Attack on Pearl Harbor (32 page)

For instance, Egusa’s biographer states that the 18 bombers he led attacked
Nevada
. However, the ARs recorded that a portion of the group attacking
Nevada
broke off and instead attacked
Shaw
in the floating drydock. This could reflect either a shift of targets or bombs that were so inaccurate they landed closer to
Shaw
than
Nevada
. One ship’s log recorded that one-third of the attackers diverted. Another offered a count of 21 bombers that went after the Navy Yard area, some of which diverted to attack
Nevada
.

Fourteen D3A Val dive-bombers from the second wave were shot down. The missing two bombs could have been on aircraft that were shot down before they released their weapon.

Comparing Claims, Hits, and Attacks

Although the Japanese claimed 21 hits against Battleship Row targets, the Americans recorded only Ofuchi’s
shotai
attacking
California
. The Americans do not record any major dive-bombing attack against Battleship Row.
²⁶

Explaining the Mystery

There are several possible explanations for this mystery.

1)
The Japanese dive-bombers did indeed make a major effort attacking Battleship Row that was not recorded in US logs
.

This is very unlikely. First, there were many, many observers. The likelihood that all observers would have missed reporting an attack of 20 to 30 aircraft is diminishingly small.

Even if the dive-bombers did not score hits, the misses would have been sufficiently traumatic to be recorded. Between 0854 and 0930 there were men in the water all around Battleship Row, from the capsized
Oklahoma
, blown off
Arizona
, and driven off other ships by fires. Small boats and yard craft were picking up survivors. Firefighting craft were attacking the fires. One photograph (#24) shows over 20 boats and craft in the water.

“Tugs, lighters, gigs, and small craft of every kind rushed across the waters of Pearl Harbor rescuing swimmers.” Boatswain’s Mate First Class Thomas Miechurski, master of yard tug YT-129, approached Battleship Row but boats “were so thick around
Arizona
that YT-129 could not get close enough to help.”
²⁷
While standing by off
Arizona
Miechurski watched the dive-bombers’ attack
Nevada
in the channel. He does not mention any attacks against Battleship Row.

A bomb thrown into that maelstrom would have killed people, sunk rescue boats and scattered flaming oil. It would have been recorded as part of the Battleship Row disaster. There are no such records.

In addition, the analysis of American records account for all but two of the bombs. There are no “missing” bombs that could have been dropped on Battleship Row and not recorded.

It appears that the major dive-bombing attack against Battleship Row claimed in the Japanese BDA report did not occur.

2)
The US accounts of attacks are inaccurate
.

Exact accuracy cannot be expected. However, the alignment between recorded attacks and physical damage is good. Reports of individual bomb detonations were recorded, sometimes by multiple independent sources which correlated well in the ARs. There are sufficient clues to allow a good recreation of the targets actually attacked.

3)
The Japanese aircrews were mistaken regarding where they attacked and what they hit
.

Aircrew ARs were notoriously inaccurate during the war, having a very bad record of claiming more damage than actually occurred. Sometimes the aircrews were overoptimistic, and sometimes the aviators saw what they wanted to see. Ensign Honma Hideo, flying a B5N Kate level bomber, relates how later in the war 18 level bombers attacked an airfield at Lae. He felt that only a few bombs actually hit the airfield, “But after the mission, our commander said that we had a 100% hit rate.”
²⁸

There were two witnesses in each dive-bomber (pilot and gunner/radioman). Doctrine had the dive-bombers attack as a
shotai
giving six aircrews to testify on the target location. In addition, the attack commander, Fuchida, observed the progress of the attack as the individual unit commanders selected their targets.

These factors suggest that the Japanese aircrew should have been able to give a decent report as to where their target was located. But that leaves the fact that there is a significant disconnect between what was shown in the BDA report and the distribution of the attack effort extracted from the US records.

Two additional factors would have prevented dive-bomber attacks against Battleship Row. First, there was the huge amount of smoke covering the area. The prevailing wind blew the smoke from
Arizona
’s raging fires and the oil fires around
Tennessee
and
West Virginia
down the length of Battleship Row. Flaming oil eventually drifted down upon
California
, the southernmost battleship on Battleship Row, forcing her to be temporarily abandoned.

Photographs taken from Japanese aircraft show heavy cloud cover over the harbor, as do American photographs taken just before the arrival of the second wave and during the dive-bombers’ attack. The dive-bombers would have to either find holes through the clouds or dive through them to make their attacks, a very difficult situation. Some approached their targets under the cloud base, which gave them insufficient altitude to execute attacks as they had been trained.

The Japanese trained to execute a standard dive-bombing attack. The attack would begin with an approach to the target area at 10,000 to 12,000 feet. As they approached the target they would go into a gentle glide to increase airspeed and head for a point downwind of the target. They would arrive at the pitch-over point about a half-mile from the taret at between 6,400 to 9,600 feet altitude. They attacked in a 55 to 60 degree dive with 20 to 30 second intervals between aircraft in the
shotai
. The intervals were longer than in American doctrine, allowing following aircraft to correct for wind drift based on the splash of the previous bomb. Bomb release could be as low as 300 to 400 meters.

This technique required good visibility. Smoke and clouds like those over the harbor would prevent a conventional attack. If the dive-bombers wanted to attack Battleship Row they had to come in crosswind or with the wind, reducing bombing accuracy. With 80 to 90% cloud cover between 2,000 to 3,500 feet the dive-bombers had to either find a hole in the clouds or begin their attack from under the cloud layer, another departure from their usual practice. Witnesses noted that some dive-bombers appeared to shift targets in the middle of their dive. A lower pitch-over altitude also meant less time for target identification and aiming before weapon release.

The smoke boiling out of Battleship Row would also have suggested that those targets were already destroyed. The aircrews had been briefed to pass up such targets.

Possible Misidentification of Targets

Photographs show that many of the battleships rigged canvas awnings over their decks, shielding them from the radiant heat of the tropical sun. Tenders and auxiliaries also rigged awnings. This, coupled with the smoke and low cloud cover, could have confused target identification. American reports indicate that eleven D3A Vals released bombs against the tenders
Tangier
and
Curtiss
. They might have believed them to be battleships. If the attacks on
Shaw
,
Curtiss
, and
Tangier
were added to those attacking
Pennsylvania
,
California
, and
Nevada
, there would be a total of 45 dive-bombers reporting they had attacked battleships.

The Japanese aviators’ reports could have been sufficiently vague that the BDA team had to apply their own judgment. The concentration of hits reported on Battleship Row targets could have just been a consequence of smoke, a low ceiling, and vague reporting.

If this were the case, the magnitude of the errors was breathtaking.

A Purposefully Inflated BDA Report?

Three times as many GP bomb hits were claimed than actually achieved. The BDA Report claims more hits than were reported by the carriers. The officers on the flagship assessing the results increased the number of hits over what was reported by the aviators.

Those officers might have assumed that the dive-bombers would duplicate their training performance, and so “promoted” hits reported as “probable” to definite hits. This is a common occurrence documented in psychological studies of decision making: people tend to see what they expect to see. If the reports were not specific regarding the target’s location an assessors might have attempted to place the expected hits against specific targets based on smoke, fires, or photographic evidence. With a process like that, some additional bomb hits could have been assigned to Battleship Row. But the aviators reported only 13 probable hits, of which 11 appear to have been promoted by the assessors to definite hits. This is much less than the 21 hits assigned to Battleship Row targets.

It could be that aircrews were vague about where their targets lay. Bombers that attacked the tenders west of Ford Island might have misidentified them as battleships, and if in the rush to get an initial assessment to the command, reported target locations in an imprecise manner, giving the BDA team the flexibility to assign them to Battleship Row. But there were only 16 aircraft that attacked tenders, insufficient for 21 hits to be assigned to Battleship Row even assuming all were hits.

The last possibility is that the hits claimed in the BDA report were intentionally inflated to attribute an excellent performance to the dive-bombers.

Organizational Theory would suggest that such an action would require three kinds of authority: the authority of rank, the authority of position, and the authority of knowledge.

The man in charge of the BDA was the strike commander, Fuchida. He had the “authority of rank,” the senior man assigned to the damage assessment effort. He also had the “authority of position” as head of the strike and leader of the assessment group.

After delivering his attack as part of the first wave, Fuchida remained over the harbor. Fuchida observed the entire course of the attack by the second wave, and was not distracted by a requirement to make an attack of his own. He stated he was the last to leave Pearl Harbor after making a tour to note the results. He had the “authority of knowledge” as the one that could be expected to have the best overall picture of the results of the second-wave bombing attacks.

The combination of these three authorities would make his judgments the ruling authority in the BDA process. He was the one responsible for accepting an inflated number of torpedo hits, an overestimated number of AP bomb hits, and he had the authority and opportunity to do what he wished with the dive-bomber results. If he did not do it personally, he could have guided and influenced the group performing the assessment towards inflated results, something not hard to do, as this group would have been prone to see the results of their efforts in the best possible light.

The Japanese practice of having the strike commander responsible for collecting and collating the BDA assessment was faulty. In the US Navy, intelligence officers interviewed returning aviators and assembled a consolidated report. The process characteristically would result in a reduction in claims, as an individual aircraft’s results had to be corroborated by other aircraft. If a pilot claimed a hit and his attack was not observed by others, the claim was generally downgraded to a “probable.”

A process like this was not in place in the Imperial Japanese Navy. The strike aviators submitted their own claims, and the strike leaders consolidated the reports and made judgments under the supervision and guidance of the strike commander. They were not impartial observers.

Fuchida was responsible for the effort to collate all the data from the attack units. The reports and photographs from all the carriers were flown over to
Akagi
for the net assessment. He had assistance from
Akagi’s
senior flyers, and perhaps some of the bomber leaders flew over from the other carriers, although this last is not mentioned in the accounts of the post-battle evaluation. Fuchida headed the effort overall and personally was in charge of appraising the attack against the fleet, while the second-wave flight leader assessed the OCA effort against the airfields.

There were several psychological pressures on Fuchida.

Fuchida had personal interests in the D3A Vals’ performance. He was a “special friend” of LCDR Egusa,
²⁹
the leader of the second-wave dive-bombers. Naturally he would want to see his friend succeed. Egusa’s reputation was at stake. He would be embarrassed by a poor performance by the dive-bombers, as their leader and as the man responsible for their training.