Tragedy at Honolulu

The U.S. Navy was caught with its pants down. Within one tragic hour--before the war had really begun--the U.S. appeared to have suffered greater naval losses than in the whole of World War I.*

Days may pass before the full facts become known, but in the scanty news that came through from Hawaii in the first 36 hours of the war was every indication that the Navy had been taken completely by surprise in the early part of a lazy Sunday morning. Although the Japanese attackers had certainly been approaching for several days, the Navy apparently had no news of either airplane carriers sneaking up or of submarines fanning out around Hawaii. Not till the first bombs began to fall was an alarm given. And when the blow fell the air force at Pearl Harbor was apparently not ready to offer effective opposition to the attackers.

In fine homes on the heights above the city, in beach shacks near Waikiki, in the congested district around the Punchbowl, assorted Japanese, Chinese, Portuguese, Filipinos, Hawaiians and kamaainas (long-settled whites) were taking their ease. In the shallow waters lapping Fort De Russy, where sentries walked post along a retaining wall, a few Japanese and Hawaiians waded about, looking for fish to spear. In Army posts all over Oahu, soldiers were dawdling into a typical idle Sunday. Aboard the ships of the Fleet at Pearl Harbor, life was going along at a saunter. Downtown nothing stirred save an occasional bus. The clock on the Aloha Tower read 7:55.

The Japs came in from the southeast over Diamond Head. They could have been U.S. planes shuttling westward from San Diego. Civilians' estimates of their numbers ranged from 50 to 150. They whined over Waikiki, over the candy-pink bulk of the Royal Hawaiian Hotel. Some were (it was reported) big four-motored jobs, some dive-bombers, some pursuits. All that they met as they came in was a tiny private plane in which Lawyer Ray Buduick was out for a Sunday morning ride. They riddled the lawyer's plane with machine-gun bullets, but the lawyer succeeded in making a safe landing. By the time he did, bombs were thudding all around the city. The first reported casualty was Robert Tyce, operator of a civilian airport near Honolulu, who was machine-gunned as he started to spin the propeller of a plane.

Torpedoes launched from bombers tore at the dreadnoughts in Pearl Harbor. Dive-bombers swooped down on the Army's Hickam and Wheeler Fields. Shortly after the attack began, radio warnings were broadcast. But people who heard them were skeptical until explosions wrenched the guts of Honolulu. All the way from Pacific Heights down to the center of town the planes soared, leaving a wake of destruction.

With anti-aircraft guns popping and U.S. pursuits headed aloft, pajama-clad citizens piled out of bed to dash downtown or head for the hills where they could get a good view. Few of them were panicky, many were nonchalant. Shouted one man as he dashed past a CBS observer: "The mainland papers will exaggerate this."

After the first attack Governor Poindexter declared an emergency, cleared the streets, ordered out the police and fire departments. Farrington High School, the city's biggest, was converted into a hospital. But the Japanese attackers returned.

Obvious to onlookers on the Honolulu hills was the fact that Pearl Harbor was being hit hard. From the Navy's plane base on Ford Island (also known as Luke Field), in the middle of the harbor, clouds of smoke ascended. One citizen who was driving past the naval base saw the first bomb fall on Ford Island. Said he: "It must have been a big one. I saw two planes dive over the mountains and down to the water and let loose torpedoes at a naval ship. This warship was attacked again & again. I also saw what looked like dive-bombers coming over in single file."

When the first ghastly day was over, Honolulu began to reckon up the score. It was one to make the U.S. Navy and Army shudder. Of the 200,000 inhabitants of Oahu, 1,500 were dead, 1,500 others injured. Not all the civilian casualties occurred in Honolulu. The raiders plunged upon the town of Wahiawa, where there is a large island reservoir, sprayed bullets on people in the streets. Behind the Wahiawa courthouse a Japanese plane crashed in flames.

Washington called the naval damage "serious." admitted at least one "old" battleship and a destroyer had been sunk, other ships of war damaged at base. Meanwhile Japan took to the radio to boast that the U.S. Navy had suffered an "annihilating blow." Crowed the Japs: "With the two battleships [sunk], and two other capital ships and four large cruisers heavily damaged by Japanese bombing attacks on Hawaii, the U.S. Pacific Fleet has now only two battleships, six 10,000-ton cruisers, and only one aircraft carrier."

Perhaps more important than the loss of ships was damage to the naval base, some of whose oil depots may have gone up in flames. Heaviest military toll was at Hickam Field, where hundreds were killed and injured when bombs hit the great barracks and bombs were reported to have destroyed several hangars full of planes.

These reports may have been inaccurate --most of them came through in the first excitement of the attack and could not be confirmed. Thereafter virtually the only news about Hawaii came through a few bare communiques from the White House. It was all too likely that there was serious damage which was not reported.

But the curtain of censorship settled down. The Fleet units which were fit for action put to sea. The White House said that several Jap airplanes and submarines were downed, but what happened in the next grim stage of the deadly serious battle was hidden for the time being by the curtain.

*Between April 6, 1917 and Nov. 11, 1918, the U.S., according to Jane's Fighting Ships for 1918, lost 1 armored cruiser, 2 destroyers, 1 submarine, 3 armed yachts, 1 coast guard cutter and 2 revenue cutters--but not a single capital ship.

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