In the years before Pearl Harbor, Japan's imperial political and military power had attacked the Chinese mainland in an attempt to annex the coastal territories and rich swaths of inland Manchuria.
While studying the extension of their conquests in Asia, the Japanese leaders were aware that a war with the United States was "playable" provided it was short; if its duration exceeded one year, the enormous American industrial potential would end up having the upper hand.
Japan's idea was simple:concentrate all of its military and naval power to conquer the oil- and commodity-rich states of Southeast Asia (Thailand, Malaysia, the Philippines and the Dutch colonies of the East Indies). This project became known as the “Oriental Blitzkrieg (lightning war)”. Its objective was the rapid establishment of a Japanese Empire in Southeast Asia and defenses such as to discourage any attempt at American counterattack.
However, this project had to undergo a modification, with serious consequences, even before being implemented. Convinced that the "Eastern Blitzkrieg" would inevitably bring the United States into the war, Admiral Yamamoto, Commander-in-Chief of the Imperial Fleet, deduced that the conflict should be initiated by Japan and its advantage.
To do this, he insisted, it was necessary to strike a blow by attacking American military power in the Pacific whose base was Pearl Harbor.
On the morning of November 26, 1941, just weeks after Yamamoto's idea finally won out over the reluctance of the Imperial Army and Navy "Establishment," six squadron carriers, two battleships, three cruisers and a multitude of other supporting combat ships weighed anchor. It was Admiral Nagumo's fast attack force, centered on his aircraft carriers. She left her home port of the Kuril Islands in northern Japan in total secrecy and set sail for a point so 3,000 miles to the east in the Pacific. From there a massive air attack was to deal "a mortal blow to the na power of a nation that dared to oppose the glorious destiny of Japan".
Meanwhile, on the American side, no one had the slightest idea of Admiral Nagumo's intentions; yet the Japanese diplomatic was deciphered, the telecommunications networks of the Imperial Navy were monitored and the crimp was acquired of the imminence of Japan's entry into the war
No particular warning measures n was intended to protect the warships that swayed idly from their anchorages around Ford Island, Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, on that sunny morning of December 7, 1941.
The 'mortal blow was near and America was drawn into a world war which was to end four years later in Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Pearl Harbor is going to be attacked
December 7, 1941
At 6.15 a.m. the first wave of Japanese planes had set course south under the
command of the frigate captain Mitsuo Fuchida, head of the Aircraft Carrier Air Group.
A team of American radar operators from the Opana mobile station, which was still on duty after 7 a.m., the normal time off work, saw planes appear on the screen of control and calculated, for the form, the elements of their navigation. The information center, to whom they communicated their observations, replied that this contact did not seem to be of particular importance, since it must have been a flight of Fortresses expected in the morning from the mainland.
Fuchida directed his formation towards the west coast of Oahu, under the indifferent gaze of the population who took these planes for aircraft returning from the aircraft carriers Lexington and Enterprise. At 7:50 a.m. Fuchida could see Pearl Harbor, beyond the central plain of the island; the waters glistened in the morning sunshine of a peaceful Sunday and, through his binoculars, he could count the 7 battleships anchored two by two in “Battleship Lane” along the eastern end of Ford Island.
The surprise was complete:he gave the order to attack.
After intensive training and meticulous study of maps and models of Oahu and Pearl Harbor, each of the Japanese pilots knew exactly what they had to do. The dive bomber squadrons separated into sections which were to dive together at the various Army and Navy airfields. At the same time the high-altitude bombers took the approach course, sights aligned, while the torpedo planes began the long descent which was to bring them into position to attack abeam the battleships. Shortly before 8 a.m., the bombs began to fall amid the planes lined up wing to wing, as if on parade, on the island's airfields, and the crash of explosions was added to the whistle of the bombers which swooped down vertically.
At the same time, the men on watch, aboard the buildings of the "alley of the battleships", were preparing for the ceremony of sending the colors; Under their horrified eyes, the Japanese torpedo bombers completed their dive by launching their torpedoes, and thin rectilinear trajectories converged on the motionless and defenseless hulls. No American guns had opened fire, no defense fighters had taken off.
Five of the battleships moored side by side in the harbour, West Virginia, Arizona, Nevada , Oklahoma and California were gutted by torpedoes in the first few minutes; only the Maryland and the Tennessee, anchored at the interior stations, and the flagship, the Pennsylvania then in drydock, were spared. Other victims, the old battleship Utah, reduced to the role of target boat, and the light cruisers Raleigh and Helena.
To the noise of torpedoes and the shock of underwater explosions were added the tearing and the crash of bombs dropped by dive bombers or operating at high altitude.
However, the American defense was quick to react. The security teams showed heroism and efficiency. They managed to rebalance buildings on the verge of capsizing, to restore electrical and hydraulic power, as well as transmissions, and to fight fires.
Meanwhile, very high above out of smoke and confusion, not believing their eyes that there was no fighter in front of them, barely disturbed by a few sporadic flak fire, Fuchida's bombers were choosing their targets and refining their sights.
An armour-piercing bomb pierced the 127 mm of armor of a Tennessee turret to burst inside. Another crossed all the decks and exploded in the forward hold of the Arizona, which blew up. Maryland and California were hit by devastating projectiles.
When a lull came at 8:25 a.m., when the first Japanese wave turned back, almost all the American boats were destroyed or damaged, the West Virginia was on fire and sinking, the Arizona lay on the bottom with over a thousand crew members trapped in its hull. The Oklahoma had capsized, the Tennessee was ravaged by fire, with a turret ripped open by an armor-piercing bomb, the California had received such injuries that all the efforts of her crew could not prevent her from sinking. Further on, we could only see the keel of Utah, which had turned over. Deep in the water by her waterways and counter-ballasts, the Raleigh was kept afloat only by her mooring cables.
During these attacks, a Japanese midget submarine had succeeded in penetrating the harbour, crossing the barrages left recklessly open after the passage of two minesweepers at 4:58 a.m. During a lull, this submarine was seen firing a torpedo at the seaplane tender Curtiss. The torpedo missed its target and exploded against the shore; a second had the same fate. The submarine was attacked by the destroyer Monaghan and sunk by underwater explosive charges. Of the three other midget submarines launched to attack by their nesting ships, two disappeared without a trace. The third struck a reef, was shelled by the destroyer Helm, and ran aground.
The second Japanese assault wave - 54 bombers, 80 dive bombers, 36 fighters - led by Lieutenant Commander Shimazaki of the aircraft carrier Zuikaky, took off an hour after the first. It came up against a more organized defense and its successes were less spectacular.
Between the two attacks, the anti-aircraft guns had received ammunition, their gun crews had been reinforced, and the bombers in Japanese piqué suffered the consequences. They did, however, manage to damage Pennsylvania, rip apart the two destroyers that shared her drydock, blow up another destroyer in floating dock, and force Nevada to run aground as she sought to out of the port amid clouds of smoke from burning ships.
Meanwhile, bombers operating at high altitudes continued unopposed to aim as if in practice and to cause further wounds to already hit and burning American ships.
A 10 hours it was all over. The rumble of planes faded in the distance,
gave way to an eerie silence broken only by the creak of burning ships, the whistle of fire hoses and the desperate calls of fire crews .
At the cost of 9 fighters, 15 dive bombers and 5 torpedo bombers, out of the
384 committed aircraft, the Japanese Navy had succeeded in putting out of service all U.S. battleships in the Pacific Fleet.
For Admiral Nagumo, this success seemed miraculous to the point of worrying. So when Fuchida and his squadron commanders came to urge him to launch a new attack, he felt that it would defy fate. Ignoring their advice, he gave the order to head northwest towards the supply ships and from there he proceeded to Japan. This was a serious mistake.
But Nagumo was a sailor, not an airman, and in his day he was not alone in thinking that the heavy armament of majestic battleships remained the key to naval power .
In the vastness of the Pacific, the only ship with enough reach to detect and strike enemy fleets in time was the aircraft carrier. A second sortie by Admiral Nagumo's boosted airmen would have had excellent results.
The Enterprise, which was approaching Pearl Harbor on its way back from Wake Island, would probably not have withstood concentrated air attacks, and the repair shops, as well as the huge stores of fuel, would have been defenseless.
The naval base would thus have become unusable for many months, and the rest of the Pacific fleet would have been forced to withdraw to the ports on the west coast, out of reach of the future area operations.
Thus Yamamoto's plan, however daring and well-prepared it was, did not obtain
all the expected results. Certainly the blow dealt to the American Navy was hard, but its effect exceeded the forecasts of the strategists because it succeeded in uniting the American people and throwing them entirely into the war. It took a shock like Pearl Harbor to achieve such a result.