Pearl Harbor Attack Essay, Research Paper

The Pearl Harbor Attack, 7 December 1941

Related Resources:

Ships Present at Pearl Harbor, 0800 7 December 1941

Action Reports for commands and ships at Pearl Harbor

Pearl Harbor Attack message

Cryptologic Histories relating to the Pearl Harbor Attack

Related Web Sites on the Pearl Harbor Attack

The road to war between Japan and the United States began in the 1930s when differences over China drove the two

nations apart. In 1931 Japan conquered Manchuria, which until then had been part of China. In 1937 Japan began a

long and ultimately unsuccessful campaign to conquer the rest of China. In 1940, the Japanese government allied their

country with Nazi Germany in the Axis Alliance, and, in the following year, occupied all of Indochina.

The United States, which had important political and economic interests in East Asia, was alarmed by these Japanese

moves. The U.S. increased military and financial aid to China, embarked on a program of strengthening its military

power in the Pacific, and cut off the shipment of oil and other raw materials to Japan.

Because Japan was poor in natural resources, its government viewed these steps, especially the embargo on oil as a

threat to the nation’s survival. Japan’s leaders responded by resolving to seize the resource-rich territories of Southeast

Asia, even though that move would certainly result in war with the United States.

The problem with the plan was the danger posed by the U.S. Pacific Fleet based at Pearl Harbor. Admiral Isoroku

Yamamoto, commander of the Japanese fleet, devised a plan to immobilize the U.S. fleet at the outset of the war with

a surprise attack.

The key elements in Yamamoto’s plans were meticulous preparation, the achievement of surprise, and the use of

aircraft carriers and naval aviation on an unprecedented scale. In the spring of 1941, Japanese carrier pilots began

training in the special tactics called for by the Pearl Harbor attack plan.

In October 1941 the naval general staff gave final approval to Yamamoto’s plan, which called for the formation of an

attack force commanded by Vice Admiral Chuichi Nagumo. It centered around six heavy aircraft carriers

accompanied by 24 supporting vessels. A separate group of submarines was to sink any American warships which

escaped the Japanese carrier force.

Nagumo’s fleet assembled in the remote anchorage of Tankan Bay in the Kurile Islands and departed in strictest

secrecy for Hawaii on 26 November 1941. The ships’ route crossed the North Pacific and avoided normal shipping

lanes. At dawn 7 December 1941, the task force had approached undetected to a point slightly more than 200 miles

north of Oahu.

At 6:00 a.m., the six carriers launched a first wave of 181 planes composed of torpedo bombers, dive bombers,

horizontal bombers and fighters. Even as they winged south, some elements of U.S. forces on Oahu realized there was

something different about this Sunday morning.

In the hours before dawn, U.S. Navy vessels spotted an unidentified submarine periscope near the entrance to Pearl

Harbor. It was attacked and reported sunk by the destroyer USS Ward (DD-139) and a patrol plane. At 7:00 a.m.,

an alert operator of an Army radar station at Opana spotted the approaching first wave of the attack force. The

officers to whom those reports were relayed did not consider them significant enough to take action. The report of the

submarine sinking was handled routinely, and the radar sighting was passed off as an approaching group of American

planes due to arrive that morning.

The Japanese aircrews achieved complete surprise when they hit American ships and military installations on Oahu

shortly before 8:00 a.m. They attacked military airfields at the same time they hit the fleet anchored in Pearl Harbor.

The Navy air bases at Ford Island and Kaneohe Bay, the Marine airfield at Ewa and the Army Air Corps fields at

Bellows, Wheeler and Hickam were all bombed and strafed as other elements of the attacking force began their

assaults on the ships moored in Pearl Harbor. The purpose of the simultaneous attacks was to destroy the American

planes before they could rise to intercept the Japanese.

Of the more than 90 ships at anchor in Pearl Harbor, the primary targets were the eight battleships anchored there.

seven were moored on Battleship Row along the southeast shore of Ford Island while the USS Pennsylvania

(BB-38) lay in drydock across the channel. Within the first minutes of the attack all the battleships adjacent to Ford

Island had taken bomb and or torpedo hits. The USS West Virginia (BB-48) sank quickly. The USS Oklahoma

(BB-37) turned turtle and sank. At about 8:10 a.m., the USS Arizona (BB-39) was mortally wounded by an

armorpiercing bomb which ignited the ship’s forward ammunition magazine. The resulting explosion and fire killed

1,177 crewmen, the greatest loss of life on any ship that day and about half the total number of Americans killed. The

USS California (BB-44), USS Maryland (BB-46), USS Tennessee (BB-43) and USS Nevada (BB-36) also

suffered varying degrees of damage in the first half hour of the raid.

There was a short lull in the fury of the attack at about 8:30 a.m. At that time the USS Nevada (BB-36), despite her

wounds, managed to get underway and move down the channel toward the open sea. Before she could clear the

harbor, a second wave of 170 Japanese planes, launched 30 minutes after the first, appeared over the harbor. They

concentrated their attacks on the moving battleship, hoping to sink her in the channel and block the narrow entrance to

Pearl Harbor. On orders from the harbor control tower, the USS Nevada (BB-36) beached herself at Hospital Point

and the channel remained clear.

When the attack ended shortly before 10:00 a.m., less than two hours after it began, the American forces has paid a

fearful price. Twenty-one ships of the U.S. Pacific Fleet were sunk or damaged: the battleships USS Arizona

(BB-39), USS California (BB-44), USS Maryland (BB-46), USS Nevada (BB-36), USS Oklahoma (BB-37),

USS Pennsylvania (BB-38), USS Tennessee (BB-43) and USS West Virginia (BB-48); cruisers USS Helena

(CL-50), USS Honolulu (CL-48) and USS Raleigh (CL-7); the destroyers USS Cassin (DD-372), USS Downes

(DD-375), USS Helm (DD-388) and USS Shaw (DD-373); seaplane tender USS Curtiss (AV-4); target ship

(ex-battleship) USS Utah (AG-16); repair ship USS Vestal (AR-4); minelayer USS Oglala (CM-4); tug USS

Sotoyomo (YT-9); and Floating Drydock Number 2. Aircraft losses were 188 destroyed and 159 damaged, the

majority hit before the had a chance to take off. American dead numbered 2,403. That figure included 68 civilians,

most of them killed by improperly fused anti-aircraft shells landing in Honolulu. There were 1,178 military and civilian

wounded.

Japanese losses were comparatively light. Twenty-nine planes, less than 10 percent of the attacking force, failed to

return to their carriers.

The Japanese success was overwhelming, but it was not complete. They failed to damage any American aircraft

carriers, which by a stroke of luck, had been absent from the harbor. They neglected to damage the shoreside

facilities at the Pearl Harbor Naval Base, which played an important role in the Allied victory in World War II.

American technological skill raised and repaired all but three of the ships sunk or damaged at Pearl Harbor (the USS

Arizona (BB-39) considered too badly damaged to be salvaged, the USS Oklahoma (BB-37) raised and

considered too old to be worth repairing, and the obsolete USS Utah (AG-16) considered not worth the effort).

Most importantly, the shock and anger caused by the surprise attack on Pearl Harbor united a divided nation and was

translated into a wholehearted commitment to victory in World War II.