At 7:53 Japanese dive bombers swooped down on to their targets. Targets with titantic proportions and enormous destructive power were now helpless to a handfuls of Japanese built dive bombers and torpedo bombers. The eight battleships so endangered were the pride of the US Navy and the nemesis of the Japanese navy.
The Japanese had long had coveted the raw material, necessary to wage war, contained on the US and British conroled island in the Pacific. The first step in securing there islands was eliminating the US and British forces in the Pacific. Pearl Harbor was the main base of Americal Forces in that half of the world. This made Pearl Harbor and the battleship behemoths that it contained top priority for the Japanese Navy. The US commanders knew that this attack was comming, the question was when.
When, December 7th, as the first wave launched from the six aircraft carriers attacked battleship row several midget submarines tried to sneak into the harbor. All were sunk or lost at sea. Men on the ships were still asleep or at church. One sailor upon hearing bombs exploding thought that someone had goofed and put live bombs on the practice planes! Another later said, "Where are the Germans coming from?". Several ships were immediately sunk, fires gutted others chasing the suffocating sailors from belowdecks.
A suprisingly accurate bomb penetrated the forward magazine of the USS Arizona, sinking it almost instantly.When the Japanese finally departed they left a mere 55 airmen and 9 submariners behind. The United States casualties were more stunning as follows:
2,335 military personel
68 civilians were killed
4 battleships
8 cruisers
29 destroyers
~50 other ships
~390 planes
As a side note, my Grandfather who was in "German jail" at the time,remembers hearing that the Jap's had bombed Pearl Harbor.
CM
