by Attack on Pearl Harbor: Strategy, Combat, Myths, Deceptions
In a letter published later in Naval History Magazine, other investigators analyzed the physics of the rooster tails. By using the plume heights as an estimate of the time between splashes and measuring the distance between them, it was calculated that a midget submarine would need to be traveling at well over 30 knots, ten times what a midget could do while launching torpedoes in a harbor. The article pointed out that the theorists had no explanation how a midget sub’s small counter-rotating propellers turning at “dead slow” could kick up splashes over 60 feet in the air.10
Ignored also was direct empirical evidence. The midget submarine that fired upon Curtiss and Monaghan lost depth control and broached, but there were no reports of 60-foot rooster tails or, for that matter, any plumes of water at all being kicked up by her screws.
The splashes are more likely to have been generated by splinters from anti-aircraft shells, or by a heavy AA shell that skipped along the surface of the water.11 A close examination of the plumes does not show any spreading from the brisk wind that was present at the time of the attack, indicating that they were created almost simultaneously, something a midget submarine at three knots could not do.
This first wave of theorists received wide attention. Their theory is repeated on many World War II web sites and in the Wikipedia article on the Pearl Harbor attack. However, it is an example of the worst kind of research, something characterized as “Advocacy Analysis,” that is, analysis designed to promote a viewpoint by presenting selected facts and arguments while ignoring all evidence to the contrary. Advocacy Analysis is promoted by postmodernist historians who do not believe in absolute truth, but rather only in viewpoints and opinions.12 In this case, the “Midget Submarine Myth” promulgators begin their theory based on a dark area on a photograph. Most egregiously, they present arguments in favor of their case but ignore the counterarguments or opposing evidence, such as the torpedoes that were fired at St. Louis.
There is also “negative evidence”: things that did not occur, but should have, if their story were true. The investigators cannot explain why this midget submarine went unreported after it broached the surface and kicked up three tall plumes of water in an area under the eyes of hundreds of witnesses.
Besides the alleged midget submarine and the three “rooster tails,” the photograph also shows an open ship’s boat carrying a cluster of standing personnel. This boat is perhaps 20 yards away from the splashes and the supposedly broaching midget submarine, the conning tower of which appears to be five or ten feet above the water and prominent.13 Two of the boat’s occupants have left oral histories, Chaplain William McGuire and Machinist Mate Second Class R.G. Smith. The Chaplain had ordered the boat’s coxswain to cross to 1010 Dock, and their path took them directly across the line of attack of the torpedo bombers attacking Battleship Row. They were strafed by passing torpedo bombers and their boat was hit four times. The oral histories include no mention of a midget submarine that supposedly broached only yards from their location, kicking 60-foot rooster-tails into the air.14
The first wave of investigators pretty much disappeared from public attention as the evidence, and lack of corroborating witnesses, supported the conclusion that the smudge in the photograph is not a midget submarine.
Wave 2: The Fifth Midget Discovered
The theory received another boost when research submarines from the Hawai’i Undersea Research Laboratory (HURL) discovered the last of the midget submarines. It was on the ocean bottom miles outside the harbor, in three pieces, within a debris field containing US amphibious warfare equipment. Both torpedoes were missing, apparently fired at St. Louis or Helm. This would appear to conclusively prove that the fifth midget submarine played out her career entirely outside the harbor.
This find was featured in a Nova program with the lurid title Killer Submarines in Pearl Harbor, first broadcast on 5 January 2010. In it a rather remarkable theory was proposed. Collecting an impressive amount of circumstantial evidence, the program theorized that the midget submarine penetrated into Pearl Harbor and fired her torpedoes, hitting Arizona and Oklahoma. She then escaped into the West Loch and scuttled. In 1944 there was a terrible accident in that area, an explosion and fire that consumed six LSTs that were preparing for an invasion operation. Navy salvage ships were sent to clean up the wreckage. Destroyed equipment, including amphibious assault vehicles, were taken outside the harbor and dumped. It was in this field of debris that the pieces of the submarine were discovered. The new theorists believe that the salvage operators picked up the midget submarine from inside the harbor and dumped its remains along with the damaged American equipment.
Care must be taken to separate the “Wave 2” investigators and the television producers. These new investigators are mostly a different group from the Wave 1 theorists, although they accept many of their ideas. The Wave 2 investigators uncovered new information to support their hypothesis.
Several of these investigators supported the Nova program. They have written that their own theories, and information that ran counter to the Nova program’s arguments, were ignored by the Nova writers and producers, who seemed more intent upon sensationalism rather than serious historical investigation. The Nova writers picked through the arguments and, using innuendo and half-truths, packaged them in such a way as to lead the viewers to a shocking and melodramatic conclusion.
The Nova publicists promoted their program in ways certain to promulgate new myths about Pearl Harbor, and inject new inaccurate information into the folklore.
A hit from a Long Lance torpedo, about twice the size of torpedoes dropped by the Japanese aircraft that bombed Pearl Harbor on December 7th, 1941, would not merely sink a battleship. It would turn it upside down.
That bit of foolishness came from a promotional blurb in Hollywood Today: Newsmagazine, with Attitude on 5 January 2010; it was evidently written by the Nova promotional staff and disseminated widely, as the same words appeared verbatim in rushprnews and other web sites. It is particularly egregious considering that the Long Lance, a special oxygen-powered 24-inch torpedo carried by surface combatants, was not carried by midget submarines.
The Nova producers ignored their own experts. The fifth submarine was originally found in three pieces in 1992, 2000, and 2001 by HURL. The Nova team worked closely with HURL, filming several of HURL’s dives. However, they ignored the HURL team’s view, particularly that of Terry Kerby, HURL’s Director of Facilities and Submersible Operations,15 that this submarine was the one that fired on St. Louis—indeed, the program does not mention St. Louis or Helm at all, since any intimation that all ten torpedoes are accounted for explodes their theory that there were two “missing” torpedoes that were fired at Battleship Row. Parks Stephenson, one of the primary technical investigators, related that he attempted to get a more balanced presentation into the script, including consideration of the St. Louis and Helm attacks, but was rebuffed.
The Nova writers were not averse to implying another bit of sensationalism. In a publicity release, known in the industry as a “teaser,” they implied that the midget submarines might have been involved in the sinking (that is, in the “final hours”) of the Arizona. They wrote:
For decades, it has been thought that the Arizona was brought down by fire from Japanese aircraft. But the discovery of a Japanese “midget sub” displaced from the scene of the battle raises new questions about the Arizona’s final hours.16
In fact, there is no reason to doubt that Arizona was “brought down” by the “fire” from Japanese aircraft, and the idea that a midget submarine was involved in Arizona’s “final hours” is acknowledged as speculation even by the Wave 2 investigators. The program itself makes no claim that a midget submarine sank the Arizona, but restraint is not evident in the carefully worded innuendo of the press release. Evidently the authors of “teasers” are not held accountable for the violence they do to the historical record.
The Nova program carefully selected the facts they allowed on the program. Bes
ides not mentioning the St. Louis and Helm attacks, they selectively edited interviews with veterans, sailors on the Vestal who claims to have seen a torpedo hit the Arizona. Another veteran, Don Stratton, claims to have seen two torpedoes heading for Arizona, and in response to critics who doubted his testimony, responded, “They weren’t there.” The Nova program claims these torpedoes were launched from a midget submarine.
Using witnesses to substantiate information of this kind is very tricky. It is best when substantiated by physical evidence or in some other way corroborated. An example is provided by Herb Garcia, a retired Army colonel who is the curator of the Schofield Barracks base museum. Schofield was not attacked on 7 December—there was an explosion from an improperly fuzed AA shell that fell into a barrel of flour in the kitchen, and a few Japanese rear-seat gunners might have fired their machine guns in Schofield’s direction in the course of attacking Wheeler Field, but no aircraft were formally assigned to attack Schofield, and apparently none did.
However, novelist James Jones included an attack on Schofield Barracks in his book From Here to Eternity, and the film version compellingly portrayed a heavy attack, with Japanese planes strafing on and off for over an hour and actors dying left and right. This fictitious attack on Schofield Barracks has become embedded in the Pearl Harbor attack folklore. Garcia relates,
Remember, the soldiers who witnessed this were not trained observers, just excitable Depression-era kids. Then rumors got bigger in the telling and were reinforced by From Here to Eternity. Now, 90 percent of the veterans who return here say, “Yeah, I was bombed, I was strafed.” If I argue, they say, “Look, buddy, I was here and you weren’t.”17
Nova sent divers down to inspect Arizona. There was no evidence of a torpedo explosion. Therefore, the Nova producers concluded that the torpedo(es) seen by the veterans were duds.
A 2,161-pound Type 97 torpedo striking at almost 50 miles per hour is going to leave an impact crater on the hull. Previous underwater surveys mapped Arizona’s hull down to every wrinkle. Nothing like a dud torpedo impact crater was found. A slight possibility exists that such evidence was so low on the hull that it is now buried under the harbor bottom’s silt, but the chances of that are slight—the Japanese torpedoes were set to run at a depth of four meters or six meters,18 which would put any impact point well above the turn of the bilge. If anything, the Japanese torpedoes tended to run a foot or more shallow, as evidenced by the locations of torpedo hits on other battleships.19
During the war divers used water jets to expose the hull down to the turn of the bilge while determining if Arizona could be salvaged. No evidence was found of a torpedo explosion or the impact of a dud torpedo. No dud torpedoes were found near the hull.
The Nova producers did not show on camera the veterans’ full testimony. The veterans asserted that the torpedoes that they saw actually hit and exploded. They left that part out. That testimony would undermine the program’s assertion that the torpedoes were duds. Alternately, the lack of physical evidence of a torpedo explosion would cast doubt on the witnesses’ testimony that they saw torpedoes.
Killer Submarines in Pearl Harbor left out anything that cast doubt on their theory. This is about one-tenth of a degree short of mendacity.
Correlating the timing of the veterans’ testimony and events, the explosion that the veterans’ thought was from a torpedo was made by an AP bomb dropped by Hiryu’s level bombers.20 The torpedo wake was from a torpedo that passed by Vestal and hit Nevada, the next-to-last torpedo, dropped just before the Arizona blew up.
After discarding the Nova program’s inaccuracies and innuendo, the actual case put forward by the proponents of the “West Loch Theory” deserves consideration. They have no physical evidence, but a body of circumstantial evidence supports their theory. Most of the circumstantial evidence has alternate explanations, but neither side of the case is conclusive—the controversy boils down to which arguments resonate with a particular reader and which do not.
Calculating the Probability that the Theory Is True
It is possible to perform a subjective, first-order estimate of the probability that the West Loch theory is correct. The following chart shows the flow of the calculation. Each box consists of a specific event that would have to occur to make the theory true. It is possible to examine the arguments surrounding each of these events and, by considering them independently, that is, divorced from whether the preceding events were true or not, to come up with an estimate of the probability that each individual event is correct. Since the events had to happen (mostly) in series, the probabilities of occurrence can then be multiplied to get the net probability that the chain of events occurred in total.
The assigned probabilities are highly subjective. An argument that resonates with one person and assigned a high probability will be unconvincing to another, who might assign it a low probability. Readers are encouraged to substitute their own assessment.
Facts and Initial Assumptions
The assessment begins with what is known about the fifth submarine and its two torpedoes. The submarine:
1) began outside of Pearl Harbor;
2) ended outside Pearl Harbor;
3) was found in three pieces lying in close proximity;
4) one hull separation was caused by explosives, probably the sub’s scuttling charge;
5) the other hull separation was caused by unbolting the after section from the amidships section, indicating the sub was subject to some kind of salvage effort;
6) had wire cables attached to all three sections, with their ends cut;
7) had fired its torpedoes.
The theory postulates that the submarine penetrated the harbor, expended its torpedoes against Battleship Row, escaped to the West Loch, scuttled, was discovered, salvaged, disassembled, transported outside Pearl Harbor, and dumped.
The theory must also discredit the alternate explanation that the midget submarine remained outside the harbor and fired its torpedoes at St. Louis and Helm. The midget submarine could not have expended its torpedoes on the morning of the attack and had enough battery power remaining to enter Pearl Harbor.
(20) The Fifth Midget Submarine: Event Flow Chart
Event Flow Chart
Was St. Louis Attacked by Torpedoes?
The analysis begins at the top of the chart, considering the fate of the two unaccounted torpedoes. The previous belief was that they were expended outside the harbor in an attack on St. Louis. In addition to the formal reports, there are surviving crewmembers from the St. Louis who witnessed the attack.
The theory must prove that this attack did not happen as recorded.
When St. Louis exited the channel she met up with three minesweepers, one of which reported that St. Louis took her minesweeping paravane under fire and cut across her sweep line, severing it. The minesweepers’ logs do not mention a torpedo explosion.
The proponents suggest that the explosion reported by St. Louis was not from a torpedo. They point to the testimony of Douglas Huggins, on board St. Louis in Control Aft, who saw what he thought were bombs being dropped all round the ship as she exited the channel. According to one of the leading proponents of the theory, “one would suspect that what was actually seen were anti-aircraft rounds fired from inside the harbour [sic] falling back to earth.”21
Others suggest that the commanding officer of the St. Louis fabricated the story of a torpedo explosion in order to escape responsibility for severing the minesweeper’s lines.
A more detailed look at St. Louis’ experience is warranted.
At 10:04 a.m., [Captain] Rood saw what appeared to be two torpedoes, one following the other, flashing toward his starboard bow.
“We’re going to get smacked good and proper,” thought Rood, and he called out to Commander Carl K. Fink, “If you want to see a ship torpedoed, come take a look!” Fink took one look and agreed with the skipper—in the narrow channel there wasn’t much they could do. In the foremast structure, with a great
view of the oncoming weapons from 1,000 to 2,000 yards, Lieutenant Charles A. Curtze tensed as he watched the torpedoes arrow toward the ship.
Rood ordered St. Louis, already sprinting at 22 knots, to Emergency Full. At 25 knots, he tried a tentative zigzag, cranking the ship in the narrow, coral-rimmed channel. The first torpedo was aimed directly a the starboard side of turret No. 3, but struck a coral spit near Bouy No. 1, on the west side of the dredged channel, and exploded 200 yards from the ship, sending geysers skyward in an explosive blossom of water and coral.
It drenched the ship with water. “That Jap got over-anxious,” observed Rood.
The second torpedo was “running hot” on a diverging track, about 10 degrees off the first, and was apparently caught up in the explosion. The track disappeared.22
In this account the torpedo tracks were seen before the explosion, with multiple witnesses. Two torpedoes were seen, one exploded, and the other motored on until it sank after its fuel was exhausted.
Given the existence of the explosion and ignoring the reported torpedo wakes, the argument then turns on whether the St. Louis’ officers and crewmembers mistook the splash and explosion of a falling AA shell for that of a ~772-pound torpedo warhead when viewed from only two hundred yards. The torpedo plumes shown in photographs of the hits on Battleship Row were over 800 feet high, caused by torpedoes with 452-pound warheads; a 5-inch/25 shell weighed 54 pounds, with about 17 pounds as explosive filler, and would cause a splash 40 to 60 feet high that would not drench the ship if it exploded 200 yards off.
The accusation that the commanding officer fabricated his report to excuse his cutting the minesweepers’ lines is rather distasteful, and has no basis other than the theorists’ need to discredit the report.
