Part 2

On board _Tennessee_ (BB-43), Marine Captain Chevey S. White, who had just turned 28 the day before, was standing officer-of-the-deck watch as that battleship lay moored inboard of _West Virginia_ (BB-48) in berth F-6. Since the commanding officer and the executive officer were both ashore, command devolved upon Lieutenant Commander James W. Adams, Jr., the ship’s gunnery officer. Summoned topside at the sound of the general alarm and hearing “all hands to general quarters” over the ship’s general announcing system, Adams sprinted to the bridge and spotted White en route. Over the din of battle, Adams shouted for the Marine to “get the ship in condition Zed [Z] as quickly as possible.” White did so. By the time Adams reached his battle station on the bridge, White was already at his own battle station, directing the ship’s antiaircraft guns. During the action (in which the ship took one bomb that exploded on the center gun of Turret II and another that penetrated the crown of Turret III, the latter breaking apart without exploding), White remained at his unprotected station, coolly and courageously directing the battleship’s antiaircraft battery. _Tennessee_ claimed four enemy planes shot down.

_West Virginia_, outboard of _Tennessee_, had been scheduled to sail for Puget Sound, due for overhaul, on 17 November, but had been retained in Hawaiian waters owing to the tense international situation. In her exposed moorings, she thus absorbed six torpedoes, while a seventh blew her rudder free. Prompt counterflooding, however, prevented her from turning turtle as _Oklahoma_ had done, and she sank, upright, alongside _Tennessee_.

On board _California_, moored singly off the administration building at the naval air station, junior officer of the deck on board had been Second Lieutenant Clifford B. Drake. Relieved by Ensign Herbert C. Jones, USNR, Drake went down to the wardroom for breakfast (Kadota figs, followed by steak and eggs) where, around 0755, he heard airplane engines and explosions as Japanese dive bombers attacked the air station. The general quarters alarm then summoned the crew to battle stations. Drake, forsaking his meal, hurried to the foretop.

By 0803, the two ready machine guns forward of the bridge had opened fire, followed shortly thereafter by guns no. 2 and 4 of the antiaircraft battery. As the gunners depleted the ready-use ammunition, however, two torpedoes struck home in quick succession. _California_ began to settle as massive flooding occurred. Meanwhile, fumes from the ruptured fuel tanks--she had been fueled to 95 percent capacity the previous day--drove out the men assigned to the party attempting to bring up ammunition for the guns by hand. A call for men to bring up additional gas masks proved fruitless, as the volunteers, who included Private Arthur E. Senior, could not reach the compartment in which they were stored.

_California_’s losing power because of the torpedo damage soon relegated Lieutenant Drake, in her foretop, to the role of “... a reporter of what was going on ... a somewhat confused young lieutenant suddenly hurled into war.” As _California_ began listing after the torpedo hits, Drake began pondering his own ship’s fate. Comparing his ship’s list with that of _Oklahoma_’s, he dismissed _California_’s rolling over, thinking, “who ever heard of a battleship capsizing?” _Oklahoma_, however, did a few moments later.

Meanwhile, at about 0810, in response to a call for a chain of volunteers to pass 5-inch/25 ammunition, Private Senior again stepped forward and soon clambered down to the C-L Division Compartment. There he saw Ensign Jones, Lieutenant Drake’s relief earlier that morning, standing at the foot of the ladder on the third deck, directing the ammunition supply. For almost 20 minutes, Senior and his shipmates toiled under Jones’ direction until a bomb penetrated the main deck at about 0830 and exploded on the second deck, plunging the compartment into darkness. As acrid smoke filled the compartment, Senior reached for his gas mask, which he had lain on a shell box behind him, and put it on. Hearing someone say: “Mr. Jones has been hit,” Senior flashed his flashlight over on the ensign’s face and saw that “it was all bloody. His white coat also had blood all over it.” Senior and another man then carried Jones as far as the M Division compartment, but the ensign would not let them carry him any further. “Leave me alone,” he gasped insistently, “I’m done for. Get out of here before the magazines go off!” Soon thereafter, however, before he could get clear, Senior felt the shock of an explosion from down below and collapsed, unconscious.

Jones’ gallantry--which earned him a posthumous Medal of Honor--impressed Private Howard M. Haynes, who had been confined before the attack, awaiting a bad conduct discharge. After the battle, a contrite Haynes--“a mean character who had shown little or no respect for anything or anyone” before 7 December--approached Lieutenant Drake and said that he [Haynes] was alive because of the actions that Ensign Jones had taken. “God,” he said, “give me a chance to prove I’m worth it.” His actions that morning in the crucible of war earned Haynes a recommendation for retention in the service. Most of _California_’s Marines, like Haynes, survived the battle. Private First Class Earl D. Wallen and Privates Roy E. Lee, Jr. and Shelby C. Shook, however, did not. Nor did the badly burned Private First Class John A. Blount, Jr., who succumbed to his wounds on 9 December.

_Nevada_’s attempt to clear the harbor, meanwhile, inspired those who witnessed it. Her magnificent effort prompted a stepped-up effort by Japanese dive bomber pilots to sink her. One 250-kilogram bomb hit her boat deck just aft of a ventilator trunk and 12 feet to the starboard side of the centerline, about halfway between the stack and the end of the boat deck, setting off laid-out 5-inch ready-use ammunition. Spraying fragments decimated the gun crews. The explosion wrecked the galley and blew open the starboard door of the compartment, venting into casemate no. 9 and starting a fire that swept through the casemate, wrecking the gun. Although he had been seriously wounded by the blast that had hurt both of his legs and stripped much of his uniform from his body, Corporal Joe R. Driskell disregarded his own condition and insisted that he man another gun. He refused medical treatment, assisting other wounded men instead, and then helped battle the flames. He did not quit until those fires were out.

Another 250-kilogram bomb hit _Nevada_’s bridge, penetrating down into casemate no. 6 and starting a fire. The blast had also severed the water pipes providing circulating water to the water-cooled machine guns on the foremast-guns in the charge of Gunnery Sergeant Charles E. Douglas. Intense flames enveloped the forward superstructure, endangering Douglas and his men, and prompting orders for them to abandon their station. They steadfastly remained at their posts, however, keeping the .50-caliber Brownings firing amidst the swirling black smoke until the end of the action.

Unlike the battleships the enemy had caught moored on Battleship Row, _Pennsylvania_ (BB-38), the fleet flagship, lay on keel blocks, sharing Dry Dock No. 1 at the Navy Yard with _Cassin_ (DD-372) and _Downes_ (DD-375)--two destroyers side-by-side ahead of her. Three of _Pennsylvania_’s four propeller shafts had been removed and she was receiving all steam, power, and water from the yard. Although her being in drydock had excused her from taking part in antiaircraft drills, her crew swiftly manned her machine guns after the first bombs exploded among the PBY flying boats parked on the south end of Ford Island. “Air defense stations” then sounded, followed by “general quarters.” Men knocked the locks off ready-use ammunition stowage and _Pennsylvania_ opened fire about 0802.

The fleet flagship and the two destroyers nestled in the drydock ahead of her led a charmed life until dive bombers from _Soryu_ and _Hiryu_ targeted the drydock area between 0830 and 0915.[B] One bomb penetrated _Pennsylvania_’s boat deck, just to the rear of 5-inch/25 gun no. 7, and detonated in casemate no. 9. Of _Pennsylvania_’s Marine detachment, two men (Privates Patrick P. Tobin and George H. Wade, Jr.) died outright, 13 fell wounded, and six were listed as missing. Three of the wounded--Corporal Morris E. Nations and Jesse C. Vincent, Jr., and Private First Class Floyd D. Stewart--died later the same day.

[B] For what became of the two destroyers, and the Marines decorated for bravery in the battle to try to save them, see page 28–29.

As the onslaught descended upon the battleships and the air station, Marine detachments hurried to their battle stations on board other ships elsewhere at Pearl. In the Navy Yard lay _Argonne_ (AG-31), the flagship of the Base Force, the heavy cruisers _New Orleans_ (CA-32) and _San Francisco_ (CA-38), and the light cruisers _Honolulu_ (CL-48), _St. Louis_ (CL-49) and _Helena_ (CL-50). To the northeast of Ford Island lay the light cruiser _Phoenix_ (CL-43).

Although _Utah_ was torpedoed and sunk at her berth early in the attack, her 14 Marines, on temporary duty at the 14th Naval District Rifle Range, found useful employment combatting the enemy. The Fleet Machine Gun School lay on Oahu’s south coast, west of the Pearl Harbor entrance channel, at Fort Weaver. The men stationed there, including several Marines on temporary duty from the carrier _Enterprise_ and the battleships _California_ and _Pennsylvania_, sprang to action at the first sounds of war. Working with the men from the Rifle Range, all hands set up and mounted guns, and broke out and belted ammunition between 0755 and 0810. All those present at the range were issued pistols or rifles from the facility’s armory.

Soon after the raid began, Platoon Sergeant Harold G. Edwards set about securing the camp against any incursion the Japanese might attempt from the landward side, and also supervised the emplacement of machine guns along the beach. Lieutenant (j.g.) Roy R. Nelson, the officer in charge of the Rifle Range, remembered the many occasions when Captain Frank M. Reinecke, commanding officer of _Utah_’s Marine detachment and the senior instructor at the Fleet Machine Gun School (and, as his Naval Academy classmates remembered, quite a conversationalist), had maintained that the school’s weapons would be a great asset if anybody ever attacked Hawaii. By 0810, Reinecke’s gunners stood ready to prove the point and soon engaged the enemy--most likely torpedo planes clearing Pearl Harbor or high-level bombers approaching from the south. Nearby Army units, perhaps alerted by the Marines’ fire, opened up soon thereafter. Unfortunately, the eager gunners succeeded in downing one of two SBDs from _Enterprise_ that were attempting to reach Hickam Field. An Army crash boat, fortunately, rescued the pilot and his wounded passenger soon thereafter.

On board _Argonne_, meanwhile, alongside 1010 Dock, her Marines manned her starboard 3-inch/23 battery and her machine guns. Commander Fred W. Connor, the ship’s commanding officer, later credited Corporal Alfred Schlag with shooting down one Japanese plane as it headed for Battleship Row.

When the attack began, _Helena_ lay moored alongside 1010 Dock, the venerable minelayer _Oglala_ (CM-3) outboard. A signalman, standing watch on the light cruiser’s signal bridge at 0757 identified the planes over Ford Island as Japanese, and the ship went to general quarters. Before she could fire a shot in her own defense, however, one 800-kilogram torpedo barrelled into her starboard side about a minute after the general alarm had begun summoning her men to their battle stations. The explosion vented up from the forward engine room through the hatch and passageways, catching many of the crew running to their stations, and started fires on the third deck. Platoon Sergeant Robert W. Teague, Privates First Class Paul F. Huebner, Jr. and George E. Johnson, and Private Lester A. Morris were all severely burned. Johnson later died.

To the southeast, _New Orleans_ lay across the pier from her sister ship _San Francisco_. The former went to general quarters soon after enemy planes had been sighted dive-bombing Ford Island around 0757. At 0805, as several low-flying torpedo planes roared by, bound for Battleship Row, Marine sentries on the fantail opened fire with rifles and .45s. _New Orleans_’ men, meanwhile, so swiftly manned the 1.1-inch/75 quads, and .50-caliber machine guns, under the direction of Captain William R. Collins, the commanding officer of the ship’s Marine detachment, that the ship actually managed to shoot at torpedo planes passing her stern. _San Francisco_, however, under major overhaul with neither operative armament nor major caliber ammunition on board, was thus restricted to having her men fire small arms at whatever Japanese planes came within range. Some of her crew, though, hurried over to _New Orleans_, which was near-missed by one bomb, and helped man her 5-inchers.

_St. Louis_, outboard of _Honolulu_, went to general quarters at 0757 and opened fire with her 1.1 quadruple mounted antiaircraft and .50-caliber machine gun batteries, and after getting her 5-inch mounts in commission by 0830--although without power in train--she hauled in her lines at 0847 and got underway at 0931. With all 5-inchers in full commission by 0947, she proceeded to sea, passing the channel entrance buoys abeam around 1000. _Honolulu_, damaged by a near miss from a bomb, remained moored at her berth throughout the action.

_Phoenix_, moored by herself in berth C-6 in Pearl Harbor, to the northeast of Ford Island, noted the attacking planes at 0755 and went to general quarters. Her machine gun battery opened fire at 0810 on the attacking planes as they came within range; her antiaircraft battery five minutes later. Ultimately, after two false starts (where she had gotten underway and left her berth only to see sortie signals cancelled each time) _Phoenix_ cleared the harbor later that day and put to sea.

For at least one Marine, though, the day’s adventure was not over when the Japanese planes departed. Search flights took off from Ford Island, pilots taking up utility aircraft with scratch crews, to look for the enemy carriers which had launched the raid. Mustered at the naval air station on Ford Island, _Oklahoma_’s Sergeant Hailey, still clad in his oil-soaked underwear, volunteered to go up in a plane that was leaving on a search mission at around 1130. He remained aloft in the plane, armed with a rifle, for some five hours.

After the attacking planes had retired, the grim business of cleaning up and getting on with the war had to be undertaken. Muster had to be taken to determine who was missing, who was wounded, who lay dead. Men sought out their friends and shipmates. First Lieutenant Cornelius C. Smith, Jr., from the Marine Barracks at the Navy Yard, searched in vain among the maimed and dying at the Naval Hospital later that day, for his friend Harry Gaver from _Oklahoma_. Death respected no rank. The most senior Marine to die that day was Lieutenant Colonel Daniel R. Fox, the decorated World War I hero and the division Marine officer on the staff of the Commander, Battleship Division One, Rear Admiral Isaac C. Kidd, who, along with Lieutenant Colonel Fox, had been killed in _Arizona_. The tragedy of Pearl Harbor struck some families with more force than others: numbered among _Arizona_’s lost were Private Gordon E. Shive, of the battleship’s Marine detachment, and his brother, Radioman Third Class Malcolm H. Shive, a member of the ship’s company.

Over the next few days, Marines from the sunken ships received reassignment to other vessels--_Nevada_’s Marines deployed ashore to set up defensive positions in the fields adjacent to the grounded and listing battleship--and the dead, those who could be found, were interred with appropriate ceremony. Eventually, the deeds of Marines in the battleship detachments were recognized by appropriate commendations and advancements in ratings. Chief among them, Gunnery Sergeant Douglas, Sergeant Hailey, and Corporals Driskell and Darling were each awarded the Navy Cross. For his “meritorious conduct at the peril of his own life,” Major Shapley was commended and awarded the Silver Star. Lieutenant Simensen was awarded a posthumous Bronze Star, while _Tennessee_’s commanding officer commended Captain White for the way in which he had directed that battleship’s antiaircraft guns that morning.

Titanic salvage efforts raised some of the sunken battleships--_California_, _West Virginia_, and _Nevada_--and they, like the surviving Marines, went on to play a part in the ultimate defeat of the enemy who had begun the war with such swift and terrible suddenness.

_They Caught Us Flat-Footed_

At 0740, when Fuchida’s fliers had closed to within a few miles of Kahuku Point, the 43 Zeroes split away from the rest of the formation, swinging out north and west of Wheeler Field, the headquarters of the Hawaiian Air Force’s 18th Pursuit Wing. Passing further to the south, at about 0745 the _Soryu_ and _Hiryu_ divisions executed a hard diving turn to port and headed north, toward Wheeler. Eleven Zeroes from _Shokaku_ and _Zuikaku_ simultaneously left the formation and flew east, crossing over Oahu north of Pearl Harbor to attack NAS Kaneohe Bay. Eighteen from _Akagi_ and _Kaga_ headed toward what the Japanese called _Babasu Pointo Hikojo_ (Barbers Point Airdrome)--Ewa Mooring Mast Field.

Sweeping over the Waianae Range, Lieutenant Commander Shigeru Itaya led _Akagi_’s nine Zeroes, while Lieutenant Yoshio Shiga headed another division of nine from _Kaga_. After the initial attack, Itaya and Shiga were to be followed by divisions from _Soryu_, under Lieutenant Masaji Suganami, and _Hiryu_, under Lieutenant Kiyokuma Okajima, which were, at that moment, involved in attacking Wheeler to the north.

In the officers’ mess at Ewa, the officer-of-the-day, Captain Leonard W. Ashwell of VMJ-252, noticed two formations of aircraft at 0755. The first looked like 18 “torpedo planes” flying at 1,000 feet toward Pearl Harbor from Barbers Point, but the second, to the northwest, comprised about 21 planes, just coming over the hills from the direction of Nanakuli, also at an altitude of about 1,000 feet. Ashwell, intrigued by the sight, stepped outside for a better look. The second formation, of single-seat fighters (the two divisions from _Akagi_ and _Kaga_), flew just to the north of Ewa and wheeled to the right. Then, flying in a “string” formation, they commenced firing. Recognizing the planes as Japanese, Ashwell burst back into the mess, shouting: “Air Raid ... Air Raid! Pass the word!” He then sprinted for the guard house, to have “call to arms” sounded.

That Sunday morning, Technical Sergeant Henry H. Anglin, the noncommissioned-officer-in-charge of the photographic section at Ewa, had driven from his Pearl City home with his three-year-old son, Hank, to take the boy’s picture at the station. The senior Anglin had just positioned the lad in front of the camera and was about to take the photo--the picture was to be a gift to the boy’s grandparents--when they heard the “mingled noise of airplanes and machine guns.” Roaring down to within 25 feet of the ground, Itaya’s group most likely carried out only one pass at their targets before moving on to Hickam, the headquarters of the Hawaiian Air Forces 18th Bombardment Wing.