Number 137 of a Series

This came out in 1970, and I have never found it streaming for free on Amazon Prime Video or on Hulu. However I do have the DVD, so on the occasion of the 80th anniversary of the event I pulled out the disk and watched it again. It’s Tora Tora Tora, the story of the Pearl Harbor attack and starring all manner of top tier talent.

Details are from Wikipedia, which has put the cast list into a table, making it difficult to copy and paste. Here are some principal ones.

• Martin Balsam: Admiral Husband E. Kimmel
• E.G. Marshall: Lt. Colonel Rufus S. Bratton
• James Whitmore: Vice Admiral William Halsey Jr.
• Jason Robards: General Walter Short
• So Yamamura: Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto
• Takahiro Tamura: Lt. Commander Mitsuo Fuchida
• Eijirō Tōno: Vice Admiral Chuichi Nagumo
• Shōgo Shimada: Ambassador Kichisaburo Nomura, voiced by Paul Frees

The title comes from the code sent by Lt. Commander Fuchida to the fleet. It is Japanese for "Tiger Tiger Tiger." Contrary to what the Wikipedia entry says, the movie shows Fuchida using it not as a signal to attack, because he has already directed his flight to attack. It was code for the confirmation complete surprise was achieved.

Opening scenes show events leading up to the attack. Japan has been engaged in brutal operations against China, the notorious Nanjing Massacre being notable. The United States has reacted by instigating an embargo on the island nation, putting Japan in dire straits. The islands are volcanic, and as a consequence have few mineable resources. At the time the Japanese had ambitions of replacing European countries as the colonizers of Southeast Asia. Without the ability to prosecute a sustained war the empire would have no option but to retreat to within their own borders. An option would be to knock neutral United States out of contention and to make their move while Great Britain, France, Belgium, and Holland were tied up with fighting the Axis. In fact, Japan joined the Axis nations in the Tripartite Pact.

We see Admiral Yamamoto taking over as Commander-in-Chief of the Combined Fleet. The Japanese Army is eager to go onto the offensive. The Navy is not. This tension will build until the Army prevails, and the decision is made to knock America out of contention by attacking Pearl Harbor and the Philippines.

The Japanese Navy begins preparations for an attack plan devised by Air Staff Officer Minoru Genda. Fuchida is taking his squadron through torpedo exercises, viewed by commanding officers. I presume that is Admiral Nagumo asking who is leading the operation.

Meanwhile, the United States is not blind. Japan’s intentions are obvious. The Pacific Fleet has been relocated from San Diego to Pearl Harbor. Admiral Kimmel takes command and conducts an aerial inspection. The situation is clear. Sinking some ships in the narrow harbor channel will trap ships left inside. He commands the aircraft carriers to patrol the surrounding Pacific.

Others are not so far sighted. General Short recommends grouping parked airplanes in the center of the base. He is more concerned with sabotage attacks than he is with an aerial attack. Oops!

Ha! Radar has been invented, and Pearl Harbor has one. It’s a mobile unit, and they need to plant it on a mountain peak for maximum viewing. No way. Environmentalists stymie their intent to plant the unit in a nature preserve.

Yamamoto reconciles with the overwhelming influence of the Army commanders. He must attack the United States fleet.

Fuchida and his squadron practice torpedo runs in a shallow Japanese bay. Pear Harbor is shallow, and it is believed by some torpedoes will hit bottom when dropped from an airplane. The Japanese know otherwise. The British attack at Taranto in Italy has proved the feasibility of a torpedo in shallow water. You just have to do it right. We see an American officer also making this observation. Fuchida gives his assessment. "Beautiful."

Ha! The Army has found a site for their radar station. Ha! There is no telephone. Nothing like being prepared.

Meanwhile, back in Foggy Bottom, American code breakers have cracked the Japanese Purple code. They are reading Japanese communication before the intended recipients. But they are having a hard time selling it. That’s Navy Lt. Commander Kramer in the background. In the hours leading up to the attack he will be seen having his wife drive him all over D.C. trying to get the word out to all who need it. But it’s Saturday night. Everybody seems to have taken the weekend off.

But the Japanese foreign office has notified Japanese Ambassador Nomura to expect a multi-part transmission. The Americans decode all of them, and the last is alarming. "AFTER DECIPHERING PART FOURTEEN, DESTROY AT ONCE YOUR CIPHER MACHINE, ALL CODE AND SECRET DOCUMENTS." Call me an alarmist if you want, but that looks like war. The final ultimatum, in effect a declaration of war, is supposed to be delivered to Secretary Hull at 1 p.m. on 7 December. That is 30 minutes prior to the attack. That will allow the Japanese to avoid any Geneva Convention entanglements.

If American war preparations are amateurish, their code breaking skills are top notch. Kramer already has the full story while a meticulous Japanese typist is struggling to eek out the type-written ultimatum.

But it is all too late. The attack has started. Fuchida prepares to launch and receives a good luck handshake. He is an aggressive warrior and is fully committed. 

Not known to many of my countrymen, but the United States Navy struck the first blow in the war with Japan. Part of the Japanese plan was to send midget subs into the harbor to scout and to launch torpedoes. The destroyer USS Ward is patrolling off the harbor entrance when a lookout spots a Japanese sub attempting to enter the harbor by trailing an American vessel. Lt. Commander William W. Outerbridge orders an attack with gunfire and depth charges. The submarine is sunk with the loss of all aboard. Of the five involved in the attack, none survived, and only one crew member survived and was taken prisoner.

Meanwhile we see the flotilla of Japanese warplanes cruising over Hawaii from the north, flying between mountain peaks. They pass by flight instructor Cornelia Fort, who is coaching an amateur student. Here shock is evident, and she takes charge of the controls and spirals the trainer toward the ground and out of the war.

And the Japanese attackers reach Pearl Harbor on the south side of the island, and from the movie the first thing they do is to strafe some sailors putting up the flag for the morning. You have to wonder if this is for real.

For an unbearable interval nobody seems to realize they are under attack. We Japanese airplanes crisscrossing the base, and people are going, "What the hell?" Two superior officers are saluting the flag as approaching bombers unleash their load.

And, of course, all hell breaks loose. Torpedoes plow into the sides of battleships, and bombs fall, killing sailors and blowing many overboard. We see Messman 3rd Class Doris Miller. His battle station is to feed ammo to a gun station, but the gunners have been disabled, so he takes charge. In real life he was credited with downing more than one enemy planes, and he was later killed in the war.  A Gerald R. Ford-class nuclear powered aircraft carrier, CVN-81, will be named USS Miller.

And if you guessed the plan to concentrate parked aircraft close together would have repercussion, then you win the prize. The movie depicts the methodical destruction of almost every parked aircraft by the attackers.

Yes, it goes on an on.

But somebody has been doing some thinking. Two P-40B fighters were not parked in the middle of Hickam Field, but were sent to a nearby dirt strip. we see 2nd Lieutenant Welch and another pilot, 2nd Lieutenant Kenneth M. Taylor, rushing out to the field and taking the P40s up.

The engage the marauding Japanese planes, taking down several in an operation that involved landing, rearming and getting back into the fight. Both pilots survived the war.

But the destruction continues, and when the Japanese leave there is only smoldering debris and destroyed ships and thousands dead.

Now comes time for Nomura to deliver the ultimatum, an hour late. Nomura was previously an admiral in the Imperial Japanese Navy, and he served honorably. His reward was his government left him out to dry, facing the humiliation of his country’s perfidy.

And the movie ends. The aircraft carriers are still out there and by now hunting his task force. Admiral Nagumo declines to launch a third attack wave and orders his fleet back to Japan, much to the chagrin of his very aggressive pilots and commanding officers. Six months later he would face humiliating defeat in the Battle of Midway, and he would commit suicide in the closing days of the war.

Yamamoto is congratulated on the highly successful attack on the American fleet, but he knows the truth, and he walks on the deck of his flag ship. "I fear all we have done is to awaken a sleeping giant and fill him with a terrible resolve."

And he was right. At this juncture he had 16 months to live, killed in a targeted attack by American P-38 fighters. In less than four years Japan’s cities would be smoldering ruins, and American and Allied forces would be giving orders in his country.

The fallout from the attack had impact that changed world history.

It was Sunday evening, December 7, 1941. Winant and Averell Harriman were alone with me at the table at Chequers. I turned on my small wireless set shortly after the nine o’clock news had started. There were a number of items about the fighting on the Russian front and on the British front in Libya, at the end of which some few sentences were spoken regarding an attack by the Japanese on American shipping at Hawaii, and also Japanese attacks on British vessels in the Dutch East Indies. There followed a statement that after the news Mr. Somebody would make a commentary, and that the Brains Trust programme would then begin, or something like this. I did not personally sustain any direct impression, but Averell said there was something about the Japanese attacking the Americans, and, in spite of being tired and resting, we all sat up. By now the butler, Sawyers, who had heard what had passed, came into the room, saying, "It’s quite true. We heard it ourselves outside. The Japanese have attacked the Americans." There was a silence. At the Mansion House luncheon on November 11 I had said that if Japan attacked the United States a British declaration of war would follow "within the hour". I got up from the table and walked through the hall to the office, which was always at work. I asked for a call to the President. The Ambassador followed me out, and, imagining I was about to take some irrevocable step, said, "Don’t you think you’d better get confirmation first?"

In two or three minutes Mr. Roosevelt came through. "Mr. President, what’s this about Japan?" "It’s quite true," he replied. "They have attacked us at Pearl Harbour. We are all in the same boat now." I put Winant on to the line and some interchanges took place, the Ambassador at first saying, "Good," "Good"— and then, apparently graver, "Ah!" I got on again and said, "This certainly simplifies things. God be with you," or words to that effect. We then went back into the hall and tried to adjust our thoughts to the supreme world event which had occurred, which was of so startling a nature as to make even those who were near the centre gasp. My two American friends took the shock with admirable fortitude. We had no idea that any serious losses had been inflicted on the United States Navy. They did not wail or lament that their country was at war. They wasted no words in reproach or sorrow. In fact, one might almost have thought they had been delivered from a long pain.

Churchill, Winston (2010-06-30). The Grand Alliance: The Second World War, Volume 3 (Winston Churchill World War II Collection) (Kindle Locations 9374-9392). RosettaBooks. Kindle Edition.

But at that moment Britain’s chestnuts were still in the fire. The United States would immediately go to war with Japan. Americans, who had resisted involvement, insisted we must fight Japan. That said nothing about Germany and Italy. Hitler solved that issue later in the week. The Tripartite Pact required Germany to make war on any nation that attacked Japan. But Japan had attacked the United States, and the treaty did not obligate Germany’s involvement. It was perhaps seeing the inevitable that Hitler declared war on the United States. The gloves came off immediately. Prior to that any shipment of arms to Britain was prohibited by the rules of neutrality, and Roosevelt responded with vigor. The United States was a world manufacturing powerhouse, and was hardly touched by the war. When Churchill put in the request, Roosevelt sent off a shipload of 300 tank engines to British forces in North Africa. When the ship was sunk by a German U-boat, Churchill sent another shipment of 300.

Cornelia Fort and her student escaped their encounter with the invading Japanese flight, narrowly avoiding a collision with one of the war planes and also a strafing attack after landing. She became a ferry pilot for the military and was killed in a mid-air collision near Merkel, Texas in 1943.

Lieutenant Welch survived the attack and became a fighter ace during the war. He subsequently resigned his commission and became a test pilot for North American Aviation.

Nothing fails like failure. Admiral Kimmel lost his post and left the service a few weeks later.

Lt. Commander Fuchida survived the war and became a Christian evangelist. He died in 1976 while living in the United States.

One hundred days after the Pearl Harbor attack American bombers attacked the Japanese mainland. It was a pinprick of an attack, but it so unnerved the Japanese military that they became reckless and launched an attack on Midway Island. With all four aircraft carriers of the attacking fleet sunk in short order, the Japanese navy never recovered. Japan’s military went into retreat mode for the remainder of the war.