2. Mount Niitaka

Chapter Two

MOUNT NIITAKA

THE NIGHT of December 5, 1941, the Japanese naval radio sent the code message, “Climb Mount Niitaka.” That message meant war.¹ To the 1st Japanese air fleet, 800 miles north of Oahu in the Hawaiian Islands, it meant that there was no turning back. To Vice-Adm. Chuichi Nagumo, the fleet commander, it conveyed the order to attack Pearl Harbor with his carrier planes at dawn the second day following. Adm. Nagumo put on full steam, and all that night, all the next day, and all the second night his powerful task force forged southward at forced draft.

At 6:00 A.M. December 7, the Japanese striking force, then 200 miles north of Oahu, began launching its planes from six carriers—the “Kaga,” “Akagi,” “Hiryu,” “Soryu,” “Shokaku,” and “Zuikaku.” The planes, 351 in all,² took off in three waves. All had cleared the flight decks by 7:15. They rendezvoused to the south and then flew in for co-ordinated attacks on Pearl Harbor and the Hawaiian air fields.

The 1st air fleet had left Hitokappu Bay, Etorofu Island, in the southernmost part of the Kuriles, at 9:00 A.M., November 26, Japan time—1:30 P.M., November 25, Hawaii time. The striking force, commanded by Adm. Nagumo, consisted of twenty-seven warships: the six carriers, two battleships, the “Hiei” and “Kirishima”; two heavy cruisers, the “Tone” and “Chikuma”; one light cruiser, the “Abukuma,” and sixteen destroyers. Eleven vessels were in the supply train.

The Japanese 6th fleet, under command of Vice-Adm. Mitsumi Shimizu, formed an advance expeditionary force. His fleet consisted of two light cruisers, the “Isuzu” and “Yura”; one training light cruiser, the “Katori,” twenty submarines, five midget submarines of 45 tons, with a range of only 200 miles, and six vessels of the fleet train.

The plan of attack had originally been proposed early in January, 1941, by Adm. Isoroku Yamamoto, commander-in-chief of the combined imperial fleets. Rear Adm. Takijiro Onishi, chief of staff of the 11th air fleet, had been ordered by Yamamoto at that time to study the requirements of such an operation. It is not to be supposed from these facts that Japan even then was committed to war with the United States. The United States, as is now known, had also prepared war plans which were to be executed upon the decision to go to war, and at one stage, by the statement of former Secretary of War Stimson, even meditated a “sneak attack” such as the Japanese carried out at Pearl Harbor.*

The basic Japanese plan for an attack upon Pearl Harbor had been evolving ever since 1931. Its theoretical possibilities had been explored by all graduates of the Japanese naval academy, who, each year were asked on the final examination: “How would you carry out a surprise attack on Pearl Harbor?”³ Ironically, however, it was the United States Naval Planning Board which helped the Japs perfect the plan.

In 1932 an American battle force assembled in the Pacific to test Pearl Harbor’s defenses. One section of it was to attack, while the other, with coast artillery, a division of troops, one hundred planes, and a number of submarines, was to defend the naval base. The attacking force, commanded by Adm. Harry E. Yarnell, an air-minded officer who had made many flights with his squadrons—unusual in the Navy of that day—revolutionized naval strategy by leaving behind all his battleships and cruisers and using only two aircraft carriers, the “Lexington” and “Saratoga,” and four destroyers. This was the first appearance of a new naval grouping, afterward to be known as a task force.

When twenty-four hours off Oahu the attacking force encountered heavy weather. This, from Adm. Yarnell’s viewpoint, was all to the good, for the weather conditions made it less probable that the shore defenders, on the lookout for a great invasion fleet, would spot so small a flotilla.

By the evening of February 6, a Saturday, Adm. Yarnell’s force was in a position to reach Oahu by dawn. Yarnell surmised that if he attacked early on Sunday morning the defenders would be less alert than usual. Thirty minutes before dawn on February 7, when the carriers had approached within 60 miles of Oahu after a forced run all night, they launched 152 aircraft—bombers, fighters, dive bombers, and torpedo planes.

Adm. Yarnell’s planes, coming in from the northeast, exactly as the Japs were to do nine years later, were undetected until they darted out of the clouds into clear weather over Pearl Harbor. Simulated machine gun fire theoretically destroyed all defending planes on the ground. Not one got into the air during the attack. All of the hypothetical vessels in the harbor were “sunk.”

Japanese observers watched the maneuver and forwarded full details to Tokyo. It was evident that Yarnell’s maneuver had upset all existing naval concepts. Some American officers who participated later in the critiques when the lessons of the operation were evaluated argued that the Navy should be reorganized so that the striking force of the fleet should be built around its air arm, and the battleship and other surface craft relegated to the subordinate mission of protecting the air striking force and its carriers. As might be expected, the battleship admirals opposed, and, inasmuch as they held the positions of power in the naval hierarchy, they won. It was left for Japan to adopt Yarnell’s brilliant concept.⁴

In late August, 1941, Adm. Yamamoto ordered all fleet commanders and key staff members to Tokyo for war games, preliminary to a final formulation of plans for a Pacific campaign which comprehended a surprise attack on Pearl Harbor in the event of war. Between September 1 and 12, the outline of a basic plan of operations was drafted at the naval war college in Tokyo.

As early as October 5 part of the attack plan was revealed to officer pilots of the task force who had been called together aboard the carrier “Akagi” in Shikishi Bay. About one hundred pilots who were present were told of the design to strike the American fleet at Pearl Harbor. Adm. Yamamoto informed them that “although Japan never wanted to fight the United States, the Japanese were forced to do so or they would be defeated regardless.” American aid to China and the American embargo on oil shipments to Japan, the admiral said, were seriously affecting the progress of the imperial arms in the China war.

Yamamoto predicted to the pilots that the United States fleet would take two or three years to recover from the intended attack and that meanwhile Japan would occupy Sumatra, Java, and other territories from which critically needed materials could be extracted. The admiral described the American fleet as Japan’s “greatest enemy.”

Premier Prince Konoye’s cabinet failed, so it was announced, to “agree on national policy,” and, upon Konoye’s resignation October 16, War Minister Tojo received the imperial command to form a new cabinet. The war party was now fully in control, and, although there was still a prospect of settling American differences with Japan, Tojo was taking no chances. On October 17, without even waiting to form his cabinet, he issued orders for the first and second squadrons of the 6th fleet’s submarines to put to sea. This force represented some fourteen of the submarines which were to be a part of Adm. Shimizu’s advance expeditionary force in the Pearl Harbor operation. That night they left Kure under cover of darkness and advanced to Kwajalein, in the Marshall Islands, where they found the cruiser “Katori.” Fearing discovery, the flotillas dispersed temporarily to nearby Wotje and Maloelap, in the Marshalls.

On November 4 combined fleet top secret operation order No. 1 was promulgated to all fleet and task force commanders. It provided for subsequent designation of Y-day as the approximate date for the attack on Pearl Harbor, and of X-day as the actual date for execution. Operation order No. 2, issued by Yamamoto November 6, set Y-day as Dec. 7, Hawaii time.

On November 13 Yamamoto ordered the Pearl Harbor attacking force to assemble in Hitokappu Bay and remain there until November 22 taking on supplies. On November 21 Adm. Osami Nagano, chief of the naval general staff, instructed Yamamoto that fleet units in Hitokappu Bay might use force if they encountered any interference from British, Dutch, or American forces, but later the same day he amended the order in certain significant respects.

Nagano’s revised order read:

If American-Japanese negotiations are successful, forces will be ordered back immediately. Use of force mentioned above will be limited to three cases: if American, Dutch, or British surface forces appear in Japanese waters for reconnaissance, if same forces approach Japanese sea waters and jeopardize our forces, if aggressive action is taken by same forces outside Japanese territorial waters.

This was still far from reflecting an assumption that war was bound to ensue. It indicated that Japan was hopeful that some diplomatic compromise would enable a showdown to be avoided. By then, however, the hands of the clock of diplomacy were approaching midnight.

On November 24 the order was issued by Yamamoto to the striking force to leave Hitokappu Bay the following day and proceed in secret to Hawaiian waters. The order read:

(A) The task force, keeping its movements strictly secret and maintaining close guard against submarines and aircraft, shall advance into Hawaiian waters and, upon the very opening of hostilities, shall attack the main force of the United States fleet in Hawaii and deal it a mortal blow. The first air raid is planned for dawn of X-day (exact date to be given by later order).

Upon completion of the air raid the task force, keeping close co-ordination and guarding against enemy counter-attack, shall speedily leave the enemy waters and then return to Japan.

(B) Should it appear certain that Japanese-American negotiations will reach an amicable settlement prior to the commencement of hostile action, all the forces of the combined fleet are to be ordered to reassemble and return to their bases.

(C) The task force shall leave Hitokappu Bay on the morn-of 26 November (Japan time; 25 November, Hawaii time) and advance to 42 degrees N. and 170 degrees E. (standing-by position) on the afternoon of 4 December (Japan time; 3 December, Hawaii time), and speedily complete refueling.

The task force stood out to sea on November 25 and cruised eastward at 13 knots, held down by the low speed of the supply vessels. Lookouts were posted, but no searches or combat air patrols were flown. It had been calculated that North Pacific weather would cause difficulty in refueling at sea; so those ships whose capacity was small were loaded with oil in drums for emergency use. The weather, however, proved calm, and fueling from the tankers was carried out as planned.

The progress of the striking force was skilfully covered by a barrage of false warship call signs, padding of radio circuits, and similar deceptive tactics to simulate the presence of the principal carriers and carrier air groups in the Inland Sea. So successful was this program that in his intelligence roundup for December 1 Vice-Adm. Theodore S. Wilkinson, chief of naval intelligence, said of Japanese fleet dispositions, “Major capital ship strength remains in home waters, as well as the greatest portion of the carriers.” This estimate could not have been more misleading to the fleet and Army commanders in Hawaii.

In order further to allay American suspicions, Premier Gen. Tojo announced that the Asama Maru would be sent to repatriate Jap residents in Malaya and British Borneo, and that the Tatsuta Maru would touch at Mexico to bring Japanese nationals back from the United States. The captain of the “Tatsuta Maru” had orders to take an eastward course in North Pacific waters, and, on reaching 180 degrees longitude, to turn southward. On the morning of the attack at Oahu his ship was back off Chosi, Japan.

Meanwhile, Japanese spies in Hawaii were busy feeding back reports to Tokyo on the movements and disposition of the American fleet. Although American intelligence was intercepting Tokyo’s instructions to the spies, together with the responses of these agents, the intelligence chiefs of our Army and Navy later professed to see nothing alarming in Japan’s preoccupation with the berthing of the Pacific fleet.*

Twice after its departure from Hitokappu Bay the Jap striking force received code messages from Tokyo giving dispositions of the fleet in Pearl Harbor. The second of these was received three days before the attack. In addition, an officer aboard the “Akagi” was detailed to listen to Honolulu broadcasts and decode them for last-minute information on fleet movements in and out of Pearl Harbor. A broadcast that “the German attaché has lost one dog” would mean that a carrier had left the harbor. If the attaché wanted a cook or a house boy, that would mean that a battleship or a cruiser had entered.

The war council in Tokyo had recognized December 7 as suitable for attack. Tuesday, December 9, was also considered suitable for a dawn attack, because it would then be the dark of the moon. It was expected, however, that the Pacific fleet, in accordance with its custom during maneuvers, would enter the harbor on Friday and leave on Monday. Adm. Yarnell’s plan, moreover, had demonstrated that conditions on a Sunday were propitious for attack. Therefore, Sunday was chosen. Another consideration favoring an attack on Sunday around 8:00 A.M., was, in the view of Adm. Nagano, that “American officers were inclined to sleep late on Sunday morning.”⁵

On December 1 an imperial naval order fixed X-day, stating that “hostile action against the United States shall be commenced on 7 December.” This order thereby confirmed the date originally fixed in the Y-day order of November 6. On December 2, however, Nagano again inquired if the fleet could be recalled in the event of a belated settlement being reached in the Washington negotiations. He was assured by Yamamoto that it could.⁶ That same day Adm. Yamamoto fixed “Tora” as the code word by which the attacking fleet would signal a successful outcome.

Upon receipt of the order setting December 7 as X-day, all ships in the Japanese striking force were darkened and condition 2 (second degree of readiness, gun crews stationed) was ordered. On December 4 the rendezvous point about 2,350 miles east of Tokyo and 1,460 miles northwest of Pearl Harbor was reached. The combat ships of the fleet fueled to capacity from the tankers, which were dropped that night.

The task force then turned southeast at increased speed. The carriers “Hiryu” and Soryu,” whose fuel capacity was small, had been oiled daily while in company of the tankers and now had to be fueled by bucket brigade from the oil drums taken on board. The cruise from the beginning had been uneventful. The route lay beyond the patrol sweeps of any American land-based planes. The Great Circle route through the vast and lonely North Pacific, between Midway and the Aleutians, was far from the commercial ship lanes and well out of waters which American patrol ships might be expected to prowl. No ships or planes had been sighted and no false alarms had been sounded.

Although the progress of the task force was unexpectedly smooth, the Japs were fearful of failure almost to the last. According to an official United States Navy account, the striking force, if detected before X minus 2 day, was to withdraw without executing the attack. In the event of being discovered on X minus 1 day, the question of whether to make an attack or to return would have been decided in accordance with local conditions and at Adm. Nagumo’s discretion.

If contact had been made at sea with the main body of the United States fleet, the Jap operational plan called for a reserve group of heavy naval units to sortie from the Inland Sea of Japan to support the carrier striking force in a decisive engagement. The Japanese assumed that, with 180 or more combat vessels in the Pacific as against 102 warships in the United States Pacific fleet, their numerical superiority would be sufficient to bring them victory.

While the pilot and officer personnel of Adm. Nagumo’s fleet knew the objective was Pearl Harbor, the crews of the six carriers thought until the day before the assault that they were on a training cruise. When the men noticed that the bows were heading east, according to the account of Capt. Mitsue Fuchida, commander of the flight groups aboard the carriers, they began to wonder and speculate. On December 3 the fleet personnel learned that Japan might enter the war and “the men became kind of excited,” but they “calmed down when given the order to attack.”⁷

On the night of December 5 the task force received the “Mount Niitaka” code signal. The run-in toward Hawaii the night of December 6-7 was made at top speed, 26 knots. At 5:00 A.M. two Zero reconnaissance planes were launched to survey Pearl Harbor and Lahaina anchorage. They reached their destination an hour before the arrival of the attack planes from the Japanese carriers, reported that the “fleet was in,” and completed their mission without having been detected.

On the night before the attack the twenty large submarines of Adm. Shimizu’s advance expeditionary force had reached the waters in the vicinity of Pearl Harbor under orders not to attack until the carrier planes had made their assault. The five midget submarines were launched from specially fitted fleet submarines between 50 and 100 miles off Pearl Harbor as a “special attacking force.” Their task was to prevent the escape of the American fleet through the harbor entrance during the air raid, but two actually entered Pearl Harbor before the attack. One of these made an extensive reconnaissance and probably reported back to the fleet by radio.

Planes were launched from the large submarines after the attack to survey the extent of the damage. The operation plan provided that if the American fleet was virtually destroyed, one Japanese submarine division or less would be placed between Hawaii and the west coast of the United States to destroy sea traffic. In fact, at least one submarine was dispatched to the Oregon coast about December 14.

Weather was taken into consideration. Most of the winter the trade wind in Hawaii blows steadily from the northeast against the 2,800-foot Koolau Range, where it discharges its moisture. An air force which escapes being picked up by detection apparatus can approach hidden in the towering wall of rain clouds and then emerge suddenly into clear weather over Pearl Harbor before defending planes can rise to intercept. Adm. Yarnell’s attacking force in 1932 had taken advantage of these conditions, and the Japs also counted on this cover.

The weather at Pearl Harbor on December 7 was officially logged by the Navy as: “Averaging partly cloudy, with clouds mostly over the mountains. Cloud base at 3,500 feet, visibility good. Wind north, 10 knots.” These conditions favored a surprise attack. The planes bearing the Rising Sun were screened by the cumulus banks over the mountains until the aircraft were ready to split up and make predetermined approaches on their targets.

The Japanese had expected to lose 33 per cent of all participating units. Specifically, they thought they would lose at least one “Akagi” class carrier and one “Soryu” class carrier. They also expected to lose all of the midget submarines, whose “personnel had been prepared for death,” and were correct in this estimate.⁸ No attempt was made preliminary to the attack to reckon probable losses in planes, but losses were far less than even the most optimistic estimate could have suggested. Only twenty-seven aircraft failed to return to the carriers.

At no time was a landing in Hawaii contemplated. The Japanese high command believed that a landing operation would involve insuperable problems in logistics. Troop transports and cargo vessels carrying the huge volume of supplies necessary to sustain an expeditionary force would have required a great convoy, while the progress of the striking force would have been held to the pace of the slowest vessel. If speed were sacrificed, it was thought unlikely that surprise could be achieved.

The Japanese thought it impossible to follow up the air raid with a landing in less than a month. They apparently had underestimated the damage they would inflict and did not know how ill prepared Hawaii was to resist a landing in strength following closely upon an attack. After the surrender of Japan, Capt. Ryonosuke Imamura, secretary of the naval ministry, said, “We had expected a much greater defense at so important a base. We were amazed. Our fleet was told to bomb and leave. We had no troops with which to make a landing. If we had, perhaps we could have taken Hawaii, but we had no plan to do so.”⁹

On the first anniversary of the attack, Secretary Knox asserted that the Japanese could have returned and taken Hawaii.¹⁰ The statement must be regarded with a certain skepticism, inasmuch as Knox advanced it in justification of the concealment of American losses for a full year. Maj. Gen. Walter C. Short, commander of Army forces in Hawaii in 1941, estimated five years afterward that Japan would have required a force of 200,000 men to have taken Hawaii, and thought that, even so, the operation could have been successfully brought off only if the American fleet were not present to help defend the island.¹¹

The Pearl Harbor attack was executed by Japan for the purpose of immobilizing the American fleet while the Japs expanded southward, and his fleet, in the opinion of Adm. Nagano, achieved “far greater success” on this mission than had been expected.¹² Gen. George C. Marshall, wartime chief of staff, later testified,

If the attack had been repulsed successfully, the Japanese would have had to proceed more conservatively. Instead of striking south (to Malaya and the Dutch Indies) without protecting their lines of communication from flank attacks, they would not have dared to proceed as they did—a major part of the United States fleet would still have been in effective condition.¹³

There were other and graver mistakes in Japanese strategy than failure to attempt to seize Hawaii. One was in the selection of the very targets at Pearl Harbor. The Japs went after our battleships. In order to carry out that attack without hindrance, they also went after the planes parked on the Hawaii airdromes. Planes are easily replaced, especially types which are obsolete or obsolescent, as most of those at Pearl Harbor were. The battleships which were knocked out were so old as to be of slight value. The records show that during the entire course of the Pacific war battleships fired at other surface craft on only four occasions.¹⁴

After the war Rear Adm. Husband E. Kimmel, who was in command of the Pacific fleet on December 7, said that proper Japanese strategy would have knocked the fleet out of action for a long time even if there had been no ships in harbor that day to attack. He said:

Even if they had not sunk a ship, the Japs might have crippled the base and destroyed all the fleet’s fuel supplies, which were in the open. The result might have been worse than it actually was, because this would have forced the fleet to return to the West Coast. As it was, our fuel was left intact at Hawaii and the base could still be used.¹⁵

He added that the Japs failed to immobilize the fleet because his three carriers and most of his fast cruisers—the most valuable vessels of his command—were not in harbor.¹⁶

Vice-Adm. W. W. Smith, chief of staff to Kimmel, said that the attack upon the fleet was Japan’s “greatest mistake.” The Japs, he said, knocked out only battleships, which were of less value than the two carriers which were at sea and escaped damage. Adm. Smith said that the Japs could have crippled the Pacific fleet for months if they had destroyed the oil supplies and machine shops at Hawaii instead of the battleships. By doing so, he said, the base would have been rendered untenable.¹⁷

Adm. Raymond A. Spruance, the present commander-in-chief of the Pacific fleet, said that the attack demonstrated that the Japs did not appreciate sea power as an offensive weapon. “Instead of following up his initial successes,” said Spruance, “the enemy diverted the navy, which then far outclassed ours, to the Southwest Pacific. The Japanese might have won a quick and decisive victory had the base at Pearl Harbor been smashed.”¹⁸

Another error was the failure of the Japs to seize Midway Island in the first days of the war. They contented themselves with shelling Midway the night of December 7, but the defending garrison scored three hits on a destroyer with shore guns and at least two on a cruiser before the attacking force withdrew. If the Japanese wanted to take Midway, they would have found the island’s defenses at their weakest in the first few days or few weeks after Pearl Harbor. But not until six months later did Japan make a serious effort to seize the island, and by then it was too late. The crushing defeat imposed upon the imperial fleet in the battle of Midway, June 4-6, 1942, was a turning-point in the war and one of the decisive battles of history.

After the attack upon Pearl Harbor the Japanese striking force was under orders to withdraw from Hawaiian waters with all possible speed. All except twenty-seven planes returned safely to their carrier decks between 10:30 A.M. and 1:30 P.M., and the task force withdrew to the northwest. The carriers, according to the flight group commander, Capt. Fuchida, had intended to bomb Midway on the homeward journey, but changed plans because the weather grew bad. On the way back to Japan, Fuchida said, two carriers left the fleet to assault Wake Island, which fell to a Japanese landing force on the evening of December 22, after a fifteen-day siege.

The remainder of the Pearl Harbor striking force returned to Japan by a circuitous course, arriving at Kure on December 22. Japanese officers said that there was no particular excitement or celebrations aboard the ships, but that “the pilots had a good drink after returning to their carriers.” Any celebrations which might have seemed in order would, in any event, have been short lived. Four of the carriers which attacked Pearl Harbor—the “Kaga,” “Akagi,” “Soryu,” and “Hiryu”—were sunk six months later in the battle of Midway. The “Shokaku” was sunk in the battle of the West Marianas, and the “Zuikaku” in the second battle of the Philippine Sea. Fuchida said he believed that he was the only flyer from the sneak attack group who survived the war.

*Cf. pp. 294-96.

*Cf. p. 262.