Kentuckians and Pearl Harbor by Berry Craig

Author:Berry Craig [Craig, Berry]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: History, Military, World War II, United States, State & Local, South (AL; AR; FL; GA; KY; LA; MS; NC; SC; TN; VA; WV)
ISBN: 9781949669299
Google: N4HdDwAAQBAJ
Publisher: University Press of Kentucky
Published: 2020-11-01T03:31:17+00:00

7

The Army

Architects of the Pearl Harbor attack knew that, to destroy the fleet, the raiders had to have air superiority. Hence, several fighters and bombers peeled away to destroy army, navy, and marine air bases and planes on the ground. Their prime targets included Hickam and Wheeler Army Airfields, the largest and most important bases on Oahu. (The Japanese also bombed and strafed Ford Island and Kaneohe Naval Air Stations, Ewa Marine Air Station, and Bellows Army Airfield.) Because the Japanese had no intention of invading Hawaii, they did not go after the army’s formidable coastal defenses around Pearl and Honolulu Harbors. They also bypassed Fort Shafter in Honolulu, but some enemy planes did strafe Schofield Barracks after they hit adjacent Wheeler.

Hickam Airfield

In 1935, the army established Hickam Airfield next to the Pearl Harbor navy base and close to the harbor entrance. The base, named for Lieutenant Colonel Horace Meek Hickam, a pioneer army aviator who had died in a 1934 airplane crash in Texas, became the army’s main airfield and bomber base in Hawaii and also the air force’s headquarters. Hickam Airfield became Hickam Air Force Base after World War II. In 2010, the navy base and the air base merged to form Joint Base Pearl Harbor–Hickam.1

On December 7, 1941, fifty-one aircraft were on the ground, and a dozen B-17 bombers were expected from California about eight that morning. The bombers blundered into the attack, with Zeros and Vals working over Hickam. Though the B-17s were unarmed and low on fuel, the big bombers managed to land, nine at Hickam, where one was destroyed on landing and another damaged beyond repair. Three B-17s landed elsewhere on Oahu. A second wave hit at 8:40 A.M. and ended about an hour later. The Japanese fliers destroyed or badly damaged about half the aircraft at Hickam. They also bombed and strafed hangars, the Hawaiian Air Depot, and a number of base facilities, including the fire station, the chapel, the guardhouse, and the large barracks. All told, 121 men were killed, 274 wounded, and 37 listed as missing.2

Naturally, the B-17 crews were bone-tired after a grueling fourteen-hour flight from the states. Doubtless, their unexpected reception provided adrenaline jolts. When they neared Hickam Airfield, the airmen suddenly faced a double threat—from both enemy and friendly fire. Zeros were shooting at them, and antiaircraft gunners were shooting at the Zeros. “We were flying into Pearl Harbor fat, dumb and happy, with no ammunition and nobody knowing there was a war going on,” the copilot Richard J. Eberentz told his hometown Louisville Courier-Journal.3

Captain Eberentz huddled with the paper while he was home on leave in January 1943. He had been a second lieutenant when the attack took place. “It was about 8 A.M. and the fireworks were really popping. The anti-aircraft fire was popping all around. I don’t blame the boys for shooting at us; they were shooting at everything that might be a Jap plane, and you could hardly tell one from another, but the result was—well, we had to land! You could see those tracers popping right through the wings.

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