On the 7th of December, 1941, at the height of World War II, Dapan launched a surprise attack
on the United States of America - which had until then been a neutral country. At 7:55am
the first of two waves of Japanese aircraft were launched from carriers off the shores of Hawaii.
From a clear blue sky they honed in on Pearl Harbor, a naval base on the island of Oa'hu,
and decimated it and the ships which were moored there. The attack,
which was launched without warning, has gone down as a pivotal moment in the history of the world:
an atrocity that caused America to finally enter, and ultimately help put an end to, the war.
Much has been written about the attack on Pearl Harbor.
Indeed, so much material exists that to give any kind of full account would take
hours. For this video, however, I wanted simply to share some stories from that infamous day that
have stuck with me ever since I first encountered them many years ago. Each gives a vivid snapshot
of what it must have been like to be caught up in an unexpected, prolonged, and one-sided
attack by a foreign military power. And each one also serves to demonstrate something important:
that situations such as these can be powerfully and sometimes absurdly disorientating.
Nothing illustrates this better than the reactions to the beginning of the attack.
When Japanese planes started dive bombing and strafing Pearl Harbor many people watching were
unable to reconcile what they were seeing. As the first dive bombers came in for their first run
Colonel William Farthing, watching from the east, mistook them for friendly planes engaged
in a training exercise. He remarked casually to a colleague, "Very realistic maneuvers.
I wonder what the Marines are doing to the Navy so early on a Sunday."
Elsewhere even those caught up in the attack were convinced it was a training exercise.
Fireman Frank Stock was on board a small launch in the harbour along with several
other men when the attack began. He assumed that the bullets hitting the water all around
were being fired as part of a live fire training exercise - startlingly realistic,
but nothing to worry about. Stock was disabused of this notion only when one of his friends was hit.
Onlookers, seeing the Japanese flag painted on the side of the attacking planes, assumed that
they were watching the "red team" in a planned exercise. The first explosions were mistaken
for accidents, and in some places the first attacks were taken to be a lone American pilot
gone rogue. One witness recalled waving to the pilot of one Japanese plane as it passed overhead.
Rhe pilot waved cheerfully back... before turning and diving towards the harbour,
intent on causing death and destruction. By 8:00 in the morning the attack was underway, but not
everyone on the ground fully realized it. On board the battleship Nevada, Leader Oden McMillan was
preparing to conduct the ship's band through a rendition of the national anthem. He and his men
had noticed several explosions in the distance but had put them down to a training exercise.
As they launched into "The Star-Spangled Banner", however, a japanese plane passed overhead,
spraying machine gun fire in their direction. Luckily, every shot missed its mark.
Unsure what else to do now that they had begun McMillan and the band played on,
pausing only momentarily when they were strafed again by another plane. They completed the
national anthem in its entirety before downing instruments and sprinting for cover. Elsewhere
a sailor on board a submarine in the harbour was intent on carrying out his assigned morning duty:
to raise the flag on the flagstaff at the stern of the vessel. It took him three tries to complete
this task. On his first attempt he was sent running back to the conning tower with the flag
in his hands as a bomber dived towards the sub. On his next attempt he was able to clip the flag in
place before running for cover again as another plane came into attack. Returning for the third
time he was just able to raise the flag before yet another plane sent him scrambling. Despite
the situation unfolding around them, several men watching from a nearby oil barge couldn't help but
cheer as he finally completed his task. As the attack went on US forces scrambled to respond.
It wasn't an easy job. The attack was so unexpected that on board some ships ammunition was
still locked away and guns had to be made ready before any fire could be returned. When the attack
began Boatswain's Mate Thomas Donahue ran for the number four gun on the deck of the Monaghan,
but found that there was nothing to fire: his fellow sailors were still frantically soaring
through the locks on the ammunition stores. Undaunted, Donahue fetched a set of wrenches
and started throwing them at the low flying planes as they passed overhead, hoping for a lucky hit.
He was disappointed. When a sailor called up from the magazine to ask what he needed
Donahue, calm under pressure, dryly replied: "Powder. I can't keep throwing things at them."
This remark however came back to haunt him when he was indeed sent powder. Just powder - no actual
ammunition with which to use it. Making the best of a bad situation Donahue used
what he had available to fire off some hollow practice shells which were lying around on deck
while he waited for the delivery of live ammunition. In the chaos and confusion of
the attack Machinist's Mate David Gilmartin found himself on the top deck of the Utah.
Having been hit, the ship was listing heavily to one side - so heavily, in fact,
that one railing was already underwater. Falling into that water was not a welcoming prospect:
oil slicks, some of them burning, were everywhere. Choosing the opposite direction, then, Gilmartin
made a run up the steeply sloping deck towards the other railing... but couldn't quite make it,
and slid back down. Steeling himself, he took another run up the slowly-worsening incline... and
again slid back down towards the water. Before he could try a third time a nearby sailor caught his
attention and yelled for him to "get rid of the cigarettes." Puzzled by this bizarre instruction,
Gilmartin looked down at his hands and found that he was holding a carton of cigarettes,
and had been holding it the entire time. This was why he hadn't been able to grip the slanting deck.
His levels of stress had been so acute that he simply hadn't noticed the box in his hand.
Immediately Gilmartin threw away the cigarettes.
On his next run he managed the climb with ease, and was able to escape to safety.
These are just a few of the stories which demonstrate the chaos of Pearl Harbor.
There are many more, including ones which have a hint of the absurd to them. There's the story
of a sailor who was injured by a gallon jar of mayonnaise sent flying by a bomb blast,
or the story of another man who took a moment to replace a phone that had been knocked off
its hook by a bomb... before fully realizing that the building he was in had been all but destroyed.
These moments of absurdity sit alongside real visceral tragedy - incidents where thousands
of lives were lost in the space of moments, or where sailors were trapped in overturned vessels,
unable to escape, facing one of the worst deaths imaginable.
These stories indicate just how chaotic war or disaster can be, and how difficult it
is to predict how people will react. Faced with a terrifying and unexpected situation,
almost nobody behaves as they might imagine they would. Under immense stress humans act
irrationally and strangely. Their vision narrows, their perception alters, their priorities shift...
and this is something which must be taken into account when trying to understand the
sometimes startling ways in which ordinary people react when the worst does happen.