by John G. Doll
Just about everyone above the age of puberty knows that the greatest global conflict in all of recorded history started for the United States with a totally unexpected attack on the military installations in and around Pearl Harbor, in the Hawaiian Islands, on the morning of Sunday, 7 December 1941.
This “Day of Infamy” has been recorded in more texts than are necessary to fill a medium-sized library, with not only the uncountable stories that have been written by so many talented and professional authors, but also with the many volumes of verbatim testimony that went into the numerous, and certainly extensive, Congressional hearings and military courts-martial that took place after the attack.
But did you know that the Japanese Navy actually attacked Pearl Harbor a second time, and even worse—planned to do it again? They did, and they did!
Even with the unbelievable success that they achieved with their surprising and massive naval air attack on 7 December 1941, the fact that there were no follow-up landings by ground troops in order to actually take possession of the Hawaiian Islands, really denied the Japanese even the remotest chance of ever possibly achieving final victory in the Pacific War.
However, in order to maintain the home front morale and general war production momentum, the Japanese High Command decided that an additional small nuisance bombing strike on the Hawaiian Islands could be successfully mounted and carried out, without having to ever send another large armada east to that area.
The plan, code named “K,” called for two flying boats, manned by very dedicated crews, to make their way to the northwestern end of the Hawaiian Island chain, to a deserted atoll called French Frigate Shoals, lying half-way between Honolulu and the Marshall Islands, where they would be met by a submarine that would provide both planes with the additional fuel and the bombs that would be necessary for the raid.
This atoll was really nothing more than just a few feet of coral showing above the water, but with absolutely no land on which people could live. However, the natural harbor created by these low-lying coral reefs was well-suited to the Japanese plan for it made possible the chance for a long-range supply submarine to move in close to the Hawaiian Islands without being detected by elements of either the U.S. Navy or the Army Air Force units flying patrols around the Hawaiian Islands.
Once such an ideal re-supply point was selected, it was then necessary to determine which of the then-current Japanese aircraft available from the existing inventory would be best suited for this very special mission. Since the nearest initial staging area would have to be some place within the Japanese home islands in order to maintain secrecy, whatever planes were to be used had to have an extremely long flying range. In addition, for safety’s sake and, in order to allow them to be refueled and fully armed once they finally reached French Frigate Shoals, they also had to have the capability of landing on water.
Based on these very specific, and certainly necessary criteria, the only logical plane that could be assigned to this mission was the “Emily,” a large, four-engine Kawanishi Type 2 flying boat. It had just entered active service and was the largest, longest-range aircraft produced by the Japanese throughout the entire war.
The plan called for two of these huge planes to take part in this raid with the hope that at least one would get through to actually drop its bombs on the target. The Japanese High Command realized that very little of tactical importance could be achieved by such a raid, but just making it would be well worth the effort.
The planes would fly from a secure base in Japan to the newly conquered Philippines for initial refueling. From there, they would fly on to Bougainville and then to Tulagi, just off the coast of Guadalcanal, refueling at each stop. From Tulagi, the two planes would then slip into the protected harbor at French Frigate Shoals under the cover of darkness. Waiting for them there would be one of the few large supply submarines that were available to the Navy. From the submarine additional fuel and bombs that would be used during the actual raid would then be transferred to the two planes.
On the night of Monday, 2 March 1942, the two large float planes slid gracefully into the smooth water inside the coral reefs at French Frigate Shoals, and slowly taxied up to the waiting submarine. The crews of both planes and the boat worked feverishly for the next four hours, transferring hundreds of gallons of aviation fuel and several large 200-pound bombs for each plane.
Just before dawn on Tuesday, 3 March 1942, less than three short months after the initial attack on Pearl Harbor, the two air crews, and the crew of the submarine, toasted each other with small sips of saki, just before the two large planes took off, flying on a southeasterly course toward the target area at Pearl Harbor.
The attack plan called for a single bombing pass to be made by both planes over a Navy pier that was being used as the prime staging area for most of the repair work then taking place throughout the harbor.
However, when the two planes arrived over Honolulu, the pilots and bombardiers found that the entire area was thoroughly socked in by some very heavy and very low cloud cover. There was just nothing they could do. The leader of the two-plane attacking flight dropped his bombs just east of Honolulu on the side of a barren hill—hitting nothing—while the other dumped its bomb load into the sea. Both planes then quickly turned back to the northwest, in the direction of their supporting submarine at French Frigate Shoals, and escaped successfully.
Later in the year, Japanese military planners decided that since the first mission from French Frigate Shoals had really been so successful—at least in terms of the actual logistics and staging of it—to try this again. However, this time, instead of a bombing mission, it would be a reconnaissance mission, designed to determine just how well the repairs to the damaged American fleet were progressing.
It had been scheduled to take place on Saturday, 30 May 1942, but was aborted when the refueling submarine moving into the area of the low-lying coral reefs came up to periscope depth but was unable to surface because of a U.S. Navy minelayer at anchor in the area. However, even without that problem, it would have had to have been scrubbed since the single floatplane that was to be used for this reconnaissance mission never made it from the Japanese base at Guadalcanal to the rendezvous point at French Frigate Shoals.
Although the second attack on Pearl Harbor netted the Japanese absolutely nothing, it did prompt the United States to respond in kind. On Saturday, 18 April 1942, a first in naval warfare took place when the B-25 twin-engine bombers of Lieutenant Colonel James H. Doolittle took off from the deck of the U.S.S. Hornet and jolted Tokyo with its first American air raid of the war.
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