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Chapter VI: Pearl Harbor, December 7th 1941.
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During the Battle of Italy, the Regia Marina came out largely unscathed and, given that it was the world’s fourth largest navy, it would prove a major asset to the Allies. In early 1941 it consisted of six battleships (with two more incomplete and in German hands), nineteen cruisers, 59 destroyers, 67 torpedo boats and 116 submarines while the Kriegsmarine presence in the Mediterranean Sea consisted of the odd U-boat that managed to slip past Gibraltar. The Regia Marina had some issues: it had a number of newer, faster, lightly built cruisers with inadequate defensive armour; there were a large number of older vessels; there had been a lack of emphasis on the incorporation of technological advances like radar and sonar; and the service in general suffered from insufficient time at sea for crew training.
As far as the training and combat experience issues went, Italian and British ships conducted joint patrols. As far as radar and ASDIC (a precursor to sonar) went, Britain was generous enough to give some sets and translated manuals to its Allies, equipping all of Italy’s six battleships and several of its heavy cruisers with radar and equipping its destroyer leaders with ASDIC.
Knowing that the combined Italian and French navies could easily dominate the Mediterranean, barring the fluke U-boat related incident, the British admiralty decided to strip the Mediterranean Fleet of its capital units. They were redeployed to fight in the Battle of the Atlantic and to Southeast Asia to intimidate an increasingly ambitious Japan. Similarly, Great Britain reduced military forces in its African and Middle Eastern colonies, mandates, protectorates and informal possessions to the bare minimum required to police them. In late 1940 Singapore had been defended by little more than three divisions, but by spring 1941 that had increased to eight divisions and two armoured brigades, each equipped with 220 Valentine tanks. The RAF presence in Singapore, in the meantime, increased from 158 modern aircraft to 318 with the addition of two wings of Hawker Hurricanes and two wings of Supermarine Spitfires, totalling 160 modern fighter planes. Garrisons in Burma and Hong Kong were also reinforced.
War between Japan and the United States had been a possibility that each nation had been aware of (and developed contingency plans for) since the 1920s, though tensions did not begin to grow seriously until Japan’s 1931 invasion of Manchuria. Over the next decade, Japan continued to expand into China, leading to all-out war between those countries in 1937. Japan spent considerable effort trying to isolate China and achieve sufficient resource independence to attain victory on the mainland; the “Southern Operation” was designed to assist these efforts. From December 1937, events such as the Japanese attack on the USS Panay, the Allison incident, and the Nanjing Massacre (the International Military Tribunal of the Far East concluded that more than 200.000 Chinese non-combatants were killed in indiscriminate massacres) swung public opinion in the West sharply against Japan. Fearing Japanese expansion, the United States, the United Kingdom, and France provided loan assistance for war supply contracts to the Republic of China. President Roosevelt didn’t manage to push economic sanctions through Congress, but the vote on this matter was narrow. What he did do was to move the Pacific Fleet from San Diego to Pearl Harbor and order a military build-up in the Philippines. Japan perceived these moves as hostile.
Because the Japanese high command was (mistakenly) certain that any attack on European Southeast Asian colonies would bring the US into the war, a devastating preventive strike appeared to be the only way to avoid US naval interference. Preliminary planning had begun in early 1941 under the auspices of Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto, with a key role being played by Captain Minoru Genda. In summer Genda was sent to Europe as a military attaché to observe German air offensives and assessed that the Mitsubishi A6M Zero was superior to the German Bf-109, the British Hurricanes and Spitfires, and the Italian Macchi C.202.
Upon returning to Japan in spring 1941, Genda met Yamamoto and the latter was inspired by Genda’s idea of launching a carrier attack on Hawaii because the element of surprise would be maintained until the last moment (unlike the “decisive battle” doctrine that had long dominated Japanese naval planning, which involved a campaign of attrition by cruisers, after which a strategic reserve of battleships would be released for a final battle). Genda also advocated the use of shallow-water torpedoes and they would be incorporated into this revolutionary attack plan. Despite the absence of American aircraft carriers, the attack wasn’t cancelled, and Japanese confidence in a quick victory also meant that facilities like the navy yard, oil tank farms, the submarine base and CINCPAC were ignored (by their thinking the war would be over before the influence of these facilities would be felt).
On November 26th 1941, a Japanese task force of six aircraft carriers (Akagi, Kaga, Soryu, Hiryu, Shokaku, and Zuikaku) departed northern Japan en route to a position northwest of Hawaii, intending to launch its 408 aircraft to attack Pearl Harbor: 360 for the two attack waves and 48 on defensive combat air patrol (CAP), including nine fighters from the first wave. The first wave was to be the primary attack, while the second wave was to attack carriers as its first objective and cruisers as its second, with battleships as the third target. The aircrews were ordered to select the highest value targets (battleships and aircraft carriers) or, if these were not present, any other high value ships (cruisers and destroyers). The first wave of dive bombers was to attack ground targets. Fighters were ordered to strafe and destroy as many parked aircraft as possible to ensure they did not get into the air to intercept the bombers, especially in the first wave. When the fighters’ fuel got low they were to refuel at the aircraft carriers and return to combat. Fighters were to serve CAP duties where needed, especially over US airfields.
In the meantime, Royal Navy battleship HMS Warspite had completed its repair and refit at the Puget Sound Naval Shipyard in Washington state in the United States (she had been transferred from the Mediterranean Fleet to the Home Fleet, and in May 1941 she departed for the US after suffering damage from an air raid on Portsmouth). Modifications consisted of the replacement of her deteriorated 15 inch (381 mm) main guns, a serious increase in her anti-aircraft weaponry, bridge improvements, and new surface and anti-aircraft radar. She left Puget Sound on December 2nd 1941 and maintained a brisk speed of 18 knots, steaming south-westward toward Hawaii for a scheduled goodwill visit before heading on to Singapore. On December 6th around 7:00 PM local time Warspite’s radar detected a large group of surface contacts on a course toward Hawaii. Her captain ordered her to increase speed to 22 knots, only two knots below her maximum speed, and to turn northwest and pass the surface contacts to their north. He then ordered her to steer south to shadow the unknown fleet, staying within radar range but outside visual range (in night time conditions Japanese navy lookouts could spot targets at 5.000 to 15.000 yards out, depending on conditions). During the night of December 6th to December 7th she set a course that would bring the unknown fleet within firing range (maximum range for Warspite’s 15 inch guns was 33.550 yards or 30.68 km).
The Japanese launched their first wave and it was detected by US radar at Opana Point and was also, unbeknownst to anyone, monitored by the Warspite’s radar. Although her captain understood what was going on and wanted to help, he couldn’t because Japan and Britain weren’t at war (and also because inadvertently causing an Anglo-Japanese conflict might cost him his job and rank). He merely sent an encrypted warning via radio, which took a while to decode. It only reached the attention of Lieutenant Kermit Tyler about twenty minutes before the Japanese attack struck home, and it took him up to five minutes to warn for “impending attack”. In a fifteen minute window only a minimal amount of preparations could be made. In the meantime, the radar operators at Opana Point had failed to make clear the size of the incoming formation. As a result, Lieutenant Tyler had initially assumed it was just a flight of B-17s coming in from the mainland and didn’t pass on an alarm of “attack imminent” until Warspite’s warning reached him, unfortunately too late to make a significant difference. The air portion of the attack commenced at 7:48 AM Hawaiian time (3:18 AM, December 8th, Japanese Standard Time). Slow, vulnerable torpedo bombers led the first wave, exploiting the first moments of surprise to attack the most important ships present (the battleships), while dive bombers attacked US air bases across Oahu, starting with Hickam Field, the largest, and Wheeler Field, the main US Army Air Force fighter base.
In the meantime, Warspite was still shadowing the Japanese fleet from the darkness of the west and by now her radio was receiving undeniable signs – i.e. SOS signals and pleas for help – that Pearl Harbor was under attack. But still her captain and crew were bound by orders as well as the fact that Great Britain and Japan were at peace, which changed shortly after the first wave had been launched. A few Japanese aircraft on CAP noticed Warspite and, mistaking her for an American battleship, attacked her (only to be shot down by her anti-aircraft guns while inflicting no damage). Almost simultaneously, she received word of Japanese landings in Malaya, and now there was more than enough reason to open fire.
A few minutes after being discovered and attacked by Japanese planes on CAP, after acquiring a firing solution, Warspite’s main guns unleashed a full broadside from a distance of 22.000 yards (roughly 20 kilometres or 12.5 miles) at 8:45 AM Hawaiian time and targeted the nearest enemy capital warship, by which time the second wave had already been launched. Warspite also radioed the HQ of Admiral Husband Kimmel, Commander-in-Chief of the US Pacific Fleet, that they were engaging the attacking Japanese fleet north of Hawaii. The nearest capital ship turned out to be aircraft carrier Kaga: it was a 38.800 tonne vessel, carrying 90 planes, that had originally been designed as a battleship, but which had been converted to a carrier after the 1922 Washington Naval Treaty. Two of Warspite’s 15 inch shells hit on starboard side near the aft of the ship and cut through the thin 38 mm (1.5 inch) deck armour like a knife through butter. They exploded inside the ship and put her two starboard side propeller shafts out of commission, cutting her speed in half to a mere 14 knots. A third shell exploded right behind the ship and damaged the rudder, slowing Kaga down further to 11 knots. After several more broadsides Kaga had been reduced to a burning hulk, and at 9:05 AM she listed to the starboard side, began to capsize and started to sink, disappearing below the waves within another ten minutes (the second and last known instance of a battleship sinking an aircraft carrier, the only other example being HMS Glorious being sunk by Scharnhorst and Gneisenau).
At this point Nagumo decided to break off the attack, recalling the planes of the second wave. In the meantime, Warspite managed to damage Zuikaku to the point that she’d need a few weeks in dry dock (at a time that the Imperial Japanese Navy needed its carriers the most). Warspite now came under attack from Japanese aircraft, but she conducted evasive manoeuvres, laid out a smoke screen and incurred no fatal damage. After the Japanese withdrew, she went to Pearl Harbor for patch-ups and repairs, proudly flying the Union Jack, and arrived later that day. Upon arrival US Navy crews cheered her on and very quickly she was popularized as “the ship that saved Pearl Harbor.” Lyrical US media glorified her as a David that had heroically and selflessly taken on the mighty Japanese Goliath and had triumphed against the odds, saving Hawaii from invasion and horrors like the Rape of Nanking (it only became known after the war that Japan had never intended to invade Hawaii). In the meantime her crew members were treated like heroes during their shore leave on Oahu, which lasted only two weeks. Though her original orders were to join Force Z at Singapore, as a symbol of Anglo-American friendship and cooperation, Warspite’s new orders were to operate with the US Pacific Fleet until further notice (conducting joint operations that later Allied operations would be modelled on).
In the meantime, Hitler foolishly declared war on the United States. He mistakenly believed the Japanese could keep the Americans distracted and that a German declaration of war on the US would get Tokyo to support his own effort in the USSR. He also arrogantly assumed his planned invasion of the USSR would have been finished by the time the American presence in Europe could be felt, allowing him to devote his full attention to the Western Allies, using Soviet resources to feed his war machine.
.Chapter VI: Pearl Harbor, December 7th 1941.
During the Battle of Italy, the Regia Marina came out largely unscathed and, given that it was the world’s fourth largest navy, it would prove a major asset to the Allies. In early 1941 it consisted of six battleships (with two more incomplete and in German hands), nineteen cruisers, 59 destroyers, 67 torpedo boats and 116 submarines while the Kriegsmarine presence in the Mediterranean Sea consisted of the odd U-boat that managed to slip past Gibraltar. The Regia Marina had some issues: it had a number of newer, faster, lightly built cruisers with inadequate defensive armour; there were a large number of older vessels; there had been a lack of emphasis on the incorporation of technological advances like radar and sonar; and the service in general suffered from insufficient time at sea for crew training.
As far as the training and combat experience issues went, Italian and British ships conducted joint patrols. As far as radar and ASDIC (a precursor to sonar) went, Britain was generous enough to give some sets and translated manuals to its Allies, equipping all of Italy’s six battleships and several of its heavy cruisers with radar and equipping its destroyer leaders with ASDIC.
Knowing that the combined Italian and French navies could easily dominate the Mediterranean, barring the fluke U-boat related incident, the British admiralty decided to strip the Mediterranean Fleet of its capital units. They were redeployed to fight in the Battle of the Atlantic and to Southeast Asia to intimidate an increasingly ambitious Japan. Similarly, Great Britain reduced military forces in its African and Middle Eastern colonies, mandates, protectorates and informal possessions to the bare minimum required to police them. In late 1940 Singapore had been defended by little more than three divisions, but by spring 1941 that had increased to eight divisions and two armoured brigades, each equipped with 220 Valentine tanks. The RAF presence in Singapore, in the meantime, increased from 158 modern aircraft to 318 with the addition of two wings of Hawker Hurricanes and two wings of Supermarine Spitfires, totalling 160 modern fighter planes. Garrisons in Burma and Hong Kong were also reinforced.
War between Japan and the United States had been a possibility that each nation had been aware of (and developed contingency plans for) since the 1920s, though tensions did not begin to grow seriously until Japan’s 1931 invasion of Manchuria. Over the next decade, Japan continued to expand into China, leading to all-out war between those countries in 1937. Japan spent considerable effort trying to isolate China and achieve sufficient resource independence to attain victory on the mainland; the “Southern Operation” was designed to assist these efforts. From December 1937, events such as the Japanese attack on the USS Panay, the Allison incident, and the Nanjing Massacre (the International Military Tribunal of the Far East concluded that more than 200.000 Chinese non-combatants were killed in indiscriminate massacres) swung public opinion in the West sharply against Japan. Fearing Japanese expansion, the United States, the United Kingdom, and France provided loan assistance for war supply contracts to the Republic of China. President Roosevelt didn’t manage to push economic sanctions through Congress, but the vote on this matter was narrow. What he did do was to move the Pacific Fleet from San Diego to Pearl Harbor and order a military build-up in the Philippines. Japan perceived these moves as hostile.
Because the Japanese high command was (mistakenly) certain that any attack on European Southeast Asian colonies would bring the US into the war, a devastating preventive strike appeared to be the only way to avoid US naval interference. Preliminary planning had begun in early 1941 under the auspices of Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto, with a key role being played by Captain Minoru Genda. In summer Genda was sent to Europe as a military attaché to observe German air offensives and assessed that the Mitsubishi A6M Zero was superior to the German Bf-109, the British Hurricanes and Spitfires, and the Italian Macchi C.202.
Upon returning to Japan in spring 1941, Genda met Yamamoto and the latter was inspired by Genda’s idea of launching a carrier attack on Hawaii because the element of surprise would be maintained until the last moment (unlike the “decisive battle” doctrine that had long dominated Japanese naval planning, which involved a campaign of attrition by cruisers, after which a strategic reserve of battleships would be released for a final battle). Genda also advocated the use of shallow-water torpedoes and they would be incorporated into this revolutionary attack plan. Despite the absence of American aircraft carriers, the attack wasn’t cancelled, and Japanese confidence in a quick victory also meant that facilities like the navy yard, oil tank farms, the submarine base and CINCPAC were ignored (by their thinking the war would be over before the influence of these facilities would be felt).
On November 26th 1941, a Japanese task force of six aircraft carriers (Akagi, Kaga, Soryu, Hiryu, Shokaku, and Zuikaku) departed northern Japan en route to a position northwest of Hawaii, intending to launch its 408 aircraft to attack Pearl Harbor: 360 for the two attack waves and 48 on defensive combat air patrol (CAP), including nine fighters from the first wave. The first wave was to be the primary attack, while the second wave was to attack carriers as its first objective and cruisers as its second, with battleships as the third target. The aircrews were ordered to select the highest value targets (battleships and aircraft carriers) or, if these were not present, any other high value ships (cruisers and destroyers). The first wave of dive bombers was to attack ground targets. Fighters were ordered to strafe and destroy as many parked aircraft as possible to ensure they did not get into the air to intercept the bombers, especially in the first wave. When the fighters’ fuel got low they were to refuel at the aircraft carriers and return to combat. Fighters were to serve CAP duties where needed, especially over US airfields.
In the meantime, Royal Navy battleship HMS Warspite had completed its repair and refit at the Puget Sound Naval Shipyard in Washington state in the United States (she had been transferred from the Mediterranean Fleet to the Home Fleet, and in May 1941 she departed for the US after suffering damage from an air raid on Portsmouth). Modifications consisted of the replacement of her deteriorated 15 inch (381 mm) main guns, a serious increase in her anti-aircraft weaponry, bridge improvements, and new surface and anti-aircraft radar. She left Puget Sound on December 2nd 1941 and maintained a brisk speed of 18 knots, steaming south-westward toward Hawaii for a scheduled goodwill visit before heading on to Singapore. On December 6th around 7:00 PM local time Warspite’s radar detected a large group of surface contacts on a course toward Hawaii. Her captain ordered her to increase speed to 22 knots, only two knots below her maximum speed, and to turn northwest and pass the surface contacts to their north. He then ordered her to steer south to shadow the unknown fleet, staying within radar range but outside visual range (in night time conditions Japanese navy lookouts could spot targets at 5.000 to 15.000 yards out, depending on conditions). During the night of December 6th to December 7th she set a course that would bring the unknown fleet within firing range (maximum range for Warspite’s 15 inch guns was 33.550 yards or 30.68 km).
The Japanese launched their first wave and it was detected by US radar at Opana Point and was also, unbeknownst to anyone, monitored by the Warspite’s radar. Although her captain understood what was going on and wanted to help, he couldn’t because Japan and Britain weren’t at war (and also because inadvertently causing an Anglo-Japanese conflict might cost him his job and rank). He merely sent an encrypted warning via radio, which took a while to decode. It only reached the attention of Lieutenant Kermit Tyler about twenty minutes before the Japanese attack struck home, and it took him up to five minutes to warn for “impending attack”. In a fifteen minute window only a minimal amount of preparations could be made. In the meantime, the radar operators at Opana Point had failed to make clear the size of the incoming formation. As a result, Lieutenant Tyler had initially assumed it was just a flight of B-17s coming in from the mainland and didn’t pass on an alarm of “attack imminent” until Warspite’s warning reached him, unfortunately too late to make a significant difference. The air portion of the attack commenced at 7:48 AM Hawaiian time (3:18 AM, December 8th, Japanese Standard Time). Slow, vulnerable torpedo bombers led the first wave, exploiting the first moments of surprise to attack the most important ships present (the battleships), while dive bombers attacked US air bases across Oahu, starting with Hickam Field, the largest, and Wheeler Field, the main US Army Air Force fighter base.
In the meantime, Warspite was still shadowing the Japanese fleet from the darkness of the west and by now her radio was receiving undeniable signs – i.e. SOS signals and pleas for help – that Pearl Harbor was under attack. But still her captain and crew were bound by orders as well as the fact that Great Britain and Japan were at peace, which changed shortly after the first wave had been launched. A few Japanese aircraft on CAP noticed Warspite and, mistaking her for an American battleship, attacked her (only to be shot down by her anti-aircraft guns while inflicting no damage). Almost simultaneously, she received word of Japanese landings in Malaya, and now there was more than enough reason to open fire.
A few minutes after being discovered and attacked by Japanese planes on CAP, after acquiring a firing solution, Warspite’s main guns unleashed a full broadside from a distance of 22.000 yards (roughly 20 kilometres or 12.5 miles) at 8:45 AM Hawaiian time and targeted the nearest enemy capital warship, by which time the second wave had already been launched. Warspite also radioed the HQ of Admiral Husband Kimmel, Commander-in-Chief of the US Pacific Fleet, that they were engaging the attacking Japanese fleet north of Hawaii. The nearest capital ship turned out to be aircraft carrier Kaga: it was a 38.800 tonne vessel, carrying 90 planes, that had originally been designed as a battleship, but which had been converted to a carrier after the 1922 Washington Naval Treaty. Two of Warspite’s 15 inch shells hit on starboard side near the aft of the ship and cut through the thin 38 mm (1.5 inch) deck armour like a knife through butter. They exploded inside the ship and put her two starboard side propeller shafts out of commission, cutting her speed in half to a mere 14 knots. A third shell exploded right behind the ship and damaged the rudder, slowing Kaga down further to 11 knots. After several more broadsides Kaga had been reduced to a burning hulk, and at 9:05 AM she listed to the starboard side, began to capsize and started to sink, disappearing below the waves within another ten minutes (the second and last known instance of a battleship sinking an aircraft carrier, the only other example being HMS Glorious being sunk by Scharnhorst and Gneisenau).
At this point Nagumo decided to break off the attack, recalling the planes of the second wave. In the meantime, Warspite managed to damage Zuikaku to the point that she’d need a few weeks in dry dock (at a time that the Imperial Japanese Navy needed its carriers the most). Warspite now came under attack from Japanese aircraft, but she conducted evasive manoeuvres, laid out a smoke screen and incurred no fatal damage. After the Japanese withdrew, she went to Pearl Harbor for patch-ups and repairs, proudly flying the Union Jack, and arrived later that day. Upon arrival US Navy crews cheered her on and very quickly she was popularized as “the ship that saved Pearl Harbor.” Lyrical US media glorified her as a David that had heroically and selflessly taken on the mighty Japanese Goliath and had triumphed against the odds, saving Hawaii from invasion and horrors like the Rape of Nanking (it only became known after the war that Japan had never intended to invade Hawaii). In the meantime her crew members were treated like heroes during their shore leave on Oahu, which lasted only two weeks. Though her original orders were to join Force Z at Singapore, as a symbol of Anglo-American friendship and cooperation, Warspite’s new orders were to operate with the US Pacific Fleet until further notice (conducting joint operations that later Allied operations would be modelled on).
In the meantime, Hitler foolishly declared war on the United States. He mistakenly believed the Japanese could keep the Americans distracted and that a German declaration of war on the US would get Tokyo to support his own effort in the USSR. He also arrogantly assumed his planned invasion of the USSR would have been finished by the time the American presence in Europe could be felt, allowing him to devote his full attention to the Western Allies, using Soviet resources to feed his war machine.
- Onkel Willie
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