HISTORY

On photograph taken in Washington, D.C. in February 1927 are seated from the left: new

Naval Attaché, Capt. Isoroku Yamamoto, U.S. Secretary of the Navy Curtis D. Wilbur, former

Naval Attaché Capt. Kiyoshi Hasegawa, and Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Edward

Walter Eberle. Thanks to Eberle, completion of the aircraft carriers USS Lexington and

Saratoga was hurried. He also contributed to the retention of aviation units within the U.S.

Navy after World War I.

whose rivalry was well known.

Individual naval aviators took different approaches to the attack on the

US. Some welcomed the attack with enthusiasm, others saw it as an obligation. There were also airmen who were seriously concerned about a

war against the US or expressed resentment that the enemy would be

attacked unexpectedly and that a conventional naval battle would not

occur. Most airmen considered Pearl Harbor a heavily defended target

and assumed they would not return from the raid.

The Striking Force is setting sail

The core of the Striking Force, which was to attack Pearl Harbor, were six

aircraft carriers divided into three divisions: 1. Kōkū Sentai with Akagi and

Kaga, 2. Kōkū Sentai with Soryū and Hiryū and 5. Kōkū Sentai with Shókaku and Zuikaku. They belonged to the so-called Kidō Butai (Mobile Force)

commanded by Vice-Admiral Chūichi Nagumo. At the same time, he was

the commander of the 1st Kōkū Kantai (Air Fleet), under which the air units

aboard a total of six aircraft carriers fell organizationally.

Such a large carrier group has never been deployed in combat in the history of naval operations. Two of the ships, Shōkaku and Zuikaku, were

completed just a few months ago. The battleships Hiei and Kirishima and

the heavy cruisers Tone and Chikuma were part of the group. The cruiser

Abukuma cruiser, with nine modern destroyers, provided escort for the

Striking Force. Seven tankers provided fuel and the submarines I-19, I-21,

and I-23 sailed in the vanguard to Hawaii.

The aircraft of the 1st and 2nd Kōkū Sentai were divided into four specializations: fighter escort, torpedo attack, dive bombing, and horizontal flight

bombing. The crews of the 5th Kōkū Sentai were ordered to prepare for

only the first three tasks. If no enemy aircraft were in the air, the escort

fighters were to engage in strafing ground targets, preferably attacking as

low as possible over the terrain.

The leader of the air attack was Commander Mitsuo Fuchida, who simultaneously commanded the first attack wave. The fighter escort during the

first wave was led by Lt. Shigeru Itaya, who had participated in the development of the Zero for the Navy in the late 1930s. In the second wave, Lt.

Saburō Shindō, who led Zer pilots into the first successful combat in China

in 1940. All three officers served aboard the Akagi. The commander of the

second attack wave was another veteran of fighting in China, Lieutenant

Commander Shigekazu Shimazaki.

Vessels began to depart their ports gradually starting on November 16 and

gathered in Hitokappu Bay on the remote island of Etorofu in the South

Kurils. Toward its destination in Hawaii, the Striking Force sailed in the

evening of November 26. The Japanese decided to attack the target in two

waves and were prepared to send a third. The reason for dividing the air

units into several waves was primarily the long time required for logistics

and launching all the machines from the decks. Nagumo received a coded message on December 2, “Niitaka-yama nobore 1208” (Climb Mount

Niitaka 1208)”, meaning that the date of the attack was confirmed for December 8 of Japanese time.

After refueling northerly of Midway Atoll on December 4, the convoy

headed southeast. The voyage was conducted at constant risk of discovery of the Striking Force. If detection occurred within two days before the

INFO Eduard - December 2021

Attack

At 1 hour 30 minutes (Japanese Standard Time) the order was given to

start the engines. The first to take to the air from each ship were 43 Zero

fighters, needing the shortest run-up to take off. They were followed by

140 Nakajima B5N bombers and Aichi D3A dive bombers. Mitsuo Fuchida

assisted his navigation to the target by tuning in an American radio from

Hawaii, which, in addition to jazz music for a relaxing Sunday morning,

provided an accurate report of the weather over the target, including cloud

height and wind strength and direction. As a result, Fuchida changed his

direction of attack. At 3 o'clock, the Japanese crews spotted Kahuku Point

on northern part of Oahu. After ten minutes, Fuchida gave the order to

attack with one flare, but the fighter escort did not notice the signal. Fuchida then fired a second flare, but this caused a misunderstanding among

the bomber crews. The two flares were a signal that the formation was

under attack. As a result, the leader of the dive bombers, Lt. Cdr. Kakuichi

Takahashi understood that he should attack first, but the leader of the

torpedo bomber formation Lt. Cdr. Shigeharu Murata believed that he was

the one to launch the raid according to the original plan.

At 3 hours 17 minutes Fuchida, after visual contact with the target, sent

the signal “to, to, to, to”, which meant that the aircraft were launching the

attack in full force. After another three minutes, he sent the signal “tora,

tora, tora” (tora = tiger), confirming that the enemy had been surprised.

The message was immediately relayed by Nagumo to Tokyo.

Dive bombers due to a misunderstanding launched a raid on the ships

in the harbor first, which forced the commander of the torpedo bombers

to attack under a different course and faster than planned. Some of the

bombers attacked Ford Island, Hickam Field, and Wheeler, Ewa, and Kaneohe airfields. Mitsuo Fuchida's B5N bomber formation dropped bombs

Photo: Naval History and Heritage Command

Photo: Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.

attack, Nagumo would return to Japan. On the eve of the attack, Japanese

naval command received word from agents in Hawaii of vessels in port,

but no American aircraft carriers were present. Nevertheless, excitement

about the coming action prevailed among the crews of the Kidō Butai.

After another refueling about six hundred miles north of Oahu, only the

combat vessels made their way to the target. On the mast of the Akagi

flew the historic flag used by Admiral Tōgō at the Battle of Tsushima.

The heavy cruisers Tone and Chikuma sent reconnaissance float planes

to the area of Hawaii, and crews upon their return, confirmed previous

information about enemy ships in the harbor.

Imperial Japanese Navy Portrait photograph of Vice Admiral Chūichi Nagumo taken circa

1941-42, when he was commander of the 1st Air Fleet.

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