Army & Navy – Report on Infamy

“On the morning of Dec. 7, 1941, Japanese aircraft temporarily disabled every battleship and most of the aircraft in the Hawaiian area. . . .”

Thus the U.S. Navy, in releasing the long-awaited anniversary story of Pearl Harbor, officially acknowledged the end of a chapter in naval history. Historian Winston Churchill had written the text of that chapter after Jutland, saying that “Jellicoe could lose the war in an afternoon”—if he lost his battle fleet. When the U.S. lost its battle fleet that sunny morning a year ago, a new chapter in naval warfare began.

The Blow. That the U.S. had suffered at Pearl Harbor the worst defeat in its history was now plain. Not only had the Arizona been sunk, as Navy Secretary Knox acknowledged after a quick survey of the Pearl Harbor wreckage 52 weeks ago. The Oklahoma was perhaps beyond salvaging. The California, West Virginia and Nevada were either badly damaged or aground. (A ship in the bottom of a shallow harbor can be floated.) The other three battleships in Pearl Harbor last Dec, 7, the Tennessee, the Maryland and the Pacific Fleet flagship Pennsylvania, were put out of action temporarily.

Although battleships suffered most, cruisers did not escape. The Honolulu, Helena and Raleigh were disabled. So were other vessels: the 8,100-ton repair ship Vestal, the new 8,625-ton seaplane tender Curtiss. The minelayer Oglala, with the destroyers Shaw, Cassin and Downes and the target ship Utah (a retired battleship) were reported lost in Secretary Knox’s report of Dec. 15, 1941.

Surprising as was the havoc wrought along Pearl Harbor’s battleship row, there were other eyebrow-raising items in the Navy’s long-awaited report:

>Eighty Navy planes were destroyed, and 70 others disabled, of the 202 on Oahu. Few of the Army’s undamaged planes could take off because the Japs had knocked out the runways. This week’s report reveals 97 of 273 Army planes destroyed, unnumbered others damaged.

>Only 105 Jap planes—probably from two carriers—were required to defeat the U.S. Navy & Army, There were, the Navy estimated, 21 torpedo planes, 48 dive-bombers, 36 horizontal bombers,,

>Casualties, only slightly higher than were previously estimated, still added up to a grievous loss of the best-trained U.S. personnel: Navy and Marine Corps, 3,077 killed or still missing.

>Naval anti-aircraft shot down 28 Jap planes, Army pursuit planes “over 20.” Total: about half the Jap planes that hit Pearl Harbor. (Many officers who were at Pearl Harbor believe few, if any, Jap planes ever reached their carriers. The tanks of some of those shot down did not carry enough gasoline to return; some that got away were streaming gasoline when they left.)

So What? If Pearl Harbor was worse than some of the “wild rumors” that had been circulating in the U.S. for a year, it was certainly worse than the Japanese imagined. At first the Jap communiques claimed the destruction of only two battleships, damage to four others and to four cruisers. Whereas the Jap claimed destroying only 100 planes, he actually got 177. Tokyo radio continually revised its claims in the ten days following the raid, until the claims exceeded actual damage (example: 464 planes claimed).

The Jap obviously did not know immediately what later must have caused him to gnash his teeth: if he had brought his fleet in behind his 105 planes, he could have seized Hawaii. If Hawaii had fallen into his clutches, the Jap would have been close to winning the war in its first week.

The U.S. Navy could now look upon Pearl Harbor with brutal candor, because it could view some of its aftermath with satisfaction:

>Four task forces were not at Pearl Harbor. Their carriers and cruisers were more valuable than the ancient battleships which rolled over or settled to the bottom .of the harbor. Said Admiral Thomas C. Hart: “No one should have given high valuation to such old and very slow capital ships.” Said young Navy officers: “The Japs lifted the Navy from the 17-knot class to the 25-knot class.”

>Though the admirals can now dig up speeches to show that they realized the value of carrier-cruiser task forces long before Pearl Harbor, it was the lash of post-Pearl Harbor necessity that forced some of them to shove the startling World War II weapon, the carrier, into the No. 1 capital-ship slot. Many admirals were mentally aware of the new order in naval affairs, but their hearts were still on the bridges of their battleships. Pearl Harbor did not make those admirals love the airplane, but it forced them to marry it.

>The planes the Japs destroyed were largely obsolete — old two-motored B18 bombers, early P-40s, discontinued P-36s (which, nevertheless, shot down most of the planes credited to the Army).

Learning the Hard Way. Some of Pearl Harbor was tragic fumbling that probably will not happen again. Example: the indifference of the lieutenant cited by last winter’s Roberts report who disregarded a soldier’s warning that planes were approaching from 130 miles away. The Flying Fortresses which landed at Pearl Harbor during the battle might have shot down every Jap attacker except for one thing: they had been sent from California innocent of ammunition.

Later reports indicated that Intelligence was on an idyllic Hawaiian holiday. On Saturday, Dec. 6, a Japanese resident who had never before filed press dispatches telephoned a Tokyo newspaper, gave a report on weather, patrols, and “poinsettias and hibiscus in bloom” (battleships and cruisers in the harbor). For a week the Japanese consul had been sending an excessive number of cables to Tokyo.

A Jap two-man submarine slipped into Pearl Harbor at 5 a.m. Dec. 7, gathered information for Jap carriers and departed at 6 a.m.

Salvage. If Pearl Harbor’s greatest revelation was America’s unpreparedness for war, its most satisfactory aspect was, v the U.S. ability to act in the face of disaster. Today Pearl Harbor is one of the most strongly defended fortresses on earth. The Arizona still sits on the bottom near Ford Island, a mute monument which many a sailor apostrophizes thus: “You bastards, you haven’t paid enough for that yet.” The ugly, rusty keels of the Oklahoma and the old Utah are still turned up to the bright Hawaiian sun, just as they rolled bottom-side up a year ago.

But the other battleships have been raised. The slightly damaged Pennsylvania, Maryland and Tennessee went back with the fleet months ago. So did the three cruisers, the seaplane tender and repair ship. The California, Nevada and West Virginia have been, or are being, repaired and outfitted with modern guns and machines. Even the destroyer Shaw, which did not seem to be worth 35¢, was “sewed” together and sent to the U.S. mainland, where it was rebuilt. For the most remarkable salvage job in naval engineering history the U.S. could thank Captain Homer N. Wallin and the thousands of naval and civilian workers who labored under him.

Recovery. Only a little less remarkable has been the growth of the surface U.S. Navy in the year since Pearl Harbor. Besides the North Carolina and the Washington, commissioned in 1941, probably four new battleships, the South Dakota, Indiana, Massachusetts and Alabama, have joined the fleet by this time. The “biggest-ever” (45,000 tons), 30-knot Iowa was launched, in August, her sister ship New Jersey this week. These big, new, cruiser-fast battleships differ from the old Pearl Harbor ships as a Flying Fortress differs from a B18. Other signs of naval recovery :

Aircraft carrier launchings, such as this week’s Bunker Hill and the converted cruiser Belleau Wood, are being announced with increasing frequency, but probably very few new carriers will be ready for action before next spring. The loss of four leaves the U.S. with only three big flattops in service, but at least seven more, not including increasing numbers of small, converted merchantmen, should be carrying planes into battle before the end of 1943.

Cruisers. Starting the war with 37, the U.S. has admitted losing seven, has reported the commissioning of four and the launching of nine others (some of which have undoubtedly been commissioned also). The time between launching and commissioning is secret, but has been cut drastically from peacetime figures.

Destroyers. The U.S. started the war with 171, has admitted losing 22, including 13 in the Solomons, but has launched several times that many. Example: the Bath Iron Works alone turns out one destroyer every two weeks. Despite some fumblings, delays in machinery deliveries and other scandals, the destroyer program is one of the brightest spots in the Navy shipbuilding program.