<p>Eventually, in an almost predictable
way, the Japanese planes formed
up and flew off to the west, leaving
the once neatly manicured Mooring
Mast Field smouldering. The Marines
had barely had time to catch
their collective breath when, at 1000,
almost as a capstone to the complete
chaos wreaked by the initial Japanese
attack, seven more planes arrived.</p>
<div class="tb">* * * * *</div>
<p>Their markings, however, were of
a more familiar variety—red-centered
blue and white stars. The
newcomers proved to be a group of
Dauntlesses from <i>Enterprise</i>. For the
better part of an hour, Lieutenant
Wilmer E. Gallaher, executive officer
of Scouting Squadron 6, had circled
fitfully over the Pacific swells south
of Oahu, waiting for the situation
there to settle down. At about 0945,
when he had seen that the skies
seemed relatively clear of Japanese
planes, Gallaher decided rather than
face friendly fire over Pearl he would
go to Ewa instead. They had barely
stopped on the strip, however, when
a Marine ran out to Gallaher’s plane
and yelled, “For God’s sake, get into
the air or they’ll strafe you, too!”
Other <i>Enterprise</i> pilots likewise saw
ground crews frantically motioning
for them to take off immediately. Instructed
to “take off and stay in the
air until [the] air raid was over,” the
<i>Enterprise</i> pilots took off and headed
for Pearl Harbor. Although all
seven SBDs left Ewa, only three (Gallaher’s,
his wingman, Ensign William
P. West’s, and Ensign Cleo J. Dobson’s)
would make it as far as Ford
Island. A tremendous volume of antiaircraft
fire over the harbor rose to
meet what was thought to be yet
another attack; seeing the reception
accorded Gallaher, West, and Dobson,
the other four pilots—Lieutenant
(jg) Hart D. Hilton and
Ensigns Carlton T. Fogg, Edwin J.
Kroeger, and Frederick T. Weber—wheeled
around and headed back to
Ewa, landing around 1015 to find a
far better reception that time around.
Within a matter of minutes, the Marines
began rearming and refueling
Hilton’s, Kroeger’s and Weber’s SBDs.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_23">23</span>
The Marines discovered that Fogg’s
Dauntless, though, had taken a hit
that had holed a fuel tank, and
would require repairs.</p>
<div id="ip_23" class="figleft" style="max-width: 12em;">
<ANTIMG src="images/i_023.jpg" width-obs="178" height-obs="184" alt="" />
<div class="captionr"><p>Marine Corps Historical Collection</p>
</div>
<div class="caption">
<p><i>Sgt Carlo A. Micheletto had turned 26
years old less than two months before
Japanese planes strafed Ewa. He was
recommended for a letter of commendation,
but was awarded a Bronze Star.</i></p>
</div>
</div>
<p>Although it is unlikely that even
one of the Ewa Marines thought so
at the time, even as they serviced the
<i>Enterprise</i> SBDs which sat on the
landing mat, the Japanese raid on
Oahu was over. Vice Admiral Nagumo,
already feeling that he had
pushed his luck far enough, was
eager to get as far away from the
waters north of Oahu as soon as possible.
At least for the time being, the
Marines at Ewa had nothing to fear.</p>
<p>Not privy to the musings of Nagumo
and his staff, however, Lieutenant
Colonel Larkin could only
wonder what the Marines would do
should the Japanese return. At 1025,
he completed a glum assessment of
the situation and forwarded it to Admiral
Kimmel. While casualties
among the Marines had been light—two
men had been killed and several
wounded—the Japanese had destroyed
“all bombing, fighting, and
transport planes” on the ground. Ewa
had no radio communications, no
power, and only one small gas generator
in commission. He also informed
the Commander-in-Chief,
Pacific Fleet, that he would retain the
four Enterprise planes at Ewa until
further orders. Larkin also notified
Wheeler Field Control of the SBDs
being held at his field.</p>
<p>At 1100, Wheeler called and
directed all available planes to rendezvous
with a flight of B-17s over
Hickam. Lieutenant (jg) Hilton and
the two ensigns from Bombing Squadron
6, Kroeger and Weber, took off
at 1115 and the Marines never heard
from them again. Finding no Army
planes over Hickam (two flights of
B-17s and Douglas A-20s had only
just departed) the three Navy pilots
landed at Ford Island. Ensign Fogg’s
SBD represented the sole naval strike
capability at Ewa as the day ended.</p>
<p>“They caught us flat-footed,” Larkin
unabashedly wrote Major General
Ross E. Rowell of the events of 7
December. Over the next few
months, Ewa would serve as the focal
point for Marine aviation activities
on Oahu as the service acquired
replacement aircraft and began
rebuilding to carry out the mission
of standing ready to deploy with the
fleet wherever it was required.</p>
<h3><i>They’re Kicking the Hell Out of Pearl Harbor</i></h3>
<p>Although the Japanese accorded
the battleships and air facilities priority
as targets for destruction on the
morning of 7 December 1941, it was
natural that the onslaught touched
the Marine Barracks at Pearl Harbor
Navy Yard as well.</p>
<p>Colonel William E. Farthing,
Army Air Forces, commanding
officer of Hickam Field, thought that
he was witnessing some very realistic
maneuvers shortly before 0800
that morning. From his vantage
point, virtually next door to the
Navy Yard, Farthing watched what
proved to be six Japanese dive bombers
swooping down toward Ford Island.
He thought that MAG-21’s
SB2Us or SBDs were out for an early
morning practice hop. “I wonder
what the Marines are doing to the
Navy so early Sunday?”</p>
<p>Over at the Marine Barracks, the
officer of the guard, Second Lieutenant
Arnold D. Swartz, after having
inspected his sentries, had retired
to the officer-of-the-day’s room to
await breakfast. Stepping out onto
the lanai (patio) at about 0755 to talk
to the field music about morning
colors, he noticed several planes diving
in the direction of the naval air
station. He thought initially that it
seemed a bit early for practice bombing,
but then saw a flash and heard
the resulting explosion that immediately
dispelled any illusions he might
have held that what he was seeing
was merely an exercise. Seeing a
plane with “red balls” on the wings
roar by at low level convinced Swartz
that Japanese planes were attacking.</p>
<div id="ip_23b" class="bboxleft p1 figleft" style="min-width: 11em; max-width: 33%;">
<ANTIMG src="images/i_023b.jpg" width-obs="167" height-obs="219" alt="" />
<div class="caption"><p class="dc"><span class="smcap1">Major</span> Harold C. Roberts
had earned a Navy
Cross as a corpsman assigned
to Marines during World
War I, and a second award in 1928
as a Marine officer in Nicaragua.
As acting commanding officer of
the 3d Defense Battalion at Pearl
Harbor on 7 December, he was a
veritable dynamo, organizing it to
battle the attacking Japanese. He
was killed at Okinawa in June
1945 while commanding the 22d
Marines, but not before his performance
of duty had merited him
the award of his third Navy Cross.</p>
</div>
</div>
<p>Over in the squadroom of Barracks<span class="pagenum" id="Page_24">24</span>
B, First Lieutenant Harry F.
Noyes, Jr., the range officer for Battery
E, 3-inch Antiaircraft Group, 3d
Defense Battalion, heard the sound
of a loud explosion coming from the
direction of the harbor at about
0750. First assuming that blasting
crews were busy—there had been a
lot of construction recently—Noyes
cocked his ears. The new sounds
seemed a bit different, “more higher-pitched,
and louder.” At that, he
sprang from his bed, ran across the
room, and peered northward just in
time to see a dirty column of water
rising from the harbor from another
explosion and a Japanese plane pulling
out of its dive. The plane, bearing
red <em>hinomaru</em> (rising sun insignia)
under its wings, left no doubt as to
its identity.</p>
<div class="tb">* * * * *</div>
<p>The explosions likewise awakened
Lieutenant Colonel William J. Whaling
and Major James “Jerry” Monaghan
who, while Colonel Gilder D.
Jackson, commanding officer of the
Marine Barracks, was at sea in <i>Indianapolis</i>
(CA-35) en route to Johnston
Island for tests of Higgins
landing boats, shared his quarters at
Pearl Harbor. Shortly before 0800,
Whaling rolled over and asked: “Jerry,
don’t you think the Admiral is a
little bit inconsiderate of guests?”
Monaghan, then also awake, replied:
“I’ll go down and see about it.” Whaling,
meanwhile, lingered in bed until
more blasts rattled the quarters’
windows. Thinking that he had not
seen any 5-inch guns emplaced close
to the building, and that something
was wrong, he got up and walked
over to the window that faced the
harbor. Looking out, he saw smoke,
and, turning, remarked: “This thing
is so real that I believe that’s an oil
tank burning right in front there.”
Both men then dressed and hurried
across the parade ground, where they
encountered Lieutenant Colonel Elmer
E. Hall, commanding officer of
the 2d Engineer Battalion. “Elmer,”
Whaling said amiably, “this is a
mighty fine show you are putting on.
I have never seen anything quite like
it.”</p>
<div id="ip_24" class="figright" style="max-width: 12em;">
<ANTIMG src="images/i_024.jpg" width-obs="184" height-obs="211" alt="" />
<div class="captionr"><p>Department of Defense Photo (USMC) 65746</p>
</div>
<div class="caption">
<p><i>Col William J. Whaling, seen here circa
1945, was an observer to the Pearl Harbor
attack, being awakened from slumber
while staying in Col Gilder Jackson’s
quarters on the morning of 7 December.</i></p>
</div>
</div>
<p>Meanwhile, Swartz ordered the
field music to sound “Call to Arms.”
Then, running into the officer’s section
of the mess hall, Swartz informed
the officer-of-the-day, First
Lieutenant Cornelius C. Smith, Jr.,
who had been enjoying a cup of
coffee with Marine Gunner Floyd
McCorkle when sharp blasts had
rocked the building, that the
Japanese were attacking. Like
Swartz, they ran out onto the lanai.
Standing there, speechless, they
watched the first enemy planes diving
on Ford Island.</p>
<p>Marines began to stumble, eyes
wide in disbelief, from the barracks.
Some were lurching, on the run, into
pants and shirts; a few wore only
towels. Swartz then ordered one of
the platoon sergeants to roust out the
men and get them under cover of the
trees outside. Smith, too, then ran
outside to the parade ground. As he
looked at the rising smoke and the
Japanese planes, he doubted those
who had derided the “Japs” as “cross-eyed,
second-rate pilots who couldn’t
hit the broad side of a barn door.” It
was enough to turn his stomach.
“They’re kicking the hell out of Pearl
Harbor,” he thought.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, unable to reach
Colonel Harry B. Pickett, the 14th
Naval District Marine Officer, as well
as Colonel Jackson, and Captain
Samuel R. Shaw, commanding
officer of Company A, by telephone,
Swartz sent runners to the officers’
respective quarters. He then ordered
a noncommissioned officer from the
quartermaster department to dispense
arms and ammunition.</p>
<p>While Swartz organized the men
beneath the trees outside the barracks,
Lieutenant Noyes dressed and
then drove across the parade ground
to Building 277, arriving about 0805.
At the same time, like Swartz, First
Lieutenant James S. O’Halloran, the
3d Defense Battalion’s duty officer
and commanding officer of Battery
F, 3-inch Antiaircraft Group, wanted
to get in touch with his senior
officers. After having had “assembly”
sounded and signalling his men to
take cover, O’Halloran ordered Marine
Gunner Frederick M. Steinhauser,
the assistant battalion communications
officer, to telephone all
of the officers who resided outside
the reservation and inform them of
the attack.</p>
<p>In Honolulu, mustachioed Major
Harold C. Roberts, acting commanding
officer of the 3d Defense Battalion
since Lieutenant Colonel Robert
H. Pepper had accompanied Colonel
Jackson to sea in <i>Indianapolis</i>, after
taking Steinhauser’s call with word
of the bombing of Pearl, jumped into
his car along with his neighbor,
Major Kenneth W. Benner, commanding
officer of the 3-inch Antiaircraft
Group and the
Headquarters and Service Battery of
the 3d Defense Battalion. As Roberts’
car crept through the heavy traffic
toward Pearl, the two officers could
see Japanese aircraft flying along the
coast. When they reached the Water
Street Fish Market, a large crowd of
what seemed to be “Japanese residents
... cheering the Japanese
planes, waving to them, and trying
to obstruct traffic to Pearl Harbor by<span class="pagenum" id="Page_25">25</span>
pushing parked cars into the street”
blocked their way.</p>
<div class="tb">* * * * *</div>
<p>Meanwhile, as his acting battalion
commander was battling his way
through Honolulu’s congested streets,
O’Halloran was organizing his Marines
as they poured out of the barracks
into groups to break out small
arms and machine guns from the various
battalion storerooms. After Harry
Noyes drove up, O’Halloran told
him to do what he could to get the
3-inch guns, and fire control equipment,
if available, broken out and set
up, and then instructed other Marines
to “get tractors and start hauling
guns to the parade ground.”
Another detail of men hurried off to
recover an antiaircraft director that
lay crated and ready for shipment to
Midway.</p>
<div class="tb">* * * * *</div>
<p>Marines continued to stream out
onto the grounds, having been ordered
out of the barracks with their
rifles and cartridge belts; they doubled
the sentry posts and received instructions
to stand ready and armed,
to deploy in an emergency. Noyes
saw some Marines who had not been
assigned any tasks commencing fire
on enemy planes “which were considerably
out of range.” At the main
gate of the Navy Yard, the Marines
fired at whatever planes came close
enough—sailors from the high-speed
minelayer <i>Sicard</i> (DM-21), en route
to their ship, later attested to seeing
one Japanese plane shot down by the
guards’ rifle fire.</p>
<p>Tai Sing Loo, who was to have
photographed those guards at the
new gate, had left Honolulu in a hurry
when he heard the sound of explosions
and gunfire, and saw the
rising columns of smoke. He arrived
at the naval reservation without his
Graflex and soon marveled at the
cool bravery of the “young, fighting
Marines” who stood their ground,
under fire, blazing away at enemy
planes with rifles while keeping
traffic moving.</p>
<p>Finally, the more senior officers
quartered outside the reservation began
showing up. When Colonel Pickett
arrived, Lieutenant Swartz
returned to the officer-of-the-day’s
room and found that Captain Shaw
had reached there also. Securing
from his position as officer of the
guard, Swartz returned to his 3-inch
gun battery being set up near Building
277. Ordering Marines out of the
building, he managed to obtain a
steel helmet and a pistol each for
himself and Lieutenant O’Halloran.
Captain Samuel G. Taxis, commanding
officer of the 3d Defense Battalion’s
5-inch Artillery Group,
meanwhile, witnessed “terrific confusion”
ensuing from his men’s efforts
to obtain “ammunition, steel helmets,
and other items of equipment.”</p>
<div id="ip_25" class="figcenter" style="max-width: 35em;">
<ANTIMG src="images/i_025.jpg" width-obs="559" height-obs="369" alt="" />
<div class="captionr"><p>Naval Historical Center Photo NH 50926</p>
</div>
<div class="caption">
<p><i>Smoke darkens the sky over the Marine Barracks complex at
the Pearl Harbor Navy Yard; Marine in foreground appears
to be holding his head in disbelief. Marines at far left in background
appear to be unlimbering a 3-inch antiaircraft gun.</i></p>
</div>
</div>
<p>Meanwhile, the comparatively few<span class="pagenum" id="Page_26">26</span>
Marines of Lieutenant Colonel Bert
A. Bone’s 1st Defense Battalion—most
of which garrisoned Wake,
Johnston, and Palmyra—made their
presence felt. Urged on by Lieutenant
Noyes, one detail of men immediately
reported to the battalion gun shed
and storerooms, and issued rifles and
ammunition to all comers, while
another detachment worked feverishly
assembling machine guns. Navy
Yard workmen—enginemen Lokana
Kipihe and Oliver Bright, fireman
Gerard Williams, and rigger Ernest
W. Birch—appeared, looking for
some way to help the Marines, who
soon put them to work distributing
ammunition to the machine gun
crews. Soon, the Marines at the barracks
added the staccato hammering
of automatic weapons fire to the
general din around them. Meanwhile,
other Marines from the 1st
Defense Battalion broke out firefighting
equipment, as shrapnel from exploding
antiaircraft shells began to
strike the roof of the barracks and
adjacent buildings.</p>
<p>At about 0820, Majors Roberts
and Benner reached the Marine Barracks
just in time to observe the beginning
of the Japanese second wave
attacks against Pearl. Roberts found
that Lieutenant O’Halloran had gotten
the 3d Battalion ready for battle,
with seven .50-caliber and six
.30-caliber machine guns set up and
with ammunition belted. Under Captain
Harry O. Smith, Jr., commanding
officer of Battery H, Machine
Gun Group, 3d Defense Battalion,
the 3d’s Marine gunners had already
claimed one Japanese plane shot
down. Lieutenant Noyes was, meanwhile,
in the process of deploying
seven 3-inch guns—three on the west
end of the parade ground and four
on the east.</p>
<p>Sergeant Major Leland H. Alexander,
of the Headquarters and Service
Battery of the 3d Defense
Battalion, suggested to Lieutenant
O’Halloran that an armed convoy be
organized to secure ammunition for
the guns, as none was available in the
Navy Yard proper. Roberts gave
Alexander permission to put together
the requisite trucks, weapons, and
men. Lieutenant Colonel Bone had
the same idea, and, accordingly dispatched
a truck at 0830 to the nearest
ammunition dump near Fort Kamehameha.
Bone ordered another
group of men from the 5-inch battery
to the Naval Ammunition Depot at
Lualualei just in case. He hoped that
at least one truck would get through
the maelstrom of traffic. Marines
from the 2d Engineer Battalion made
ammunition runs as well as provided
men and motorcycles for messengers.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, Roberts directed
Major Benner to have the 3d Battalion’s
guns operational before the ammunition
trucks returned, and to set
the fuzes for 1,000 yards, since the
guns lacked the necessary height-finding
equipment. The makeshift
emplacements, however, presented
less than ideal firing positions since
the barracks and nearby yard buildings
restricted the field of fire, and
many of the low-flying planes appeared
on the horizon only for an
instant.</p>
<p>Necessity often being the mother
of invention, Roberts devised an impromptu
fire control system, stationing
a warning section of eight men,
equipped with field glasses and led
by Lieutenant Swartz, in the center
of the parade ground. The spotters
were to pass the word to a group of
field musics who, using their instruments,
were to sound appropriate
warnings: one blast meant planes approaching
from the north; two blasts,
from the east, and so on.</p>
<p>Taking precautions against fires in
the temporary wooden barracks,
Roberts ordered hoses run out and
extinguishers placed in front of them,
along with shovels, axes, and buckets
of sand (the latter to deal with incendiary
bombs); hose reel and
chemical carts placed near the center
hydrant near the mess hall; and all
possible containers filled with water
for both fighting fires and drinking.
In addition, he ordered cooks and
messmen to prepare coffee and fill every
other container on hand with
water, and organized riflemen in
groups of about 16 to sit on the
ground with an officer or noncommissioned
officer in charge to direct
their fire. He also called for runners
from all groups in the battalion and
established his command post at the
parade ground’s south corner, and
ordered the almost 150 civilians who
had showed up looking for ways to
help out to report to the machine gun
storeroom and fill ammunition belts
and clean weapons. Among other actions,
he also instructed the battalion
sergeant major to be ready to
safeguard important papers from the
headquarters barracks.</p>
<div class="tb">* * * * *</div>
<p>Prior to Roberts’ arrival, Lieutenant
(j.g.) William R. Franklin
(Dental Corps), USN, the dental
officer for the 3d Defense Battalion’s
Headquarters and Service Battery,
and the only medical officer present,
had organized first aid and stretcher
parties in the barracks. As the other
doctors arrived, Roberts directed
them to set up dressing stations at
each battalion headquarters and one
at sick bay. Elsewhere, Marines vacated
one 100-man temporary barracks,
the noncommissioned officer’s
club and the post exchange, to ready
them for casualties. Parties of Marines
also reported to the waterfront
area to assist in collecting and transporting
casualties from the ships in
the harbor to the Naval Hospital.</p>
<p>By the time the Marines had gotten
their new fire precautions in
place, the Japanese second wave attack
was in full swing. Although
their pilots selected targets exclusively
from among the Pacific Fleet warships,
the Marines at the barracks in
the Navy Yard still were able to take
the Japanese planes, most of which
seemed to be coming in from the west
and southwest, under fire. While
Marines were busily setting up the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_27">27</span>
3-inch guns, several civilian yard
workmen grabbed up rifles and
“brought their fire to bear upon the
enemy,” allowing Swartz’s men to
continue their work.</p>
<div id="ip_27" class="figcenter" style="max-width: 35em;">
<ANTIMG src="images/i_027.jpg" width-obs="558" height-obs="385" alt="" />
<div class="captionr"><p>Naval Historical Center Photo NH 50928</p>
</div>
<div class="caption">
<p><i>Oily smoke from the burning</i> Arizona (<i>BB-39</i>) <i>boils up in the
background beyond the Navy Yard water towers, one of them,
in center, signal-flag bedecked. Note several Marines attempting
to deploy a 3-inch antiaircraft gun in the foreground.</i></p>
</div>
</div>
<p>The Japanese eventually put Major
Roberts’ ingenious fire control
methods—the field musics—to the
test. After hearing four hearty blasts
from the bandsmen, the .50-calibers
began hammering out cones of tracer
that caught two low-flying dive bombers
as they pulled out of their runs
over Pearl, prompting Roberts’ fear
that the ships would fire at them, too,
and hit the barracks. One Val slanted
earthward near what appeared to
be either the west end of the lower
tank farm or the south end of the
Naval Hospital reservation, while the
other, emitting great quantities of
smoke, crashed west-southwest of the
parade ground.</p>
<p>Although the Marines success
against their tormentors must have
seemed sweet indeed, a skeptical
Captain Taxis thought it more likely
that the crews of the two Vals
bagged by the machine gunners had
just run out of luck. Most of the firing,
in his opinion, had been quite
ineffectual, mostly “directed at enemy
planes far beyond range of the
weapons and merely fired into the air
at no target at all.” Gunners on board
the fleet’s warships were faring little
better!</p>
<p>Almost simultaneously with the
dive-bombing attacks, horizontal
bombing attacks began. Major
Roberts noted that the 18 bombers
“flew in two Vees of nine planes each
in column of Vees and [that] they
kept a good formation.” At least
some of those planes appeared to
have bombed the battleship <i>Pennsylvania</i>
and the destroyers <i>Cassin</i> and
<i>Downes</i> in Dry Dock No. 1. In the
confusion, however, Roberts probably
saw two divisions of <i>Kates</i> from
<i>Zuikaku</i> preparing for their attack
runs on Hickam Field. A single division
of such planes from <i>Shokaku</i>,
meanwhile, attacked the Navy Yard
and the Naval Air Station.</p>
<p>Well removed from the barracks,
Marines assigned to the Navy Yards
Fire Department rendered invaluable
assistance in leading critical firefighting
efforts. Heading the department,
Sergeant Harold F. Abbott supervised
the distribution of the
various units, and coordinated the
flood of volunteers who stepped forward
to help.</p>
<p>One of Abbott’s men, Private First
Class Marion M. Milbrandt, with his
1,000-gallon pumper, summoned to
the Naval Hospital grounds, found
that one of <i>Kaga</i>’s Kates—struck by
machine gun fire from the ships
moored in the Repair Basin—had<span class="pagenum" id="Page_28">28</span>
crashed near there. The resulting fire,
fed by the crashed plane’s gasoline,
threatened the facility, but Milbrandt
and his crew controlled the blaze.</p>
<p>Other Marine firefighters were
hard at work alongside Dry Dock
No. 1. <i>Pennsylvania</i> had not been the
only ship not fully ready for war,
since she lay immobile at one end of
the drydock. <i>Downes</i> lay in the
dock, undergoing various items of
work, while <i>Cassin</i> had been having
ordnance alterations at the Yard and
thus had none of her 5-inch/38s
ready for firing. Both destroyers soon
came in for some unwanted attention.</p>
<p>As bombs turned the two destroyers
into cauldrons of flames and their
crews abandoned ship, two sailors
from <i>Downes</i>, meanwhile, sprinted
over to the Marine Barracks: Gunner’s
Mate First Class Michael G.
Odietus and Gunner’s Mate Second
Class Curtis P. Schulze. After the
order to abandon ship had been
given, both had, on their own initiative,
gone to the Marine Barracks to
assist in the distribution of arms and
ammunition. They soon returned,
however, each gunner’s mate with a
Browning Automatic Rifle in hand,
to do his part in fighting back.</p>
<div id="ip_28" class="bbox b2 figcenter" style="max-width: 35em;">
<ANTIMG src="images/i_028.jpg" width-obs="559" height-obs="415" alt="" />
<div class="caption"><p class="center larger"><i>Antiaircraft Gun Fired to a Range of 14,500 Yards</i></p>
</div>
<div class="caption">
<p class="dc a"><span class="smcap1">A</span> 5-inch/25-caliber open pedestal mount antiaircraft
gun—manned here by sailors on
board the heavy cruiser <i>Astoria</i> (CA-34) in
early 1942—was the standard battleship and heavy
cruiser antiaircraft weapon at Pearl Harbor. The
mount itself weighed more than 20,000 pounds, while
the gun fired a 53.8-pound projectile to a maximum
range (at 45 degrees elevation) of 14,500 yards. It was
a weapon such as this that Sergeants Hailey and
Wears, and Private First Class Curran, after the sinking
of their ship, <i>Oklahoma</i> (BB-37), helped man on
board <i>Maryland</i> (BB-46) on 7 December 1941.</p>
</div>
</div>
<p>Utilizing three of the department’s
pumpers, meanwhile, the first firefighters
from the yard, who included
Corporal John Gimson, Privates
First Class William M. Brashear, William
A. Hopper, Peter Kerdikes,
Frank W. Feret, Marvin D. Dallman,
and Corporal Milbrandt, among
them, soon arrived and began to play<span class="pagenum" id="Page_29">29</span>
water on the burning ships. At about
0915, four torpedo warheads on
board <i>Downes</i> cooked off and exploded,
the concussion tearing the
hoses from the hands of the men
fighting the blaze and sending fragments
everywhere, temporarily forcing
all hands to retreat to the nearby
road and sprawl there. Knocked flat
several times by the explosions, the
Marines and other firefighters, which
included men from <i>Cassin</i> and
<i>Downes</i>, and civilian yard workmen,
remained on the job.</p>
<p>Explosions continued to wrack the
two destroyers, while subsequent
partial flooding of the dock caused
<i>Cassin</i> to pivot on her forefoot and
heel over onto her sister ship. Working
under the direction of Lieutenant
William R. Spear, a 57-year-old retired
naval officer called to the colors,
the firemen were understandably
concerned that the oil fires burning
in proximity to the two destroyers
might drift aft in the partially flooded
dry dock and breach the caisson,
unleashing a wall of water that
would carry <i>Pennsylvania</i> (three of
whose four propeller shafts had been
pulled for overhaul) down upon the
burning destroyers. Preparing for
that eventuality, Private First Class
Don O. Femmer, in charge of the
750-gallon pumper, stood ready
should the conflagration spread to
the northeast through the dock.</p>
<p>Fortunately, circumstances never
required Femmer and his men to defend
the caisson from fire, but the
young private had more than his
share of troubles, when his pumper
broke down at what could have been
a critical moment. Undaunted, Femmer
made temporary repairs and
stood his ground at the caisson
throughout the raid.</p>
<p>At the opposite end of the dry
dock, meanwhile, Private First Class
Omar E. Hill fared little better with
his 500-gallon pumper. As if the firefighting
labors were not arduous
enough, a ruptured circulating water
line threatened to shut down his fire
engine. Holding a rag on the broken
line while his comrades raced away
to obtain spare parts, Hill kept his
pumper in the battle.</p>
<div id="ip_29" class="figcenter" style="max-width: 37.5em;">
<ANTIMG src="images/i_029.jpg" width-obs="593" height-obs="375" alt="" />
<div class="captionr"><p>National Archives Photo 80-G-32739</p>
</div>
<div class="caption">
<p><i>While firefighters train massive jets of water from dockside at left</i>, Shaw (<i>DD-373</i>)
<i>burns in the Floating Drydock YFD-2, after being hit by three bombs. Tug</i> Sotoyomo
(<i>YT-9</i>), <i>with which</i> Shaw <i>has been sharing the drydock, is barely visible ahead
of the crippled destroyer. Marines led these firefighting efforts on 7 December 1941.</i></p>
</div>
</div>
<p>Meanwhile, firefighters on the
west side of the dock succeeded in
passing three hoses to men on <i>Pennsylvania</i>’s
forecastle, where they
directed blasts of water ahead of the
ship and down the starboard side to
prevent the burning oil, which resembled
a “seething cauldron,” from drifting
aft. A second 500-gallon engine
crew, led by Private First Class
Dallman, battled the fires at the
southwest end of the drydock,
despite the suffocating oily black
smoke billowing forth from <i>Cassin</i>
and <i>Downes</i>. Eventually, by 1035,
the Marines and other volunteers—who
included the indomitable Tai
Sing Loo—had succeeded in quelling
the fires on board <i>Cassin</i>; those on
board <i>Downes</i> were put out early
that afternoon.</p>
<p>More work, however, lay in store
for Corporal Milbrandt and his crew.
Between 0755 and 0900, three Vals
had attacked the destroyer <i>Shaw</i>
(DD-373), which shared <i>YFD-2</i> with
the little yard tug <i>Sotoyomo</i>. All
three scored hits. Fires ultimately
reached <i>Shaw’</i>s forward magazines
and triggered an explosion that sent
tendrils of smoke into the sky and
severed the ship’s bow. Several other
volunteer units were already battling
the blaze with hose carts and two
350-gallon pumpers sent in from
Honolulu. Milbrandt, aided as well
by the Pan American Airways fire
boat normally stationed at Pearl
City, ultimately succeeded in extinguishing
the stricken destroyer’s fires.</p>
<p>In the meantime, after having
pounded the military installations on
Oahu for nearly two hours, between
0940 and 1000 the Japanese planes
made their way westward to return
to the carrier decks from whence they
had arisen. With the respite offered
by the enemy’s departure (no one
knew for sure whether or not they
would be back), the Marines at last
found time to take stock of their situation.
Fortunately, the Marine Barracks
lay some distance away from
what had interested the Japanese the
most: the ships in the harbor proper.
Although some “shell fragments literally
rained at times” the material loss
sustained by the barracks was slight.
Moreover, it had been American
gunfire from the ships in the harbor,
rather than bombs from Japanese
planes overhead, that had inflicted<span class="pagenum" id="Page_30">30</span>
the damage; at one point that morning
a 3-inch antiaircraft shell crashed
through the roof of a storehouse—the
only damage sustained by the
barracks during the entire attack.</p>
<p>Considering the carnage at the airfields
on Oahu, and especially,
among the units of the Pacific Fleet,
only four men of the 3d Defense Battalion
had been wounded: Sergeant
Samuel H. Cobb, Jr., of the 3d
Defense Battalion’s 3-inch Antiaircraft
Group, suffered head injuries
serious enough to warrant his being
transferred to the Naval Hospital for
treatment, while Private First Class
Jules B. Maioran and Private William
J. Whitcomb of the Machine Gun
Group and Sergeant Leo Hendricks
II, of the Headquarters and Service
Battery, suffered less serious injuries.
In addition, two men sent with the
trucks to find ammunition for the
3-inch batteries suffered injuries
when they fell off the vehicles.</p>
<p>In their subsequent reports, the
defense battalion and barracks
officers declined to single out individuals,
noting no outstanding individual
behavior during the
raid—only the steady discharge of
duty expected of Marines. To be sure,
great confusion existed, especially at
first, but the command quickly settled
down to work and “showed no
more than the normal excitement and
no trace of panic or even uneasiness.”
If anything, the Marines tended to
place themselves at risk unnecessarily,
as they went about their business
coolly and, in many cases, “in utter
disregard of their own safety.” Major
Roberts recommended that the entire
3d Defense Battalion be commended
for “their initiative, coolness under
fire, and [the] alacrity with which
they emplaced their guns.”</p>
<p>Commendations, however, were
not the order of the day on 7 December.
Although the Japanese had left,
the Marines expected them to return
and finish the job they had begun
(many Japanese pilots, including
Fuchida, wanted to do just that). If
another attack was to come, there
was much to do to prepare for it. As
the skies cleared of enemy planes, the
Marines at the barracks secured their
establishment and took steps to complete
the work already begun on the
defenses. At 1030, the 3d Defense
Battalion’s corporal of the guard
moved to the barracks and set the
battalion’s radio to the Army Information
Service frequency, thus enabling
them to pass “flash” messages
to all groups. The Marines also distributed
gas masks to all hands.</p>
<div id="ip_30" class="figright" style="max-width: 13.5em;">
<ANTIMG src="images/i_030.jpg" width-obs="214" height-obs="263" alt="" />
<div class="captionr"><p>National Archives Photo 80-G-19943</p>
</div>
<div class="caption">
<p><i>In the aftermath of the attack</i>, Pennsylvania
(<i>BB-38</i>) <i>lies astern of the wrecked
destroyers</i> Cassin (<i>DD-372</i>) <i>and</i> Downes
(<i>DD-375</i>) <i>in Dry Dock No. 1. Light
cruiser</i> Helena (<i>CL-50</i>) <i>lies alongside
1010 Dock in right background; pall of
smoke is from the still-burning</i> Arizona
(<i>BB-39</i>). <i>Marine firefighters distinguished
themselves in battling blazes in this area.</i></p>
</div>
</div>
<p>The morning and afternoon passed
quickly, the men losing track of time.
The initial confusion experienced
during the opening moments of the
raid had by that point given way to
at least some semblance of order, as
officers and noncoms arrived from
leave and began to sort out their
commands. At 1105, the 3d Defense
Battalion’s Battery G deployed to
makeshift defense positions as an infantry
reserve in some ditches dug for
building foundations. All of the
messmen, many of whom had taken
an active hand in the defense of the
barracks against the Japanese attack,
returned to the three general mess
halls and opened up an around-the-clock
service to all comers, including
“about 6,000 meals ... to the civilian
workmen of the navy yard,” a service
discontinued only “after the food
supply at the regular established eating
places could be replenished.”</p>
<p>By 1100, at least some of the
3-inch batteries were emplaced and
ready to answer any future Japanese
raids. At the north end of the parade
ground, the 3d Defense Battalion’s
Battery D stood ready for action at
1135 while another battery, consisting
of three guns and an antiaircraft
director (the one originally earmarked
for Midway) lay at the south
end. At 1220, Major Roberts organized
his battalion’s strength into
six task groups. Task group no. 1 was
to double the Navy Yard guard force,
no. 2 was to provide antiaircraft
defense, and no. 3 was to provide
machine gun defense. No. 4 was to
provide infantry reserve and firefighting
crews, no. 5 was to coordinate
transportation, and no. 6 was
to provide ammunition and equipment,
as well as messing and billeting
support.</p>
<p>By 1300, meanwhile, all of the fires
in Dry Dock No. 1 had been extinguished,
permitting the Marine and
civilian firefighters to secure their
hard-worked equipment. Although
the two battered destroyers, <i>Cassin</i>
and <i>Downes</i>, appeared to be total
losses, those who had battled the
blaze could take great satisfaction in
knowing that they had not only
spared <i>Pennsylvania</i> from serious fire
damage but had also played a major
role in saving the drydock. As Tai
Sing Loo recounted later in his own
brand of English: “The Marines of the
Fire Dep[artmen]t of the Navy Yard
are the Heroes of the Day of Dec. 7,
1941 that save the <i>Cassin</i> and
<i>Downes</i> and USS <i>Pennsylvania</i> in
Dry Dock No. 1.”</p>
<p>Later that afternoon, Battery D’s
four officers and 68 enlisted men,
with four .30-caliber machine guns<span class="pagenum" id="Page_31">31</span>
sent along with them for good measure,
moved from the barracks over
to Hickam Field to provide the Army
installation some measure of antiaircraft
protection. Hickam also
benefitted from the provision of the
2d Engineer Battalion’s service and
equipment. After the attack, the battalion’s
dump truck and two bulldozers
lumbered over to the stricken air
base to assist in clearing what remained
of the bombers that had been
parked wingtip to wingtip, and filling
bomb craters.</p>
<div class="tb">* * * * *</div>
<p>Around 1530, a Marine patrol approached
Tai Sing Loo, a familiar
figure about the Navy Yard, and
asked him to do them a favor. They
had had no lunch; some had had no
breakfast because of the events of the
day. Going to the garage, Loo rode
his bright red “putput” over to the 3d
Defense Battalion mess hall and
related to his old friend Technical Sergeant
Joseph A. Newland the tale of
the hungry Marines. Newland and
his messmen prepared ham and
chicken sandwiches and Loo made
the rounds of all the posts he could
reach.</p>
<div class="tb">* * * * *</div>
<p>In the afternoon and early evening
hours of 7 December, the men
received reports that their drinking
water was poisoned, and that various
points on Oahu were being
bombed and/or invaded. In the absence
of any real news, such alarming
reports—especially when added
to the already nervous state of the
defenders—only fueled the fear and
paranoia prevalent among all ranks
and rates. In addition, most of the
men were exhausted after their exertions
of the morning and afternoon.
Dog-tired, many would remain on
duty for 36 hours without relief.
Drawn, unshaven faces and puffy
eyes were common. Tense, expectant
and anxious Marines and sailors at
Pearl spent a fitful night on the 7th.</p>
<div class="tb">* * * * *</div>
<p>It is little wonder that mistakes
would be made that would have tragic
consequences, especially in the
stygian darkness of that first blacked-out
Hawaiian night following the
raid. Still some hours away from
Oahu, the carrier <i>Enterprise</i> and her
air group had been flying searches
and patrols throughout the day, in a
so-far fruitless effort to locate the
Japanese carrier force. South of
Oahu, one of her pilots spotted what
he thought was a Japanese ship and
<i>Enterprise</i> launched a 31-plane strike
at 1642. Nagumo’s fleet, however,
was homeward bound. While <i>Enterprise</i>
recovered the torpedo planes
and dive bombers after their fruitless
search, she directed the fighters to
land at NAS Pearl Harbor.</p>
<p>Machine guns on board the battleship
<i>Pennsylvania</i> opened fire on the
flight as it came for a landing,
though, and soon the entire harbor
exploded into a fury of gunfire as
cones of tracers converged on the incoming
“Wildcats.” Three of the F4Fs
slanted earthward almost immediately;
a fourth crashed a short time
later. Two managed to land at Ford
Island. The 3d Defense Battalion’s
journalist later recorded that “six
planes with running lights under 400
feet altitude tried Ford Island landing
and were machine gunned.” It was
a tragic footnote to what had been
a terrible day indeed.</p>
<p>The Marines at Pearl Harbor had
been surprised by the attack that
descended upon them, but they rose
to the occasion and fought back in
the “best traditions of the naval service.”
While the enemy had attacked
with tenacity and daring, no less so
was the response from the Marines
on board the battleships and cruisers,
at Ewa Mooring Mast Field, and
at the Marine Barracks. One can only
think that Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto’s
worst fears of America’s “terrible
resolve” and that he had awakened
a sleeping giant would have been
confirmed if he could have peered
into the faces, so deeply etched with
grim determination, of the Marines
who had survived the events of that
December day in 1941.</p>
<div id="ip_31" class="figcenter bbox" style="max-width: 26em;">
<ANTIMG src="images/i_031.jpg" width-obs="414" height-obs="236" alt="" />
<div class="captionr"><p><i>Photo courtesy of Mrs. Evelyn Lee, via Paul Stillwell, U.S. Naval Institute</i></p>
</div>
<div class="caption">
<p class="center larger p1"><i>Tai Sing Loo and His Bright Red ‘Putput’</i></p>
<p class="dc"><span class="smcap1">Tai</span> Sing Loo, Navy Yard photographer, had scheduled an
appointment to take a picture of the Main Gate guards at the
Navy Yard on the morning of 7 December 1941. While he ended
up not taking pictures of the Marines, he gallantly helped the Marines
of the Navy Yard Fire Department put out fires in Dry Dock No.
1 and later delivered food to famished Leathernecks. He is seen here
on his famous bright red “putput” that he drove around the yard that
day delivering sandwiches and fruit juice.</p>
</div>
</div>
<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_32">32</span></p>
<h2 class="p1">Pearl Harbor Remembered</h2>
<p>Several of the many memoirs in the Marine Corps Oral
History Collection are by Marines who were serving at
Pearl Harbor on 7 December 1941, and personally witnessed
the Japanese attack. Two such memoirs—one by
Lieutenant General Alan Shapley and a second by Brigadier
General Samuel R. Shaw—vividly describe the events of
that day as they remembered it. General Shapley, a major
in December 1941, had been relieved as commander of <i>Arizona</i>’s
Marine detachment on the 6th. He recalled:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>I was just finishing my breakfast, and I was just
about ready to go to my room and get in my baseball
uniform to play the <i>Enterprise</i> for the baseball championship
of the United States Fleet, and I heard this
terrible bang and crash. I thought it was a motor sailer
that they dropped on the fantail, and I ran up there
to see what it was all about. When I got up on deck
there, the sailors were aligned on the railing there, looking
towards Pearl Harbor, and I heard two or three of
them say, ‘This is the best damned drill the Army Air
Corps has ever put on.’ Then we saw a destroyer being
blown up in the dry dock across the way.</p>
<p>The first thing I knew was when the fantail, which
was wood, was being splintered when we were being
strafed by machine guns. And then there was a little
bit of confusion, and I can remember this because they
passed the word on ship that all unengaged personnel
get below the third deck. You see, in a battleship the
third deck is the armored deck, and so realizing what
was going on, this attack and being strafed, the unengaged
personnel were ordered below the third deck.</p>
<p>That started some people going down the ladders.
Then right after that, the <i>Pennsylvania</i>, which was the
flagship of the whole fleet, put up these signals, “Go
to general quarters.” So that meant that the people were
going the other way too. Lt [Carleton E.] Simensen did
quite a job of turning some of the sailors around, and
we went up in the director. [On the way up the mainmast
tripod, Lt Simensen was killed.] He caught a burst
through the heart and almost knocked me off the tripod
because I was behind him on the ladder, and I
boosted him up in the searchlight platform and went
in to my director. And of course when I got up there,
there were only seven or eight men there, and I thought
we were all going to get cooked to death because I
couldn’t see anything but fire below after a while. I
stayed there and watched this whole attack, because
I had a grandstand seat for that, and then it got pretty
hot. Anyway, the wind was blowing from the stern to
the stem and I sent the men down and got those men
off. Then I apparently got knocked off or blown off.</p>
<p>I was pretty close to shore.... There was a dredging
pipeline that ran between the ship and Ford Island.
And I guess that I was only about 25 yards from the
pipeline and 10 yards from Ford Island, and managed
to get ashore. I wasn’t so much covered with oil. I didn’t
have any clothes on. [The burning fuel oil] burnt all
my clothes off. I walked up to the airfield which wasn’t
very bright of me, because this was still being attacked
at first. I wanted to get a machine gun in the administration
building but I couldn’t do that. Then I was given
a boat cloak from one of my men. It was quite a sight
to see 400 or 500 men walking around all burnt, just
like charred steak. You could just see their eyes and
their mouths. It was terrible. Later I went over to the
island and went to the Marine barracks and got some
clothes.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>At the Marine Barracks, Captain Samuel R. Shaw, who
commanded one of the two barracks companies, vividly
remembered that Sunday morning as well:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>The boat guards were in place, and the music was
out there, and the old and new officer of the day. And
we had a music, and a hell of a fine sergeant bugler
who had been in Shanghai. He would stand beside the
officers of the day, and there came the airplanes, and
he looked up and he said, “Captain, those are Japanese
war planes.” And one of the two of them said, “My
God, they are, sound the call to arms.” So the bugler
started sounding the call to arms before the first bomb
hit.</p>
<p>Of course they had already started taking out the
machine guns. They didn’t wait for the key in the OD’s
office, they just broke the door down and hauled out
the machine guns, put them in position. Everybody
that wasn’t involved in that drill grabbed their rifles
and ran out in the parade ground, and starting firing
at the airplanes. They must have had several hundred
men out there with rifles. And every [Japanese] plane
that was recovered there, or pieces of it, had lots of
.30-caliber holes—somebody was hitting them,
machine guns or rifles.</p>
<p>Then I remembered—here we had all these guys on
the post who had not been relieved, and they had been
posted at 4 o’clock, and come 9 o’clock, 9:30 they not
only had not been relieved but had no chow and no
water. So I got hold of the mess sergeant and told him
to organize, to go around to the posts.</p>
<p>They had a depot. At the beginning it was a supply
depot. I told him to send a party over there and draw
a lot of canteens and make sandwiches, and we’d send
water and sandwiches around to the guys on posts until
we found out some way to relieve all these guys, and
get people back. Then he told me that it was fine except
that he didn’t have nearly enough messmen, they
were all out in the parade ground shooting. I think the
second phase of planes came in at that time and we
had a hell of an uproar.</p>
</blockquote>
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