In about thirty minutes on the morning of 7 December 1941, Japanese torpedo planes and high-level bombers turned the Pacific Fleet’s battle line into a row of wrecks. Two battleships were lost for good, and 1,177 men died in one of them.
Pearl Harbor · Chapter 4 of 9
- Dates
- Sunday, 7 December 1941, about 0755 to 0825 Hawaii time (1325 to 1355 in Washington): the first wave’s attack on the ships in the harbor
- Where
- Battleship Row on the southeast side of Ford Island (berths F-3 to F-8); the northwest side of Ford Island (Utah, Raleigh, Detroit); 1010 Dock at the Navy Yard (Helena, Oglala)
- American forces
- Seven battleships moored along Battleship Row: California, Maryland, Oklahoma, Tennessee, West Virginia, Arizona and Nevada, with the repair ship Vestal and the oiler Neosho; the target ship Utah; cruisers, destroyers and auxiliaries elsewhere in the harbor. Pennsylvania was in Dry Dock No. 1.
- Japanese forces
- The first wave of the First Air Fleet: 183 aircraft, including 40 Nakajima B5N2 torpedo planes, 49 B5N2 horizontal bombers carrying 800-kg armor-piercing bombs, 51 Aichi D3A1 dive bombers and 43 Mitsubishi A6M2 fighters
- Commanders
- U.S.: Adm. Husband E. Kimmel (CINCPAC, ashore); RAdm. Isaac C. Kidd (Battleship Division One, in Arizona). Japanese: VAdm. Chuichi Nagumo (afloat); Cmdr. Mitsuo Fuchida (air leader)
- Outcome
- Arizona destroyed by a magazine explosion; Oklahoma and Utah capsized; West Virginia and California sinking at their berths; Nevada, Tennessee, Maryland, Raleigh, Helena and Oglala damaged. More than 1,900 men killed in the battleships and Utah alone.
Why it mattered
The battleships were the reason for the attack. Yamamoto’s plan, described in Chapter 1, was meant to put the U.S. Pacific Fleet out of action for months while Japan seized Malaya, the Philippines and the Netherlands East Indies. In 1941 navies still measured their strength in battleships, and seven of the Pacific Fleet’s nine were tied up in pairs along the southeast side of Ford Island that Sunday morning. The Naval History and Heritage Command describes those seven ships, moored along “Battleship Row,” as the Japanese planners’ top target; of the fleet’s battleships only Colorado was away, and Pennsylvania sat in dry dock nearby (NHHC, “Battleship Row during the Pearl Harbor Attack”).
The first half hour decided most of what the attack achieved against those ships. By about 0825, when the first wave’s torpedo and bombing runs were spent, Oklahoma had rolled over, Arizona had blown up, West Virginia and California were going down at their moorings and Utah lay on her side across the harbor. The great majority of the Navy’s dead that day were lost in those ships. The second wave, told in Chapter 6, did serious damage of its own, but the battle line had already been broken.
The morning also showed what the Japanese had solved and the Americans had not. Pearl Harbor’s shallow water had been thought, in Washington and Hawaii alike, to give a large measure of protection against aerial torpedoes. The Japanese had spent the autumn of 1941 making their torpedoes work in it. And the armor-piercing bomb that destroyed Arizona was an improvised weapon, built from a battleship’s gun shell, aimed at exactly the weakness it found.
Sunday morning on Battleship Row
Battleship Row was a line of paired concrete mooring quays off the southeast shore of Ford Island, the Navy’s air station in the middle of the harbor. The ships lay bow to the southwest, the outboard ship of each pair facing the open water of the harbor’s main anchorage. At the southwest end, alone at berth F-3, was California (BB-44), flagship of the Battle Force. Behind her the oiler Neosho lay at the Ford Island fuel dock. Next came Maryland (BB-46) inboard with Oklahoma (BB-37) outboard of her; then Tennessee (BB-43) inboard with West Virginia (BB-48) outboard at F-6; then Arizona (BB-39) at F-7 with the repair ship Vestal (AR-4) on her port side; and last, alone at the northeast end, Nevada (BB-36) (NHHC, DANFS, “West Virginia II”; NHHC, “USS Arizona (BB-39)”; NPS, “Battleship Row”).
The arrangement mattered. The NHHC’s history of Tennessee describes the battleships moored in three “nests” about 75 feet apart, with Tennessee held starboard side to two masonry quays, West Virginia alongside to port, Maryland ahead and Arizona directly astern (DANFS, “Tennessee V”). An inboard ship had another battleship between her and the anchorage. A torpedo dropped from the harbor side would strike the outboard ship first. Maryland and Tennessee were, in effect, shielded by Oklahoma and West Virginia. Arizona had the small repair ship Vestal on her outboard side, and California and Nevada had nothing at all.
Arizona had come in on 5 December and taken Vestal alongside the next day for a scheduled tender availability (NHHC, “USS Arizona (BB-39)”). Aboard her that morning were RAdm. Isaac C. Kidd, commanding Battleship Division One, and her captain, Capt. Franklin Van Valkenburgh. NHHC counts 1,512 men aboard. In Oklahoma, the captain, Capt. Howard D. Bode, was ashore; the executive officer, Cmdr. Jesse L. Kenworthy Jr., was the senior officer aboard (DANFS, “Oklahoma”). It was a peacetime Sunday in port, with liberty parties ashore, many officers living off the ship, and the crews of the ships that remained turning to for colors at 0800.
On the far side of Ford Island, along its northwest shore, lay a different group: the old light cruisers Detroit and Raleigh, the former battleship Utah (AG-16), now a target and antiaircraft training ship, and the seaplane tender Tangier. These were the berths where the aircraft carriers usually tied up. Lexington and Enterprise were at sea delivering aircraft to Midway and Wake, and Saratoga was on the West Coast. Across the channel at the Navy Yard’s 1010 Dock, the light cruiser Helena was moored with the old minelayer Oglala outboard of her (USS Helena action report).
The plan of attack
The first wave, led by Cmdr. Mitsuo Fuchida and described in Chapter 2, carried two separate weapons for the battleships. Forty B5N2 attack planes carried aerial torpedoes. Forty-nine more carried a single 800-kg armor-piercing bomb each, to be dropped from high altitude in formation. Fifty-one D3A1 dive bombers and 43 fighters went chiefly for the airfields (Cressman and Wenger, Infamous Day, gives the wave as 51 dive bombers, 89 attack planes and 43 fighters).
The torpedo planes came from all four of the big carriers. Those from Akagi and Kaga were to attack Battleship Row from the southeast, running in low over the Navy Yard and across the harbor. A group of sixteen from Soryu and Hiryu was to swing around and approach Ford Island from the northwest, where the carriers normally berthed. The Japanese knew the carriers had left. The Pearl Harbor Aviation Museum’s account, drawing on postwar interviews, says the planners sent some torpedo planes to that side anyway in case a carrier had come in, and that Fuchida and Cmdr. Minoru Genda had told the crews not to waste torpedoes on Utah (Pearl Harbor Aviation Museum, “Why Did the Japanese Sink the Utah?”).
The torpedoes were the scarce weapon. The leader of the northwest group, Lt. Heita Matsumura, later complained that the whole force had only 40 torpedoes, and he treated the two that went into Utah as a serious loss (Pearl Harbor Aviation Museum). The plan therefore put the torpedo planes in first, while the defenders were still at breakfast, and the high-level bombers right behind them.
0755: “This is not drill”
The first bombs fell on Ford Island. The CINCPAC summary sent to Washington on 15 December put the dive-bombing of the Ford Island hangars at 0750 and the torpedo attack on the battleships “from the port beam” at 0755 (CINCPAC mailgram, in USS Maryland action report). Most ships’ reports fix the start at “about 0755.” The Commander Battleships, Walter S. Anderson, put the dive-bombing of the air station from about 0755 to shortly after 0800 and the torpedo attack as beginning “a minute or two before 0800” and lasting “ten or fifteen minutes” (Commander Battleships, Battle Force, report, HyperWar). In Washington it was 1325.
On Ford Island, Lt. Cmdr. Logan C. Ramsey, operations officer of Patrol Wing Two, saw an aircraft pull out of a dive and an explosion among the hangars. Ramsey was an aviator who had argued in a 1937 Proceedings article, “Aerial Attacks on Fleets at Anchor,” that an enemy could strike a fleet in port. He had a flash message sent in plain language (NHHC, National Naval Aviation Museum, “Pearl Harbor Foretold”). It is usually timed at 0758. Copies went out over CINCPAC’s circuits to the fleet and to naval stations on the mainland, and received copies survive in several formats; one in the National Archives reads “AIR RAID ON PEARL HARBOR X THIS IS NOT DRILL” (National Archives, DocsTeach).
AIR RAID ON PEARL HARBOR X THIS IS NOT DRILL
Aboard the ships, the alarms ran ahead of the message. Arizona‘s first lieutenant, Lt. Cmdr. Samuel G. Fuqua, was at breakfast when “a short signal on the ship’s air raid alarm” sounded at about 0755 (Fuqua statement, USS Arizona action report). California‘s revised report has her general alarm sounding after a strafing attack at 0755; her original report put general quarters at 0750 (USS California action report). In Oklahoma the call to general quarters and the first torpedo came almost together, at about 0757 (USS Oklahoma action report). The first minutes of the record are a scatter of approximate times, written days later by men who had not been looking at clocks.
The torpedo run
The Akagi and Kaga torpedo planes came in low from the southeast over the Navy Yard and the harbor, flattened out over the water and dropped at the outboard battleships at short range. A Japanese aircrew photograph, later captured, shows the moment: the line of ships along Ford Island, torpedo tracks running toward them, the shock rings of hits spreading on the water and oil already streaming from the outboard hulls.
Oklahoma, outboard of Maryland, took the first torpedoes on her port side almost as soon as the first bomb fell on Ford Island (DANFS, “Oklahoma”). West Virginia, outboard of Tennessee, was hit on the port side in the same minutes. California, alone at the head of the row, took two or three torpedoes on her port side; her revised report times them at 0805 (USS California action report). At the far end, Nevada took a single torpedo forward on the port side, near frame 40, as her gunners opened fire (Commander Battleships report; DANFS, “Nevada”). Arizona, screened by Vestal, was almost certainly not torpedoed at all, a question taken up below.
The two inboard ships, Maryland and Tennessee, took no torpedoes. Their protection was the misfortune of the ships beside them: every torpedo that struck Oklahoma or West Virginia was one that might otherwise have reached them.
The northwest side: Raleigh, Utah and Detroit
On the other side of Ford Island the sixteen Soryu and Hiryu torpedo planes found no carriers, and most held their torpedoes for other targets. But at least one young pilot, according to the postwar interviews summarized by the Pearl Harbor Aviation Museum, took Utah for an active battleship, and his wingman followed him in. Sailors at the time guessed that the heavy timbers laid over Utah‘s decks to protect her from practice bombs had made her look like a carrier from the air; the museum’s historians find no evidence for that (Pearl Harbor Aviation Museum, “Why Did the Japanese Sink the Utah?”).
Raleigh (CL-7), moored next to Utah, was hit first. Her captain felt a dull explosion “about 0755.” The torpedo struck in the No. 2 fireroom and flooded it, and the No. 1 fireroom and forward engine room flooded too. The ship began to heel to port. Her crew counterflooded, ordered “all topside weights” over the side, hoisted out both aircraft by hand, jettisoned torpedoes, tubes, catapults and boats, let go both anchors and ran extra lines to the quays. Later pontoons and a lighter were lashed to her port quarter “as an outrigger.” Raleigh stayed upright. Her captain reported that “we had no dead and only a few wounded on this ship” (USS Raleigh action report).
Utah was hit at about 0801 by a “severe underwater hit” on the port side near frame 84, followed almost at once by a second in about the same place. She began to list to port. By about 0805 the list was near 40 degrees, and the order went out: “All hands on deck and abandon ship, over starboard side.” By 0810 she lay at about 80 degrees. At about 0812, according to Lt. Cmdr. Solomon S. Isquith, the senior surviving line officer aboard, her last mooring lines parted and she capsized (USS Utah action report). Detroit, moored beyond Raleigh, was not hit.
Men were trapped inside the overturned hull. Fireman Second Class Vaessen, USNR, was caught in a void space under the dynamo room. Machinist S. A. Szymanski went back with a cutting torch and gear borrowed from Raleigh and “cut a hole in the bottom of the ship” to bring him out (USS Utah action report; USS Raleigh action report). Deep in the engineering spaces, a chief watertender had stayed below to make sure the boilers were secured.
Chief Watertender Peter Tomich, USS Utah
As Utah capsized, his citation records, Tomich “remained at his post in the engineering plant” “until he saw that all boilers were secured” and “all fireroom personnel had left their stations.” Isquith’s report noted that this “resulted in the probable loss of his own life.” No living relative could be found to receive the medal; in 1947 it was presented to the State of Utah as its guardian.
Citation →1010 Dock: Helena and Oglala
Across the channel, some of the torpedo planes went for the Navy Yard’s 1010 Dock. Helena (CL-50) was “moored at 1010 pier, berth two,” with Oglala secured to her starboard side, between her and the harbor. A torpedo ran under Oglala and struck Helena “about one minute after General Quarters was sounded,” roughly 0758 or 0759. Helena‘s guns were in action by about 0801 (USS Helena action report). The blast also opened Oglala‘s old hull; she was shifted astern of Helena at about 0850 and later rolled over against the dock. Helena‘s report counted 31 dead by mid-December.
Oklahoma rolls over
Oklahoma was finished in minutes. Her own officers could not agree afterward on how many torpedoes had hit her. Bode’s report of 20 December gave “five airplane torpedoes” as the best estimate; Kenworthy’s statement said “five to seven”; another report counted three definitely seen and two or three more felt (USS Oklahoma action report). The NHHC’s ship history, written with the benefit of later surveys, says three torpedoes struck almost at once and six more followed, nine in all; the National Park Service gives eight (DANFS, “Oklahoma”; NPS, “Battleship Row”).
The ship listed to port immediately after the first hit and reached about 45 degrees after the third. When Kenworthy reached the upper deck the list was 25 to 35 degrees and increasing. He and Lt. Cmdr. Hobby judged the ship could not be held, and the order went out for all hands to abandon ship. Men went over the starboard side and walked down the hull as it came up beneath them. The ship turned through about 135 degrees “in about eight to ten minutes” (USS Oklahoma action report), until her masts were in the mud of the harbor bottom and her starboard side and part of her keel stood above the water (DANFS, “Oklahoma”). The NPS puts the whole sequence at “less than twelve minutes” (NPS, “Battleship Row”).
Hundreds of men were still below. Some reached the water through hatches and gunports as the ship rolled; some swam or were pulled across to Maryland. Four Marines of Oklahoma‘s detachment swam to Maryland, and about 60 of Oklahoma‘s survivors went aboard her to help serve her antiaircraft guns (Cressman and Wenger, Infamous Day; DANFS, “Oklahoma”). Others were trapped in the overturned hull, where some would be found alive over the next two days. Their rescue, led by the civilian Navy Yard worker Julio DeCastro, is told in Chapter 7.
Two of the men who did not get out were in a turret. As the ship went over, they held flashlights so that the men around them could find their way to the escape routes.
Ens. Francis C. Flaherty, USNR, USS Oklahoma
When it was seen that Oklahoma would capsize and the order to abandon ship was given, his citation records, Flaherty “remained in a turret, holding a flashlight so the remainder of the turret crew could see to escape,” “thereby sacrificing his own life.” He was 21, a University of Michigan graduate, born in Charlotte, Michigan.
Citation →Seaman First Class James R. Ward, USS Oklahoma
Ward’s citation uses almost the same words as Flaherty’s: as the ship was about to capsize he “remained in a turret holding a flashlight so the remainder of the turret crew could see to escape.” He was 20, from Springfield, Ohio.
Citation →West Virginia: Bennion, Ricketts and Miller
West Virginia was hit at least as hard as Oklahoma but did not capsize. Her torpedo count grew as the damage was surveyed: first five, then six, and finally seven, according to the NHHC’s ship history (DANFS, “West Virginia II”). Cressman and Wenger describe six hits on her port side and a seventh that blew off her rudder (Infamous Day). The NPS gives six torpedoes and two bombs (NPS, “Battleship Row”).
What saved her from rolling over was quick damage control. Lt. Claude V. Ricketts, the assistant fire control officer, who had some training in damage control, saw the list developing and had compartments on the starboard side flooded to bring her back toward an even keel. The NHHC credits his “prompt action” with saving the ship from Oklahoma‘s fate (DANFS, “West Virginia II”). Instead of turning over, West Virginia settled to the bottom in about 40 feet of water, upright, and wedged Tennessee against her quays. Ricketts later rose to four-star rank and became Vice Chief of Naval Operations.
She was also hit by two of the high-level bombers’ armor-piercing bombs. The first went through the superstructure deck, wrecked the port casemates and collapsed the deck into the galley below; the casemates and galley caught fire and the ready-service ammunition in them began to explode. The second struck aft, wrecked the Kingfisher floatplane on the Turret III catapult and went through the four-inch turret roof without exploding; burning aviation fuel from the plane did the damage (DANFS, “West Virginia II”).
Capt. Mervyn S. Bennion reached his bridge early in the attack. When a bomb struck the center gun of Tennessee‘s Turret II, fragments swept across to West Virginia, and one tore into Bennion’s abdomen (DANFS, “West Virginia II”; NHHC, “Loss of Cook 3rd Class Doris Miller”). He kept asking for reports and giving orders as his officers tried to shelter him, and he died before the ship was abandoned.
Capt. Mervyn S. Bennion, commanding USS West Virginia
His citation records that “after being mortally wounded, Capt. Bennion evidenced apparent concern only in fighting and saving his ship,” and that he “strongly protested against being carried from the bridge.” He was 54. The destroyer USS Bennion (DD-662) was named for him.
Citation →One of the men who helped carry Bennion was Mess Attendant Second Class Doris Miller, a 22-year-old from Waco, Texas. In the segregated Navy of 1941, Black sailors could serve only in the messman branch, waiting on officers and cooking. Miller had been collecting laundry when the attack began and found his battle station already wrecked. He helped Lt. Cmdr. Doir C. Johnson move the wounded captain to a more sheltered place on the bridge. Then he took over an unmanned .50-caliber machine gun and fired it at the attacking aircraft until the ammunition ran out. He went on helping to move wounded men as the ship was abandoned (NHHC, “Loss of Cook 3rd Class Doris Miller”).
Mess Attendant Second Class Doris Miller, USS West Virginia
The citation praises his “extraordinary courage and disregard for his own personal safety” in carrying his wounded captain to safety and in manning and operating a machine gun “directed at enemy Japanese attacking aircraft” until ordered to leave the bridge. President Roosevelt approved the award on 11 May 1942, and Adm. Chester W. Nimitz pinned it on him on the flight deck of USS Enterprise at Pearl Harbor on 27 May 1942. Miller was lost with the escort carrier Liscome Bay off the Gilberts on 24 November 1943.
NHHC account →The fires on West Virginia burned through the day and night. Volunteers went back aboard after the first abandonment to fight them, and the garbage lighter YG-17 stayed alongside pumping water while ammunition exploded on deck. The NHHC history says the flames were out by the afternoon of 8 December (DANFS, “West Virginia II”). When she was raised and repaired in 1942, workers found the bodies of 70 men who had been trapped below.
California at the head of the row
California had no ship outboard of her and no ship to lean on. Her revised report records three torpedoes at 0805, two near frame 110 and one at frame 47, all on the port side; the original report had the third hit at 0820 (USS California action report). The hits came in below her armor belt. Seawater flooded compartments on the third deck and mixed with fuel oil from ruptured tanks, and the fumes overcame men passing ammunition. Damage control flooded starboard compartments and held the list to about four degrees at first (USS California action report; National WWII Museum, “USS California Medal of Honor Recipients”).
Her ordeal ran past the first wave. A bomb hit abreast of No. 1 casemate at frame 59 and exploded on the second deck, starting a serious fire; the revised report times it at 0830, the original at 0900. Capt. Joel W. Bunkley came aboard at about 0900. At 1002, with burning oil from the ships astern drifting down on her, he ordered the ship temporarily abandoned; the order was cancelled at 1015, by which time she was listing about eight degrees to port (USS California action report). Without power for her pumps she sank slowly into the mud over the next three days. Four men of her crew earned the Medal of Honor, all for the fight to keep her guns supplied and her spaces manned.
Ens. Herbert C. Jones, USNR, USS California
When the mechanical ammunition hoists failed, Jones organized and led a party carrying ammunition by hand to the antiaircraft battery. A bomb explosion mortally wounded him. When two men tried to carry him out of the burning compartment, the citation records, he told them: “Leave me alone! I am done for. Get out of here before the magazines go off.” He was 23. (The official citation spells his middle name “Charpoit”; it was Charpiot.)
Citation →Gunner Jackson C. Pharris, USS California
In charge of the ordnance repair party on the third deck, Pharris was stunned by the first torpedo hit. He set up a hand-supply line of ammunition to the antiaircraft guns, ordered counterflooding, and, twice overcome by oil fumes, went back to drag unconscious shipmates out of flooding compartments; the National WWII Museum credits him with saving seventeen. He first received the Navy Cross. President Truman presented the Medal of Honor in the Rose Garden on 25 June 1948. He survived the war.
Citation →Radio Electrician Thomas J. Reeves, USS California
“After the mechanized ammunition hoists were put out of action on the U.S.S. California,” his citation records, Reeves kept ammunition moving by hand to the antiaircraft guns from a burning passageway until smoke and fire overcame him. Often described as a chief radioman, he is listed in the citation as a radio electrician, a warrant rank. He was two days short of his 46th birthday.
Citation →Machinist’s Mate First Class Robert R. Scott, USS California
Scott’s battle station was an air compressor that fed the guns. When a torpedo hit flooded the compartment and the others left, he stayed. His citation gives his words in substance: “This is my station and I will stay and give them air as long as the guns are going.” He was 26.
Citation →Arizona
While the torpedo planes worked along the row, the 49 horizontal bombers came over in small formations at about 3,000 meters, roughly 10,000 feet. John F. De Virgilio’s study of the bombing, written with National Park Service researchers, has the Kaga group attacking Arizona‘s berth at about 0805 and the Hiryu group about a minute later (De Virgilio, “Seven Seconds to Infamy,” Proceedings, December 1997). Each formation released together on its leader’s signal, so the bombs fell in clusters, some on the target, some in the water between the ships.
Fuqua, running for his battle station, was on the quarterdeck when a bomb struck the face plate of No. 4 turret, glanced off and went through the deck near the captain’s hatch. The blast knocked him unconscious (Fuqua statement, USS Arizona action report). Then came the bomb that destroyed the ship. It struck the starboard side of the forecastle next to No. 2 turret, went down through four decks and 5.62 inches of armor and exploded in or beside the forward powder magazines. De Virgilio reckons the fall at a little over 26 seconds and the time from impact to magazine explosion at slightly under seven (De Virgilio, 1997). The NHHC attributes the fatal bomb to a Hiryu horizontal bomber (NHHC, “USS Arizona (BB-39)”).
The powder for the forward 14-inch guns went up at once. The explosion tore open the forward part of the ship, threw debris and burning oil over Tennessee‘s after decks, collapsed the foremast and bridge structure forward into the burning hull and sent a column of smoke and flame high over the harbor. The ship broke in two forward and sank at her berth (Commander Battleships report; DANFS, “Tennessee V”). Her fuel oil spread across the water and caught fire.
Almost everyone in the forward part of the ship was killed in that instant. Among them were Admiral Kidd and Captain Van Valkenburgh, who had gone to the bridge at the alarm. Of the 1,512 men NHHC counts aboard, 1,177 died, nearly half of all the Americans killed at Pearl Harbor that day (NHHC, “USS Arizona (BB-39)”). Kidd was the first American flag officer killed in the Pacific war.
Aft, the ship was a wreck but not all of it was dead. When Fuqua came to, he found the ship ablaze forward and the antiaircraft and secondary guns out of action. He organized the survivors on the after decks to fight the fires, which could not be checked, and to get the wounded and burned into boats for Ford Island. He put about 70 injured men into boats, and at about 0900 he gave the order to abandon ship (Fuqua statement, USS Arizona action report). He was the ship’s senior surviving officer.
RAdm. Isaac C. Kidd, Commander Battleship Division One, in USS Arizona
The citation honors Kidd’s “conspicuous devotion to duty, extraordinary courage and complete disregard of his own life.” At the start of the attack he went to the bridge and directed his division as the senior officer afloat until his flagship blew up from magazine explosions and a direct bomb hit on the bridge. His remains were never recovered.
Citation →Capt. Franklin Van Valkenburgh, commanding USS Arizona
“As commanding officer of the U.S.S. Arizona,” the citation records, he “gallantly fought his ship” from the bridge “until the U.S.S. Arizona blew up from magazine explosions” and a direct bomb hit on the bridge, which killed him.
Citation →Lt. Cmdr. Samuel G. Fuqua, First Lieutenant, USS Arizona
Reaching the quarterdeck, Fuqua was “stunned and knocked down by the explosion of a large bomb.” When he recovered he “began to direct the fighting of the fire and the rescue of the wounded and injured personnel,” and stayed until he was satisfied the ship could not be saved. The citation says his calm direction “undoubtedly resulted in the saving of many lives.” He served through the war and died in 1987.
Citation →Alongside, Vestal had been hit by bombs meant for the battleships. The explosion blew her captain, Cmdr. Cassin Young, off his own ship and into the water. He swam back and moved Vestal away from the burning Arizona; taking on water, she was later beached to keep her from sinking. The NPS credits her crew with helping to rescue men from Arizona (NPS, “Battleship Row”).
Cmdr. Cassin Young, commanding USS Vestal
Young was “blown overboard by the blast of the forward magazine explosion” of Arizona, his citation records, and “swam back to his ship,” then took her clear of the burning battleship. He was killed at Guadalcanal on 13 November 1942. His award is presented with the other Pearl Harbor medals in Chapter 7.
Citation →Tennessee, Maryland and Nevada
The inboard battleships fought the attack from inside a fire. Tennessee went to general quarters, closed her watertight doors and had her antiaircraft guns firing in about five minutes (DANFS, “Tennessee V”). Two of the armor-piercing bombs hit her. One struck the center gun of Turret II and burst, spraying fragments across her own forward superstructure and across to West Virginia‘s bridge. The other came down through the mainyard and catapult and broke up on the armored roof of Turret III. Burning oil from Arizona and West Virginia surrounded her stern, and Arizona‘s explosion showered her after decks with burning debris. She could not move: West Virginia had sunk against her and pinned her to the quays. Capt. Chevey S. White of her Marine detachment, the officer of the deck, directed antiaircraft fire from an unprotected station (Cressman and Wenger, Infamous Day). Ten of her twelve 14-inch guns survived, and her machinery was intact (DANFS, “Tennessee V”).
Maryland was the luckiest of the row. Shielded by Oklahoma, she took no torpedoes. A light bomb hit her forecastle and an armor-piercing bomb went through her side and deck near the bow and burst in a forward compartment (Commander Battleships report; USS Maryland action report). Her antiaircraft guns were manned at once, and survivors from Oklahoma joined their crews. She was the first ship damaged at Pearl Harbor to return to full duty (NPS, “Battleship Row”).
Nevada, alone at the northeast end, had her machine guns firing at 0802. She took her single torpedo forward on the port side, and her engineers kept raising steam. At 0820 she singled up her lines, and about twenty minutes later she was moving (Cressman and Wenger, Infamous Day). Her run down the channel and the bombing that forced her aground at Hospital Point belong to the second wave and to Chapter 6.
The first wave in the harbor, 7 December 1941
- Dive bombers strike the Ford Island hangars; the CINCPAC summary gives 0750, most ships’ reports about 0755.
- Torpedo attack begins from the harbor side; Raleigh hit northwest of Ford Island.
- Oklahoma sounds general quarters as the first torpedoes strike her port side.
- Ramsey’s flash dispatch: “Air raid Pearl Harbor. This is not drill.” Helena hit at 1010 Dock about now.
- Utah takes two torpedoes; Helena’s guns in action; Nevada’s machine guns open at 0802.
- Three torpedoes in California (revised report); Kaga’s high-level bombers attack Arizona; Utah ordered abandoned.
- Oklahoma capsizes, “in about eight to ten minutes” from the first hits.
- Arizona’s forward magazines explode (De Virgilio; Stillwell). Other accounts give about 0810; Tennessee’s history gives about 0820.
- Utah’s last mooring lines part and she capsizes.
- Nevada singles up her lines.
- The first wave’s attacks taper off; a lull of 10 to 15 minutes follows before the second wave.
- Bomb hits California (revised report; original says 0900).
- Fuqua orders Arizona abandoned.
0825: the pause
By about 0825 the first wave’s torpedoes and heavy bombs were spent, and its dive bombers and fighters were finishing their runs on the airfields described in Chapter 5. The CINCPAC summary describes dive-bombing and strafing until about 0830, then a lull of ten to fifteen minutes before the attacks resumed (CINCPAC mailgram, in USS Maryland action report). The first wave lost nine aircraft in all. American antiaircraft fire, slow at first, was heavy by the end of the first wave, and it would be much heavier when the second arrived.
In the harbor the pause was used for rescue. Boats from every ship that could launch them worked through the burning oil off Arizona, West Virginia and Oklahoma, pulling men out of the water. On Ford Island, Fuqua’s boats were landing Arizona‘s burned and wounded. On the northwest side, Raleigh‘s crew was throwing everything movable over the side to keep her upright.
People
RAdm. Isaac C. Kidd (1884–1941), commander of Battleship Division One, was a 1906 Naval Academy graduate. He was killed on Arizona‘s bridge, the first American admiral to die in the Pacific war. Three Navy ships have carried his name.
Capt. Franklin Van Valkenburgh (1888–1941) had taken command of Arizona in 1941. He died with Kidd on the bridge. The destroyer USS Van Valkenburgh (DD-656) was named for him.
Lt. Cmdr. Samuel G. Fuqua (1899–1987), Arizona‘s first lieutenant and damage control officer, became her senior surviving officer. His statement is the main eyewitness record from the ship’s after section. He served through the war and died in 1987.
Capt. Mervyn S. Bennion (1887–1941), of Utah, had taken command of West Virginia in 1941. He died of his wounds on his bridge.
Doris Miller (1919–1943), from Waco, Texas, was the first Black sailor to receive the Navy Cross. He was later rated cook third class and was lost with Liscome Bay. The frigate USS Miller (FF-1091) was named for him, and in 2020 the Navy announced that a future aircraft carrier, CVN-81, would bear his name.
Lt. Claude V. Ricketts (1906–1964), whose quick counterflooding kept West Virginia upright, had enlisted as a seaman before entering the Naval Academy. He rose to admiral and Vice Chief of Naval Operations.
Cmdr. Jesse L. Kenworthy Jr., Oklahoma‘s executive officer and senior officer aboard, gave the order to abandon ship as she rolled over. His statement, with Bode’s reports, is the core of the ship’s record of the attack.
Lt. Heita Matsumura led the Hiryu torpedo planes and the sixteen-plane group from Soryu and Hiryu that came in from the northwest. His postwar irritation that two torpedoes were spent on Utah says a good deal about how few of the modified weapons there were.
Losses and uncertainty
The deaths in the ships attacked in the first wave dominate the day’s total of 2,403 Americans killed (Navy 2,008, Marine Corps 109, Army 218, civilians 68; NHHC and NPS). Arizona alone accounts for nearly half of them. The figures below are the ones most often published, with their variants. Not all of the deaths came in the first half hour: some of Nevada‘s losses, and the bomb on California, belong to the second phase of the attack, and many men died of wounds in the days after.
Killed by ship: the battleships and Utah
Men killed or died of wounds, 7 December 1941, ships attacked in the first wave
The numbers differ for ordinary reasons. Early reports separated “known dead” from “missing,” and the missing were not confirmed as dead until weeks later. Oklahoma‘s own tally of 15 December listed 22 known dead and 406 missing out of 1,353 officers and men on her books, 428 in all; the NHHC ship history gives 20 officers and 395 men killed or missing; the figure now used by the NPS and the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency is 429 (USS Oklahoma action report; DANFS, “Oklahoma”; NPS). Some tallies count men who died of wounds days later and some do not. Some include men from other ships who were killed aboard, or men of a ship who were killed ashore. Utah‘s figure is published both as 58 and as 64. The USS Utah Association and the Navy use 58, of whom four were recovered and 54 remain in the hull; the Pearl Harbor Aviation Museum gives 64 killed, 58 of them entombed. We have not found a primary record that settles the difference.
The damage counts are less certain than the death counts. Torpedo and bomb hits were first estimated by men inside sinking ships, then revised when divers and salvage crews surveyed the hulls in 1942. The table shows the range.
| Ship | Torpedo hits | Bomb hits | Fate on 7 December |
|---|---|---|---|
| California | 2–3 (port) | 1 hit plus near misses; Commander Battleships estimated 3–5 | Settled to the bottom over about three days |
| Maryland | None | 2 | Lightly damaged |
| Oklahoma | 3–5 (Commander Battleships); 5–7 (ship’s officers); 8 (NPS); 9 (DANFS) | None reported | Capsized in 8–10 minutes |
| Tennessee | None | 2 (Turrets II and III) | Pinned at her berth; fires |
| West Virginia | 4 (Commander Battleships); 5, then 6, then 7 (DANFS) | 2 | Sank upright |
| Arizona | 1–3 claimed in 1941; none found by later analysis | 2 (De Virgilio) to 4 (Stillwell); up to 8 in early reports | Magazines exploded; sank |
| Nevada | 1 (port, frame 40) | Most of her 5–6 bomb hits came in the second wave | Got underway; beached later |
| Utah | 2 (port) | None | Capsized about 0812 |
Sources: Commander Battleships, Battle Force, report (HyperWar); ship action reports (NHHC); DANFS histories; NPS, “Battleship Row”; De Virgilio, Proceedings, 1997; Stillwell, Battleship Arizona, as summarized in later works. Counts are estimates; the later surveys are more reliable than the first reports.
Times are the other uncertainty. The ships’ reports were written days later and are approximate; few men looked at a clock. California‘s two reports disagree by up to half an hour on the same events. The time of Arizona‘s explosion is given as about 0806 by De Virgilio and by Stillwell, about 0810 in many popular accounts, and about 0820 in the NHHC history of Tennessee. The Commander Battleships report put the high-altitude horizontal attack “from about 0825 until shortly after 0900,” but the bombers that destroyed Arizona were horizontal bombers, and she was gone well before 0825. That timing cannot be squared with the record of Arizona‘s loss, and it shows how loosely the first reports kept time. Where the record conflicts, this chapter gives both times.
Questions readers ask
Was Arizona hit by a torpedo?
Almost certainly not. The 1941 Commander Battleships report credited her with one to three torpedo hits, and a preliminary damage report of January 1942 listed one. But Vestal lay outboard of her, and Vestal‘s damage reports show no torpedo hit. Japanese records show no torpedo attack aimed at Arizona‘s berth, and a 1942 Navy survey of her forward hull found no torpedo damage. Both De Virgilio’s 1997 study and the 2001 film analysis by Rodgaard and colleagues conclude that she was destroyed by a bomb.
What time did Arizona blow up?
About 0806 by the most careful reconstructions, which tie the bombing to the Kaga and Hiryu formations and to film and photographs taken that morning (De Virgilio, 1997). Many accounts give about 0810, and the NHHC history of Tennessee gives about 0820. No clock in Arizona survived to settle it.
Why did Oklahoma capsize while West Virginia sank upright?
Both were torpedoed heavily on the port side. Oklahoma was hit first, as her crew were still going to their stations, and took several hits within a minute or two; she lost stability almost at once and turned over in eight to ten minutes. In West Virginia, Lt. Claude Ricketts had starboard compartments flooded quickly enough to stop the roll, and she settled on the harbor bottom on an even keel (DANFS, “Oklahoma” and “West Virginia II”).
Why did the Japanese attack Utah?
By mistake. She was a demilitarized former battleship used as a target ship, and Japanese aircrews had been told not to attack her. The Pearl Harbor Aviation Museum’s account of postwar interviews says one young pilot took her for an active battleship and his wingman followed. The story that her deck timbers made her look like a carrier was a guess by American sailors at the time.
How did torpedoes work in such shallow water?
The Japanese modified their Type 91 torpedoes with breakaway wooden fins and a gyroscope-controlled roll stabilizer, and trained crews to drop slow and low. That brought the initial plunge down from about 20 meters to about 10 to 12, inside the roughly 40 feet of water at Battleship Row. The engineer’s note above explains the details.
Did the ships fight back?
Yes, within minutes. Helena‘s guns were in action by about 0801, Nevada‘s machine guns by 0802, and Tennessee‘s antiaircraft battery in about five minutes. Men like Doris Miller fired whatever weapon they could reach. When power and hoists failed, ammunition had to be passed by hand, which is what the parties honored on California were doing. The first wave lost nine aircraft; the heavier fire met the second wave.
How it connects
The attack on the ships followed directly from the failures described in Chapter 3: the destroyer Ward‘s report of a submarine sunk off the entrance and the Opana radar’s sighting of the incoming aircraft had both reached someone in authority, and neither had put the fleet on alert. The weapons and the plan were the product of the Japanese preparation described in Chapter 2. While the torpedo planes struck the harbor, the dive bombers and fighters of the same wave were destroying American aircraft at Wheeler, Hickam, Kaneohe, Ewa and Ford Island, the subject of the next chapter, The Airfields. Nevada‘s run, the destruction of Shaw and the second wave follow in Chapter 6. All fifteen Medals of Honor, including those above, and the rescue of men from Oklahoma‘s hull are in Chapter 7. For the whole story, return to the Pearl Harbor collection and its numbers and Medal of Honor pages.
What happened afterward
Of the ships attacked in the first wave, only three never fought again: Arizona, Oklahoma and Utah. Maryland and Tennessee were back in service within weeks; Maryland was the first. Raleigh and Helena were repaired, and Oglala was raised and rebuilt. West Virginia was refloated in May 1942 and California the previous March. Both were rebuilt almost from the keel up, and both fired on the Japanese battle line at Surigao Strait in October 1944. Nevada supported the landings in Normandy in June 1944. Oklahoma was righted and refloated in 1943 but was too badly damaged to repair, and she sank in a storm while under tow to the mainland in 1947. Arizona and Utah were left where they lay.
Most of Oklahoma‘s dead were recovered during salvage but could not be identified and were buried as unknowns. Since 2015 the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency has identified most of them by DNA and returned them to their families. The salvage of the fleet, the Navy’s investigations and the memorials built on Battleship Row are the subject of Chapter 9.
Walking the ground today
Battleship Row is part of Pearl Harbor National Memorial, run by the National Park Service with the Navy. Visitors start at the visitor center on the harbor shore near Aiea, which has museum galleries on the attack and a view across the water to Ford Island. The USS Arizona Memorial, built over the sunken hull, is reached by a Navy-operated boat from the visitor center as part of a timed program; tickets are free but limited, and reserving in advance is wise. From the memorial you can see the outline of the hull and the base of No. 3 turret in the water, and a thin sheen of oil still rising from the ship. The white mooring quays that held the battleships still stand along the shore of Ford Island, some marked with the names of the ships that lay there.
Ford Island is an active military installation. General visitors reach it by shuttle bus from the visitor center to the Battleship Missouri Memorial and the Pearl Harbor Aviation Museum. The USS Oklahoma Memorial, with a standard for each of the men lost in the ship, stands near the Missouri‘s berth, close to where Oklahoma was moored. The USS Utah Memorial on the northwest shore, beside the wreck, generally requires military base access. Check the NPS site for current hours, ticketing and access rules before you go.
Sources and further reading
- Naval History and Heritage Command, ship action reports, Pearl Harbor attack: Arizona (Fuqua statement), California, Helena, Maryland (with CINCPAC mailgram), Oklahoma, Raleigh, Tennessee, Utah.
- Commander Battleships, Battle Force, summary report on the attack: HyperWar text.
- NHHC, Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships: Oklahoma, West Virginia II, Tennessee V, Nevada; and NHHC, “USS Arizona (BB-39)”.
- National Park Service, “Battleship Row” (ship-by-ship losses), and Pearl Harbor National Memorial visitor information.
- Robert J. Cressman and J. Michael Wenger, Infamous Day: Marines at Pearl Harbor, 7 December 1941 (USMC History and Museums Division, 1992): Project Gutenberg text.
- John F. De Virgilio, “Seven Seconds to Infamy,” Proceedings, December 1997; John Rodgaard, Peter K. Hsu, Carroll L. Lucas and Andrew Biache Jr., “The Death of the Arizona,” Naval History, December 2001.
- Pearl Harbor Aviation Museum, “Pearl Harbor: Thunderfish in the Sky” (the Type 91 torpedo, citing the U.S. Naval Technical Mission to Japan) and “Why Did the Japanese Sink the Utah at Pearl Harbor?”
- NHHC, “Loss of Cook 3rd Class Doris Miller”; National WWII Museum, “USS California Medal of Honor Recipients at Pearl Harbor.”
- Congressional Medal of Honor Society citations: Kidd, Van Valkenburgh, Fuqua, Young, Bennion, Flaherty, Ward, Tomich, Jones, Pharris, Reeves, Scott.
- The “not drill” dispatch: National Archives, DocsTeach; NHHC, National Naval Aviation Museum, “Pearl Harbor Foretold” (Ramsey). For the full narrative, see Gordon W. Prange, At Dawn We Slept (1981), Samuel Eliot Morison, The Rising Sun in the Pacific (vol. III, 1948), and Paul Stillwell, Battleship Arizona (1991).
Photographs: official U.S. Navy photographs and captured Japanese photographs, National Archives and Naval History and Heritage Command, public domain.
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