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While damage control teams tried to put
down fires and shore up weakened bulkheads, gun crews let loose everything
they had against the oncoming planes. In many cases guns were fired from
positions awash as ships settled to the bottom and crewmen were seared
with flames from fuel and ammunition fires as they continued to serve
their weapons even after receiving orders to abandon ship. On many vessels
the first torpedoes and bombs trapped men below deck and snuffed out the
lives of others before they were even aware that the attack was on.
The reaction to the Japanese raid was fully as
rapid at shore bases as it was on board ship, but the men at the airfields
and the navy yard had far less to fight with. There was no ready
ammunition at any antiaircraft gun position on the island; muzzles
impotently pointed skyward while trucks were hurried to munitions depots.
Small arms were broken out of armories at every point under attack;
individuals manned the machine guns of damaged aircraft. The rage t strike
back at the Japanese was so strong that men even fired pistols at the
enemy planes as they swooped low to strafe.
At Ewa every Marine plane was knocked out of
action in the first attack.
Two
squadrons of Japanese fighters swept in from the northwest at 1,000 feet
and dived down to rake the aircraft parked near the runways with
machine-gun and cannon fire. Pilots and air crewmen ran to their planes in
an attempt to get them into the air or drag them out of the line of fire,
but the Japanese returned again and again to complete the job of
destruction. When the enemy fighters drew off at about 0825 they left
behind a field littered with burning and shot-up aircraft.
The men of MAG-21 recovered quickly from their
initial surprise and shock and fought back with what few rifles and
machine guns they had. Salvageable guns were stripped from damaged planes
and set up on hastily improvised mounts; one scout-bomber rear machine gun
was manned to swell the volume of antiaircraft fire. Although the group
commander, Lieutenant Colonel Claude A. Larkin, had been wounded almost as
soon as he arrived at the field that morning, he continued to coordinate
the efforts to meet further enemy attacks.
Two Japanese dive bombers streaked over the field
from the direction of Pearl Harbor at 0835, dropping light fragmentation
bombs and strafing the Marine gun positions. A few minutes after the
bombers left, the first of a steady procession of enemy fighters attacked
Ewa as the Japanese began assembling a cover force at nearby Barber's
Point to protect the withdrawal of their strike groups. The Marine machine
guns accounted for at least one of the enemy planes and claimed another
probable. Two and three plane sections of fighters orbited over the field,
and occasionally dived to strafe the gunners, until the last elements of
the Japanese attack force headed out to sea around 0945.
Three of the Marine airmen were killed during the
attacks, a fourth died of wound; 13 wounded men were treated in the
group's aid station. Flames demolished 33 of the 47 planes at the field;
all but two of the remainder suffered major damage. The sole bright note
in the picture of destruction was the fact that 18 of VMSB-231's planes
were on board the Lexington,
scheduled for a fly-off to Midway, and thereby saved from the enemy guns.
Within the same half hour that witnessed the loss
of Ewa's planes, the possibility of effective aerial resistance was
canceled out by similar enemy attacks all over Oahu. Ford Island's
seaplane ramps and runways were made a shambles of wrecked and burning
aircraft in the opening stage of the Japanese assault. The Marines of the
air station's guard detachment manned rifles and machine guns to beat off
further enemy thrusts, but the dive bombers had done their job well. There
was no need for them to return. The focus of all attacks became the larger
ships in the harbor.
The raid drew automatic reactions from the few
Marines in the navy yard who saw the first enemy planes diving on the
ships. While the guard bugler broke the majority of the men of the
barracks detachment and the 1st and 3d Defense Battalions out of their
quarters, the early risers were already running for the armories and gun
sheds. By 0801 when Colonel Pickett ordered the defense battalion
machine-gun groups to man their weapons, eight of the guns had already
been set up. More machine guns were hastily put in position and men were
detailed to belt the ammunition needed to feed them, while rifle
ammunition was issued to the hundreds of men assembled on the barracks'
parade ground. Pickett ordered the 3-inch antiaircraft guns in the defense
battalions' reserve supplies to be taken out of storage and emplaced on
the parade. He dispatched trucks and working parties of the 2d Engineer
Battalion to Lualualei, 27 miles up in the hills, to get the necessary
3-inch shells. The Marine engineers also sent their heavy earth-moving
equipment to Hickam Field to help clear the runways.
Thirteen machine guns were in action by 0820 and
the gunners had already accounted for their first enemy dive bomber.
During the next hour and a half the fire of twenty-five more .30's and
.50's was added to the yard's antiaircraft defenses, and two more planes,
one claimed jointly with the ships, were shot down. The 3-inch guns were
never able to get into action. The ammunition trucks did not return from
the Lualualei depot until 1100, more than an hour after the last Japanese
aircraft had headed back for their carriers. By that time the personnel of
all Marine organizations in the navy yard area had been pooled to
reinforce the guard and antiaircraft defense, to provide an infantry
reserve, and to furnish the supporting transport and supply details needed
to sustain them.
In the course of their attacks on battleship row
and the ships in the navy yard's drydocks, the enemy planes had strafed
and bombed the Marine barracks area, and nine men had been wounded. They
were cared for in the dressing stations which Pickett had ordered set up
at the beginning of the raid to accommodate the flow of wounded from the
stricken ships in the harbor. Many of these casualties were members of the
Marine ship detachments; 102 sea-going Marines had been killed during the
raid, six later died of wounds, and 49 were wounded in action.[3]
The enemy pilots had scored heavily: four
battleships, one mine layer, and a target ship sunk; four battleships,
three cruisers, three destroyers, and three auxiliaries damaged. Most of
the damaged ships required extensive repairs. American plane losses were
equally high: 188 aircraft totally destroyed and 31 more damaged. The Navy
and Marine Corps had 2,086 officers and men killed, the Army 194, as a
result of the attack; 1,109 men of all the services survived their wounds.
Balanced against the staggering American totals
was a fantastically light tally sheet of Japanese losses. The enemy
carriers recovered all but 29 of the planes they had sent out; ship losses
amounted to five midget submarines; and less than a hundred men were
killed.
Despite extensive search missions flown from Oahu
and from the Enterprise,
which was less than 175 miles from port when the sneak attack occurred,
the enemy striking force was able to withdraw undetected and unscathed. In
one respect the Japanese were disappointed with the results of their raid;
they had hoped to catch the Pacific Fleet's carriers berthed at Pearl
Harbor. Fortunately, the urgent need for Marine planes to strengthen the
outpost defenses had sent the Lexington
and the Enterprise to sea on aircraft ferrying missions. The Enterprise
was returning to Pearl on 7 December after having flown off VMF-211's
fighters to Wake, and the Lexington, enroute to Midway with
VMSB-231's planes, turned back when news of the attack was received. Had
either or both of the carriers been sunk or damaged at Pearl Harbor, the
outlook for the first months of the war would have been even more dismal.
The Japanese success had the effect of delaying the schedule of
retaliatory attack and amphibious operations in the Central Pacific that
had been outlined in Rainbow 5. A complete reevaluation of Pacific
strategy was necessary.
The critical situation facing the outpost islands
was clearly appreciated and an attempt was made to get reinforcements to
Wake before the Japanese struck; it did not come in time. The tiny atoll
was one of the first objectives on the enemy timetable of conquest.[4]
Midway was more fortunate; when the Lexington returned to Pearl on
10 December with its undelivered load of Marine scout bombers, they were
ordered to attempt an over-water flight to the atoll. On 17 December, ten
days after the originally scheduled fly-off, 17 planes of VMSB-231,
shepherded by a naval patrol bomber, successfully made the 1,137-mile
flight from Oahu to Midway. It was the longest single-engine land plane
massed flight on record, but more important it marked a vital addition to
Midway's defensive potential.
The outpost islands needed men and materiel as
well as planes. Rear Admiral Claude C. Bloch, Commandant of the 14th Naval
District, gave the responsibility for organizing and equipping these
reinforcements to Colonel Pickett. On 13 December, all Marine ground
troops in the district were placed under Pickett as Commanding Officer,
Marine Forces, 14th Naval District. The necessary reinforcements to be
sent to Midway, Johnston, and Palmyra were drawn from the 1st, 3d, and 4th
Defense Battalions. By the month's end the first substantial increments of
men, guns, and equipment had been received at each of the outposts.[5]
They were not safe from attacks by any means, but their positions were
markedly stronger.
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