Across town, Editor Riley Allen of the Star-Bulletin had no press troubles and his afternoon paper didn’t come out on Sunday, but he was miles behind on his correspondence. This morning he hoped to catch up, and now sat in his office dictating to his secretary, Winifred McCombs. It was her first day on the job, and at 7:45 A.M. she perhaps wondered whether she had been wise in leaving her last position.
Most of the people in Honolulu were enjoying more civilized hours, many of them sleeping off the island’s big football weekend. Saturday afternoon the University of Hawaii beat Willamette 20-6 in the annual Shrine game, and the victory had been celebrated in standard mainland fashion. Now the fans bravely faced the morning after. Webley Edwards, manager of radio station KGMB and a popular broadcaster himself, tackled a grape and soda. It looked like a constructive way to start the new day.
In sharp contrast to Oahu’s Sunday morning torpor, the destroyer Ward scurried about off the entrance to Pearl Harbor. A lot had happened since she polished off the midget sub. At 6:48 A.M. she sighted a white sampan well inside the restricted area. She scooted over to investigate, and the sampan took off. Quickly overhauled, the sampan’s skipper, a Japanese, shut off his engines and waved a white flag. This struck Outerbridge as rather odd — these sampans often sneaked into the restricted area for better fishing, but when caught the surrender was rarely so formal. On the other hand, the skipper had already heard plenty of firing and might be just emphasizing his own peaceful inclinations. In any case, the Ward started escorting the offender toward Honolulu to turn him over to the Coast Guard.
At 7:03 A.M. the Ward picked up another sub on her sound apparatus. Outerbridge raced over to the spot indicated, unloaded five depth charges, and watched a huge black oil bubble erupt 300 yards astern. Then back to the sampan. Everyone remained at general quarters, and Outerbridge alerted Fourteenth Naval District Headquarters to stand by for further messages.
At headquarters, all of this fell into the lap of Lieutenant Commander Harold Kaminsky, an old reservist who had been in the Navy off and on ever since he was an enlisted man in World War I. Regularly in charge of net and boom defenses, he took his Sunday turn as duty officer like everyone else. This morning he held down the fort with the aid of one enlisted man, a Hawaiian who understood little English and nothing about the teletype.
Due to various delays in decoding, paraphrasing, and typing, it was 7:12 by the time Commander Kaminsky received the Ward’s 6:53 message about sinking the submarine. First he tried to phone Admiral Bloch’s aide but couldn’t reach him. Then he put in a call to the admiral’s chief of staff, Captain John B. Earle. The phone woke up Mrs. Earle, and she immediately put her husband on the wire. To Kaminsky, the captain sounded astonished and incredulous. Captain Earle later recalled that he first felt it was just one more of the sub “sightings” that had been turning up in recent months. On the other hand, this did seem too serious to be brushed off — it was the first time he heard of a Navy ship firing depth charges or anything else at one of these contacts. So he told Kaminsky to get the dispatch verified, also to notify the CINCPAC duty officer and Commander Charles Momsen, the Fourteenth Naval District operations officer. Earle said he would take care of telling Admiral Bloch.
The admiral was on the phone by 7:15. Captain Earle relayed the news, and the two men spent the next five or ten minutes trying to decide whether it was reliable or not. In the course of passing from mouth to mouth, the message had lost the point Outerbridge tried to make by saying he “fired on” the sub, hence must have seen it. Now neither Bloch nor Earle could tell whether this was just a sound contact or whether the Ward had actually seen something. Finally they made up their minds. Since they had asked the Ward to verify, since Commander Momsen was investigating, and since they had referred the matter to CINCPAC, they decided (using Captain Earle’s phrase) “to await further developments.”
Meanwhile Kaminsky had notified CINCPAC Headquarters over at the sub base. The assistant duty officer, Lieutenant Commander Francis Black, estimated that he got the call around 7:20. He relayed the report to the duty officer, Commander Vincent Murphy, who was dressing in his quarters on the spot. Murphy asked, “Did he say what he was doing about it? Did he say whether Admiral Bloch knew about it or not?”
Nothing had been said on these points, so Murphy told Black to call back and find out. He dialed and dialed, but the line was always busy. By now Murphy was dressed and told Black, “All right, you go to the office and start breaking out the charts and positions of the various ships. I’ll dial one more time, and then I’ll be over.”
The line was still busy, so Murphy told the operator to break in and have Kaminsky call the CINCPAC office. Then he ran on down to get there in time for the call.
Small wonder Kaminsky’s line was busy. After talking to Black, he had to phone Commander Momsen, the district operations officer. Then Momsen said to call Ensign Joseph Logan. Then a call to the Coast Guard about that sampan the Ward caught. Then Momsen on the line again at 7:25 —have the ready-duty destroyer Monaghan contact the Ward. Then a call to Lieutenant Ottley to get the Honolulu harbor gate closed. Phone call by phone call, the minutes slipped away.
Commander Murphy dashed into his office a little after 7:30 to find the phone ringing. But it wasn’t the call that he expected from Kaminsky; it was a call from Commander Logan Ramsey, the operations officer at Patrol Wing (Patwing) 2, the Ford Island headquarters for all Navy patrol plane work. Ramsey was bursting with news — a PBY reported it had just sunk a sub about a mile off the Pearl Harbor entrance. Murphy told him he already had a similar report, and for the next minute or so the two men compared notes.
The PBY message had been sent by Ensign Tanner. It was logged in at seven o’clock, but there had been the usual delays in decoding, then the usual incredulity. Commander Knefler McGinnis, who was Tanner’s commanding officer and in charge of Patwing 1 at Kancohe, felt it must be a case of mistaken identity. He checked to make sure that all information on U.S. subs was in the hands of the patrol planes. Ramsey himself received the message around 7:30 from the Patwing 2 duty officer, and his first reaction was that some kind of drill message must have gotten out by mistake. He ordered the duty officer to request “authentication” of the message immediately. But to be on the safe side he decided to draw up a search plan and notify CINCPAC — that was what he was doing now.
As Murphy hung up, the phone began ringing again. This time it was Kaminsky, finally on the wire. He assured Murphy that Bloch had been told … that the ready-duty destroyer was on its way to help … that the stand-by destroyer had been ordered to get up steam. Murphy asked, “Have you any previous details or any more details about this attack?”
“The message came out of a clear sky,” Kaminsky replied.
Murphy decided he’d better call Admiral Kimmel, and by 7:40 CINCPAC himself was on the telephone. The admiral, who had left Mrs. Kimmel on the mainland as a defensive measure against any diverting influences, lived alone in a bare new house at Makalapa, about five minutes’ drive away. As soon as he heard the news, he told Murphy, “I’ll be right down.”
Next, Ramsey phoned again, asking if there was anything new. Murphy said there wasn’t, but warned him to keep search planes available, in case the admiral wanted them.
Now Kaminsky was back on the wire, reporting the Ward’s run-in with the sampan. He had already told Earle, and the captain regarded it as evidence that nothing was really the matter — if there was a submarine around, what was the Ward doing escorting a mere sampan to Honolulu? He apparently didn’t realize that the submarine incident was at 6:45, and the Ward had considered it definitely sunk.
Commander Murphy thought the sampan report was sufficiently interesting to relay to Admiral Kimmel, and he put in another call about 7:50.
Out in the harbor, Lieutenant Commander Bill Burford made the best of things as skipper of the ready-duty destroyer Monaghan. She was due to be relieved at eight o’clock, and Burford had planned to go
ashore. In fact, the gig was already alongside. Then at 7:51 a message suddenly came in from Fourteenth Naval District Headquarters to “get under way immediately and contact Ward in defensive sea area.” The message didn’t even say what he should prepare for, but obviously it might be a couple of hours before he would be free again to go ashore.
Whatever was in store for the Monaghan, the other ships in Pearl Harbor had only morning colors to worry about. This ceremony was always the same. At 7:55 the signal tower on top of the Navy Yard water tank hoisted the blue “prep” flag, and every ship in the harbor followed suit. On each ship a man took his place at the bow with the “jack,” another at the stern with the American flag. Then, promptly at 8:00, the prep flag came down, and the other two went up. On the smaller ships a boatswain piped his whistle; on the larger a bugler sounded colors; on the largest a band might even play the National Anthem.
As the clock ticked toward 7:55, all over the harbor men went to their stations. On the bridge of the old repair ship Vestal, Signalman Adolph Zlabis got ready to hoist the prep flag. On the fantail of the sleek cruiser Helena at 1010 dock, Ensign W. W. Jones marched to the flagstaff with a four-man Marine honor guard. On the big battleship Nevada, the ship’s band assembled for a ceremony that would have all the trimmings. The only trouble was, the officer of the deck, Ensign Taussig, had never stood watch for morning colors before and didn’t know what size American flag to fly. He quietly sent an enlisted man forward to ask the Arizona people what they were going to do. While everybody waited around, some of the bandsmen noticed specks in the sky far to the southwest.
Planes were approaching, and from more than one direction. Ensign Donald L. Korn, officer of the deck on the Raleigh, noticed a thin line winging in from the northwest. Seaman “Red” Pressler of the Arizona saw a string approaching from the mountains to the east. On the destroyer Helm, Quartermaster Frank Handler noticed another group coming in low from the south. The Helm — the only ship under way in all of Pearl Harbor — was in the main channel, about to turn up West Loch. The planes passed only 100 yards away, flying directly up the channel from the harbor entrance. One of the pilots gave a casual wave, and Quartermaster Handler cheerfully waved back. He noticed that, unlike most American planes, these had fixed landing gear.
As the planes roared nearer, Pharmacist’s Mate William Lynch heard a California shipmate call out, “The Russians must have a carrier visiting us. Here come some planes with the red ball showing clearly.”
Signalman Charles Flood on the Helena picked up a pair of binoculars and gave the planes a hard look. They were approaching in a highly unusual manner, but all the same there was something familiar about them. Then he recalled the time he was in Shanghai in 1932, when the Japanese Army and Navy invaded the city. He remembered their bombing technique — a form of glide bombing. The planes over Ford Island were diving in the same way.
In they hurtled — Lieutenant Commander Takahashi’s 27 dive-bombers plunging toward Ford Island and Hickam …. Lieutenant Commander Murata’s 40 torpedo planes swinging into position for their run at the big ships. Commander Fuchida marked time off Barbers Point with the horizontal bombers, watching his men go in. They were all attacking together instead of in stages as originally planned, but it would apparently make no difference — the ships were sitting ducks.
A few minutes earlier, at 7:49 A.M., Fuchida had radioed the signal to attack: “To … to … to … to …” Now he was so sure of victory that at 7:53 — even before the first bomb fell — he signaled the carriers that the surprise attack was successful: “Tora … tora … tora …”
Back on the Akagi, Admiral Kusaka turned to Admiral Nagumo. Not a word passed between them. Just a long, firm handshake.
CHAPTER VII
“I Didn’t Even Know They Were Sore at Us”
COMMANDER LOGAN RAMSEY JUMPED from his desk at the Patwing 2 Command Center on Ford Island. He had been working out a search plan for the sub reported by the PBY when a single dive-bomber screamed down on the seaplane ramp at the southern tip of the island. It looked like a young aviator “flathatting,” and both he and the duty officer tried to get the offender’s number. But they were too late, and Ramsey remarked that it was going to be hard to find out who it was. Then a blast … a column of dirt and smoke erupted from the foot of the ramp.
“Never mind,” said Ramsey, “it’s a Jap.”
The plane pulled out of its dive and veered up the channel between Ford Island and 1010 dock. It passed less than 600 feet from Rear Admiral William Furlong as he paced the deck of his flagship, the antique mine layer Oglala. The admiral took one glance at the flaming orange-red circle on the fuselage and understood too. He shouted for general quarters, and as SOPA (Senior Officer Present Afloat), he hoisted the signal, “All ships in harbor sortie.” The time was 7:55 A.M.
Now two more planes screeched down. This time the aim was perfect. Parts of the big PBY hangar at the head of the ramp flew in all directions. Radioman Harry Mead, member of a utility plane squadron based on the island, couldn’t understand why American planes were bombing the place. Seaman Robert Oborne of the same outfit had a plausible explanation: it was an Army snafu. “Boy,” he thought, “is somebody going to catch it for putting live bombs on those planes.”
All this passed unnoticed by Ensign Donald Korn of the cruiser Raleigh, moored on the northwest side of Ford Island at one of the berths normally used by the carriers. He was turning over his deck watch to Ensign William Game and couldn’t see much of anything happening down by the seaplane ramp. But he did have a fine view of the valley leading up the center of Oahu. At 7:56 he noticed some planes flying in low from that direction.
Now they were gliding past the algarroba trees at Pearl City. Splitting up, two headed for the Utah just astern, one for the Detroit just ahead, and one for the Raleigh herself. Ensign Korn, thinking the planes were Marines on maneuvers, called out his antiaircraft crews to practice with them. The men were just taking their stations when the torpedo struck home about opposite the second funnel. A shattering roar, a sickening lurch. Through a blinding mixture of smoke and dirt and muddy water, men caught a brief glimpse of the Raleigh’s splintered church launch; it had been easing alongside where the torpedo hit. The Detroit got off scot-free, but the Utah shuddered under two solid blows. Watching from the destroyer Monaghan several hundred yards to the north, Boatswain’s Mate Thomas Donahue thought that this time the U.S. Army really had a hole in its head.
A fifth plane in this group saved its torpedo, skimmed across Ford Island, and let fly at the Oglala and Helena, moored side by side at 1010 dock — the berth normally used by the battleship Pennsylvania, flagship of the whole Pacific Fleet. The torpedo passed completely under the Oglala, moored outboard, and barreled into the Helena midships — her engine-room clock stopped at 7:57. The concussion burst the seams of the old Oglala alongside, hurling Musician Don Rodenberger from his upper bunk. He could only think that the ancient boilers had finally exploded.
Ensign Roman Leo Brooks, officer of the deck on the West Virginia across the channel, was thinking along these same lines. He, too, was in no position to see the plane diving on the seaplane hangars or on the ships moored across Ford Island. All he saw was the sudden eruption of flames and smoke at 1010 dock. He lost no time — in seconds the ship’s bugler and PA system were blaring, “Away the fire and rescue party!”
Even the men who saw the planes couldn’t understand. One of them was Fireman Frank Stock of the repair ship Vestal, moored beside the Arizona along Battleship Row. Stock and six of his mates had taken the church launch for services ashore. They moved across the channel and into Southeast Loch, that long, narrow strip of water pointing directly at the battleships. On their right they passed the cruisers, nosed into the Navy Yard piers; on the left some subs tucked into their berths. As they reached the Merry’s Point landing at the end of the loch, six or eight torpedo planes flew in low from the east, about 50 feet above the water and heading down th
e loch toward the battleships.
The men were mildly surprised — they had never seen U.S. planes come in from that direction. They were even more surprised when the rear-seat gunners sprayed them with machine-gun bullets. Then Stock recalled the stories he had read about “battle-condition” maneuvers in the Southern states. This must be the same idea — for extra realism they had even painted red circles on the planes. The truth finally dawned when one of his friends caught a slug in the stomach from the fifth plane that passed.
On the Nevada at the northern end of Battleship Row, Leader Oden McMillan waited with his band to play morning colors at eight o’clock. His 23 men had been in position since 7:55, when the blue prep signal went up. As they moved into formation, some of the musicians noticed planes diving at the other end of Ford Island. McMillan saw a lot of dirt and sand go up, but thought it was another drill. Now it was 7:58 — two minutes to go — and planes started coming in low from Southeast Loch. Heavy, muffled explosions began booming down the line … enough to worry anyone. And then it was eight o’clock.
The band crashed into “The Star-Spangled Banner.” A Japanese plane skimmed across the harbor … dropped a torpedo at the Arizona … and peeled off right over the Nevada’s fantail. The rear gunner sprayed the men standing at attention, but he must have been a poor shot. He missed the entire band and Marine guard, lined up in two neat rows. He did succeed in shredding the flag, which was just being raised.
McMillan knew now but kept on conducting. The years of training had taken over — it never occurred to him that once he had begun playing the National Anthem, he could possibly stop. Another strafer flashed by. This time McMillan unconsciously paused as the deck splintered around him, but he quickly picked up the beat again. The entire band stopped and started again with him, as though they had rehearsed it for weeks. Not a man broke formation until the final note died. Then everyone ran wildly for cover.
The World War II Collection Page 43
