The USS Arizona Story

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

The USS Arizona Story — page 7 — negotiators in Washington at 7 33 a m It ordered Japanese negotiators to break off talks with the United States Thinking this might mean war General George C Marshall the army chief of staff sent a message to Lieutenant General Walter C Short commander of US Army forces in Hawaii to warn of the impending conflict However conditions in the atmosphere were poor for radio signals and the message did not get through In the Air At 7 40 a m as the Japanese airplanes approached Pearl Harbor the clouds broke and Fuchida saw the white sand coastline of Oahu He sent out the order to attack to to to Then he sent a second message ra ra ra This message interpreted by some as tora tora tora told the Japanese carrier that the stealth attack was successful The Americans had no idea the Japanese were coming At 7 55 a m Japanese aircraft struck the first US airstrip The aircraft there were parked close together to make it easier to protect them against sabotage But this only made them an easier target from the air No one had expected an aerial attack 10

The USS Arizona Story — page 8 — A photograph taken from a Japanese plane amid the torpedo attack shows Japanese planes circled ready to bomb the Navy Yard over Ford Island Torpedoes and B-17s At 7 55 a m Lieutenant Commander Logan C Ramsey looked out the window from inside the Ford Command Center He spotted a low-flying airplane and assumed it was a careless US pilot He looked more closely to see if he could identify the airplane so he could report the pilot As he looked up Ramsey saw a long black object fall from the airplane a torpedo He immediately sent out a message to warn the fleet AIR RAID ON PEARL HARBOR X THIS IS NOT DRILL 8 Around this time the expected B-17 Flying Fortress Bombers arrived at Oahu To save weight on the long flight from the West Coast to Pearl Harbor the aircraft were not armed The pilots had expected only a stop in Oahu for refueling before continuing to the Philippines 11

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