by Attack on Pearl Harbor: Strategy, Combat, Myths, Deceptions
Getting ships in and out of the harbor might be tricky, but ships routinely transit narrower gaps. At Oran after the North Africa landings 27 French wrecks littered the harbor, with six scuttled in two lines with the intention of blocking the port. There was a gap between two ships that could allow liberty ships to pass with only a few feet of clearance.80 This took seamanship, but was accomplished. Navy shiphandlers routinely transit the Panama Canal where the channels vary between 500 to 1000 feet wide with two-way traffic. The author navigated the Canal at 40 knots aboard Pegasus (PHM-1).
Cutting the channel width to 300 feet would not have eliminated Pearl Harbor’s usefulness as a base. The historians are wrong. More significantly, the Japanese attack planners were wrong. Their instructions to try to sink a ship in the channel resulted in wasting over one-fourth of the second-wave dive-bombers.
The only possible excuse for this error was that the planners thought the channel was narrower. In 1941, charts of Pearl Harbor were classified, so this information was not readily available. Even so, an experienced shiphandler could have helped the aviators come to a better decision.
5) The Tardy Diplomatic Message
Much has been made of the Japanese failure to deliver on time a diplomatic message that was scheduled to be placed in the hands of the Secretary of State by Ambassador Nomura Kichisaburo at 1300 Washington time, 0800 Pearl Harbor time—the famous “Fourteen Part Message.” Delivery was delayed until 1400 Washington time, an hour after the attack had begun.
Historians have explicitly stated that the message was a formal declaration of war.81 Yamamoto’s biographer states that Yamamoto thought a declaration of war was to be delivered, and issued strict orders that the raid should not begin until after war had been declared.
The message delivered by Ambassador Nomura was not a declaration of war. It first reviewed the issues and the status of the negotiations from the Japanese viewpoint, provided an amazing apologia for several Japanese positions, and accused the Americans of not negotiating in good faith. Then, the last part of the message stated:
7. Obviously it is the intention of the American Government to conspire with Great Britain and other countries to obstruct Japan’s effort toward the establishment of peace through the creation of a new order in East Asia, and especially to preserve Anglo-American rights and interests by keeping Japan and China at war. This intention has been revealed clearly during the course of the present negotiation.
Thus, the earnest hope of the Japanese Government to adjust Japanese-American relations and to preserve and promote the peace of the Pacific through cooperation with the American Government has finally been lost.
The Japanese Government regrets to have to notify hereby the American Government that in view of the attitude of the American Government it cannot but consider that it is impossible to reach an agreement through further negotiations.
December 7, 1941.82
This message was not a declaration of war. It chided the Americans for the developments during the negotiations between the two nations and stated their view that an agreement was impossible “though further negotiations,” which returned relations to the status quo ante conditions prior to the beginning of negotiations. There was no intimation that the next step was war—there was no mention of resorting to war in the note. The note terminated negotiations, but did not break diplomatic relations or announce the recall their ambassador.
The idea forwarded by historians that the message “signified Japan’s intention to resort to war to achieve its aims”83 cannot be supported anywhere in the text. Certainly the American President did not think so: in his address to Congress on 8 December 1941(the famous “Day of Infamy” speech), Roosevelt referred to the 14-point message, saying that “While this reply stated that it seemed useless to continue the existing diplomatic negotiations, it contained no threat or hint of war or armed attack.” Certainly Japan’s ambassador to the United States did not interpret the note as signifying war. After delivering the note Nomura was informed of Pearl Harbor. The news of the attack “both surprised and stunned him.”84
War was officially declared by Japan when the Privy Council met and issued an Imperial Declaration of War against England and the United States, at 1045 Tokyo time (1515 Pearl Harbor time), seven hours after the beginning of the attack.85 The dramatic race to deliver the Fourteen-Part Message, included in Prange’s At Dawn We Slept, and afterwards a staple in movies and other historical accounts, is misleading. When Prange quotes the President, after reading the 14th part, as saying, “This means war,”86 he should have added that there was a world of difference between “This means war” and “This declares war today.”
Did Yamamoto really believe that war was to be declared at 0800 Hawaiian time? Was he intentionally deceived by the government? Or, did he know that the “Fourteen-Part Message” only terminated a particular set of negotiations, and misrepresented it to his staff? If he thought it was a declaration of war and later discovered it was not, why didn’t he or the Combined Fleet staff protest to the government?
Or, have Yamamoto’s apologists just imaged a 0800 declaration of war so they can disassociate Yamamoto from violating international law? The lack of a 0800 declaration of war can also be claimed to be the cause of the American people’s anger and intransigence to a negotiated peace. If a declaration of war had been delayed, it would reduce the apparent significance of Yamamoto’s horrendous misjudgment of the American people’s reaction to the Pearl Harbor attack.
Even if a declaration of war was to be issued at 0800 Pearl Harbor time, Yamamoto’s forces committed numerous acts of war earlier. A Japanese submarine violated American waters when it investigated Lahaina Roads off Maui the day before. Japanese midget submarines violated sovereign waters the night before. American airspace was violated by reconnaissance planes over an hour before. Further afield, Japanese military reconnaissance planes violated Philippine sovereign air space, as well as Singapore’s, almost daily for weeks before the commencement of hostilities.
The late delivery of the Fourteen-Part memorandum has been made a thing of high drama in books and movies. In fact, it was irrelevant—the document itself is a vague curiosity, and had it been delivered on time nothing would have changed.
A Japanese midget submarine, captured after her scuttling charge failed to detonate. A truck pulled the submarine onto the beach for salvage. Note the scrapes on the submarine’s bow where it grounded on the reefs. The size of the midget submarine can be gauged from the length of the shovels in the right foreground. A wood beam and some sandbags prevent the submarine from rolling. Source: Naval Archives, Washington DC
CHAPTER ELEVEN
THE FIFTH MIDGET SUBMARINE: A CAUTIONARY TALE
Mission and Accomplishments, Known and Presumed
The Japanese transported five two-man midget submarines to the Hawaiian Islands. They were to penetrate into the confines of Pearl Harbor on the night before the beginning of the war, lay on the bottom of the harbor, and in the dark of night after the aerial strike rise up and attack.
This concept did not sit well with the submariners—they wanted to attack at the same time as the aircraft, adding their 10 torpedoes to the 40 carried by the aviators. They petitioned Yamamoto and he granted their request.
If the midget submarines’ torpedoes were held until after the air attack they could finish off partially damaged ships or hit remaining undamaged ships. There was no good operational reason to have them attack at the same time as the aviators other than a sense of romanticism.
The submarines first had to penetrate the air and surface antisubmarine patrols off the harbor, get past the torpedo netting stretched across the channel entrance, and navigate the channel in the dark using navigational lines of bearing taken from a small periscope that might only be a foot above the water. This last would be nearly an impossible task—experienced navigators have approached unfamiliar coastlines before, trying to pick out navigation lights from a background of sho
re lights, and found it difficult even with radar helping to pick out the navigation aids. The midgets were “nearly blind.”1 It would require incredible skill coupled with incredible good fortune to penetrate the harbor.
Alternately, one could let the enemy do the navigating, by following behind a ship transiting the channel. At least one midget submarine attempted this, trailing the cargo ship Antares. The submarine was visually spotted by the crew of the destroyer Ward. This was significant, because it was not always possible to conclusively classify sonar contacts, particularly in the poor sonar conditions around the islands. Whales, schools of fish, temperature inversions, and oil bubbles have often been classified as submarines.
A report of the sighting, identification, attack, and sinking was radioed to the Commandant of the 14th Naval District over an hour before the main attack. This incident illustrates the major flaw in the concept of the midget submarine launch. By attempting to penetrate the harbor before the attack, they ran the risk of putting the defenses on alert. We have earlier shown the possible consequences of early warning.
Just prior to the submariners’ departure Yamamoto had second thoughts. He dispatched Captain Takayasu Arima, the torpedo staff officer at Combined Fleet Headquarters, to make it understood that the midgets were to slip into the harbor quietly, without raising any alarm. If they could not do this, they were to abandon the mission.2
Considering the restricted sensors on the midget submarines, this restriction was totally unrealistic. The midget submarine commanding officers were specifically selected for dash and determination. Why Yamamoto would think these men would exhibit so little Yamato damashii and the spirit of kesshitai (self-sacrifice) as to break off their mission is also unknown. Throughout the war, the Japanese had a weakness for expecting unrealistic results from unconventional means of attack, especially any that could be thought of as particularly reliant upon individual bravery, spirit, and force of will.
There was a peculiar psychology surrounding the Japanese planning processes. Failure was dishonorable, something for which one might be expected to apologize to the emperor or even end one’s own life; thus, the possibility of failure was a very serious thing. To consider failure as a possibility was almost like an accusation of failure, or an evaluation that the warrior charged with the execution of a mission did not have the requisite fighting spirit or patriotism to succeed, a very serious charge. To plan for alternative eventualities was almost like an insult to those who were to execute the primary plan. Time and again during the course of the war this resulted in a lack of flexibility in Japanese plans, a lack of alternative courses of action in the planning process, and a hesitation to adapt to alternative circumstance. These factors made the expectation of success from the midget submarine attacks high, and made the staffs overly receptive to optimistic reports of success.
On the evening of the day of the attack, the submarine I-16 received a short radio message transmitting “se, se, se,” short for seiko, or success. According to Prange:
On this slender evidence the Japanese Navy concluded that at least three midget submarines had penetrated Pearl Harbor and, after the raid, had inflicted severe damage, including the destruction of a capital ship. Quickly the word spread that the minisubs had sunk the Arizona. During the spring of 1942, the Japanese Navy released this to the press, and the midget submariners were venerated as veritable gods…3
The Japanese also received a report from a South American embassy source that said a battleship was sunk on the evening of 7 December by midget submarines. Willmott, Tohmatsu and Johnson champion the claim, stating that “two battleships were torpedoed by one midget submarine.”4
A Matter of Ten Torpedoes
The evidence indicates that the midget submarine attack was a failure. Of the five midget submarines and ten torpedoes:
• One midget submarine penetrated the harbor and was underway west of Ford Island when it was discovered by the destroyer Monaghan. It hastily fired its torpedoes. One torpedo exploded near a pier while the other fetched up unexploded on the shore. This submarine was sunk by the destroyer, and eventually raised, inspected, and then buried in a landfill.
• Another was sunk by a 4-inch shell fired by the destroyer Ward. This submarine has been located by deep-submergence research submarines with both torpedoes still on board. It remains in place as a war grave.
• Another suffered from a loss of depth control and a failed gyro, grounded, and was abandoned by her crew after the main battery failed. It washed up onto the shore off Weimanalo, Oahu, with both torpedoes on board.
• Another sank off the harbor entrance in Keehi Lagoon, Oahu, and was recovered in 1960 with both torpedoes still on board.
• The last midget submarine fired one or two torpedos at the light cruiser St. Louis as she was heading down the entrance channel for the open sea. As reported in her AR dated 10 December 1941:
When just inside entrance buoy No. 1 two torpedoes were fired at this ship from a distance of approximately 2,000 yards on the starboard beam. The torpedoes, although running shallow, struck the shoal inside buoy No. 1 and exploded, no damage to this vessel resulting. An object near the origin of the torpedo tracks was taken under fire by the 5” battery but no hits were observed.
Another report stated:
At 1004 when just inside the channel entrance buoys (Buoys #1 and 2) two torpedoes were seen approaching the ship from starboard from a range of between 1,000 to 2,000 yards. Just before striking the ship, they hit the reef to westward of the dredged channel and exploded doing no damage to the ship.5
Possibly only one torpedo was fired at St. Louis. One of the witnesses interviewed post-war said that the two explosions might actually have been one: “Well, it was really one explosion…. just, you know, it’s practically instantaneous when the one blew up, it blew the other one up.’”6 Considering that the MRI (minimum release interval) for a midget submarine’s torpedoes was 60 seconds, it would have been impossible for two torpedoes to explode at the same point at the same time.
An hour before St. Louis’ engagement, the destroyer Helm appeared to have encountered a midget submarine. From its AR:
0817 Sighted conning tower of submarine to right of channel, northward of buoy #1. [Note: this was in waters too shallow for a conventional submarine to operate.] Gave orders to open fire, pointer fire, but submarine submerged before guns could get on.
0818 Increased speed to 25 knots, cleared entrance buoys, turned right. 0819 Submarine conning tower surfaced.
0820 Opened fire on submarine off Tripod Reef, bearing 290 distance 1200 yards from buoy #1. No hits observed, but there were several close splashes. Submarine appeared to be touching bottom on ledge of reef, and in line of breakers. While still firing at submarine it apparently slipped off ledge and submerged.
0820 Made plain language contact report of Submarine to CinCPAC on 2562 Kc.
0821 Men on after guns and amidships observed torpedo pass close under the stern on a northwesterly course. Report of this did not reach the bridge.7
Whether there were two torpedoes fired at St. Louis, or one torpedo at her and one at the Helm, it appears that a midget submarine was operating just off the entrance to Pearl Harbor in waters right up to (and, perhaps, on) the coral reef, and expended both torpedoes.
Of the ten torpedoes carried by the midget submarines, only four were fired, two at St. Louis and possibly Helm, and two at Monaghan, all of which missed. The only damage inflicted was to a Ford Island pier. All six of the other torpedoes were unfired and have been visually sighted in their submarines’ tubes.
Up until recently only four of the midget submarines were located. In 1980 Burl Burlingame was examining one of the Japanese photographs of the attack on Battleship Row and saw in the center of the photograph what looked like a midget submarine with its bow pointed towards Battleship Row, trailed by three plumes of water. Torpedo tracks appear to emanate from the submarine.
Burlingame published his conjectu
res in a 1991 book, Advance Force Pearl Harbor. That was the beginning of an enthusiastic effort by many investigators examining the possibility that the last midget submarine penetrated Pearl Harbor and attacked Battleship Row. In its latest incarnation, researchers hope to prove that the fifth midget submarine penetrated into Pearl Harbor and fired two torpedoes at Battleship Row simultaneously with the torpedo bombers’ attack.
The proponents of the “fifth midget submarine in Pearl Harbor” hypothesis have come in two waves.
Wave 1: A Midget Submarine in the Photograph
The first wave of investigations was provoked by the photograph and Burlingame’s conjectures. In an investigation published in Naval History magazine and broadcast in a television program called Unsolved History: Myths of Pearl Harbor,8 the investigators claimed the image indeed showed a midget submarine. The three plumes in the picture were caused by the midget’s props when the submarine oscillated up and down after firing a torpedo. The submarine supposedly lost trim control, broached, and her screws come out of the water kicking up the three plumes, which they called the “rooster tails.”
They re-created the geometry of the scene in one-third scale on a lake using a scale model of a midget submarine. The resulting image appeared to closely match the photograph, less the “rooster tails.”
The investigators commissioned the University of Michigan Marine Hydrodynamics Laboratories to simulate the event in a hydrodynamic model basin and duplicate the rooster tails. The results looked nothing like those on the photograph, either in size or shape. The University of Michigan investigators concluded that the plumes on the photograph were more likely the signature of Type 91 aerial torpedoes hitting the water.9 In a rather humorous turn, the proponents then spent nearly an entire magazine article refuting the study that they themselves commissioned (without, in the opinion of many naval experts, much success).
