The Ragged, Rugged Warriors

by Martin Caidin

  The pilots had been warned to expect very intense fighter opposition from the Americans. Not a Japanese pilot dreamed that most of the American planes would be lined up wingtip-to-wingtip, naked of their guns and fuel, and incapable of roaring into the air. Only four American fighters were encountered by the Japanese, and the Americans, despite their courage at rushing against the mass of Japanese planes in the air, were simply overwhelmed almost at once. Four Zero pilots claimed definite kills on their return to their carriers.

  Exactly one hour and 15 minutes after Lieutenant Sakamoto tripped the bomb release of his dive bomber, the second attacking wave reached its attack position over Oahu. The Japanese crews under the command of Lieutenant Commander Shigekazu Shimazaki of carrier Zui-kaku looked down upon a scene of wild devastation.

  They reported flames in sight in almost every direction and smoke boiling thickly into the sky. The Americans by now were fighting back wildly, even if their defenses had been caught completely by surprise. Antiaircraft bursts splotched the sky in a pockmarked pattern.

  Shimazaki led a force of 170 bombers and fighters. With the same crisp precision that marked the initial wave, 54 level bombers sailed overhead in formation, bombs spilling in long rows into the American positions far below. The Japanese move once again was to cut the effectiveness of the defenses. Even as the bombs arrowed toward their targets, the thunder and roar shaking Pearl Harbor was split by a new sound—the shrill scream of 80 dive bombers plummeting for the kill against the American warships. Lieutenant Commander Takashige Egusa took his planes in to pointblank range, howling earthward to release their bombs. Swooping up like white hawks, the dive bombers raced perilously low over the American vessels, clearing the way for the other planes behind them.

  Lieutenant Saburo Shindo, longtime veteran of air war in China, brought 36 Zero fighters through the crackling roar and violent air of the battle. Shindo ordered his men to minimum height so that the American gunners would have their attention diverted between the level bombers up high, the dive bombers plunging in steep dives, and the Zero fighters caroming in after them from all points of the compass at mast-high levels.

  Approximately two hours after the first explosion the battle was over.

  The torpedo-bombing attack has been vividly described by one participant, Chief Flight Petty Officer Juzo Mori of the carrier Soryu:

  “The assigned objectives of the Soryu torpedo bombers were the American battleships which we expected to find anchored along the wharf of the Oahu Naval Arsenal. We dropped in for our attack at high speed and low altitude and, when I was almost in position to release my own torpedo, I realized that the enemy warship toward which I was headed was not a battleship at all, but a cruiser. My flight position was directly behind Lieutenant Tsuyoshi Nagai, and we flew directly over Oahu Island before descending for our attack.

  “Lieutenant Nagai continued his torpedo run against the cruiser, despite our original plan to attack the enemy battleships. However, I did not expect to survive this attack, since I and all the other pilots anticipated heavy enemy resistance. If I were going to die, I thought, I wanted to know that I had torpedoed at least an American battleship.

  “The attack of the Soryu*s planes was met with intense antiaircraft fire from the enemy fleet, since the bombing waves from the Akagi and the Kaga had already passed over. My bomber shook and vibrated from the impact of enemy machine-gun bullets and shrapnel. Despite my intention of swinging away from the cruiser, now dead ahead of my plane, and attacking the group of battleships anchored near Ford Island, I was forced to fly directly forward into a murderous rain of antiaircraft fire.

  “Because of this and the surrounding topography, I flew directly over the enemy battleships along Ford Island, and then banked into a wide left turn. The antiaircraft fire did not seem to affect the plane’s performance, and I chose as my new objective a battleship anchored some distance from the main group of vessels which were at the moment undergoing torpedo attack from the Soryu*s planes. The warship separated from the main enemy group appeared to be the only battleship yet undamaged.

  “I swung low and put my plane into satisfactory torpedoing condition. It was imperative that my bombing approach be absolutely correct, as I had been warned that the harbor depth was no more than thirty-four feet. The slightest deviation in speed or height would send the released torpedo plunging into the sea bottom, or jumping above the water, and all our effort would go for nought.

  “By this time I was hardly conscious of what I was doing. I was reacting from habit instilled by long training, moving like an automaton.

  “Three thousand feet! Twenty-five hundred feet! Two thousand feet!

  “Suddenly the battleship appeared to have leaped forward directly in front of my speeding plane; it towered ahead of the bomber like a great mountain peak.

  “Prepare for release.... Stand by!

  “Release torpedo!

  “All this time I was oblivious of the enemy’s antiaircraft fire and the distracting thunder of my plane’s motor. I concentrated on nothing but the approach and the torpedo release. At the right moment I pulled back on the release with all my strength. The plane lurched and faltered as antiaircraft struck the wings and fuselage; my head snapped back and I felt as though a heavy beam had struck against my head.

  “But... I’ve got itl A perfect release! “And the plane is still flying! The torpedo will surely hit its target; the release was exact. At that instant I seemed to come to my senses and became aware of my position and of the flashing tracers and shells of the enemy’s defensive batteries.

  “After launching the torpedo, I flew directly over the enemy battleship and again swung into a wide, circling turn. I crossed over the southern tip of Ford Island.

  ‘To conceal the position of our carrier, as we had been instructed to do, I turned again and took a course due south, directly opposite the Soryu's true position, and pushed the plane to its maximum speed. Now that the attack was over, I was acutely conscious that the enemy antiaircraft fire was bracketing and smashing into my bomber. The enemy shells appeared to be coming from all directions, and I was so frightened that before I left the target area my clothes were soaking with perspiration.

  Kate torpedo bomber on its attack run at Pearl Harbor; this was the aircraft type flown by Chief Flight Petty Officer Juzo Mori of the carrier Soryu.

  “In another few moments the air was clear. The enemy shells had stopped. Thinking that now I had safely escaped, and could return to the carrier, I began to turn to head back to the Soryu. Suddenly there was an enemy plane directly in front of me!

  “As my plane, the Type 97 carrier-based attack bomber, was armed only with a single rearward-firing 7.7-mm. machine gun, it was almost helpless in aerial combat. I thought that surely this time my end had come.

  “As long as I was going to die, I reasoned, I would take the enemy plane with me to my death. I swung the bomber over hard and headed directly for the enemy aircraft, the pilot of which appeared startled at my maneuver, and fled! Is this, really, I questioned, what is called war?”2

  Before the savage strike against Pearl Harbor ended, the Japanese counted their losses as five torpedo and 15 dive bombers. Along with these aircraft, another nine planes were lost—the first Zero fighters to be shot down in combat since the airplane’s combat debut 16 months earlier in China.

  Among the casualties was Lieutenant Fusata Iida, the squadron leader of Zero fighters from carrier Soryu. Iida led the 3rd Covering Fighters Squadron of nine fighters, which struck in the second wave of the assault. Near the Kaneohe Air Field the Zeros mixed it up in a brawl with defending American fighters, resulting in swift losses for the defense. With the sky clear the Zeros rushed earthward to strafe the field. Lieutenant (JG) Iyozo Fuji-ta, second section leader in the formation, relates the events that caused the loss of Iida:

  “When our planes machine-gunned the airfield at Kaneohe, I looked for but failed to see any antiaircraft guns on the field. Later, however,
when all the fighters assembled their formations over the field I noticed a white spray of gasoline shooting out from Lieutenant Iida’s plane. There appeared to be no other damage to his fighter, and I assumed he would be able to return to the carrier.

  “Such was not the case, however. Lieutenant Iida circled over the Kaneohe Air Field until he was sure that all our fighters were assembled in formation. Then, and only then, he closed his cockpit canopy and began to descend toward the airfield. Suddenly the Zero whipped over into an inverted position and dove vertically for the enemy positions below.

  “Thinking that he was going to make another strafing run on the field, I immediately began a wingover to follow his plane down. I realized abruptly, however, that Lieutenant Iida was flying in a most unusual manner, quite different from his usual tactics. I watched his plane as it dove in its vertical, inverted position until it exploded on the ground between the Kaneohe airfield hangars.”3

  AMERICAN

  The exact sequence of events as air combat took place over Pearl Harbor, and in the airspace surrounding the stricken naval bastion, remains forever locked within the chaos and confusion of that day. While it is true that the Japanese scored a stunning victory over our air and naval units, and that the Japanese were for the most part little bothered with aerial opposition, it is true also that those pilots who did get into the air did well by themselves and their nation. The fighting was sparse, it was wildly and widely scattered; nonetheless, it was lethal, and it resulted in the loss in the air of both Japanese and American aircraft.

  In the light of what happened that day, with the lightning-swift effectiveness of the Japanese strikes, the performance of the AAF’s fighter pilots is all the more commendable. The Navy crews who were shot down by Zero fighters on December 7 were hit with all the devastating effectiveness of skilled and experienced Japanese pilots who rushed to the kill. Defensive action had to be instantaneous or it was worthless; as the record has indicated, there is no evidence that even a single shot was fired by the destroyed Navy aircraft as they were gunned from the skies.

  The AAF pilots had time in their favor, even if that time could be measured on some occasions in bare minutes. And that is exactly what the crews in the Navy aircraft lacked—the precious moments in which to react to a situation that was totally unexpected.

  There were dozens of Army pilots who fairly screamed at their mechanics to ready their planes for immediate takeoff. Urgency and desire are no substitute, however, for the minimum four hours’ notice that was required to rearm and to fuel the fighter planes that had been so disastrously bunched together and rendered helpless for flight. There were plenty of pilots, most of whom suffered from lack of airplanes to carry the fight into the air.

  The few men who did manage to become airborne engaged in a hazardous adventure simply to take their fighters off the ground. Some of these pilots went up several times, and among them they managed to fly a total of approximately 25 sorties against the Japanese. The most effective defense was carried out by a group of pilots of the 47th Squadron, 15th Pursuit Group, who by good fortune had spent the entire night engaged in a poker game; thus they were awake and together when the Japanese struck the area.

  The five men—Lieutenants Harry M. Brown, Robert J. Rogers, Kenneth A. Taylor, John J. Webster, and George S. Welch—were still at their poker party at Wheeler Field when the Japanese arrived. The room in which they were playing filled with the roar of 30 Japanese dive bombers passing directly overhead; soon afterward the earth heaved with the bellowing crump of exploding bombs.

  Eight miles from Wheeler was the small field of Haleiwa, which escaped the heavy lash of the Japanese strikes. The men called the training field, ordering whatever airplanes were available to be made ready for takeoff immediately on their arrival. They piled into the first automobile outside their poker room and survived a mad, careening dash to their training field. On their arrival they found two P-40 fighters ready and waiting, the engines warmed up and propellers spinning. Each fighter had operative only four .30-caliber machine guns; George Welch and Kenneth Taylor clambered swiftly into the Tomahawk fighters. Twenty minutes after the first bomb exploded, the two fighters were racing down the runway.

  Welch and Taylor climbed swiftly, and they found combat waiting for them even as they pulled their fighters up to the altitude of the enemy planes. They cut over Barber’s Point and then rushed at 12 dive bombers circling Ewa Marine air base; the Japanese planes were carrying out a leisurely pattern of strafing, pulling up and wheeling around, and diving again to strafe the field.

  The Tomahawks tore into the rear of the Japanese planes. On their first pass, Welch poured his fire into the fuel tanks of an Aichi bomber; the plane burst into flames and spun wildly into the ground. Almost immediately afterward another explosion rattled the sky as Taylor’s guns poured bullets into a second dive bomber and shot apart the fuel tanks.

  The two fighters turned sharply to come back in again for a second pass at the Japanese; on the turn Taylor saw an Aichi heading out to sea. Taylor wracked around in a steep bank and dove under full power at the fleeing bomber, his bullets streamed into the plane and it tumbled crazily to explode in the surf. Behind him, George Welch hammered at his second target. The Japanese bomber made it two each destroyed for the American pilots when it disappeared in a roaring blast.

  Things began to fall apart swiftly for Welch at that moment. One of his four guns jammed, and bullets rained against the airplane. The next instant an incendiary bullet slammed into the cockpit; Welch hauled back on the stick and shot upward into the relatively calm air above the clouds. He paused only long enough to assess the damage, and dove headlong back into the fight. He saw Taylor riddling one bomber until it veered sharply in the air and faltered; even as Taylor swung from that plane to attack another in its strafing run, Welch joined him by rushing against another bomber.

  Both pilots scored again. Welch’s target flipped through the air and exploded on impact with the ground. The plane attacked by Taylor dove away from the fight and headed out to sea, trailing a thin plume of smoke.

  By now they were out of ammunition and running low on fuel. The Tomahawks weaved through the thickening barrage of their own antiaircraft fire and thumped down to landings at Wheeler. They shouted at the mechanics for more ammunition and fuel. Immediately two men dashed into the midst of a huge blaze in a hangar, staggering out again with cartridge belts and ammunition boxes. Other mechanics poured fuel into their tanks.

  Officers on the scene advised Welch and Taylor against going up again; Japanese planes were thick and black in the sky. But there were also 15 dive bombers headed directly for Wheeler, and the only way to save the two precious fighters was to get them off the ground before the Japanese struck.

  The takeoff proved to be both harrowing and almost fatal. Welch gunned his fighter and thundered down the runway, straight into the teeth of the diving enemy formation. Three Japanese planes picked him out for their special target and wove a glistening web of tracers into and about the Tomahawk. Welch banged rudder and stick violently, sailed through the worst of the enemy fire, and broke into the clear. He swerved sharply to observe Taylor fighting desperately for altitude; the Tomahawk was still low and slow and, at this point in takeoff, vulnerable to attack. A Japanese plane was glued to Taylor’s fighter, pouring lead steadily into the airplane. Welch came around in a screaming dive and picked off the Japanese ship; it burst into flames and immediately smashed into the ground, disappearing in a rolling blast.

  But the Japanese also had scored. With a bullet wound in his arm, Taylor staggered around the field in his riddled airplane. He brought the Tomahawk in for a safe landing, but was out of the fight.

  Welch had taken several direct hits from the rear gunner of the dive bomber he had shot off Taylor’s fighter. Japanese bullets had pounded into the propeller, the engine, and the cowling of Welch’s Tomahawk. Despite the damage, the airplane responded well to the controls, and Welch went grimly off in
search of more Japanese. He didn’t have far to look; near Ewa Field he ran into an enemy plane that turned sharply away from him and dashed out to sea. Welch caught up with the Japanese five miles offshore, closed in to short range, and sent the enemy plane tumbling into the ocean.

  Welch returned from this engagement to Haleiwa; he had now flown two sorties and had shot down four enemy planes. As quickly as his fighter could be rearmed and refueled, he streaked down the runway for a third crack at the Japanese. Flying with him as wingman in a Curtiss P-36 Mohawk fighter was Lieutenant John L. Dains. This was also Dains’ third sortie for the morning; he had been up previously once in another P-36 and once in a P-40, and had damaged several enemy aircraft.

  The third time into the air for the two pilots was ill fated—but not because of the Japanese. By now the antiaircraft was both extremely heavy and, especially, wildly indiscriminate. Gunners were shooting at anything they saw in the sky, making little attempt in the flaming bedlam and explosions that rocked the area to separate friend from foe. A burst of antiaircraft fire tore apart the P-36 fighter in which Dains flew; his airplane cartwheeled crazily from the sky, carrying Dains to his death (he was the only pilot of the six men taking off from Haleiwa that day to be killed).

  Welch managed to evade the deadly barrage that had killed Dains; no sooner had he fled the bursting shells than another storm of antiaircraft fire from Pearl Harbor bracketed his fighter, spattering it with steel. Welch ran for his life, dropped down low, and managed (through a storm of antiaircraft) to work his way back to a landing at Wheeler.