Free tours to the ship operate between 8am and 3pm each day, but it can be two or three hours after you pick up your numbered ticket at the Pearl Harbour visitor centre (daily 7.30am–5pm) before you are called to board the ferry across the bay. 

Many of the 1.5 million annual visitors are Japanese; a surprisingly even-handed twenty-minute film pays tribute to “one of the most brilliantly planned and executed attacks in naval history,” and books and charts are on sale telling the Japanese side of the story. The USS Arizona memorial was partly financed by Elvis Presley’s 1961 Honolulu concert, his first show after leaving the army.

The huge USS Missouri, which survived the attack and was used four years later for the ceremony in Tokyo Harbour that ended World War II, is now moored alongside the Arizona. It can be visited in conjunction with the veteran submarine USS Bowfin; guided tours include the actual surrender site as well as sweeping views of the harbour from the Missouri’s bridge (daily 9am–5pm; $10 entry)

History - The Japanese War Plans

Japan's prime objective was economic self-sufficiency, and the prize she sought was control of the rich natural resources of Southeast Asia and the islands of the East Indies, her "Southern Resources Area." The Japanese were well aware that invasion in this area would bring them into conflict with a coalition of powers. The lands they aspired to conquer were the possessions or protectorates of Great Britain, Australia, New Zealand, the Netherlands, and the United States. By means of surprise attacks, launched simultaneously on a half dozen different fronts, the Japanese expected to catch the Allies off-balance and ill-prepared.

The obvious threat of war with Japan had not been ignored by any of these Allied nations, but the tremendous advantage of choice of time and place of attack rested with the aggressor. Japan intended to strike during a period when most of the resources in men and material of the British Commonwealth were being devoted to the defeat of the European Axis partners. The Netherlands, which existed only as a government-in-exile, could contribute quite a few ships but only a small number of men to a common defense force. And the United States, most certainly Japan's strongest enemy, was heavily committed to support the Allies in Europe and the Near East. Moreover, that nation was only partially mobilized for war.

The initial Japanese war concept did not envisage the occupation of any territory east of Tarawa in the Gilberts. All operations beyond the limits of the Southern Resources Area were designed to establish and protect a defensive perimeter. The cordon of strategic bases and island outposts was to stretch from the Kuriles through Wake Atoll to the Marshalls and Gilberts and thence west to the Bismarck Archipelago. The islands of Timor, Java, and Sumatra in the East Indies were to be seized and Japanese troops were to occupy the Malayan Peninsula and Burma.

The major force which might prevent or delay the accomplishment of the Japanese plan was the United States Pacific Fleet based at Pearl Harbor. Recognizing the threat posed by the American naval strength, the Commander in Chief of the Japanese Combined Fleet, Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto, directed that a study be made of the feasibility of a surprise aerial attack on Pearl, timed to coincide with the outbreak of war. In February 1941, the first staff considerations of the projected raid were begun, but the actual details of the operation were not worked out until September when it seemed increasingly obvious to the Japanese high command that war was inevitable and that they needed this bold stroke to insure the success of initial attacks.

Japanese Photograph of the sneak attack at Pearl Harbor showing the line of American battleships caught at their mooring near Ford Island. (USN 30550)

The tentative day of attack, X-day, had been set for a Sunday, 7 December (Pearl Harbor time). Japanese intelligence indicated that most of the Pacific Fleet would be in port on a weekend. Tallies of the ships present at the Pearl Harbor Naval Base received from the Japanese consulate at Honolulu were transmitted to the attack force as late as 5 December. Vice Admiral Chuichi Nagumo, the striking force commander, received orders from Yamamoto on 2 December confirming the chosen date. There was still time to turn back; if the approaching ships had been discovered prior to 6 December they had orders to return. No one saw them, however, and the carriers arrived at their launching point right on schedule.

At midnight of 6-7 December, the Japanese Combined Fleet Operation Order No. 1 informed its readers that a state of war existed with the United States, Great Britain, and the Netherlands.

American War Plan[8]

The United States was deeply involved in the war in Europe soon after its outbreak, if not as an active belligerent, then as the arsenal of the democracies. By the spring of 1941 American naval vessels were convoying shipments of war materiel at least part of the way to Europe and they were actively guarding against German submarines a Neutrality Zone that extended far out into the Atlantic. The intent of these measures and others similar to them was clearly to support Britain in its war against Germany, Italy, and their satellites. There was little question where the sympathies of the majority of Americans lay in this struggle and none at all regarding the position of their government.

On 29 January 1941, ranking British and American staff officers met in Washington to discuss joint measures to be taken if the United States should be forced to a war with the Axis Powers. It was regarded as almost certain that the outbreak of hostilities with any one of the Axis partners would bring immediate declarations of war from the others. By insuring action on two widely separated fronts, the Axis could expect at the very least a decreased Allied capability to concentrate their forces. The American-British conversations ended on 27 March with an agreement (ABC-1) which was to have a profound effect on the course of World War II. Its basic strategical decision, which never was discarded, stated that:

Since Germany is the predominant member of the Axis Powers, the Atlantic and European area is considered to be the decisive theatre. The principal United States military effort will be exerted in the theatre, and operations of United States forces in other theatres will be conducted in such a manner as to facilitate that effort ... If Japan does enter the war, the Military Strategy in the Far East will be defensive.[9]

The defensive implied in the war against Japan was not to be a holding action, however, but rather a strategic defensive that contemplated a series of tactical offensives with the Pacific Fleet as the striking force. A new American war plan, Rainbow 5, was promulgated soon after the end of the American-British talks. Almost the whole of the Pacific was made an American strategic responsibility and the Army's primary mission under the plan was cooperation with and support of the fleet.

A listing of the contemplated offensive actions of Rainbow 5, which included the capture of the Caroline and Marshall Islands, would be interesting but academic. The success of the Japanese raid on Pearl Harbour forced a drastic revision of strategy which effectively postponed amphibious assaults in the Central Pacific. Certain defensive measures which were mentioned in the plan, however, were implemented prior to the outbreak of war and in most of them Marine forces figured prominently.

Some of the Marine defence battalions, tailored to meet the needs of garrisons for isolated island outposts, were already in the Pacific by the time Rainbow 5 was published. The plan called for the development of bases, primarily air bases, at Midway, Johnston, Palmyra, Samoa, and Wake. All of these islands which were under control of the Navy, were to have Marine garrisons. Guam, in the centre of the Japanese-held Marianas, which had long had a small Marine barracks detachment, was decisively written off in the war plan; its early capture by the Japanese was conceded. The rest of the islands were placed in a category which called for defence forces sufficient to repel major attacks.

The purpose of establishing bases on these island was twofold. Samoa was to help protect the routes of communication to the Southwest Pacific; Johnston, Palmyra, Wake, and Midway were to serve as out guards for the Pacific Fleet's home port at Pearl.

Marine Garrisons[10]

Although they were popularly referred to in the singular sense, a custom that will be continued in this narrative, each of the outposts was actually a coral atoll encompassing varying numbers of bleak, low-lying sand islands within a fringing reef. Each atoll had at least one island big enough to contain an airstrip; Midway had two. The lagoons within the reefs were all large enough to permit the dredging and blasting of seaplane landing lanes and anchorages for small cargo ships; Midway's and Wake's were also slated for development as forward bases for the Pacific Fleet's submarines. Civilian contractors were hired to build the naval base installations, but until war actually broke out most of the work on the island defences was done by the men who were to man them, Marines of the 1st, 3d, and 6th Defence Battalions.

The organization of the defence battalions varied according to time and place of employment, but by late 1941 the standard T/O called for a unit with more than 900 men assigned to a headquarters battery, three 5-inch coast defence gun batteries, three 3-inch antiaircraft batteries, a sound locator and searchlight battery, a battery of .50 calibre antiaircraft machine guns, and a battery of .30 calibre machine guns for beach defence. Midway was the only outpost that actually drew an entire battalion, although Wake originally was slated to be garrisoned by one. On Johnston and Palmyra the habitable area was so limited that it was impossible to accommodate more than a small defence detachment.

Some development work had been done on Wake and Midway, the two northern islands, before the arrival of the naval contractors' construction crews. In 1935 Pan American World Airways had set up way stations for its Clipper service to the Orient on both Midway and Wake and a relay station of the trans-Pacific cable had been in operation on Midway's Sand Island since 1903. Most construction, like the passenger hotel on Wake and the quarters for the airline's and cable company's personnel, was of little military value.

Midway, which had the most ambitious base plan, was also the first outpost scheduled to receive a Marine garrison--the 3d Defence Battalion, which arrived at Pearl Harbour on 7 May 1940. The bulk of the battalion remained in Hawaii for the next eight months while reconnaissance details, followed by small advance parties, did the preliminary work on supply and defence installations.[12] On 27 January 1941, in the face of the threat posed by Japan's aggressive actions, the Chief of Naval Operations (CNO) directed that the rest of the 3d Defence Battalion be moved to Midway, that detachments of the 1st Defence Battalion be established at Johnston and Palmyra, and that the 6th Defence Battalion, then in training at San Diego, move to Pearl Harbour as a replacement and reserve unit for the outposts.[13]

On 15 February, the same day that the 3d Battalion began unloading its heavy equipment at Midway, and advance detachment of the 1st Defence Battalion left San Diego on the Enterprise. At Pearl Harbour the detachment left the carrier and transferred to a small cargo ship that steamed on to the southwest for 800 miles to reach tiny Johnston where on 3 March two 5-inch guns, six Marines, and two naval corpsmen were set ashore. After a few days layover to help the caretaker detail get set up, the rest of the advance party (3 officers and 45 enlisted men) went on to Palmyra, approximately 1,100 miles south of Oahu.

After the remainder of the 1st Defence Battalion arrived at Pearl, small reinforcing detachments were gradually added to the southern outpost garrisons as the islands' supply and quartering facilities were expanded. On Johnston and Palmyra, as at Midway, the civilian contractors' crews and construction equipment were heavily committed to the naval air base program, and only occasionally could the Marines borrow a bulldozer, truck, or grader to help out in their own extensive schedule of defence construction. For the most part, the garrisons relied on pick and shovel to get their guns emplaced and to dig in the ammunition magazines, command posts, and fire direction centres necessary for island defence.

Duty on the small atolls was arduous and dull with little relief from the monotony of a steady round of work and training. When a few hours off was granted, there was no place to go and little to do; the visible world shrank to a few uninviting acres of dunes, scrub brush, and coral surrounded by seemingly endless stretches of ocean. The visits of patrol planes, supply ships, and even inspection parties were welcomed. Under the circumstances, morale at the isolated posts remained surprisingly high, helped perhaps by the prospect of action.

In so far as possible, the 14th Naval District attempted to follow a policy of rotation for the men at the outlying posts, replacing those that had been longest "in the field" with men from pearl Harbour. In midsummer a groups of 1st Defence Battalion personnel was sent to Midway to start the relief of the 3d Battalion and on 11 September the 6th Defence Battalion arrived to take over as the atoll's garrison. The 3d Battalion returned to Hawaii for a well-deserved break from the gruelling monotony and work of building defences.

By August 1941 the work on the naval air base at Wake was well along and the need for a garrison there was imperative. An advance detachment of the 1st Defence Battalion arrived at the atoll on 19 August and immediately began the now familiar process of backbreaking work to dig in guns, dumps, aid stations, and command posts. Again the contractor's men and machines were largely devoted to work on the airfield and the lagoon, and the Marines had to get along with the hand tools organic to the unit. In late October reinforcements from the parent battalion made the 2,000-miles trip from Hawaii to bring the garrison up to a strength of nearly 400 men. The unit scheduled to be the permanent garrison on Wake, the 4th Defence Battalion, arrived at Pearl Harbour on 1 December, too late to reinforce or replace the Wake Detachment. A most important addition to the atoll's defences did arrive, however, before war broke. Twelve Grumman Wildcats of Marine Fighter Squadron 211 flew in to the airstrip off the Enterprise on 4 December.

Just before the Japanese attacked, the strength of defence battalion personnel on outpost duty and at Pearl Harbour was:

For armament the outposts relied mainly on the organic weapons of the defence battalions: 5-inch naval guns, 3-inch antiaircraft guns, and .30 and .50 calibre machine guns. Midway had, in addition, three 7-inch naval guns still to be mounted and a fourth gun at Pearl Harbour waiting to be shipped. The breakdown of weapons strength showed:[14]

Although the list of weapons was imposing, the garrisons were not strong enough to man them adequately; the standard defence battalion of 1941, moreover, included no infantry.

In contrast to the garrisons of the Pearl Harbour outposts, the 7th Defence Battalion slated for duty at Tutuila, main island of American Samoa, was a composite infantry-artillery unit. The battalion was organized at San Diego on 16 December 1940 with an initial strength of 25 officers and 392 enlisted men. Its T/O called for a headquarters company, an infantry company, and an artillery battery as well as a small detail which had the mission of organizing and training a battalion of Samoan reservists.

The islands of American Samoa had a native population of almost 10,000 which could be drawn upon as a labour force and for troops to back up a regular garrison. This was not the only significant difference between the outpost atolls and Samoa, however. The terrain of Tutuila, which was by far the largest and most heavily populated of the islands, was mountainous and heavily forested, and its 52 square miles contained a number of areas that could be converted into camps and supply depots. There was room for training areas and small arms ranges. The fine harbour at Pago Pago, site of the U.S. Naval Station and headquarters of the naval governor, could be used by large vessels. This combination of harbour, elbow room, and an indigenous labour force, plus its location along the shipping route to the Southwest Pacific, made Tutuila a vital strategic base.

During the spring and early summer of 1940, Major Alfred R. Pefley of Colonel Pickett's staff made a thorough survey of Tutuila and prepared a detailed plan for its defence. On 29 November the CNO directed that defence plans based on Pefley's recommendations be implemented

immediately. The naval governor was authorized to begin construction of coast defence and antiaircraft gun positions. Most of the guns to be mounted were already in storage at the naval station and the Bureau of Ordnance was directed to provide the ammunition and additional weapons still needed.[15]

The primary purpose of raising the 7th Defence Battalion was the manning of the four 6-inch naval guns and six 3-inch antiaircraft guns provided for in initial defence plans. The wisdom of including infantry in the battalion and making provision for reinforcement by trained Samoan reserves can hardly be questioned. Tutuila was for too large an island to be adequately protected by a relatively few big guns, most of which were concentrated around Pago Pago harbor. Small beach defence garrisons were needed all around the island shorelines to check enemy raiding parties. It was intended that most of the Samoan reserves would be equipped and trained with rifles taken from naval stores and used in the beach defences where their knowledge of the terrain would be invaluable.

An advance party of the 7th defence Battalion, which left the States before the unit was formally activated, arrived at Pago Pago on 21 December 1940. The rest of the battalion made the 4.500-mile voyage from San Diego via Pearl Harbour in March, arriving on the 15th. The next months were busy ones as guns were emplaced and test fired, beach defences were constructed, miles of communication lines were laid, and trails were cut which would enable quick reinforcement of threatened landing point.

It was midsummer before the first Samoan Marine was actually enlisted, but many natives voluntarily took weapons training on an unpaid status, continuing a practice begun by the naval governor in November 1940.[16] The first native recruit was enlisted on 16 August 1941 and the 1st Samoan Battalion, Marine Corps Reserve, was a going concern by the time war broke. The authorized strength of the battalion was 500 enlisted men, but this figure could never be reached because of the great number of men needed as labourers on essential base construction.

There was one factor of the defence picture at Tutuila that matched the situation at Midway, Johnston, and Palmyra. None of these islands had, at the onset of war, and land planes. The Marine air squadrons which were scheduled to join the defenders were either still in the States or else based on Oahu, waiting for the signal that the airfields were ready for use. That part of Marine Air which was in the Hawaiian Islands was based at Ewa Field, located approximately four air miles west of Pearl Harbour. Just prior to the Japanese attack, the units stationed at the field were Headquarters and Service Squadron of Marine Aircraft Group 21 (MAG-21); Marine Scout Bomber Squadron 232 (VMSB-232); Marine Utility Squadron 252 (VMJ-252); and the rear echelon of VMF-211, which had moved forward to Wake. Operational control of the Marine planes in the Hawaiian area was exercised by the Commander Aircraft, Battle Force, Pacific Fleet.[17]

Aside from the Marine forces in the Western Pacific assigned to the Asiatic Fleet,[18] the only sizeable Marine units in the Pacific not already accounted for were guard detachments on Oahu and the 2d Engineer Battalion (less Companies C and D) which had been sent to Oahu to establish an advance amphibious training base for the 2d Marine Division. There was a 485-man Marine Barracks at the Pearl Harbour Navy Yard and 102 men assigned to the barracks at the Naval Air Station at Ford Island. Marines provided the guard (169 men) at the Naval Ammunition Depot at Lualualei in the hills northwest of Honolulu. The defence battalions which were quartered in or near the navy yard were under the operational control of the Commanding Officer, Marine Barracks, Colonel Pickett.

There were an additional 877 Marines present in Pearl Harbour on 7 December as members of the guard detachments of the battleships and cruisers of the Pacific Fleet.[19] In all, there were more than 4,500 Marines on Oahu that first day.

The Japanese Attack of Pearl Harbour

The first inkling of the Japanese attack came not from the air, but from the sea. At 0637 on 7 December, more than an hour before any enemy planes were sighted, an American patrol bomber and the destroyer Ward attacked and sank an unidentified submarine in the restricted waters close to the entrance to Pearl Harbour.[2] This vessel was one of five Japanese two-man submarines which had the extremely risky mission of penetrating the Pacific Fleet's stronghold. The midgets were transported to the target on board large long-range submarines, part of an undersea scouting and screening force which had fanned out ahead of the enemy carriers. Not one of the midget raiders achieved any success; four were sunk and one ran aground.

The Japanese attack schedule allowed the Americans little time to evaluate the significance of the submarine sighting. The first enemy strike group was airborne and winging its way toward Oahu before the Ward fired its initial spread of depth charges. The Japanese carrier force had turned in the night and steamed full ahead for its target, launching the first plane at 0600 when the ships were approximately 200 miles north of Pearl Harbour. A second strike group took off at 0745 when the carriers had reached a position 30 miles closer to the American base. Although a radar set on the island picked up the approaching planes in time to give warning, the report of the sighting was believed an error and disregarded, and the Japanese fighters and bombers appeared unannounced over their objectives.

The enemy plan of attack was simple. Dive bombers and fighter planes would strafe and bomb the major Army and Navy airfields in an attempt to catch defending aircraft on the ground. Simultaneously, the battleships moored to pilings along the shore of Ford Island would be hit by high-and low-level bombing attacks. The shipping strike groups included large numbers of dive and horizontal bombers, since the Japanese anticipated that protective netting might prevent their lethal torpedo bombers from being fully effective. In all, 321 planes took part in the raid, while 39 fighters flew protective cover over the carriers to guard against a retaliatory attack that never materialized.

At 0755 the soft stillness of Sunday morning was broken by the screaming whine of dive bombers and the sharp chatter of machine guns. At half a dozen different bases around the island of Oahu Japanese planes signalled the outbreak of war with a torrent of sudden death. Patrol bombers were caught in the water at Naheohe Naval Air Stations, across the island from Honolulu; closely parked rows of planes, concentrated to protect them from sabotage, were transformed into smoking heaps of useless wreckage at the Army's Wheeler and Hickam Fields, the Marines' air base at Ewa, and the Navy's Ford Island air station. The attack on the airfields had barely started before the first bombs and torpedoes were loosed against the sitting targets of "battleship row." Within minutes most of the battleships at the Ford Island moorings had been hit by one or more torpedoes and bombs. If the Japanese had drawn off after the first fifteen minutes of their attacks, the damage done would have been terrific, but the enemy planes kept on strafing and bombing and the toll of ships, planes, and men soared.

The Americans did not take their beating lying down. The first scattered shots from sentries ashore and watch standers who manned antiaircraft guns on board ship flashed back at the enemy even before the bugles and boatswains' pipes sounded "Call to Arms" and "General Quarters." The ships of the Pacific Fleet were on partial alert even in port and most of the officers and men were on board. Crew members poured up the ladders and passages from their berthing compartments to battle stations. 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 Harbour 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 cancelled 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 harbour.

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 Defence Battalions out of their quarters, the early risers were already running for the armories and gun sheds. By 0801 when Colonel Pickett ordered the defence 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 defence 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 defences, 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 defence, 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 harbour. 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 Harbour. Fortunately, the urgent need for Marine planes to strengthen the outpost defences 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 Harbour, 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 re-evaluation 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 Defence 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.

Footnotes:

[2] United Stats Relations with China (Washington: Dept of State, 1949), 24.

[3] Hearings Record, Part 2, 1103-1104.

[4] M. Kato, The Lost War (New York: A.A. Knopf, 1946), 48.

[5] Hearings Record, Part 12, Exhibit No. 1, 165.

[6] Pearl Harbour Rept, 49.

[7] Unless otherwise noted the material in this section is derived from Pearl Harbour Rept; Hearings Record, Part 13, Exhibits 8-8D, Japanese Records; USSBS (Pac), NavAnalysisDiv, Campaigns of the Pacific War (Washington: GPO, 1946), hereinafter cited as Campaigns of the Pacific War.

[8] Unless otherwise noted the material in this section is derived from Pearl Harbour Rept; Navy Basic War Plan--Rainbow No. 5 (WPL-46), 26May41 and Appendix I. Joint Army-Navy Basic War Plan Rainbow No. 5, quoted in full in Hearings Record, Part 33, Exhibit No. 4; MarCorps Plan C-2, Rainbow No. 5, 5Jun41, Plans & Policies Div Files; M.S. Watson, Chief of Staff: Prewar Plans and Preparations -- United States Army in World War II (Washington: HistDiv, DA, 1950); S.E. Morison, The Rising Sun in the Pacific 1931-April 1942 -- History of United States Naval Operations in World War II (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1948), hereinafter cited as Rising Sun in the Pacific.

[9] Para 13 of ABC-1 quoted in Hearings Record, Part 33, 958.

[10] Unless otherwise noted the material in this section is derive from CNO Serial 070412, 23 Jun41, "Policy regarding employment of Marine Defence Battalions in the Pacific Area" (located at NRMC); CNO Serial 091812, 25 Sep41, "Employment of Marine Defence Battalions"; CO, 1st DefBn ltr to OIC, HistDiv, HQMC, 29Dec43; CO, 3d DefBn ltr to OIC, HistDiv, HQMC, 4Feb44; MD, 1st DefBn, PalmyraIs, Annual Rept of Activities, 1Jul43; Hist of the 7th DefBn, 21Dec42; 1st SamoanBn, MCR, Annual Rept of Activities, 1Jul42; LtCol R.D. Heinl, The Defense of Wake (Washington: HistSec, PubInfoDiv, HQMC, 1947), hereinafter cited as Defense of Wake; LtCol R.D. Heinl, Marines at Midway (Washington: HistSec, PubInfoDiv, HQMC, 1948), hereinafter cited as Marines at Midway.

[11] House Doc No. 65, 76th Congress, 1st Session, "Report on the Need of Additional Naval Bases to Defend the Coast of the United States, Its Territories and Possessions" (Hepburn Board Rept), 3Jan39, passim.

[12] BriGen A.R. Pefley notes on draft manuscript, 14Jan57. Since all fresh water had to be distilled, the capacity of the distillers set the limit for the size of the island garrison. In terms of water consumption each contractor's workman took the place of a Marine. Adm C.C. Bloch ltr to ACofS, G-3, HQMC, 7Jan57.

[13] CNO Serial 0618, 17Jan41, "Establishment of Permanent Marine Defense Forces at Johnston, Midway, and Palmyra Islands."

[14] ComFourteen Rept of Status of DefBns assigned to me 14th ND, 1Dec41 (located at NRMC). Personnel figures include naval medical personnel assigned to he defense battalions.

[15] CNO serial 054430, 29Nov40, "Defense of American Samoa."

[16] Gov of AmerSamoa ltr to CNO, 13Feb41, "Establishment of Native Insular Force."

[17] 2dLt B. Hollingshead, "The Japanese Attack on 7 December 1941 on the Marine Corps Air Station at Ewa, Oahu, Territory of Hawaii" (MS, HistDiv, HQMC, January 1945), 3-8, hereinafter cited as Ewa Monograph. The other squadrons assigned to MAG-21 were either at sea with the Navy's carriers or still in the U.S.

[18] See Part IV, "Marines in the Philippines," for the prewar situation in China and the Philippines.

[19] The strength of most Marine units on Oahu is listed in Hearings Record, Part 24, Exhibit No. 40. "Location of regularly assigned commanding officers of ships present during the Japanese attack of 7 December 1941."