They were 18, or 19, or 20 years old
sailors in a tropical paradise.
They didn't know that on the other side of the ocean,
another group of young men was preparing to strike them
while they slept.
Their paths would cross for a few short hours
on a Sunday morning in December.
And in one terrifying instant, more than 1000 of them would die.
The legacy of what happened on December 7th
still haunts us today.
In the fiirst images from inside the U.S.S. Arizona,
an underwater cemetery that's also an ecological time bomb.
In the search for a top secret Japanese submarine
that was sunk about an hour before the attack began.
The submarine's heading north starting to dive
and in the quest to learn what really happened that day.
And most of all, it still lives on in the memories of the men
who were there when everything changed.
Just a young kid when this happened, and I've lived through it.
I lost a lot of my friends.
"I reached down to try and help him and the skin all came off."
"But I hope it never happens again.
Nobody will ever know what it was like,
except somebody that was actually there."
They never had a chance.
They didn't know what was coming. Nobody knew about it.
They never woke up."
This is the story of a day
when the history of the world took an unexpected turn
at a sleepy little port in Hawaii called Pearl Harbor.
Pearl Harbor, Hawaii
in the fiirst summer of the new millennium.
Sixty years ago, on this island, a battle was fought,
perhaps the most one sided battle in American history.
It plunged the United States into war
and, in the space of a little more than two hours,
took the lives of 2400 Americans.
Ever since that day, Pearl Harbor has been a place of pilgrimage.
Many of the men who lived through the attack
have returned at least once, to remember what happened
and to pay their respects to friends who didn't make it.
"We remember December 7th, 1941,
when so many gave their last devotion of their efforts
"Well, it was kinda hard, yes, I'll admit it,
because I couldn't do anything that the other guys could.
I was only 5ft 3, weighed 125lb.
My battle station was the number 2 loader on a 5 inch gun
and I couldn't even pick up the shells I had to put in the gun."
"How can this ever happen?
One of the strongest navies in the world
and we're sitting here with our pants down.
We got caught, period."
It was one of the best assignments in the Navy.
A sailor joining the Pacifiic Fleet in Hawaii could expect warm air,
lots of sunshine, and plenty of things to do on shore leave.
In the Atlantic theater, things were different.
Europe had been at war for more than two years.
Hitler's soldiers occupied Paris.
London was being blitzed by Nazi bombs.
For sailors stationed in the Pacifiic, there was only one threat on the horizon
yet most Americans new next to nothing about the country or its people
who were thought to be short and near sighted
quaint little people ruled by an old fashioned emperor.
In reality, Japan was a modern military power
that had signed a pact with Nazi Germany.
Japanese troops brutally occupied parts of China
and were poised to move against other neighbors.
But the United States Pacifiic Fleet stood in the way
and early in 1941,
the Japanese military decided to do something about that.
Why would Japan want to go to war with the United States?
What Japan wanted was the oilfiields in the Dutch East Indies.
What they wanted was the tin and the rubber out of Malaya.
They wanted the Philippines because of its strategic location.
Nobody thought that they would ever come out to Pearl Harbor.
That's how you achieve surprise in war.
You attack where nobody expects it.
It was the brainchild of a 57 year old Japanese admiral
named Isoroku Yamamato.
Yamamato decided to strike the U.S. Fleet at its home base
at anchor in the cramped, shallow harbor near Honolulu.
Yamamato, he'd studied in the United States,
he'd gone to Harvard, he knew what the Americans were like.
And he said at one point,
I don't care if we march troops down Pennsylvania Avenue.
We're not gonna conquer the United States.
He planned the attack with the idea that
if we're gonna have any chance of winning this war
we've gotta destroy the American fleet,
and that'll give us six months to run wild in the south west Pacifiic,
and we can build up a defensive barrier
that will be very diffiicult for the Americans to crack
And at some point they're going to say, we quit.
Keep your gains.
In the spring of 1941, planning for the attack began in earnest
although only a handful of Japanese offiicers knew about it.
A talented pilot named Minoru Genda was given the task of fiiguring out
how to inflict maximum damage on the American fleet
especially its battleships and carriers in a surprise attack from the air.
Genda decided that a combination of bombs
and torpedos modifiied to operate in shallow waters
would have the best chance of success.
Late that summer and into the fall,
Japanese pilots trained for their top secret mission.
They rehearsed the low altitude attack angles
they would need over the harbor.
They practiced strafiing runs over and over.
By fall, Yamamoto's plan had evolved into a mammoth undertaking
that would require six carriers, more than 350 airplanes
and, almost as an afterthought fiive midget submarines.
Those fiive midget submarines
played a curious and little known part in the attack
and an expedition is getting underway in Honolulu to learn more.
One of the tiny subs almost cost Japan the critical elements of surprise.
And that's the one undersea explorer Robert Ballard is hoping to fiind.
For the man who found the Titanic and the Bismarck
this search represents a unique challenge.
It's one of the smallest ships Ballard's ever looked for
and, no one really knows where it sank
Joining him will be a man who was part of the submarine task force
six decades ago Kichiji Dewa.
The midget they'll be looking for was sunk by an American destroyer
well before the attack started,
and should have alerted the American forces but did not.
Gentleman, I'd like to introduce some colleagues here.
Good morning, good morning. Sir.
Will Lehner and Russ Reetz were there when it happened.
For Ballard, the expedition offers an opportunity
to clear up a common misconception.
Well I think most people think that
the fiirst shot was fiired by the Japanese as they swooped over the Pauli
and descended on our sleeping fleet that Sunday morning,
but in fact the fiirst shot was fiired out here
and it was fiired by a U.S. Destroyer.
And not only was it the fiirst shots fiired by America in the war,
it should have alerted us to that something was going on.
I fiind it incredibly ironic that the attack and sinking
of this Japanese submarine an hour before the planes arrived
did not alert us and I just fiind that to be amazing.
Ballard's tight schedule only allows him two weeks for the mission
sponsored by National Geographic
but the search area isn't too large,
and he does have the right equipment.
Now, all he needs is a little luck
November 26th, 1941.
The Japanese armada slipped out of port and headed east through wintery seas.
Six carriers were grouped at the center of the formation,
surrounded by a protective ring of cruisers, battleships, and destroyers
some 30 ships in all.
Because the success of the mission rested on
taking the Americans totally by surprise,
their route would take them well north of commercial shipping lanes.
If another ship spotted them, the mission would be in jeopardy,
and possibly called off.
Strict radio silence was maintained at all times
as the attack force moved into position, while, far to the south.
Five Japanese submarines were already closing in on the island of Oahu.
Each mother sub, as it was called, carried one midget submarine,
lashed to its afterdeck
Together, they made up the most controversial element
of the strike force.
The Japanese wanted to put everything that they had into this attack
and they had midget submarines and so let's use them was Yamamato's decision.
Now there were people in the Japanese high command
that objected strongly to that.
'Don't bring submarines into Pearl Harbor
in the fiirst place, they're not going to get in,
and in the second place they're not going to do much damage if they do,
and in the third place and by far more important,
that's going to tip off the Americans that an attack is coming.
And it's going to put the Americans up in general quarters,
all across Pearl Harbor and all across Hawaii.
So don't use them.'
But they did use them.
Each midget sub would carry a 2 man crew into battle
ten hand picked, highly trained young men,
who were prepared to die for their country.
On the night before the attack they would penetrate Pearl Harbor
wait on the bottom for the planes to strike
then fiire their two torpedos at any large ship in their range.
If circumstances permitted,
they would try to leave the harbor and rendezvous with the mother subs.
But no one really expected the submariners to return.
They were young, they were enthusiastic,
they were courageous,
they were ready to go out and die for the Emperor.
And it wasn't a suicide mission.
Nobody said that quite that way but that's what it was,
a suicide mission and these guys were eager for it.
There was no sense of impending tragedy.
Everyone felt that we were simply carrying out our duty
by taking part in a military action
though I felt that they might never make it back"
Day one of the search
about two miles outside the narrow channel that leads into Pearl Harbor.
It was here somewhere that a destroyed called the U.S.S. Ward
was patrolling in the early hours of December 7th.
I was thinking we were a little more of that way,
but Russ said we were more of that way.
It's the history that tells you what you need to know
and so you have to steep yourself in the history
and you have to read all sorts of sources
because a lot of history's conflicting.
One book will say one thing, one book will say another thing
and so you have to fiind out well what do we all agree upon
and where is the uncertainty?
Here the uncertainty was
where were they exactly when the attack took place?
Coming in from another direction and all the historical data.
Well you know after the war, and in fact during the war,
this became a dumping site and our biggest fear is that
they dumped something right on top of what we're looking for,
so basically what you have down here is a museum of World War II.
We don't know what the currents are going to be like,
we don't know what the visibility is going to be like,
We don't know how the ships are going to perform.
So today is a big learning curve.
Day one of our expedition.
Ballard decides the work will go faster if he adds another machine to the mix
a remotely operated vehicle called little Herc.
It's an imaging RO V. It moves very rapidly,
we can cover a lot of ground quick and see a lot of targets quick
So it's just a good way to go.
Little Herc is tethered behind
a bulkier imaging system called Argus,
and the two vehicles descend to 600 feet.
In the control room, the team gets its fiirst glimpse of the sea floor.
What's this coming up? A cylinder Is that a torpedo?
No. A piece of pipe.
This is really exciting every little thing looks like part of it.
Well it looks like these are depth charges,
there's a whole bunch of 'em. There's another one.
As the fiirst few days of the search come to an end,
they've seen a lot of debris and not much else.
Saturday night December 6th, 1941.
Sailors on shore leave fiilled the bars on hotel street in Honolulu.
The usual Saturday night crowd gathered for dinner and dancing.
At Hickam fiield, the airplanes were parked wingtip to wingtip.
And, in the harbor, the warships of the Pacifiic Fleet prepared for the night.
California, Oklahoma, Maryland Tennessee, West Virginia,
Arizona, Nevada.
The last day of peace in the United States
was coming to an end.
December 7th 1941 a few minutes after midnight.
Ten miles away from the mouth of Pearl Harbor,
the fiive mother submarines prepared to launch the midgets.
The Japanese crews could see the lights on Waikiki
and make out strains of jazz when the wind shifted.
Each of the submariners wrote a letter to his parents.
Sadamu Kamida was a quiet mountain boy who loved baseball.
"Forgive this negligent son for not writing these long months.
We are soon to be dispatched to regions unknown.
Should anything happen to me, do not grieve or mourn;
should I fail to write, do not be alarmed;
for it means I am well and discharging my duties faithfully.
Goodbye."
The night before they left, commander Yokoyama,
his crewman Kamida, and I went to the offiicer's mess that
normally enlisted men couldn't enter.
We ate a farewell dinner.
Later there was a small party in the offiicers wardroom.
Dewa watched his friends enter the midget sub
and spoke to Yokoyama one last time over a phone link
I said something like, "take care" to them.
I didn't say anything special,
just words of parting said on the phone, very normal.
Even though the fact that they wouldn't return was a foregone conclusion,
we didn't talk about it.
The midget carried by Dewa's submarine
was the fiirst to leave released into the water around 1 a.m.
By 3 a.m., all the midgets were making their way toward the harbor
except the one skippered by ensign Sakamaki.
He was having trouble with his gyroscope.
Without it, he'd have to take his bearings on the surface
and risk being spotted by an American ship.
You're sneaking into a harbor and you don't want to trip the alarm
and let the Americans know that the war has begun.
And so you must be extremely nervous.
You've got to be just on pins and needles.
And thenthe fiirst missed opportunity for the Americans.
At 3:42 a.m., an offiicer on board the minesweeper Condor
spotted a periscope in the water, fiifty yards off the port bow.
Condor alerted the ward
patrolling the approaches to Pearl Harbor.
"I remember about 3, three thirty or so
we, skipper called general quarters about 3:203:30.
I don't remember the exact time remember that?
And we thought what kind of skipper is this he just came aboard
and now we've got general quarters and he's middle of the night
gonna start drilling us and we thought
remember, we thought it was just a drill
that skipper was gonna be a tough one to live with
but he was one of the best skippers we ever had, remember?"
But the ward's new skipper misunderstood the message
and went to look in the wrong place.
The one thing Japanese planners feared most had occurred.
Four hours before the attack one of their ships had been spotted.
And nothing happened.
Sunday, December 7 around dawn.
Aboard the six aircraft carriers,
the pilots and planes of the fiirst wave began to assemble.
Yamamato's plan called for two distinct waves of attack
the fiirst to reach Honolulu at about 8 a.m.
The second to follow within the hour.
It meant getting the right aircraft into the air at the right time
each wave would take about fiifteen minutes to launch
The fiirst to go were 43 Mitsubishi fiighters
armed with machine guns and cannon.
The dreaded Zeroes.
Then 49 Nakajima bombers "Kates"
each carrying a single 1760 pound armor piercing bomb.
51 Aichi dive bombers were next to leave the Vals.
And, fiinally, another 40 "Kates" carrying specially modifiied torpedos.
At about 6:20 am, the planes formed up and headed south.
At almost the same time the fiirst wave turned toward Oahu,
the U.S. Navy got its second report of intruders near the harbor.
At 6:30 a.m., a lookout on the freighter Antares
spotted another submarine periscope, then a conning tower.
Once again the ward raced to investigate
and this time, the destroyer found what she was looking for.
This submarine started to surface and I'm midships,
right at the rail, when I see this thing start to surface.
I thought, wow, what's this?
Then the skipper took after this submarine.
And of course we didn't know it at the time
but later on hetold us that his first thought was ramming it
but he said, this is my fiirst ship and I don't want to ruin it.
And then all of a sudden number one gun fiired and they missed
because their elevation wasn't great enough and we were that close.
And then number three gun fiired and I saw the splash of the water
at the waterline of the conning tower as the shell hit the conning tower.
It must have rang like a bell,
I mean it must have been an incredible explosion
that went off right next to their head.
I mean, remember the skipper is standing in the conning tower
and the shell hit the conning tower.
You would think he was, must have died instantly.
Or did he?
Because they then began to dive, so clearly they weren't dead.
And they then began to dive
and no sooner did they dive than the depth charges are going off.
And then they exploded and I didn't see the submarine as it came up
but I'm told that it came up, rolled over and then went back down again.
After the depth chargers that we dropped
I can't see any way it could've gotten away from us.
At 6.51 a.m., skipper William outerbridge of the ward
radioed headquarters
that he had seen and fiired upon an unidentifiied submarine.
He repeated the message two minutes later.
At headquarters, the ward's terse report slowly
worked its way up the chain of command.
For the second time that morning, the Japanese had tripped the alarm
and for the second time nothing happened.
Day 10 of Ballard's search
and still no sign of what they're looking for.
We were patrolling along in here.
The submarine was coming this way, we were coming this way.
Why was this one on the surface?
Maybe he's not sure but maybe the passenger in the small submarine,
they are looking and they make sure the position.
So far, Ballard has covered about two square miles of seabed
in an area called the flats where the ward was patrolling.
So far they've seen a lot of debris, but the missing sub has eluded them.
Each time they pick up a promising target on sonar,
it turns out to be something else.
A crumpled seaplane, used by the Navy in the late 20's and 30's
a Grumman Hellcat fighter.
Then part of a similar type of midget sub
captured later in the war, and then dumped.
And, fiinally, something that seems to have treads.
"You think so? Yeah, it's a tank
It's a tracked vehicle. Well, let's work it over."
Another day's search is coming to an end without results.
Well we've exhausted all our targets. Yup
there's nothing left to look at.
Alright, well, the only thing left is the base of the wall
and that the sub does so
let's call it a wrap and pull it up, okay?
Out of the pool.
Well, it's not out on the flats
so the only place left is up against the wall.
So tomorrow we'll come out with the two subs and take it right in
next to the channel and look at the base of the wall
which we couldn't do with these vehicles.
They've used up most of their allotted two weeks
with nothing to show for it.
For Bob Ballard and his team, time is running out.
December 7th, 1941 7 am.
A mobile radar station on the northwest coast of Oahu
picked up the signal of a massive number of aircraft
approaching the island from the north.
They were less than 140 miles away, moving at 180 miles an hour.
A telephone call went immediately to the information center in Honolulu,
40 miles to the southeast.
The call was routed to a private named Macdonald,
who passed it on to a Lieutenant Tyler who had just been assigned to the job.
Tyler told the radar operators not to worry about it.
In his mind, it was just a squadron of American B 17s
due in from the mainland.
For the third time that day, the Japanese had tripped the alarm
and for the third time, no one seemed to notice.
It was 7:15 am.
At 7:40 a.m., the fiirst wave of airplanes reached the coast of Oahu,
guided by the signal from a Honolulu radio station.
The bombers and torpedo planes were at 9,000 feet.
5,000 feet above them, the Zeroes flew cover.
The fiirst wave began to break up into their attack formations
one to fly inland towards wheeler airfiield
the other to move down the western coast to Pearl Harbor.
They were the only planes in the sky.
There was no sign whatsoever
that the Americans knew they were about to be attacked.
At 7:50 a.m., the fiirst wave reached Pearl Harbor.
Among their fiirst targets
Hickam airfiield and the naval air base on Ford Island.
Clarence Minor was an airman stationed on Ford Island.
After all that noise on the tin roof up there and stuff was popping around.
And looked up and I saw this airplane come diving down and that big meatball
and I said 'oh shit! '
And then all hell all over the place was breaking loose.
Bombs dropping and machine guns fiiring, and like I said
those things are so darned low you could throw rocks at them.
Ralph Lindenmyer was also on Ford Island.
7:55 in the morning, an explosion woke us up.
And I looked up at the clock when I fiirst heard the explosion
and felt it and I said 'the Japs are here.'
And when I looked out the window, the plane came over
and I saw the meatball on the fuselage and the wing
and i could look into the pilot's face and i can almost see him grinning
Anchored on pier 1010 was the utility vessel Argonne,
where 19 year old Charles Christiensen worked in the machine shop.
And I thought oh that was a bad explosion.
I wonder what happened.
And I opened the port hole up and I stuck my head right on,
out there you know and oh boy was there ever a fiire on Ford Island.
I thought 'oh my goodness,
something is really bad blowing up over there.'
It took a while for sailors in the ships at anchor
to comprehend what was happening.
Bert Davis, a machinist mate on the USS selfridge,
thought it was some kind of readiness drill.
That's where I was standing when the plane came in,
I was standing there shining my shoes, and I, I saw these planes coming in.
Came in and came right straight across to where the Raleigh was
and I thought to myself what in the hell is the army doing
holding maneuvers on a day like this?
While the dive bombers hammered the airfiields,
the torpedo planes descended to an altitude of a few dozen feet
and took dead aim at battleship row.
Aboard the Argonne,
Charles Christiensen had a perfect view of the fiirst torpedo run.
He's coming in almost straight across me at a slight angle across.
And he's low enough that he's maybe 30 feet off of the water,
which puts him maybe eye level or a little more for me.
And I can see the man's face.
He's got his helmet on, he's got his goggles on
and he's looking over the side.
And when he straightened that plane out, levelled it out,
he dropped that torpedo.
And I thought 'oh my god look at that.'
And that torpedo just went as straight for the Oklahoma as it could go.
This photo, taken from a Japanese plane shows battleship row
just after the attack began.
The ripples emanating outward are the result of multiple torpedo strikes.
George Smith was below deck on the battleship Oklahoma
when general quarters sounded.
All of a sudden a guy come over the loud speaker
and just says 'no shit, move it! '
And then we got a torpedo.
I was really so scared I didn't know what the hell was going on.
The Oklahoma started to capsize almost immediately.
When they said abandon ship,
the only way we could get out was through the casement window.
We went out there and the ship was rolling on top of us.
Maybe we jumped about 5 feet into the water which wasn't far.
But when you turn around and see this thing coming on top of you,
you swim for all you can swim and as fast as you can swim.
Because we know we had to get around the big gun turrets,
they were coming over next on us.
It went over so fast I, I just was sure,
I didn't know, but I was sure they were trapped inside of that.
Because it, it just rolled right on over.
And there it was keel up.
George Smith had just been released from the Oklahoma's brig
for going ashore without leave and it saved his life.
And when the ship got the torpedo.
The brig was in the carpenter shop on board ship
and when the torpedo hit, it broke the carpenter's workbench loose,
pinned the guard against the wall,
the bulkhead, and he couldn't release the other men that were in the brig
and they all drowned.
On the far side of Ford Island,
the old battleship Utah also got hit a few minutes before eight.
Clark Simmons worked on the Utah as a mess attendant.
And as I looked out the port, I saw a plane making a run on the Utah.
And as she dropped her torpedo the wing dipped
and then he straightened up, and the torpedo hit it,
and another one right behind it did the same thing.
And we knew it was just a matter of time before the ship was going to sink
And actually it took eight minutes,
and eight minutes to the ship, was history.
She had turned turtle in eight minutes.
As the lines began to part,
came over the side and began to swim toward Ford Island,
and as we were swimming they were machine gunning us from both directions.
From this direction and when they came from Pearl City over here,
from that direction also.
I saw fellows yelling and screaming,
some of fellows was in the water was asking for help.
It was just, it was so chaotic, I really didn't know what was going on.
But the biggest blow was yet to come.
Lying inboard of the repair ship vestal was the battleship Arizona.
High overhead a Kate released an armor piercing bomb
that drifted down towards the Arizona's number two gun turret.
It was ten minutes after eight.
A motion picture camera captured the moment of impact.
In that instant, more than a thousand crewmen died.
Stu Hedly was on the West Virginia, a few hundred feet away.
One gigantic explosion.
Now when we fiired the 16 inch, you're inside,
it sounds like thunder off in the distance.
But this didn't sound like no thunder.
This was one gigantic explosion.
The stern of our ship lifted out of the water
but at the same time we were getting hit with torpedoes,
we were starting to list.
But we saw about 32 men flying through the air from the Arizona.
Oil from the fully fueled Arizona began to spread and catch fiire.
The heat was so intense even sailors on nearby ships were threatened.
So Clausen and I stripped right down to our undershorts
and jumped in and swam underwater.
Now we're not underwater swimmers.
But we swam underwater that day
because that was the hottest breath of air we ever breathed
because that was the oil from the Arizona that was ablaze.
The bomb had penetrated Arizona's forward magazine
and ignited more than a million pounds of gunpowder.
Those who were still alive found themselves in an inferno.
They were in this oil that was on fiire.
They were trying to swim out of it.
They'd come up and trying to get their breath.
Their eyes, the white of their eyes was just as red as they can be.
I, I can just see it today.
The skin on their face was just falling off.
And on top of that all of this oil, they were just drenched in oil.
Bert Davis went out in a whaleboat to pick up survivors.
Oh God it was horrible.
This one fellow started to reach up to try to get a hold of the gunwale
on the boat from the outside and I reached down to try to help him.
And I took him by the arm and as I tried to lift like that,
the skin came, all came off.
He was dead by the time we got him in.
Thirty fiive minutes after the attack began,
the fiirst wave flew away,
leaving behind more than a thousand dead American sailors
many of them teenagers, caught belowdecks,
when Arizona exploded and sank
Six decades after the attack on Pearl Harbor,
the Arizona still lies where she sank with her cargo of sailors.
Most of their bodies have never been recovered.
Her superstructure was removed during the war.
Only the mount of her number three turret remains above water.
The Arizona was built nearly a century ago
and she's spent more than half that time underwater.
The national park service,
which is responsible for maintaining the memorial,
periodically checks on her condition
her passageways and hatches
her 14 inch guns.
The interior of the ship is too dangerous for divers,
so it's never been investigated by the park service, until now.
With the help of a tiny RO V made available by National Geographic,
workers will get their fiirst glimpse of Arizona's condition
deep inside the ship since about the time she went down.
The initial survey reveals that the corrosion is worse than expected.
And that may portend an ecological disaster
because of something happening deep inside the ship.
The Arizona has been leaking an estimated two pints of oil a day
ever since she sank but the park service is worried that
the remaining fuel tanks of the ship's bunkers could rupture at any moment.
Current estimates are that there is approximately a half a million gallons
possibly in the bunkers on the aft section of the ship.
And so with current technology can we get to those bunkers