by Attack on Pearl Harbor: Strategy, Combat, Myths, Deceptions
Chapter 8: Battle Damage Assessment
1. Goldstein and Dillon, 1993, 135.
2. Goldstein and Dillon, 1993, 162.
3. Prange, 1981, 573.
4. Goldstein and Dillon, 1993, 202.
5. Likely Utah (AG-16).
6. Goldstein and Dillon, 1993, 200–201.
7. Prange, 1981, 579.
8. Fuchida’s chart survived the war. It was discovered and reproduced in color inside the covers of Goldstein and Dillon, The Pearl Harbor Papers. Brassey’s (US), now Potomac Books, was the publisher, and retains the right to publish the chart themselves, although they do not have the right to allow others to publish it. The original map was put up for auction, purchased by an anonymous buyer, and has disappeared.
9. Compiled by Yokosuka Naval Air Corps. Possibly August 1942. Lessons [air operation] of the Sea Battle off Hawaii, Vol. I. in Goldstein and Dillon, 1993, 287.
10. Preliminary Design Section, Bureau of Ships, 9.
11. Lord, 91.
12. Willmott, et al, 2001, 106.
13. De Virgilio.
14. One aircraft in Fuchda’s group prematurely dropped its bomb due to a material failure caused by AA damage. One B5N Kate level bomber was a deck abort. Goldstein, and Dillon, 1993, 287.
15. Slackman, 107.
16. Commander in Chief, Pacific Fleet. Report of Japanese Raid on Pearl Harbor, 15 February 1942. Enclosure C.
17. Hone, T.C., December, 1977, 56–57.
18. De Virgilio. Okun and Aiken correspondence with the author.
19. Willmott, et al, 2001, 116.
20. Soryu and Hiryu constituted Carrier Division (CarDiv) Two. The carrier division issued a consolidated report.
21. Willmott, et al, 2001, 191.
22. There were 30 destroyers in Pearl Harbor or on patrol in the immediate vicinity. There were another 15 on exercises in the general area, and 9 at various CONUS locations, for a total of 54 destroyers, not counting the Asiatic Fleet. Hitting three destroyers was inconsequential towards achieving the Japanese mission as compared to other available targets.
23. Prange, 1981, 535.
24. Werneth, 17, 274.
25. Werneth, 43.
26. Only one AR mentions a dive bomber attack on Battleship Row during this time frame, that of Allen, anchored northeast of Ford Island about a thousand yards from Battleship Row. Her AR states, “Bridge personnel observed dive bombing attacks on battleship row approaching from both east and west.” The smoke from the burning Arizona was between her and most of Battleship Row. Allen more likely observed the attacks on Tangier and Raleigh and Nevada and recorded them as attacks on Battleship Row. Aircraft attacking Pennsylvania and Helena, seen from Allen’s position, would also have lined up with Battleship Row.
27. Slackman, 168–9.
28. Werneth, 205.
29. Gordon, et al, 1990, 26
30. Olson, 43. This work erroneously says that the Dale was attacked by 16-inch AP bombs. By the time Dale (DD-353) was attacked, all the AP bombs had been expended against Battleship Row. Dale was attacked by D3A Val dive bombers employing 250-kg GP bombs.
31. Commanding Officer, USS Dale (353). Detailed report of offensive measures taken during Air Raid, December 7, 1941.
32. Goldstein, Dillon, and Wenger, 1991, 99.
33. Prange, 1981, 544–47; Prange, et al, 1990, 40.
34. Toland, 223.
35. Prange, et al, 1990, 77.
36. Fuchida and Okumiya, 155–6.
37. Prange, et al, 1982, 264.
38. Parshall, letter to the author.
39. Parshall and Tully, 230–231.
40. Prange, et al, 1990, 174. My thanks to Jonathan Parshall for bringing this to my attention.
41. Correspondence with Michael Weidenbach, Curator of the USS Missouri Memorial, and Jonathan Parshall.
42. Parshall and Tully, 135.
43. Parshall, correspondence with the author. Parshall is a co-author of Shattered Sword, the definitive account of the Japanese’ side of the Battle of Midway.
44. Prange, 1981, 542.
45. Goldstein and Dillon, 1993.
Chapter 9: What Might Have Been: Alerted Pearl Harbor Defenses
1. Burlingame, 32.
2. One of the scandalous command failures was that, while junior officers of both services and the War Department wanted to make the full AWS operational immediately, Navy and Army senior officers refused to release the needed watch officers. The ownership of the system muddied the waters: the Signal Corp built the system and was supposed to turn it over to the Air Corps, but dragged their feet. The War Department issued a directive on 15 September 1941 ordering the system be activated, to which General Martin, the air commander, responded that he hoped to have the AIC in operation “within 30 days” (or, prior to 25 October 1941). The successful 27 September exercise should have been the final demonstration before full-time operation. On 24 November the joint-services AWS steering committee (with the senior Army officer a lieutenant colonel, and the senior Navy representative a lieutenant commander) tried to prod their superiors onward by recommended that the AIC should be made operational “as early as possible.” However, the senior officers decided that the system would become operational only after the war started. See Lambert and Polmar, 65–67.
3. In a letter dated 7 February 1941, the Secretary of War informed the Secretary of the Navy that there were currently 82 3-inch, 20 37mm, and 109 .50-cal AA gun in the Army establishment at Oahu. The “total program” was to be 98 3-inch, 120 37mm, and 308 .50-cal machine guns. A date for the delivery of the additional weapons was not provided. www.ibiblio.org/pha/timeline/410207awar.html. The numbers on 7 December are from Hearings, 320.
4. General Headquarters, US Army Forces Pacific, 17.
5. Lambert and Polmar, 99.
6. General Headquarters, US Army Forces Pacific, 19.
7. Lambert and Polmar, 40.
8. www.navweaps.com/index_oob/OOB_WWII_Pacific/OOB_Pearl_Harbor.htm, accessed 12/22/06. Lambert and Polmar, 97. Arakaki and Kuborn, 78–9 assess 10 aircraft shot down by the defending fighters, plus one that might have been shot down by Lieutenant Dains. Radar operators observed a P-40 shoot down a Zero, which might have been an engagement by Dains. Returning from a third sortie, Dains was shot down by US AA guns over Schofield Barracks and killed, so he never made a report.
9. Not counted are three P-40 aircraft that were destroyed while taking off.
10. www.navweaps.com/index_oob/OOB_WWII_Pacific/OOB_WWII_Pearl_Harbor.htm, accessed 12/18/08
11. Czarnecki, et al.
12. Campbell, 106.
13. Commander in Chief, United States Fleet, October 1945.
14. Wallin, 106.
15. The AA fire could be considered more effective still, if six USN Dauntless dive bombers and four Wildcat fighters Blue-on-Blue losses are included in the total of kills for the ammunition expended. These aircraft were flown in from the carrier Enterprise (CV-6) after the attack, and were shot down by jumpy defenders. An additional tribute to the accuracy of the defender’s fire is that approximately 20 Japanese aircraft were pitched overboard after landing as damaged beyond repair, and another 35 were immediately unflyable. 111 aircraft that landed on the carriers had some degree of damage, or 36% of the aircraft that returned.
16. Goldstein, Dillon, and Wenger, 112.
17. Joint Congressional Committee on the Investigation of the Pearl Harbor Attack, 69.
18. Commanding Officer, USS California (BB-44). Report of Raid (Revised), December 7, 1941. BB44/A16-3, 22 December 1941.
19. This 1946 report would not have been able to correlate data with Japanese records. A review of John Lundstom’s The First Team and the Guadalcanal Campaign found that USMC 90mm AA batteries tended to claim 50–100% more aircraft than were actually shot down. One cause was joint engagements, where the AA guns fired on aircraft that were later shot down by fighters. The AA batteries might see the larger bomber but not the smaller fighter, see the bomber go dow
n, and thus claim the bomber as their kill. Many aircraft claimed as AA kills actually managed to limp home, though perhaps in the end they were good only for the scrap heap.
20. Prange, 1981, 569.
21. The eight rounds per minute figure was taken from the overall rate of fire of heavy AA guns on North Carolina (BB-55) on 24 August 1942 at the Battle of the Eastern Solomons during an intense, coordinated air attack, assuming that one half of the battery could bear on targets at a time. This appears to be a good estimate, as the commanding officer estimated that the 5”/38 guns were firing at a rate of 17 rounds per minute when they engaged, using a fuze setting dead time of 3 seconds. He specifically mentions that this high rate of fire was a product of long training hours during the transit to the battle area. While the Army gunners might not have had as much sustained practice, they also would be handling ammunition that weighed less than half that of the 5”/38 round—the 5”/38 projectile was about 55 pounds and the powder and case 35 pounds, while the 3”/50 fired a fixed round (projectile + powder and case) of 26 pounds. Commanding Officer, U. S. S. North Carolina. Action of August 24, 1942, report of. BB55/A16-3 Serial 0109, 26 August 1942.
22. Lambert and Polmar, 68.
23. Clarke, 61.
24. Arakaki and Kuborn, 16.
25. Official AAF claims were 9 kills, 4 probable, 2 damaged.
26. Hough, et al.
27. Commander in Chief, Pacific Fleet. “The Battle of Midway.” Report A16 0 1849.
28. First Air Fleet’s Detailed Battle Report #6, “Midway operation from 27 May 1942 to 9 June 1942.” Reprinted in The ONI Review, May 1947. There are conflicting numbers of kills given in various sections of the report. The number used, eight kills, comes from the tally of losses from each of carriers, which has five aircraft lost to enemy aircraft, three aircraft lost to ground fire, and one lost to an unspecified cause. In addition, the report of the Hiryu fighters states that “nine suffered hits (of which two became inoperational).” In many other reports the Japanese tended to count aircraft as “shot down” only if they were immediately destroyed in the air-to-air combat. Aircraft that were damaged but ditched or crashed on the return flight were not reported as air-to-air kills, but using some euphemism (such as “became inoperational”). However, this could also mean that the aircraft were deemed unflyable after they had returned and landed on the carrier. Thus, this analysis will use five kills as a lower bound and eight kills as the upper bound of kills achieved by the Midway fighters.
29. This kill ratio would be less inflated than usually seen in air-to-air kill claims, because the Flying Tiger pilots were paid a bonus for each kill, which required strict documentation of the kill, usually by recovering parts of the crashed aircraft as evidence.
30. US pilots left training with about 300 hours. Perhaps 100 of that would be in fighter-type aircraft, mostly in older biplanes. Pilots in the groups reinforcing the Philippines were mostly taken directly out of flight school, assigned, waited for transportation, and then shipped via sea, a process which took months, during which they did not fly. Upon arrival some of them got hours in the Philippine Air Force P-36 aircraft, but most had to wait until their P-40 aircraft were unboxed and assembled. Aircraft were still being assembled and tested when the war began.
31. Lambert and Polmar, 68.
32. Japanese Air Power, 5.
33. Lambert and Polmar, 68–9.
34. Leonard.
35. Prange, 1981, 228.
36. Arakaki and Kuborn, 58.
37. Clarke, 60.
38. Lambert and Polmar, 40, gives 76 mobile Army guns, and an additional 8 USMC guns were at Ewa Field. There were also 16 of the new SCR-268 radar gun directors available. The calculation does not include the Ewa guns, as the duration of the attack on that field is not available. At the time of the battle, ammunition transport vehicles had to be dispatched to the central magazine at Aliamanu Crater, where each battery was issued 1200 rounds, or 300 rounds per gun. Allowing 40 minutes of driving time plus loading time would mean that resupply during the course of the action would not have been possible, particularly considering the huge traffic jam that existed at the magazine.
Chapter 10: Assessing the Folklore
1. Slackman, 63.
2. Slackman, 152.
3. Burton, xiv.
4. Belote and Belote, 3.
5. Peattie, 31.
6. Genda, in Goldstein and Dillon, 1993, 12.
7. Prange, 1981, 271.
8. Lieutenant Commander Hirata Matsumura, quoted in Werneth, 172.
9. Goldstein and Dillon, 1993, 284–5.
10.There are different figures given for the numbers of aircraft carried by Japanese ships. In addition to their normal operational complement, they would also carry spare aircraft fully or partially disassembled, and might also carry additional experimental aircraft or aircraft to be ferried to another location on an overload basis. The numbers might also change as the war progressed, reflecting modifications to the ship or its operational doctrine. The above numbers reflect the usual published figures for their pre-war operational capacities.
11. Werneth, 199–200.
12. Goldstein and Dillon, 1993, 23.
13. The Japanese light carriers Ryujo, Zuiho, and Hosho went to war carrying the previous-generation A5M Claude fighter. Francillon, 346.
14. Prange, 1981, 272. It is noteworthy that, in spite of the need for carriers to support the movement south, Shoho began the war in port Nagaski. She worked up a new air group for all of December and January, first becoming operational on 4 February 1942 when she transited from Empire waters to Truk. This provides an indication of how short the Japanese were of carrier qualified aviators.
15. Willmott, et al, 2001, 58.
16. Goldstein and Dillon, 1993, 284–5.
17. Smith, 2005, 155.
18. DeBlanc, 17.
19. www.heritage.nf.ca/law/royal_air.html, accessed 12/26/08.
20. Prange, 1991, 28.
21. Willmott, et al, 2001, 77. Prange, 1981, 237.
22. “Unsolved History: Myths of Pearl Harbor.” The Military Channel. The two luminaries were Larry Bond of Harpoon fame, and Captain Chris Carlson (USN, ret).
23. Middlebrook and Mahoney, 40, 44, 184.
24. In one training run Japanese level bombers scored 40% hits on the underway target ship Settsu, a remarkable achievement considering that the B5N Kate did not have a mechanical bomb sight. However, training against maneuvering ships had been abandoned in favor of training against stationary targets, as the US battleships were expected to be at anchor.
25. Calhoun, 71–3.
26. Lenton, 107.
27. www.history.navy.mil/faqs/faq66-1.htm.
28. Goldstein, Dillon and Wenger, 1991, 24.
29. Yergin, 327.
30. Morison, 125.
31. Morison, quoted in Willmott, et al, 2001, 142.
32. Prange, 1981, 550.
33. Goldstein, Dillon and Wenger, 1991, 24.
34. van der Vat, 21–2.
35. Clarke, 119.
36. Prange, 1986, 509.
37. Peattie, 168. Emphasis as in the original.
38. Gailey.
39. “Myths of Pearl Harbor.” The Military Channel.
40. Imperial War Museum web site, www.iwm.org.uk/upload/package/25/pearl_harbor/index.htm.
41. Toland, 223.
42. United States Naval Institute, 27.
43. Prange, 1983, 542
44. Prange, 1990, 40–1.
45. Goldstein and Dillon, 1993. Willmott, et al, 2001, 156.
46. Willmott, et al, 2001, 156–7.
47. Parshall, 130.
48. Willmott, et al, 2001. 155–157.
49. Stillwell, 1981, 139.
50. Parshall, 130.
51. Willmott, et al, 2001, 155–6.
52. Prange, 1981, 545, reports 74 damaged: 23 fighters, 41 bombers and 10 torpedo planes.
53. The carriers had 54 aircraft spares. A few of the spare
s were assembled before December 8th. If 59–64 aircraft were lost or immediately unflyable, replaced by the 54 spare aircraft, then the net loss in combat power was only 5–10 aircraft (less any deficit in aircrews).
54. Willmott, et al, 2001, 186.
55. Most sources show the B5N Kate payload as “800 kg of bombs,” which would seem to allow the plane to carry three 250-kg bombs. However, some B5N Kates from Shokaku and Zuikaku carried two 250-kg bombs on their OCA mission against the airfields. Possibly the B5N Kate at this time did not have the mountings to carry three 250-kg bombs.
56. Pearl Harbor and the Outlying Islands: US Navy Base Construction in World War II.
www.history.navy.mil/library/online/constructpearlww2.htm.
57. United States Strategic Bombing Survey, Ships’ Bombardment of Japan—1945, 4.
58. The area of 498 acres for the shipyard given according to the official sources may include areas that were open ground for storage or undeveloped at the time of the attack. Estimates made by measurements of the area containing large buildings and warehouses from photographs taken in late 1941 give an area of less than 7,500,000 square feet. Using the same assumptions, this might result in a possibility of 17% damage to the shipyard, likely 12–15%. The conclusions remain unchanged.
59. Wallin, 222–242.
60. Prange, 1981, 469.
61. Ellsberg, 1946, 134.
62. Ellsberg, 1946, 139.
63. Stern, 57–9.
64. Burke, 128.
65. Prange, 1981, 392.
66. Prange, 1981, 549.
67. Goldstein, Dillon and Wenger, 1991, 26.
68. Willmott, et al, 2001, 161.
69. Prange, 1986, 510.
70. Prange, 1986, 509.
71. Prange, 1981, 66.
72. “The flash point of NSFO is above 140F and unless the bulk fuel is already at that or very close it is easy to calculate that there is simply not enough energy in a 7.7mm ball round raise any significant volume of fuel to flash point and ignite it. If the bulk fuel was already at flash point then a 7.7mm might possibly serve as an ignition source under some circumstances, but there is zero chance that those tanks were even close to that hot on 7 Dec 1941. Even if you get an ignition it is by no means certain that the fire won't sputter out, since you need to have enough energy to raise the temperature another 40F to 50F in the vicinity of the fire to sustain it, and a small initial flash may not be sufficient to do this. It would definitely take a pretty energetic source to set these tanks alight. A bomb would do it, at least if not too deep, but no other air-launched weapon available to the Japanese [would do]. Even too small a bomb might very well not work. Having watched Boiler Techs struggle to get NSFO to light off from cold iron impressed me greatly with how hard it is to get this stuff burning well.” Captain William O’Neil, USN (ret.), letter to the author.
