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The road to war between Japan and the United States began in
the 1930s when differences over China drove the two nations apart.
In 1931 Japan conquered Manchuria, which until then had been part
of China. In 1937 Japan began a long and ultimately unsuccessful
campaign to conquer the rest of China. In 1940, the Japanese government
allied their country with Nazi Germany in the Axis Alliance, and,
in the following year, occupied all of Indochina.
The United States, which had important political and economic
interests in East Asia, was alarmed by these Japanese moves. The
U.S. increased military and financial aid to China, embarked on
a program of strengthening its military power in the Pacific,
and cut off the shipment of oil and other raw materials to Japan.
Because Japan was poor in natural resources, its government viewed
these steps, especially the embargo on oil as a threat to the
nation's survival. Japan's leaders responded by resolving to seize
the resource-rich territories of Southeast Asia, even though that
move would certainly result in war with the United States.
The problem with the plan was the danger posed by the U.S. Pacific
Fleet based at Pearl Harbor. Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto, commander
of the Japanese fleet, devised a plan to immobilize the U.S. fleet
at the outset of the war with a surprise attack.
The key elements in Yamamoto's plans were meticulous preparation,
the achievement of surprise, and the use of aircraft carriers
and naval aviation on an unprecedented scale. In the spring of
1941, Japanese carrier pilots began training in the special tactics
called for by the Pearl Harbor attack plan.
In October 1941 the naval general staff gave final approval to
Yamamoto's plan, which called for the formation of an attack force
commanded by Vice Admiral Chuichi Nagumo. It centered around six
heavy aircraft carriers accompanied by 24 supporting vessels.
A separate group of submarines was to sink any American warships
which escaped the Japanese carrier force.
Nagumo's fleet assembled in the remote anchorage of Tankan Bay
in the Kurile Islands and departed in strictest secrecy for Hawaii
on 26 November 1941. The ships' route crossed the North Pacific
and avoided normal shipping lanes. At dawn 7 December 1941, the
Japanese task force had approached undetected to a point slightly
more than 200 miles north of Oahu. At this time the U.S. carriers
were not at Pearl Harbor. On 28 November, Admiral Kimmel sent
USS Enterprise under Rear Admiral Willliam Halsey to deliver
Marine Corps fighter planes to Wake Island. On 4 December Enterprise
delivered the aircraft and on December 7 the task force was on
its way back to Pearl Harbor. On 5 December, Admiral Kimmel sent
the USS Lexington with a task force under Rear Admiral
Newton to deliver 25 scout bombers to Midway Island. The last
Pacific carrier, USS Saratoga, had left Pearl Harbor for
upkeep and repairs on the West Coast.
At 6:00 a.m. on 7 December, the six Japanese carriers launched
a first wave of 181 planes composed of torpedo bombers, dive bombers,
horizontal bombers and fighters. Even as they winged south, some
elements of U.S. forces on Oahu realized there was something different
about this Sunday morning.
In the hours before dawn, U.S. Navy vessels spotted an unidentified
submarine periscope near the entrance to Pearl Harbor. It was
attacked and reported sunk by the destroyer USS Ward (DD-139)
and a patrol plane. At 7:00 a.m., an alert operator of an Army
radar station at Opana spotted the approaching first wave of the
attack force. The officers to whom those reports were relayed
did not consider them significant enough to take action. The report
of the submarine sinking was handled routinely, and the radar
sighting was passed off as an approaching group of American planes
due to arrive that morning.
The Japanese aircrews achieved complete surprise when they hit
American ships and military installations on Oahu shortly before
8:00 a.m. They attacked military airfields at the same time they
hit the fleet anchored in Pearl Harbor. The Navy air bases at
Ford Island and Kaneohe Bay, the Marine airfield at Ewa and the
Army Air Corps fields at Bellows, Wheeler and Hickam were all
bombed and strafed as other elements of the attacking force began
their assaults on the ships moored in Pearl Harbor. The purpose
of the simultaneous attacks was to destroy the American planes
before they could rise to intercept the Japanese.
Of the more than 90 ships at anchor in Pearl Harbor, the primary
targets were the eight battleships anchored there. seven were
moored on Battleship Row along the southeast shore of Ford Island
while the USS Pennsylvania (BB-38) lay in drydock across
the channel. Within the first minutes of the attack all the battleships
adjacent to Ford Island had taken bomb and or torpedo hits. The
USS West Virginia (BB-48) sank quickly. The USS Oklahoma
(BB-37) turned turtle and sank. At about 8:10 a.m., the USS Arizona
(BB-39) was mortally wounded by an armorpiercing bomb which ignited
the ship's forward ammunition magazine. The resulting explosion
and fire killed 1,177 crewmen, the greatest loss of life on any
ship that day and about half the total number of Americans killed.
The USS California (BB-44), USS Maryland (BB-46),
USS Tennessee (BB-43) and USS Nevada (BB-36) also
suffered varying degrees of damage in the first half hour of the
raid.
There was a short lull in the fury of the attack at about 8:30
a.m. At that time the USS Nevada (BB-36), despite her wounds,
managed to get underway and move down the channel toward the open
sea. Before she could clear the harbor, a second wave of 170 Japanese
planes, launched 30 minutes after the first, appeared over the
harbor. They concentrated their attacks on the moving battleship,
hoping to sink her in the channel and block the narrow entrance
to Pearl Harbor. On orders from the harbor control tower, the
USS Nevada (BB-36) beached herself at Hospital Point and
the channel remained clear.
When the attack ended shortly before 10:00 a.m., less than two
hours after it began, the American forces has paid a fearful price.
Twenty-one ships of the U.S. Pacific Fleet were sunk or damaged:
the battleships USS Arizona (BB-39), USS California
(BB-44), USS Maryland (BB-46), USS Nevada (BB-36),
USS Oklahoma (BB-37), USS Pennsylvania (BB-38),
USS Tennessee (BB-43) and USS West Virginia (BB-48);
cruisers USS Helena (CL-50), USS Honolulu (CL-48)
and USS Raleigh (CL-7); the destroyers USS Cassin
(DD-372), USS Downes (DD-375), USS Helm (DD-388)
and USS Shaw (DD-373); seaplane tender USS Curtiss
(AV-4); target ship (ex-battleship) USS Utah (AG-16); repair
ship USS Vestal (AR-4); minelayer USS Oglala (CM-4);
tug USS Sotoyomo (YT-9); and Floating Drydock Number
2. Aircraft losses were 188 destroyed and 159 damaged, the
majority hit before the had a chance to take off. American dead
numbered 2,403. That figure included 68 civilians, most of them
killed by improperly fused anti-aircraft shells landing in Honolulu.
There were 1,178 military and civilian wounded.
Japanese losses were comparatively light. Twenty-nine planes,
less than 10 percent of the attacking force, failed to return
to their carriers.
The Japanese success was overwhelming, but it was not complete.
They failed to damage any American aircraft carriers, which by
a stroke of luck, had been absent from the harbor. They neglected
to damage the shoreside facilities at the Pearl Harbor Naval Base,
which played an important role in the Allied victory in World
War II. American technological skill raised and repaired all but
three of the ships sunk or damaged at Pearl Harbor (the USS Arizona
(BB-39) considered too badly damaged to be salvaged, the USS Oklahoma
(BB-37) raised and considered too old to be worth repairing, and
the obsolete USS Utah (AG-16) considered not worth the
effort). Most importantly, the shock and anger caused by the surprise
attack on Pearl Harbor united a divided nation and was translated
into a wholehearted commitment to victory in World War II.