Discuss Time Rider
Notes: As this story
focuses on the attack on Pearl Harbor December 7, 1941, here are
some facts of that historic attack.
According to wikipedia.org,
In early 1941, Fleet Commander-in-Chief Isoroku Yamamoto began
considering an attack on Pearl Harbor as a preemptive attack in the
event of Japan deciding to go to war. After some conflict with Naval
Headquarters, he was authorized to create the Carrier Striking Task
Force, and assigned Minoru Genda to plan it. Genda developed the
attack plan, stressing surprise would be essential, given the
expected balance of forces. Yamamoto obtained permission to begin
formal planning and training exercises for the proposed attack. By
April 1941, the Pearl Harbor plan became known as Operation Z, after
the famous Z signal given by Admiral Tōgō Heihachirō at the Battle
of Tsushima: On this one battle rests the fate of our nation. Let
every man do his utmost.
Over the summer of 1941, pilots trained in earnest for the attack on
the Japanese island of Kyūshū. Major General Genda chose Kagoshima
City for a training area because its geography and infrastructure
presented most of the problems that the torpedo bombers would face
at Pearl Harbor. In torpedo practice, each air crew of three would
fly over the 5,000-foot mountain behind Kagoshima, dive down into
the city, dodging buildings and smokestacks before dropping to an
altitude of 25 feet at the piers. The bombardier would release a
torpedo at a breakwater some 300 yards away.
Yet even skimming the water at 25 feet would not solve the problem
of torpedoes running aground in the shallow waters of Pearl Harbor.
Japan created and tested aircraft torpedo modifications allowing
successful shallow water drops. The effort resulted in a heavily
modified version of the Type 91 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 and
release shackles to 14 and 16 inch (356 and 406 mm) naval shells.
These were able to penetrate the armored decks of battleships and
cruisers.
On a beach in Kagoshima Bay, Lieutenant Heijiro Abe, commander of
ten high-level bombers, used lime to draw an outline of a battleship
in the sand. He ordered his men to drop dummy bombs on it. Only he
knew it was the outline of the battleship California.
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