Read Attack on Pearl Harbor Online
Authors: Alan D. Zimm
Attack on Pearl Harbor (49 page)
Event Flow Chart
Was
St. Louis
Attacked by Torpedoes?
The analysis begins at the top of the chart, considering the fate of the two unaccounted torpedoes. The previous belief was that they were expended outside the harbor in an attack on
St. Louis
. In addition to the formal reports, there are surviving crewmembers from the
St. Louis
who witnessed the attack.
The theory must prove that this attack did not happen as recorded.
When
St. Louis
exited the channel she met up with three minesweepers, one of which reported that
St. Louis
took her minesweeping paravane under fire and cut across her sweep line, severing it. The minesweepers’ logs do not mention a torpedo explosion.
The proponents suggest that the explosion reported by
St. Louis
was not from a torpedo. They point to the testimony of Douglas Huggins, on board
St. Louis
in Control Aft, who saw what he thought were bombs being dropped all round the ship as she exited the channel. According to one of the leading proponents of the theory, “one would suspect that what was actually seen were anti-aircraft rounds fired from inside the harbour [sic] falling back to earth.”
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Others suggest that the commanding officer of the
St. Louis
fabricated the story of a torpedo explosion in order to escape responsibility for severing the minesweeper’s lines.
A more detailed look at St. Louis’ experience is warranted.
At 10:04 a.m., [Captain] Rood saw what appeared to be two torpedoes, one following the other, flashing toward his starboard bow.
“We’re going to get smacked good and proper,” thought Rood, and he called out to Commander Carl K. Fink, “If you want to see a ship torpedoed, come take a look!” Fink took one look and agreed with the skipper—in the narrow channel there wasn’t much they could do. In the foremast structure, with a great view of the oncoming weapons from 1,000 to 2,000 yards, Lieutenant Charles A. Curtze tensed as he watched the torpedoes arrow toward the ship.
Rood ordered St. Louis, already sprinting at 22 knots, to Emergency Full. At 25 knots, he tried a tentative zigzag, cranking the ship in the narrow, coral-rimmed channel. The first torpedo was aimed directly a the starboard side of turret No. 3, but struck a coral spit near Bouy No. 1, on the west side of the dredged channel, and exploded 200 yards from the ship, sending geysers skyward in an explosive blossom of water and coral.
It drenched the ship with water. “That Jap got over-anxious,” observed Rood.
The second torpedo was “running hot” on a diverging track, about 10 degrees off the first, and was apparently caught up in the explosion. The track disappeared.
22
In this account the torpedo tracks were seen before the explosion, with multiple witnesses. Two torpedoes were seen, one exploded, and the other motored on until it sank after its fuel was exhausted.
Given the existence of the explosion and ignoring the reported torpedo wakes, the argument then turns on whether the
St. Louis’
officers and crewmembers mistook the splash and explosion of a falling AA shell for that of a ~772-pound torpedo warhead when viewed from only two hundred yards. The torpedo plumes shown in photographs of the hits on Battleship Row were over 800 feet high, caused by torpedoes with 452-pound warheads; a 5-inch/25 shell weighed 54 pounds, with about 17 pounds as explosive filler, and would cause a splash 40 to 60 feet high that would not drench the ship if it exploded 200 yards off.
The accusation that the commanding officer fabricated his report to excuse his cutting the minesweepers’ lines is rather distasteful, and has no basis other than the theorists’ need to discredit the report.
Being generous to the theory, one might estimate that there was an 80% probability that the
St. Louis
was attacked by one or more torpedoes.
Proponents suggest that one of the other 23 Japanese fleet submarines operating in the area might have fired the torpedoes. However, none of the Japanese fleet submarine Tabular Record of Movement (TROM) chronicles any expenditure of torpedoes that day. All of the submarine patrol areas were well away from of the location of the attack. One submarine was later ordered to close on the channel entrance, but became fouled in a net and did not fire any torpedoes.
Some suggest that submarine
I-70
, which was sunk days later, might have delivered the attack on
St. Louis
. Japanese submarines were under strict control by radio by their admiral at Kwajalein Island, both receiving instructions and radioing back contact and attack reports. No orders for
I-70
to change station and approach the channel entrance are recorded in the TROMs, and no report of any attack on that day was radioed by
I-70
. The closest edge of
I-70’s
assigned patrol area was 30nm from the harbor entrance.
The chances that a Japanese fleet submarine was responsible for the torpedo attack on
St. Louis
are vanishingly small. It is (generously) assessed at 10%.
If the midget submarine expended its torpedoes against
St. Louis
and never entered the harbor, it is still a mystery how it got to the bottom in three pieces after undergoing some kind of salvage effort.
There remains the possibility that the midget submarine fired its torpedoes outside the harbor in an attack that was not observed or recorded. Lieutenant William Outerbridge, commanding officer of the destroyer
Ward
, stated that
There was another thing we saw. That was a lot of explosions along the reefs. I thought that they were explosions of torpedoes fired into the reefs. I didn’t see any other submarines the whole morning. We didn’t actually see any, but we did see a lot of explosions that looked like shallow water explosions of torpedoes.
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Numerous other ships in the area claimed to have been missed by torpedoes, although none observed an associated explosion as in the
St. Louis’
case. “Sub Jitters” is a known phenomenon.
The explosions noted by Outerbridge were likely from descending AA shells. The possibility that the midget submarine fired at some other target outside the harbor is small, assessed at 10%.
The two event paths converge with the next step, the submarine penetrating into Pearl Harbor. The net probability up to this point is the combination of the two possible paths, 8% (along the path of a confirmed torpedo attack against
St. Louis
) and 18% along the other, a combined probability of 26%
Did the Midget Penetrate Into Pearl Harbor?
Of the four other midget submarines, one penetrated the harbor, three did not. The locations of all four hulls are confirmed. Based on this operational experience, the probability that the fifth midget submarine penetrated into the harbor is assessed at 25%.
The “Midget in the Photograph” Firing Torpedoes into Battleship Row
As discussed above, the possibility that the photograph captured a view of a midget submarine in the process of delivering a torpedo attack on Battleship Row is vanishingly small.
However, an alternate possibility exists. The midget submarine might have remained in the harbor unobserved. It might have fired its torpedoes from another location in the harbor and the torpedoes missed, all unobserved.
In the absence of any way to discredit this possibility, the event will be given a probability of 10%.
Firing Torpedoes Against Battleship Row
The proponent’s have searched for confirmation that the midget submarine fired its torpedoes against Battleship Row targets. Its torpedoes carried almost twice as much explosive as the Type 91 aerial torpedoes, so they have looked for evidence of unusually powerful torpedo explosions. There are several possibilities.
Oklahoma
Sailors in
Oklahoma
’s after steering compartment during the attack described the sounds of the torpedo hits. As related by Seaman First Class Jim Bounds:
I noticed other torpedo hits, but I noticed [the first] three more than anything else, and then there was an extra loud one… it shook the ship, then we got one or two more after that… but they wasn’t as powerful as that one.
The theory proponents believe that the “extra loud one” was evidence of the detonation of a heavier midget submarine torpedo.
An explosion’s sound propagation through a warship’s hull is subject to a great deal of variability. Bounds, inside the armored box of after steering, heard the hits distinctly. Gunners Mate Leon Kolb, on
Oklahoma
’s main deck, felt the first hit as more of a thud or vibration rather than an explosion. Boatswain Adolph Bothne, on deck preparing to go over the side on a hull cleaning detail, never felt even one of the hits.
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Clearly there were differences in sound and shock propagation to different locations.
How loud or heavy a hit might seem is based on:
| • | what the torpedo hit (against crushable anti-torpedo bulkheads vs. stiff belt armor anchored to the hull), |
| • | where it hit longitudinally (between 100 to 400 feet away from after steering), |
| • | depth (near the surface, venting most of the explosive force into the air, or deep under the waterline, or even the actual hit that occurred on the second deck above the armored belt as Oklahoma capsized), |
| • | the order of the hits and proximity to damaged portions of the hull (a hit forward of a previously damaged section would be less tightly coupled acoustically to transmit sound waves through the structure of the ship from forward to aft). |
Torpedoes with the same warhead weight will propagate different sounds, especially when heard from a location at the extreme stern of the ship. One torpedo sounding louder than others would be expected. Differences in perceived volume of noise cannot be reasonably used as conclusive evidence that a larger submarine torpedo warhead hit
Oklahoma
.
Photographs of the
Oklahoma
’s hull taken in drydock after she was raised show much more extensive damage than that inflicted by Type 91 aerial torpedoes on other battleships. One of the Nova program contributors suggests that this was the result of a hit by the heavier Type 97 midget submarine torpedo.
Oklahoma
rolled onto her damaged side while capsizing, and was again rolled on that side during the salvage operation. The additional damage resulted from rolling a 27,000-ton hull onto a damaged and weakened structure that was not stressed to handle such loads. If the heavier damage resulted from a single more powerful torpedo hit, the area of heavier damage would have been localized. The heavier damage appears over the entire length of the hull.
There is an area where belt armor plates are missing and one is cracked, but it is unlikely that a torpedo would have been able to create that damage—other aerial torpedoes hitting belt armor deflected belt armor inwards. Increasing the explosive charge would likely just do the more of the same. The missing and cracked plates are more likely the result of the effects of rolling the hull on to them after the plate’s support structure was weakened (or removed) by the aerial torpedoes.
Arizona
The Nova program edited testimony from two sailors from the crew of the
Vestal
to make a case that
Arizona
was hit by a dud midget submarine torpedo. There is no corroborating physical evidence.
Witnesses on
Vestal
claim that a torpedo went under their hull to strike
Arizona
. If this had been the case, the same kind of damage would have been inflicted on
Vestal
as that which caused
Oglala
to sink after a torpedo went under her and detonated against
Helena
.
Vestal’s
hull showed no evidence of such damage when she was drydocked, only the damage caused by two AP bomb hits.
A photograph taken by a
Kaga
high-altitude level bomber shows oil pouring out of
Nevada
. She was hit by the second-to-last torpedo dropped. There was no oil slick around
Arizona
.
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Even assuming that they did see a torpedo, there is nothing to indicate that it was launched from a submarine. Just as in the testimony of the sailors on the
Dale
who testified that they were attacked by AP bombs one hour after the last AP bomb was dropped, and the sailors on the
Shaw
who believed that they were attacked by incendiary bombs when the Japanese had no such weapon, and the soldiers testifying they were strafed at Schofield Barracks, human testimony has to be carefully cross-checked with other testimony and correlated with physical evidence before it is accepted
prima fascia
.
This is not the only case where eyewitness reports were inaccurate. The captain of
Vestal
reported that
Arizona
was hit by a bomb down the battleship’s stack in a letter to the Chief of the Bureau of Ships, making it an “official” rumor, repeated to this day.
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Inspection found the armored grate covering the stack opening was undamaged. There was no evidence of a bomb hit in the vicinity.
This should not in any way be taken as a slur against the veterans. There is a considerable body of literature confirming that eyewitness memories of stressful events are not always accurate—four individuals observing a bank robbery will all give different accounts, to the frustration of law enforcement officers. The brain is a very uncertain recording device when under stress, and memories shift and fade. Veterans’ memories can be influenced by things learned after the attack, like reading battle histories, watching war movies or in reunion discussions.