Looking back at an infamous attack
Attack on Pearl Harbor: Caught By Surprise
Channel 5, 9pm
ON December 7, 1941, Japan staged a surprise attack on Pearl Harbor, decimating the US Pacific Fleet.
This three-part documentary, shown on consecutive nights, gives a detailed account of the raids, devised by Admiral Yamamoto Isoroku, with the opening edition revealing the background to the events, from the inception of the plan and the months of planning by the Japanese.
Pilots were trained on a replica of Pearl Harbor, and the Japanese went to great lengths to keep the mission a secret.
This included maintaining strict radio silence throughout their 3,500mile trek from Hitokappu Bay, using decoy radio operators in Japan to convince eavesdroppers the aircraft carriers were still in port, and not dumping their rubbish at sea in case it was seen by an enemy submarine.
However, there were missed opportunities that could have helped the Americans avert the disaster.
A warning was sent to the chief of the Pacific Fleet a week before the attack that said: “This message is to be considered a war warning”.
And when American radar operators detected incoming Japanese planes on the morning of the attack, they were told not to worry.
Some of the survivors of that day share their stories. They include a 103-year-old Japanese torpedo bomber and an American sailor who was on the USS Arizona when it was hit by a bomb that ignited its ammunition magazine, killing 1,177 men.
The series continues tomorrow, with the second edition, 30 Mins of Hell, opening as the attack begins.
In half an hour, 183 Japanese bombers and fighters wipe out almost all the Pacific Fleet’s battleships and lead to the death of nearly 2,400 people.
The Japanese pilots had spent months preparing, but one challenge they faced was preventing their torpedoes from nose-diving into the shallow harbour floor, so the pilots practised attacking low and slow.
For their high-altitude bombers, the Japanese military had developed a new weapon by taking a heavy, armourpiercing shell and turning it into an aerial bomb.
After only 20 minutes, the results were devastating – the USS Arizona was blown in half, the USS West Virginia was sinking fast and the USS Oklahoma had capsized.
Thursday’s concluding part, Declaration of War, captures the drama and mayhem as the first wave of the attack ends.
The Americans realise another wave must be incoming and prepare antiaircraft guns and launch a few planes.
The Japanese second wave contains a large group of dive bombers that go after targets of opportunity in
Pearl Harbor and other bombers that inflict additional attacks on American airfields.
The battleship USS Nevada tries to head for the open sea and becomes a target for the Japanese fliers.
As immortalised in one of the most iconic photos of the attack on Pearl Harbor, the USS Shaw is hit on its bow, and the huge explosion sees the forward magazine blow the bow right off.
The results of the raid are devastating. Five of eight battleships moored in Pearl Harbor are sunk, and on Oahu’s airfields, 347 planes are destroyed or damaged.
The miracle of the salvage of Pearl Harbor, however, is that most of the ships made it back into service.
Today, the wreck of the USS Arizona is a place where people can walk upon the memorial, see the names of the dead and touch history.