Authors: Japanese Reaping the Whirlwind: Personal Accounts of the German,Italian Experiences of WW II
At Christmas 1945, having lost the war, almost all of us were detained in some PoW camp. We were deprived of our rights, confined, the scapegoats of the nation, some of us threatened with starvation, robbed of our belongings and many without homes. There is one thing, however, that nobody had been able to take away from us to this day: the constant awareness that we did our duty unquestioningly and to the best of our abilities, in good and bad times and situations. Christmas 1944 in the Ardennes may serve as an example. Neither do we allow our pride in our units to be marred; units with which we fought for Germany to the last day of the war and in voluntary obedience. Every defamation, all attempts to avoid or withhold the historical truth can only serve to cement our pride.
After three years in a Soviet labour camp, Herbert Winckelmann clandestinely refrained from eating his rations and starved himself to the point that he was found unfit to work. He was then returned to Germany – but not to his hometown, Berlin. He had given the Soviet authorities an address in West Germany, in Vilsbiburg, Bavaria, where his wife, Elinor, and mother had moved. For months after his return, they sensibly denied him rich foods, which might easily have killed him after such a long period of privation. But away from Berlin, Winckelmann found it impossible to start a new business, and local people were hostile to refugees from the east. He was forced to live on the charity of family and friends.
The worst hosts were former members of the Nazi Party, all of Elinor’s relatives had been party members. Many a time during Hitler’s ‘glorious’ times, they had told me: ‘You owe all this to our Leader.’ But now they had forgotten that we also owed to the Leader the lost war, the destruction and the refugees.
Sickened by this attitude, Herbert Winckelmann and his family emigrated to the United States.
For Japan there was no World War II. The Japanese fought
Dai Toa Senso
– the Greater East Asia War. Their primary enemy was not the US or Great Britain but China, and the war began, not in 1939, but in 1937 – though it could be argued that it began in 1931 with the invasion of Manchuria, or in 1910 with the annexation of Korea. Having gained a foothold in Manchuria, Japan’s second attack on China led to the Rape of Nanking in December 1937, in which between 100,000 and 300,000 Chinese were massacred within a month in China’s then capital. Then in 1940 the Japanese installed a puppet government there while the Chinese Nationalists, backed by the United States and Britain, established a rival capital at Chungking.
Japan signed the Tripartite Pact with Germany and Italy in 1940, in which they pledged to ‘assist one another with all political, economic and military means’. Then in April 1941, Japan signed a non-aggression pact with the Soviet Union, which held until 8 August 1945, two days after the atomic bomb had been dropped on Hiroshima.
The Tripartite Pact did not oblige Japan to go to war against the Western Allies, alongside Germany and Italy. However, with the fall of Holland and France – and with Britain preoccupied with events in Europe – Japan was eager to take over these countries’ colonies in Asia before the Germans seized them. Backing the Chinese nationalists, in 1941 Britain and America froze Japanese assets, embargoed trade and boycotted oil supplies. To continue the war in China, Japan now needed the oilfields in the Dutch East Indies (now Indonesia). The only thing that stood in their way was the US Pacific Fleet based at Pearl Harbor on Oahu, Hawaii. If that could be knocked out, Japan could also take the Philippines – a US possession since the Spanish–American War of 1898 – and other US territories in the Pacific to form a ‘Greater East Asia Co-prosperity Sphere’ – a Japanese overseas empire.
The crunch came on 7 December 1941 – the ‘day that will live in infamy’ – when the Japanese attacked the Pacific Fleet at anchor, the port facilities and the airfields at Pearl Harbor. But for Japan, on the other side of the international dateline, the pre-emptive strike actually came on 8 December. That morning the 359 aeroplanes of the Japanese carrier-borne strike force were led by Captain Mitsuo Fuchida:
0740 hours – I gave the signal for a surprise attack. The dive bombers rose to 4,000m, and the level bombers hung just below the clouds.
0749 hours – I gave the order. My radioman tapped out the code ‘To! To! To! to notify the whole squadron to plunge into attack!’
Later he cried ‘
Tora! Tora! Tora
!’ – ‘Tiger! Tiger! Tiger!’ – signifying that they had achieved total surprise with their attack.
0757 hours – The dive bombers, led by Lieutenant Commander Tahahashi, attacked Hickam Field, Ford Island and Wheeler Field.
0757 hours – Lieutenant Commander Murata and his torpedo planes attacked the battleships in the harbour.
0800 hours – In single-file formation the fighter planes strafed the air bases.
0805 hours – The level bombers began to drop their bombs on the battleships. The Honolulu radio broadcast continued its normal programme. Then suddenly the ground below came alive! Dark grey blossoms of smoke-burst made my plane tremble. Suddenly it was jarred as if a giant hand had pushed it. We had a hole on the port side. A steering wire was damaged, but the plane was still under control. I looked down in the minutes that followed. Black clouds of smoke rose from the airfields. A huge column of dark red smoke rose a thousand feet into the air from the battleship Arizona. Its powder magazine had exploded. The Tennessee was on fire. I pulled the bomb release above the Maryland. The planes behind did likewise. Two direct hits! The target ship Utah on the western side of Ford Island had capsized. My heart was ablaze with joy for my success in getting the whole main forces of the American Pacific Fleet in hand. In the years that were to follow, I would put my whole hate-inflamed effort into conducting the war that ensued.
Alongside Fuchida was an anonymous pilot who later wrote to his brother. The letter was captured in New Guinea in 1943:
In the attack on Hawaii on 8 December, I bombed the US battleship West Virginia, and made direct hits – it sank. Later on, I strafed groups of fighters on Hickam Field and Barbar’s. Returned safely. The plane was hit by fragments of shells and anti-aircraft shells in two places and also received 18 machine-gun bullets. The fuel tank was hit by four bullets. I returned to the ship with only enough fuel for ten minutes more … As it was the first battle for me, I was worried; nevertheless, I did it with considerable composure. As a result, I gained confidence in myself in the air raids that followed.
This pilot later attacked Kavieng in Papua, New Guinea, and supported the landings at Rabaul in the Bismarck Archipelago. He also bombed Port Darwin, conducted the operations in Java, attacked Chirachappu and Christmas Island, and raided Ceylon (now Sri Lanka), sinking HMS
Hermes
there. Then his combat career was cut short.
While attacking the American Special Service Ship Picos in the course of Indian Ocean operations, I was hit by enemy 13mm machine-gun bullets in the left shoulder, and also received a slight wound to the left eye.
As a result of his impaired vision he became a flying instructor.
In the second wave to strike Pearl Harbor flew Chief Flight Petty Officer Juzo Mori, of the aircraft carrier
Soryu
, as part of a torpedo attack led by Lieutenant Tsuyoshi Nagai:
The assigned objectives of the Soryu torpedo-bombers were the American battleships which we expected to find anchored along the wharf of the Oahu Naval Arsenal. We dropped in for our attack at high speed and low altitude and, when I was almost in position to release my own torpedo, I realized that the enemy warship which I was headed towards was not a battleship at all, but a cruiser. My flight position was directly behind Lieutenant Nagai, and we flew directly over Oahu Island before descending for our attack.
Lieutenant Nagai continued his torpedo run against the cruiser, despite our original plan to attack the enemy battleships. However, I did not expect to survive this attack, since I and all the other pilots anticipated heavy enemy resistance. If we were going to die, I thought, I wanted to know that I had torpedoed at least an American battleship.
The attack of the Soryu’s planes was met with intense anti-aircraft fire from the enemy fleet, since the bombing waves from the Akagi and the Kaga had already passed over. My bomber shook and vibrated from the impact of the enemy machine-gun bullets and shrapnel. Despite my intention of swinging away from the cruiser, now dead ahead of my aircraft, and attacking the group of battleships anchored near Ford Island, I was forced to fly directly forwards into the murderous rain of anti-aircraft fire.
Because of this and the surrounding topography, I flew directly over the enemy battleships along Ford Island, and then banked into a wide left turn. The anti-aircraft fire did not seem to affect the plane’s performance, and I chose as my new objective a battleship anchored some distance from the main group of vessels which were at the moment undergoing torpedo attack from the Soryu’s aircraft. The warship separated from the main enemy group appeared to be the only battleship yet undamaged.
This was possibly the USS
Nevada
, which made a run for it, or the Pennsylvania, which was in dry dock.
I swung low and put my plane into a satisfactory torpedoing position. It was imperative that my bombing approach be absolutely correct, as I had been warned that the harbour depth was no more than 34 feet. The slightest deviation in speed or height would send the released torpedo plunging into the sea bottom, or jumping above the water, and all our efforts would be for nothing.
… I was hardly conscious of what I was doing. I was reacting from habit instilled by long training, moving like an automaton.
3,000 feet! 2,500 feet! 2,000 feet! Suddenly the battleship appeared to have leaped forward directly in front of my speeding plane; it towered ahead of the bomber like a great mountain peak.
Prepare for release … Stand by!
Release torpedo!
All this time I was oblivious of the enemy’s anti-aircraft fire and the distracting thunder of my plane’s motor. I concentrated on nothing but the approach and the torpedo release. At the right moment I pulled back on the release with all my strength. The plane lurched and faltered as flak struck the wings and fuselage; my head snapped back and I felt as though a heavy beam had struck against my head.
But … I’ve got it! A perfect release!
And the plane was still flying! The torpedo will surely hit its target; the release was exact. At that instant I seemed to come to my senses and became aware of my position and of the flashing tracers and shells of the enemy’s defensive batteries.
After launching the torpedo, I flew directly over the enemy battleship and again swung into a wide, circling turn. I crossed over the southern tip of Ford Island.
To conceal the position of our carrier, as we had been instructed to do, I turned again and took a course due south, directly opposite the Soryu’s true position, and pushed the plane to its maximum speed.
Now that the attack was over, I was acutely conscious that the enemy anti-aircraft fire was bracketing and smashing into my bomber. The enemy shells appeared to be coming from all directions, and I was so frightened that before I left the target area my clothes were soaking with perspiration.
In another few moments the air was clear. The enemy shells had stopped. Thinking that now I had safely escaped, and could return to the carrier, I began to turn to head back to the Soryu. Suddenly there was an enemy plane directly in front of me!
As my plane, an early version of the Kate carrier-based attack bomber, was armed only with a single rearward-firing 7.7mm machine-gun, it was almost helpless in aerial combat. I thought that surely this time my end had come.
As long as I was going to die, I reasoned, I would take the enemy plane with me to my death. I swung the bomber over and headed directly for the enemy aircraft, the pilot of which appeared to be startled by my manoeuvre, and fled! Is this really, I questioned, what is called war?
Fuchida and the rest of his men felt the same. Despite his pleading, Admiral Chuichi Nagumo issued an order cancelling any further attack and the
Akagi
hoisted a signal flag ordering a withdrawal to the northwest.
Fuchida was furious. ‘Why aren’t we attacking again?’ he asked.
‘The objective of the Pearl Harbor operation is achieved,’ he was told. ‘We must prepare for future operations.’
Below decks, disappointed torpedo ace Shigeharu Muroi said: ‘Now all us pilots can live to be a hundred years old.’
As a result of this attack the United States and Britain – whose colonies of Hong Kong and Malaya had also been attacked – declared war on Japan. Then Germany and Italy declared war on the United States. The Sino–Japanese war and Japanese imperial expansion in Asia now became embroiled with the European hostilities in the global conflict that the Western Allies called World War II.
While the Americans suffered 3,400 casualties, with 2,403 killed, including 68 civilians, at Pearl Harbor, the Japanese claimed they had lost only nine men, though the total was closer to a hundred. Twenty-nine planes had been lost, some in
kamikaze
attacks. However, the ‘nine heroes of Pearl Harbor’ were lauded in the press, and extracts from their letters home were published. One came from 27-year-old Chief Warrant Officer Sadamu Kamita of the Special Attack Flotilla, who wrote a note to his parents on the eve of his departure to Hawaii, which read: