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Y-LIME β Pearl Harbor
Published: 2005-02-11 12:57:56 +0000 UTC; Views: 6576; Favourites: 208; Downloads: 475
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started: 9 Feb 2005finished: 11 Feb 2005
18"x24"
Its all about love this month...lets celebrate it
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Comments: 52
Hey:*
I featured ur beautiful art in here:[link]
Hope u don't mind
Thank u for this beautiful pic:*
Candy:*
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beautiful do you mind if i use this picture in a project? i would give you full credit for it.
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I absolutely love it! great shading
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Great drawing! I watched this movie like forever ago. So long in fact, that I can't really remember that happened. All I remember it that it was a very good and touching movie, and that it made me cry... 
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AHHH! I love Evelyn/Rafe+Danny. Lol. You should do one of Evelyn and Danny!
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She is so real.. i wished my drawings were so similar to the reality.. but find it hard to put the characteristics in a portrait.. You made it so pretty.. also like the plane.. The movie is great, isnt it?!
Please, check out my drawings..
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Wow. Simply amazing
I'm featuring this in my journal.
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I was just looking up pearl harbor work and wow, this is amazing! Favorite for sure..
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Beautiful. Just beautiful. I love it. Your so good. I love it. Congrats.
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Doolittle Raid
The Doolittle Raid of April 18, 1942, was the first air raid by the
United States to strike the Japanese home islands during World War II.
The mission was notable in that it was the only operation in which
United States Army Air Forces bombers were launched from a U.S. Navy aircraft carrier.
It was the longest combat mission ever flown by the
B-25 Mitchell medium bomber.
The Doolittle Raid demonstrated that the Japanese home islands were vulnerable to Allied air attack and it provided an expedient outlet for
U.S. retaliation for Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941.
The raid was planned and led by Lieutenant Colonel Jimmy Doolittle,
already a famous civilian aviator and aeronautical engineer before the war. The raid, however, had its roots in the mind of Navy Captain Francis Low, who early in the war predicted that, under the right conditions,
twin-engined Army bombers could be successfully launched from an
aircraft carrier.
Subsequent calculations by Doolittle indicated that the B-25 Mitchell could be launched from a carrier with a reasonable bomb load, hit military targets in Japan, and fly on to land in China.
Date April 18, 1942
Location Tokyo, Japan
Casualties
Raiders - 3 dead, 8 POWs (4 would die in captivity)
Target
About 50 dead, 400 injured
Flying the raid
On April 1, 1942, following two months of intensive training,
16 highly modified North American Aviation B-25B Mitchell medium bombers, their five-man volunteer Aircrews, and maintenance personnel were
loaded onto the USS Hornet at Alameda, California.
Each plane carried four 500-pound bombs
(three high-explosive and one incendiary),
two .50-caliber machine guns in an upper turret,
a .30-caliber machine gun in the nose, and
extra fuel tanks.
Each B-25 was also "armed" with two dummy wooden machine gun barrels mounted in the tail cone to discourage Japanese air attacks from that direction.
The planes were arranged and tied down on the USS Hornet's flight deck in the order of their expected launch.
The USS Hornet left the port of Alameda on April 2,
and a few days later joined up with the carrier USS Enterprise and its
escort of cruisers and destroyers in the mid-Pacific Ocean north of Hawaii.
The USS Enterprise's fighters and scout planes would provide protection for the entire task force in the event of a Japanese air attack, since the
USS Hornet's fighters were stowed below decks to allow the B-25's to
use the flight deck.
The two carriers and their escorting ships then proceeded, in radio silence, towards their intended launch point in enemy-controlled waters east of Japan.
On the morning of April 18, at a distance of about 650 miles (1,050 km) from Japan, the task force was sighted by a Japanese picket boat which radioed an attack warning to Japan.
Although the boat was quickly destroyed by gunfire from an American cruiser, Doolittle and USS Hornet skipper Captain Marc A Mitscher decided to launch the B-25's immediately
βa day early and about 200 miles (320 km) farther from Japan than planned.
Despite the fact that none of the B-25 pilots, including Doolittle,
had ever taken off from a carrier before, all 16 planes made
it off the USS Hornet safely.
They then flew single-file towards Japan at wavetop level to avoid detection. The planes began arriving over Japan about noon and bombed military targets in Tokyo, Yokohama, Kobe, Osaka, and Nagoya.
Although some B-25's encountered light anti-aircraft fire and a few enemy fighters over Japan, no bomber was shot down or severely damaged.
Fifteen of the 16 planes then proceeded southwest along the southern coast of Japan and across the East China Sea towards eastern China,
where recovery bases supposedly awaited them.
One B-25, extremely low on fuel, headed instead for the closer land mass of Russia.
The raiders faced several unforeseen challenges during their flight to China:
night was approaching,
the planes were running low on fuel, and
the weather was rapidly deteriorating.
As a result of these problems, the crews realized they would probably not be able to reach their intended bases in China, leaving them the option of
either bailing out over eastern China or crash landing along the Chinese coast. Fifteen planes crash landed;
the crew who flew to Russia landed near Vladivostok, where their
B-25 was confiscated and the crew interned until they managed to
escape through Iran in 1943.
Doolittle and his crew, after safely parachuting into China, received
assistance from John Birch, an American missionary in China;
Doolittle subsequently recommended Birch for intelligence work with
General Claire Chennault's Flying Tigers.
Aftermath
Following the Doolittle Raid, most of the B-25 crews that came down in
China eventually made it to safety with the help of Chinese civilians.
But the Chinese paid dearly for sheltering the Americans.
The Japanese military slaughtered an estimated 250,000 civilians while searching for Doolittleβs men.
The crews of two planes (10 men total) were unaccounted for.
On August 15, 1942, the United States learned from the
Swiss Consulate General in Shanghai that eight of the missing
crewmembers were prisoners of the Japanese at Police Headquarters in
that city
(two crewmen had died in the crash landing of their plane).
On October 19, 1942, the Japanese announced that they had tried the
eight men and sentenced them to death but that several of them
had received commutation of their sentences to life imprisonment.
No names or details were included in the broadcast.
Japanese propaganda ridiculed the raid, calling it the "Do-nothing Raid",
and boasted that several B-25's had been shot down.
In fact, none had been lost to enemy action.
After the war, the complete story of the two missing crews was uncovered in a war crimes trial held at Shanghai.
The trial opened in February 1946 to try
four Japanese officers for mistreatment of the eight captured crewmen.
Two of the original ten men in the two planes, Dieter and Fitzmaurice,
had died when their B-25 crashed off the coast of China.
The other eight, Hallmark, Meder, Chase Nielsen, Farrow, Bob Hite,
George Barr, Spatz, and Jake DeShazer, were captured.
In addition to being tortured and starved, these men contracted
dysentery and beriberi as a result of the poor conditions under which
they were confined.
On August 28, 1942, pilot Hallmark, pilot Farrow, and Air gunner Spatz
were given a mock trial by the Japanese, although the airmen were never
told the charges against them.
On October 14, 1942, these three crewmen were advised that they were to be executed the next day.
At 16:30 on October 15, 1942, the three were brought by truck to
Public Cemetery No. 1, outside Shanghai, and shot.
The other five captured airmen remained in military confinement on
a starvation diet, their health rapidly deteriorating.
In April 1943, they were moved to Nanking where, on December 1, 1943, Meder died.
The remaining four men (Nielsen, Hite, Barr, and DeShazer) eventually
began receiving slightly better treatment from their captors and were even given a copy of the Bible and a few other books.
They survived until they were freed by American troops in August 1945.
The four Japanese officers who were tried for war crimes against the
eight Doolittle Raiders were found guilty.
Three were sentenced to hard labor for five years and the fourth to
a nine-year sentence.
Survivor DeShazer eventually became a missionary and returned to
Japan in 1948, where he served in that capacity for over 30 years.
One other Doolittle Raid crewman was lost on the mission.
Corporal Leland Faktor was killed during his bailout attempt over China,
the only man on his crew to be lost.
Immediately following the raid, Doolittle told his crew that he believed the loss of all 16 aircraft, coupled with the relatively minor damage the planes had inflicted on their targets, had rendered the attack a failure, and that he expected a court martial upon his return to the United States.
Instead, the raid bolstered American morale to such an extent that Doolittle was awarded the Medal of Honor by President Roosevelt and was promoted two grades to Brigadier General, skipping the rank of colonel.
He went on to command the 12th Air Force in North Africa,
the 15th Air Force in the Mediterranean, and
the 8th Air Force in England during the next three years.
In addition to Doolittle's award of the Medal of Honor,
Corporal Dave Thatcher (an engineer- Air gunner) and
Lieutenant Thomas White (flight surgeon/Air gunner) each received the
Silver Star for their brave efforts in helping several wounded
crewmembers evade Japanese troops in China.
All the remaining Raiders (including Thatcher and White) were awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross, and those who were killed, wounded, or
injured as a result of the raid also received the Purple Heart.
In addition, every Doolittle Raider received a decoration from the Chinese government.
The Doolittle Raiders have held an annual reunion almost every year since the late 1940's.
The high point of each reunion is a solemn, private ceremony in which the surviving Raiders perform a roll call, then toast their fellow Raiders who passed away during the previous year.
Specially-engraved silver goblets, one for each of the 80 Raiders, are used for this toast.
When only two Raiders remain alive, they will drink a final toast using the vintage bottle of Hennessy cognac which has accompanied the goblets to each Raider reunion since 1960.
Only 16 Raiders are still alive, and only eight were able to attend the
64th anniversary reunion held in Dayton, Ohio on April 18-20, 2006.
The oldest Raider is now 93 and the youngest is 84.
The effect of the raid
Compared to the devastating B-29 Superfortress attacks against Japan later in the war, the Doolittle raid did little material damage.
Nevertheless, when the news of the raid was released, American morale soared from the depths to which it had plunged following the Pearl Harbor attack and Japan's subsequent territorial gains.
The raid also had strategic impact in that it caused the Japanese to recall some fighter units back to the home islands for defense.
They did not understand how American planes could attack from such a distance, assuming that America had developed a new extremely long-range airplane
(when in reality, American forces knew it would essentially be a
one-way trip).
These reassignments subsequently weakened Japan's air capabilities against the Allies at the Battle of Midway and later Pacific Theater campaigns.
Books and movies
The Doolittle Raid was the subject of two 1944 feature films:
"Thirty Seconds over Tokyo"
and
"The Purple Heart".
Thirty Seconds over Tokyo was based on a book of the same title
by Doolittle Raider pilot Captain Ted W. Lawson, who lost a leg and
suffered other serious injuries as a result of his crash landing off the
coast of China.
In this movie, Spencer Tracy played Doolittle and Van Johnson
portrayed Lawson.
"The Purple Heart", starring Dana Andrews, was a largely fictional
depiction of the captured Doolittle Raiders.
The 2001 film Pearl Harbor presented an extremely fictionalized view
of the raid.
A few movies about the Doolittle Raid were also made in Taiwan in the 1960s and 1970s, describing the efforts of Chinese civilians saving the
American pilots.
Many books were written about the Doolittle Raid after the war.
"Doolittle's Tokyo Raiders", by C.V. Glines, tells the complete story of
the raid, including the unique experiences of each B-25 crew.
"Guests of the Kremlin", written by copilot Bob Emmens, describes his
crew's adventures as internees in Russia after their landing in that country following the raid.
"Four Came Home", also by C.V.Glines, tells the story of
Nielsen, Hite, Barr, and DeShazer
βthe Raiders who were held in POW camps for over three years.
"The First Heroes" by Craig Nelson, goes into great detail of the
events leading up to the raid and the aftermath for all the pilots and their families.
Doolittle Raiders exhibit
The most complete display of Doolittle Raid memorabilia can be seen at the National Museum of the United States Air Force in Dayton, Ohio.
The centerpiece is a like-new B-25, which is painted and marked as
Doolittle's plane (although it is actually a B-25D).
The bomber, which North American Aviation presented to the
Raiders in 1958, rests on a reproduction of the USS Hornet's flight deck.
The scene is made even more realistic through the use of several authentically-dressed mannequins surrounding the aircraft;
these include representations of Doolittle, USS Hornet skipper
Captain Marc A Mitscher, and groups of Army and Navy personnel
loading the plane's bombs and ammunition.
Other highlights of the exhibit are the silver goblets used by the Raiders at each of their annual reunions;
pieces of flight clothing and personal equipment;
a parachute used by one of the Raiders in his bailout over China; and
group photographs of all 16 crews.
Many other interesting items are also included in this unique collection.
Bibliography
Glover, Charles E.
"Jimmy Doolittleβs One Moment in Time."
The Palm Beach Post, 18 April 1992.
Edward Hasley
"War Stories: Heroism in the Pacific",
18 February 1996
Hayostek, Cindy.
"Exploits of a Doolittle Raider.",
21 July 1998.
Oxford, Edward.
Against All Odds.
New York: American History Illustrated, 2002.
Schultz, Duane.
The Doolittle Raid.
St Martin Press, 18 March 1987.
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Attack on Pearl Harbor
The Imperial Japanese Navy made its attack on Pearl Harbor on the morning of Sunday, December 7, 1941
(Hawaii time, because of the International Date Line,
Monday, December 8 in Japan).
The surprise attack on Pearl Harbor, Oahu, Hawaii, was aimed at the
Pacific Fleet of the United States Navy and its defending Army Air Corps
and Marine defensive squadrons.
The attack severely damaged or destroyed 12 American warships,
destroyed 188 aircraft, and killed 2,403 American servicemen and
68 civilians.
However, the Pacific Fleet's three aircraft carriers were not in port and so were undamaged, as were the base's vital oil tank farms,
submarine pens, and machine shops.
Using these resources, the United States was able to rebound within a year.
This attack has also been called the "bombing of Pearl Harbor" and the
"Battle of Pearl Harbor" but, most commonly, the
"attack on Pearl Harbor" or simply "Pearl Harbor".
Date: December 7, 1941
Location: Pearl Harbor, Hawaii
Result: Decisive Japanese victory,
United States enters World War II on side of Allies,
Declaration of war by Germany on the United States
Casus belli: Sustained aggressive military expansion by Japan, Oil and trade embargo by United States
Combatants
United States
Empire of Japan
Commanders
Husband Kimmel (USN),
Walter Short (USA)
Chuichi Nagumo (IJN)
Strength
USN
8 battleships, 8 cruisers, 29 destroyers, 9 submarines, 50 other ships,
390 planes
IJN
6 aircraft carriers, 2 battleships,3 cruisers,9 destroyers,8 tankers,23
fleet submarines,5 midget submarines, 441 planes
Casualties
USN
2,335 military and 68 civilians killed,
1,143 military and 35 civilians wounded,
4 battleships sunk,
4 battleships damaged,
3 cruisers damaged,
3 destroyers sunk,
2 other ships sunk,
188 planes destroyed,
IJN
155 planes damaged
29 planes destroyed,
55 airmen killed,
5 midget submarines sunk,9 submariners killed and 1 captured POW
USS Arizona burned for two days after being hit by a Japanese bomb and multi torpedo hits of a unknown number.
Parts of the ship were salvaged.
The wreck remains at the bottom of Pearl Harbor and is a
war memorial maintained by the US Park Service.
The USS Arizona continues to leak about a quart of oil per day into the harbor.
Background
Main article: Empire of Japan
After the Meiji Restoration, Imperial Japan embarked on a period of rapid economic, political, and military expansion in an effort to achieve parity with the European and North American powers.
The strategy for expansion included extending territorial and economic control to increase access to natural resources.
In executing this strategy, Japan embarked on a number of military adventures that brought it into conflict with neighboring countries.
These included a war with China in 1894 in which Japan took control of Taiwan, and a war with Russia in 1904 by which Japan gained territory in
and around China and the Korean peninsula.
After WWI, the League of Nations awarded Japan custody of most
Imperial German possessions and colonies in the Far East and Pacific waters.
In 1931, Japan forcibly imposed a "puppet" state in Manchuria which
they called Manchukuo.
From about 1910 through the 1930s the country had been extensively militarized, having created a large and modern Navy
(the third largest in the world at the time) and Army.
In 1937, Japan army officers staged a provocation at the Marco Polo Bridge, beginning a large-scale invasion of mainland China, attacking from
Manchuria and at several points along China's Pacific coast.
The League of Nations, the U.S., the UK, Australia, and the Netherlands,
all of whom had territorial interests in Southeast Asia disapproved of
the Japanese attacks on China, and responded with condemnation
and diplomatic pressure.
Japan resigned from and and walked out of the League of Nations in protest.
In July of 1939, the U.S. upped the pressure on Japan by terminating the 1911 U.S./Japanese commerce treaty, which both showed official disapprobation and removed legal barriers to imposing trade embargoes. Japan continued its military campaign in China and signed the
Anti-Comintern Pact with Nazi Germany, formally ending
World War I hostilities, and declaring common interests.
In 1940, Japan signed Tripartite Pact with Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy
to form the Axis Powers.
Japanese actions caused the U.S. to place embargoes on scrap metal
and gasoline and to close the Panama Canal to Japanese shipping.
The situation continued to worsen, and in 1941 Japan moved into northern Indochina.
The U.S. response was to freeze Japan's assets in the US and to initiate a complete oil embargo.
Oil was probably Japan's most crucial resource, as its own supplies were very limited and 80% of Japan's oil imports came from the U.S.
Certainly the Navy relied entirely on imported bunker oil stocks.
Diplomatic negotiations climaxed with the Hull note of November 26, 1941, which Prime Minister Hideki Tojo described to his cabinet as an ultimatum. Japan felt it had to choose between complying with the U.S. and UK demands
βthus backing down from its aggression in China and the surrounding areas, and continuing with its expansionism.
Concerned about losing hard-earned status and prestige in the international community if Japan backed down ("loss of face") and the perceived threat
to its national security posed by the Western Powers who controlled
territory in the Pacific and/or East Asia, Imperial Japan under
Emperor Hirohito had already prepared military options, and decided to
carry them out, thus choosing the latter option and war with the
United States, United Kingdom/Australia, and the Netherlands.
Having already signed the Axis Pact with Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy
and others, this meant that Japan would also be joining WWII, already
going on in Europe.
On September 4, 1941, at the second of two Imperial Conferences
attended by the Emperor considering an attack on Pearl Harbor, the
Japanese Cabinet met to consider the attack plans prepared by
Imperial General Headquarters.
It was decided that:
Our Empire, for the purpose of self-defence and self-preservation,
will complete preparations for war ...
[and is]
... resolved to go to war with the United States, Great Britain/Australia and
the Netherlands if necessary.
Our Empire will concurrently take all possible diplomatic measures vis-a-vis the United States and Great Britain, and thereby endeavor to obtain
our objectives ...
In the event that there is no prospect of our demands being met by the first ten days of October through the diplomatic negotiations mentioned above, we will immediately decide to commence hostilities against the
United States, Britain/Australia and the Netherlands.
Japanese preparations
Japan had been impressed with Admiral Andrew Cunningham's
'Operation Judgement' (the Battle of Taranto), where 20
nearly-obsolete biplanes (Fairey Swordfish) launched from a carrier force
far in advance of the main British base at Alexandria disabled half of the
Italian battle fleet and forced the withdrawal of the Italian fleet to behind Naples.
Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto dispatched a naval delegation to Italy, which concluded that a larger and better-supported version of Cunningham's
brilliant maneuver could force the U.S. fleet back to California, giving time
to achieve the
"Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere"
βshorthand for control of the oil reserves of the Dutch East Indies,
with a defensible buffer around them.
Most importantly, the delegation returned to Japan with the secret of the shallow running torpedo which Cunningham's boffins had devised.
Additionally, some Japanese strategists may have been influenced by the actions of U.S. Admiral Harry Yarnell in the 1932 joint Army-Navy exercises, which assumed an invasion of Hawaii.
Yarnell, playing the role of Commander of the attacking fleet, sailed his aircraft carriers northwest of Oahu in rough weather, and launched 'attack' planes
on the morning of Sunday, 7 February 1932.
Judges assigned to the exercise noted that Yarnell's aircraft were able to inflict serious 'damage' on the defenders, who were unable to locate his fleet for
24 hours after the attack.
Conventional US Navy doctrine of the time (and other naval opinion as well) believed that any attacking force would be set upon and destroyed by
the battleship fleet stationed at Pearl Harbor, and dismissed Yarnell's
strategy as impractical in the real world.
Yamamoto began considering such an attack early in 1941, and after some pressure on Naval Headquarters (including a threat to resign), managed
to get permission to begin formal planning and training.
The events of the summer led to preliminary approval of the attack plan at an Imperial Conference (which included the Emperor) and then approval
of the attack in another Imperial Conference early in November.
The intent of the attack on Pearl Harbor was to neutralize
American naval power in the Pacific, if only temporarily, as part of a
theater-wide, near-simultaneous coordinated attack against several
different countries.
Yamamoto himself expected that even a successful attack would gain only a year or so of freedom of action before the U.S. fleet recovered enough
to check Japan's advances.
Preliminary planning for a Pearl Harbor attack in support of military advance elsewhere began in January 1941, and, after some Imperial Navy
factional infighting, the project was finally judged worthwhile.
Training for the mission was under way by mid-year.
The planned attack depended primarily on torpedoes, but the weapons of the time required deep water to function if air-launched.
This was a critical problem because Pearl Harbor is shallow, except in dredged channels.
Over the summer of 1941, Japan secretly created and tested torpedo modifications that could be expected to work properly in a shallow water drop.
The effort resulted in the Type 95 torpedo which inflicted most of the damage to U.S. ships during the attack.
Japanese weapons technicians also produced special armor-piercing bombs by fitting fins on 14 and 15 inch (356 and 381 mm) naval gun shells.
These were able to penetrate the armored decks of battleships and cruisers when dropped from 10,000 feet (3,000 m), if they could actually hit them.
On November 26, 1941, a fleet including six aircraft carriers commanded
by Vice Admiral Chuichi Nagumo left Hitokappu Bay in the Kuril Islands
under orders for strict radio silence bound for Hawaii.
The aircraft carriers involved in the attack were:
Akagi, Hiryu, Kaga, Shokaku, Soryu, and Zuikaku.
Two fast battleships, 2 heavy cruisers, 1 light cruiser, 9 destroyers, and
3 fleet submarines provided escort for the task force.
The carriers had a total of 423 planes, including
Mitsubishi Type 0 "Zero" fighters,
Nakajima Type 97 "Kate" torpedo bombers, and
Aichi Type 99 "Val" dive bombers.
Japan's task force and its air group were larger than any prior
aircraft carrier-based strike force.
Accompanying the fleet were 8 tankers for refueling.
In addition, the Advanced Expeditionary Force included
20 fleet submarines and five two-man Ko-hyoteki-class midget submarines; they were to gather intelligence and sink any U.S. vessels that might try to flee Pearl Harbor during the air attack.
United States preparedness
U.S. civilian and military intelligence forces had, between them,
good information suggesting additional Japanese aggression throughout the summer and fall before the attack.
None of it specifically indicated an attack against Pearl Harbor.
Public press reports during that summer and fall, including
Hawaiian newspapers, contained extensive reports on the tension and developments in the Pacific.
During November, all Pacific commands, including both the Navy and Army
in Hawaii, were explicitly warned that war with Japan was expected in
the very near future.
And, on the day of the attack, General George C Marshall sent an
'imminent-war warning' message to Pearl Harbor specifically.
In Hawaii, there were several indications of the incoming attack,
but none caused increased local readiness by defenders.
Had any of these warnings produced an active alert status,
the attack would have been resisted more effectively and
perhaps caused much less death and damage.
The attack arrived at a Pearl Harbor that was in fact unprepared:
anti-aircraft weapons were not manned,
ammunition was locked down,
anti-submarine measures were not implemented
(no submarine nets, for instance),
combat air patrols were not flying,
scouting aircraft not in the air at first light, etc.
U.S. signals intelligence, through the Army Signal Intelligence Service
and the Office of Naval Intelligence's OP-20-G unit, intercepted
Japanese diplomatic traffic and had broken many Japanese ciphers,
though none carried either strategic or tactical military information. Distribution of this intelligence was capricious and confusing, and
did not include material from Japan's military traffic as this was not available. At best the information was (as is common in such cases) partial,
seemingly contradictory, or insufficiently distributed
(as in the case of the Winds Code).
Warnings were sent to all U.S. forces commands in the Pacific,
including the explicit war warning message in late November 1941.
Despite the growing information pointing to a new phase of Japan's aggression, there was little information available pointing specifically
toward Pearl Harbor.
American commanders had been warned that tests had shown that
shallow-water torpedo air launches were possible, but no one in charge
in Hawaii fully appreciated the danger posed by the new possibilities.
Expecting that Pearl Harbor had natural defenses against torpedo attack
(e.g., shallow water), the U.S. Navy failed to deploy torpedo nets or
baffles, which they judged an interference with ordinary operations and so,
a low priority.
Due to a claimed shortage of long-distance planes,
long reconnaissance patrols
(chiefly Navy flying boats and Army Air Corps bombers) were not being
made as often as required for adequate coverage, or as were shown to
be possible
(eg, immediately after the attack and with fewer planes).
At the time of the attack, the Army, which was responsible for the defense of Pearl Harbor, was in training mode rather than on an alert footing.
Most of its portable anti-aircraft guns were stowed, with the
ammunition locked in separate armories.
To avoid upsetting property owners, officers did not keep guns
dispersed around the Pearl Harbor base
(i.e., on private property).
Breaking off negotiations
Part of the Japanese plan for the attack included breaking off negotiations with the United States 30 minutes before the attack began.
Diplomats from the Japanese Embassy in Washington, including the
Japanese Ambassador, Admiral Kichisaburo Nomura, and
special representative Saburo Kurusu, had been conducting extended
talks with the State Department regarding the U.S. reactions to the
Japanese move into Indochina in the summer.
In the days before the attack, a long multi-part message was sent to the Embassy from the Foreign Office in Tokyo
(encoded with the PURPLE cryptographic machine), with instructions to
deliver it to Secretary of State Cordell Hull at 1 PM Washington time
(ie, just thirty minutes before the attack was scheduled to begin).
The last part arrived not long before the attack, but because of
decryption and typing delays, Embassy personnel failed to
deliver the message at the specified time.
The last part, breaking off negotiations
("Obviously it is the intention of the American Government to conspire with Great Britain and other countries to obstruct Japan's efforts toward the establishment of peace through the creation of a new order in East Asia ... Thus, the earnest hope of the Japanese government to adjust
Japanese-American relations and to preserve and promote the peace of the Pacific through cooperation with the American Government has finally
been lost"),
was delivered to Secretary Hull several hours after the Pearl Harbor attack.
The United States had decrypted the last part of the final message well before the Japanese Embassy managed to, and long before a fair typed copy of the decrypt was finished.
It was decryption of the last part with its instruction for the time of delivery which prompted Gen. George Marshall to send his famous warning to
Hawaii that morning.
It was actually delivered, by a young Japanese-American cycle messenger,
to Gen. Walter Short at Pearl Harbor several hours after the attack
had ended.
The delay was due to an inability to locate General Marshall after
decryption and translation (he was out riding), trouble with the Army's
long distance communication system, a decision not to use Navy
facilities to transmit it, and various troubles during its travels over
commercial cable facilities.
Somehow its "urgent" marking was misplaced during its travels and it
was delayed by several additional hours.
Japan's records, admitted into evidence during Congressional hearings on
the attack after the War, established that the Japanese government had
not even written a declaration of war until after they heard of the
successful attack on Pearl Harbor.
That two-line declaration of war was finally delivered to
U.S. Ambassador Grew in Tokyo about 10 hours after the attack was over. He was allowed to transmit it to the United States where it was received
late Monday afternoon.
The Attack
The battle
The first shots fired and the first casualties in the attack on Pearl Harbor actually occurred when the destroyer USS Ward attacked and sank a
midget submarine at 06:37 Hawaiian Time during a routine patrol outside
the Harbor entrance.
Five Ko-hyoteki class midget submarines had been assigned to torpedo
U.S. ships after the bombing started.
None of these made it back safely, and only four out of the five have
since been found.
Of the ten sailors aboard the five submarines, nine died, and the only survivor, Kazuo Sakamaki, was captured, becoming the first prisoner of war captured by the Americans in World War II.
United States Naval Institute photographic analysis conducted in
1999 indicates one midget submarine managed to enter the harbor
and successfully fired a torpedo into the USS West Virginia.
The final disposition of this submarine is unknown.
On the morning of the attack, the Army's Opana Point radar station
detected the Japanese force, but the warning was confused by an
untrained new officer at the only partially active Intelligence Center.
Although the operators reported a sighting larger than anything they had ever seen, the officer assumed that the arrival of 6 U.S. B-17 bombers
would account for such a sighting.
Some commercial shipping may have reported "unusual" radio traffic, in the preceding days.
Several U.S. aircraft were shot down as the air attack approached land;
one, at least, radioed a somewhat incoherent warning.
Other warnings were still being processed, or awaiting confirmation, when the shooting began.
It is not clear that these forewarnings would have had any effect even if they had been interpreted perfectly.
The results the Japanese achieved in the Philippines was essentially the same as at Pearl even though the Army Air Corps there had 10 hours of
warning that the Japan had attacked Pearl Harbor.
The attack on Pearl Harbor began at 07:53 7 December Hawaiian Time, which was 03:23 AM December 8 Japanese Standard Time.
Japanese planes attacked in two waves, in which a total of
353 planes reached Oahu.
Vulnerable torpedo bombers led the first wave of 183 planes,
exploiting the first moments of surprise by attacking the (hoped for)
aircraft carriers and battleships while dive bombers attacked the
U.S. air bases across Oahu, starting with Hickam Field, the largest,
and Wheeler Air Field, the principal fighter base.
The 170 planes of the second wave attacked Bellows Field and Ford Island,
a marine and naval air base in the middle of Pearl Harbor.
The only opposition came from some P-36 Hawks and P-40 Warhawks
that flew 25 sorties and from naval anti-aircraft fire.
Men aboard US ships awoke to the sounds of bombs exploding and cries of
"Away fire and rescue party"
and
"All hands on deck, we're being bombed."
Despite the lack of preparation, which included locked ammunition lockers, undispersed aircraft, and a lack of heightened alert status, there were
many American military personnel who served with distinction during
the battle.
Rear Admiral Isaac C. Kidd, and Captain Franklin Van Valkenburgh, commander of the USS Arizona, both rushed to the bridge of USS Arizona and directed the ship's defense, until both were killed by an explosion in
the forward ammunition magazine, caused by an armor-piercing bomb
strike next to one of the forward main battery gun turrets.
Both were posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor.
Ensign Joe Taussig got his ship, the USS Nevada, under way from a dead
cold start during the attack.
A destroyer got under way with only four officers onboard, all Ensigns,
none of whom had more than a year's sea duty.
That ship operated for four days at sea before its commanding officer
caught up with it.
Captain Mervyn Bennion, commanding officer of the USS West Virginia,
calmly led his men in battle until he was cut down by fragments from a
bomb hit aboard the USS Tennessee, moored alongside.
Earliest aircraft kill credit went to submarine the USS Tautog, which
claimed the first attacker downed.
Probably the most famous is Doris "Dorie" Miller, an African-American
cook aboard the USS West Virginia, who went beyond the call of duty
when he took control of an unattended anti-aircraft gun, on which he had
no training, and used it to fire on the attacking planes, downing at least
one, even while bombs were hitting his ship.
He was awarded the Navy Cross.
In all, 14 sailors and officers were awarded the Medal of Honor.
A special military award, the Pearl Harbor Commemorative Medal,
was later authorized to all military veterans of the attack.
Ninety minutes after it began, the attack was over.
2,403 Americans had lost their lives
(of whom 68 were civilians, many killed by American anti-aircraft shells falling back to ground in civilian areas, including Honolulu), and a further
1,178 were wounded.
Eighteen ships were sunk, including five battleships
Nearly half of the American fatalities
β1,102 Seamenβ
were caused by the explosion and sinking of the USS Arizona.
It was destroyed when a modified 40 cm naval gun shell, dropped from
a bomber, smashed through its two armored decks and detonated
the forward main gun magazine.
The hull of the USS Arizona became a memorial to those lost that day,
most of whom remain within the ship.
The USS Nevada attempted to exit the harbor, but was ordered to
beach itself to avoid possibly blocking the harbor entrance.
Already damaged by a torpedo and on fire forward, USS Nevada
was targeted by many of Japan's bombers as it got underway.
It sustained more hits from 250 lb bombs as it beached.
The USS California was hit by two bombs and two torpedoes.
The crew might have kept her afloat if they had not been ordered to
abandon ship just as they were raising power for the pumps.
Burning oil from the USS Arizona and the USS West Virginia drifted down
on her, and probably made the situation look worse than it was.
The disarmed USS Utah was holed twice by torpedoes.
The USS West Virginia was hit by seven torpedoes,
the seventh tearing away the ship's rudder.
The USS Oklahoma was hit by four torpedoes, the last two above its
side armor belt which caused it to capsize.
The USS Maryland was hit by two of the converted 40 cm shells,
but neither caused serious damage.
Although the Japanese concentrated on battleships
(the largest vessels present), they did not ignore other targets.
The light cruiser USS Helena was torpedoed, and the concussion from
the blast capsized the neighboring minelayer USS Oglala.
Two destroyers in dry dock were destroyed when bombs penetrated
their fuel bunkers.
The leaking fuel caught fire and flooding the dry dock made the oil rise,
which burned out the ships.
The light cruiser USS Raleigh was hit by a torpedo and holed.
The light cruiser USS Honolulu was damaged but remained in service.
The destroyer USS Cassin capsized, and the USS Downes, also a destroyer, was heavily damaged.
The repair vessel USS Vestal, moored alongside the USS Arizona at the
time it exploded, was heavily damaged and was beached.
The seaplane tender USS Curtiss was also damaged.
Almost every one of the 188 American aircraft were destroyed and
155 of those damaged were hit on the ground, where most had been
parked wingtip to wingtip in central positions to minimize
sabotage vulnerability.
Attacks on barracks killed additional pilots and other personnel.
Friendly fire brought down several planes.
Fifty-five Japanese airmen and nine submariners were killed in the action.
Of Japan's 441 available planes (350 took part in the attack),
29 were lost during the battle
(nine in the first attack wave and 20 in the second wave) and another
74 were damaged by flak and machine gunfire from the ground.
Over 20 of the aircraft that safely landed on their carriers could not be salvaged.
Nagumo's decision to withdraw after two strikes
Some senior officers and flight leaders urged Nagumo to attack with a third strike to destroy the oil storage depots, machine shops, and dry docks
at Pearl Harbor.
The United States had considered the vulnerability of the fuel oil storage tanks before the war and secretly started construction of the bomb resistant
Red Hill fuel tanks before Japan's attack.
Destruction of these facilities would have greatly increased the
U.S. Navy's difficulties, as the nearest immediately usable fleet facilities
would have been several thousand miles east of Hawaii on
America's West Coast.
Some military historians have suggested that the destruction of oil tanks and repair facilities would have crippled the U.S. Pacific Fleet more seriously
than the loss of several battleships.
Nagumo decided to forgo a third attack in favor of withdrawing for several reasons:
Anti-aircraft performance during the second strike was much improved over that during the first, and two-thirds of Japan's losses happened during
the second wave, due in part to the Americans being alerted.
A third strike could have been expected to suffer still worse losses.
The first two strikes had essentially used all the previously prepped aircraft available, so a third strike would have taken some time to prepare, perhaps allowing the Americans time to find and attack Nagumo's force.
The location of the American carriers was and remained unknown to Nagumo.
The Japanese pilots had not practiced an attack against the Pearl Harbor shore facilities and organizing such an attack would have taken still more time, though several of the strike leaders urged a third strike anyway.
The fuel situation did not permit remaining on station north of Pearl Harbor much longer.
The Japanese force were acting at the limit of their logistical ability.
To remain in those waters for much longer would have risked running unacceptably low on fuel.
The timing of a third strike would have been such that aircraft would probably have returned to their carriers after dark.
Night operations from aircraft carriers were in their infancy in 1941, and neither Japan nor anyone else had developed reliable techniques and doctrine.
The second strike had essentially completed the entire mission:
neutralization of the American Pacific Fleet.
There was the simple danger of remaining near one place for too long.
Japan was very fortunate to have escaped detection during their voyage from the Inland Sea to Hawaii.
The longer they remained off Hawaii, the more danger they were in from U.S. submarines and the absent American carriers.
The carriers were needed to support the main Japanese attack toward the
"Southern Resources Area",
the Philippines, the Dutch East Indies, Malaya, and Burma, which was
intended to capture oil and other supplies.
The Japanese government had been reluctant to allow the attack at all as it took air cover from the southern thrust, and Nagumo was under strict orders not to risk his command any more than necessary.
As the war games during the planning of the attack had predicted that from two to four carriers might be lost in the attack, Nagumo must have been
very happy to suffer no losses and did not want to push his luck.
Additional U.S. losses on 7 December 1941
The Japanese submarine I-26 sank the Cynthia Olson, a U.S. Army
chartered schooner, off the coast of San Francisco with a loss of 35 lives.
Subsequent attacks
Later during the War several other, small-scale, attacks were also
made on Pearl Harbor.
In March, 1942, in Operation K-1, a preparation for the Midway invasion,
two Japanese H8K flying-boats, based at Wotje in the Marshall Islands,
were tasked with reconnaissance to see how repairs were progressing,
and to bomb the important
"Ten-ten"
repair dock.
The distance involved required refueling en-route, and was done
from submarines at French Frigate Shoals, 500 miles (800 km) north-west
of Pearl Harbor.
Poor visibility hampered the mission, and the bombs were dropped some miles from their target.
Five Japanese submarines supported the operation:
I-9 as a radio beacon;
I-19, I-15 and the I-26 to refuel the flying boats and
I-23 to provide weather reports.
However, the I-23 was lost without trace.
American ships were posted to the Shoals thereafter, which precluded another attempt using the same approach.
Immediate aftermath
American response
Ninety minutes before the attack on Pearl Harbor began
(December 8, 1941 Japan time, on the other side of the
international date line), Japan invaded British Malaya.
This was followed by an early morning attack on the New Territories of
Hong Kong and within hours or days by attacks on the Philippines,
Wake Island, and Thailand and by the sinking of HM Ships Prince of Wales
and Repulse.
On December 8, 1941, the U.S. Congress declared war on Japan,
with Jeannette Rankin casting the only dissenting vote.
The United States was outraged by the attack and by the late delivery of the note breaking off relations, actions which it considered treacherous. Roosevelt signed the declaration of war the same day, and called the
previous day
"a date which will live in infamy"
in an address to a joint session of Congress.
Continuing to intensify its military mobilization, the U.S. government began converting to a war economy.
The Pearl Harbor attack immediately galvanized a divided nation into action.
Public opinion had been moving towards support for entering the War during 1941, but considerable opposition remained until the Pearl Harbor attack. Overnight, Americans united against Japan, and that response probably
made possible the unconditional surrender position later taken by the
Allied Powers.
Some historians believe that the attack on Pearl Harbor doomed
Japan to defeat simply because it awakened the
"sleeping U.S. behemoth",
regardless of whether the fuel depots or machine shops had been
destroyed or even if the carriers had been caught in port and sunk.
U.S. industrial and military capacity, once mobilized, was able to pour overwhelming resources into both the Pacific and Atlantic theaters.
Perceptions of treachery in the attack before a declaration of war sparked fears of sabotage or espionage by Japanese sympathizers residing in the US, including citizens of Japanese descent and was a factor in the subsequent Japanese internment in the western United States.
Other factors included misrepresentations of intelligence information
(none) suggesting sabotage, notably by General John DeWitt,
commanding Coast Defense on the Pacific Coast, apparently because
of personal bias.
In February 1942, Roosevelt signed United States Executive Order 9066, requiring all Japanese Americans to submit themselves for
arrest and internment.
Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy declared war on the
United States on December 11, four days after the Japanese attack.
Hitler and Mussolini were under no obligation to declare war under the
mutual-defense terms of the Tripartite Pact.
However, relations between the European Axis Powers and
American leadership had gradually deteriorated since 1937.
Earlier in 1941, the Nazis learned of the U.S. military's contingency planning to get troops in Continental Europe by 1943;
this was the "Rainbow Five" plan and was made public by sources unsympathetic to Roosevelt's New Deal, notably the Chicago Tribune.
Hitler seems to have decided that war with the United States was unavoidable, and the Pearl Harbor attack, the publication of the
Rainbow Five plan, and Roosevelt's post-Pearl Harbor address,
which focused on European affairs as well as the situation with
Japan, probably contributed.
Hitler also underestimated American military production capacity beyond
Lend Lease, the nation's ability to fight on two fronts and the time
'Operation Barbarossa' would require.
Similarly, the Nazis may have hoped the declaration of war, a showing
of solidarity with Japan, would result in closer collaboration with the
Japanese in Eurasia.
Regardless, the decision was an enormous strategic blunder and it enraged the American public.
It allowed the United States to immediately enter the European theatre of war in support of the United Kingdom and the Allied camp without much
public debate about the relative lack of retaliation against Japan.
Conversely, the Pacific theatre became Japan's focus of attention; overwhelming the Americans
βand later, defending against themβ
undermined cooperative efforts against British holdings from Southeast Asia to the Middle East.
Opening a second front against the Soviet Union, which never came to fruition, also would have been of value to the combined Axis' war effort.
President Roosevelt appointed an investigating commission, headed by
U.S. Supreme Court Justice Owen Roberts to report facts and findings with respect to the attack on Pearl Harbor.
Both the Fleet commander, Rear Admiral Husband E. Kimmel, and the
Army commander, Lieutenant General Walter Short
(the Army Air Corps had been responsible for aerial defense of Hawaii, including Pearl Harbor, and for general defense of the islands against hostile attack), were relieved of their commands shortly thereafter.
They were accused of 'dereliction of duty' by the Roberts Commission for not making reasonable defensive preparations.
This evaluation has been controversial in some quarters ever since.
On May 25, 1999, the Senate voted to recommend both officers be exonerated on all charges of dereliction of duty, citing allegations of the
denial to Hawaii commanders of vital intelligence which was available
in Washington.
In terms of its own objectives, the attack on Pearl Harbor was a tactical success which far exceeded the expectations of its planners.
In execution, it has few parallels in the military history of any era.
Even the surprise British carrier strike on the Italian's Taranto naval base in 1940 had not been so devastating in terms of damage inflicted, although
in successfully neutralising the Italian navy it had much greater strategic implications.
Due to its losses at Pearl Harbor and in the subsequent Japanese invasion of the Philippines, the U.S. Navy and Army Air Corps were unable to play
any significant role in the Pacific War for the next six months.
With the U.S. Pacific Fleet essentially out of the picture for the moment,
Japan was temporarily free of worries about the rival Pacific naval power.
It went on to conquer Southeast Asia, the Southwest Pacific, and to
extend its reach far into the Indian Ocean.
Although Pearl Harbor was the most notable attack on American soil during WWII, there were several others
(including the Philippine and Wake Island invasions.)
Japanese views of the attack
Imperial Japanese military leaders appear to have had mixed feelings about the attack.
Yamamoto was unhappy about the botched timing of the breaking off of negotiations.
He is commonly thought to have said,
"I fear all we have done is awakened a sleeping giant and filled him with terrible resolve" .
Even though the words may not have been uttered by Yamamoto, it did seem to capture his feelings about the attack.
He is on record as saying, in the previous year, that
"I can run wild for six months β¦
after that, I have no expectation of success."
Although the Imperial Japanese government had made some effort to prepare the general Japanese civilian population for war with the U.S. through anti-U.S. propaganda, it appears that most Japanese were surprised, apprehensive, and dismayed by the news that they were now at war with the U.S., a country that many Japanese admired, and its allies.
Nevertheless, the Japanese people living in Japan and its territories thereafter generally accepted their government's reasons for the attack and supported the war effort until their nation's surrender in 1945.
Japan's national leadership at that time appeared to believe that the war between the US and Japan was inevitable.
In 1942, Saburo Kurusu, former Japanese ambassador to the United States, gave an address in which he traced the
"historical inevitability of the war of Greater East Asia."
He said that the war was a response to Washington's longstanding aggression toward Japan.
According to Kurusu, the provocations began with the
San Francisco School incident and the United States' racist policies
on Japanese immigrants, and culminated in the "belligerent" scrap metal
and oil boycott by the United States and allied countries.
Of Pearl Harbor itself, he said that it came in direct response to a virtual ultimatum, the Hull note, from the U.S. government, and that the
surprise attack was not treacherous because it should have been expected.
Many Japanese today still feel that they were "pushed" into the war by the U.S. due to threats to their national security from the U.S. and other European powers or that the war "happened" to them through no fault of their own.
For example, the Japan Times, an English-language newspaper owned by
one of the major news organizations in Japan (Asahi Shimbun), ran a
number of columns in the early 2000s that echo Kurusu's comments
in reference to Pearl Harbor.
Putting Pearl Harbor into context, writers repeatedly contrast the thousands of U.S. servicemen killed in that attack with the hundreds of thousands
of Japanese civilians later killed by U.S. air attacks.
However, in spite of the perceived inevitability of the war, many Japanese believe that the Pearl Harbor attack, although a tactical victory, was in reality part of a seriously flawed strategy for engaging in war with the U.S.
As one columnist eulogizes the attack:
The Pearl Harbor attack was a brilliant tactic, but part of a strategy based on the belief that a spirit as firm as iron and as beautiful as cherry blossoms could overcome the materially wealthy United States.
That strategy was flawed, and Japan's total defeat would follow.
In 1991, the Japanese Foreign Ministry released a statement saying that in 1941 Japan had intended to make a formal declaration of war to the
United States at 1 PM Washington time, 25 minutes before the attacks at Pearl Harbor were scheduled to begin.
It appears that the Japanese government was referring to the
"14-part message", which did not even formally break off negotiations,
let alone declare war.
However, due to various delays, the Japanese ambassador was unable to make the declaration until well after the attacks had begun.
The Japanese government apologized for this delay.
The first Prime Minister of Japan during World War II Hideki Tojo later
wrote that
When reflecting upon it today, that the Pearl Harbor attack should have succeeded in achieving surprise seems a blessing from Heaven.
(1942)
Longer-term effects
A common view is that the Japan fell victim to victory disease due to the perceived ease of their first victories.
Yet despite the perception of this battle as a devastating blow to America, only three ships were permanently lost to the U.S. Navy.
These were the battleships USS Arizona, USS Oklahoma, and the old battleship USS Utah (then used as a target ship); nevertheless,
much usable material was salvaged from them, including the two aft
main turrets from USS Arizona.
Heavy casualties resulted due to Arizona's magazine exploding and the
USS Oklahoma capsizing.
Four ships sunk during the attack were later raised and returned to duty, including the battleships USS California, USS West Virginia and
USS Nevada.
USS California and USS West Virginia had an effective
torpedo-defense system which held up remarkably well, despite the
weight of fire they had to endure, enabling most of their crews to be saved. Many of the surviving battleships were heavily refitted, including the replacement of their outdated secondary battery of anti-surface 5" guns
with a more useful battery of turreted DP guns, allowing them to better
cope with Japan's airborne threats.
The destroyers USS Cassin and USS Downes were constructive total losses, but their machinery was salvaged and fitted into new hulls, retaining their original names, while USS Shaw was raised and returned to service.
Of the 22 Japanese ships that took part in the attack, only one survived
the war.
As of 2006, the only U.S. ship still afloat that was in Pearl Harbor during
the attack is the Coast Guard Cutter USCG Taney.
In the long term, the attack on Pearl Harbor was a strategic blunder for Japan.
Indeed, Admiral Yamamoto, who devised the Pearl Harbor attack, had predicted that even a successful attack on the U.S. Fleet could not win a war with the United States, because American productive capacity was too large. One of the main Japanese objectives was to destroy the
three American aircraft carriers stationed in the Pacific, but they were
not present: USS Enterprise was returning from Wake Island,
USS Lexington was near Midway Island, and USS Saratoga was in
San Diego following a refit at Puget Sound Naval Shipyard.
Putting most of the U.S. battleships out of commission was regarded
βin both Navies and by most observers worldwideβ
as a tremendous success for Japan.
Though the attack was notable for large-scale destruction, the attack was not significant in terms of long-term loss.
Had Japan destroyed the American carriers, the U.S. might have sustained significant damage to its Pacific Fleet for a year or so.
As it was, the elimination of the battleships left the U.S. Navy with no choice but to put its faith in aircraft carriers and submarines
βand these were the tools with which the U.S. Navy would halt and eventually reverse the Japanese advance.
One particular flaw of Japanese strategic thinking was that the ultimate Pacific battle would be between battleships of both sides.
As a result, Yamamoto hoarded his battleships for a decisive battle that would never happen.
Ultimately, targets that never made the list, the Submarine Base and the
old Headquarters Building, were more important than any of them.
It was submarines that brought Japan's economy to a standstill and crippled its transportation of oil, immobilizing heavy ships.
And in the basement of the old Headquarters Building was the cryptanalytic unit, Station Hypo.
Historical significance
This battle has had history-altering consequences.
It only had a small strategic military effect due to the failure of the Japanese Navy to sink U.S. aircraft carriers, but even if the air carriers had been sunk, it may not have helped Japan in the long term.
The attack firmly drew the United States and its massive industrial and service economy into World War II, and the US sent huge numbers of soldiers and a great amount of weapons and supplies to help the Allies fight Germany, Italy, and Japan, contributing to the utter defeat of the Axis powers by 1945.
It also resulted in Germany declaring war on the United States four days later.
The United Kingdom's Prime Minister Winston S Churchill, on hearing that
the attack on Pearl Harbor had finally drawn the United States into the war, wrote:
"Being saturated and satiated with emotion and sensation,
I went to bed and slept the sleep of the saved and thankful."
The Allied victory in this war and the subsequent U.S. emergence as a dominant world power have shaped international politics ever since.
In terms of military history, the attack on Pearl Harbor marked the emergence of the aircraft carrier as the center of naval power, replacing the battleship as the keystone of the fleet.
However, it was not until later battles, notably the Coral Sea and
Midway, that this breakthrough became apparent to the world's naval powers.
Mythical status
Pearl Harbor is a major event in American history marking the first time since the War of 1812 America was attacked on its home soil by another country. The event has assumed mythical status, and its prominence was vividly demonstrated sixty years later when the September 11, 2001 attacks took place:
- the World Trade Center and Pentagon attacks were instantly compared to Pearl Harbor.
Cultural impact
The attack on Pearl Harbor and the ensuing war in the Pacific, fueled
anti-Japanese sentiment.
Japanese, Japanese-Americans and Asians having a similar
physical appearance were regarded with suspicion, distrust and hostility.
The attack was viewed as having been conducted in an underhanded way and also as a very
"treacherous"
or
"sneaky attack".
The fear of a Japanese-American Fifth column led to the massive arrest of this ethnic population since February 19, 1942 and its resulting
Japanese American internment, a modest term to designate taboo
"concentration camps",
in both the United States and Canada.
The attacks on Pearl Harbor were depicted in the joint
American-Japanese film Tora! Tora! Tora! (1970),
the American film Pearl Harbor (2001)
and in several Japanese productions.
Recipients of the Medal of Honor
* Awarded posthumously.
Mervyn S. Bennion *
John William Finn
Francis C. Flaherty *
Samuel G. Fuqua
Edwin J. Hill *
Herbert C. Jones *
Isaac C. Kidd *
Jackson C. Pharris
Thomas J. Reeves *
Donald K. Ross
Robert R. Scott *
Peter Tomich *
Franklin van Valkenburgh *
James R. Ward *
Cassin Young
Further reading
Gordon W. Prange,
At Dawn We Slept (McGraw-Hill, 1981),
Pearl Harbor: The Verdict of History (McGraw-Hill, 1986), and
December 7, 1941: The Day the Japanese Attacked Pearl Harbor
(McGraw-Hill, 1988).
This monumental trilogy, written with collaborators Donald M. Goldstein
and Katherine V. Dillon, is considered the authoritative work on the subject.
Walter Lord,
Day of Infamy (Henry Holt, 1957)
is a very readable, and entirely anecdotal, re-telling of the day's events.
W. J. Holmes,
Double-Edged Secrets:
U.S. Naval Intelligence Operations in the Pacific During World War II
(Naval Institute, 1979)
contains some important material, such as Holmes' argument that,
had the U.S. Navy been warned of the attack and put to sea,
it would have likely resulted in an even greater disaster.
Michael V. Gannon,
Pearl Harbor Betrayed (Henry Holt, 2001)
is a recent examination of the issues surrounding the surprise of the attack.
Frederick D. Parker,
Pearl Harbor Revisited:
United States Navy Communications Intelligence 1924β1941
(Center for Cryptologic History, 1994)
contains a detailed description of what the Navy knew from intercepted
and decrypted Japan's communications prior to Pearl.
Henry C. Clausen and Bruce Lee,
Pearl Harbor: Final Judgement, (HarperCollins, 2001),
an account of the secret "Clausen Inquiry" undertaken late in the war
by order of Congress to Secretary of War Stimson.
Robert A. Theobald,
Final Secret of Pearl Harbor (Devin-Adair Pub, 1954)
ISBN 0-8159-5503-0/0-317-65928-6
Foreword by Fleet Admiral William F. Halsey, Jr.
Albert C. Wedemeyer,
Wedemeyer Reports! (Henry Holt Co, 1958)
ISBN 0-89275-011-1/ ISBN 0-8159-7216-4
Hamilton Fish, Tragic Deception:
FDR and America's Involvement in World War II
(Devin-Adair Pub, 1983) ISBN 0-8159-6917-1
John Toland,
Infamy: Pearl Harbor and Its Aftermath
(Berkley Reissue edition, 1986 ISBN 0-425-09040-X)
is an excellent account by a Pulitzer Prize winning author,
though thought by some not to back up his claims as thoroughly as
expected by academic conventions.
Robert Stinnett, Day of Deceit :
The Truth About FDR and Pearl Harbor (Free Press, 1999)
A study of the Freedom of Information Act documents that led Congress to direct clearance of Kimmel and Short.
ISBN 0-7432-0129-9
Edward L. Beach,
Scapegoats: A Defense of Kimmel and Short at Pearl Harbor
ISBN 1-55750-059-2
Andrew Krepinevich,PDF
(Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments)
contains a passage regarding the Yarnell attack, as well as reference citations.
Roberta Wohlstetter,
Pearl Harbour: Warning and Decision,
(Stanford University Press: 1962).
Regarded by many as the most important work in the attempt to
understand the intelligence failure at Pearl Harbour.
Her introduction and analysis of the concept of "noise" persists in understanding intelligence failures.
John Hughes-Wilson,
Military Intelligence Blunders and Cover-Ups.
Robinson, 1999 (revised 2004).
Contains a brief but insightful chapter on the particular intelligence failures,
and broader overview of what causes them.
π: 0 β©: 0
Pearl Harbor (film)
Pearl Harbor is a war film released in the summer of 2001 by
Touchstone Pictures.
It stars Ben Affleck, Alec Baldwin, Jon Voight, Josh Hartnett, Kate Beckinsale, Cuba Gooding Jr., Dan Aykroyd, Jaime King, and Jennifer Garner.
It was a dramatic re-imagining of the attack on Pearl Harbor, produced by the team of Jerry Bruckheimer and Michael Bay, who had previously directed such summer mega-blockbusters as Armageddon and The Rock.
The final section of the movie relates the Doolittle Raid, the first
American attack on the Japanese home islands in World War II.
It was famously attacked during a song from the movie Team America: World Police
Production, release, and critical response
Pearl Harbor was released Memorial Day weekend in 2001.
Despite its dazzling special effects and a massive promotional campaign, the movie received negative reviews, as its 25% rating on the Rotten Tomatoes Tomatometer indicates.
Many critics dismissed the film as visually polished but historically insensitive, also citing such literary flaws such as the banal dialogue, underdeveloped
love triangle plot, and the shallow nature of the lead characters.
Critic Roger Ebert summarized Pearl Harbor as
"a two-hour movie squeezed into three hours, about how on December 7, 1941, the Japanese staged a surprise attack on an American love triangle,"
and claimed that,
"The filmmakers seem to have aimed the film at an audience that may not have heard of Pearl Harbor, or perhaps even of World War Two."
Director Michael Bay has said that Roger Ebert's criticism of Pearl Harbor has to be the most offensive of his entire career.
According to Michael Bay:
"He commented on TV that bombs don't fall like that.
Does he actually think we didn't research every nook and cranny of how armor-piercing bombs fell?
He's watched too many movies.
He thinks they all fall flat βarmor-piercing bombs fall straight down,
that's the way it was designed!
But HE's on the air pontificating and giving the wrong information.
That's insulting!"
The grandiloquent tone of the film was frequently cited as the polar opposite of the 1998 Steven Spielberg film Saving Private Ryan.
Although the movie cost approximately U.S. $132 million to film
and promote, it grossed a modest U.S. $200 million at the domestic
box office, but it soon earned a respectable $450 million worldwide.
Despite many believing it was a disappointment, the film was actually one of the highest-earning pictures of 2001.
Pearl Harbor was released on DVD on December 4, 2001,
three days before the actual 60th anniversary of the attack, and just
three months after another devastating terrorist attack on American soil in the late summer of 2001.
Award nominations
At the 2002 Academy Awards, Pearl Harbor was nominated for four awards, winning one for Sound Effects Editing.
Its other nominations were for Best Sound, Best Visual Effects, and
Best Song.
At the 2001 Golden Raspberry Awards Pearl Harbor was nominated for
six awards: Worst Picture, Worst Director, Worst Screenplay,
Worst Screen Couple, Worst Actor (Ben Affleck), and
Worst Remake or Sequel
(presumably of the 1970 film Tora! Tora! Tora!)
βbut lost to Tom Green's Freddy Got Fingered in all but the latter category, wherein it lost to Tim Burton's version of Planet of the Apes.
DVD release
A two-disc Commemorative 60th Anniversary Edition was released on December 4, 2001.
This release included the feature on disc one, and on disc two,
Journey to the Screen, a 47 minute documentary on the
monumental production of the film, Unsung Heroes of Pearl Harbor,
a 50 minute documentary on little known heroes of the attack, a
Faith Hill music video, and theatrical trailers.
A Pearl Harbor DVD giftset that includes the Commemorative Edition
two disc set, National Geographic's "Beyond the Movie" feature, and a
dual-sided map was released concurrently on December 4, 2001.
A deluxe Vista Series director's cut of the film was released on
July 2, 2002.
The extended cut of the film included the insertion of additional gore,
Doolittle addressing the pilots before the raid, and the removal of a
campfire scene;
it runs at 184 minutes compared to the 183 minutes of the theatrical cut.
This elaborate package includes four discs of film and bonus features, a replication of Roosevelt's speech, collectible promotional postcard posters, and a carrying case that resembles an historic photo album.
The bonus features include all the features included on the commemorative edition, plus additional footage.
Replacing real figures
The roles that the two male leads played by Affleck and Hartnett have in the attack sequence are analogous to the real historical deeds of
U.S. Army Air Corps Second Lieutenants George Welch and
Kenneth M. Taylor, who took to the skies during the Japanese attack and, between the two pilots, shot down between six and 10
(depending on source) Japanese fighters.
However, the movie itself makes no mention of or allusion to
Welch's and Taylor's existence in history, and the movie's plot involving the leads, aside from their roles in the attack sequence, does not match
any other historical account of Welch or Taylor.
Because Bay's movie makes no mention of or allusion to
Welch's and Taylor's existence, some consider the very presence of the
two fictional main characters in their steads a blatant usurpation of the
true historical figures' roles.
This point, when coupled with what many critics feel is an arbitrary and
ill-conceived love triangle plot involving the fictional replacements,
makes some regard Pearl Harbor as an abuse of artistic licence.
Historical inaccuracies
Like many historical dramas, Pearl Harbor provoked debate about the
artistic licence taken by its producers and director.
Mark Carnes, history professor at Barnard College and general editor of
Past Imperfect: History According to the Movies
(ISBN 0-8050-3759-4), commented on this subject in general terms during a NewsHour interview broadcast three years before Pearl Harbor was released:
The difficulty is this.
The truths of the movie tend to be clean and pure and powerful and simple. And history never is; history is complex, muddy, difficult.
Movies make good guys too good, bad guys too bad.
They adopt narrative lines that are too simple, all in an effort to reach a broad audience.
The more expensive the movie, the greater the need to reach a huge audience, an audience that can quickly apprehend its themes.
You know, this emphasis on simplicity and power and immediately hitting your audience means that the movies are much too simple compared to the past. I don't think there's any harm in that.
National Geographic Channel produced a documentary called
Beyond the Movie: Pearl Harbor which covers some of the ways that
"the film's final cut didn't reflect all the attacks' facts, or represent them all accurately".
Inaccuracies include, but are not limited to:
Early childhood sequences:
Stearman biplane (the crop-duster aircraft) was not produced until 1935.
The opening scene of the film is set in 1923.
Many Hollywood movies in the 1960's and 1970's used a Stearman as their stock 'old biplane'.
A more appropriate aircraft would be a Curtiss JN 4 'Jenny', but very few
are available for this sort of work.
Battle of Britain sequences:
A four-bladed Supermarine Spitfire is shown during the Battle of Britain in the film.
It is a Spitfire model that was not available until 1942, though the
Battle of Britain took place during 1940 (specifically July through October).
Most early-mark restored and airworthy Spitfires are usually brought up to Mk IX standard with a series 41 or 61 (Packard) Merlin, which requires a
four bladed propellor to absorb the power of the engine.
Ben Affleck's character is portrayed as joining the Royal Air Force (RAF) as part of the Eagle squadron;
U.S. servicemen were prohibited from doing so, though American civilians were allowed
His eyesight would have been checked for RAF service.
Ben Affleck was based at RAF Oakley.
This base was actually a training base in the war, not a fighter base.
Historians point out that during the hot August summer of 1940, such expedients invariably did take place from time to time, and even for squadron training exercises.
Affleck's character flies with a Royal Air Force squadron
(which used Supermarine Spitfires), but the planes actually featured in
the movie bear the RF code letters of the No. 303 Polish Fighter Squadron and are, in fact, Hawker Hurricanes Sqd.
During the Battle of Britain flight sequences, the British Spitfires are shown flying in the standard American four-ship formation.
The British actually flew in the three-ship Vee or "VIC" formation.
Again this is open to dispute, because by the time of the late Battle, the
RAF had adopted the German Luftwaffe 'Rotte' and 'Schwarm' system, known in RAF parlance as the 'Finger Four', which the USAF itself
adopted as 'Four Ship' formation.
Pearl Harbor sequences:
The USS Arizona Memorial, which straddles the sunken USS Arizona, can
be briefly seen in a pan shot.
The memorial was dedicated in the 1960's.
President Roosevelt did not receive the news of the Pearl Harbor attack by an aide or advisor running into the room.
He was having lunch with Harry Hopkins, a trusted friend, and he received a phone call from Secretary of War Henry Stimson.
Hopkins refused to believe the report.
The President believed it.
Admiral Kimmel had received warnings about an attack but, thinking them vague, did not put his forces on full-scale alert.
This contradicts the film's portrayal of Kimmel as a leader railing against Washington's apathy about the Japanese threat.
Even though he specifically asked for, by dispatch and in person, all information, Admiral Kimmel never received the secret or "magic" dispatches that showed vital information.
He also never received the famous 14-part message that the Japanese
were delivering in response to the U.S. "ultimatum" of November 26. Especially not the 14th part which indicated the 1:00 p.m. (EST) delivery
of the message and ordering the destruction of the "coding" equipment, even though this had been decoded some 9 hours before the attack.
The reports that were given to Admiral Kimmel led him and his staff
(as well as General Short, the Commander of the Hawaiian Army units)
to believe that if Japan did attack, it would be somewhere in the southwest Pacific and not Pearl Harbor.
In fact, they concurred when he deployed his task forces away from Hawaii. Before Pearl Harbor was attacked, he had deployed them around
Wake and Midway Islands.
The so-call "War Warning" dispatch that Admiral Kimmel received on November 27, 1941, did not warn the Pacific Fleet of an attack in the Hawaiian area.
It did not state expressly or by implication that an attack in the Hawaiian area was imminent or probable.
It did not repeal or modify the advice previously given me by the
Navy Department that no move against Pearl Harbor was imminent or planned by Japan.
The dispatch warned of war in the Far East.
The number and equipment of Japanese troops and the organization of
Naval task forces indicates an amphibious expedition against either the Philippines, Thailand, or Kra Peninsula, or possibly Borneo.
Admiral Kimmel was not on a golf course on the morning of the attack,
nor was he notified of the Japanese embassy leaving Washington, D.C.,
prior to the attack.
The first official notification of the attack was received by General Short several hours after the attack had ended.
Also, the report of attacking an enemy midget-submarine, in real life, did not report sinking the sub.
At the time of the attack, the battleships in Battleship Row were tied directly together, not spaced apart as they were in the movie.
In the movie, in excess of eleven Mitsubishi A6M "Zero" fighters were destroyed or downed.
In reality, only nine Zero fighters were destroyed by any means in the real bombing of Pearl Harbor.
Japanese aircraft of that period were painted light grey, not green.
Navy Nurse Betty dies during the Pearl Harbor attack, but no Navy Nurses died as a result of enemy action during the entirety of World War II,
including the attack on Pearl Harbor.
The ward dresses of the nurses have a different style than the ones Navy Nurses actually wore during WWII, and no nurse would have worked with
long hair falling freely about her shoulders.
Some of the bombed ships are actually mothballed Knox-class frigates, Ticonderoga Cruisers and Spruance-class destroyers, with the
box launchers for anti-submarine rockets, known as ASROCs, visible.
That technology was not available until the 1960s.
The FF-1062 USS Whipple can be seen clearly in a background shot
of the boxing scene on the USS Arizona.
One of the intelligence photographs taken by the Japanese spies shows a North Carolina class battleship none of which were in Pearl Harbor at that time.
A retired Iowa class battleship was used to represent the
USS West Virginia for Doris Miller's boxing match.
However, the main gun barrels are corked, which is unusual during wartime
or training exercises.
Furthermore, Iowa battleships have a 3x3 main gun configuration versus the 4x2 layout of the West Virginia.
Also, the West Virginia did not have the WWII-era bridge and masts found on newer U.S. battleships until reconstruction was finished in 1943.
In the film, the P-40N model of the P-40 Warhawk U.S. fighter aircraft
is shown.
However, the 'N' model of the P-40 was not available to the
United States until 1943.
In reality, Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto, although he planned the attack,
was not present on any of the carriers that bombed Pearl Harbor.
He was aboard the battleship Nagato in Tokyo Bay, where he heard
reports of the attack and supposedly made his famous
"sleeping giant"
statement.
P-40 and Zero fighters are shown doing tight manuvers and incredibly dangerous stunts, almost like X-Wing fighters from Star Wars.
Neither plane was that nimble, although the Zero was the most feared
fighter of the Pacific War until the F6F Hellcat debuted in 1943.
A kamikaze (Japanese suicide plane) can be seen attacking, but this
tactic was not used by the Japanese until the Battle of Leyte Gulf,
which occurred three years later in October 1944.
Doris Miller's actions during the battle are altered.
In the film, Miller comforts Captain Mervyn S. Bennion and is with him
when he dies.
Miller then delivers the captain's last orders to the ship's executive officer and then mans a machine gun.
In reality, Miller helped move Bennion to a safer location.
Bennion continued to direct the battle until he died of his wounds just before the ship was abandoned.
Miller is credited with shooting down two enemy planes.
The USS Texas doubles for the USS West Virginia during the sequences featuring Dorrie Miller.
The Texas is considerably different in design than the ship she portrays, most notably lacking the 'cage' masts that distinguished West Virginia and
California-class battleships.
During these sequences, the West Virginia appears moored by herself, but in reality the battleship Tennessee was moored inboard
(between the West Virginia and Ford Island) at the time of the attack.
Japanese airplanes are portrayed as intentionally attacking and killing civilians.
In reality, the Japanese tried to keep civilian casualties at a minimum.
The majority of civilian deaths were caused by American anti-aircraft rockets which missed their targets and landed in urban areas, including Honolulu.
Doolittle Raid sequences:
Several shots of the USS Hornet aircraft carrier depicted it as having an angled flight deck, a technology that was not implemented until after the war.
The Japanese carriers are portrayed more correctly by comparison
βa few of them did have their bridge/conning tower superstructure on port side rather than the more common starboard configuration.
Affleck and Hartnett's characters are shown taking part in the Doolittle bombing raid over Tokyo which, as fighter pilots, they would not have
been allowed to participate.
The B-25 Mitchells shown participating in the Raid are "J"-models, when the models used in the actual Raid were "B"-models.
Several crewmen on Affleck and Harnett's B-25's are killed in the firefight with the Japanese, including Harnett's character.
In fact, no members of the raid were killed in this manner.
Three airmen died in the crash landings in China, and
four were eventually killed as POWs by their Japanese captors
(four other POWs were recovered alive near the end of the war).
Other inaccuracies:
Mitchel Field is incorrectly spelled "Mitchell Field."
Despite Long Island's flat, level surface, mountains are visible in the flying shots over Long Island.
Navy Nurse Betty claims to be 17 years old and that she has cheated with her age to be accepted, but Navy Nurses were required to be registered nurses to join the Navy Nurse Corps, which meant three years of prior training and passing a state board examination, very unlikely qualifications for any seventeen year old.
The minimum age to join the Navy Nurse Corps was 22.
President Roosevelt is seen rising from his wheelchair to inspire his staff after the attack.
There is no record of him having done this in real life.
The observation car seen in the train station was made for the California Zephyr, which did not appear until after WWII.
Hartnett's line
"I think World War II just started".
Time Magazine used the term World War II, to describe the conflict, within
a week after Germany invaded Poland in 1939.
The war did not start when the U.S. became involved;
it started 2 years prior.
The sequence where Josh Hartnett's and Ben Affleck's characters
'play chicken' with their P-40's at the U.S. airbase is cited in the film as
taking place in late 1941.
This is prior to Affleck's departure to the UK to join RAF Eagle Squadron
in time for the Battle of Britain.
There is no error here.
Although the "Battle of Britain" (proper) took place from
July through October, 1940, a lesser air battle continued thereafter.
The first Eagle Squadron was formed in September 1940.
Eventually, there were three Eagle Squadrons, right up until the
U.S. entered the war as well as numerous volunters in RCAF uniform
(virtually the same timing as the Flying Tigers in China).
The Queen Mary is seen in New York Harbor in full Cunard colours.
It is more likely that she would have been painted grey and would have served in war duties as either a troopship or hospital vessel.
By late 1940, the Queen Mary was on her way to Sydney to be fitted out
as a troopship.
The radar monitors shown in Pearl Harbor are of the more modern type which show the rotation of a dish.
This type of radar was not in use at the time.
It is obvious that none of the characters in the movie smoke,
which would have certainly been unusual in the early 1940's.
Director Michael Bay chose to have a "no smoking policy", trying to push
the fact that smoking is not good for people's health.
Steam catapults are used during carrier scenes, which were not implemented into aircraft carriers until the 1950's.
In a wide-angle shot, the distinct outline of a U.S. Kitty Hawk class
aircraft carrier can be made out, the first of which was not
commissioned until 1961.
In the same shot, the sail of a modern submarine can be easily made out.
There is no reason that U.S. Navy nurses would be assessing whether pilot candidates in the U.S. Army Air Corps are fit to fly.
It is reasonable to assume that the Army would use its own medical staff.
Doris Miller is shown receiving his Navy Cross on the deck of a battleship.
He actually received his medal in a ceremony aboard the
USS Enterprise shortly before the Battle of Midway.
Prior to the attack, Admiral Yamamoto turns a Japanese calender to
Sunday December 7 to make note of the date of the operation.
In reality, when the attack started at 6:37 am Hawaii time,
it was 1:37 am on Monday December 8 in Japan.
The date December 7 was used because it is noted by Americans as the
date of the attack.
The Japanese version shows Yamamoto making note of the
December 8 as the operation date.
The dollar bill with the overprint of Hawaii, did not come out until the
summer of 1942.
Trivia
Matt Damon has an uncredited cameo as a gunner during the battle of
Pearl Harbor.
He did this for free, as a favor to Michael Bay.
During pre-production, the original name of the film was Tennessee,
in which Rafe and Danny were Navy fliers based on the USS Tennessee.
Cuba Gooding's Dorie Miller character was to have a larger role in this draft as a friend of the main three characters and a mentor to Evelyn following
Rafe's supposed death.
Ben Affleck agreed to take a pay cut in his salary,
in case the movie went over budget.
Ashton Kutcher lobbied hard for the role of Danny Walker before he lost it
to Josh Hartnett.
Leonardo DiCaprio was considered for the role of Rafe McCawley.
References
General reference:
The Aviation Factfile: Aircraft of World War II,
Edited by Jim Winchester. Grange Books, 2004.
Specific footnotes:
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^ a b c
[link]
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^ a b c Admiral Kimmels Story, Henry Regnery Co., 1955.
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This is so full of meaning! It is excellent realism as well.
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Nice job! I really like how emotional and dynamic this one is....amazing proportion work
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wow... your arts like... you can do everything i've ever wanted to be able to do! your drawings are fantastic, there so life like, so real! it's just fantastic!!!!!! i am completely speachless and envious. speachless...
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incredible piece of artwork! beautiful shading and a very good job at getting the scenes to flow together - definite fav
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great drawing, they just keep getting better and better!
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Gorgeous drawing you did here. I like how you took it out of the movie concept and made it make sense alone as a work of art. For instance, you put the drawing of the fighter plane in there with the kiss to make the viewer understand that he's going away to war, leaving here. The drawing itself is absolutely gorgeous, especially the dynamics and forms of his facial structure. Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful!!!
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looks good, just not sure if it's Ben or Josh on the picture???
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your shading talent knocks me out everytime i see it! i envy your mural work. i wish i could do murals
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I don't get how ppl didn't like this movie. Perhaps it was too sad? But, hello it really happend. lol. Sorry.
I love this peice. You did an amazing job!! Love it! ^.^
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I agree the movie sucked big time, but I can totally see this as the movie poster. Once again brilliant job!
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great portrait, the movie was way to sad for me...then again the last time i watched it was when i was like 10...lol...but great pic!
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still haven't seen the movie. but wow! this is great.
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Didn't like the movie, love the picture!
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