U. S. SPARRED FOR TIME AFTER THE PEARL HARBOR ATT AC
ing single-handed. An officer leaped from his hos
pital bed and took his fighting station.
Some American planes rose from their bomb
pitted fields to strike back. Anti-aircraft fire
boomed.. But 150 of the red-balled demons con
tinued to thunder in.
By 9:45 they flew away—all but 48 which had
been shot into the earth or surrounding waters by
U. S. ground or airplane fire.
Behind them, they left the wreckage of the
United States Pacific fleet. Eight of the nation’s 17
battleships lay crushed in the harbor. One, the
Arizona, had blown up. The Oklahoma had cap
sized. Others had gaping holes and still billowed
smoke. Three destroyers and a mine layer were
sunk, three cruisers, a seaplane tender and repair
ship were damaged, 177 airplanes were wrecked.
Beneath the debris of planes and out of the
waters and the hulls of the ships, the lifeless bodies
of 2,343 Navy and Army men were removed, along,
with 1,272 wounded.
Isolationism had become a dead issue. For all
practical purposes, America was at war.
AMERICA'S DARK WEEK
THE news of the attack was flashed to the White
House. Less than an hour later Nomura and
Kurusu blithely called on Secretary Hull with a
memorandum charging the United States had con
cocted a far-reaching anti-Japanese conspiracy, had
prevented peace in China, and was readying for war
with Germany and Japan. To their faces Hull ac
cused them of “infamous falsehoods and distortions
©n a scale so huge that I never imagined until to
day that any government on this planet was capa
ble of uttering them ” Some of the straight-talking
Tennessean’s other remarks were of the type which
written history records only by dashes.
By now the news had been broadcast through
cut the nation. Armed guards rushed to protect
public buildings in Washington. Army and Navy
leaves were cancelled. Soldiers mounted shore de
fenses. Americans asked the way to enlisting, sta
tions.
That evening, U S. time, the American ambassa
dor at Tokyo received word from the Japanese for
eign minister belatedly announcing the state of war.
The next day a grim and fighting President went
into a combined session of Congress to call the day
©f the attack “a date which will live in infamy.”
When the rollcall came on the war vote there was
but one dissenter—pacifist Representative Jeannette
Rankin of Montana.
At the time of Pearl Harbor, other Japanese
planes bombed the Philippines, Guam and Wake,
Britain’s port of Hong Kong in China, and Malaya.
Troops moved into Thailand and, in the Axis pattern,
had a host of traitors waiting to greet them as lib
erators.
On December 8 they bombed Midway. Thailand
capitulated and they crossed into northern Malaya.
On December 9 they occupied the northern Gil
bert islands, far east of New Guinea and along the
line from Pearl Harbor to Australia.
On December 10 they landed at Aparri, on the
northern tip of Luzon island in the Philippines.
Then planes sank two great British warships—the
battleship Prince of Wales and the battle cruiser
Rep:, ise—off Malaya.
Or, December 11 their Axis partners—Germany
and Italy—declared war on the United States.
On December 12. after incessant bombing and a
^forceful landing against less than 600 American
^sailors and marines, they occupied Guam.
It was a dark week. Americans coined an angry
slogan: Remember Pearl Harbor!” Admiral Hus
band E. Kimmel and General Walter C. Short, ac-^
cused of being responsible for Pearl Harbor’s de
fenses, were relieved of their posts. The best that
could be done now was to speed reconstruction work
ers to help rebuild the base.
JAPAN SURGES SOUTH
ON paper, mighty nations were now aligned
against the 80,000,000 Japanese with their small
home islands, Manchuria and a part of China, with
their relatively meager natural resources, and with
their industries still handicapped by some feudal,
hand-labor hangovers.
By December 15,21 countries were avowed enemies
of Japan: United States,.Great Britain, Australia,
Canada, China, the Netherlands, Free France, Bolivia,
Costa Rica, Cuba, Dominican Republic, El Salvador,
Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, Netherlands East Indies,
New Zealand, Nicaragua, Panama, Poland and the
Union of South Africa.
The United States had an army of 1,600,000 men,
with a potentiality of over 10,000,000; Japan’s po
tential was only about two-thirds of that. In the
ory, the United States had a mightier fleet of 344
warships against Japan’s 262; but the core of the
U. S. Pacific fleet lay gutted in Pearl Harbor and
Atlantic units were in a desperate fight with Nazi
U-boats. Japan had an estimated 3,600 planes;
America’s numbered 3,000, of which only 1,157 were
fitted for combat.
Moreover, Japan had her war-making power
where she wanted it She held full control of the
western Pacific and could shuttle her Army thou
sands of miles -with impunity.
Shuttle her army she did. She poured troops
down into the thick, black forests of Malaya, headed
in a straight line for the huge, heavily-fortified
British naval base at Singapore. After landing at
Aparri, she sent 80 transports packed with 80,000
troops to Lingayen Gulf on Luzon and landed still
another force 130 miles southeast of Manila. Her
planes and warships shelled Wake relentlessly.
This was a tremendous surge of power; at the
time it seemed devastating. Later events made sec
ond guessers say the Japanese would have done
better by striking a more solid blow at Hawaii and
the United States, instead of dispersing her forces
to the south.
CORREGIDOR FALLS
GENERAL DOUGLAS MacARTHUR had only
7,000 Americans and 75,000 Filipinos to hold off
more than 200,000 of the enemy. His puny air force
was smashed in the war’s first day. Reinforcement
from Hawaii was impossible.
The enemy moved south from Lingayen and
northwest from the Legaspi peninsula. The objec
tive was Manila. The American general knew the
glittering capital, “pearl of the Orient,” could not
be held. He declared it open; the Japanese bombed
it anyway.
On January 2 MacArthur pulled out of a Manila
still smelling of death to establish a line in the jun
gles on Bataan peninsula, above the rocky, heavily
gunned fortress of Corregidor which guarded the
approaches to Manila harbor.
Even then the outcome could hardly be in doubt,
but the Americans refused to accept it. Ragged and
worn, they beat back repeated waves of Japanese
infantry Capt. Arthur Wermuth, Bataan’s “One
man army,” sent more than a hundred Japanese to
their ancestors. Little torpedo boats—MacArthur’s
Navy—sped through Subic Bay to do successful
battle with warships and Lt. John D. Bulkeley, a
torpedo boat commander, became one of the war’s
first heroes.
Nippon continued to peur reinforcements onto
Luzon. By then General MacArthur had become a
HOW U-BOATS WERE SUNK
symbol of American hopes and resistance. He was
ordered hurriedly to safety.
Leaving his command to General Jonathan
Wainwright, he rode Bulkeley’s PT boat on a
thrilling dash through Japanese-infested waters.
After transferring to a plane he arrived in Australia
and announced “I shall return.”
The defenders of Bataan, dying of wounds and
shaking with malarja in the jungle, were running
dangerously short of munitions and medical sup
plies. If they found time to listen to 'the news
from the rest of the Pacific they found little to
cheer them, either.
After making a Pacific Alamo of Wake during
14 benumbed days of incessant Japanese bombing
and shelling, the small Marine garrison had suc
cumbed on December 24 to an enemy invasion
force. Hong Kong had fallen December 25 and the
Japanese had bayoneted some of their British and
American prisoners. Malaya had been overrun.
“Impregnable” Singapore had proved strangely
vulnerable from the rear and had fallen uncere
moniously. Springboarding into Sumatra, Borneo
and Java, the Japanese had seized the bulk of the
world’s rubber resources. They were in the Si
mons on Australia’s eastern flank. Their submar
had shelled invasion-jittery California.
Only on Midway, where a Marine and N
garrison had beaten off repeated sea and air atta
was the news at all encouraging. But Midway
far from the Philippines.
On March 28, the foe on Bataan opened a s
tering artillery barrage. After three days, oppi
only by a few cannon and by sheer courage, en
infantry smashed Wainwright’s eastern flank
overran the peninsula.
The wounded, hungry, ailing Yanks retreate
Corregidor. There in caves beneath the rock, vi
shells and bombs showered down, they waited
26 days. Finally, after a direct assault, they r<
the white flag and let the grinning enemy conr
get them.
They got them, and put them through the toi
of a death march across Bataan to prison ca
Like Pearl Harbor, this march was some)
Americans vowed never to forget.
THE BATTLE FOR TIME
While the ground forces of the Rising Sun
sweeping across the western Pacific area,
American fleet whittled at the enemy’s naval r
and fought for time.
Pugnacious Admiral William F. (Bull) Halsei
his aircraft carrier task forces had the luck or
judgment to be at sea when the Japanese s
Pearl Harbor, and the major burden of fightin
sea war in the Pacific fell on America’s seven
tops, on their planes and on the “silent servi
the submarines.
In America’s first offensive move, on Februi
1942, Halsey led a force of two carriers, five cn
and ten destroyers in pounding first the Ma:
and Gilbert islands, and then Wake.
To stem the Japanese push on Java, a small
of American, British and Dutch units under 1
command hurled itself on February 27 a;
Japanese warships in the Java sea. When the s
lifted after two days, 13 Allied vessels were <
action.
In April the Navy helped the Army carry (
idea that famous James H. Doolittle (by this 1
brigadier general) had been mulling over.
The aircraft carrier Hornet, carrying 16
engined Mitchell B-25 Bombers on its 800-foo
and accompanied by a task force, moved to ’
800 miles of the Japanese home coast. It woul<
gone closer but for a Japanese fishing vessel s
and sunk. Fearing the force’s position had be
vealed, Doolittle climbed into the lead plan
bee-lined for Japan. His squadron streaked 1
him and almost touched the wave tops in an
to be inconspicuous. It was the first carrier 1
for big bombers.
Hours later, as they neared the coast, some
planes headed for Tokyo, some for Yokoham
goya, Kobe and Osaka. Before the startled foe
what was happening, the Mitchells were
their designated targets through 20-cent boml
—a gasolifie plant, an aircraft factory, a sh
which was building a cruiser, steel and f
plants, rail yards. The Japanese belatedly
up fighter planes and ack-ack. The American:
off for especially prepared airfields in China
But the change of plans forced by that
vessel now took its toll. The original schedt
called for the planes to hop off 400 mile:
Japan and to land in China by day. Now th
was low, and they would have to land at nig
Not one plane made the prepared fields, bt
of the men crash-landed in China and lived
were captured. Some were beheaded but fo'
vived in prison camps.
The Japanese tried many ways to learn he
from where, the Yanks had carried out such
ing raid. But for a^ear all they got officia
the information, from President Roosevelt, t
ships had set off from “Shangri-La.”
THE CORAL SEAS AND BEYON
THE Navy got another crack at the foe w
Japanese tried to establish a Solomon
base which would endanger the U. S. supi
to Australia. A carrier task force headed by j
Frank J. Fletcher went to break up the ii
force.
What happened in that “Battle of the Cor
fought from May 4 to 8, was a new thing in \
The ships of the opposing fleets never ma
tact. Their carrier planes did all the i
American pilots sank one flattop, damaged -
sank two cruisers and two destroyers, an
aged two additional cruisers. The cost w.
The carrier Lexington exploded and sai
Yorktown was damaged. But the Japanes
to the south was stemmed. Quickly the J
turned north.