Infamous Day: Marines At Pearl Harbor 7 December 1941 — Part 2

Unlike the battleships the enemy had caught moored on Battleship Row, _Pennsylvania_ (BB-38), the fleet flagship, lay on keel blocks, sharing Dry Dock No. 1 at the Navy Yard with _Cassin_ (DD-372) and _Downes_ (DD-375)--two destroyers side-by-side ahead of her.

Three of _Pennsylvania_’s four propeller shafts had been removed and she was receiving all steam, power, and water from the yard.

Although her being in drydock had excused her from taking part in antiaircraft drills, her crew swiftly manned her machine guns after the first bombs exploded among the PBY flying boats parked on the south end of Ford Island.

“Air defense stations” then sounded, followed by “general quarters.

” Men knocked the locks off ready-use ammunition stowage and _Pennsylvania_ opened fire about 0802. [Illustration: _Close-up of the forward superstructure of_ Nevada (_BB-36_) _taken a few days after the Japanese attack as the battleship lay beached off Waipio Point.

In the upper portion of this view can be seen the forward machine gun position with its four .

50-caliber water-cooled Brownings--the ones manned by Gunnery Sergeant Douglas and his men during the battle on 7 December.

Note the extensive fire damage to the superstructure below.

In the lower portion of the picture can be seen one of the ship’s 5-inch/51s, of the type manned by Corporal Driskell at the start of the action.

_] The fleet flagship and the two destroyers nestled in the drydock ahead of her led a charmed life until dive bombers from _Soryu_ and _Hiryu_ targeted the drydock area between 0830 and 0915. [B] One bomb penetrated _Pennsylvania_’s boat deck, just to the rear of 5-inch/25 gun no. 7, and detonated in casemate no. 9. Of _Pennsylvania_’s Marine detachment, two men (Privates Patrick P. Tobin and George H. Wade, Jr. ) died outright, 13 fell wounded, and six were listed as missing.

Three of the wounded--Corporal Morris E. Nations and Jesse C. Vincent, Jr. , and Private First Class Floyd D. Stewart--died later the same day.

[B] For what became of the two destroyers, and the Marines decorated for bravery in the battle to try to save them, see page 28–29. [Illustration: Lieutenant Colonel Daniel Russel Fox, USMC, as the Division Marine Officer on the staff of Rear Admiral Isaac C. Kidd, Commander, Battleship Division One, was the most senior Marine officer to die on board _Arizona_ on the morning of 7 December 1941. Fox had enlisted in the Marine Corps in 1916. For heroism in France on 4 October 1918, when he was a member of the 17th Company, Fifth Marines, he was awarded the Navy Cross.

He also was decorated with the Army’s Distinguished Service Cross and the French Croix de Guerre.

Fox was commissioned in 1921 and later served in Nicaragua as well as China.

] As the onslaught descended upon the battleships and the air station, Marine detachments hurried to their battle stations on board other ships elsewhere at Pearl.

In the Navy Yard lay _Argonne_ (AG-31), the flagship of the Base Force, the heavy cruisers _New Orleans_ (CA-32) and _San Francisco_ (CA-38), and the light cruisers _Honolulu_ (CL-48), _St.

Louis_ (CL-49) and _Helena_ (CL-50).

To the northeast of Ford Island lay the light cruiser _Phoenix_ (CL-43).

Although _Utah_ was torpedoed and sunk at her berth early in the attack, her 14 Marines, on temporary duty at the 14th Naval District Rifle Range, found useful employment combatting the enemy.

The Fleet Machine Gun School lay on Oahu’s south coast, west of the Pearl Harbor entrance channel, at Fort Weaver.

The men stationed there, including several Marines on temporary duty from the carrier _Enterprise_ and the battleships _California_ and _Pennsylvania_, sprang to action at the first sounds of war.

Working with the men from the Rifle Range, all hands set up and mounted guns, and broke out and belted ammunition between 0755 and 0810. All those present at the range were issued pistols or rifles from the facility’s armory.

Soon after the raid began, Platoon Sergeant Harold G. Edwards set about securing the camp against any incursion the Japanese might attempt from the landward side, and also supervised the emplacement of machine guns along the beach.

Lieutenant (j. g. ) Roy R. Nelson, the officer in charge of the Rifle Range, remembered the many occasions when Captain Frank M. Reinecke, commanding officer of _Utah_’s Marine detachment and the senior instructor at the Fleet Machine Gun School (and, as his Naval Academy classmates remembered, quite a conversationalist), had maintained that the school’s weapons would be a great asset if anybody ever attacked Hawaii.

By 0810, Reinecke’s gunners stood ready to prove the point and soon engaged the enemy--most likely torpedo planes clearing Pearl Harbor or high-level bombers approaching from the south.

Nearby Army units, perhaps alerted by the Marines’ fire, opened up soon thereafter.

Unfortunately, the eager gunners succeeded in downing one of two SBDs from _Enterprise_ that were attempting to reach Hickam Field.

An Army crash boat, fortunately, rescued the pilot and his wounded passenger soon thereafter.

On board _Argonne_, meanwhile, alongside 1010 Dock, her Marines manned her starboard 3-inch/23 battery and her machine guns.

Commander Fred W.

Connor, the ship’s commanding officer, later credited Corporal Alfred Schlag with shooting down one Japanese plane as it headed for Battleship Row.

When the attack began, _Helena_ lay moored alongside 1010 Dock, the venerable minelayer _Oglala_ (CM-3) outboard.

A signalman, standing watch on the light cruiser’s signal bridge at 0757 identified the planes over Ford Island as Japanese, and the ship went to general quarters.

Before she could fire a shot in her own defense, however, one 800-kilogram torpedo barrelled into her starboard side about a minute after the general alarm had begun summoning her men to their battle stations.

The explosion vented up from the forward engine room through the hatch and passageways, catching many of the crew running to their stations, and started fires on the third deck.

Platoon Sergeant Robert W.

Teague, Privates First Class Paul F. Huebner, Jr. and George E. Johnson, and Private Lester A. Morris were all severely burned.

Johnson later died.

[Illustration: National Archives Photo 80-G-32854 _Beneath a leaden sky on 8 December 1941, Marines at NAS Kaneohe Bay fire a volley over the common grave of 15 officers and men killed during the Japanese raid the previous day.

Note sandbagged position atop the sandy rise at right.

_] To the southeast, _New Orleans_ lay across the pier from her sister ship _San Francisco_.

The former went to general quarters soon after enemy planes had been sighted dive-bombing Ford Island around 0757. At 0805, as several low-flying torpedo planes roared by, bound for Battleship Row, Marine sentries on the fantail opened fire with rifles and .

45s.

_New Orleans_’ men, meanwhile, so swiftly manned the 1. 1-inch/75 quads, and .

50-caliber machine guns, under the direction of Captain William R. Collins, the commanding officer of the ship’s Marine detachment, that the ship actually managed to shoot at torpedo planes passing her stern.

_San Francisco_, however, under major overhaul with neither operative armament nor major caliber ammunition on board, was thus restricted to having her men fire small arms at whatever Japanese planes came within range.

Some of her crew, though, hurried over to _New Orleans_, which was near-missed by one bomb, and helped man her 5-inchers.

_St.

Louis_, outboard of _Honolulu_, went to general quarters at 0757 and opened fire with her 1. 1 quadruple mounted antiaircraft and 50-caliber machine gun batteries, and after getting her 5-inch mounts in commission by 0830--although without power in train--she hauled in her lines at 0847 and got underway at 0931. With all 5-inchers in full commission by 0947, she proceeded to sea, passing the channel entrance buoys abeam around 1000. _Honolulu_, damaged by a near miss from a bomb, remained moored at her berth throughout the action.

_Phoenix_, moored by herself in berth C-6 in Pearl Harbor, to the northeast of Ford Island, noted the attacking planes at 0755 and went to general quarters.

Her machine gun battery opened fire at 0810 on the attacking planes as they came within range; her antiaircraft battery five minutes later.

Ultimately, after two false starts (where she had gotten underway and left her berth only to see sortie signals cancelled each time) _Phoenix_ cleared the harbor later that day and put to sea.

For at least one Marine, though, the day’s adventure was not over when the Japanese planes departed.

Search flights took off from Ford Island, pilots taking up utility aircraft with scratch crews, to look for the enemy carriers which had launched the raid.

Mustered at the naval air station on Ford Island, _Oklahoma_’s Sergeant Hailey, still clad in his oil-soaked underwear, volunteered to go up in a plane that was leaving on a search mission at around 1130. He remained aloft in the plane, armed with a rifle, for some five hours.

After the attacking planes had retired, the grim business of cleaning up and getting on with the war had to be undertaken.

Muster had to be taken to determine who was missing, who was wounded, who lay dead.

Men sought out their friends and shipmates.

First Lieutenant Cornelius C. Smith, Jr. , from the Marine Barracks at the Navy Yard, searched in vain among the maimed and dying at the Naval Hospital later that day, for his friend Harry Gaver from _Oklahoma_.

Death respected no rank.

The most senior Marine to die that day was Lieutenant Colonel Daniel R. Fox, the decorated World War I hero and the division Marine officer on the staff of the Commander, Battleship Division One, Rear Admiral Isaac C.

Kidd, who, along with Lieutenant Colonel Fox, had been killed in _Arizona_.

The tragedy of Pearl Harbor struck some families with more force than others: numbered among _Arizona_’s lost were Private Gordon E.

Shive, of the battleship’s Marine detachment, and his brother, Radioman Third Class Malcolm H. Shive, a member of the ship’s company.

Over the next few days, Marines from the sunken ships received reassignment to other vessels--_Nevada_’s Marines deployed ashore to set up defensive positions in the fields adjacent to the grounded and listing battleship--and the dead, those who could be found, were interred with appropriate ceremony.

Eventually, the deeds of Marines in the battleship detachments were recognized by appropriate commendations and advancements in ratings.

Chief among them, Gunnery Sergeant Douglas, Sergeant Hailey, and Corporals Driskell and Darling were each awarded the Navy Cross.

For his “meritorious conduct at the peril of his own life,” Major Shapley was commended and awarded the Silver Star.

Lieutenant Simensen was awarded a posthumous Bronze Star, while _Tennessee_’s commanding officer commended Captain White for the way in which he had directed that battleship’s antiaircraft guns that morning.

Titanic salvage efforts raised some of the sunken battleships--_California_, _West Virginia_, and _Nevada_--and they, like the surviving Marines, went on to play a part in the ultimate defeat of the enemy who had begun the war with such swift and terrible suddenness.

_They Caught Us Flat-Footed_ At 0740, when Fuchida’s fliers had closed to within a few miles of Kahuku Point, the 43 Zeroes split away from the rest of the formation, swinging out north and west of Wheeler Field, the headquarters of the Hawaiian Air Force’s 18th Pursuit Wing.

Passing further to the south, at about 0745 the _Soryu_ and _Hiryu_ divisions executed a hard diving turn to port and headed north, toward Wheeler.

Eleven Zeroes from _Shokaku_ and _Zuikaku_ simultaneously left the formation and flew east, crossing over Oahu north of Pearl Harbor to attack NAS Kaneohe Bay.

Eighteen from _Akagi_ and _Kaga_ headed toward what the Japanese called _Babasu Pointo Hikojo_ (Barbers Point Airdrome)--Ewa Mooring Mast Field.

Sweeping over the Waianae Range, Lieutenant Commander Shigeru Itaya led _Akagi_’s nine Zeroes, while Lieutenant Yoshio Shiga headed another division of nine from _Kaga_.

After the initial attack, Itaya and Shiga were to be followed by divisions from _Soryu_, under Lieutenant Masaji Suganami, and _Hiryu_, under Lieutenant Kiyokuma Okajima, which were, at that moment, involved in attacking Wheeler to the north.

[Illustration: Author’s Collection _Ewa Mooring Mast Field, later a Japanese target, is seen hazily through the windshield of a Battleship Row-bound Kate shortly before 0800 on 7 December 1941. _] In the officers’ mess at Ewa, the officer-of-the-day, Captain Leonard W.

Ashwell of VMJ-252, noticed two formations of aircraft at 0755. The first looked like 18 “torpedo planes” flying at 1,000 feet toward Pearl Harbor from Barbers Point, but the second, to the northwest, comprised about 21 planes, just coming over the hills from the direction of Nanakuli, also at an altitude of about 1,000 feet.

Ashwell, intrigued by the sight, stepped outside for a better look.

The second formation, of single-seat fighters (the two divisions from _Akagi_ and _Kaga_), flew just to the north of Ewa and wheeled to the right.

Then, flying in a “string” formation, they commenced firing.

Recognizing the planes as Japanese, Ashwell burst back into the mess, shouting: “Air Raid ...

Air Raid!

Pass the word!

” He then sprinted for the guard house, to have “call to arms” sounded.

[Illustration: _Browning Machine Gun Drill On Board Ship_ Marines man a water-cooled, .

50-caliber Browning M2 machine gun during a drill on board the gunnery training ship _Wyoming_ (AG-17) in late 1941. The M2 Browning weighed (without water) 100 pounds, 8 ounces, and measured five feet, six inches in length.

It fired between 550 and 700 rounds per minute to a maximum horizontal range of 7,400 yards.

The two hoses carry coolant water to the gun barrel.

The gun could be fired without the prescribed two and a half gallons of cooling water--as Gunnery Sergeant Douglas’s men did on board _Nevada_ (BB-36) on 7 December 1941--but accuracy diminished as the barrel heated and the pattern of shots became more widely dispersed.

Experience would reveal that a large number of .

50-caliber hits were necessary to disable a plane, and that only a small number of hits could be attained by any single ship-mounted gun against a dive bomber.

] That Sunday morning, Technical Sergeant Henry H. Anglin, the noncommissioned-officer-in-charge of the photographic section at Ewa, had driven from his Pearl City home with his three-year-old son, Hank, to take the boy’s picture at the station.

The senior Anglin had just positioned the lad in front of the camera and was about to take the photo--the picture was to be a gift to the boy’s grandparents--when they heard the “mingled noise of airplanes and machine guns.

” Roaring down to within 25 feet of the ground, Itaya’s group most likely carried out only one pass at their targets before moving on to Hickam, the headquarters of the Hawaiian Air Forces 18th Bombardment Wing.

[Illustration: Prange _LCdr Shigeru Itaya, commander of_ Akagi’_s first-wave fighters, which carried out the initial strafing attacks at Ewa Field.

_] Thinking that Army pilots were showing off, Sergeant Anglin stepped outside the photographic section tent and, along with some other enlisted men, watched planes bearing Japanese markings strafing the edge of the field.

Then, the planes began roaring down toward the field itself and the bullets from their cowl and wing-mounted guns began kicking up puffs of dirt.

“Look, live ammunition,” somebody said or thought, “Somebody’ll go to prison for this.

” Shiga’s pilots, like Itaya’s, concentrated on the tactical aircraft lined up neatly on Ewa’s northwest apron with short bursts of 7. 7- and 20-millimeter machine gun fire.

Shiga’s pilots, unlike Itaya’s, however, reversed course over the treetops and repeated their blistering attacks from the opposite direction.

Within minutes, most of MAG-21’s planes sat ablaze and exploding, black smoke corkscrewing into the sky.

The enemy spared none of the planes: the gray SBD-1s and -2s of VMSB-232 and the seven spare SB2U-3s left behind by VMSB-231 when they embarked in _Lexington_ just two days before.

VMF-211’s remaining F4F-3s, left behind when the squadron deployed to Wake well over a week before, likewise began exploding in flame and smoke.

At his home on Ewa Beach, three miles southeast of the air station, Captain Richard C. Mangrum, VMSB-232’s flight officer, sat reading the Sunday comics.

Often residents of that area had heard gunnery exercises, but on a Sunday morning?

The chatter of gunfire and the dull thump of explosions, however, drew Mangrum’s attention away from the cartoons.

As he looked out his front door, planes with red ball markings on the wings and fuselage roared by at very low altitude, bound for Pearl Harbor.

Up the valley in the direction of Wheeler Field, smoke was boiling skyward, as it was from Ewa.

As he set out for Ewa on an old country road, wives and children of Marines who lived in the Ewa Beach neighborhood began gathering at the Mangrum’s house.

[Illustration: Author’s Collection _A Mitsubishi A6M2 Zero, flown by PO2 Masao Taniguchi in the 7 December attack on Ewa Mooring Mast Field, takes off from the carrier_ Akagi, _circa spring 1942. _] [Illustration: Prange _Lt Yoshio Shiga, commander of_ Kaga’_s nine Zeroes which strafed Ewa soon after Itaya, was assigned the task of reducing the “Barbers Point Airdrome.

”_] Elsewhere in the Ewa Beach community, Mrs. Charles S. Barker, Jr. , wife of Master Technical Sergeant Barker, the chief clerk in MAG-21’s operations office, heard the noise and asked: “What’s all the shooting?

” Barker, clad only in beach shorts, looked out his front door, saw and heard a plane fly by at low altitude, and then saw splashes along the shoreline from strafing planes marked with red _hinomaru_.

Running out to turn off the water hose in his front yard, and seeing a small explosion nearby (probably an antiaircraft shell from the direction of Pearl), Barker had seen enough.

He left his wife and baby with his neighbors, and set out for Ewa.

The strafers who singled out cars moving along the roads that led to Ewa proved no respecter of persons.

MAG-21’s commanding officer, Lieutenant Colonel Claude A. “Sheriff” Larkin, en route from Honolulu, was about a mile from Ewa in his 1930 Plymouth when a Zero shot at him.

He momentarily abandoned the car for the relative sanctuary of a nearby ditch, not even bothering to turn off the engine, and then, as the strafer roared out of sight, sprinted back to the vehicle, jumped back in, and sped on.

He reached his destination at 0805--just in time to be machine gunned again by one of Admiral Nagumo’s fighters.

Soon thereafter, Larkin’s good fortune at remaining unwounded amidst the attack ran out, as he suffered several penetrating wounds, the most painful of which included one on the top of the middle finger of his left hand and another on the front of his lower left leg just above the top of his shoe.

Refusing immediate medical attention, though, Larkin continued to direct the defense of Ewa Field.

[Illustration: Jordan Collection, MCHC _TSgt Henry H. Anglin, the noncommissioned officer in charge of Ewa’s Photography Section, stands before the mooring mast field’s dispensary on 8 December 1941, solemnly displaying the slug that wounded him on the 7th.

_] Pilots and ground crewmen alike rushed out onto the mat to try to save their planes from certain destruction.

At least a few pilots intended to get airborne, but could not because most of their aircraft were either afire or riddled beyond any hope of immediate use.

Captain Milo G. Haines of VMF-211 sought safety behind a tractor, he and the machine’s driver taking shelter on the side opposite to the strafers.

Another Zero came in from another angle, however, and strafed them from that direction.

Spraying bullets clipped off Haines’ necktie just beneath his chin.

Then, as a momentarily relieved Haines put his right hand at the back of his head a bullet lacerated his right little finger and a part of his scalp.

In the midst of the confusion, an excited three-year-old Hank Anglin innocently took advantage of his father’s distraction with the battle and wandered toward the mat.

All of the noise seemed like a lot of fun.

Sergeant Anglin ran after his son, got him to the ground, and, shielding him with his own body, crawled some 35 yards, little puffs of dirt coming near them at times.

As they clambered inside the radio trailer to get out of harm’s way, a bullet made a hole above the door.

Moving back to the photo tent, the elder Anglin put his son under a wooden bench.

As he set about gathering his camera gear to take pictures of the action, a bullet went through his left arm.

Deprived of the use of that arm for a time, Anglin returned to the bench under which his son still crouched obediently, to see little Hank point to a spent bullet on the floor and hear him warn: “Don’t touch that, daddy, it’s hot.

” [Illustration: Larkin Collection, MCHC _One of the seven Vought SB2U-3s destroyed on the field at Ewa.

All of VMSB-231’s spares (the squadron was embarked in_ Lexington, _en route to Midway, at the time) were thus destroyed.

In the background is one of VMSB-232’s SBDs.

_] Private First Class James W. Mann, the driver assigned to Ewa’s 1938 Ford ambulance, had been refueling the vehicle when the attack began.

When Lieutenant Thomas L. Allman, Medical Corps, USN, the group medical officer, saw the first planes break into flames, he ordered Mann to take the ambulance to the flight line.

Accompanied by Pharmacist’s Mate 2d Class Orin D. Smith, a corpsman from sick bay, they sped off.

The Japanese planes seemed to be attracted to the bright red crosses on the ambulance, however, and halted its progress near the mooring mast.

Realizing that they were under attack, Mann floored the brake pedal and the Ford screeched to a halt.

Rather than leave the vehicle for a safer area, Mann and Smith crawled underneath it so that they could continue their mission as quickly as possible.

The strafing, however, continued unabated.

Ironically, the first casualty Mann had to collect was the man lying prone beside him.

Orin Smith felt a searing pain as one of the Japanese 7. 7-millimeter rounds found its mark in the fleshy part of his left calf.

Seeing that the corpsman had been hurt, Mann assisted him out from under the vehicle and up into the cab.

Despite continued strafing that shot out four tires, Mann pressed doggedly ahead and delivered the wounded Smith to sick bay.

[Illustration: Larkin Collection, MCHC _Col Claude A. “Sheriff” Larkin, Commanding Officer, Marine Aircraft Group 21, photographed circa early 1942. _] After seeing that the corpsman’s bleeding was stopped and the painful wound was cleaned and dressed, Private First Class Mann sprinted to his own tent.

Grabbing his rifle, he then returned to the battered ambulance and, shot-out tires flopping, drove toward Ewa’s garage.

There, Master Technical Sergeant Lawrence R. Darner directed his men to replace the damaged tires with those from a mobile water purifier.

Meanwhile, Smith resumed his duties as a member of the dressing station crew.

Also watching the smoke beginning to billow skyward was Sergeant Duane W. Shaw, USMCR, the driver of the station fire truck.

Normally, during off-duty hours, the truck sat parked a quarter-mile from the landing area.

Shaw, figuring that it was his job to put out the fires, climbed into the fire engine and set off.

Unfortunately, like Private First Class Mann’s ambulance, Sergeant Shaw’s bright red engine moving across the embattled camp soon attracted strafing Zeroes.

Unfazed by the enemy fire that perforated his vehicle in several places, he drove doggedly toward the flight line until another Zero shot out his tires.

Only then pausing to make a hasty estimate of the situation, he reasoned that with the fire truck at least temporarily out of service he would have to do something else.

Jumping down from the cab, he soon got himself a rifle and some ammunition.

Then, he set out for the flight line.

If he could not put out fires, he could at least do some firing of his own at the men who caused them.

With the parking area cloaked in black smoke, Japanese fighter pilots shifted their efforts to the planes either out for repairs in the rear areas or to the utility planes parked north of the intersection of the main runways.

Inside ten minutes’ time, machine gun fire likewise transformed many of those planes into flaming wreckage.

Firing only small arms and rifles in the opening stages, the Marines fought back against _Kaga_’s fighters as best they could, with almost reckless heroism.

Lieutenant Shiga remembered one particular Leatherneck who, oblivious to the machine gun fire striking the ground around him and kicking up dirt, stood transfixed, emptying his sidearm at Shiga’s Zero as it roared past.

Years later, Shiga would describe that lone, defiant, and unknown Marine as the bravest American he had ever met.

A tragic drama, however, soon unfolded amidst the Japanese attack.

One Marine, Sergeant William E. Lutschan, Jr. , USMCR, a truckdriver, had been “under suspicion” of espionage and he was ordered placed under arrest.

In the exchange of gunfire that followed his resisting being taken into custody, though, he was shot dead.

With that one exception, the Marines at Ewa Field had fought back to a man.

[Illustration: Larkin Collection, MCHC _Ewa’s 1938 Ford ambulance, seen after the Japanese raid, its Red Cross status violated, took over 50 hits from strafing planes.

_] As if _Akagi_’s and _Kaga_’s fighters had not sown enough destruction on Ewa, one division of Zeroes from _Soryu_ and one from _Hiryu_ arrived on the scene, fresh from laying waste to many of the planes at Wheeler Field.

This second group of fighter pilots went about their work with the same deadly precision exhibited at Wheeler only minutes before.

The raid caught Master Technical Sergeant Darner’s crew in the middle of changing the tires on the station’s ambulance.

Private First Class Mann, who by that point had managed to obtain some ammunition for his rifle, dropped down with the rest of the Marines at the garage and fired at the attacking fighters as they streaked by.

Lieutenant Kiyokuma Okajima led his six fighters down through the rolling smoke, executing strafing attacks until ground fire holed the forward fuel tank of his wingman, Petty Officer 1st Class Kazuo Muranaka.

When Okajima discovered the damage to Muranaka’s plane, he decided that his men had pressed their luck far enough, and began to assemble his unit and shepherd them toward the rendezvous area some 10 miles west of Kaena Point.

The retiring Japanese in all likelihood then spotted incoming planes from _Enterprise_ (CV-6), that had been launched at 0618 to scout 150 miles ahead of the ship in nine two-plane sections.

Their planned flight path to Pearl was to take many of them over Ewa Mooring Mast Field, where some would encounter Japanese aircraft.

Meanwhile, back at Ewa, after what must have seemed an eternity, the Zeroes of the first wave at last wheeled away toward their rendezvous point.

Having made a shambles of the Marine air base, Japanese pilots claimed the destruction of 60 aircraft on the ground: _Akagi_’s airmen accounted for 11, _Kaga_’s 15, _Soryu_’s 12, and _Hiryu_’s 22. Their figures were not too far off the mark, for 47 aircraft of all types had been parked at the field at the beginning of the onslaught, 33 of which had been fully operational.

Although the Japanese had wreaked havoc upon MAG-21’s complement of planes, the group’s casualties seemed miraculously light.

Apparently, the enemy fighter pilots in the first wave maintained a fairly high degree of discipline, eschewing attacks on people and concentrating their attacks on machines.

Many of Ewa’s Marines, however, had parked their cars near the center of the station.

By the time the Japanese departed, the parking lot resembled a junk yard of mangled automobiles of various makes and models.

Overcoming the initial shock of the first strafing attack, Ewa’s Marines took stock of their situation.

As soon as the last of Itaya’s and Shiga’s Zeroes had departed, Marines went out and manned stations with rifles and .

30-caliber machine guns taken from damaged aircraft and from the squadron ordnance rooms.

Technical Sergeant William G. Turnage, an armorer, supervised the setting up of the free machine guns.

Technical Sergeant Anglin, meanwhile, took his little boy to the guard house, where a woman motorist agreed to drive Hank home to his mother.

As it would turn out, that reunion was not to be accomplished until much later that day, “inasmuch as the distraught mother had already left home to look for her son.

” Master Technical Sergeant Emil S. Peters, a veteran of action in Nicaragua, had, during the first attack, reported to the central ordnance tent to lend a hand in manning a gun.

By the time he arrived there, however, there were none left to man.

Then he saw a Douglas SBD-2, one of two spares assigned to VMSB-232, parked behind the squadron’s tents.

Enlisting the aid of Private William G. Turner, VMSB-231’s squadron clerk, Peters ran over to the ex-_Lexington_ machine that still bore her USN markings, 2-B-6, pulled the after canopy forward, and clambered in the after cockpit, stepping hard on the foot pedal to unship the free .

30-caliber Browning from its housing in the after fuselage, and then locking it in place.

Turner, having obtained a supply of belted ammunition, took his place on the wing as Peters’ assistant.

Elsewhere, nursing his painfully wounded finger and leg, Lieutenant Colonel Larkin ordered extra guards posted on the perimeter of the field and on the various roads leading into the base.

Men not engaged in active defense went to work fighting the many fires.

Drivers parked what trucks and automobiles had remained intact on the runways to prevent any possible landings by airborne troops.

Although hardly transforming Ewa into a fortress, the Marines ensured that they would be ready for any future attack.

Undoubtedly, most of the men at Ewa expected--correctly--that the Japanese would return.

At about 0835, enemy planes again made their appearance in the sky over Ewa, but this time, Marines stood or crouched ready and waiting for what proved to be Lieutenant Commander Takahashi’s dive bombing unit from _Shokaku_, returning from its attacks on the naval air station at Pearl Harbor and the Army’s Hickam Field, roaring in from just above the treetops.

Initially, their targets appeared to be the planes, but, seeing that most had already been destroyed, the enemy pilots turned to strafing buildings and people in a “heavy and prolonged” assault.

[Illustration: Lord Collection, USMC _At their barracks, near the foundation of a swimming pool under construction, three Marines gingerly seek out good vantage points from which to fire, while two peer skyward, keeping their eyes peeled for attacking Japanese planes.

Headgear varies from Hawley helmet to garrison cap to none, but the weapon is the same for all--the Springfield 1903 rifle.

_] Better prepared than they had been when Lieutenant Commander Itaya’s Zeroes had opened the battle, Ewa’s Marines met Takahashi’s Vals with heavy fire from rifles, Thompson submachine guns, .

30-caliber machine guns, and even pistols.

In retaliation, after completing their strafing runs, the Japanese pilots pulled up in steep wing-overs, allowing their rear seat gunners to take advantage of the favorable deflection angle to spray the defenders with 7. 7-millimeter bullets.

Marine observers later recounted that _Shokaku_’s planes also dropped light bombs, perhaps of the 60-kilogram variety, as they counted five small craters on the field after the attack.

In response to the second onslaught, as they had in the first, all available Marines threw themselves into the desperate defense of their base.

The additional strafing attacks started numerous fires within the camp area, adding new columns of dense smoke to those still rising from the planes on the parking apron.

Unfortunately, the ground fire seemed far more brave than accurate, because all of _Shokaku_’s dive bombers repeatedly zoomed skyward, seemingly unhurt.

Even taking into account possible damage sustained during attacks over Ford Island and Hickam, only four of Takahashi’s planes sustained any damage over Oahu before they retired.

The departure of _Shokaku’_s Vals afforded Lieutenant Colonel Larkin the opportunity to reorganize the camp defenses.

There was ammunition to be distributed, wounded men to be succored, and seemingly innumerable fires burning amongst the tents, buildings, and planes, to be extinguished.

[Illustration: Marine Corps Historical Collection _Sgt William G. Turnage enlisted in the Corps in 1931. Recommended for a letter of commendation for his “efficient action” at Ewa Field on 7 December, he ultimately was awarded a Bronze Star.

_] However, around 0930, yet another flight of enemy planes appeared--about 15 Vals from _Kaga_ and _Hiryu_.

Although the pilots of those planes had expended their 250-kilogram bombs on ships at Pearl Harbor, they still apparently retained plenty of 7. 7-millimeter ammunition, and seemed determined to expend much of what remained upon Ewa.

As in the previous attacks by _Shokaku_’s Vals, the last group came in at very low altitude from just over the tops of the trees surrounding the station.

Quite taken by the high maneuverability of the nimble dive bombers, which they were seeing at close hand for the second time that day, the Marines mistook them for fighter aircraft with fixed landing gear.

Around that time, Lieutenant Colonel Larkin saw an American plane and a Japanese one collide in mid-air a short distance away from the field.

In all probability, Larkin saw _Enterprise_’s Ensign John H. L.

Vogt’s Dauntless collide with a Val.

Vogt had become separated from his section leader during the Pearl-bound flight in from the carrier, may have circled offshore, and then arrived over Ewa in time to encounter dive bombers from _Kaga_ or _Hiryu_.

Vogt and his passenger, Radioman Third Class Sidney Pierce, bailed out of their SBD, but at too low an altitude, for both died in the trees when their ’chutes failed to deploy fully.

Neither of the Japanese crewmen escaped from their Val when it crashed.

[Illustration: Naval Historical Center Photo NH 102278 _TSgt Emil S. Peters, seen here on 11 October 1938, was a veteran of service in Nicaragua and a little more than three weeks shy of his 48th birthday when Japanese bombers attacked Ewa Field.

_] Fortunately for the Marines, however, the last raid proved comparatively “light and ineffectual,” something Lieutenant Colonel Larkin attributed to the heavy gunfire thrown skyward.

The short respite between the second and third strafing attacks had allowed Ewa’s defenders to bring all possible weapons to bear against the Japanese.

Technical Sergeant Turnage, after having gotten the base’s machine guns set up and ready for action, took over one of the mounts himself and fired several bursts into the belly of one Val that began trailing smoke and began to falter soon thereafter.

Turnage, however, was by no means the only Marine using his weapon to good effect.

Master Technical Sergeant Peters and Private Turner, from their improvised position in the lamed SBD, had let fly at whatever Vals came within range of their gun.

The two Marines shot down what witnesses thought were at least two of the attacking planes and discouraged strafing in that area of the station.

However, the Japanese soon tired of the tenacious bravery of the grizzled veteran and the young clerk, neither of whom flinched in the face of repeated strafing.

Two particular enemy pilots repeatedly peppered the grounded Dauntless with 7. 7-millimeter fire, ultimately scoring hits near the cockpit area and wounding both men.

Turner toppled from the wing, mortally wounded.

Another Marine who distinguished himself during the third strafing attack was Sergeant Carlo A. Micheletto of Marine Utility Squadron (VMJ) 252.

During the first Japanese attack that morning, Micheletto proceeded at once to VMJ-252’s parking area and went to work, helping in the attempts to extinguish the fires that had broken out amongst the squadron’s parked utility planes.

He continued in those labors until the last strafing attack began.

Putting aside his firefighting equipment and grabbing a rifle, he took cover behind a small pile of lumber, and heedless of the heavy machine-gunning, continued to fire at the attacking planes until a burst of enemy fire struck him in the head and killed him instantly.