pearl Harbor remains one of the most intriguing and decisive air strikes in history.

The Japanese: Forces and Plans

Japan’s emergence from centuries of isolation under the xenophobic Tokugawa shoguns (1603-1868) was triggered by U.S. Navy Commodore Matthew C. Perry’s four-ship diplomatic mission in 1854. Within two generations, the Japanese transformed their preindustrial society to catch up with and even surpass the most advanced military technology of the Western powers. During that period, the Japanese developed a complex love-hate relationship with America and its society. This was symbolized by President Theodore Roosevelt’s intervention to help negotiate the treaty of Portsmouth, N.H., (which ended the Russo-Japanese War in 1905) at the same time that racial segregation was imposed on Japanese-American immigrants in California’s schools. Nevertheless, during World War I Japan joined the Western Allies, and was rewarded with a number of former German colonial possessions in China and Polynesia.

A Japanese photo, captured later in the war, showing Battleship Row under attack. At far right is USS California, already leaking oil from a torpedo hit, and astern of her, Neosho, full of high octane aviation fuel but undamaged in the attack. Astern of Neosho, Oklahoma, already hemorrhaging oil, is beginning to list. Next to her is Maryland. Astern of Maryland is Tennessee, like Maryland protected by the outboard battleship, in Tennessee's case the West Virginia, from the torpedoes of the Kates. The doomed Arizona, inboard of the repair ship Vestal, lies astern of Tennessee. In the foreground, closest to the camera, is Nevada. U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command photo

By the 1920s, Japanese elites began to believe that the domination of the Pacific Basin was the natural expression of their national manifest destiny. However, the emerging civility of nations following World War I put a crimp in Japan’s plans for regional dominance. In particular, the wave of naval disarmament treaties (London in 1920 and Washington in 1922), designed to reduce the chances of war, actually offended the Japanese due to the Western powers’ insistence that they accept an inferior and unequal status. Japan’s total warship tonnage was limited to three-fifths of the American or British fleets, leaving the Pacific in an uneasy stasis. During the 1930s, the West increasingly viewed Japan’s “expansion” in China as “aggression,” and a collision of vital interests became inevitable. Meanwhile, in deep secrecy, a generation of brilliant young Japanese engineers and naval officers was perfecting a well-trained naval aviation force, equipped with fast carriers, long-range aircraft, and the best torpedoes in the world.

In August 1939, Adm. Isoroku Yamamoto became commander in chief of the Imperial Japanese Navy and began planning for war with the United States. A visionary with an eye to the growing power of naval aviation and aircraft carriers, he was a “transformation” supporter long before the term was created. This was important, since the major navies of the late 1930s were dominated by the cult of the battleship. Called the “Big Gun Club,” it was composed of senior officers who had spent their careers training and preparing for dramatic and decisive gunnery duels between armored dreadnoughts. For more than two decades, naval war colleges around the world had spent time refighting and analyzing the Battle of Jutland, all seeking to find ways to achieve decisive victory through the guns of battleships.

All of this changed on the night of Nov. 11, 1940, when 21 slow Swordfish torpedo bombers launched from the carrier HMS Illustrious struck the Italian naval base of Taranto. The fragile British biplanes sank three modern battleships with aerial torpedoes, damaging two cruisers as well.

Yamamoto was determined to strike the U.S. Pacific Fleet, which had relocated in spring 1940 from its traditional bases at San Diego and Long Beach, Calif., to Pearl Harbor on the island of Oahu. The Japanese regarded this forward deployment as a deliberate provocation.

Yamamoto’s finely tuned instrument for the Hawaii operation was the Kido Butai (literally, “Mobile Force”), commanded by Vice Adm. Chuichi Nagumo. Built around six large aircraft carriers (Akagi, Kaga, Hiryu, Soryu, Zuikaku, and Shokaku) of the “First Air Fleet.” The First Air Fleet pilots and crew trained for months to attack the American fleet at anchor in Pearl Harbor, along with the combat planes on airfields scattered around Oahu. As they trained, Japanese engineers and designers worked on producing the special weapons necessary to attack ships in a confined harbor. Specifically, this included shallow-running aerial torpedoes and heavy armor-penetrating bombs to hit the battleships and aircraft carriers they hoped to find moored alongside Ford Island in the middle of Pearl Harbor. By late November 1941, all preparations were complete, and the Japanese task force was ready for its journey across the Pacific.

Another Japanese photo, from directly overhead Battleship Row shows bunker oil gushing from the huge holes made by the Japanese torpedoes in the sides of the Oklahoma and West Virginia. U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command photo

For what the Japanese called “the Hawaiian Operation,” Kido Butai was escorted by the fast battleships Hiei and Kirishima, the heavy cruisers Chikuma and Tone, and screened by a light cruiser, nine destroyers, and three long-range submarines. Eight oil tankers accompanied the strike force on a long, indirect approach across the rough, foggy, and nearly untraveled North Pacific (mostly along the 43 degree north latitude line).

In total radio silence (“transmit” keys were removed or sealed on every radio of the force), the fleet sailed from Tankan Bay in the remote Kurile Islands on Nov. 26. Their advance was shielded from observation by a weather front that was moving about the same speed across the North Pacific. The voyage took almost two weeks, during which time other Japanese invasion and attack forces moved toward their targets. During the same period, Japanese diplomats continued to negotiate with the United States, in part to screen the Kido Butai from U.S. curiosity. All the while, Takeo Yoshikawa, a secret agent at the Japanese Consulate in Honolulu, provided daily coded updates on the types and locations of the American warships in port.

To support the planned attack, 20 Japanese fleet submarines patrolled around the Hawaiian Islands to ambush any U.S. forces that might escape the aerial attack. At the same time, a “Special Naval Attack Unit” (under Capt. Hanku Sasaki) of five two-man midget submarines launched from submarine mother ships was dispatched on a direct course to Pearl Harbor. The midget subs would attempt to enter the narrow, net-protected channel by trailing one of the minesweepers that routinely patrolled the harbor entrance.

Gun crew of the No. 3 gun aboard the destroyer USS Ward. They fired the first shots of the war for the United States, sinking a Japanese midget submarine. U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command photo

The First Air Fleet massed a total of 474 aircraft: 137 fighters (Mitsubishi A6M2 Type 0 “Zeros”), 144 dive-bombers (Aichi D3A1 Type 99 “Vals”), and 183 torpedo planes (Nakajima B5N2 Type 97 “Kates”). The Japanese aircrews were products of an incredibly tough selection process and a rigorous training program. Originally, Yamamoto had considered launching the Pearl Harbor strike as a one-way mission from a range of 500 miles, but his staff convinced him that the sacrifice of so many irreplaceable pilots and aircraft was unnecessary to achieve surprise. Many of the Japanese naval aviators were veterans of recent combat over China, leading a crack corps of flyers into a target they knew as well as their own home bases. One measure of their skill is that using only the simplest optical sights, the torpedo and dive-bomber pilots would achieve hit rates at Pearl Harbor that would not be equaled until laser-guided munitions entered combat in the 1970s.

Three hundred and sixty-one of Japan’s best pilots were handpicked for the Pearl Harbor attack. The Val dive-bombers carried semi-armor-piercing bombs, with excellent blast and fragmentation effects. Some of the Kates would carry special armor-piercing bombs converted from 16-inch naval gun projectiles. The rest of the torpedo planes carried the superb Type 91 aerial torpedo (17 3/4-inch diameter with a 150-kilogram/330-pound warhead), modified with special wooden fins for low-level drops into shallow water.

The strike was organized in three groups, requiring precise calculation of timing, distance, speed, wind, and aircraft endurance. Time-on-target and complete synchronization was critical to help manage the air traffic over the carrier decks and maximize the effectiveness of the attacking aircraft.

Target Array: The Americans on Hawaii

Despite popular notions, strategically the Japanese attack was a failure before it even began. The most precious and irreplaceable American targets, the Pacific Fleet’s three aircraft carriers, were absent from Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7. Saratoga (CV 3) was off San Diego after a refit, while Lexington (CV 2) was ferrying a reinforcement of Navy planes to the island base of Midway. Enterprise(CV 6), delayed by bad weather, was returning to Hawaii after delivering 12 Marine F4F-3 Wildcat fighters to the remote Wake Atoll. Nevertheless, the sprawling Pearl Harbor naval base and the entire island of Oahu was target-rich, vulnerable, and utterly unprepared.

An Aichi D3A1 "Val" pulls up at the bottom of its dive, its bomb gone and dive brakes still retracted. Japanese aircraft thoroughly worked over the airfields spotted around the island as well as the fleet in the harbor. U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command photo

The vulnerability was a product of divided command; the Army and Navy shared overlapping responsibilities for the defense of the islands. Unpreparedness stemmed from strategic failures of intelligence and communications, but above all failure of imagination. Few events in American history have been documented and studied in such exhaustive detail; the transcript of the wartime congressional investigation alone runs to 37 massive volumes. Conspiracy theories and dark hints of cover-ups have abounded, but ultimately the men in command simply lacked the imagination to anticipate the audacity and creativity of Yamamoto’s plan. This was despite a number of staff studies and so-called “fleet problems” that indicated that such an event was not only possible but probable.

The fleet commander was Adm. Husband E. Kimmel, who graduated from the Naval Academy in 1904 and spent most of his career in battleships. In February 1941, he was promoted over 32 senior officers to be commander in chief, Pacific (CINCPAC), relieving Adm. James O. Richardson, who had vigorously opposed the fleet’s transfer from the West Coast to Hawaii.

CINCPAC had long been the Navy’s largest and most prestigious command, but already there was an expectation that the real action in the coming war would be fought in the Atlantic, against Germany. The newest ships and the first priority for scarce resources were earmarked for the undeclared war against Hitler’s U-boats.

Despite this, Hawaii was a vital way station for expediting reinforcements to the Philippines and Far East, where any Japanese attack was expected to fall first. It was also an isolated, expensive tropical backwater initially lacking the infrastructure to sustain the entire fleet and its personnel. Nevertheless, there was an impressive array of naval facilities, including radio and cable stations. Pearl Harbor was a sheltered (though crowded) harbor, with dry docks big enough for the largest battleships and aircraft carriers, oil storage tank farms, several Navy and Marine air stations for land-based aircraft and seaplanes, a submarine base, hospitals, maintenance shops, and supply warehouses. Total Navy and Marine personnel on Oahu numbered about 50,000.

An armor-piercing bomb detonates the Arizona's forward magazine. The ship suffered the greatest individual loss of life during the attack, and remains a war grave today, entombing more than 1,000 of its sailors. National Archives photo

On Dec. 7, 1941, the U.S. Pacific Fleet had 159 warships assigned. Of these about 100 lay at anchor, or in drydock, in Pearl Harbor. All told, eight battleships, six heavy cruisers, four light cruisers, 30 destroyers, four submarines, one gunboat, nine minelayers, 14 minesweepers, and 27 auxiliaries were in harbor. This included the old battleship Utah (AG 16), which had been disarmed and converted into a target ship under the terms of the 1930 London Naval Treaty. More than 200 “serviceable” naval aircraft were present on the island, though a high portion were trainers or observation planes of little or no combat value.

While the leaders on Oahu may have been lacking in imagination, they were not completely naive to the prospects for war in 1941. Some weeks earlier, U.S. radio monitoring sites had lost track of the First Air Fleet and its carriers, making their location a priority.

At his morning briefing on Dec. 2, Kimmel pointedly asked where the missing Japanese carriers were. His intelligence officer, Cmdr. Edwin Layton, said, “I think they are in home waters, but I do not know for sure where they are.” The admiral replied by saying, “Do you mean to say they could be rounding Diamond Head and you wouldn’t know it?” Layton could only reply, “I hope they would have been spotted before now.” Prophetic words indeed.

The problem was that the Navy lacked enough long-range search planes to patrol in all directions, and were only scouting westward and southwesterly, toward the nearest Japanese base in the Marshall Islands, 2,000 miles distant. Moreover, there simply was no suspicion of a threat from due north, and technically, defense of the island and the fleet was the responsibility of the Hawaiian Department, which was an Army command.

Commanding the department was Lt. Gen. Walter Short, who was commissioned in 1901 after graduating from the University of Illinois. Short served in France as a training officer during World War I, and in effect was in charge of a corps headquarters on the islands. Total Army strength on Oahu was about 50,000, including the understrength 24th and 25th Infantry Divisions, a large Coast Artillery Command, and the Hawaii Army Air Force. Maj. Gen. Frederick Martin commanded the force, with the 18th Bombardment and 14th Pursuit Wings split among four main bases: Hickam, Wheeler, Haleiwa, and Bellows Fields. Serviceable Army aircraft totaled 51 bombers and 147 fighters, though at Hickam and Wheeler the planes were parked wingtip to wingtip, sitting in the center of the fields, unarmed and unfueled, to protect them from the imagined threat of Japanese saboteurs.

Arizona burns, her forward superstructure fallen over the gaping hole torn out of her by the magazine explosion. National Archives photo

Local anti-aircraft defenses included 26 fixed four-gun batteries of 3-inch guns and 15 mobile batteries, all with their ammunition locked safely away in central armories. On weekends the guns were unmanned. To provide early warning against air attack, six mobile SCR-270 radars ringed the island. Badly sited, with inadequately trained crews and unreliable generators, the radar crews relied on commercial telephone lines to report tracking data to a central plotting station. Three more powerful fixed SCR-271 radar sets had been received in July 1941, but Army engineers had been too busy with other tasks to install them by Dec. 7.

The Night Before: Dec. 6, 1941

Early on Dec. 6, the Kido Butai crossed the “last hurdle” of its journey: the 700-mile range limit of Navy PBY Catalina seaplane patrols from Oahu. Luckily for the Japanese, no patrols were scheduled that weekend, and the seas north of Hawaii were calm enough for a final underway refueling. The Japanese submarine I-72, scouting near Maui, reported that the American deepwater anchorage off Lahaina was empty, making Pearl Harbor the target for the coming strike.

That afternoon, the force turned due south, making an economical 12 knots toward the dawn launching point about 230 nautical miles north of Pearl Harbor. From the halyards of flagship Akagi, Nagumo broke out the famous flag signal that Adm. Togo had flown before the Battle of Tsushima in 1905. It read, “The Fate Of The Empire Rests Upon This One Battle; Let Every Man Do His Utmost.” The Kido Butai was now ready for battle.

That evening, Martin had arranged to pay the Honolulu commercial radio station, KGMB, to remain on the air all night so that a squadron of unarmed B-17 bombers flying in from the West Coast could use the soft music being broadcast as a navigational beacon. The bombers were on their way to reinforce the defenses of the Philippines, and were stopping on Oahu to refuel and rest their crews. Unfortunately, the Japanese were also homing in on the signal, amazed and delighted by this stroke of luck, which indicated that the enemy suspected nothing. The Japanese were entirely correct in their assessment.

All over Oahu that night, soldiers, sailors, airmen, and Marines were enjoying themselves, taking advantage of the storied pleasures of the island. For many ship commanders and their senior officers, this meant a night ashore and home with wives and loved ones. This left many vessels and installations in the hands of junior officers, many just a few years from West Point, Annapolis, or college. Enlisted personnel were also out that night, enjoying pleasures ranging from the fleshpots and bars of Honolulu to a final “battle of the bands” competition among ships in port. Nobody doubted that war was coming, for there had been many alerts and warnings over the past weeks. On Dec. 6, though, war was the furthest thing from the minds of Americans on Oahu.

Dawn’s Early Light: Launch, Warnings, and Early Actions

Two hours before dawn at 4:00 a.m. Hawaiian time, the Kido Butai’s flight crews were awakened for their breakfast of fish and rice, along with tiny ceremonial cups of sake. They wrapped traditional white hachimaki headbands around their flight helmets, inscribed with “hissho” (“Certain Victory”) for luck. At 5:30 a.m. the heavy cruisers catapulted off a pair of Aichi E13A1 “Jake” floatplanes for a final pre-strike reconnaissance over the target. Just before 6:00 a.m. the six carriers, making 24 knots, turned into the 10-knot east wind. It took about 15 minutes to launch the first strike wave, with one Zero fighter being forced to ditch. A total of 183 aircraft gathered into three formations of 16 compact attack groups and headed south, led by Cmdr. Mitsuo Fuchida in a Kate equipped with a special orange marker light. Estimated flight time to the target was just over 90 minutes.

The battleship California lists badly from two torpedo hits as she settles to the bottom of the harbor, surrounded by burning bunker oil. Her useless big guns elevated through her awning, the ship would soon have to be abandoned. U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command photo

The first wave was composed of 49 B5N2 Kate level bombers with one 800-kilogram/1,760-pound armor-piercing bomb, 40 B5N2 Kate torpedo bombers with one modified Type 91 torpedo, 51 D3A1 Val dive bombers with one 250-kilogram/550-pound high-explosive or semi-armor-piercing bomb, and 45 A6M2 Zero fighters with two 7.7 mm machine guns and two 20 mm cannon.

Even before the first Japanese planes made landfall, the destroyer Ward (DD 139) was firing the initial shots of the war in the Pacific. Patrolling just outside the harbor mouth, the Ward was directed toward a midget submarine trying to follow a repair ship towing a barge into Pearl Harbor at 3:42 a.m. The destroyer fired on the exposed conning tower of the sub, hitting it before depth charging the craft.

Though the Ward radioed word of the attack to 14th Naval District headquarters ashore, the warning was lost in the chain of command. It was the first of several warnings that went unheard or unheeded in the confusion of that morning.

Twenty-eight miles north of Honolulu, Kahuku Point is the northern tip of Oahu. Just inland, near the tiny village of Opana, Joseph Lockard and George Elliot, two Army privates, manned one of the primitive SCR-270B radar sets. They were supposed to shut down the system at 7:00 a.m., but their breakfast truck was late, so they remained on duty to get some extra practice. Soon, the flickering radar scope displayed the largest return they had ever seen: more than 50 aircraft approximately 130 miles north. They phoned a report to the air warning duty officer at Fort Shafter, who told them not to worry about it. The control officer, 1st Lt. Kermit Tyler, assumed that the contact was the arriving flight of 12 B-17s, which was expected around 8:00 a.m. Lockard and Elliot continued to track the incoming wave until they lost the contact at 20 miles, in the noisy backscatter from the nearby hills.

First Wave: The Japanese Attack

At 7:38 a.m., Chikuma’s floatplane tapped out its radio report: “Enemy formation at anchor. Nine battleships one heavy cruiser six light cruisers in harbor.” This message, along with wind and weather reports, was relayed to Fuchida, now about 25 miles north of Oahu. Suddenly, the clouds broke and the coastline appeared, a good omen for the Japanese airmen. At 7:49 a.m., Fuchida ordered his force into attack formation by firing a single flare. Then, thinking the dive-bombers had missed this signal, Fuchida fired a second flare, which the 51 Vals misinterpreted as an order to attack immediately. It did not matter. At 7:53 a.m., Fuchida sent the pre-arranged signal Tora Tora Tora (“Tiger! Tiger! Tiger!”), meaning that complete surprise had been achieved. Crossing over Kahuku Point, the first wave split into two main groups. Fuchida led 89 Kates swinging wide around the Waianae mountain range to strike Battleship Row from the southwest. Simultaneously, 51 Vals and 43 Zeros struck the air bases.

Battleship Row seen from the capsized Oglala. The Oklahoma has turned turtle, her bottom projecting from the oily water, and Maryland lies inboard of her. U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command photo

At 7:55 a.m., a Navy color guard raised the flag at the Ford Island Command Center. A plane buzzed them and Lt. Cmdr. Logan Ramsey, commanding the 2nd Patrol Wing, thinking a naval aviator was “grandstanding,” snapped, “Get that fellow’s number!” Then something fell from the plane and exploded among the hangars. By 7:58 a.m., Ramsey had ordered a radioman to send a message in the clear to all commands: “Air raid on Pearl Harbor. This is no drill.”

About the same time, on the western side of Ford Island, the first Kates skimmed in low above the waters of Pearl Harbor, dropping their specially modified torpedoes and striking Utah and Raleigh (CL 7). Lines from the quay kept the torpedoed cruiser from capsizing, but the old Utah was not so lucky. Disarmed and with wooden planks mounted across her decks to cushion the blows of practice ordnance, she may have been mistaken for a carrier, and with two torpedoes in her, she eventually capsized. On Battleship Row, Oklahoma (BB 37) took her first aerial torpedo hit, rapidly followed by three more, and began to list. Oklahoma is thought to have taken perhaps nine torpedoes by the end of the attack. West Virginia (BB 48) was shattered by no fewer than six torpedoes in addition to a number of armor-piercing bombs. Aboard West Virginia, Capt. Mervyn Bennion lay mortally wounded, but still trying to direct efforts to save his ship. Mess Steward Doris Miller moved his captain to a safer location aboard, despite the captain’s protests, and later manned a machine gun. Despite the ship’s grievous wounds, she took a long time to settle to the bottom of the harbor. Her captain was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor, and Miller became the first African-American to receive the Navy Cross. Two torpedoes hit California (BB 44), which was quickly surrounded by burning oil from her ruptured tanks. With numerous voids open for an impending inspection, and hatch covers removed, California lacked normal watertight integrity, and the crew struggled to keep her from capsizing as she slowly settled to the bottom. Within minutes, every one of the outboard ships was torpedoed, and Oklahoma began to capsize. The worst was yet to come.

Ford Island Naval Air Station. Smoke from the burning Nevada and flames from the exploding Shaw rise above the shattered PBY, Kingfisher, and Seagull patrol aircraft the Japanese have destroyed. U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command photo

Just after hoisting the flag at 8:00 a.m., Arizona (BB 39) was apparently struck by a torpedo that passed under the old repair ship Vestal (AR 4) moored alongside. Then around 8:10 a.m., a flight of Kates dropped their special armor-piercing bombs, one of which hit Arizona on her foredeck. Penetrating to the forward magazine, the bomb detonated more than 50 tons of ammunition and set off a catastrophic explosion that nearly tore the battleship in half and shook the entire harbor. Almost 1,200 of the Arizona’s crew, including Capt. Franklin Van Valkenburgh and Rear Adm. Isaac Kidd, were killed instantly, the largest total for any American warship in wartime.

All around the harbor, the destruction of the Arizona was having secondary effects. Burning oil from Arizona surrounded the stern of Tennessee (BB 43), trapped inboard of the sinking West Virginia, starting fires aboard. Damaged by the blast when Arizona exploded and hit by a number of bombs meant for the battleships, Vestal later managed to pull away from the stricken Arizona. Her wounded captain, Cmdr. Cassin Young, climbed back aboard after being blown off the ship, and beached Vestal to keep her from sinking. For his gallantry and persistence, Young would be awarded the Medal of Honor. Just aft of the Arizona, Nevada (BB 36) managed to get her anti-aircraft guns into action, downing two torpedo planes, but taking a hit in the port bow that caused extensive flooding. Nevertheless, Nevada had one boiler lit, and later managed to get under way, the only battleship to do so during the attack. With her captain and executive officer ashore for the night, command of Nevada fell upon Lt. Cmdr. Francis Thomas, a middle-aged reservist. Her sortie would mesmerize everyone around and over the harbor that morning. For the moment though, there were other battles being fought all over Oahu.

At Ford Island’s gasoline pier, the fleet oiler Neosho (AO 23), loaded with volatile high-octane aviation fuel, struggled to get under way. If Neosho had been hit, the resulting fire and blast wave would have swept the harbor, killing any sailors in the water who had abandoned ship and doing untold damage. Then around 8:00 a.m., adding to the growing confusion, the unarmed B-17s from the mainland, and a reconnaissance flight of 18 SBD dive-bombers from Enterprise, arrived in the middle of the Japanese attack. Desperately trying to find a place to land, most ran into a holocaust.

Black smoke blots out the sky as it rises above the Marine Barracks Parade Grounds at the Navy Yard, where Marines wait for the next attack. U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command photo.

From the very beginning, Japanese planners had shown the utmost respect for what land-based aircraft might do to Kido Butai if discovered. It therefore is no surprise that almost half of the aircraft launched against Hawaii that morning were assigned to destroy American aircraft and airfields. At the Ford Island Naval Air Station, the lines of patrol planes were bombed and strafed to “take out the eyes” of the Americans who might try and find the Japanese fleet. Similar strikes at Kaneohe Bay were equally devastating, though by this time lone Americans were beginning to fight back. At Kaneohe, Chief Ordnanceman John William Finn set up spare .30- and .50-caliber machine guns on mounts, then manned several to shoot at the strafing Zeros. All around Oahu, from the Submarine Base to small fighter strips like Haleiwa, American servicemen began to get into the fight.

Across the harbor at Hickam Field, the bombers and Zeros were particularly deadly. Time after time, Japanese aircraft on strafing runs blew up fighters and other aircraft, as well as strafing hangars and other ground facilities. Wheeler Field got a similar treatment, with virtually every plane blown up or shot to pieces. Into the middle of this cauldron came the squadron of unarmed B-17s from the West Coast, some of which landed at Hickam, while the rest diverted to Haleiwa. One put down on a golf course. The biggest nightmare was suffered by the SBDs from Enterprise. Some were lost to “friendly fire” from the ground, while Japanese fighters shot others down. Ironically, some of the survivors would help destroy the carriers of Kido Butai at Midway just six months later. For now, all any of them could do was survive.

Second Wave: Massacre

About 8:40 a.m., there was a brief lull before the second wave of Japanese planes struck. These included:

54 B5N2 Kate level bombers with a mix of 250-kilogram/550-pound and 60 kilogram/120-pound bombs; 78 D3A1 Val dive bombers with one 250-kilogram/550-pound high-explosive bomb; and 36 A6M2 Zero fighters with two 7.7 mm machine guns and two 20 mm cannon.

The second wave continued the work of the first, especially at the airfields and air stations around Oahu. The helpless and massed Army aircraft at Wheeler Field were bombed and strafed repeatedly. The same story was repeated at the Ewa Marine Corps Air Station and other airfields around the island. At Bellows Field, three P-40s took off, but were quickly shot down by the incoming wave of Zeros. However, two Army pilots, George Welch and Kenneth Taylor, dodging Japanese strafing as they raced to Haleiwa field, managed to get their P-40s into the air and claimed seven kills between them.

Nevada sorties, moving up the channel as she is pounded mercilessly from the air. While she was an inspiring sight to Americans that morning, she paid a heavy price, and her acting captain was wise to beach her at Hospital Point to avoid her sinking in the channel. U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command photo

Back in the harbor, the Vals scored additional hits, concentrating on Nevada, which was slowly making her way toward the channel that led to the open sea. Between 8:50 a.m. and 9:05 a.m. she was hit by at least four more bombs. If Nevada had been sunk, blocking the channel, the U.S. fleet would have been trapped and the harbor would be rendered useless for months. Lt. Cmdr. Thomas, still senior officer aboard Nevada, decided to run the ship aground to keep her from sinking. At 9:10 a.m., Nevada plowed into the shore near Hospital Point, where she would eventually be salvaged. Meanwhile, the bombers continued to work over other targets in the harbor.

Pennsylvania, the fleet flagship, was in drydock along with two destroyers, Cassin (DD 372) and Downes (DD 375). At 9:07 a.m., Pennsylvania was hit by a 250-kilogram/550-pound bomb that knocked out one 5-inch gun, though by December 12 she was repaired and able to get under way. However, bombs also struck the fragile destroyers, flooding the floor of the drydock with burning fuel and setting the “tin cans” on fire. Downes’ torpedoes detonated from the fire, causing a sympathetic detonation of Cassin’s magazine. The dock had to be flooded to control the fires. At 9:20 a.m., a near miss buckled the hull of the light cruiser Honolulu, causing severe flooding, while her sister ship St. Louis (CL 49) got under way. Cutting through a cable that secured a dredge at the south end of Ford Island, St. Louis reached the open sea by 10:04 a.m., evading two torpedoes from a Japanese midget sub, which she promptly sank with gunfire. Earlier the destroyers Helm (DD 388) and Monaghan (DD 354) both had encounters with midget subs while exiting the harbor, with the second vessel ramming and depth charging one of the tiny submersibles. Helm was also damaged by an attack at sea by a single Japanese aircraft, the near miss opening a couple of seams and damaging vital equipment.

A few other destroyers made it out of the harbor during the attack, all short of men and sometimes their senior officers. Dale (DD 353) and Henley (DD 391) joined the growing collection of surface ships outside the harbor mouth, wondering if a Japanese task force was approaching from just over the horizon to finish the job of the bombers.

Perhaps the most unique escapes of the day came from two destroyers that went to sea under the command of ensigns. Aylwin (DD 355) under the command of Ensign Stanley Chaplin (and three other ensigns), and Blue (DD 387), conned by Ensign Nathan Asher, would both make the trip to sea under the most junior of commanders. Joining St. Louis, Detroit, and the destroyers at sea was the USS Phoenix (CL 46), undamaged in the attack. (Forty-one years later, renamed General Belgrano, she would meet her fate at the hands of the Royal Navy submarine HMS Conquerer during the Falklands War.)

About the time the destroyers were completing their breakout to the sea, the reason for their sortie was leaving to go home. The planes of the second wave, their ordnance expended and starting to take losses to the growing anti-aircraft fire, left the target areas. Heading out to sea to prearranged rendezvous points away from American observation posts, they doglegged back to the Kido Butai to avoid any U.S. “snoopers” trailing them to their carriers. In just over two hours and with just a handful of losses, the planes of the First Air Fleet had just laid a textbook example in the use of airpower at the feet of historians for their study over the next six decades.

Withdrawal: The Japanese Turn Home

By 10:00 a.m., the Japanese first wave began landing on board the carriers, which had closed to 190 miles north of Oahu. Fuchida remained in the air to observe the effects of the second wave. He landed onboard Akagi, the last plane of the first wave to be recovered, at 1:00 p.m., and reported to Nagumo that at least four battleships had been sunk and four seriously damaged. Fuchida believed his force had shot down 10 American planes in air combat and destroyed another 250 on the ground. He tried to convince Nagumo to launch a third wave of attacks on the port facilities, though the admiral only wanted to know two things.

• First: Where were the American aircraft carriers?
• Second: Had the Pacific Fleet been disabled for at least six months?

The answers were “We don’t know,” and “Yes,” and that was good enough for Nagumo. A lifelong fleet officer, Nagumo did not care about oil tanks and warehouses, which was typical of the Japanese military’s disdain for logistics. It was an attitude that would strand one heroic, starving Japanese army unit after another on remote islands and distant jungles.

Nagumo didn’t know it, but he had just lost Japan its only chance to win the war. Four of his six aircraft carriers and most of the aircrews under his command had just six months to live, all destined to die just a few hundred miles away, near Midway Atoll.

As soon as the second wave had completed recovery, Kido Butai was on course for home. Along the way, Soryu and Hiryu, along with the two heavy cruisers and two destroyers, were detached to strike the U.S. base at Wake Island. The rest of the force headed home, arriving back in Japan to the congratulations of the Emperor and Japanese people. The cost had been absurdly small, with only 29 aircraft lost (nine Zeros, 15 Vals, and five Kates) and 55 airmen killed. Five midget subs were sunk or beached, with the loss of 9 sailors killed and one captured.

Accounting: The Price of Dec. 7, 1941

The cost to the Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbor was heavy, with at least 19 U.S. warships sunk or severely damaged. Four battleships (Arizona, Oklahoma, California, and West Virginia) were sunk or destroyed, with the others damaged to various degrees. Light cruisers Helena (CL 50), Honolulu (CL 47), and Raleigh (CL 7); destroyers Shaw (DD 373), Cassin (DD 372), Downes (DD 375), and Helm (DD 388); minelayer Oglala (CM 4); seaplane tender Curtiss (AV 4); repair ship Vestal (AR 4); and target vessel Utah (AG 16) were all heavily damaged or sunk. Also lost were the tug Sotoyomo (YT 9) and Floating Drydock No. 2.

A beached Japanese midget submarine. The attacks of the midget submarines were rather less successful than those of the naval aviators. U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command photo

However, Maryland, Tennessee, West Virginia, California, Nevada, and Pennsylvania would all be repaired and modernized, all but Nevada to fight again in the last great clash of battleships, annihilating a Japanese squadron at Surigao Strait on Oct. 25, 1944. Arizona, stripped of gun turrets and superstructure, and topped by a gracefully arched visitor center, remains in place, slowly rusting away and still leaking oil, as a war grave and national memorial. Although she is not technically still “in commission,” her name has never been assigned to another Navy vessel, and probably never will.

By one estimate, of the 394 U.S. aircraft present, 188 were destroyed and 159 damaged. Several civilian light aircraft, out for Sunday morning rides and training flights, were also downed by Japanese pilots. The official count of Americans killed is 2,403, including 2,008 sailors, 218 soldiers, 109 Marines, and 68 civilians. The wounded totaled 1,178, including 710 sailors, 364 soldiers, 69 Marines, and 35 civilians. The toll would have been higher, but many severely burned casualties were saved from fatal infections by the new antibiotic sulfanilamide. Sixteen Medals of Honor were awarded for outstanding bravery at Pearl Harbor, 10 posthumously. Fifty-one Navy Crosses, 53 Silver Stars, four Navy and Marine Corps Medals, one Distinguished Flying Cross, and more than 1,000 Purple Hearts were also awarded, in many cases years later.

For all the damage done, ships sunk and put out of action, aircraft destroyed, and personnel killed, Pearl Harbor could have been much worse for the United States. All three of the Pacific Fleet’s aircraft carriers were away during the attack, allowing the incoming CINCPAC, Adm. Chester W. Nimitz (who replaced the now-disgraced Kimmel), to begin raids and other operations as soon as he took command. Also, since the sunk and damaged ships were inside a protected and shallow harbor, salvage and repairs were relatively easy. The bulk of the aircraft destroyed were obsolete, and not terribly difficult to replace. Best of all, not one of the oil tank farms or repair shops was damaged in any way. The air bases, while suffering some damage, were easily repaired and soon stocked with fresh aircraft from the mainland. By not attacking infrastructure targets after hitting the warships, the Japanese left behind the very instrument of their eventual defeat: the Pearl Harbor base itself.

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