All language subtitles for Attack.On.Pearl.Harbor.Minute.By.Minute.S01E03.WEBRip.x264-ION10

[plane engine whirring]

[narrator] Previously…

The Japanese had caused
devastation in Pearl Harbor

in a thunderous first attack.

[intense music playing]

All of a sudden,
the sky was full of planes,

and there was shooting all over the place.

[Michael] The Japanese had sunk
three battleships.

There was one
that was in danger of sinking.

We lost 1,177 men in ten minutes.

It was awful.

The gates of hell had been opened up.
The scene is absolutely cataclysmic.

[suspenseful music playing]

[plane engines whirring]

[narrator] Eighty years ago,
an ambitious Japanese raid on Pearl Harbor

killed nearly 2,400 people
and led to America entering World War Two.

How could such a small island nation
take an obviously suicidal step?

It was Japan's version of the atomic bomb.

[explosion]

[Taylor] It's one of those crucial days
in history,

like the attack
on the Twin Towers on September 11th.

You know the world won't be the same
after as it had been before.

-[intense music playing]
-[narrator] In this final episode…

[gunfire]

…after the surprise first attack,
a second wave is imminent.

[Francis] It had been quiet for a while,

but then you could start hearing
loud explosions again.

[gunfire]

[Louis] All the fighters
and bombers in the air,

the Nevada got attacked by everybody.

[explosion]

[narrator] And amid the chaos,
heroes emerge.

[Michael] By this time,
the Americans were fully alerted,

and they were blind fighting mad.

[Cass] He got a machine gun
and was shooting back

-at the Japanese planes.
-[gunfire]

It showed a lot of courage to me.

-[plane engine whirring]
-[gunfire]

[tense music playing]

[clock ticking]

-[explosion]
-[dramatic music playing]

[narrator] The first wave
of the attack ends,

and the last of the Japanese aircraft
exit Hawaiian airspace.

[dramatic music playing]

After the first wave attack was over,

there was a momentary lull
for about 20 to 25 minutes.

[fire blazes]

[Laura] Many of the crew,
they start abandoning ship.

They're jumping
into these oil-stained waters.

And they have nasty, terrible burns.

Sailors had shorts and t-shirts,
so their arms were burned,

their face was burned,
their legs were burned.

[fire blazes]

[narrator]
Despite the chaos on the island,

the Americans prepare
for another potential Japanese attack.

[tense music playing]

The Americans have no idea that there's
a second attack wave incoming,

but it's reasonable to assume
that they may be under attack again.

Certainly, they are making sure
that every anti-aircraft gun

anywhere in the neighborhood
has got sufficient access to ammunition.

[machine revving]

[narrator] On Oahu's airfields,

some American pilots
manage to get airborne.

Amongst the first
are Lieutenants Kenneth Taylor

and George Welch.

[Timothy] They had been
sort of up all night partying,

uh, with an all-night poker game,
and they were still in their tuxedos.

They're able to rush to a car

and drive out to a very remote airfield
called Haleiwa.

[Daniel] When they arrived,
their planes were ready.

They climbed in and got to the air
and flew over towards Pearl Harbor.

[engine whirring]

[narrator] At Pearl Harbor,
despite suffering torpedo damage,

the USS Nevada has managed
to get underway,

the only battleship to do so.

[intense music playing]

[Steve] Nevada's commanding officer
was ashore,

yet subordinates realized
that the best solution here,

the best way to save oneself,
was to get the ship underway

and to get out of Pearl Harbor.

[Laura] Chief Bosun's mate,
Edwin Hill, leads a team

to get the Nevada unmoored from the dock.

He leaves the ship, he cuts the line,

then he jumps into the water
and he swims back to Nevada.

When it threw the lines away
and backed away and down--

started down the channel, everybody saw
was right in the middle of the channel.

[tense music playing]

[Jonathan] Nevada's move is a gutsy move,

and it demonstrates
to everyone in the harbor

that we are not just gonna sit here
and take it.

Nevada was just… Uh--
It was quite a scene.

-[suspenseful music playing]
-[plane engines whirring]

[narrator] Following the departure
of the Japanese first wave,

the Americans, anticipating
a second attack, get themselves ready.

[Michael] The Americans took advantage

of the lull between the attack waves
to get organized.

They've had a little bit
more time to prepare,

more time to get their ammunition
to their guns.

There are also more men manning
the anti-aircraft batteries.

[narrator] Crewmen on the USS Tangier

sight the lead formations
of the Japanese second wave.

One hundred and sixty-seven planes
make up this second wave.

Seventy-eight dive bombers,

thirty-five fighters,
and fifty-four high-altitude bombers.

[Jonathan] The overall composition
of the second wave

is a large group of dive bombers
that are gonna be going after

targets of opportunity
in Pearl Harbor itself,

but there are also groups of level bombers
that are gonna be inflicting

additional attacks on American airfields,
such as up at Kaneohe.

But the main show
is the dive bomber attacks

that are gonna be coming in
against Pearl Harbor.

[narrator] At 8:54 a.m.,
the attack on the harbor begins.

[explosion]

[Francis] It had been quiet for a while,

but then you could start hearing
loud explosions again,

so you know that it had started again.

[explosion]

[gunfire]

[Michael] By this time, there was much,
much heavier anti-aircraft fire

because the Americans were fully alerted,

they had plenty of targets,
and they were blind fighting mad.

[gunfire]

[narrator] For the Japanese pilots,
one ship clearly stands out.

When they arrive over Pearl Harbor,

the thing that they see
is the battleship Nevada.

[Steve] It had been hit,
so it was suffering fires,

but it got underway, headed for the mouth
of Pearl Harbor and the open sea.

It becomes an obvious target
for the Japanese fliers.

They're swarming around
like bees around a honey pot.

All the bombers and fighters
in the air, the Japanese hit it.

The Nevada got attacked by everybody.

Its crews were still shooting back

at the Japanese, who were now
really focused on hitting the Nevada.

[narrator] One of the men
defending the Nevada is Joseph Taussig.

[Laura] Ensign Joseph Taussig
was a junior officer aboard the Nevada.

He was pretty green.

He had not had much experience
at all in the Navy,

and he was in charge
of the starboard anti-aircraft gun.

When the attack happens, he's hit.

He looked down,
and his left foot was in his armpit.

Ensign Taussig continues to fight,
and he does not go to the medical bay

until he is actually forced to,
until his crew carries him there.

[dramatic music playing]

[Jonathan] The battleship Nevada,

the visible symbol that we are resisting
vigorously with everything that we've got.

The sight of this ship underway,

on fire, and people remembered
its flag still flying at the rear,

moved some people to tears.

[Michael] Many of the men who saw this

said that it was one of the finest things
they saw all day long.

A huge cheer comes up

from the West Virginia and the Tennessee,
as if it was like a football game.

Nevada was just… Uh, it was quite a scene.

[suspenseful music playing]

[narrator] However, the battleship's
defiant run soon comes to an end.

-[explosion]
-[plane engine whirring]

[Michael] Dive bombers bracketed her
with near-miss

after near-miss after near-miss…

and finally, she was struck by five bombs.

-[dramatic music playing]
-[fire blazing]

It soon becomes clear to those on board

that they're not going to be able
to get to the open sea.

[Michael] She was down by the head
so much, and she was on fire so heavily,

that the captain made the decision

uh, to ground the ship on, uh…
On Hospital Point.

[dramatic music playing]

And then the tugs later
pulled her across the channel

and there she ended her sortie.

She lost, uh, quite a number of men.

[narrator] One of the casualties

is the man who helped get
the USS Nevada underway.

[Laura] Edwin Hill,
he is working on the forecastle,

and he is blown off the side of the ship,
and he is killed instantly.

[Louis] Nevada, she docked herself,

because she didn't want to get sunk
in the channel.

Everybody acted 100%
the way they were supposed to act.

There wasn't anybody
on that ship that did wrong,

what they were trained to do.

[clock ticking]

[tense music playing]

[narrator] On Oahu's airfields,
the second attack is also underway.

P-40 fighter pilots Kenneth Taylor
and George Welch

have managed to get airborne.

They, uh, vectored south
and saw that there were many aircraft

kind of circulating
over the Ewa Mooring Mast Field,

which was the main marine air base.

And so they went over there
expecting to find some American aircraft

and found out they were Japanese.

[plane engine whirring]

[Timothy] When they fly
their P-40s into the air,

they find that some of the guns
aren't even working on their aircraft.

Uh, they have to kind of go in
really almost at-- At half strength.

[tense music playing]

The Japanese, their rear seat gunners
are kind of not paying attention,

they're simply firing down,
strafing at American targets on the ground

and so Taylor and Welch
were able to get behind a bunch of them,

and then light them up
with their machine gun fire.

They were able to shoot, uh,
I think, two or three of them down.

-[intense music playing]
-[plane engine whirring]

[explosion]

[Michael] But they had exhausted
their ammunition, they were low on fuel,

and they went back to Wheeler and landed.

And they become some of the more
successful American pilots in the air

and, uh, credited with some of the first
aerial victories of the Pacific War.

[clock ticking]

[tense music playing]

[narrator] Japanese bombers now strike
the Kaneohe Naval Air Station.

One-hundred-and-one-year-old
Cass Phillips witnessed the attack.

Japanese planes were,
uh, flying in, in formation,

and they dropped
another bomb on the hangar.

[explosion]

[Cass] There was a fellow
sitting on the hangar door

and when that bomb came in,
it looked like he tried to stand up,

and then he sat back down.
When they walked over to him, he was dead.

And it turned out that that bomb,
a tiny piece of shrapnel

uh, went directly into his heart
through his chest.

-[dramatic music playing]
-[fire blazes]

[Cass] Since we didn't have any guns
to fire back at them,

uh, we tried to stay out of the way.

[intense music playing]

[plane engine whirring]

[Cass] As a matter of fact,
there was a fellow,

he got a machine gun
out of one of the airplanes,

and he was the only one that had
a mount for a machine gun,

and he was shooting back
at the Japanese planes.

Whether he hit one or not, I don't know.

[narrator] That fellow
is Chief Petty Officer John Finn.

Well, I thought he had a lot
of nerve standing-- Standing out there,

being shot at and actually being hit
and continuing to fire.

They tried to get him to come
and get out of the way,

but he wouldn't do it.

He stayed right out there
and continued firing back at them.

Uh-- It showed a lot of courage to me.

[plane engines whirring]

[narrator] At the harbor,

the dive bomber attack is now focused
on Dry Dock Number One.

[tense music playing]

The second wave has orders
to go in and hit some of the capital ships

that have not been hit by the first wave.

[Taylor] The USS Pennsylvania,

a flagship of the US Pacific fleet,
was in dry dock.

So the dry docks
too become targets of the second wave.

[narrator] The USS Pennsylvania suffers
a direct hit from a 550-pound bomb.

[explosion]

[narrator] Frank Emond,
now a hundred and three, was on board.

[Francis] The bomb went right--
right down through the center of the ship.

It hit the six-inch steel deck
and exploded upwards.

[explosion]

[Francis] I was knocked up off the deck
about three or four inches.

[sorrowful music playing]

Luckily, we-- We were in the back part
of the ship,

so-- So we were not, uh, injured
in the bomb explosion.

[narrator] Twenty-four men are killed
and twenty-nine wounded.

[Francis] Being a stretcher bearer,

I had to go help pick up the dead
and wounded people.

The memory that sticks in my mind is, uh,

trying to pick up bodies
that were close to the explosion.

The-- The skin had been burned,

and-- And you could smell the, uh--

you could smell the burned--
the burned flesh.

[sorrowful music continues]

[Francis] We went up and found them,
and, uh, we got them in the stretcher

and, uh, were able to take them
to where they needed to go.

[narrator] The USS Pennsylvania and Nevada

aren't the only ships
attracting the Japanese bombers.

There are two vessels
that receive a lot of attention

during the second wave assault.

[Timothy] One of these
is the USS Nevada,

and the other ship
is the destroyer USS Shaw.

[plane engines whirring]

[narrator] The USS Shaw is hit by a bomb,

triggering one of the largest explosions
of the day 20 minutes later.

It is captured in this iconic photo.

[Timothy]
The Shaw is hit right on its bow

that explodes the forward magazine,
blows the bow right on off,

and there is an enormous,
thunderous explosion

that almost dwarfs
what had happened to the Arizona.

[explosion]

The Japanese, they had caused
the damage they wanted to do.

They'd sunk or damaged
so many of the battleships.

They'd caused mayhem across the harbor.

The scene is one of utter
confusion and bedlam and anger.

[intense music playing]

[narrator] Despite the devastation
on the ground,

American resistance continues in the air.

[tense music playing]

[narrator] At Wheeler Airfield,
four P-36 fighters,

led by Lieutenant Lewis Sanders, take off.

[narrator] The pilots have had
little time to prepare.

[Laura] Phil Rasmussen
is one of the few American pilots

who manages to get his plane aloft.

He is still wearing his purple pajamas
when he gets in his plane.

[Michael] When they got up in the air,
they vectored out

toward Kaneohe Bay Naval Air Station.

And there, they spotted a flight of, uh--
of Japanese aircraft off in the distance.

[intense music playing]

[Michael] They were in a superb position
for an attack.

They were on the high side,
with the sun at their back,

and they caught the Japanese aircraft
completely blind.

[intense music playing]

[narrator] However, the odds
are stacked against them.

[Jonathan] It's well and good
to get a P-36 up in the air,

but that is not the kind of plane

that you want to be flying
against a Mitsubishi Zero.

The Zero is probably the finest, uh,

carrier-launched fighter,
at this point, in the world.

If you go after it and actually try
to dogfight it,

by turning inside it,
you're going to end up dead.

[suspenseful music playing]

[narrator] But pilot Phil Rasmussen

finds there is an issue with his plane.

[Michael] Phil Rasmussen discovered
that one of his guns was jammed,

and the other, uh, machine gun started
to run away and fire all by itself.

All the time, he was turning,
trying to do battle with these Zeros.

[suspenseful music playing]

[narrator] Rasmussen manages to hit
a Japanese Zero…

[plane engine roars]

[narrator] …but is then struck himself
with hundreds of rounds of cannon fire.

It blows off the canopy
of Rasmussen's plane,

it shoots away all his controls.
His plane is now falling.

-[tense music playing]
-[plane engine roars]

[dramatic music playing]

Somehow, he actually manages
to land the plane without a tail wheel,

without brakes, and without his rudder.

He couldn't believe he had made it alive
through the encounter.

In fact, he reached up with his hand,

put it on top of his head to see
whether he was bleeding anywhere,

and all he could feel was shattered glass.

[clock ticking]

[narrator]
After nearly two-and-a-half hours,

the attack is finally over,

and the Japanese planes
head back to their carriers.

[suspenseful music playing]

[Jonathan] The place
is an absolute shambles.

Uh, you have a number
of sunken battleships,

Arizona heavily afire,

with her superstructure
collapsing forward.

The harbor is full of small boats,

which are trying to make their way around
and pull men out of the water.

[Daniel] It was just awful,
and there was no other way to put it.

This was an American horror story
they were living through.

[clock ticking]

[narrator] Following the departure
of the last Japanese planes,

the Americans wait in anticipation
for a possible third-wave attack.

[Daniel] After the Japanese aircraft
left from the second-wave attack,

there was a moment of… fear.

What's next? Is this thing over with?
Are there going to be further air attacks?

Could there even be
something like an invasion?

Yeah. Well, we did think
they would probably be coming back, yes.

A lot of people even expected
that there would be a landing.

[tense music playing]

[narrator] The third wave never comes.

Vice Admiral Chūichi Nagumo
withdraws his forces

and turns back to Japan.

[Steve] Nagumo, his theory,
I believe, was,

"Well, the Americans know we're here now,
and two of their aircraft carriers

are missing from the harbor.
We don't know where they are."

"They could be coming after us right now."

The end of that day,
we knew about where they were.

Had he continued to be there
and then run short on fuel,

left himself vulnerable for torpedo attack
from American submarines.

I think on balance, Nagumo probably made
the best decision.

Nagumo looks at his orders, and he says,

you know, "I was tasked with sinking
four American battleships."

"The initial assessment says
that I've gotten at least that many."

"The mission is a success.
We're going home."

[narrator] The once mighty
US Pacific Fleet now lies in ruins.

Five of eight battleships have been sunk

along with a target ship,
a minelayer, and a repair ship.

On Oahu's airfields,
347 planes have been destroyed or damaged,

significantly more
than the Japanese had expected.

[Daniel] The Japanese had accomplished
beyond their wildest dreams.

They obviously were very disappointed
that carriers were not in port.

But they had damaged
the battle line in the Pacific Fleet.

It would never be the same.

The immediate reaction in Japan,

um, to the news of Pearl Harbor success
was, I think, one of euphoria,

at least on the surface of society.

When we started being able to get up
topside with the stretcher,

we could see the look over the harbor
and all the ships you could see,

and there was fire from some ships
and just smoke from all the rest of them.

[Cass] Seeing those battleships
lying on their side,

and, uh, sunk and so forth,

I was just sorry to see
the damage that was done.

-[somber music playing]
-[ocean roars]

[narrator] Japanese losses
are significantly lower.

Five midget submarines are lost,

and of the 350 aircraft launched,
just 29 fail to return.

Most of the losses
occur in the second wave.

The Japanese, they suffer more
aircraft casualties in the second wave,

when the American anti-aircraft
defenses are more fully alerted.

Uh-- They lose twenty planes
in the second wave

as opposed to only nine
in-- in the first wave.

[narrator] But America's fierce resistance
has tragic consequences.

[Jonathan] The Americans fired
between five and six thousand shells

and around a quarter of a million
fifty-caliber machine gun bullets.

[gunfire]

Inevitably, some of these shells
end up going up

and then landing in civilian areas,
uh, around Honolulu.

One of them tragically hits a car
directly and kills all of its occupants.

[Daniel] Forty-nine civilians
lost their lives that day.

Many of them lost their lives
from friendly fire,

and there were children among that group.

[narrator] The total toll on American life
is huge.

Two thousand, three hundred ninety
are killed and 1,179 wounded.

The vast majority
are junior enlisted personnel,

a few years out of high school.

The Japanese lose just 65 men.

-[vehicles revving]
-[slow music playing]

[narrator] By now, the news of the attack

has reached Winston Churchill
in Great Britain.

[dramatic music playing]

The attack at Pearl Harbor happens
very early in the morning, Honolulu time.

In Britain, it's early evening.

The prime minister, Winston Churchill,
goes up to bed, and he says that night

he slept the sleep of the saved
and the thankful.

Because he knows that with America
in the war, victory is certain.

[dramatic music playing]

[narrator] At Pearl Harbor,

sailors continue to evacuate
their sunken and burning ships.

On the USS West Virginia,
crew come on board the Tennessee

by way of a five-inch gun.

Others jump into the water.

There's fuel oil that is floating on top,

in some cases on fire. Same thing,
there were pools of gasoline and whatnot,

and so you can understand that just
getting these guys out of the water

in many cases was very difficult.

[fire crackling]

One of the sailors went out
in one of these boats to pick up survivors

and wound up picking bodies up.

And there's this one fellow
they picked up,

and he was so badly burned

that when he grabbed his arm, all the skin
and meat came off of his arm.

And the guy was still alive,
just screaming.

[Daniel] There just wasn't enough people
to deal with the high rate of casualties.

The hospitals were full.

The hospital ship Solace was taking
on more casualties than it could.

Uh-- The doctors were working feverishly.

At Hickam field, they ran out
of morphine at the small station hospital.

They ran out of bandages.
They ran out of antiseptic.

[Cass] One fella was lying there.

There wasn't room for him,
we didn't have a hospital, of course.

I felt extremely sorry for him,

young man that was, uh,
a half-hour earlier,

was perfectly healthy,
and now he was, uh…

he couldn't-- He couldn't even feel
his legs.

[dramatic music playing]

[narrator] With medical facilities
stretched,

civilians assist with the casualties.

One of them is the young daughter
of Captain Logan Ramsey.

[intense music playing]

[Laura] Mary Ann Ramsey
was a 16-year-old girl.

As the attack was happening,

she ran down to one of the makeshift
medical stations.

She had no medical training,

and as burned men were being
brought up,

she would comfort them.
She hugs them, and she talks to them.

She does everything she can
to help out these men

who are dying in front of her.

[somber music playing]

[Daniel] These angels of mercy, um,
and young women at the time,

and those nurses, were dealing
with the reality of war

in a scope that they never envisioned.

[somber music playing]

[narrator] Rescue operations
at the harbor continue into the night.

But on some ships,
rescue is almost impossible.

One of the toughest stories
of Pearl Harbor

is the story of the Oklahoma that capsizes

in the course of the attack
when hit by torpedoes.

Uh-- Many men manage to get off.
They get onto the hull,

uh, and they are rescued,
but many more are left inside the ship.

[tense music playing]

Once the ship rolls over,
up is down, down is up.

Uh-- It is complete darkness.
Sailors are trapped in air pockets.

They are covered in oil, they can't see.

It is a place where sailors
have become entombed.

At this point, there is no way
for them to get out.

They're simply trapped
underneath the hull,

and they have to wait for rescuers.

[narrator] It is a delicate task.

When opening portions of the hull,
air escapes and lets in water,

drowning some of the men trapped inside.

[tense music playing]

[Daniel] Yard workers described
seeing the hands coming out of the hull,

and with not having the air in there,

um, they would drown
right in front of them,

um, and they would see the hands
retreat from the hole.

[somber music playing]

[narrator] But rescuers come up
with a solution.

[Daniel] They were dealing
with this problem, and as yard workers,

and people with technical skills,
they would pump air into that compartment

-before they could get the men out.
-[motor revving]

[Laura] They would use air pumped
from the USS Tennessee,

and they would cut holes in the hull.

[suspenseful music playing]

[Daniel] Navy Federal workers
managed to save 32 men,

and that was significant,
and it was something

after the attack
that they could take pride in.

They had seen so much death.

[narrator] But tragically,
more men will be lost.

[clock ticking]

[dramatic music playing]

[narrator] Within 24 hours of the attack,

President Roosevelt signs
a declaration of war against Japan,

which is passed by the US Congress

after he makes one of the most iconic
speeches in American history.

When I hear Roosevelt's speech,
even now, I still get shivers up my spine.

December 7th, 1941…

a date which will live in infamy.

[Jonathan] "A date that will live
in infamy."

That absolutely encapsulated
the American mood at this point,

that we are furious about this attack.

This form of treachery
shall never again endanger us.

[cheering and applause]

"The day that we will live in infamy,"
really spoke to a lot of people,

and the cowardly nature
of the attack also added to that.

So, "Remember Pearl Harbor"
became a kind of slogan.

[narrator] For thousands
of young Americans,

-the attack on Pearl Harbor is a calling.
-[indistinct chatter]

Americans are now eager for retaliation.

[indistinct chatter]

You couldn't keep people
away from the recruiting stations.

The reason for that
is because they believe

that getting into the US Navy

was the surest-fire way
of punishing the Japanese

for what happened at Pearl Harbor.

[narrator] For the Japanese-Americans
living on US soil,

the repercussions
of the attack are devastating.

After the attack, Japanese-Americans
are basically treated like the enemy,

suspected of espionage and other acts
against the United States.

Assets were seized. Homes, businesses.

These are Japanese taxpaying Americans.

[Jonathan] You have this absolutely
shameful situation,

uh, where the--
The Californian Japanese were…

herded into detainment camps
for the remainder of the war.

Uh, one of the most shameful episodes
in American history, I think.

[narrator] Japan's aim
of demoralizing America

to bring them to the negotiating table
doesn't come to pass.

Strategically, they make
a huge error of judgment.

One of the biggest, uh,
mistakes made with Pearl Harbor

is that they underestimated Americans.

They hoped to not only decimate our fleet,
but to break the American spirit.

Japan never intended for this
to be a long-term war.

Their ultimate goal
is to have a negotiated end to this war

sometime within the next
six months to a year,

so the way to inflict
the maximum amount of shocking impact

on the American populous
is to sink warships.

[explosion]

[intense music playing]

[Eri] United States will be shocked enough

after the success of Pearl Harbor
to sue for peace.

[Timothy] But in that,
they were wrong.

The Japanese miscalculated
the American retaliation,

because in 1942, Americans got together
to fight a war in the Atlantic

-and a war in the Pacific simultaneously.
-[plane engine whirring]

[Timothy] And in the end, they helped
conquer, uh, two fascist empires

that were set on world domination.

[intense music playing]

You can make a credible argument
that Japan lost World War II

as soon as the first bomb
fell on Ford Island.

[ominous music playing]

[narrator] In the wake of the deadly
Pearl Harbor attack,

the damage done to the once-imposing
American Pacific Fleet is immense.

These vessels cost tens of millions
of dollars to build

back when that was real money.

Um-- And so, the destruction
of any one of those assets

would be tantamount
to a national catastrophe.

[indistinct chatter]

[narrator] In January 1942,
Captain Homer Wallin

began the task of salvaging
and restoring the crippled fleet.

[somber music playing]

The dramatic salvage operations
undertaken by Homer Wallin

-were nothing short of a miracle.
-[steam blows]

It was very, very difficult to get--
to get these ships back into shape.

[hammer clanking]

[Michael] Their cables and wires
and pipework and ductwork

all over the place,
all that gets obliterated.

[Daniel] The miracle
of the salvage of Pearl Harbor

is most of the ships damaged that day

made it back into service
in one form or another.

And that was an engineering miracle.

[somber music playing]

Of the ships that were damaged
and sunk at Pearl Harbor,

there were only three
that were not repaired

and returned to service.

The Utah, which had capsized,

the hulk of the Arizona,
which had been blown apart,

and the Oklahoma.

All the other ships
were returned to service.

[narrator] The USS Nevada
was sent to the US West Coast

for full repairs in April 1942.

She saw action in Normandy,
Iwo Jima, and Okinawa.

But the question remains.
Could the attack have been avoided?

[intense music concludes]

And the answer to that is a flat-out no.

The Japanese had decided
they were going to go to war

with the United States,
and that was the end of it.

[narrator] So, could the attack
on the island have been prevented?

Three big opportunities were missed,

beginning with the sinking
of the Japanese midget submarine

on the morning of the attack.

[tense music playing]

-[indistinct chatter]
-[Steve] The commander of the Ward

immediately sent a message
to Pearl Harbor.

No one reacted,
uh, with high speed or alacrity.

If it had been
promptly recognized for what it was,

you might have put
all the ships in the harbor on full alert.

[narrator] The second critical mistake

occurred less than an hour
before the attack,

with a radar sighting of a large number
of planes rapidly approaching Oahu.

We blew that because we did not have
the trained personnel in place

to make a good determination on whether
this target coming in was friend or foe.

[machine screeches]

[Steve] They did call it in
to an Army pilot

who knew nothing about radar.
He told the two guys,

"Eh, it's probably the army coming in.
Don't worry about it."

[narrator] And the third
missed opportunity

came from the lack of thorough searches
and patrols north of the harbor.

[Steve] Admiral Kimmel
was a man of offense.

He wasn't defensive-minded.

He was reluctant to use any resources
to protect himself in Hawaii.

"Why go look for something
I don't think is there?"

"That just wastes my airplanes?"

They should have said,
"Get these aircraft up."

"Just as a safeguard.
Let's not take a chance."

But they never did that.

[Cass] We weren't ready.
We weren't prepared.

And that's the only thing that I think.

How much different it would have been
had we been prepared.

America being alerted,
at least for a few minutes,

and it would have prevented
a lot of American lives from being lost.

[narrator] Washington, December 1941.

The Roberts Commission is set up

to investigate the circumstances
of the Japanese attack.

It finds Admiral Husband Kimmel,
along with General Walter Short,

guilty of dereliction of duty.

If you're in a position of command,
and something goes wrong,

you have to take the blame for it,
and you have to fall on your sword.

-[indistinct chatter]
-[Daniel] They were fine officers.

They deserved better.

But ultimately, that responsibly
rested on their shoulders.

[dramatic music playing]

[narrator] Today,
at the bottom of Pearl Harbor,

lies the ghostly wreckage
of the USS Arizona.

The Arizona has become
this symbol of the attack.

Really quite a moving place to go.

[Daniel] It's a place where people could
come and walk upon the memorial,

see the names of the dead
of the USS Arizona, and touch history.

[narrator] On September 2nd, 1945,

the Japanese signed their surrender
aboard the USS Missouri.

It now operates as a museum
at Pearl Harbor

in sight of the USS Arizona.

If you go aboard
Missouri today and stand there,

you can look and see the Arizona Memorial

just a few hundred yards away.

[dramatic music playing]

[Jonathan] And so really,
you've got the whole Pacific War,

uh, right within visual sight.
It started there, it ended here.

[narrator] Today, only a small number
of survivors remain,

the last of a generation who,
on one fateful day in December 1941,

found themselves in the eye of a storm.

[Cass] There's not many of us left.
From Pensacola, only about two I think,

and, uh, I am glad to see, though,
that people, in general,

are still remembering that it happened
and hopefully that they're, uh…

doing whatever they need to
to not let it happen again.

[Francis] Any way you look at it,
uh, war is a terrible thing

and es-- Especially when--
When you're in the middle of it.

There's nothing you can do, but--

But just join your fellows and, uh…
And then try to survive.

-[fire crackling]
-[intense music playing]

1,177 on the Arizona. My shipmates.

Lost.

I'm not a hero, those are the heroes.
They're the ones that lost their lives.

[water bubbling]