The Second Japanese Pearl Harbor Attack

[Music] less than three months after the gigantic Japanese aerial and submarine onslaught against Pearl Harbor a second considerably more modest raid on the US Pacific fleets Anchorage was mounted by the Imperial Japanese Navy although nothing more than a nuisance raid the logistical planning required to strike once again an American soil demonstrated the excellent Japanese use of aircraft and submarines working in close cooperation submarines were destined to play a crucial role in the operation codenamed Kay and much more effectively than the suicidal [ __ ] submarine attacks for the 7th of December 1941 this video is sponsored by audible it's the time of year when everyone is travelling or running around getting thoughtful gifts for the people you care about think about giving yourself the gift of audible membership now is the best time to do it with a special offer of 53 percent off your first three months access an unbeatable selection of audio books including military history titles like the sea Devils written by me you can choose three titles every month one audiobook and two exclusive audible originals you can't hear anywhere else listen on any device anytime anywhere with the audible app is great while commuting at the gym or during your holiday travels with audible you'll also enjoy easy audio book exchanges in your own audio book library you keep forever even if you cancel right now for a limited time you can get three months of audible for just six dollars ninety-five a month that's more than half off the regular price give yourself the gift of listening for more go to audible.com slash mark Felton the Japanese devised a plan to use a pair of newly introduced Karen Ishii h8 k14 engine naval flying boats the 24th air flotilla to strike a wahoo these aircraft given the code name Emily by the allies had a maximum range of 3040 miles and were able to haul one ton of bombs they were a Japanese equivalent the famous British short Sunderland though larger incidentally before the war the cow an issue company had had a close working partnership with Belfast based seaplane manufacturers short brothers the plan would see both of these huge aircraft each with a crew of 10 fly from a starting point at what'ya Atoll in the Marshall Islands to a midway point and rendezvous position had the remote French frigate Shoals located 480 two miles from Pearl Harbor the submarine I 9 was assigned to take up station midway between watcher and the shoal and act as a radio beacon for the two flying boats at French frigate Shoals the pair of flying boats would be two large Japanese submarines that would be waiting for them inside the protected Lagoon the two submarines selected for the primary part of the mission were the i-15 and I 19 respectively both boats normally being fitted with the tiny two-seater Yokosuka 14 y1 floatplane for reconnaissance in a watertight hangar in front of the conning tower for the purposes of operation K the planes were removed and replaced with 10 tons of aviation fuel in drums on each submarine packed inside the hangar space for safe transit to French frigate Shoals after the arrival of the flying boats the two submarines would replenish the plane's fuel tanks before the colony she's set off on the final leg of their outbound mission to Oahu as a backup should either of the two submarines be lost the i-26 was directed to shadow the pair and act as a reserve fuel tanker and also to act as a picket to constantly scan for any enemy activity in the vicinity the submarine eye 23-under leftenant commander guinea cheat Shibata had a more hazardous task to perform which required her to creep as close as ten miles from the coast of oahu and report on weather conditions over the target additionally should either or both of the flying boats be shot down from the run over Pearl Harbor the i-23 was to attempt to rescue any down aircrew the colony she h8 k1 was also nicknamed the flying porcupine and for good reason mounted in turrets and blisters around the aircraft were 5 20 millimeter cannon and for 7.7 millimeter machine guns making it a dangerous quarry for any roving Allied fighters to tackle a pair working in close cooperation and covering one another with their guns would be more concerned about ground anti-aircraft fire than fighter interception the Japanese selected the first of March 1942 as the day of the attack and all submarines taking part in the operation were expected to be in position one day before the flying boats showed up the I 15 and I 19 celled imperiously into the lagoon that French frigate Shoals had the assigned time the deck comes fully manned in case American lookouts or Coast Watchers had been planted on the islands leftenant tashi Hesh it's-a-me and ensign tomorrow had been selected as the pilots of the respective Cowen Ishii's and they departed from Yokosuka harbor in Japan on the 15th of February and began the long journey to the mission jumping-off point the flight plan took them first to Saipan in the Marianas they the big Japanese naval base a truck in the Carolinas and on to July 8th in the Marshall Islands before they splashed down at watch a at all weather was the all important factor determining when the mission actually began an information about the weather over Oahu came to the Japanese from two different sources firstly they had cleverly cracked the local weather reporting code used by u.s. naval air stations at Midway Island Hawaii and Johnson atoll the second source would come from the submarine I 23 positioned ten miles to the south of Oahu just as the Japanese were gearing up to launch the mission all information concerning weather ceased two things had occurred which meant a delay in launching the aircraft on their way to Pearl Harbor the first was a routine change in the code being used by the US Navy to report weather conditions over the airfields in the region leaving the Japanese outside of the information loop the other was the sudden loss of contact with the I 23 radio communications emanating from the Japanese were also being picked up by the Americans indicating to them that there was Japanese submarine activity in the area of French frigate Shoals so the Americans centered on the naval combat intelligence unit at Pearl Harbor broke Japanese naval codes enabling them to ascertain the whereabouts of Japanese surface and submarine assets the sudden loss of contact with the I 23 was ominous and the Japanese Navy presumed the submarine lost with all hands on the 28th of February off Hawaii one of the principal Japanese naval bases in the western Pacific located at Rabaul in New Britain now found itself menaced by an American naval task force that was discovered to be steaming towards the base as weather reports ceased the mission began to look in doubt the task force built around the aircraft carrier USS Lexington appeared a juicy target to the Imperial fleets local headquarters a truck and all available submarines and surface warships headed out and search for the force the two days spent on attempting to locate and attack the American Task Force which aborted a projected attack on rebel meant that the Pearl Harbor raid itself was delayed until the 3rd of March in the early evening the two big flying boats touched down safely in the lagoon at French frigate Shoals the crews of the I 15 and I 19 set to work refueling the huge beasts at 9:38 p.m. both aircraft had lifted off and turned towards Pearl Harbor the crews readying themselves for a daring strike against a location still clearing up the detritus and wreckage from the first Japanese raid and a place maintaining a much better surveillance of the skies and seas around Hawaii determined not to be caught out again by a sudden surprised attack US Navy intelligence officers have spent the remainder of the third of March pondering the significance of Japanese submarine activity had French frigate Shoals that had arrived on their desks from the decrypts of Imperial Navy radio communications the officers remain unsure as to what it signified and more importantly whether such activity posed a threat to local American forces the massive raid of the 7th of December 1941 against Pearl Harbor had been launched from Japanese aircraft carriers and none were believed to be near to Hawaii in March 1942 no land-based Japanese aircraft had the range to reach Hawaii for the furthest regions of the Japanese Empire and although the officers were aware that some of the larger Japanese submarines certainly mounted a small plane aboard they also knew that the aircraft was essentially a harmless reconnaissance model that they had codenamed Glenn for the moment the reports of enemy's submarine activity remained routine and no alarms were raised or the alert status of Pearl Harbor brought up a notch the pair of cow initialize boats continue to devour the miles between the shoals and a blacked out Oahu oblivious to the radar beams that constantly scan the skies around the Hawaiian Islands the US Army radar station at Cowie was the first section of the airborne early warning system to record a possible problem a 1214 a.m. on the 4th of March the radar painted a single target moving towards Oahu at a range of 240 miles the soldiers immediately informed the air-raid defense center who in turn telephoned the local Army Air Corps and US Navy air stations throughout the islands requesting that any friendly aircraft airborne be reported to the center and so could be eliminated from the air defense equation both the Army and the Navy replied that they had no aircraft then airborne so the unidentified radar target was deemed to be most likely hostile unlike the morning of the 7th of December 1941 this time the Americans responded quickly and efficiently to the threat they now perceived to be fast approaching at 12:40 3:00 a.m. the air defense commander ordered General Quarters bringing all military and civil defense personnel to full readiness of an impending air raid on Oahu at 1:15 a.m. a trio of US Navy PBY Catalina flying boats took off with orders to seek out any Japanese aircraft carriers lurking close to the islands that would explain the presence of enemy aircraft bearing down on Pearl Harbor for Curtiss p-40 Warhawk s-- formed local air defense and these fighters were scrambled at 1:36 a.m. to form a combat air patrol or c AP over Pearl Harbor with orders to intercept and shoot down any hostile aircraft encountered this was easier said than done as the Americans lacked any dedicated night fighters and as the p-40s were bereft of radar the pilots would have to hunt by following ground directions and using their eyes although originally the night had been clear the fulbright moon the weather had rapidly deteriorated and rain and clouds were now building up over the intended Japanese target the rain that would prevent the p-40s from discovering the Japanese flying boats at night also prevented the two M Phyllis bombers from satisfactorily locating their targets the two pilots Heche it's-a-me and tomorrow and to deposit their bombs over the central 10-10 dock at Pearl Harbor but as the two Japanese planes made landfall at the extreme western tip of Oahu and headed inland across the cooler mountains have 15,000 feet both pilots noticed the clouds and rain squalls building up ahead of their machines the Japanese planes stacked to an easterly course that would take them to the north of Pearl Harbor once close to the harbor the amphibians would make a sharp turn to port and head south to begin their bombing runs leftenant hash it's amaze aircraft followed the set course and arrived over the harbor as planned but the target was badly obscured by cloud cover some members of his crew yelled over the intercom that they had seen ford island in the center of the Pearl Harbor Naval Base threw breaks in the cloud but his [ __ ] samay decided to fly on make a turn and come back for a second look before releasing his bombs the pilot banked the huge aircraft round to port and started back for his bomb run dropping his payload at 12:10 a.m. through the clouds these bombs rained down on some trees carpeting the slopes of Mount Tantalus behind Honolulu six miles from Pearl Harbor four booming explosions echoed off the hills to mark the arrival of the Japanese though hardly a soul registered the detonations as having a Japanese origin the second aircraft with ensign tomorrow at the controls did no better than his [ __ ] see me when hazard samay had made his sharp turn to port designed to bring him back over the target tomorrow had misunderstood Hirsch it's amazed order and had carried on following the southern route realizing his mistake with the disappearance of his wingman tomorrow hauled the big flying boat around and retraced his path back north at 12:30 a.m. unsure of his exact position but believing himself to be over Pearl Harbor tomorrow released his bombs which fell harmlessly into the sea both Cowen Ishii is now formed up and headed away from the islands with all possible haste leading the p-40s and Catalina's to searched fruitlessly for them Hirsch it's amazed at the mission with a punctured hull and his aircraft headed straight for July 8 for repairs tomorrow took his plane to watch her at all riving at 2:45 p.m. both pilots wrote detailed reports that their sorties over Oahu and both men concluded correctly that the level of damage they had inflicted on the naval base was difficult to determine owing to the weather conditions they had encountered over the target back at Pearl Harbor to begin with the four explosions that have been heard on Mount Tantalus were investigated the Americans initially thought that one of their own aircraft from either the Army or the Navy had dumped its bomb load in the countryside before landing a closer examination of bomb fragments recovered from the scene revealed them to be of Japanese manufacture an even more extraordinary answer to the riddle of how the Japanese had carried out the daring long-distance attack slowly revealed itself an interesting case of life imitating art American intelligence had suppressed a short story written by a serving naval officer in 1940 entitled rendezvous the story by W J Holmes then enough tenant and writing under the pseudonym Alec Hudson told of a fictional American raid on a Japanese base in the story the Americans plan to bomb Japanese preparations for an amphibious operation by using flying boats because the flying boats lacked the range to reach Japan from Hawaii three submarines are used to refuel the aircraft at the fictional moab Atoll located a thousand miles from Japan the American submarines carried not only aviation fuel for the thirsty flying boats but the bombs that they would drop on the mythical port of bussaco in the raid the Office of Naval Intelligence had suppressed the story in November 1940 but after Holmes defended his right to publish by using examples of similar British and Italian seaplane operations the Navy relented and rendezvous appeared in the August 1941 edition of The Saturday Evening Post following the Japanese raid on Pearl Harbor in March 1942 Rear Admiral edwin leighton chief intelligence officer to the commander in chief of the US Pacific Fleet Admiral Chester W Nimitz disclosed that the Japanese had most probably copied the idea for the raid from Holmes's short story supplanting moab atoll for the very real French frigate Shoals as a refueling waypoint the Americans look carefully at Holmes the story and decided in light of the recent attack to dispatch the destroyer USS balint to the French figured shoals to take a careful look and leave behind some mines should any Japanese submarines have returned they never did in the evident failure of so complex an operation including the use of three fleet submarines that would have been better employed elsewhere meant that the Japanese would not attempt another operation of this sort again do please check out my new channel war stories with mark Felton details in the description box below you can also help support my channels at PayPal and patreon details also in the description box don't forget to subscribe and share [Music] and

Channel: Mark Felton Productions

Views: 1,421,928

Keywords: Mark Felton Productions, Pearl Harbor, French Frigate Shoals, Hawaii, Oahu

Id: hJMT-ajff-c

Length: 18min 54sec (1134 seconds)

Published: Fri Dec 13 2019