211207 Sentinel, War

In 1941 on this day, December 7, the Japanese bombed, torpedoed and straffed Pearl Harbor, Hickam airforce base and Weeler field in Hawaii.

One perhaps little known fact is the U.S. navy was already on a wartime footing in the Atlantic ocean a year before.

Ships and Sailors were assigned duty escorting U.S. and Canadian ships in convoys across the Atlantic to Britain. German U-boats had fired torpedoes at U.S. convoy escorts several times during early 1941. On April 10th the USS Niblack attacked a German U-boat off the coast of Iceland. On September 4th A German U-boat fired a torpedo at the USS Greer, but missed her. On October 17th the USS Kearney was hit by a German torpedo in the Atlantic while escorting a convoy on its way to Britain. The ship survived but 11 sailors were killed and 22 were wounded. Then on October 27, 1941 the USS Ruben James was sunk by a German U-boat. Only 2 sailors survived when the ship sank in a matter of minutes. War was officially declared the day after Pearl Harbor was attacked on December 7, 1941. thus began the most horrific war the world had ever known.

16 million American men and women were in service during WW-2. Every family in this wonderful country had someone in that war. Never before and never since did everyone in this country have a stake in a war. WW-2 was horrific for the world. It is estimated that overall 60 million people over the globe were killed, more civilians than soldiers and sailors were lost.

I'm an old sailor, so my writing in this post is slanted more towards the navy's part in WW-2 than the army's operations. Both services were necessary and the war could not have been won without both services. As the war began, the U.S. government decided to focus on Germany first and Japan later. The U.S. fleet in Pearl Harbor had lost 6 battleships and several support ships along with 179 army air corps planes nearby. There were 2403 servicemen killed and 1178 wounded. The navy surface fleet was crippled, leaving only the 4 submarines in the harbor to take up arms against the entire Japanese navy and merchant ships. There were subs at Cavite, PI. that were attacked the next day and a few subs in places around the Asian bases in the far east. It was those submarine sailors that began the first acts of retribution against the empire of Japan.
The picture left was, Pearl harbor. The picture on the right was Hickam air field.

The war in Europe and the one in the Pacific were both horrific. More total lives were lost on the European continent than in the Pacific because it was a continental war with millions of civilians and soldiers, but the Pacific in my opinion had more savage fighting. The war in Europe was an army war, but the Pacific was a navy and a marine corps war.

Admiral Nimitz was given charge of the navy in the Pacific after Pearl Harbor and he was the best man to handle it. He immediately left the continental U.S. to assess the damage in Pearl Harbor. He boarded a navy ship’s boat and toured the harbor. Those there were feeling low at that time after the attack, but Nimitz recognized as he toured the harbor that the Japanese attack was handled all wrong. They missed the navy fuel farm there and the submarines in Pearl. Had they destroyed the fuel farm (an easy target with no defenses) it would have taken six months to a year to rebuild and replenish enough oil for the U.S. navy to begin fighting in the Pacific war. Instead the U.S. subs had fuel to begin to win the war on day one and that is what they did.

It turned out that the Japanese plan was designed to have 3 waves of attack. The first was planned to take out the fleet in Pearl Harbor and the second was to take out the army aircorps planes at Hickam and Wheeler fields. The 3rd wave was to destroy the fuel farm and the submarine base in Pearl. The Japanese commander on scene decided against the 3rd wave, thinking he had been lucky to have lost few planes and aircrews in the first 2 waves and did not want to lose anymore that day. Big, big mistake on his part and a boon to our side. Things would have been much worse had they sent in the 3rd wave of attack.