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Before the war, USN Lt. W.J. Holmes published a fictional account, of a USN
raid on a Japanese base, entitled “Rendezvous,” in the August 1941 issue of the
Saturday Evening Post. The story involved USN flying boats
rendezvousing with USN submarines – getting refueled to extend their range –
then flying on to the Japanese base and bombing it. The fictional account was so well received it
was later published in a book entitled Up
Periscope.
Evidently this concept was also well received by the Imperial Japanese
Navy, who initiated “Operation K” (K作戦, Kē-Sakusen). Three Japanese submarines rendezvoused
with two, 24-ton, Kawanishi H8K1 flying boats at French Frigate Shoals. Carrying a one-ton bomb load, these H8K1s had
a service ceiling of 28,700 feet, a range of 3,040 miles, and a cruise speed of
184 mph.
Upon refueling from the submarines, both flying boats were in the air
for Honolulu at 9:38 P.M., on 3rd March 1942.
When they approached Pearl Harbor, much to
their dismay, they perceived it was shrouded in low clouds and rain. Forced to use dead reckoning (time, speed and
distance) they dropped their bombs blind.
The first H8K1 overshot the target, its four bombs falling on the
uninhabited slopes of Mount Tantalus at 2:10 A.M., six miles east of Pearl
Harbor; while the second H8K1 dropped its bombs short of the target, at 2:30 A.M.,
into the sea.
Ultimately, in order to keep Hawaiian morale up, the Army and Navy blamed
each other for the bomb explosions on Mount Tantalus as a “training exercise
accident.” They didn’t want people
feeling as though they were sitting ducks for another Japanese attack.
Now here’s another truly bizarre twist,
dear reader:
Holmes, who was currently a captain working in intelligence at Honolulu,
got called back to Pearl Harbor to help decipher heavy Japanese radio traffic
prompted by this secret second attack.
While he was checking in at the gate in a rainstorm, at 2:10 A.M., 4th
March 1942, he heard the four Japanese bombs echoing off the hills behind
Honolulu.
At length Holmes pieced it
together, dear reader, realizing that his little fictitious story in the
Saturday Evening Post had come full circle - nearly biting him in the ass.
After this second attack on Pearl Harbor, the Navy sent out patrol
aircraft to determine where the Japanese had launched this attack. Japanese debris left behind at French Frigate
Shoals gave them away, persuading the Navy to build a complete air station
there. They selected Tern Island, at the
extreme northern tip of the atoll, which was hardly the size of a tennis
court. When the Navy got done, it then
held a 3,300-foot white crushed-shell runway that was 400 feet wide; its
unusual dimensions enabling me to see it from 37,000 feet.
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