It will be forever remembered as a day of infamy.
Without warning,
Japan's bombers rained down terror
on a Sunday morning in Hawaii.
Lasting just two hours,
their attack on pearl Harbor
would bring the United States into World War Two,
transforming America's destiny as a world power.
Based on eye witness accounts,
this is a dramatised reconstruction of events, as they happened, on a day that shook the world.
It is December the 7th, 1941.
In North Africa Montgomery's Desert Rats are locked in
a deadly struggle with Field Marshall Rommel's Afrika Korps.
In Russia, Soviet troops are desperately fighting
the Nazis outside the gates of Moscow.
And in New York, Walt Disney's Dumbo
has just had its premier.
Though it is early Sunday morning,
Naval Intelligence officers have been working throughout the night.
...Sir - sir? This just came across.
I really think you should take a look at it...
...Are you sure this can't wait, lieutenant?
We gonna get back to the office.
Naval Intelligence is at the centre of the most sensitive
and top secret operation in the whole United States.
Just twenty people are allowed access to the secrets contained in the folder.
Lieutenant Commander Alvin Kramer,
a Japanese specialist, is one of them.
Brotherhood, we need to get this out straight away.
Within the folder is an intercepted copy of the latest message
to be sent between Tokyo and the Japanese Embassy
in Washington.
Thanks to operation codename Magic,
for the last year the United States has been secretly decoding
Japan's diplomatic signals.
It's given them an unprecedented insight into the Japanese government's private thinking.
But Commander Kramer has never seen a message like this one.
Japan is a nation on a mission -
a mission to build an empire.
Over the last decade,
this small island nation has grown from a rural economy
into an industrial powerhouse -
but Japan lacks that one vital pre-requisite
that could truly transform her into the regional superpower she is desperate to become:
Natural resources.
Japan is starved of oil, coal and rubber -
and in the face of an American trade embargo,
is ready to seize them by force if necessary.
She has already invaded China and Indochina.
Now the rest of East Asia is in her sights.
Yes. No I want you to send it right away.
That's right. Let me know if there's a response. Thank you.
In the American capital, the Administration of president Franklin Roosevelt
is still working to defuse the crisis in the pacific.
The man in charge of keeping the peace with Japan,
American Secretary of State Cordell Hull, is already at his desk.
President Roosevelt
finds himself torn.
On the one hand, he would like to intervene in Europe in aid of Britain -
now standing alone against the might of Nazi Germany.
But joining the war is deeply unpopular -
public opinion in the United States is hostile to foreign intervention,
preferring that America retain
her historic isolationist stance.
Now, tensions in the pacific are threatening
to drag her into another conflict she has no enthusiasm for.
For the last ten months,
Cordell Hull has been negotiating with Tokyo,
anxious to defuse that crisis
and halt Japanese expansionism in Asia.
But it is make or break time for the peace talks.
The United States have issued Japan with an ultimatum calling
for her to withdraw from China and Indochina.
Just yesterday president Roosevelt made a personal appeal
for peace to the Japanese Emperor,
and Secretary Hull knows Tokyo's response
could come at any time.
He will not have to wait much longer for his answer.
Yes?
The intercepted message on Commander Kramer's desk
is Japan's much-awaited response
to the American ultimatum.
Such is the speed of their decoding operation
that the United States government will read it hours
before the Japanese Ambassador.
Kramer immediately realises that far from quelling the crisis,
Tokyo's message can only escalate it.
In contrast to the polite diplomatic language of the last few months,
it rejects Washington's ultimatum in the bluntest of terms.
The Japanese Government regrets to have to notify hereby the American Government
that in view of their attitude it cannot but consider that
it is impossible to reach an agreement through further negotiations.
To Kramer, there was now a real puzzle:
Was this instruction to break off diplomatic negotiations
just a further act of diplomatic brinkmanship on the part of the Japanese?
Or could it presage something more sinister -
an attack on the British and Dutch in East Asia -
or even - on the United States itself?
The Hawaiian island of Oahu,
and her massive naval base of pearl Harbor.
Almost two and a half thousand miles
west of the California coast,
for America,
this will be the frontline for any war in the pacific.
It's the posting every serviceman dreams of.
A sub-tropical idyll smack
in the middle of the pacific Ocean.
Beaches, girls, lots of liberty
and a workload that never gets too taxing.
Nice shot...
...Thank you very much, thank you very much.
...yeah yeah... so about this beer...
Several hours behind Washington,
it is still night in pearl Harbor,
and war is the very last thing on the mind of two young sailors.
- Nice shot... ...well I've been practicing.
...easy killer, easy!
William Stafford and Martin Matthews, out on liberty for the weekend
from their pearl Harbor postings.
...is Charlies where you find the girls?
...oh yeah, find a lot of girls down in Charlies.
The two boys are old friends from Dallas.
Matthews has followed his friend into the Navy,
though by rights, he shouldn't be there at all: He's just fifteen,
and has lied about his age to sign up.
William was home on leave from the Navy, and I'd run around with him some.
He was wearing a uniform, and it seemed like he got all the attention from all the girls,
and I decided that was the route I wanted to go...
Did you see that little Navy?
The Navy was looking for personnel,
and they kind of turned their head about the age.
For the last year, this small port on Oahu's western coast
has been home to the American navy's
vast pacific fleet.
Ever since the threat of war in East Asia,
the Navy has been quietly working to transform pearl Harbor
into a pacific fortress,
and the docks bristle with battleships.
Here on what is known as Battleship Row,
lie some of the greatest vessels in the American fleet,
lined up like sardines in a tin.
Legendary names like the Arizona, the Maryland
and the Tennessee.
With the combined firepower of 64 massive naval guns,
it is an awesome display of force,
the embodiment of American power in the pacific.
The man in charge of all these battleships is
Fleet Admiral Husband E Kimmel.
Kimmel is a career officer
and though by a reputation a workaholic,
is admired and respected by the men under his command.
That's the admiral!
With all those battleships, and a further force of almost
400 hundred aircraft to defend them,
Kimmel and the US Navy regard
pearl Harbor as impregnable -
the perfect base from which to launch America's response
to any Japanese aggression in the pacific.
Commander Kramer has just received
a further intercepted cable from Tokyo.
Brotherhood
If the earlier intercept caused concern,
this latest one has rung alarm bells.
Call the White House and tell them
there's another Magic pouch on the way
that the president needs to see immediately...
The cable contains two instructions.
The first orders the Japanese Embassy
to burn their diplomatic code books.
But it is the second that troubles Kramer the most.
It orders the Japanese Ambassador to deliver the message
announcing their withdrawal from the peace talks at exactly 1pm today.
Kramer immediately suspects that
such precisely timed orders from Tokyo
could be a vital clue to Japanese intentions.
1pm in Washington
will be early morning across the pacific.
Using a time zone chart,
he begins working out the equivalent time over at US pacific bases.
It will be 2 in the morning in the philippines,
4 in the morning on their base in Guam -
and seven thirty in the morning in pearl Harbor.
From his intimate knowledge of Japan,
Kramer knows that historically,
the surprise attack is one of Japan's favoured war tactics.
Early Sunday morning will be an ideal time for them
to launch a pre-emptive strike.
That's just over four hours away.
Thousands of miles away, in the middle of the pacific Ocean,
lies the confirmation of Commander Kramer's concerns.
Under conditions of strict radio silence,
the largest aircraft carrier fleet ever assembled is under full steam.
Six carriers with some 355 aircraft,
two battleships, three cruisers and nine destroyers -
31 vessels in all.
Their destination: Pearl Harbor.
Japan has calculated that to gain the free hand in East Asia,
far from avoiding the US pacific Fleet
in their island fortress,
they must instead destroy it.
In that goal they are supremely confident.
For Japan has developed technology
that will transform the future of naval warfare.
From now on,
it would be air power that matters at sea.
Thanks to her engineering prowess, Japan has created a fleet of aircraft carriers
that would render her enemy's huge battleships obsolete.
Her naval commanders believed
that by getting the carriers up close to the enemy under conditions of secrecy,
it would be possible to annihilate their ships from the air
before they had the chance to respond.
This operation will be the first time the new strategy is put to the test.
Everything now depends on maintaining that element of stealth.
Deep in the bowels of the Flagship Akagi lies the radio room.
The radio operators scan every available frequency for the slightest clue
that the position of the Fleet has been compromised.
The traditional Hawaiian music
from Oahu's main radio station
is a sign that all is well on the island.
The element of surprise is theirs.
Several decks above in the akagi's map room,
vice admiral nagumo reviews the plan of attack
with his chief pilot, mitsuo fuchida,
one last time.
It is audacious in the extreme.
The Americans had always considered pearl Harbor
to be invulnerable to attack by torpedo bomber,
because it was too shallow.
But the Japanese have found their Achilles heel.
In a technique they've been rehearsing for months,
they've developed torpedoes
that can be dropped from a plane into shallow water.
Those torpedo bombers will lead the attack on pearl Harbor.
Then, a message from Tokyo.
It gives the latest details on the ships at anchor,
relayed from their spy on the ground in pearl Harbor.
The following ships were observed at anchor on the 6th:
9 battleships, 3 light cruisers,
3 submarine tenders, 17 destroyers.
And in addition there are 4 light cruisers and 2 destroyers,
lying at docks.
As six o'clock approaches, the Japanese pilots begin heading out to the aircraft
that now crowd the deck like insects.
Typical of the military class now ruling Japan,
Fuchida and his fellow pilots
are followers of Bushido,
the way of the samurai.
Fearlessness in the face of the enemy,
and a strict code that regarded death in battle as the highest honour
were the Bushido's core values.
Huddled on the flight decks
is a formidable array of aircraft,
representing some of the most sophisticated killing machinery in the world,
planes that can easily outclass their American rivals.
With fuel tanks loaded up to the brim,
plane after plane will take to the air
from the Fleet's six aircraft carriers.
It will take them an hour and three quarters to reach pearl Harbor.
The greatest air assault in history is finally underway.
On this Sunday morning,
Commander of the pacific Fleet - Admiral Kimmel
is looking forward to a rare day off
from his usual punishing work routine.
Later he's got a game of golf booked with his army counterpart.
The call is from his headquarters.
One of his Destroyers patrolling outside pearl Harbor,
the USS Ward,
has engaged an unidentified submarine with depth charges.
With pearl Harbor's awesome air defences,
Kimmel has always considered an air attack
on the Fleet in port unthinkable.
But not so an attack out at sea.
With tensions with Japan running high,
he's put his ships in the pacific
on alert for Japanese submarines.
Right...
But there's been a spate of false sightings.
Kimmel wonders whether this isn't just another one.
Have them contact my staff and meet me at HQ.
Send up my car immediately, please.
A telegram has just arrived in Hawaii from Washington.
Japanese are presenting at one pm eastern standard time today
what amounts to an ultimatum.
Just what significance the hour set may have we do not know
but be on alert accordingly.
But because of problems on the military circuit to Hawaii,
it's been sent via a domestic cable carrier -
and there's nothing to indicate just how urgent a message it is.
It will have to wait its turn to be delivered alongside all the other routine messages
the courier will be delivering around the island today.
Seaman Martin Matthews's has been given dispensation
to spend the night on board the USS Arizona with his friend William Stafford.
...these are five inch thirty eight millimetres dual purpose...
...what does 'dual purpose' mean?
...let's just say that you can knock down anything from the sky or on the ground...
We were going to go ashore again and spend some more liberty,
but then we heard noise over to our starboard side.
You could see a bunch of planes coming in,
nobody's paying any attention to it.
It is just before 8 o'clock.
Across the Fleet, crew are standing by for a ritual
that will be observed on every one of the Navy's ships at anchor this morning -
the flag ceremony.
The Japanese strike force now hovers above a sleepy pearl Harbor,
poised to strike.
From the head of the attack squadron,
Fuchida breaks radio silence
to transmit his first signal back to the carrier fleet and to Tokyo.
The coded message announces that the element of surprise
they have worked so hard to achieve is theirs.
Within minutes, pearl Harbor is in flames.
Admiral Kimmel is on the phone
to his headquarters for a second time,
when the news comes through that pearl Harbor is under attack.
They're what? I'll be right down.
...why didn't you call us?
- What are we doing? - Come on!
Where are we going?
On board the Arizona, General Quarters are sounding,
calling the men to their battle stations.
...go go go go go!
But as a visitor on ship,
Martin Matthews has no battle station of his own to go to.
...l'll be right back for you - get down!
He says goodbye to William Stafford
and can only look on
as the chaos unleashed by the Japanese bombs unfolds around him.
I was scared to death.
This is not what I went in the Navy for,
and this is not what I wanted.
I had no place to go; I didn't have a general quarter station;
I wouldn't have known what to have done if I went to one.
I was too damn young to realize what was going on
and didn't know that this was a war breaking out.
Just as they have rehearsed dozens of times,
the torpedo bombers sweep in low down the line of pearl Harbor's Southeast Loch
on their bombing run up to Battleship Row.
Within minutes of the beginning of the attack,
the bombers have scored direct hits on the battleships California,
Oklahoma, and Arizona -
the great warhorses of the pacific Fleet.
...Torpedo bomb... ...so much bomb again!
Kimmel's staff are struggling to comprehend
the scale and ferocity of the Japanese attack.
What's going at this time?
Just can't wave them on the radio.
Send the following message to all stations and ships:
'Hostilities with Japan commenced with air raid on pearl Harbor'.
Yes Sir.
Kimmel's first task is
focusing his staff around the launch of a counter-attack.
But that will be impossible
unless they can defend their ships -
and that's supposed to be down to
pearl Harbor's extensive air defences.
Why the hell aren't we getting any air cover?
The island is dotted with air fields,
the force of 400 planes intended as an iron shield
in the defence of pearl Harbor's battleships.
There's supposed to have been regular defensive air patrols -
but fuel shortages have more often than not kept the planes on the ground.
Without that air cover, the Japanese bombers have the freedom of the skies
to pick off pearl Harbor's planes and battleships as they please.
...Sir, there is news from Japan from...
Can you raise it?
...under attack?
What are the actions of these planes?
Kimmel's best hope lies with
getting his undamaged ships out to sea as quickly as possible,
so they can start hunting down the location of the Japanese Fleet.
I want the ready destroyer out and the stand by destroyer to get up steam...
...right away...
But tracking it down will be like
finding a needle in a haystack.
Kimmel knows they could be anywhere
within a perimeter of 250 miles -
an area the size of Germany.
...Oklahoma to Arizona...
At Half past eight just thirty minutues after the beginning of the attack,
Seven of the fleets eight battleships are out of commission.
The japanese attack is going precisely to plan.
With bombs spent and fuel levels now running low,
Fuchida issues the signal to his bomber squadrons
to return to the carriers.
But a new, further phase of the Japanese operation is still to come.
It is now over an hour since the message warning of the attack first arrived
at the cable company offices in Honolulu.
It is still sitting in the courier's pouch, waiting to be delivered.
I wound up in the water...
I don't know whether it was the bomb explosion
while I was on the top deck that knocked me over
or whether it was the inner emotion...
The harbor awash with flames and burning oil,
Seaman Martin Matthews heads for a mooring buoy,
where he watches the USS Arizona
explode after sustaining a direct hit,
her forward ammunition magazines erupting like a volcano.
Within minutes, the battleship had sunk with the loss of almost 1200 men.
When the Arizona finally started blowing up, it was ammunition,
gun lockers, and shells and fragments and pyrotechnics coming,
it seemed to me, from all parts of the ship...
I decided to get the hell away from that mooring buoy.
In the pacific Ocean 250 miles north of Oahu,
the second wave of the Japanese assault on pearl Harbor
is heading out from the carriers.
This further wave of planes is made up of dive bombers and high level bombers,
together with an escort of Zero fighters -
around 170 aircraft in all.
For this second wave, standing orders are as clear as they are simple:
To hit whatever's left.
But pearl Harbor's defences are finally starting to kick in -
there's now an effective anti aircraft barrage,
and some US fighter pilots have even managed to get into the air.
Yes mr president,
yes, alright, Thank you mr president.
Japanese have attacked pearl harbor,
can't belive they've actually done it.
In washington secretary of state cordell hull
has just been given news of the attacks by president roosevelt
when the japanese ambassodor numora
arrives for his meeting.
Alright well Send them in.
Nomura is here to deliver the document
that angrily announces japans severing of diplomatic ties
with the united states.
A document which hull already knows the contents of,
thanks to america's top secret code breaking operation.
But unlike hull,
the japanese ambassador still hasn't been informed
about his country's attack on pearl harbor.
When i finished skimming the pages,
i turned to nomura and put my eye on him.
In all of our conversations over the last nine months,
i have never uttered one word of untruth.
This is bourne out absolutely by the record.
In all of my fifty years of public service
i have never seen a document that was more crowded
with infamous falses and distorstions on a scale so huge
that i never imagined until today
that any government on this planet was capable of uttering them.
Nomura seemed about to say something.
I stopped him with a motion of my hand.
The ambassadors turned without a word and walked out.
Their heads down.
The attack leader, mitsuo fuchida,
is now in the last plane left over pearl harbor.
It is vital that before he returns to ship
he compiles an accurate assessment of the damage inflicted.
Knowing exactly how many ships remain
will not just decide whether to launch a third wave,
it will also inform japanese naval strategy
in the pacific over the coming months.
Finally he gives his pilot the order to return to base.
At admiral kimmel's headquatres
the effects of the second wave of japanese bombing are becoming apparent.
Kimmel was just numb, he kept sitting around
staring glass eyed into space.
Kimmel looked shocked by the enourmity of the thing
that was happening to his command
and by the fact that the world was blowing up around him.
Since the beginning of the second wave a further two battleships had been sunk.
Of the eight great ships
moored on battleship row that morning
those great symbols of american naval power
and the means by
which she would rule the waves in the pacific.
Five are sunk and none are sea worthy.
America's traditional naval strategy had been felled at a blow
by japans new aircraft carrier tacticts.
What's the latest damage report?
Sir, the latest information we have...
Three destroyers have also been lost
including the uss shore which explodes in a vast fireball
as her amunision magazine becomes engulfed by the raging blaze.
When the shore blew up
i was in admiral kimmels office
and i never want again to see a look on a man's face
as i saw on admiral kimmel's.
In total 21 vessels stand disabled by the japanese bombers.
And by the final count 164 american planes
will be lost forjust 29 japanese aircraft.
American humiliation is complete.
When he finally returns to the Akagi,
Fuchida is immediately summoned to the bridge deck
where the Japanese Fleet Commander Vice Admiral Nagumo
is waiting to be briefed.
The decision Nagumo must now take will be perhaps the most important of the day:
Does he send in a third wave -
or does give the order to return to port?
Crucially, Nagumo asks:
Will the US fleet
be able to operate out of pearl Harbor within six months?
His chief pilot is confident it will not.
It is the answer Nagumo has been hoping for.
Without the element of surprise,
and anxious to protect his fleet,
he gives the order to return to port.
On Oahu,
the shock of the attack is giving way to a real sense of anger
as the extent of the casualties
and damage finally hits home.
Volunteers from all walks of life
come forward to offer their help in the clean up operation.
Seaman Martin Matthews is now
back at his post at the airstrip on Ford Island's Naval Station.
There was very little left
to resemble a Naval air station
as far as when the bomb attack was over.
You could see hulks of hangars and hulks of airplanes,
but I don't think there was one plane
that was completely intact at all after it was over.
With fears of further attacks,
the first task is to clear the debris from the bombing
so that the port and airstrips can be re-opened.
It was a comedy of errors from the word "go".
The Navy was unprepared;
none of the personnel I knew
had been trained for an imminent attack.
The gunners weren't trained; the ammunition wasn't readily available;
damage control wasn't available;
watertight hatches were never closed...
It was complete pandemonium.
The men will work flat out
for the next three days,
with very little sleep -
part of a heroic effort
to return pearl Harbor to operational status as quickly as possible.
For Matthews, the enormity of
what has happened begins to sink in.
Later he will learn that
the friend he said goodby to on the arizona that morning,
William Stafford, is dead.
With hospitals across the island full to capacity,
schools are commandeered to become makeshift wards,
while members of the public come forward to offer their help and give blood.
All told, the pearl Harbor attack will claim the lives of 2403 Americans,
with almost 1200 wounded.
It will be the largest loss of life on American soil
during World War Two.
Pearl Harbor is just one of a broad wave of attacks
launched by Japan across the pacific that day.
They also attack America's pacific bases
on Guam and Wake Island,
and British interests in Hong Kong and Malaya.
Next they will invade the American-controlled philippines,
and the British fortress of Singapore will fall in another devastating surprise swoop.
It is the beginning of a carefully calculated
assault on East Asia
that by the early months of 1942,
would see the region fall to Japanese control.
Japan's stated goal of building an Empire
across East Asia looked within her grasp.
The twisted hulls of sunken battleships
now crowd pearl Harbor's once majestic docks.
All that now awaits Admiral Kimmel is the long process of recrimination
as the Government demands an explanation of him for what went wrong.
Stay on it... stay on it...
It will start four days later
when Secretary of the Navy Frank Knox
arrives from Washington to begin his investigation.
...Admiral, this just came in for you, sir...
Then, as if to add insult to his humiliation,
some 8 hours after it first arrived on the island,
the Washington message warning of an imminent attack
is finally handed to him
The long blame game that is about to begin will,
just weeks later, see Admiral Kimmel being relieved of his command.
In Washington, Cordell Hull is heading to the White House
for the Administration's first Cabinet meeting since the pearl Harbor attacks.
At the meeting, the president will read them the draft of his address
to the special joint session of Congress that he has called for the next morning.
Far from being hesitant about
a war in the pacific as Japan hopes,
America does not equivocate for a moment in the path she chooses:
Yesterday, December 7th, 1941,
a date that will live in infamy.
The United States was suddenly and deliberately attacked by
the naval and air forces of the Empire of Japan.
For all the devastation wrought at pearl Harbor,
it is not the death blow to the US navy
that Japan had hoped for.
In a salvage operation of unprecedented speed,
in under a fortnight three of Battleship's Row
eight ships are back in service.
And critically, pearl Harbor's two aircraft carriers -
out at sea during the attacks - are left unscathed.
Six months later, the pacific Fleet will take its revenge
at the Battle of Midway when it sinks four Japanese carriers.
I ask that the congress declare
that since the dastardly and unprovoked attack by Japan...
a state of war has existed between the United States and the Japanese Empire.
With this speech,
a nation with an aversion to foreign wars
and whose army was smaller than Yugoslavia's,
would in two years become the world's greatest military power.
Humiliation would rain down on Germany in Europe,
as it would on Japan in the pacific.
With the attack on pearl Harbor on December 7th 1941,
America would become a superpower,
a decision that would change the course of world history.