The Approach
Attack - First Wave
Attack - Second Wave
The Third Wave Decision
Aftermath

The Attack - The First Wave 

At approximately 6am on 7 December 1941, in heavy seas, Japanese aircraft began taking off from their aircraft carriers to attack Pearl Harbor. This first wave of 183 consisted of 49 Kate high-level bombers, each armed with an 800 kg armour-piercing bomb for battleship targets; 40 Kate torpedo bombers to attack battleships and cruisers; 51 Val dive bombers, each carrying a conventional 250 kg bomb for deployment against airfields and 43 Zeke fighters as escorts. Seventy minutes later, the 167 aircraft of the second wave were launched. 

Flight time to target was approximately one hour fifty minutes. To guide their approach, the Japanese pilots tuned in to the Honolulu radio station. At 7.40am Commander Mitsuo Fuchida, leader of both the first wave and the overall operation, signalled to the other aircraft that surprise had been achieved. In the forty minutes after 6.30am, US destroyer Ward attacked and probably sank two Japanese midget submarines off the entrance to Pearl Harbor, but this information was not communicated to the Fleet or Oahu army command. Shortly after 7am, the US Army radar station at Opana, scanning the sea north of Oahu, detected a large number of aircraft, but the sighting was explained away by the radar control centre as a flight of B-17 Flying Fortresses expected from California. At 7.49am Fuchida gave the order to attack. Four minutes later, he signalled the Japanese carrier force that total strategic surprise had been achieved by transmitting Tora, Tora, Tora (Tiger, Tiger, Tiger). 

At 7.51am the Kate torpedo bombers divided into two groups, east and west, to attack ships west of Ford Island Naval Air Station and on "Battleship Row". Four minutes later, the Kates began their attacks, joined just after 8.00am by the high-level bombers. After initial, mistaken, assaults on the target ship Utah and light cruisers Raleigh and Helena, the torpedo bombers struck the battleships. Within the next ten minutes, devastating blows were inflicted on the US Pacific Fleet. The Arizona and Nevada were each hit once, the California was hit by two torpedoes, the Oklahoma by four and the West Virginia by six. Also, it is probable that torpedoes from a Japanese midget submarine struck the California and West Virginia. Bombs landed on the California, Maryland, Tennessee and caused great destruction on the West Virginia and Arizona. One of the eight bombs which hit the Arizona crashed into the forward magazine, causing a huge explosion which killed nearly 1,000 of the crew. 

Equally as effective were the attacks by dive bombers and fighters on American airfields. The very first action of the day was the assault on Kaneohe Naval Air Station which began at 7.48am. Two hours later, after the second wave aircraft had left, Kaneohe had lost 33 of its 36 Catalina flying boats, destroyed or damaged. At 7.51am Wheeler Field was hit, followed four minutes later by Hickam Field and Ford Island. Extensive damage was caused at Wheeler Field, where the aircraft had been concentrated together to guard against sabotage, and hundreds of army personnel were killed in their quarters. At Hickam, the twelve Flying Fortresses from California flew in just as the attack began; one was shot down and three suffered severe damage. Half of the aircraft and many of the buildings on the airfield were destroyed. The proportion of aircraft losses was even greater at Ewa Marine Corps Air Station. On Ford Island, within the first few minutes of the attack, the Japanese destroyed 50% of its carrier-based aeroplanes, including five of the nineteen Dauntless dive bombers flying in from the aircraft carrier Enterprise during the raid, and shattered the hangars. The situation here was made worse by the constant arrivals of wounded and dying men from the stricken ships all around. It was from the command centre on Ford Island, at 7.58am, that news of the attack was first transmitted. The message was to become one of the most famous, and poignant, in history: "Air Raid, Pearl Harbor. This is not [a] drill".

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