War Stories II: Heroism in the Pacific Read online

  I asked, “Where did you get him?”

  Corporal Akui said, “He walked right out of the water.”

  I think he was happy to turn him over to us. We, in turn, were looking to turn him over to a higher authority, so we took him to the operations shack. We sat him down and could see that he had been in the water for a number of hours. His skin was all wrinkled and he looked distressed, so we put a blanket around his shoulders and gave him some water and crackers. We tried to get some intelligence but he was defiant. He just looked from one face to the other, and we realized that we weren’t getting anywhere with him. We decided that two young second lieutenants with no experience in interrogation weren’t likely to get this guy to talk.

  After an hour of attempted interrogation we realized we weren’t getting anywhere. We didn’t know who he was or where he came from and kept hoping that a senior officer would show up and take him off our hands.

  Then, all of a sudden, after about two hours of just sitting there, the prisoner finally spoke. In crude English he asked for a paper and pencil. He wrote, “I Japanese Naval Officer. My ship catch on coral. I jump in water, swim to this airplane landing. I no tell about ships. Kill me in an honorable way.” And he signed his name, Kazuo Sakamaki.

  Well, early Monday morning, we see a conning tower sticking up, about a hundred, or a hundred and fifty yards offshore. We couldn’t get very close—we were on shore—this was still in the water, and it wasn’t accessible. I don’t know who arranged it, but somebody from the base swam out to the sub with a towline, and with a jeep we pulled it in. We also found the body of an enlisted Japanese sailor. It washed ashore later that morning. Never in our wildest dreams did we think that we’d be attacked by midget submarines.

  Ironically, these little-known facts of history are often overshadowed by the other events that originated in the skies over Pearl Harbor. This footnote to that “Day of Infamy” has been brought to light by a handful of warriors and historians from both sides of the hostilities.

  For more than sixty years, members of the destroyer Ward, the Monaghan , and others had maintained that they had sunk three of the Japanese midget subs shortly before and during the infamous air attack. Yet, except for the captured sub commanded by Ensign Sakamaki—his sub is on display at the National Museum of the Pacific War in Fredericksburg, Texas—no evidence could ever be found to prove the claim that at least three other subs were sunk. Photographs taken during the aerial attack bear out evidence of a sub’s presence in the harbor, but couldn’t prove that any of them were sunk.

  Then in 1960, off Keehi Lagoon, Navy divers found a midget sub during practice exercises. On 28 August 2002, just a few miles outside the mouth of Pearl Harbor, another was discovered. A research submarine from Hawaii Undersea Research Laboratory made a discovery that confirms that the Ward fired the first shot and scored the first victory over the Japanese attackers.

  John Wiltshire, director of the Hawaii Undersea Research Laboratory, told me the Ward did indeed sink the midget sub. He showed me a four-inch hole in the starboard side of the conning tower—a shot that even John Wayne would have had trouble making. Wiltshire said, “This is the midget sub sunk by the USS Ward on the morning of December 7, 1941. It was found over 1,200 feet down on the ocean floor, just a few miles outside Pearl Harbor. It vindicates the crew of the USS Ward. It shows that, in fact, the crew of the Ward accomplished that dramatic first kill with an incredible shot from an ancient deck gun.”

  During that first battle of World War II, the U.S. defenders nailed four of the five midget subs, having sunk three and captured the fourth, Ensign Sakamaki’s, after it ran aground. The fifth sub was variously believed to have been sunk outside the harbor on 7 or 8 December, or to have escaped altogether. Twelve hours after the attack on Pearl Harbor, U.S. code-breakers intercepted a Japanese fleet message thought to have originated on the fifth midget sub: “SUCCESSFUL SURPRISE ATTACK.”

  But after the war, it was concluded that the fifth sub had been lost trying to rendezvous with the mother sub—and it’s still out there somewhere in the Hawaiian waters. All five mother ships waited two days for the midget subs to return. None did.

  In the aftermath of the attack, Admirals Nagumo and Yamamoto would be decorated by Emperor Hirohito for their victory. Admiral Husband Kimmel and General Walter Short were relieved of command just ten days after the attack. Though both men asked for courts-martial to clear their names, neither request was granted.

  And as for American forces at Pearl Harbor? Other than the irreplaceable lives lost, the attack was not as devastating as it might have been. Half the Pacific Fleet, including its three carriers—the Enterprise, the Lexington, and the Saratoga—were out of port on various assignments. Because the Japanese neglected to attack the shipyards, salvage and repair work on damaged vessels began almost immediately. Of the battleships that the Japanese thought they had sunk forever, only the Arizona and the Oklahoma (and the target ship Utah) were total losses. The West Virginia, the California, the Nevada, the Pennsylvania, the Maryland, and the Tennessee were all repaired and saw action later in the war. And the same was true for the cruisers Helena, Honolulu, and Raleigh. Other than the destroyers Cassin and Downes and the repair ship Sotoyomo, which were damaged beyond repair, every other vessel hit during the attack was fixed and returned to duty.

  Japanese Midget Sub

  Fuchida’s pilots also ignored two other targets that would prove critical to the United States in the days ahead: Untouched by a single Japanese bomb or bullet was the enormous fleet fuel farm, where millions of gallons of fuel oil and aviation gas were stored. And in perhaps the greatest error of all, not one of the U.S. submarines in port at the time of the attack was touched. Yamamoto’s Combined Fleet would soon feel the consequences of these mistakes.

  A total of 350 Japanese aircraft carried out assaults on the Utah, the Raleigh, the Helena, the Arizona, the Nevada, the California, the West Virginia , the Oklahoma, and the Maryland. The U.S. Pacific Fleet was nearly decimated. At the same time, attacks on nearby air bases severely crippled America’s air assets. Kaneohe Naval Air Station lost thirty-three out of thirty-six of its Catalina PBY flying boats. Hickam Field and the base at Ford Island suffered extensive damage to the runways, to aircraft parked on the fields, and to barracks and BOQ buildings housing the military personnel.

  Some ninety-eight ships, about half of the U.S. Pacific Fleet, were in port the day of the attack. Miraculously, the other half of the American fleet was elsewhere in the Pacific on that fateful day. All of her carriers, most of her heavy cruisers, and about half of her destroyers were at sea when the attack occurred. That lucky break would help the United States greatly when America fought back, determined to rebound.

  Luck, or Providence, played a key role that day for America.

  CHAPTER 2

  THE FALL OF THE PHILIPPINES

  (JANUARY 1942)

  Without pausing to celebrate the successful attack on Pearl Harbor, Admiral Yamamoto launched phase two of his ambitious Operation Z war plan. Though the calendar shows the date of these events as 8 December, they all took place within hours of the attack on Pearl Harbor because of the International Date Line.

  As Admiral Chuichi Nagumo’s First Carrier Strike Force steamed west toward Kure, Japan, he detached the carriers Soryu and Hiryu, accompanied by the cruisers Tone and Hiru, along with two destroyers, all with orders to attack the tiny American garrison on Wake Island. At 1150, less than four hours after they had seen action in Hawaii, some of the same pilots and aircraft bombed the U.S. base on Wake, destroying eight of the twelve brand-new Marine aircraft that had just been delivered on 6 December by the USS Enterprise.

  Two hours later, aircraft from the Japanese 2nd Fleet, commanded by Vice Admiral Nobutake Kondo, attacked the British bastions at Hong Kong and Singapore, in preparation for full-scale invasions.

  Five hours afterward, while flames still burned in the battered hulls of America’s Pacific Fleet in Hawaii
, and despite radio and telegraph messages reporting on the Pearl Harbor attack, Japanese aircraft launched from Formosa scored a successful surprise air assault on U.S. facilities in the Philippines. The 160-plane contingent of the Army Air Force that General Douglas MacArthur had been so painstakingly building to defend the islands the United States had sworn to protect was shattered—at a cost of just seven downed “Zero” fighters. The air raid eased the way for an invasion of the archipelago by more than 43,000 troops under the command of General Masaharu Homma.

  Within six hours, bombs fell on Agana, the capital of Guam, and on all of the island’s U.S. air and naval bases. This too preceded an invasion, making Guam the first U.S. territory to be seized by Japan.

  Twelve hours after the attack on Pearl Harbor ended, it was just beginning at the tiny atoll of Midway. Japanese destroyers, attempting to put the island’s runway out of commission with naval gunfire, came in so close that Marine artillerymen were able to fire back. The tiny garrison rejected the Japanese order to surrender.

  Vice Admiral Chuichi Nagumo was CINC of the Imperial Navy’s First Carrier Strike Force.

  The day after the Pearl Harbor raid, the U.S. Congress declared war against Japan. Invoking terms of their Tripartite Pact, Germany and Italy responded on 11 December by simultaneously declaring war against the United States.

  Within forty-eight hours of the surprise attack on Hawaii, every major American and Allied base west of California had been attacked. The Japanese had seized Bangkok, Thailand, and Tarawa and Makin in the Gilbert Islands, and the American garrisons in Shanghai and Tientsin, China, had surrendered. Off Singapore, the British had lost their two largest capital ships in the Pacific, the battleship Prince of Wales and the battle cruiser Repulse, along with 840 British sailors.

  These near-simultaneous strikes throughout the western Pacific, thought by most military officers of the day to be impossible, were the consequence of Yamamoto’s meticulous operational and logistics planning. Their success also demonstrated the appalling condition of American intelligence and the abysmal state of American preparedness for war.

  HQ ASIATIC FLEET

  MARSMAN BUILDING

  MANILA, PHILIPPINES

  8 DECEMBER 1941

  0330 HOURS LOCAL

  A little over half an hour after the attack on Pearl Harbor had begun, a Navy radio operator in the Asiatic Fleet headquarters in Manila received a message from Hawaii that the Pacific Fleet was under attack. The message concluded with the phrase “THIS IS NO DRILL.” The radioman immediately awakened his duty officer, who in turn had the message delivered to Rear Admiral W. A. Glassford, commander of the American Asiatic Fleet.

  The admiral, awakened at 0415, read the message and instructed that a copy be sent via his aide to General Douglas MacArthur, the senior American officer in the Philippines.

  MacArthur, shown the message at 0445, ordered a coded dispatch sent to his senior staff and subordinates alerting them of the attack on Pearl Harbor. At 0530 in the Philippines, MacArthur’s headquarters received a second coded cable, this one from the War Department in Washington, advising him that Japan had launched an “unprovoked surprise attack” on Hawaii and that war was “likely.” More details were promised.

  General Douglas MacArthur

  At 0800, news bulletins broadcast over shortwave and by standard commercial stations in Manila—and heard at nearby Clark Field—informed the population and MacArthur’s troops, giving them a rough outline of what had happened at Pearl Harbor. By breakfast time, it seemed as though nearly everyone in the Philippines knew that the Japanese had attacked the Americans in Hawaii.

  What they did not know was that in the predawn hours, about the time the first message came in from Pearl Harbor, hundreds of Japanese planes had taken off from bases in Formosa, en route to the Philippine Islands. The Japanese pilots flying the mission were worried—believing that by the time they arrived over the Philippines, the Americans would be ready for them. But as it turned out, they needn’t have been concerned. MacArthur never ordered a defensive alert.

  At about 0900, aircraft spotters on northernmost Luzon reported Japanese army bombers flying south toward Manila. U.S. planes were launched from Clark Field to intercept them, but the Japanese aircraft avoided a confrontation and detoured to another target, bombing barracks and other facilities at Baguio and Tuguegarao. At about 0930, the enemy bombers turned north and headed back to Formosa.

  Lulled into believing that was the full extent of the Japanese attack, U.S. Army Air Corps officers at Clark Field ordered the fighters to return to base. Then, at 1130, as the U.S. aircraft were on the ground refueling, a second, much larger formation of Japanese bombers was picked up by radar. Fifteen minutes later, Colonel Alexander Campbell, the base warning officer, sent a Teletyped, coded message to Clark Field reporting that a huge formation of enemy planes was headed that way. For whatever reason, the message was never received.

  U.S. fighter planes of the 34th Air Squadron from nearby Nielson Field were scrambled and sent to intercept the Japanese planes and to defend Clark Field. Planes from the 17th Air Squadron were launched to protect the Bataan Peninsula, while the 21st Air Squadron flew toward Manila. From its base at Iba, the 3rd Pursuit Squadron took off about noon to meet the Japanese formation over the South China Sea.

  But none of the planes at Clark Field had been sent aloft. All except one of the B-17 bombers were still parked, wingtip to wingtip, on the airfield apron, when the first twenty-seven Mitsubishi bombers struck. Fifteen minutes later, another twenty enemy aircraft bombed and strafed Clark and Nichols Fields. And then a third wave of thirty-four Zeros dropped their munitions on—and then strafed—the American B-17s and P-40s lined up below. The American planes, fully fueled and loaded with bombs and ammunition, ignited like a fireworks display as the Japanese bombs and incendiary cannon rounds found their mark.

  American losses during the hour-long Japanese air assault were staggering, just as they had been in Hawaii. Though there were only fifty-three American fatalities and a hundred wounded, the damage and destruction to U.S. aircraft was catastrophic.

  Although some in the press described the Japanese air strikes on the Philippines as a second Pearl Harbor, the similarities ended with the surprise air attack. Unlike those in Hawaii, the air attacks of 8 December were just the prelude to the onslaught on the Americans and our Filipino allies. The Japanese had come to stay.

  As Admiral Glassford’s diminished Asiatic Fleet prepared to flee south to link up with Dutch and British ships in the East Indies, Japanese ships were already landing the first of 43,000 soldiers from General Homma’s 14th Imperial Army. Arrayed against them, without air support and cut off from resupply or reinforcement, were the 15,000 American and 80,000 poorly equipped Filipino troops led by General Douglas MacArthur. Among them were some remarkable heroes.

  Dick Gordon volunteered on 5 August 1940 by walking into the U.S. Army recruiting center on Whitehall Street in downtown Manhattan. There, Gordon was offered his choice of where he wanted to go, so he chose the Philippines—suggested by the Army recruiter, who told him life there was pretty good. The recruiter had waxed eloquent about the beautiful tropical climate, warm breezes, and pristine beaches.

  And that’s just the way it was when Private Gordon arrived in the winter of 1940–1941. They drilled only until eleven-thirty in the morning, and stayed out of the hot afternoon sun, and, except for the midday heat, the weather was great, especially compared with the snow, wind, and sleet of New York. Private Gordon really thought he had it made—that is, until things began to take a decided turn in a different direction.

  Lanky, six-foot-two, twenty-year-old Army Air Corps Private John Cook was a medic. He had enlisted in the Army Air Corps in Salt Lake City, Utah, and was assigned to the 90th Reconnaissance Squadron when the unit shipped out for the Philippines.

  Corporal Ralph Rodriguez, Jr. was a twenty-three-year-old from New Mexico’s 515th National Guard, in an Army anti-aircra
ft unit that had been dispatched to the Philippines after Congress extended the Selective Service Act just months earlier. All of his training was as a medic. When the Japanese invaded, he knew almost nothing about being a gunner or a rifleman.

  Twenty-one-year-old Andy Miller from Nebraska was a private in the 19th Airborne Squadron of the Army Air Corps, stationed at Nichols Field. He regarded this as pretty good duty. The food was decent and the work wasn’t too hard. It was a long way from home, but jobs were scarce in the Great Plains. But after the Japanese arrived, the bleak drought and Depression in Nebraska would start to look pretty good.

  SERGEANT RICHARD GORDON, US ARMY

  Assigned to U.S. Army Hospital

  Manila, Philippines

  8 December 1941

  Things were great until around the summer of 1941, when it became a reality that the United States intended to defend the Philippine Islands in the event of war with Japan.

  Troops began to arrive, ammunition began to arrive, and matériel began to arrive. And the men came. Many arrived in October and November wearing winter clothing from the States. Once the U.S. forces began the buildup, training began to accelerate.

  I guess that’s when we first became aware of the fact that we would probably be at war with the Japanese real soon. But no one said, “I wanna go home,” because—quite frankly—nobody ever believed that we weren’t ready for them. From our point of view—the lowly private’s point of view—we never thought anybody would have the nerve to attack the Philippines.

  When they bombed Pearl Harbor in December, it was a shock... we thought it’d be the Philippines first. The talk in the barracks was that everybody in Washington expected the Philippines would be the first target of the Japanese.