About 4:00 A.M. another alarm went direct to Colonel Fielder in the intelligence office at Fort Shafter: Someone was signaling with a blue light up behind the base. Fielder grabbed a pistol, a helmet, and a sentry. Sure enough, a light was flashing up the mountain. He called for reinforcements, and the squad deployed through buffalo grass … crossed a stream … surrounded the area … and moved in. Two elderly farmers were milking a cow, using a blue light as instructed. A palm frond, swaying in the breeze, occasionally hid the light and made it look like secret code.
Colonel Fielder couldn’t know it, but the danger was all over. Oahu was perfectly safe this gusty, squally night.
The Islands’ 160,000 people of Japanese blood pulled no sabotage, probably no important espionage. Even Dr. Mori’s phone call to Tokyo Friday night — when he talked so mysteriously of poinsettias, hibiscuses, and chrysanthemums — may have been aboveboard. He always claimed it was just an atmosphere piece for the Tokyo newspaper Yomiuri Shinbun, and certainly the interview did appear in the paper the following morning — complete with reference to flowers. Actually, Consul General Kita didn’t need outside intelligence help — he had more than 200 consular agents, and he himself could get a perfect view of the fleet any time he chose to take a ten-minute drive.
Nor was there any danger from the great Japanese task force north of Oahu. Admiral Nagumo’s ships were 500 miles away … pounding silently home … steaming through heavy mist, slightly south of their outbound course. The crews were strangely quiet. Down in the Akagi’s engine room, Commander Tanbo’s men didn’t even take a ceremonial drink of sake. He later learned this was typical — the men whooped it up only over the small, insignificant victories; the big ones always left them sober and reflective.
The Japanese submarines south of Oahu were no threat either. Most of them had lapsed into the role of observers. Comander Katsuji Watanabe casually studied Pearl Harbor from the conning tower of the I-69, lying several miles off shore. He watched the flames still licking the Arizona and at 9: 01 P.M. noted a heavy explosion aboard her. This respite was welcome, for the commander had spent a hard day dodging destroyers. Some of them probably thought they had sunk him, for Watanabe was a master at deception. He would pump out made-to-order oil slicks; and as final, conclusive evidence of his destruction, he liked to jettison Japanese sandals into the sea.
Lieutenant Hashimoto aboard the I-24 reflected on the change one day had made in the shoreline. The twinkling lights were all gone; Oahu was now just a gloomy shadow. The I-24 turned east and hurried off for her rendezvous with Ensign Sakamaki’s midget. The whole Special Attack Unit was to reassemble at a point seven miles southwest of Lanai, and one by one the mother subs arrived. All night long they waited, riding gently up and down in the ocean swell within easy sight of each other. No midgets ever appeared.
On the I-24 it was discovered that Sakamaki never expected to come back. His belongings were neatly rolled up; his farewell note (with the fingernail and lock of hair) lay ready to be mailed. There were complete instructions what to do, including some yen for the postage.
But Sakamaki was not dead. After his collapse at dusk, the midget cruised lazily eastward by itself. At some point he must have recovered long enough to surface and open the hatch. In any case, when he finally came to around midnight, he noticed first the moonlight, then a soothing breeze that filtered down from above. He poked his head out the hatch and gulped the cool night air.
Seaman Inagaki woke up and also took a few deep breaths. But he was still groggy and soon fell back to sleep. Sakamaki stayed awake, drinking in the night, letting the sub go where it wanted. The sea wasn’t rough, but an occasional wave washed his face. Stars twinkled through the drifting clouds, and moonlight danced off the water. He began having dangerous thoughts for a man on a suicide mission: he got to thinking it was good to be alive.
About dawn the motor stopped, and the midget just drifted. As the light grew brighter, Sakamaki saw a small island to the left. He decided it was Lanai — a remarkable display of faith in the sub’s ability to steer itself. Actually, the boat had drifted far off course, rounded the eastern end of Oahu, and was now heading northwest along the windward side of the island.
Sakamaki shook Inagaki awake and pointed out the land — they might still be in time for the rendezvous. He ordered full speed ahead. The sub started and stopped … started and stopped again. White smoke poured from the batteries; they were just about shot. Sakamaki waited a few minutes (like a man attempting to start a car on a low battery) and tried again. Nothing happened. Once more. The motor caught, and the midget bolted ahead. Almost instantly there was another jolt … a frightful scraping … a shuddering stop. They had run her onto a reef again.
This time they were stuck for good. There was nothing to do but scuttle the sub. It carried explosives for just this emergency, and Sakamaki quickly lit the fuse. For a few seconds he and Inagaki watched it sputter, to make sure it didn’t go out. Then they scrambled up the hatch.
They climbed out on the cigar-shaped hull, wearing only G-string and loincloth. The moon was sinking in the west, a new day lighting up the eastern sky. Around them the surf foamed and pounded. About 200 yards ahead they could just make out a dark, empty beach. Sakamaki had a final pang of conscience — shouldn’t he stay with the midget … was this the way of a naval officer? Then he thought, why not try to live; he was not a weapon but a human being. He bade the sub good-bye, almost as though it were a person: “We’re leaving now — explode gloriously.”
He dived into, the sea about 6:40 A.M. — his watch, which he had loyally kept on Tokyo time, stopped at 2:10. The water was colder than he expected, the waves higher than they looked. They spun him helplessly about as he struck out for shore. Inagaki had jumped with him but was nowhere to be seen. Sakamaki hailed him, and a voice called back, “Sir, I’m over here.” Sakamaki finally spied a head bobbing up and down in the combers. He yelled a few words of encouragement, but no one knows whether Inagaki heard. His drowned body later washed up on the beach.
As Sakamaki struggled through the surf, he realized that the charge had not gone off in the sub. Five … ten minutes passed. The hideous truth dawned — on this too he had failed. He wanted to swim back but just couldn’t make it. He had lost all his strength. He no longer swam at all. He just swirled about — coughing, swallowing, spitting up salt water. He was utterly helpless. Everything went blank.
When he came to, he was lying on the beach near Bellows Field, apparently cast up on the sand by a breaker. He glanced up into the curious eyes of an American soldier standing beside him. Sergeant David M. Akui was on guard, packing a pistol at his hip. The war that was just beginning for so many men had just ended for Prisoner of War Kazuo Sakamaki.
At this moment it was 12:20 P.M. in Washington, D.C., and ten highly polished black limousines were just entering the Capitol grounds. The first was convoyed by three huge touring cars, nicknamed Leviathan, Queen Mary, and Normandie. These were filled with Secret Service men guarding President Franklin D. Roosevelt, who was on his way to ask Congress to declare war on the Japanese Empire.
The cars stopped at the south entrance of the Capitol, and the President got out, assisted by his son Jimmy. Roosevelt wore his familiar Navy cape, Jimmy the uniform of a Marine captain. Applause rippled from a crowd that stood behind sawhorse barricades in the pale noonday sun. The President paused, smiled, and waved back. It was not his campaign wave — this was no time for that — but it wasn’t funereal either. He seemed trying to strike a balance between gravity and optimism.
The Presidential party moved into the Capitol, and the crowd lapsed back into silence. Here and there little knots clustered about the portable radios which the more enterprising remembered to bring. All were facing the Capitol, although they couldn’t possibly see what was going on inside. They seemed to feel that by studying the building itself, a little history might somehow rub off onto them.
Like the President, the people were nei
ther boisterous nor depressed. They had seen movies of the cheering multitudes that are supposed to gather outside chancelleries whenever war is declared, but they didn’t feel that way at all. Occasionally someone made an awkward, halfhearted attempt to follow the script. “Gee,” said a teenage girl, clinging to a bespectacled, rather unbelligerent-looking sailor, “ain’t there some way a woman can get into this thing?”
It was almost painful, yet it was typical. Like the men at Pearl, who kept linking their experiences to football and the movies, the people had nothing better to go by. A nation brought up on peace was going to war and didn’t know how.
Ever since the news broke early Sunday afternoon, they had groped none too successfully for the right note to strike. “Happy Landings!” cried a man who phoned a Detroit paper for confirmation — and the editor detected the tone of false gaiety. “Gotta whip those Japs!” a Kansas City newsboy chanted self-consciously as he passed out extras. And at Herbert’s Drive-Inn Bar in the San Fernando Valley, a customer pulled one of a thousand forced, flat jokes: “You guys with Japanese gardeners — how do you feel now?”
Along with the awkwardness went a naïveté which must have seemed strange to the more sophisticated warring nations of the world. The Vassar faculty passed a resolution formally offering its “special training” to the service of the country. A Washington cab-driver phoned the White House, offering to carry any government worker to his job free — a proposal likely to astonish any official who did time in Washington during the ensuing years. Members of the Pilgrim Congregational Church in St. Louis debated whether to bomb Tokyo, decided not to — “we’re a people of higher ideals.” A man in Atlanta wired Secretary of Navy Frank Knox to hold Japanese envoy Kurusu until all Navy officers on Wake were released, and ex-Ambassador to Russia Joseph Davies seriously discussed the possibilities of using Vladivostok as a base.
But most people didn’t worry about bases; they were sure the United States could defeat Japan with absurd case. The country at large still regarded the Japanese as ineffectual little brown men who were good at imitating Occidentals but couldn’t do much on their own. “I didn’t think the Japs had the nerve,” said Sergeant Robert McCallum when interviewed on a Louisville street corner. As reports spread of disquietingly heavy damage at Pearl Harbor, many agreed with Professor Roland G. Usher, a German authority and head of the History Department at Washington University in St. Louis-Hitler’s Luftwaffe may have helped the Japanese out.
But rising above the awkwardness, the naïveté, and the over-confidence ran one surging emotion — fury. The day might come when formal declarations of war would seem old-fashioned, when the surprise move would become a stock weapon in any country’s arsenal, but not yet. In December, 1941, Americans expected an enemy to announce its intentions before it fought, and Japan’s move — coming while her envoys were still negotiating in Washington — outraged the people far beyond the concept of any worldly-wise policymaker in Tokyo.
Later, Americans would argue bitterly about Pearl Harbor — they would even hurl dark charges of incompetence and conspiracy at one another — but on this day there was no argument whatsoever.
Young Senator Cabot Lodge of Massachusetts had been an ardent “neutralist” (just a month earlier he had voted against allowing U.S. merchant ships to enter Allied ports), but right after he learned of Pearl Harbor from a filling-station attendant, he was on the air … urging all Americans, no matter how isolationist they might have been, to unite against the attack. Senator Arthur Vandenberg of Michigan, leader of the isolationist bloc, had heard the news in his bedroom, where he was pasting up clippings about his long, hard fight against U.S. involvement in the war. He immediately phoned the White House, assuring President Roosevelt that whatever their differences, he would support the President in his answer to Japan.
It was the same with the press. The isolationist, rabidly anti-Roosevelt Los Angeles Times bannered its lead editorial, “Death Sentence of a Mad Dog.” Some papers tried to prod isolationist leaders into controversial statements, but none were coming. Senator Burton Wheeler of Montana, for instance, snapped back, “The only thing now is to do our best to lick hell out of them.”
And the sooner the better. There was an overwhelming urge to get going, even though no one knew where the road might lead. At Fort Sam Houston, Texas, Brigadier General Dwight D. Eisenhower got the word as he tried to catch up on his sleep after weeks of long, tough field maneuvers. He was dead tired, had left orders not to be disturbed, but the phone rang and his wife heard him say, “Yes? … When? … I’ll be right down.” As he rushed off to duty, he told Mrs. Eisenhower the news, said he was going to headquarters, and added that he had no idea when he would be back.
The Capitol swelled with the same spirit of angry unity and urgency as the Senators filed into the House Chamber to hear the President’s war message. Democratic leader Alben Barkley arrived arm in arm with GOP leader Charles McNary; Democrat Elmer Thomas of Oklahoma linked arms with the old isolationist Senator Hiram Johnson of California.
Next the Supreme Court marched in, wearing their black robes, and then the members of the Cabinet. Down front sat the top military leaders, General Marshall and Admiral Stark. Farther back, five Congressmen held children in their laps, lending the curious touch of a family gathering. In the gallery Mrs. Roosevelt, wearing black with a silver fox fur, peeked from behind a girder — she had one of the worst seats in the House. Not far away sat an important link with the past — Mrs. Woodrow Wilson.
At 12:29 P.M. President Roosevelt entered, still on Jimmy’s arm. There was applause … a brief introduction by Speaker Sam Rayburn … and the President, dressed in formal morning attire, stood alone at the rostrum. He opened a black loose leaf notebook — the sort a child uses at school — and the Chamber gave him a resounding ovation. For the first time in nine years Republicans joined in, and Roosevelt seemed to sense the electric anger that swept the country, as he grasped the rostrum and began:
Yesterday, December 7, 1941 — a date which will live in infamy — the United States of America was suddenly and deliberately attacked ….
The speech was over in six minutes and war voted in less than an hour, but the real job was done in the first ten seconds. “Infamy” was the note that struck home, the word that welded the country together until the war was won.
FACTS ABOUT THE ATTACK
MOST AMERICANS CAUGHT IN the Japanese attack on Oahu went through successive stages of shock, fear, and anger — a poor climate indeed for pinning down exactly what happened. And even about the basic statistics it’s dangerous to be dogmatic. There are different ways of counting things: should, for instance, an obsolete airplane that is out of commission anyhow be counted as “destroyed by the enemy”? Keeping these cautions in mind, here are the answers to some basic questions that are bound to arise:
How many ships were in Pearl Harbor? Best answer seems to be 96. Most maps show 90 ships, but omit the Ontario, Condor, Crossbill, Cockatoo, Pyro, and the old Baltimore.
What was U.S. air strength? Some 394 planes, according to Congressional investigation, but many were obsolete or being repaired. Available aircraft: Army —93 fighters, 35 bombers, 11 observation; Navy — 15 fighters, 61 patrol planes, 36 scout planes, 45 miscellaneous.
How big was the Japanese Striking Force? There were 31 ships — six carriers, two battleships, two heavy cruisers, one light cruiser, nine destroyers, three submarines, eight tankers. Air strength — 432 planes used as follows: 39 for combat air patrol, 40 for reserve, 353 for the raid.
What was the strength of the Japanese Advance Expeditionary Force? Probably 28 submarines — 11 with small planes, five with the famous midget subs. (The Congressional investigation set the figure at 20, but this is too low, according to the Japanese.)
When did various events occur? Most reliable sources agree the raid began about 7:55 A.M., ended shortly before 10 o’clock. At Pearl and Hickam few noticed the five neat phases spelled out in the CINCPAC Offic
ial Report. To the men it was a continuing battle, flaring up and down in intensity, with a 15-minute lull around eight-thirty. The most stunning single moment — the Arizona blowing up — seems to have taken place about 8:10. Some eyewitnesses feel that the explosion came at the very start of the attack, yet this couldn’t be so, judging from the experiences of the five Arizona survivors who were located.
In fixing the time for various events, this book depends on both official records and the memory of eyewitnesses. Neither source is infallible. Logs and reports were sometimes worked up long after the event, and in the excitement of battle a fighting man could lose all track of time.
The time range at the top of each left-hand page is intended only as a rough guide. Some incidents necessarily start before or continue beyond the period indicated.
What were the American casualties? Navy — 2008 killed, 710 wounded, according to the Navy Bureau of Medicine. Marines — 109 killed, 69 wounded, according to Corps Headquarters. Army —218 killed, 364 wounded, according to Adjutant General’s figures. Civilian — 68 killed, 35 wounded, according to the University of Hawaii War Records Depository. Of the 2403 killed, nearly half were lost when the Arizona blew up.
What was the damage? At Pearl Harbor 18 ships were sunk or seriously damaged. Lost: battleships Arizona and Oklahoma, target ship Utah, destroyers Cassin and Downes. Sunk or beached but later salvaged: battleships West Virginia, California, and Nevada; mine layer Oglala. Damaged: battleships Tennessee, Maryland, and Pennsylvania; cruisers Helena, Honolulu, and Raleigh; destroyer Shaw; seaplane tender Curtiss; repair ship Vestal.
At the airfields 188 planes were destroyed — 96 Army and 92 Navy. An additional 128 Army and 31 Navy planes were damaged. Hardest-hit airfields were Kaneohe and Ewa. Of the 82 planes caught at these two fields, only one was in shape to fly at the end of the raid.