The USS Arizona Story

The USS Arizona Story — page 3 — The ship also carried 180,000 gallons 680,000 L of aviation fuel for the scouting planes it carried and 1 million pounds 454,000 kg of gunpowder 2 The crew was prepared if an attack came at sea on the journey across the Pacific Ocean Out at Sea At 5 50 a m as the USS Arizona crew prepared for the day Japanese warships were approximately 220 miles 350 km north of Oahu 3 Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto commander in chief of the Combined Fleet of Japan had devised a plan to cripple the US armed forces leaving Japan free to expand into the South Pacific Six aircraft carriers plus destroyers tankers two battleships and three submarines prepared to attack The weather was less than favorable the sea was choppy and heavy clouds made for poor visibility Mitsuo Fuchida After World War II 1939 1945 Mitsuo Fuchida cooperated with the Americans during interrogations and provided valuable information about the attack on Pearl Harbor He became an author writing books about the Japanese military experience during the war After converting to Christianity he toured the United States and other parts of the world as a missionary in the 1950s At 6 10 a m the carriers turned into the wind for the airplanes to take off A total of 183 bombers fighters and torpedo planes roared from the decks and joined in formation behind Commander Mitsuo Fuchida leader of the attack that was headed for 6

The USS Arizona Story — page 4 — Mini-Bio Isoroku Yamamoto Commander in Chief of the Combined Fleet of Japan Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto 1884 1943 head of the Japanese navy conceived and planned the attack on Pearl Harbor He was a brilliant strategist and realized Japan could not hope to win a war with the United States unless its forces could first weaken the naval defenses in the Pacific If a war went longer than a year he told the Japanese prime minister they did not have a chance of winning The United States had vast natural resources and labor that could produce weapons if the nation needed to fight Yamamoto’s plan a surprise attack using aircraft carriers to launch bombers torpedo carriers and fighter planes on Pearl Harbor was a success but he was not sure the victory would last He wrote I fear all we have done is to awaken a sleeping giant and fill him with terrible resolve 4 He was right Seven months later at the Battle of Midway the tide of the war turned in the United States favor Admiral Yamamoto was killed in 1943 when his airplane was shot down by US forces 7

The USS Arizona Story — page 5 — Pearl Harbor 5 Fuchida was an experienced bomber pilot who commanded all air groups of Japanese Carrier Division I On the USS Arizona By 6 30 a m showered and shaved the crew of the USS Arizona headed for breakfast It was a leisurely breakfast of powdered eggs with ketchup fried Spam a canned meat pancakes and coffee Many were dressed in casual clothes pressed white shorts and white T-shirts because it was a Sunday morning Some men settled in to read the newspaper Likely some discussed their time on liberty in Honolulu the day before They had gone ashore to the restaurants shops and bars toured the island or enjoyed Waikiki Beach Curfew was midnight for most and 2 00 a m for officers Others that morning may have rehashed the movie Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde that played on the fantail the night before Beyond the USS Arizona At 6 45 a m the US destroyer Ward sank a Japanese minisubmarine that was prowling too close to Pearl Harbor It was just after 7 00 a m time for watch change at the Opana radar outpost The two privates on duty noticed a group of 50 blips on the radar screen and reported this to Lieutenant Kermit Tyler at the Fort Shafter information center 6 8

The USS Arizona Story — page 6 — Tyler in only his second day on the job remembered that he had been told to expect incoming American B-17 Flying Fortress Bombers and assumed that was what the radar station had picked up For security reasons he couldn’t tell the radar operators the American airplanes were expected so he told them Well don’t worry about it 7 Shortly after a second wave of airplanes took off from the Japanese aircraft carriers Decoding Warnings At 7 15 a m the code clerks at army headquarters decoded the message from the USS Ward about the sunken submarine They sent it to Admiral Edward Kimmel commander in chief of the Pacific Fleet The admiral read the message and decided to wait for verification before taking any action In Washington DC meanwhile US code breakers intercepted a message that appeared ominous The message from Tokyo Japan was sent to the Japanese Radar Radar works by sending out radio waves and detecting reflections of the waves from distant objects Britain had developed a network of radar stations called Chain Home in the years before World War II to detect incoming German airplanes But the new technology took time to implement and the mobile station at Pearl Harbor had been running for less than 30 days Radar became increasingly important during the war as it was deployed on ships to detect incoming attacks 9

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