Two Hours At Pearl
71 Years Ago Today, U.S. Attacked
Posted: December 7, 2012
On April 18, 1943, Adm. Isoroku Yamamoto died at the hands of Army Air Corps 1st Lt. Rex Barber. Flying a P-38 Lightning, Barber shot down the admiral’s transport plane while he was touring Japanese positions in the Solomon Islands. Operation Vengeance the plan was called.
It was just one act of vengeance for what Yamamoto had conceived and executed on Dec. 7, 1941: the sneak attack on Pearl Harbor. The two-hour mission was set in motion five days earlier. Admiral Chuichi Nagumo, of the Japanese Imperial Fleet, was aboard his flagship, Akagi, and traveling toward Hawaii, when Yamamoto sent him the code words to attack: “Climb Mount Niitaka.” When the attack was finished, the code words were “Tora, Tora, Tora.” They meant that American military forces at Pearl Harbor were completely surprised.
The Japanese attacked Pearl in two waves: 183 Japanese aircraft attacked in the first; 171 in the second. The Japanese fleet consisted of six aircraft carriers, two battleships, two heavy cruisers, one light cruiser, nine destroyers and more.
The result? Four American battleships were sunk; four more were damaged. Two destroyers went down and another was damaged. The Japanese air assault also damaged three cruisers and destroyed 188 planes. More importantly, 2,402 American military personnel were killed, along with 57 civilians.
Americans were enraged. The America First Committee, which lobbied to keep America out of the war in Europe and included a wide array of luminaries such as Presidents John F. Kennedy and Gerald Ford, Associate Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart, American aviator Charles Lindbergh and animator Walt Disney, disbanded on Dec. 11. Franklin Roosevelt famously declared Dec. 7 a “date which will live in infamy.”
What the Japanese did not understand, although Adm. Yamamoto apparently did, was the fate that would befall their nation. Even if he didn’t utter the famous words attributed to him, he may well have wished he had: “I fear all we have done is to awaken a sleeping giant and fill him with a terrible resolve.” Indeed. Long before
Yamamoto’s plane crashed into the jungle on Bougainville, the United States had begun its march on the trail of revenge: Midway, Coral Sea and Guadalcanal in 1942; Tarawa and Cape Gloucester in 1943; Guam, Saipan and Leyte Gulf in 1944. Iwo Jima and then Okinawa in 1945.
Then came the ultimate retribution. While Lt. Col. Jimmy Doolittle bombed Tokyo in 1942, his 30 seconds over the empire’s capital did little damage and was largely a symbolic attack in retaliation for Pearl Harbor. The real bombing began in 1945. The most devastating attack occurred March 9-10, when 279 B-29 Superfortresses dropped 1,700 tons of bombs on Tokyo. More than 100,000 died in the firestorm. In August, American air forces delivered their final blows. Two atomic bombs erased Hiroshima and Nagasaki on Aug. 6 and Aug. 9. Some 200,000 Japanese, mostly civilians, were killed. Gen. Douglas MacArthur accepted Japan’s unconditional surrender on Sept. 2.
The Japanese were likely as surprised on Aug. 6, 1945 as Americans were 71 years ago today. That may only prove the future is thoroughly unpredictable once the dogs of war are unleashed. Adm. Yamamato undoubtedly understood that, and would not have been surprised had he lived to see the end of the war that began on his orders.
It was just one act of vengeance for what Yamamoto had conceived and executed on Dec. 7, 1941: the sneak attack on Pearl Harbor. The two-hour mission was set in motion five days earlier. Admiral Chuichi Nagumo, of the Japanese Imperial Fleet, was aboard his flagship, Akagi, and traveling toward Hawaii, when Yamamoto sent him the code words to attack: “Climb Mount Niitaka.” When the attack was finished, the code words were “Tora, Tora, Tora.” They meant that American military forces at Pearl Harbor were completely surprised.
The Japanese attacked Pearl in two waves: 183 Japanese aircraft attacked in the first; 171 in the second. The Japanese fleet consisted of six aircraft carriers, two battleships, two heavy cruisers, one light cruiser, nine destroyers and more.
The result? Four American battleships were sunk; four more were damaged. Two destroyers went down and another was damaged. The Japanese air assault also damaged three cruisers and destroyed 188 planes. More importantly, 2,402 American military personnel were killed, along with 57 civilians.
Americans were enraged. The America First Committee, which lobbied to keep America out of the war in Europe and included a wide array of luminaries such as Presidents John F. Kennedy and Gerald Ford, Associate Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart, American aviator Charles Lindbergh and animator Walt Disney, disbanded on Dec. 11. Franklin Roosevelt famously declared Dec. 7 a “date which will live in infamy.”
What the Japanese did not understand, although Adm. Yamamoto apparently did, was the fate that would befall their nation. Even if he didn’t utter the famous words attributed to him, he may well have wished he had: “I fear all we have done is to awaken a sleeping giant and fill him with a terrible resolve.” Indeed. Long before
Yamamoto’s plane crashed into the jungle on Bougainville, the United States had begun its march on the trail of revenge: Midway, Coral Sea and Guadalcanal in 1942; Tarawa and Cape Gloucester in 1943; Guam, Saipan and Leyte Gulf in 1944. Iwo Jima and then Okinawa in 1945.
Then came the ultimate retribution. While Lt. Col. Jimmy Doolittle bombed Tokyo in 1942, his 30 seconds over the empire’s capital did little damage and was largely a symbolic attack in retaliation for Pearl Harbor. The real bombing began in 1945. The most devastating attack occurred March 9-10, when 279 B-29 Superfortresses dropped 1,700 tons of bombs on Tokyo. More than 100,000 died in the firestorm. In August, American air forces delivered their final blows. Two atomic bombs erased Hiroshima and Nagasaki on Aug. 6 and Aug. 9. Some 200,000 Japanese, mostly civilians, were killed. Gen. Douglas MacArthur accepted Japan’s unconditional surrender on Sept. 2.
The Japanese were likely as surprised on Aug. 6, 1945 as Americans were 71 years ago today. That may only prove the future is thoroughly unpredictable once the dogs of war are unleashed. Adm. Yamamato undoubtedly understood that, and would not have been surprised had he lived to see the end of the war that began on his orders.