Pearl Harbor 1941 by Carl Smith

Author:Carl Smith
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Pearl Harbor 1941: The Day of Infamy
ISBN: 9781782005001
Publisher: Osprey Publishing

On Ford Island NAS, Kingfishers, Catalinas and other naval aircraft were savaged. In the background, smoke rises from the damaged battleship Nevada, while a bright plume of smoke billows skyward as Shaw explodes.

Aboard the Vestal outboard of Arizona, CWO Hall saw the bombers, identified them as Japanese and sounded general quarters. Men poured from below decks and the mess area, and within ten minutes Vestal’s guns were firing at the invaders.

About 0800 hrs, crewmen Huffman and de Jong of PT 23, a Higgins class 78-ton patrol torpedo boat, saw aircraft (identified as Japanese by the “meatball” Rising Sun insignia on their wings) swooping in and dropping bombs and torpedoes. They argued about what the aircraft were doing, awakening Ensign Ed Farley, who had been sleeping below deck after a late night on the town. Farley made his way to the deck, wiping sleep from his eyes and yawning. Following their gaze, he was horrified to see one plane fly over them on dead course for California: an instant later the battleship was rocked by an explosion. Huffman and de Jong jumped into a gun turret and fired on the attacking aircraft with twin .50 cal. machine guns. One attacking aircraft wobbled and then went down, possibly the first blood the American anti-aircraft fire had drawn.

Across the navy basin, on the shore opposite the sub base, Ramapo was in the process of loading six additional PT boats in cradles for transport to the Philippines. When the attack began, crews of the PT boats tried to man their guns, but the turrets would not move because the engines had been shut down for transport. No engines, no power, no movable turrets. Crewmen began rotating turrets by muscle power, while gunners turned barrels red-hot with fire. Boats in cradles already on Ramapo’s deck were especially vulnerable – neither on land nor in the water – as attackers blasted vessels and dived with guns chattering.

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