By Elaine Rassel
The date was December 7, 1941; the time was 7:30 a.m.; and the place was the U.S. naval base at Pearl Harbor. The event was the surprise bombing on our ships by the Japanese. The sailors on the ships were busy doing their daily duties when the Japanese struck. Ships were unprepared for what happened.
The Oklahoma ship’s anti-aircraft guns had no firing pins and the ammo ready boxes had no ammunition in them. Lack of this was so the guns and ready boxes would be clean for an inspection that was due. A torpedo took out the Oklahoma’s electricity and three more laid open the ship’s port side. Public address system yelled, “Man your battle stations!” The anti-aircraft ammunition storage boxes were locked and so were the fire and rescue chests. Someone tried to open them with a hammer and chisel.
The crews on ships in Pearl Harbor heard bells and alarms that they thought were reminders to go to church. Many ignored these and stayed in their bunks. While the musicians on the “Nevada” finished morning colors and packed away their instruments before going to gun stations, seamen on other ships smashed magazine locks to get at ammunition.
The repair ship, “Vestal” was taking two bomb hits while firing vigorously along with the destroyer “Blue” ship. This was 8:05 with more to follow. The battle ship was scheduled for inspection on Monday and had been made ready early to keep Sunday free. Covers had been removed from six of the manholes opening into her double bottom, and a dozen more loosened. Water surged through them.
At 8:08, a pilot saw from his plane an armored-piercing bomb detonated in the forward magazine of the “Arizona”. The ship crumbled and sank with a thousand men trapped below. Debris from the Arizona engulfed the Vestal chunks and its equipment and even “legs, arms, and heads of men and all sorts of bodies.
Flooded by torpedo hits, the listing Nevada tried to get up steam and move away from the burning oil pouring out of the Arizona. Realizing it, Japanese pilots saw a chance to block the channel with the hulk of the Nevada and went after the crippled ship again. In the plotting room of the Nevada, a call was received to send half the men topside to man the 5-in AA guns. Five decks below the main deck, they were already below the surface of the water outside the ship. No one was safe above, where crewmen had already been hit with machine gun fire from low flying aircraft and killed, but the big gun directed from below was useless against aircraft. The ones going topside thought they were going to their deaths and the ones who were staying below thought they might get trapped down there. A telephone message received said that the Oklahoma had turned bottom-up.
With fires forward still out of control, the beached Nevada’s stern began to swing out toward the Pearl Harbor channel. Harbor tugs came alongside and began pushing the stern toward the beach. The ship broke loose, drifting toward the western side of the channel. Then its undamaged engines began turning over at two-thirds reverse speed, and by 10:45, the Nevada was regrounded on the western side, listing to starboard. Five more hours would be needed before the fires were sufficiently out so that work could begin to remove the dead.
Burning slowly as it does under atmosphere pressures and temperatures, fuel oil from ruptured tanks enveloped the broken hulk of the Arizona. When the senior surviving officer aboard the Arizona abandoned ship with the rest of his men at 10:02, there were few able to leave with him. Only 39 aboard the Arizona survived and 1,102 bodies remained below. A motor launch from the overwhelmed Solace took the wounded.
The luckiest of the crew of the Solace (about 250) were already ashore on weekend liberty, granted only to officers and top two grades of enlisted men, first class petty officers and chief petty officers. For the rest of the seamen, there had been little reason to to ashore as bars were too expensive for them who made $30 a month.
These were the ships that were hit but there were also airplanes that were shot down as well. The Flying Fortresses scattered across Oahu. The pilot gave up on landing at Hickam Field when ships in Pearl Harbor began firing at him. He found a cloud, then tried Hickam Field. This time zeros pounced on him, disabling two of his engines, and he bumped down on the Kahuku Golf course. Evading friendly fire, other Fortresses sneaked into Hickam. The pilot thought he had enough fuel to go the Hilo, on the big island of Hawaii, but was also talked down into chaotic and burning Hickam Field.
The pilot thought he was in the most realistic drill he had ever experienced, until he saw the debris of a B-24, the newest bomber in the Air corps arsenal and the only one in Hawaii burning beside the runway. It was NO smoke pot exercise.
The bullet-riddled B-17, with three of the crew wounded, limped toward Bellows Field with enemy planes on his tail. A few miles further were the thousand-foot Koolau Cliffs overlooking the sea and the pilot was running out of gas. Crash-landing downward, on the too-short runway, he skidded into the grass. The B-17 affair had taken all of ten minutes. By 8:20 a.m., all were down. Of the twelve that had flown the route, four were wrecked.
An UP bulletin from Honolulu reported that a group of four-motored bombers bearing the rising sun insignia of the Japanese Air Force was met by a terrific barrage of anti-aircraft fire and another two hours later observed that the Japanese raiders had included “four-motored Flying Fortresses”. No such case, as the Japanese had NO such bombers. But the cost in MISIDENTIFICATION of American plane over Oahu would bring with it a lesson. No more would the American star insignia on aircraft include a RED Disk. Panic and poor training may have been more responsible than a misread meatball, but the RED CIRCLE would DISAPPEAR from American planes.
A Major General Martin heard noises. Looking out, he saw red balls on aircraft wings, fixed landing gear, and pillars of smoke from the Harbor and from Hickam field. Despite his being Air Corps chief in Hawaii, no one had yet informed him of what was happening. He called to Wheeler field and demanded that they get their pursuit ships in the air just as fast as they could! Wheeler field replied that their unit was under attack and that they were struggling to get some planes in the air. Because the war warning had been downgraded in Hawaii into a sabotage alert, most of his aircraft, including 75 newly delivered P-40’s, some of them already guttered and burning, couldn’t fly as they were out of fuel and ammunition.
Survivors of the ships and planes, state that Pearl Harbor was NOT prepared on the morning of December 7, 1941. Now, the United States was brought into World War II.