80 years ago today — December 7, 1941 — is the anniversary of the date that President Franklin Roosevelt said “….will live in infamy.” It is, of course, the date, in 1941, that Japanese planes attacked the United States Naval Base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii.
The attack is known for its overwhelming surprise, spectacular explosions and countless heroic acts. But the more you read about the event, more and more fascinating facts surface.
On November 21, 1941 a number of newspaper ads appeared — one big ad and a lot of smaller ones. The ads were supposedly about “Chicago’s favorite game,” called The Deadly Double. The headline of the ads was: “Achtung. Warning, Alert!.” Under the headline, the ad showed people in a air raid shelter playing dice.The dice is numbered 12 and seven — December 7. No dice has 12 and 7 on them. The game never existed and the company that supposedly made it never existed. Military intelligence investigated this, but everything led to a dead end. The person buying the ad space had bought the copy in person, paid in cash and no one knows what the real story is behind the creepy ad. I first heard this story on one of my visits to Pearl Harbor…. I also learned how the name “Pearl Harbor” came about…..
King Kamehameha had conquered Oahu by 1795 as western traders began to arrive regularly in the islands. The new leader of the Kingdom of Hawaii soon learned that foreigners valued the oyster pearls of the river flowing into the lagoon called Wai Momi, meaning “Waters of Pearl.” Kamehameha had native divers of the area gathering them night and day for trade with the west. Around that time, the large lagoon became known as “Pearl Harbor.” (By about 1818 the lagoon was harvested of nearly all its oysters.)
In ancient times the entrance to Pearl Harbor was also known by the Hawaiian name Pu’uloa, meaning “long hill,” named for the straight escarpment that lined the long entrance to the lagoon.
The narrow entrance to the lagoon was too shallow for larger western ships to navigate and the lagoon would not be used as a harbor until the late 1870s when the U.S. Navy dredged it to allow larger ships to enter.
During the attack, there were 102 ships stationed at Pearl Harbor of which 60 of them received no damage at all. There were 15 ships that received minor damage and 11 more ships that sustained medium to heavy damage. There were 7 ships sunk at Pearl Harbor but only 3 were a total loss — the Arizona, Oklahoma and Utah.
The 3 ships that did not return to service (Arizona, Oklahoma and Utah) were all battleships. The battleships were the secondary target of the attack after no aircraft carriers were identified. The Utah, although it was classified as a battleship, was used for training and target practice only. It was torpedoed by young Japanese pilots after being misidentified. Attacking it was not part of the plan.
A little known second attack on Pearl Harbor by the Japanese occurred on March 4th, 1942 — just 3 months after the initial devastating attack. The attack, called Operation K was accomplished by two Japanese flying boats that flew across the Pacific from Japan where they were refueled by submarines before flying to Oahu. Each plane carried four 550 pound bombs.
The mission was to perform reconnaissance of Pearl Harbor and to bomb the repair and salvage operations. The planes approached the islands around 1 am when radar stations on Kauai spotted them. P-40 Warhawk fighters were scrambled to intercept the planes but heavy cloud cover prevented them from finding the Japanese planes that were flying at 15,000 feet. On Oahu, an island-wide blackout and the thick cloud cover also prevented the two Japanese planes from identifying Honolulu and Pearl Harbor at night.
As is customary, the President proclaimed today National Pearl Harbor Remembrance Day….
“NOW, THEREFORE, I, JOSEPH R. BIDEN JR, President of the United States of America, do hereby proclaim December 7, 2021, as National Pearl Harbor Remembrance Day. I encourage all Americans to reflect on the courage shown by our brave warriors that day and remember their sacrifices. I ask us all to give sincere thanks and appreciation to the survivors of that unthinkable day. I urge all Federal agencies, interested organizations, groups and individuals to fly the flag of the United States at half-staff on December 7, 2021, in honor of those American patriots who died as a result of their service at Pearl Harbor.”
I was only three years old in 1941, but from what I’ve heard, Americans seemed to face adversary a little differently than they do today. A famous World War II general, George Patton said, “May God have mercy upon my enemies, because I won’t.” Those words meant something back then — I’m not sure they’d tend to unite all Americans today….
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