Pearl Harbor Ghosts by Thurston Clarke

Author:Thurston Clarke
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction
ISBN: 9780307416360
Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
Published: 2007-12-17T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 16

THE ARIZONA OPENS LIKE A FLOWER

Trace the paths of the Japanese fighters and bombers over a map of Oahu and the island begins to resemble an insect caught in a dense spiderweb of lines and arrows, and you can appreciate how confusing the attack must have been for American forces on the ground. The most chaotic and damaging period was the first half hour, from 0755 until 0825, when more than twenty ships were attacked by 183 Japanese fighters and torpedo, dive-, and high bombers. This was when Oahu’s defenders suffered the heaviest material losses and casualties, when great battleships capsized and sank in flames, and Japanese pilots destroyed or damaged most of the 188 Army and Navy planes lost on December 7.

There was a lull from 0825 until 0840, punctuated by sporadic strafing and bombing. Then a second wave of 171 planes crossed Oahu’s northern coast at 0840. Joined by high-level bombers from the first wave, they struck Pearl Harbor and the airfields between 0915 and 0945. During this final phase, Zeros engaged American fighters and strafed automobiles and residential areas. American resistance was stronger, and the Japanese suffered more losses and inflicted less damage.

Eyewitness memories are less chronological and ordered, and reflect the chaos of that morning. People are often unsure about when certain ships were hit or planes destroyed, or if they were themselves victims of bombs or torpedoes. But everyone remembers how the great battleships and their crews looked in their death throes, and the sight of the Oklahoma capsizing, and the explosion that destroyed the Arizona in a matter of seconds.

The Oklahoma turned over before Sterling Cale could go aboard. He immediately dove into the burning waters of Pearl Harbor and, putting his frogman training to use, swam underwater to the nearest wounded sailor. He splashed the water as he surfaced, making a hole in the flames before hoisting the victim onto the officers’ barge. He spent the next six hours in the water and rescued forty men. Most were severely wounded, with blood running down their faces and deep gashes in their bodies. A few screamed, but most had been stunned into silence. Every time the barge filled, Cale climbed aboard and they raced to the landing at the Naval Hospital, where the dead lay stacked like cordwood.

At 0810, fifteen minutes into the attack, an eighteen-hundred-pound armor-piercing bomb dropped by Lt. Shojiro Kondo struck the Arizona forward and to the right of its number two gun turret, passing through four decks in less than seven seconds and exploding in a powder magazine. The hot gas from that explosion hit a bulkhead and was deflected upward. A half second later the Arizona’s other magazines exploded. A fountain of flame and black smoke shot skyward and the ship appeared to leap from the water. Its foremast pitched forward, and its deck opened like a flower.

According to Theodore Mason, a sailor on the California, “a red fireball shot up and spread into a mushroom of death

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