Infamy

Sixty nine years ago today, at 7:48AM local time, air and submarine elements of the Imperial Japanese Navy launched a devastating attack on US Navy, Marine and Army Air Corps assets at Pearl Harbor and Oahu, Hawaii.

Two strikes were launched and a third contemplated before the attacks were over. In the aftermath four battleships were sunk and four more were damaged, along with three cruisers, three destroyers, one minelayer and one training ship. 188 aircraft were destroyed, 2,402 personnel were killed and 1,282 were wounded.

The un-launched third wave would have taken out the submarine base and the support facilities, including fuel depots and shipyards. The three American carriers, not in port at the time of the attack, were also spared. One of those carriers, USS Enterprise (CV-6), would not only survive but would become the most heavily decorated ship of the war.

In time all but two of the battleships (Arizona and Utah) were raised and, except for the heavily damaged Oklahoma, returned to service. The Iowa class battleships were built to replace them, but ultimately it was the carriers that turned the tide of the war.

Although it was a tactical success for the Japanese, the attacks were fortuitous for the Americans in several ways. Had the warnings from the radar station been heeded, the ships would have been underway or in the channel. This would have blocked the harbor for the returning carriers, and instead of being raised and returned to service the ships would have been lost in deep water.

Additionally, fears that the American carriers and land-based bombers would find them played a part in the Japanese decision not to press a third attack. This spared the shipyards that were vital in the restoration efforts as well as the fuel and ammunition needed to immediately send the subs, also spared by the decision, to sea.

It was the submarines that crippled the Imperial Japanese Navy by attacking it's logistics trail, and it was the carriers that put their ships on the bottom. Although a clash between the titans, USS Iowa and IJN Yamato, would have been epic, it was not to be so; Yamato was repulsed by escort carriers at Leyte Gulf while Iowa chased ghostly foes, and ultimately it was carrier aircraft, some of them from Enterprise, that laid Yamato low.

Sixty nine years later we are losing the veterans from that time in our history. As they fade from the scene it falls to us to ensure that the lessons we have learned do not fade with them.