Day of Infamy

(11 of 15)

At almost that very hour -- around 11:30 a.m. in Washington -- Marshall arrived at his office and read the ominous words Bratton had brought him. He asked the officers assembled there what they thought it meant. All expected an imminent Japanese attack -- somewhere. Marshall recalled that every major U.S. base had been warned of that more than a week earlier. Bratton and others urged a new warning. Marshall scrawled a message reporting the 1 p.m. meeting and added, "Just what significance the hour set may have we do not know, but be on alert accordingly."

Bratton rushed the message to the War Department signal center, where Marshall's scrawl had to be retyped for legibility. The message went to several points within a few minutes, but because of atmospheric difficulties, the copy for Hawaii went by commercial wireless. It reached Honolulu at 7:33 a.m. and ended in a pigeon hole, awaiting a motorcycle messenger to deliver it.

Fuchida's bombers had to fly blind over dense banks of clouds, so they homed on the Honolulu commercial radio station KGMB. Over his receiver, Fuchida heard soothing music, then a weather report: "Partly cloudy . . . over the mountains. Cloud base at 3,500 ft. Visibility good." Fuchida flew on.

To save money and fuel and manpower, the Pearl Harbor authorities had recently canceled weekend reconnaissance flights. But they had acquired some new radar equipment, though the National Park Service strongly objected to towers being installed on scenic mountaintops.

Two trainees operating a mobile radar unit at Opana, on Oahu's northern coast, were about to shut down when their watch ended at 7 a.m. Suddenly, Private Joseph Lockard noticed a large blip -- "probably more than 50" planes -- approaching southward from about 130 miles away. On the phone to Fort Shafter, Lockard reported to Lieut. Kermit Tyler "the largest ((flight)) I have ever seen on the equipment." The inexperienced Tyler figured that the planes must be a flight of the new B-17s expected from California. He told Lockard, "Don't worry about it."

As Fuchida's bombers neared Oahu, the defenders of Pearl Harbor got the last of their many warnings. Just outside the harbor, the U.S. destroyer Ward spotted an intruding submarine at 6:30 a.m. and opened fire from 50 yds. away. As the sub began diving, the Ward finished it off with depth charges. Lieut. William Outerbridge's report of his action was still ricocheting around headquarters when Fuchida arrived overhead.

"What a majestic sight," he said to himself as he counted the vessels lined up in Battleship Row in the dawn's early light. He pulled the trigger on his flare gun. That was supposed to signal the slow-moving torpedo bombers to take advantage of the surprise and strike first. But Fuchida's fighter pilots missed his signal to provide cover, so he fired again for the dive bombers to begin, and then the Japanese all attacked at once. Even when they made mistakes, it seemed that nothing could go wrong.

Within minutes, Pearl Harbor was pandemonium: explosions, screams, tearing steel, the rattle of machine guns, smoke, fire, bugles sounding, the whine of diving airplanes, more explosions, more screams. With Battleship Row afire, Fuchida's bombers circled over the maze of Pearl Harbor's docks and piers, striking again and again at the cruisers and destroyers and supply ships harbored there.