by John Mason Glen, Ph.D. for the Western Heritage Foundation
“A date which will live in infamy” was what FDR called Dec. 7, 1941. It was, of course, the day the Japanese attacked the U.S. Pacific Fleet, anchored at Pearl Harbor, Territory of Hawaii, plunging America into WWII.
The seven battleships there were either destroyed or damaged, including the USS Arizona; nearly 200 airplanes lost and more than 2,500 casualties.
The Arizona was a Pennsylvania class battleship, commissioned in 1916, and sent to Pearl Harbor in 1940 as part of the Pacific Fleet to deter Japanese expansion. Just after 8 a.m. on Dec. 7, a 1,757-pound armor-piercing bomb struck her just aft of turret No. 2, ripped through three decks and detonated in the magazine, tearing the bow asunder.
The explosion killed 1,177 crew members, including Rear Admiral Issac Kidd and Capt. Van Valkenburgh. The remains of the ship remain in the harbor today.
Japanese losses: 129 lives and 29 aircraft, plus five midget submarines.
How could the battle be so lopsided?
One reason: Takeo Yoshikawa, a Japanese naval officer serving in the consul’s office of the Japanese embassy in Honolulu. He was a spy.
Graduating at the top of his 1933 Eta Jima Military Academy class, a severe stomach ailment prevented him from completing pilot training, so he opted for naval intelligence.
Under an alias, Yoshikawa arrived on Oahu in March 1941 where he rented an apartment overlooking the naval base from which he could monitor daily activities of the American fleet. Although unaware of the impending air raid, he knew his information and knowledge of the U.S. Navy would be of value to his superiors.
Relations between the Japanese and American had been rocky since the 1890s when America began its imperialistic maneuvers. It escalated in 1931 when Japan, in an expansionistic effort of its own, invaded China. Six years later, a full-scale Sino-Japanese war erupted.
In 1940, Japan invaded French Indochina to obtain the raw materials needed to continue its expansion. The Roosevelt administration countered by reducing exports. In mid-July the Pacific Fleet transferred from San Diego to Oahu. The Japanese saw this as a threat.
They now had two options: continue expansion, acquiring their essential raw materials, essentially ignoring the American proposals and risking war, or accede to the demands of the U.S. and withdraw from China.
Part 2 next month.
