Pearl Harbor remembered

Photo By Laurie Pearson | In this Dec. 7, 1941, file photo, part of the hull of the capsized USS Oklahoma is seen at right as the battleship USS West Virginia, center, begins to sink after suffering heavy damage, while the USS Maryland, left, is still afloat in Pearl Harbor, Oahu, Hawaii. (Navy via AP)  

MARINE CORPS LOGISTICS BASE BARSTOW, CA, UNITED STATES

12.17.2020

Story by Laurie Pearson  

Marine Corps Logistics Base Barstow

December 7, 1941 "A day which will live in infamy," President Franklin Delano Roosevelt.
• December 7, 1941, Japan launched an attack on the U.S. Pacific Fleet’s base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, as part of a plan to eliminate potential challenges to Japanese conquests in Asia.
• The plan to attack Pearl Harbor was devised by Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto, a former student at Harvard University who served as Japan’s naval attaché in Washington. He believed that Japan’s only chance for success was a surprise assault that would knock the U.S. fleet out for at least a year.
• Japanese forces trained for a year to prepare for the attack, adding wooden fins to their aerial torpedoes along with other modifications, so that they could work on short runs at the 45-foot average depth of Pearl Harbor.
• The Japanese sailed without radar or reconnaissance planes overhead, to avoid detection.
• U.S. officials overlooked Japanese forces’ preparations for war and missed warning signs of the impending attack, including an intercepted December 6 Japanese message asking about berthing positions at Pearl Harbor, and a radar sighting of a large group of airplanes headed toward Oahu on the morning of December 7.
• The first wave of the attack included 180 Japanese aircraft, including torpedo planes, high-level bombers, dive bombers and fighters. The second wave was similar in size, but with more dive bombers and no torpedo planes.
• The attack began shortly before 8 a.m. Hawaiian time, and lasted nearly two hours.
• According to Fuchida’s account of the attack, the radio code indicating a successful attack was “Tora, tora tora.” The word “tora” means tiger in Japanese. It may have been inspired by a Japanese saying, “A tiger goes out two thousand miles and returns without fail.”
• Torpedo bombers flew just 50 feet above the water as they fired at the U.S. ships in the harbor, while other planes strafed the decks with bullets and dropped bombs.
• The U.S.S. Arizona, which was moored next to a repair ship when the attack began, was struck by several bombs and exploded in flames as it sank.
• Though caught off guard, U.S. service members fought back hard, and managed to fire more than 284,000 rounds of ammunition at their attackers.
• One of the most outstanding heroes was Cook Third Class Doris “Dorie” Miller, who took over a 50-caliber Browning anti-aircraft machine gun on the U.S.S. West Virginia, and despite his inexperience with the weapon, managed to shoot down up to six Japanese planes before being ordered to abandon ship. He later became the first African-American to receive the Navy Cross. Miller was killed in action in 1943.
• The attack killed 2,403 service members and wounded 1,178.
• Six U.S. ships were sank or destroyed and 169 U.S. Navy and Army Air Corps planes were destroyed.
• The Japanese losses included 29 aircraft, in addition to five midget submarines, and 129 attackers were killed and one taken prisoner.
• The Japanese opted not to launch a third wave of aircraft against Pearl Harbor, and instead turned around and headed back across the ocean, in part because their fuel was running low.
• The attack on Pearl Harbor was followed the next day by Japanese air attacks on U.S. bases in the Philippines, Guam and Wake Island.
• Despite inflicting heavy casualties, the Japanese attackers failed to achieve their objective of disabling the U.S. fleet. No U.S. aircraft carriers were at Pearl Harbor that day, and the Japanese were unable to destroy vital infrastructure such as repair shops and fuel tanks.
• In Washington, President Franklin D. Roosevelt learned of the attack during lunch, when he received a phone call from Secretary of the Navy Frank Knox.
• Yamamoto, the architect of the attack, didn’t survive to see Japan’s eventual defeat. He was killed in 1943, when American fighters shot down his plane over the Solomon Islands.

Information for this article was compiled from militarytimes.com; history.com and the U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command.

• Date Taken: 12.17.2020
• Date Posted: 12.18.2020 13:30
• Story ID: 385338
• Location: MARINE CORPS LOGISTICS BASE BARSTOW, CA, US