Sunday in Hell: Pearl Harbor Minute by Minute

Chapter 7

“Praise the Lord and Pass the Ammunition…”

We will either find a way or make one.
Hannibal


In the first moments of the attack, with battleships Maryland, Tennessee, and Arizona inboard of Oklahoma, West Virginia, and the repair ship Vestal, the three inboard battleships appeared to have escaped with little damage. Then, immediately following the Val dive bombers’ and Kate torpedo bombers’ initial onslaught, came mission leader, Commander Mitsuo Fuchida, with his Kate high-level, horizontal bombers - on their initial bomb run from the southwest, up the line of battleships, toward the northeast.1
The Kates came in formations of five, six, or nine, the latter in three flights of three airplanes each in a V of Vs, which to the ground observer appeared as an arrowhead without a shaft. The lead aircraft was at the point of the arrowhead. The Japanese, in planning and training for the attack, were convinced the formation yielded the highest percentage of hits, consistently up to 33 ½ percent. The eager and energetic Kate bombing team who convinced Japanese war planners this was the bombing formation to use at Pearl Harbor were Chief Petty Officers Akira Watanabe and Yanosuke Aso.2
After giving his attack signal to the high level bombers, Fuchida, as planned, dropped back from the lead position to better observe the action, yielding to the number two plane in the formation - with two of its crew members Watanabe and Aso, who developed the tactics for bombing success. On the formation’s first pass over the line of battleships, what Fuchida believed to be air turbulence prevented satisfactory aiming for bomb release. Nevertheless, number three’s 1,765-pound bomb fell from it shackles, and Fuchida watched as it exploded harmlessly in the water. He wrongly assumed number three had blundered and shook his fist in rage. The disappointed bombardier indicated by gestures that enemy fire had jarred his bomb loose. The formation turned to circle back for another approach in the stream of Kates flowing high above Pearl Harbor, up the line of battleships.
Fuchida immediately felt remorseful for jumping to conclusions, but there was no time for wasted emotions. His own plane suddenly rocked, severely jolted by a flak burst somewhere close. “Is everything all right?” he cried out to his pilot. “A few holes in the fuselage,” came the reassuring response. American sailors and junior officers had raced to their shipboard guns and broken out their service ammunition with astonishing speed.3
Because the raiders attacked with no warning, from multiple directions, altitudes, and dive angles in a sharply compressed time period, defenders’ responses were necessarily controlled locally, at the gun batteries, rather than centrally on each ship. The return fire seemed ragged at first, with the wrong type of ammunition and fusing, flak bursts and direct fire rounds generally well short of gunners’ targets - with a few notable exceptions. Nevertheless, Japanese air leaders were surprised at the rapidity of the American response, while American officers were unstinting in praise of their gun crews’ initiative, discipline, devotion to duty, and speed in mounting a fierce defense. As the assault continued, effectiveness of defenders’ fire increased, though some crewmembers on ships in overhaul or repair had had little or no antiaircraft firing practice for months.
Commander Midori Matsumura ran into the same unexpectedly rapid response from
American gunners. He had led the Kate torpedomen against the ships on the west side of Ford Island, then bypassed them, and circled to go after targets among the battleships. He made his second pass on the battleships, and again wasn’t satisfied. He circled at low altitude again, this time fastening on West Virginia, and still delivered one of the first blows to her. By that time, guns were blazing, and Matsumura and his crew were fortunate to have avoided the hail of steel fired into the air above and across Pearl Harbor. Gordon Prange, in At Dawn We Slept, wrote of Matsumura’s vivid recollections.

“A huge waterspout splashed over the stack of the ship and then tumbled down like an exhausted geyser…immediately followed by another one. What a magnificent sight!” So impressed was Matsumura that he told his observer to photograph the scene. But the man misinterpreted the order and blazed away with his machine gun, wrecking the antenna of his own plane.
“By this time enemy antiaircraft fire had begun to come up very fiercely. Black bursts were spoiling the once beautiful sky,” Matsumura recalled. “Even white bursts were seen mixed up among them.” The white smoke came from harmless training shells as the Americans hurled everything imaginable at the Japanese, while seamen smashed the locks of the ships’ magazines. Now those magazines began to yield their deadly harvest, and Matsumura soared away, picked up a fighter escort, and headed for the rendezvous point.4

On board the destroyer Blue (DD-387), which during the attack got under way with only four officers on board - all ensigns - one of her officers, Ensign Nathan F. Asher, was on the bridge and never understood how his men “got their ammunition from the magazines to the guns in the fast and swift manner that they did.” A few awakened with Sunday morning hangovers but later said “they had never sobered up so fast in their lives.”5
On the dry-docked Pennsylvania, which had three propeller shafts removed, the crew had been excused from antiaircraft drills. Machine guns in the foremast were manned, and gun crews were available to man all antiaircraft batteries, thus guns commenced firing between 0802 and 0805. As time passed, a considerable number of seamen from other ships, such as Oglala, the destroyer Chew (DD-106), the destroyer tender Dobbin (AD-3); the light minelayers Tracy (DM-19), Sicard (DM-22), and Pruitt (DM-22), voluntarily came aboard Pennsylvania to assist in manning guns, forming ammunition trains and fighting fires. Sadly, among the many sailors who came aboard Pennsylvania from six different ships to help defend and save her, the fleet, and one another, eleven died as a result of the Japanese air attack, as did 18 men from the battleship’s crew.6
Similar to Blue, destroyers such as Tucker (DD-374), Reid (DD-369), Monaghan (DD-354), Aylwin (DD-355), Dale (DD-353) and Farragut (DD-348); Worden (DD-352), Hull (DD-350), Dewey (DD-349), Phelps (DD-360) and MacDonough (DD-351); Patterson (DD-392), Ralph Talbot (DD-390) and Henley (DD-391); destroyer minelayers such as Gamble (DM-15), Montgomery (DM-17), Breese (DM-18); destroyer minesweepers Trever (DMS-16), Zane (DMS-14), Perry (DMS-17) and Wasmuth (DMS-15), moored in “nests” in the East and Middle lochs of the harbor; or in dry docks, such as destroyers Cassin (DD-372), Downes (DD-375), and Shaw (DD-373), near Pennsylvania, across the main channel to the east of Ford Island; the cruisers Detroit (CL-8), near Raleigh, seaplane tenders Tangier (AV-8) and Curtis (AV-4) west of Ford Island in the Middle Loch; Phoenix (CL-46), northeast of Ford Island, near Aiea Bay; and the light cruiser Honolulu (CL-48); three submarines, the Dolphin (SS-169), Narwhal (SS-167), and Tuatog (SS-199); and three patrol boats on the east side of the harbor moored at docks in the Southeast Loch, all added to the increasingly fierce volume of gunfire anytime an airborne target appeared within range.7

From Tragedy - Inspiration

The heavy cruiser New Orleans (CA-32), moored inside Berth 16 on the south side of the Southeast Loch, bow in, undergoing engine repairs, was taking power and light from the dock when the first Val released its bomb that fell harmlessly off the south end of Ford Island. The New Orleans’ Chaplain, (Lieutenant jg) Howell M. Forgy, a six foot, two inch, athletic-looking native of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, was still in his bunk gazing out the port-hole at the morning sky, thinking about the sermon he would deliver to the officers and men two hours later. He felt the cruiser jarred slightly.
He had chosen “We Reach Forward,” based on Paul’s words: “Forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before.” He planned to tell them, through the words of Paul, that their fate lay in the days ahead and not in those that had passed. Again, the heavy cruiser moved slightly.
He concluded a tug was probably shifting the ship to another berth. Then another little noise challenged the tranquility of the Hawaiian morning, a muffled tat-tat-tat, he described as similar to a “…boy…running a stick along one of those white picket fences back home.” Then the silence suddenly exploded with the deafening clang-clang-clang of the general alarm. His first reaction typified thousands of reactions in Pearl Harbor that morning. “I wondered why the officer of the deck could never get it through his head the fact that the general alarm was not to be tested on Sundays.”
He then recalled, “The clang-clang-clang continued stubbornly, and the shrill scream of the bo’sun’s pipe beeped through the speaker. ‘All hands to battle stations! All hands to battle stations! This is no drill! This is no drill!’” Still not convinced, he next concluded, “This must be some admiral’s clever idea of how to make an off-hour general quarters drill for the fleet realistic.” He dressed and sauntered toward his battle station in sick bay - going down ladders bucking a line of marines pulling on their jackets, panting and swearing unprintable things about general quarters - hurrying up through the hatch to their battle stations at the machine guns and AA batteries topside. Everyone was grumbling about general quarters, especially at this hour, when their Sunday-morning-after-Saturday-night liberty was interrupted so abruptly.
When he arrived in sickbay, Lieutenant Commander Edward Evans, a World War I and China veteran, and the senior medical officer, came behind him, cinching up his tie. When the “doc” stepped through the door, his face expressed worry. Chaplain Forgy asked, “What’s it all about, Doc?” “I don’t know,” the doctor said. “I just saw a plane falling out of the sky. It was burning.” The Chaplain told him he thought that was carrying a drill pretty far. Dr. Evans turned his head slightly to the side, glancing past him, then, “I don’t know, Padre. This might be the real thing.”8
Topside the reaction of the New Orleans’ crew was already beginning to typify the frustration, anger and fierce response to the Japanese naval aviators’ onslaught. From their furious response and the cruiser’s battle came words that in the months ahead, inspired one of the songs that lifted the spirits of a nation still reeling from the 7 December disaster.
In his 13 December report of actions taken, New Orleans’ commander, Captain James G. Atkins, with evident pride, recounted events on a heavily armed ship carrying nine 8-inch, eight 5-inch, and eight .50-caliber machine guns - that wasn’t ready and in no condition to fight. The crew had not engaged in target practice since June, and fully 40 percent had little or no gunnery experience - many having never fired machine guns or big guns. What’s more, the antiaircraft battery directors were off the ship that morning, requiring the 5-inch guns to operate under local control. Nevertheless, Atkins recalled, “…throughout the raid [they] fought the ship with the coolness and steadiness of a Veteran crew.”
After crewmembers sighted Val dive bombers attacking Ford Island, New Orleans was promptly called to general quarters at 0757. At a time Captain Atkins recorded as 0805, looking aft, they sighted Japanese torpedo bombers - probably a second, follow-on flight that had swung round from the west side of Ford Island after learning the carriers weren’t there. The Kates were spotted on the port quarter, over the Southeast Loch, flying low past the ship’s stern, on headings taking them toward the battleships. They were passing southeast to northwest near the docks and berths of what became known as “the bowling alley” - which opened toward the battleships across the main channel next to Ford Island, and was a good track to follow from the air. It was also the perfect terrain and water feature for pilots’ use as an initial point for their low level approach to torpedo release.
New Orleans men standing on the ship’s quarterdeck looking aft, opened fire with rifles and pistols when the first flight they saw passed near, right to left past the stern, while below decks men were scrambling to bring up electrical power and steam to first begin, then continue operating the 5-inch AA gun batteries. Because the ship was undergoing engine repair, all fires and boilers were shut down, and power and light was being fed from the dock. Yard power to the dock either failed or was cut off, which caused the ship to go dark, and shift to battery power. The changeover to battery power momentarily shut off the lights. Then soon after the lights came on, they began dimming. It became a race against time to raise steam before battery power was exhausted, and all the while men were working in engineering spaces, magazines and ammunition passageways, using flashlights.
In the meantime others broke out ready ammunition to feed the guns, and began setting up ammunition trains - men passing ammunition by hand, from magazines below, through handling rooms, up hand-operated hoists, to the guns above. While engineers and fireroom crews took emergency action to fire up boilers for steam to run the generators and air compressors, and operate gun batteries, the lack of power, lighting and air pressure temporarily held the rate of gunfire in check. Gunners had to elevate and traverse the tubes with hand-cranks, clear the tubes with rammers instead of compressed air, load and fire the guns by hand. But open fire they did, albeit at slower rates, using all the .50-caliber machine guns and 5-inch AA guns they could muster.
The New Orleans’ crew’s determination to open fire with all their AA batteries, in addition to machine guns, and give the enemy all they could became a magnet drawing men from nearby ships and smaller harbor craft that had no gun batteries available. Seeing her guns in action, they rallied to her from her sister ship, the heavy cruiser San Francisco (CA-38), across the dock from New Orleans, to the east in Berth 16; the light destroyer-minelayers Preble (DM-20) and Tracy (DM-19), moored directly ahead of her in Berth 15; and Pruitt (DM-22) and Sicard (DM-21), moored directly ahead of San Francisco. Other men who were returning to ships perhaps deemed beyond help, or were awaiting assignments to another ship and simply wanted to help - and had climbed aboard a West Virginia motor launch - and many more from small craft in the yard, came aboard New Orleans to assist.
San Francisco, Preble, Tracy, Pruitt and Sicard were all in various states of overhaul, with machinery partly disassembled and skeleton crews present for duty, keeping all from firing their larger AA batteries. On Tracy, a small band of destroyer men assembled three Lewis
.30-caliber machine guns and two .50-caliber machine guns and defended their ship as best they could, while others headed for the New Orleans, and later, after the air raid, a party of ten went to assist in fighting fires aboard the stricken battleship California (BB-44). A large number of Preble’s crew hurried to assist men on the Pennsylvania in handling ammunition, fighting fires and assisting the wounded. Men from Sicard went to assist the destroyer Cummings (DD-365), and others to Pennsylvania.9
San Francisco was awaiting dry dock to clean her heavily fouled bottom, and her engineering plant was largely broken down for overhaul. Ammunition for her 5-inch and 8-inch guns were in storage, and her 3-inch guns removed, to be replaced with four 1.1-inch quadruple mounts. Her .50-caliber machine guns were being overhauled. Only small arms and two
.30-caliber machine guns were available. Men on her crew were anxious to help in some way, and chose to help the men on her sister ship.10
These were the ships and men of which Captain Atkins wrote, “In addition to the splendid fighting spirit shown by the officers and men of the USS New Orleans…Their willing, cool, and courageous help greatly increased the volume of fire from this vessel. The example of these men rallying to help where they best could was in keeping with the best traditions of the service.”11
Later brought to Atkins’ attention, was another seemingly unimportant event that received no mention in his report. It was indeed an event that would echo down through the years.
Chaplain Forgy, after hearing “Doc” Evans say this might be the real thing, said, “I think I’ll run topside and take a look, if you don’t mind.” At first transfixed by the destruction he was witnessing, he watched the battle unfold. It appeared every gun on New Orleans was now firing. The noise was deafening. Across the harbor, he saw diving Japanese aircraft in seemingly slow glides to bomb release, then abrupt pullouts and climbing turns toward the sea, explosions, fire, thick palls of smoke, enemy aircraft falling in flames, tracers, and flak bursts. He saw an enemy aircraft hit, fall and crash in the vicinity of the naval hospital, and heard the ship’s gunners shout “like freshmen at the first touchdown of the day.”
With Lieutenant Frances Lee Hamlin, the main battery officer (his 8-inchguns unsuited for AA fire), he went to the wardroom, and, at Hamlin’s urging, began closing and dogging port holes. As they closed them, the room and all areas below deck became darker until they had to feel their way down passageways toward sickbay, where emergency lights were on. He lost Hamlin in the dark but found his way into sickbay, where he reported to Dr. Evans and told him, “You’re right, Doc. This is the real thing.” The doc was pacing back and forth in the room, his face white and grave. The noise from above told him more than the chaplain could. He had been through it all before, and he knew the heartbreaking stream of broken human beings that would keep coming into that little sick bay until this war was history.
Then outside Chaplain Forgy heard the booming voice of a big gunner’s mate named George. “Get those God Damn lines down the hatch to the magazine,” he shouted. Suddenly the impact of their helpless situation hit the chaplain. New Orleans had been under a temporary overhaul, and the ammunition hoists were without power. The gunners topside were ducking machine gun bullets and shrapnel, training their guns manually, by sheer guts and sweat, and they had no ammunition other than the few shells in their ready boxes.
The sharp voice of Lieutenant Edwin F. Woodhead could be heard, gathering every man in sight - shipfitters, big turret men, the repair parties - every one who had no specific job at the moment. “Get over by that ammunition hoist,” he ordered. “Grab those five inch shells and get them to the guns!” The big 5-inch shells, weighing close to a hundred pounds, were being pulled up the powerless hoist by ropes attached to their long, metal cases.
Chaplain Forgy saw a “…tiny Filipino messboy, who weighed little more than a shell, hoist it to his shoulder, stagger a few steps, and grunt as he started the long, tortuous trip up two flights of ladders to the quarterdeck…” where the shell was needed. The chaplain recalled, “A dozen eager men lined up at the hoist. The parade of ammunition was endless, but the cry for more kept coming.
He saw a Jewish boy from Brooklyn reach for a shell before he had caught his breath from the previous trip. Sweat from his face no longer came in drops, but came in a steady stream down the ridge of his nose, splashed to his chin, and fell away. His legs tried to buckle under him, but he wouldn’t let them. He knew they were putting everything they had into the job, and it was beginning to tell on them. He wished he could boost one of the shells to his shoulder. The cool metal of the shell casing against his neck and shoulder would feel good. He would be busy and feel better inside. “But a chaplain cannot fire a gun or take material part in a battle.” There was little time for reflection, but he did the next best thing.
Below decks, in this mix of crewmembers, low light, flashlights, periodic darkness, sweating, undoubtedly much swearing and the occasional jolt of heavy AA fire above, came a man walking up the line of sailors who were passing ammunition. He was Lieutenant (jg), Chaplain Howell Forgy. Lieutenant Woodhead, who was in charge of the ammunition line during the attack remembered: “I heard a voice behind me saying, ‘Praise the Lord and pass the ammunition.’ I turned and saw Chaplain Forgy walking toward me along the line of men. He was patting the men on the back and making that remark to cheer them and keep them going. I know it helped me a lot, too,” he said.
The lyrics and chords of the song, “Praise the Lord and Pass the Ammunition,” written by Frank Leosser in 1942, became one of the World War II anthems that inspired a generation of Americans in the most destructive war in human history.12
To the east of New Orleans, in Berth 17, the light cruisers St. Louis (CL-49), closest to San Francisco but across the dock, and Honolulu (CL-48) outboard to port - to the east of St. Louis, made their presence felt. At 0756, two of St. Louis’s officers observed what they described as “…a large number of dark colored planes heading towards Ford Island from the direction of Aiea. They dropped bombs and made strafing attacks. At the same time a dark olive drab colored plane bearing the aviation insignia of Japan passed close astern and dropped a torpedo.” It was the same torpedo bomber sighted by the crew of New Orleans, and fired at with their rifles and pistols because her AA guns weren’t yet in service.