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"The Day the Battleship Died; Pearl Harbor-A Retrospective"

Forgive me as I rehash one of the most popular and yet most misunderstood conflicts of the Second World War. December 7, 1941... a day which will live in infamy. A well known tale. Or is it?

At five minutes before eight o' clock on the morning of Sunday, 7 December 1941, Hawaii time, 366 Japanese bombers and fighters struck at the American Sixth Pacific Fleet while lying at it's moorings in Pearl Harbor. Four warships were sunk where they lay, a further four damaged and an eleven further sunk or otherwise heavily damaged while in action. 188 American aircraft were destroyed on the ground.

As the warplanes of the IJN returned to the hard tops of their First Air Fleet, 2,330 Americans were dead or dying, 1,177 of them sealed in a watery grave when the battleship Arizona went down.

The Japanese had lost 29 aircraft and 5 midget submarines in action at Pearl; 64 men lost and one prisoner of war, Ensign Kazua Sakamaki, captured when his submarine ran aground in the shallow shoals near Pearl. He was to be the first American prisoner of the Second World War. A dubious distinction indeed.

The scale of the defeat was numbing. At 7:54 AM that morning, the U.S. Sixth Pacific Fleet was without a doubt one of the most powerful in the world. At 7:55 it ended with a whimper. Of the 9 American warships capable of combat at 7:54, only 2 remained seaworthy. The ten warships of the IJN were now the undisputed masters of the Pacific Ocean.

Though preparedness proved lacking that December morning, courage and valour were commonplace.
Sunday morning found Chief Aviation Ordanceman John Finn sleeping when the droning pell of engine whine awakened him. Through the anger of strafing gunfire and sustained bombardment, he managed to win his way through to the flight line, setting up a gun emplacement near a burning hangar. Under heavy fire, he was seen yelling at the Japanese planes which strafed Kaneohe naval base, all the while firing while under heavy fire himself. He was hit multiple times by both machine gun and cannon fire.
When the medics arrived to carry him away, he was still sitting at his gun emplacement. Amazingly, John Finn lived to fight again.
The public couldn't know. The disaster was incomprehensible. The press was given a far smaller casualty number while a frantic Roosevelt telephoned his counterpart in London. Churchill was understandably shaken. Not only was the disaster far worse than was popularly known, his primary ally and principal hope in his own war against Germany had just been dealt a death blow. Later recounting Pearl in his personal diary, Churchill was despondent over the attack. "... I do not believe the Americans can be of good use to us soon. What a holocaust."

But, to those in the British Royal Navy who served aboard the HMS Illustrious on 11 November 1940, the attack at Pearl had a chilling familiarity. In a measure to establish naval superiority in the Mediterranean, the Illustrious had been dispatched from Egypt to the Ionian Sea as part of Operation Judgement.
In the pre-dawn light, 24 British torpedo bombers left the deck of the Illustrious and flew 170 miles to the Italian port of Taranto. Striking in the early hours, the British bombers hit the Italian fleet while it lay at anchor in the harbour, sinking the battleship Duilio and two of her sister ships, heavily damaging 2 cruisers and several light duty ships. It was a total victory, the British achieving complete surprise, with all 24 bombers returning safely. It was the very first time aircraft had been used in a decisive naval engagement. It wouldn't be the last. The Royal Navy sank a further 4 Italian ships in the Straits of Otranto that evening.
Over Britain earlier that afternoon, 13 of the 25 aircraft shot down that day by Fighter Command were Italian. Without a doubt, things appeared to be going very well indeed.

Certainly for the Japanese, the stunning British success at Taranto had firmed up their plans for an American front later in 1941. The use of torpedo bombers in such a clandestine operation was immediately noted in Tokyo, where Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto, Commander-in-Chief of the Japanese Combined Fleet, saw a means by which he might eliminate America's power at sea by striking Pearl in very much the same way the British had attacked Taranto. This was given the acronym Operation Z.
From the day after Taranto, it was given the highest priority, all other naval operations taking a back seat.
Another noted individual, an American, also doted on the British success at Taranto. "The success of the British aerial attack against ships at anchor," wrote Secretary of the Navy Frank Knox, "... suggests that precautionary measures be taken immediately to protect Pearl Harbor against surprise attack in the event that war should break out between the United States and Japan." Unbeknownst to Frank Knox, his pointed statement was a blunt prediction. Exactly 1 year and 1 month later, Pearl would be destroyed by aerial torpedoing.
Perhaps the greatest tragedy of Pearl is it could have been averted. Recent evidence shows that not only were Japanese aircraft detected on Hawaiian radar hours previous to the attack, but warnings had come from envoys within the Japanese embassy as well. The warnings ignored, the Arizona and her sisters died without a chance to fight.

In 1939, the U.S. Navy broke a top secret IJN code. Though seemingly unimportant, the code was only used for diplomatic traffic between Tokyo and Washington. It did however, grant the Navy a clarity and insight into the national mood of Japan not appreciated in the far sighted politics of Washington.
For personal reasons, the Secretary of the Office of Naval Intelligence decided not to inform the CNO or the President. Even the Secretary of the Navy was left ignorant. Despite this, five “Blue” machines were built, one of which was presented to the British early in November of 1939. The British transported their machine to the South Pacific and the regular reading of IJN diplomatic traffic began.
The value of the Blue decrypts were profound. Immediately following the attack at Taranto by the Illustrious on 11 November, that traffic began to reveal the fingerprints of war. Readiness was being made throughout the Japanese armed services for a U.S. front in 1941 and as the date approached, this underlying tension grew.
At no time did the Navy see fit to inform Roosevelt or it’s own general staff. But as the date approached, the Navy began it’s own preparations. Fuel, ammunition and spare parts stores were removed from Pearl and redistributed in the islands. The Saratoga and Hornet were to be conveniently out of port for the remainder of the year. The attack was coming, they knew the where and very probably the how… but not the when.
However, on 5 December a transmit to Washington indicated to the embassy staff that they should, “prepare to leave Washington, D.C.” This heightened the Navy’s concerns and it was estimated that the attack would take place on 7 December, a Sunday, when Pearl would prove most vulnerable. Sadly, neither the Navy nor the British ever warned the U.S. government. Years later, the debacle still stirs resentment within the Navy. I shall address the “Blue” decrypts in a later issue and give the topic the attention I feel it truly deserves… the scrutiny of a dedicated article on the subject.

The IJN had used carrier based aircraft clandestinely to achieve surprise, mobility and victory. However, this turn in naval warfare had been expected. In fact, the U.S. Chief of Naval Operations had several months previous to the attack at Pearl requested several more aircraft carriers in preparation for what he deemed, "... the inevitable change in naval operations from ship to ship warfare and, increasingly, airborne attack."
Sadly, the course of war would forever change. The moment that the planes alighted from the hard top of the HMS Illustrious on 11 November 1940, the age of the great roving "battlewagons" ended. The mighty precepts of the sea now gave way to the thunder from above. By late '44, the battleship was an aging representative of an older age, of a more noble era of warfare.
The last shipboard exchange of battleship warfare was fought in late '44 in Leyette Gulf, more particularly, the Straits of Surigao. Never since the Battle of the Jutland had a larger naval force been engaged, battleship to battleship.
The Japanese warships had traversed the Surigao Strait at night, the bulk of the U.S. Fleet having been drawn north by a far larger, yet illusory force. Their purpose was to bring Nimitz's fleet too far north to stop the real attacking fleets, which had approached from the east. In the main, they had succeeded, for the fleet, having realized this deception too late to intervene, had turned south steaming toward Leyette Gulf. They wouldn't arrive in time, but a smaller U.S. naval squadron was already in place near Leyette Gulf.

Admiral Jessie Almendorf’s small squadron of aging battleships lay at the far western approach to Leyette Gulf, blockading the Straits of Surigao. The majority of his squadron were battleships that had been raised and reconditioned after Pearl. Though old, they had the advantage of radar assisted fire control. The ghosts of Pearl would have their revenge.
The battleships of the IJN boasted larger cannon, mainly their nine 18 inch guns. Though Almendorf's ships were aging and approaching obsolete, they had radar assistance to guide their nine 16 inch guns to target. Additionally, U.S. munitions burned faster and proved to have far greater range and penetration.
Almendorf's ships had formed a line across the strait, the slender figure of their hulls blending with the nearby coastline. At 18,000 yards, the first salvo was fired. The Japanese never saw it coming.
In a battle that raged for over an hour, the USN warships fired hundreds of 16 inch shells, gouting tongues of flame and vengeance through the straits. The seas rippled, quaking under the immense firepower of these ocean-going giants, their dream like power unleashed in unrestrained fury for the first time in 24 years. The noise was deafening, the ships walkways awash in salt water lapping aboard as these titans listed almost 45 degrees to port under the tremendous influence of nine 16 inch guns firing in roaring unison. The skies lit with tongues of tracer fire, magnesium and phosphorous. Across the straits, a pall of thick writhing haze hid the looming figures of the vengeful apparitions of Pearl. When the enormous rage fell silent, only one IJN warship remained. Listing and on fire, it tried vainly to limp away from Almendorf's fleet.

When the creeping fires of day passed judgment on the Straits of Surigao, it revealed only the lurking forms of Almendorf's ships, as they passed from Surigao into history.
It is perhaps fitting, that the last shipboard exchange of fire, in the last ship to ship engagement in history, belonged to the veterans of Pearl. Perhaps, in their own way, the wails of the wronged at Pearl stopped that day... if just for a moment. A Respect.

Regardless of Leyette Gulf, the battleship had vigilantly guarded the high seas unchallenged for 500 years and now it was time to pass on the colors to the winged warships of heaven. A changing of the guard.
This fact did little to dissuade the nations of the world from their use. The presence of these mighty ocean-going rulers of the sea still demanded awesome respect. Even the presence of the battle ship visited a cold, sweaty fear upon those who would dare approach her seamless, barely contained power.
As a point of fact, though many warships were sunk by aircraft in the Second World War, the numbers pale in comparison to the numbers of fighters, bombers and vessels the mighty battleship would destroy and drag down to the untouched stretch of the deep with her.

Over the 4 years of war in the Pacific, the IJN would turn out 6 aircraft carriers. By comparison, the U.S. produced 16. It was inevitable, and by the end of the war, the great battleships were assigned to escort or convoy duty, opening their enfilade of fire only in defense.
The aircraft had, in it's arrogant youth, outpaced the battleship. It had begun in 1918 with the launch of the first aircraft carrier, belonging to the British, ending with the Nimitz Class aircraft carriers of today. At 90,000 tonnes displaced, the aircraft carrier of today is a floating fortress. But, of the days of old...

On 30 October, 1946, the Albert H. Boe was ready for the sea. She was the last of 2, 742 battleships produced by the American war machine through 4 years of war. More than 200 of her sisters had drowned in the sea, giving their vital life to the unrepentant cause of war. Within a 9 month period, she and her Atlantic Fleet sisters would finally bring the men they guarded so well, home.
97, 575 U.S. soldiers would take the ferry across the 'pond' on the mightiest battleships ever built. They would in their careful embrace take them to the quiet shores of America and mothers, wives, children and loved ones.
Finally, the great ships were at rest, their proud reign ended, their long and sacred service to the sea embellished upon the pages of history. Even in peace, they maintained a glimpse of power, their massive hulls sliding through the seas at an amazing clip, their nine 16 inch guns lowered, their prows gazing into the storm shaped futures that laid ahead of them. A nation welcomed home their heroes. And the battleships were forgotten, forsaken as ambassadors of war.

"The war at sea..." Lord Nelson once recalled, "...is a gentlemen's war. For here, we are the masters of our own fate, the captains of our destiny." And of the ships that thanklessly sailed them into history, their chapter has ended.

Many of America's most distinguished and gallant vessels were later recognized for their long and dedicated service within the U.S. Navy.
In late 1946, they were sailed out to the Bikini Atoll in the South Pacific to take part in the U.S. programme of nuclear testing. These ships included some of the Second World War's greatest naval legends, including the U.S.S. Saratoga, New Jersey and the Montana.
In the blinding flash of America's first nuclear test at sea, they were consequently destroyed. All of these ships went down almost immediately, however, the defiant Saratoga took almost three days to sink.
The ships had been loaded with an animal cargo, to determine the effects of the nuclear testing on living beings. Mostly sheep, monkeys and mice, they died horrible and painful deaths.
For the warships who had so faithfully served their country, giving their all in the trial of fire which is war at sea, this was the final chapter in their fall from glory.
It only adds to this sad epitaph that their last crewmates were not sailors or soldiers serving a cause in which they believed, but prisoners, sentenced to death aboard the stolid surving warships of the wartime U.S. Sixth Pacific Fleet.

Now, the forlorn hulls of the WWII fleet are forks, pots and pans... used as cheaply as we would toilet tissue. The long and distinguished service of these magnificent ships is no longer coddled by the government, who now gauges history in terms of money.
In the end, what Pearl proved was that airpower could prove decisive. It couldn't be seen, it was highly mobile, far less expensive and extremely versatile.
Though the battleship was later armed with technology that made her impervious to direct attack by airpower, she still can be destroyed from the air.

The U.S.S. Missourri, after 58 years at sea, was retired with the most dignity of them all. Her guns opened 4 wars, her deck stood witness to the end of the greatest of these, and her memories carry those who sailed with her. Who filled her galley with laughter and who turned her guns in anger.

On the 50th Anniversary of Pearl Harbour in 1992, she ended her career where it began. In the gentle familiar warmth of the soft, salty laughter of Pearl. After 58 years at war, America's oldest soldier came home.

To those who perished at sea.

'Twas in a chapel twain, of old an' timbered shiver, that no tallow candle lit to kiss th' bitter 'tivers.
An' in th' steeples gather'd near, th' bells had died in quiet weirs. An' whisper'd nigh, 'pon vaulted height, that coo'd, that crew th' hour nigh.
A dove of injured love, o' soft feather'd, softer still, weeps, weeps near. Tears for us, an' anon will we be, oe'r morrow comes. An' so she weeps.

To the men of the Arizona.

Fair Skies.


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