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This is Volume One of The Army Air Forces in World War II, titled Plans and Early Operations, January 1939 to August 1942, edited by Wesley Frank Craven and James Lea Cate. The University of Chicago Press first published it in 1948, and the Office of Air Force History reprinted it in 1983. The front matter explains how the AAF historical program was set up during the war. The index covers Pacific, Atlantic and European operations, and nothing in the text concerns unidentified aerial phenomena.
“Pacific Ocean”16 pages
P E A R L H A R B O R A N D C L A R K F I E L D watch officer at the naval base and had begun a methodical search of the restricted area. T h e six radar detector stations of the Hawaiian Interceptor Command had been in operation since 0400; at 0700 they reached the prescribed limit of their regular morning alert. O n this occasion, however, the Opana station at Kahuku Point remained open to provide additional instruction for one of the operators. At 0 7 0 2 the station plotted a group of airplanes at approximately I 3 0 miles, bear- ing 0” to 3 ” east of north. This fact was reported by telephone to the information center about fifteen minutes later. Because of the expected arrival of B - 1 7 ’ ~from the mainland and the probability of search operations by US. naval aircraft, an Air Corps officer who was on duty at this time “solely for training and observation” did not consider it necessary to take any a ~ t i o n . ~Meanwhile the Opana sta- tion had tracked the planes toward Oahu and had lost them. T w o opportunities for an eleventh-hour reprieve had been forfeited. At 0755 single-engine planes were observed southeast of the Hickam Field hangar line heading for Pearl Harbor. Almost simul- taneously the naval base and Hickam Field came under attack. For approximately thirty minutes units of the Pacific Fleet were subjected to the savage blows of wave after wave of enemy planes. It is impossible to determine precisely the sequence of the enemy’s actions; they included eight attacks delivered by some thirty dive bombers, low-altitude attacks by more than twenty torpedo planes sweeping across the harbor in four waves, and level bombing from about 10,000 feet by perhaps fifteen aircraft. Then came a quarter- hour of comparative quiet. At 0840 horizontal and dive bombers re- newed the attack. This action lasted about an hour.‘ At its end the Navy had suffered a crushing blow. T h e battleship force had been most heavily hit. T h e Arizona, Cali- fornia, and West Virginia had been sunk, the Oklahoma capsized, the Nevada severely damaged, and three others damaged. Three cruisers, three destroyers, and a seaplane tender had received damages of varying degrees of severity; a mine layer and a target ship had been sunk. Fortunately no carrier was in port. Naval and naval air installa- tions had been seriously hurt. Of approximately 169 naval aircraft in the Oahu area, 87 were destroyed. Tragically heavy too were losses in Navy 2nd Marine Corps personnel, with 2,086 officers and men killed or fatally wounded and an additional 749 wounded.‘ Although the primary purpose of the enemy had been to cripple ‘97
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