Evening star., 1943-06-27
They Call Il Pacific
by CLARK LEE

they had realized the significance
of air power. Their primary targets
on December Z were undoubtedly
our aircraft carriers. Through sheer
good fortune our aircraft carriers
were not in Pearl Harbor at the
time of the attack. If, instead of
hitting the battleships, the Japs had
aimed their bombs and torpedoes at
the docks, shops, oil tanks and shore
installations in Pearl Harbor, the
entire course of the war would have
been changed. They could easily
have knocked out Pearl Harbor as
base, forcing our Navy back to the
Pacific Coast.
The men that we lost at Pearl
Harbor were martyrs to unprepared-
ness. The battlesfips that we lost
there were ready for the scrap pile
before they were ever hit by a
japanese bomb. They were too slow
for modern war. The battleship had
had its day. No battleship that
escaped damage at Pearl Harbor, no
battleship that was damaged there
and later repaired played any part
in the Battles of the Coral Sea and
Midway. No battleship fired a shot
in the early days of the Solomons
action. Later, We reported that bat
tleships had participated in fight
of the Solomons-at night.
* " X
Since battleShlps did not play any
part in the fighting in the Pacific
in the first IL months of war. the
question arises Of why our Navy
took so long to get into action
against the Japanese. Our Navy was
just as strong on the afternoon of
December when the battleships
were still exploding and sinking in
Pearl Harbor as it was five months
later in our first fight in the Coral
Sea. Why, then, couldn't our Navy
save Wake Island, only 1000 miles
from Pearl Harbor? A few weeks
before the war the United States
had been told that its Navy was the
greatest fighting force in the world.
supreme in the Pacific. That made
it difficult to understand why
tremendous American task force was
ordered to turn back when within
$50 miles of Wake Island. The fight
ing rank and file aboard those ships.
and many of the officers, cursed and
wept when they received those
orders.
Later, as some of them told me,
they were hopping mad when they
learned that our ships had been
called back because of the reported
presence of Jap ships near Wake
and were even more angry when
they learned the Jap force" con-
sisted of only four destroyers going
in to shell our hard pressed ma
rines, fighting desperately for their
lives, waiting minute by minute for
help, and wirelessing back to Pearl
Harbor, Get off your fat backsides
and send us more ammunition and
more Japs."
The answer, apparently, is that
the Pearl Harbor attack was
psychological blow to many of our
admirals. They had put their faith
in those elephants" the battle
ships. Stripped of their battleships
they were as lost as a man suddenly
deprived of his trousers in the mid
die of Fifth avenue. Their instinct
was to cover up, to assume the
defensive rather than to seek out
the enemy for finish fight. Nearly
every one who saw the Pearl Har-
Dor attack told me that If the Japs
had followed up and landed troops
they could have taken Honolulu
easily. Our aerial defenses had
been smashed and there was a great
deal of confusion and disorganiza-
ton.
I was interested in the reactions
OF persons who had seen the Pearl
Harbor attack. Almost none of them
could believe their eyes. Even off,
GERS who stood on the decks of
nearby ships at Pearl Harbor and
watched the Japanese dive bombers
and torpedo planes blow up the
Arizona, thought that there must
be some mistake.
Even while they were shooting at
the planes they couldn't believe it.
One officer who was on duty in the
engine room of an undamaged ship
came up on deck an hour after the
attack and remarked, Hey, these
maneuvers are getting pretty
roughl" Arthur G. Hodgins, q doc
tor who lives at Pearl City, adjacent
to the harbor, drove into Honolulu