Japanese Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto, a Harvard-educated former Naval Attaché in Washington, and the leading planner of the air strike at Pearl Harbor on 7 December of 1941, which drew the United States into the Second World War.
By the autumn of 1940 the United States had grown intolerant of the aggressive expansionist policy of the Japanese Empire of the late 1930s. Japanese armed forces had moved into Manchuria and then onto mainland China as part of a plan they referred to as the Great East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere. Fed up with this behaviour and Japan’s military incursions, the American government acted to impose an embargo on Japan covering all war-related materials including steel, scrap iron, and aviation spirit. Additionally, all Japanese assets in the United States were frozen.
In the pursuit of their plans, Japanese military officials were deeply concerned about the shortages of strategic commodities they faced. With limited natural resources they determined that, in order to succeed in China they would have to gain access to tin, rubber, bauxite and especially, oil, from the Dutch East Indies and Malaya. To do so required them to go to war with both the British Empire and the Dutch government in exile. They believed, too, that they would almost certainly be compelled to fight the Americans, who had a military presence in the Philippines and the Pacific and would not tolerate such an action by the Japanese. In anticipation of such a conflict with the U.S., the Japanese military planners formulated a series of attacks they would carry out on American bomber bases in the Philippines, and on the U.S. Pacific Fleet warships and facilities at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. They were convinced that these particular targets would have to be hit hard and destroyed to pave the way for their forces to take the East Indies, Malaya, and China.
The man the Japanese chose to conceive, plan and direct a breathtaking surprise attack on Pearl Harbor was Harvard-educated Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto. Having once served in Washington as a naval attaché, this brilliant tactician had no illusions about the military strength and capability of the United States or her quality as an adversary. He did not favour war with her, but had accepted its inevitability and he warned his colleagues that in such a war, it would be absolutely essential to “give a fatal blow to the enemy at the outset, when it was least expected.” Anything less than the total destruction of the American fleet would, in his opinion, “awaken a sleeping giant.”
Yamamoto had been fascinated by the theories of a British naval authority, Hector Bywater, whose 1921 book, Sea Power in the Pacific, had been widely read in Japan and become required reading at the Imperial Naval Academy and the Japanese Naval War College by the following year. Bywater believed that the Japanese home islands were fundamentally protected from direct assault by U.S. forces because of the distance and the secondary supply and fuel consumption involved in such an effort. He proposed that, in a Pacific war, American success against Japan would be linked to a U.S. island-hopping campaign through the Marianas, to Guam and the Philippines. He followed his first book with another in 1925, The Great Pacific War, in which his premise was that Japan’s empire could become invulnerable if she launched a successful surprise attack on the U.S. Pacific fleet, invaded Guam and the Philippines, and fortified her mandate islands.
Admiral Yamamoto went to London in 1934 and invited Bywater to meet with him in his suite at Grosvenor House to discuss the author’s theories and their implications for the stratagies of both Japan and the U.S.
In his planning for the Sunday 7 December 1941 attack on the capital ships of the U.S. Navy at Pearl Harbor, he knew that several key American warships were either undergoing refit on the American west coast where they were stationed, or were in transit between the west coast and Hawaii. He knew that it would probably not be possible, therefore, to destroy the entire American Pacific fleet in a single strike, and he devised a master plan that included an essential second strike on what remained of that fleet, to be carried out six months after the attack on Pearl. He knew too, that the U.S. Pacific fleet included just three aircraft carriers, the Lexington and Enterprise, and the Saratoga, which was then in port on the U.S. west coast. He was comforted by that knowledge, in view of his being able to field six carriers for the Pearl Harbor attack.
top: Aircraft of the Imperial Japanese Navy are made ready to take off in the 1941 surprise attack on the American warships at anchor in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii; above: The ruin of the USS Oklahoma after the raid on the U.S. battleships in the naval basin facility at Pearl.
above: The battleship USS West Virginia burning furiously at her anchorage in Pearl Harbor after being attacked by naval aircraft of Japan on 7 December 1941. The next afternoon U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt asked the Congress to declare war on Japan, followed by war declarations on Germany and Italy, Japan’s Axis allies in the Second World War; below: An example of a patriotic match-book produced after the Pearl Harbor raid.
Historians have often disagreed over the degree to which Yamamoto and the Japanese military planners had been influenced by the techniques and results of the British air attack on the Italian fleet warships at Taranto in November 1940, in the planning of the Pearl Harbor raid. It seems clear, however, that they were certainly interested in the Taranto air strike by Swordfish torpedo bombers flying from HMS Illustrious to inflict major damage on the Italian fleet, putting half of it out of action. They were intrigued that the Fleet Air Arm of the Royal Navy had obviously solved the problem of how to deliver torpedoes against warship targets anchored in a shallow harbour.
There were similarities between Pearl Harbor and Taranto. Both were considered safe and proper anchorages by their fleet occupants; both were well defended and seen as significant threats to any adversary; and both were adjacent to cities with populations of about 200,000. The American naval facility at Pearl clearly threatened Japan’s intentions for Southeast Asia, and the Italian fleet in Taranto threatened the sea lanes between Britain and her interests in Gibraltar, Egypt, India and Singapore.
Both the British planners of the Taranto raid and the Japanese who planned the attack on Pearl had to cope with and overcome substantial barriers to their success. The crews of the carrier-based Sword-fish aircraft attacking Taranto had to make their run at the port from the Mediterranean, avoiding discovery by Italian reconnaissance aircraft, evading the attentions of more than fifty enemy warships and more than twenty anti-aircraft shore batteries. They had to avoid the steel cables of roughly fifty barrage balloons, as well as many squadrons of Italian fighter planes. To succeed in their attack on the U.S. fleet at Pearl, Yamamoto and the Japanese had to stage an effective surprise attack after first assembling a powerful thirty-two-warship task force that included six aircraft carriers—Akagi, Hiryu, Kaga, Shokaku, Soryu, and Zuikaku in the Kurile Islands north of Japan. That force had to steam some 4,000 miles without being detected and without being resupplied, to a point within 200 miles of Oahu, Hawaii. After doing so, the carrier-based Imperial Japanese Navy aircraft had to approach and evade the defensive fire of many shore batteries, that of up to sixty-eight warships and more than 100 American fighter planes.
Physically, Pearl Harbor is a shallow basin that surrounds an airfield facility called Ford Island. The harbour is connected to the sea by a single narrow channel and adjoins the site of the present-day Honolulu airport. A large oil storage tank farm, drydocks and a submarine base occupy the eastern edge of the harbour. On 7 December 1941, the day of the Japanese attack, seven battleships of the U.S. Pacific fleet were anchored southeast of Ford Island; they were the Arizona, California, Maryland, Nevada, Oklahoma, Tennessee, and West Virginia. An eighth battleship, the Pennsylvania, was in a nearby drydock.
The most difficult challenge for the Japanese in planning their attack on Pearl was the successful delivery of their torpedoes by aircraft into the shallow basin of the harbour. Contemporary torpedo technology—prior to the Taranto raid—meant that a torpedo would sink to a depth of about seventy feet before levelling and going on to its target. In Pearl’s basin, the weapon would simply become mired in the muddy bottom. With the inspiration of the successful British torpedo attack on warships at Taranto, the problem was given to munitions engineers of the Nagasaki-based Mitsubishi Company who worked overtime to develop and perfect a torpedo with a new stabilizing fin. When properly dropped, the new weapon would sink to less than the forty-foot depth of Pearl Harbor before continuing to its target. Before the carriers left Japanese waters for the area near Hawaii, 180 of the new torpedoes were loaded aboard the six Japanese carriers of the Pearl task force.
22 November 1941. Japanese special envoys Saburo Kurusu and Kichisaburo Nomura had been sent to Washington to explore through diplomatic means resolution of differences between the American and Japanese governments. Their efforts were failing as the IJN task force was being assembled. On 25 November the Japanese warships headed east from Hitokappu Bay in the Kuriles for the waters off Hawaii, the six carriers being escorted by battleships, heavy cruisers, destroyers and submarines, all observing strict radio silence in an effort to reach their destination undected.
The commander of the task force, Vice Admiral Chiuchi Nagumo, received a coded signal from Admiral Yamamoto on 2 December: “Nitaka Yama Nabora”, Climb Mount Nitaka, which authorized him to begin the attack operation.
The task force arrived at the launch point north of Oahu and by 6 a.m. the first wave of attacking dive-bombers, horizontal bombers, torpedo bombers and fighters was rising from the carrier Akagi. The mass of aircraft was led by Lieutenant Commander Mitsuo Fuchida who signalled the carrier force as his planes rounded Barber’s Point southwest of Pearl at 7.53 a.m., that they had reached the objective and were beginning the attack.
The U.S. Navy destroyer Shaw exploding during the Japanese raid on Pearl Harbor in 1941.
top: Pearl Harbor prior to the raid of 7 December 1941, with the U.S. battleships at anchor off Ford Island; above: The USS California burning at her mooring after being hit in the attack; below: Huge oil fires from some of the battleships struck by Japanese bombs and torpedoes in the attack.
The early morning calm surrounding the battleships at anchor that bright Sunday was shattered as the torpedo bombers descended over the basin towards their targets. The first torpedoes slammed into a light cruiser, a minelayer, and the battleship Arizona, ripping out the bottom of her hull. The next to receive torpedoes were the battleships Oklahoma and California, each struck by three of the missiles, wrecking them. Oklahoma was then hit by a fourth torpedo which caused her to capsize. A bomb fell on Arizona, exploding in her forward magazine and tearing her apart. Upwards of a thousand of her crew died.
Richard McCutcheon was a powder carman in the number two turret of the battleshipWest Virginia. At just before 8 a.m. dive-bombing and torpedo aircraft of the Imperial Japanese Navy appeared over the American battleships in the harbour. The West Virginia was hit and severely damaged in the ensuing attack and her crew was ordered to abandon ship. McCutcheon jumped into the water and swam for the nearby shore. On reaching it he was only a short distance from the home of a woman who had been witnessing the attack. When she saw sailors swimming to the shore from the nearest of the burning battleships, she quickly gathered clothing from her husband’s closet and started distributing it to McCutcheon and the other seaman as they made their way to shore. “On December 6th a lot of us were out sunning ourselves on the upper deck, until it got so hot that we had to run down and jump in the showers. A typical Saturday in Pearl. It was good duty. A calm regular day. On Sunday morning we had breakfast. I had the duty. My station was to handle a fire extinguisher. That day a third of the ship’s company had liberty on shore. The bugle sounded ‘Fire and Rescue’ and I ran off to get my white hat from my locker. The Officer of the Deck at this point thought that there had been some kind of strange explosion over by Ten-Ten dock. A torpedo had passed under a ship there and hit a cruiser and they both sank. Then we were ordered to General Quarters. I realized it was the Japs and I started running aft. I went up two decks, heading to the turret. On the way I saw a plane and wondered what he was doing. He turned and went toward the California and as he turned, I saw the red ball on the wing. Before I got to the turret there was a tremendous explosion somewhere below us. It was a torpedo. The whole ship was shaking and, by then, the ladder was full. I went around to another ladder and got up to the top deck. From there I went up to the boat deck and under the overhang of the turret to my battle station in the turret. The explosions continued, the ship shook and the blast covers clanged. Then we started listing slowly to port, very slowly, and I was watching that and thinking that we might have to get through that hatch door in the bottom of the turret pretty soon. Meanwhile, the damage control officer managed to counter-flood to keep the ship from capsizing. Eventually, she just settled to the bottom.
“The hatch cover was still open and someone stuck his head up and yelled ‘Abandon ship!’ We got out and there was no big rush. The Tennessee was inboard of us and we made it to the fo’c’sle, took our shoes off and jumped into the water. We swam to Ford Island and when we got to shore the first thing we heard was ‘Get down, get down. Strafing!’ I got down by a truck at the edge of the golf course as a plane turned toward us and began firing. The tracers seemed to be coming right at me. Only one of his guns was firing. I got under the truck and the tracers turned away from me. About then a woman came down from one of the houses there, carrying clothes. I wandered over to see what was going on and she fitted us out with dry clothing.”
“High-altitude bombers overhead! a lookout with binoculars reported. I squinted up. Heavy smoke from dozens of fires was darkening the sky. Above it, patches of blue showed amid the drifting cumulus. The planes were at about 10,000 feet and looking smaller than birds. They were flying over the battle line in a single long column from the seaward side. At last, several of our five-inch anti-aircraft guns had ammunition. It had been passed up by hand from the magazines at great sacrifice, I later learned. They opened fire with an ear-piercing crack. The sky was dotted with black puffs of exploding shells from the California and many other ships. Bombs began to fall, metallic specks that reflected the sunlight as they wobbled down. The specks grew larger and more ominous. I felt totally helpless. These might well be my last seconds of life. Whether they were or not depended on the skills of an enemy pilot and bombardier, not on anything I could do.
“Properly buttoned-up, the California could have shrugged off two or even three torpedoes with minor listing that could have been corrected by counter-flooding the starboard voids. Instead, she had assumed a port list of about fifteen degrees and the list was still increasing. Suddenly I was sliding toward the low side of the birdbath, which brought me up sharply against the splinter shield. My earphones were jerked from my head. Before replacing them I looked down. A hundred feet below me was nothing but dirty, oil-streaked and flotsam-filled water. Lifeless bodies from the Oklahoma floated face down. Motor launches were criss-crossing the channel, picking up swimming sailors.
“If the California capsized, and that I could see was a distinct possibility, I had at least a fighting chance to join the swimmers. My shipmates below decks had none. I planned to climb to the opposite side of the splinter shield as the ship went over, and launch myself in a long, flat dive when the maintop touched the water. If I could avoid getting fouled in the yardarm rigging or the radio antennas, I just might get clear.
“Ahead of the Nevada, a large pipeline snaked out from Ford Island in a semi-circle ending at the dredge Turbine. Since it blocked more than half the channel, the line was always disconnected and pulled clear when the battleships were scheduled to stand out. This morning, of course, it was still in place. But the sailor conning the Nevada squeezed her between the dredge and the drydock area without slowing down.
“The flames were now shooting up past her anti-aircraft directors nearly to her foretop. She had been hit repeatedly, and Pearl Harbor was pouring into her hull; her bow was low in the water. If she were to sink in the channel, she would plug up the entire harbour like a cork in a bottle. With bitter regret, we watched her run her bow into shallow water between the floating drydock and Hospital Point. The current carried her stern around, and she finished her evolution pointing back up the channel she had tried so valiantly to follow to freedom.”—Ted Mason, USS California
At the height of his business career Kazuo Sakamaki became the head of Toyota’s Brazilian operations. In December 1941, Sakamaki was a twenty-three-year-old ensign in the Imperial Japanese Navy and one-half of the crew of a midget submarine struggling to enter Pearl Harbor. His mission was to sneak into the harbour, unobserved, ahead of the main attack by the aircraft of the IJN, and be ready to sink one of the target battleships at the appropriate moment. It was a suicide mission involving five such midget subs. But the gyro-compass of Sakamaki’s boat failed and the other four subs were either lost or destroyed during the attack. Sakamaki’s boat became stranded on a coral reef down the coast and he was forced to abandon it. He was later discovered, unconscious, by an American soldier and became the first Japanese prisoner of war in World War Two. He recalled feeling deep shame with the failure of his mission, for letting his sub fall into enemy hands, and for surviving when his comrades had all died in the attempted raid. In time though, he gradually overcame the guilt he felt and went on to help his fellow Japanese prisoners in POW camps in the United States.
In the aftermath of the Japanese raid on the American ships and facilities at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, on 7 December 1941, it became clear that the results might have been far more favourable for the Japanese had they been more efficient in the effort.
Certain of the key targets at Pearl, the U.S. machine shops and the large oil storage tank farm were mainly unaffected by the attack, and most significantly, the Japanese had failed to block the narrow and shallow single entrance to the harbour. Had they been able to sink a ship in that tiny channel, they would have denied the U.S. Navy access to Pearl for some time. In failing to destroy the machine shops, they allowed essential repair work to begin immediately on the U.S. warships heavily damaged in the raid. The U.S. ships in Pearl that were still seaworthy, and those that had avoided the attack through being elsewhere, were left able to function and fight owing to the fuel available from the intact tank farm. In time, nearly eighty per cent of the U.S. aircraft that had been damaged seemingly beyond repair, at Pearl and other American airfields in Hawaii, were repaired and made fully operational again.
The U.S. Navy battleships West Virginia and Tennessee ablaze in the Pearl Harbor raid.