The attack on Pearl Harbor was the reason why the United States joined the war, thousands die and wounded. All American battleships were there during
the attack, one of them was the USS Arizona. 4 ships have been sunk and some
destroyed or badly damaged.
The Planning
Japan’s leader Isuroko Yamamoto has been planning an attack
for over a year, the Pearl Harbor will be the first blow. When the planning was
over and when the storm was about to break, aircraft carrier Hiryu was on standby
the plan was to send wave by wave of fighter aircraft and torpedo bombers and
that was the job of the IJN aviators. Sailors started writing goodbye letters
to their family; because of the weather and fear of getting detected, they were
quickly convinced that the attack might be terrible.
At 6.30am Battleship Row Pearl Harbor deep in the belly of
the USS Arizona was Don Straton and he starts his day like any Sunday. Of the
Eastside of the anchorage is the heavy cruiser USS San Francisco a New Orleans
class cruiser, the ship was waiting to be repaired and making plans for their
shore leave. 370km at the sea the storm is gathering, a massive force of 180
bombers and fighters take off from the carrier and get underway. The Fighter
planes were at the leading edge, then carrier dive bombers, and then carry
attack bombers at different heights in a horizontal position.
The Attack
7.02am at Opana point Hawaii with newly installed radar in
the far Northwest of Oahu novice operators, George Eliot and Joseph Lockhart
have spotted something unexpected. The radar shows more aircraft than they ever were seen heading inland at high speeds, they report to army Lieutenant Kermit A.
Tyler. He’s expecting a flight of B-17s from the mainland, so they ignored the
sighting. But the bombers of the 38th recon squadron are still hundreds of
kilometers from Pearl Harbor.
They are following an orchestrated attack plan when the
Japanese knew they were undetected the Japanese carrier break radio silence
with the pre-arranged code word “Tora, Tora, Tora” meaning attack, attack,
attack. Their plan A was for the torpedo bombers to go in first with the
carrier dive bombers, plan B was for the carrier dive bombers to attack first
and their areal torpedoes would go in last of all. But when the attack leader
fires a single flare to signal that they should execute plan A many pilots
don’t see it, when they fired a second flare pilots who saw the first one think
they’re going to execute plan B so the result all Japanese aircraft attack at
once. 7.58am sailors of the battleship row were relaxing just like a usual
Sunday morning; the torpedo bombers spearhead the Japanese attack. There were
no carriers at Pearl Harbor but several battleships lined. USS Utah was the
first ship to get hit by the Japanese torpedo bombers.
At 8.00am the attack began, the peaceful relaxing sailors
were rocked by explosions with devastating aerial bombardment. At first, they
thought it was a drill but it was so realistic that some sailors even die, from
the deck of the heavy cruiser USS San Francisco it was a grandstand view of the
attack. The USS San Francisco was defenseless standing still with no ammo and
fuel they can’t do anything to help; Don Stratton’s job was to feed information
for the anti-aircraft gunners on the port side of the USS Arizona.
The Marines fight desperately using there pistols and
semi-automatic rifles, the sailors of Arizona manages to fight on the
Japanese planes but just after a few minutes, they were running out of ammo.
Despite their actions, they were struggling to cope with the Japanese aerial
assault, when the second wave of Japanese assault arrives at Pearl Harbor brings
terror for the sailors of the USS Arizona.
10 Japanese high-level bombers flying in formation and
targets Arizona, the bombers were equipped with the 500-pound
armor-piercing shell converted from a battleship. At 8:10AM disaster strikes,
one bomb hit Arizona just beside turret 2 and the bomb pierce and went into
the ammunition room. It triggered an enormous explosion so powerful the ship’s
bow was cut and left the water for a second, Don Stratton miraculously survive
the explosion.
While the ship slowly sinks more and more bombs hit the deck,
the heavy cruiser USS San Francisco watched helplessly as Arizona exploded
and left the water for a second. The ship was in flames as well as the water,
so there only hope is to evacuate the ship and get to the neighboring repair
ship USS Vestal which is beside Arizona.
They throw a rope line, with burns covering 67% of his body
Don Stratton is an excruciating pain but there’s no one to help. If he wants to
leave hi has to get his self out from the burning wreck because his skin is
badly burned gripping a rope will be very challenging and hard but hi
successfully evacuated himself.
The US airfield used their precious minutes to launch a few
fighter planes into the air. But the Japanese have not yet finished on their
attack, at 8:50 there about to clean there mess and a new target was given 170
planes attack pearl harbor and their airfields. Over 180 US aircraft were
destroyed and more damaged, in total 4 battleships were sunk, 4 damaged, and 13
more ships were destroyed or seriously damaged while the Japanese only lost 29
aircraft. For the Japanese airmen, the attack looks like a total triumph, when
the pilots came back to their carriers they received a hero’s welcome.
Why Was the Japanese Surprise Attack on Pearl Harbor a Failure?
At 3.00pm the commander of the carrier others a withdrawal,
the imperial Japanese navy had exceeded all expectations but it was eventually
a total failure. The plan for the attack began on January 11 1941 11 months
before the attack on Pearl Harbor, they were expecting the aircraft carriers
based on Pearl Harbor but luckily the carriers USS Enterprise and USS Lexington
was out of sea delivering planes for the marine corps fighter squadron and the
USS Saratoga was on its way to San Diego for repairs. The attack on Pearl
Harbor will be more devastating if they hit the right targets, because of the
fundamental flaws of the Japanese navy’s mindset critical facilities like Pearl
Harbor’s ship repair yards are ignored.
The Japanese navy’s obsession with hitting the big ships
means the attack misses another important target; they didn’t destroy the
submarine bases and does subs would go on to carry the war directly to the
Japanese home waters in the merchant fleet. But what also made the attack was a
total failure as they didn’t attack the US pacific fleet’s fuel storage
facilities. The US airmen quickly launched a counter-attack called The
Doolittle Raid; it was a group of B 25 bombers bombing Tokyo.
Over the war, Japanese navies were fighting against the
Americans building ships that can respond to numerous American ships at once
but they didn’t succeed in their plan. The Attack on Pearl Harbor brings
to nations into war in the Pacific proved to be devastating for the Imperial
Japanese Navy.
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