(Two)
Pearl Harbor, Hawaii
7 December 1941
The Japanese task force, which had sailed from Hitokappu Bay in the Kurile Islands, began to launch aircraft at 0600 hours. The task force was then approximately 305 nautical miles from Pearl Harbor. In relation to the task force, Pearl Harbor was on the far side of Oahu Island, the second largest island of the Hawaiian Chain.
Japanese Intelligence was aware that the attack could not be entirely as successful as was initially hoped. In the best possible scenario, essentially all of the United States Pacific Fleet would be in Pearl Harbor. The worst possible scenario was that essentially all of the Pacific Fleet would be at sea. The reality turned out to be between these extremes. All the battleships of the Pacific Fleet were in Pearl Harbor, as well as a number of other ships.
But the seven heavy cruisers and the two aircraft carriers the Japanese had also hoped to find at anchor were at sea. The Japanese knew the composition of the at-sea forces, but not their location.
Task Force 8-an aircraft carrier, three cruisers, and nine destroyers and destroyer minesweepers-was approximately 200 nautical miles from Pearl. Task Force 3-one cruiser and five destroyers and destroyer minesweepers-was 40 nautical miles off Johnson Island, about 750 nautical miles from Pearl Harbor. Task force 12-one carrier, three cruisers, and five destroyers-was about as far from Pearl Harbor as Task Force 3, operating approximately 400 nautical miles north of Task Force 3.
The decision was made to attack anyway. There was always the chance of detection; the destruction of harbor facilities and airfields was of high priority, and the destruction of one or more battleships would severely limit the capability of the American fleet.
The code command for the attack was "Climb Mount Niitaka 1208."
Approximately 125 nautical miles from Pearl Harbor, the stream of aircraft from the Japanese task force split into two streams. Fifty miles from Oahu, what was now the left stream began to split again, this time into three streams. The first two turned right and made for Pearl Harbor across the island. The third stream continued on course until it was past the tip of Oahu, and then turned toward the center of the island and made an approach to Pearl Harbor from the sea.
Meanwhile, the right stream had broken into two, with one crossing the coastline and making for Pearl Harbor across the island, and the second continuing on course past the island, then turning back to attack Pearl Harbor from the open sea.
The first wave of Japanese bombers struck at 0755 hours and the second at 0900. By then the task force had changed course and was making for the Japanese Inland Sea, hoping to avoid any encounter with carrier-based aircraft from Task Forces 12 and 8 or with land-based aircraft on Oahu. Intelligence reported that at least one squadron of long-range, four-engine B-17 bomber aircraft was en route from the continental United States. Despite the risk of detection by radio direction finders, shortly after 1030 hours, a priority message from the Japanese task force was radioed to headquarters of the Imperial Japanese Navy in Tokyo: "Tora (Tiger), Tora, Tora." It was the prearranged code for the successful completion of the attack.
(Three)
Although he tried to be very nonchalant about the whole thing, Second Lieutenant K.J. McCoy made his first aerial trip from Anacostia to the West Coast. All in all, once he got used to it, he found it very enjoyable. The airplane was a Navy transport, but so far as he could tell, identical to the Douglas DC-3s used by civilian airlines. The Navy called it an R4-D, yet it even had white napkins on the seats to keep your hair tonic from soiling the upholstery.
It was considerably more plush than the aircraft that carried him from California to Hawaii. As Major Almond had warned, there were a lot of people in California with an AAA priority waiting for air transportation to Hawaii. He could wait, the sergeant told him, until there was a space, but he should understand that when two people had an AAA priority, the one who was senior in rank got the seat. As a second lieutenant, he was liable to wait a long time.
There was another way to get to Hawaii. The Army Air Corps was flying a squadron of B-17 bombers to Hickam Field. They had excess weight capacity because they would not carry bombs, and they were carrying passengers.
"Well, if that's the only way to get there, Sergeant," McCoy said, with feigned reluctance, "I suppose that'll have to be it."
The truth of the matter was that he was a little excited about the idea of flying on a bomber. And the flight started off on an ego-pleasing note, too. When he got to the airbase and presented his orders, a thoroughly pissed-off Air Corps major had to get out of the airplane so that Second Lieutenant McCoy of the Marines with his briefcase and AAA priority could get on.
They were supposed to land at Hickam Field about noon. An hour before that, the radio operator established contact with Hawaii. Moments later the pilot came back in the fuselage and told the crew and the four supercargo passengers (two Air Corps lieutenant colonels, an Army master sergeant, and McCoy) what had happened in Hawaii.
It was all over when the B-17 appeared over Oahu, but some dumb sonsofbitches didn't get the word and shot at the B-17, not just once but twice, the second time as they made their approach to Hickam Field.
The airfield was all shot up. There were burning and burned-out airplanes everywhere, and not one hangar seemed to be intact. An enormous cloud of dense black smoke rose where the Japs had managed to set off an aviation fuel dump.
They had no sooner landed than an Air Corps major appeared in a jeep and told the pilot to take off again for a landing field on a pineapple plantation on one of the other islands. He seemed thoroughly pissed-off when the pilot said he didn't have enough fuel aboard to take off for anywhere.
McCoy very politely asked the Air Corps major about transportation to the Navy Base at Pearl Harbor.
"Good Christ, Lieutenant!" the Air Corps major said, jumping all over his ass. "Are you blind? Pearl Harbor isn't there anymore!"
There was no point arguing with him, so McCoy, the briefcase in one hand and his suitcase in the other, started walking.
There were a lot of other excited types at Hickam running around like chickens with their heads cut off, and even more who seemed to be moving around with strange blank looks in
their eyes.
None of them were any help about getting him from Hickam to Pearl Harbor, even after he showed a couple of them his credentials. So McCoy decided that under the circumstances it would be all right to borrow transportation. He found a Ford pickup with nothing in the back and the keys in the ignition.
The MP at the gate held him at rifle point until an officer showed up. The officer took one look at the credentials and let him go.
As he approached the Navy Base, there was even more smoke than there'd been at Hickam Field. When he got to the gate, the Marine MP on duty wasn't any more impressed with the credentials than the Army MP at Hickam Field had been, and he had to wait for an officer to show up before he would let him inside.
While he was waiting for the officer to come to the gate, McCoy asked the MP if the Marine Barracks had been hit, and if so, how badly. The MP wouldn't tell him. That worried McCoy even more. Tommy was in the Marine Barracks, which meant in the middle of this shit. He didn't like to consider the possibility that Tommy had got himself blown up.
The officer who came to the gate passed him through and told him where he was supposed to go.
The Navy seemed a lot calmer than the Air Corps had been, but not a whole hell of a lot. Still, he found a classified-documents officer, a middle-aged, harassed-looking lieutenant commander, who relieved him of the contents of the briefcase. As McCoy was taking off the handcuff and the.45's shoulder holster so he could put them into the briefcase, he asked the lieutenant commander what he was expected to do now.