PEARL HARBOR

The Story of the Secret War

GEORGE MORGENSTERN

1947 - Toe Devin - Adair Company - New York

COPYRIGHT 1947 by George Morgenstern. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages or reproduce not more than three illustrations in a review to be printed in a magazine or newspaper. Manufactured in the United States of America.

PUBLISHED JANUARY, 1947

But one of the weightiest objections to a plurality in the Executive, and which lies as much against the last as the first plan, is that it tends to conceal faults and destroy responsibility. Responsibility is of two kinds—to censure and to punishment. The first is the most important of the two, especially in an elective office. Man, in public trust, will much oftener act in such a manner as to make him obnoxious to legal punishment. But the multiplication of the Executive adds to the difficulty of detection in either case.

FOREWORD

THIS BOOK is intended to give the facts and examine the meaning of Pearl Harbor. The facts have come to the American public in disjointed form, from many sources, and with many interpretations, over a period of four and one-half years.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

PERMISSION HAS been granted to quote from the following books:

How War Came by Forrest Davis and Ernest K. Lindley, by permission of Simon and Schuster, Inc., New York. Copyright, 1942, by Forrest Davis and Ernest K. Lindley.

Ten Years in Japan by Joseph C. Grew, by permission of Simon and Schuster, Inc., New York. Copyright, 1944, by Joseph C. Grew.

They Call It Pacific by Clark Lee, by permission of The Viking Press, Inc., New York. Copyright, 1943, by Clark Lee.

PEARL HARBOR

Chapter One

WAR

AT 7:58 A.M. on Sunday, December 7, 1941, a radio warning was broadcast to all ships in Pearl Harbor. “Air raid, Pearl Harbor!” the radio screeched. “This is no drill! This is no drill!” Three minutes before, Japanese warplanes had come in over the great naval base at Oahu, launching their first torpedoes and dropping their first bombs.

Chapter Two

MOUNT NIITAKA

THE NIGHT of December 5, 1941, the Japanese naval radio sent the code message, “Climb Mount Niitaka.” That message meant war.1 To the 1st Japanese air fleet, 800 miles north of Oahu in the Hawaiian Islands, it meant that there was no turning back. To Vice-Adm. Chuichi Nagumo, the fleet commander, it conveyed the order to attack Pearl Harbor with his carrier planes at dawn the second day following. Adm.

Chapter Three

THE RISING SUN

ON WEDNESDAY, December 3, the carrier “Enterprise,” commanded by Vice-Adm. William F. Halsey, Jr., was some 1,900 miles west of Pearl Harbor. She was the flagship of a task force consisting of three heavy cruisers and nine destroyers. The force had left Pearl Harbor November 28 to deliver a dozen Marine fighter pilots in Grumman Wildcats to Wake Island. The pilots had received such short notice of their departure that some had reported aboard with only the clothes they were wearing.