aff, finally received it at 7:12 a.m., he dismissed it as a false alarm. Therefore, one warning was ignored (58).Sometime after 7:53 a.m., reports Shapiro, U.S. radar crews in Hawaii picked up blips on their radar screens showing approaching aircraft. They were assumed signals from a group of Flying Fortresses expected to be making previous stopovers. In which case, another signal was ignored (59). At 7:53 a.m., Japanese flight attack Commander Mitusuo Fuchida approached his target. He knew he was in a precarious position because his air fleet was dangerously far from its carriers. He expected t find American planes waiting to fight back. Instead, he found nothing except the sunshine. It seemed to him as if the Americans were welcoming him to their country, leaving themselves open to civilian destruction (Bachrach 8)The attack was on:‘Tora, tora, tora,’ Fuchida radioed back excitedly to his commander, Chuichi Nagumo, waiting with the fleet. Tora...was the code meaning that the Japanese had succeeded in launching a surprise attack. Two minutes after this signal Japanese bombs began falling like hail on the ninety-six helpless hips in Pearl harbor’s Battleship Row.(Bachrach 10)The attack was such a complete surprise that it took American forces a few moments to realize what was going on. “Finally Commander Logan Famsey, a naval patrol plane operations officer, sounded the alarm. ‘ Air raid pearl harbor! This is no drill!’ “ (Bachrach 11). Bombs exploded everywhere. Screams of the wounded and the scared filled the air. Five torpedoes struck the Oklahoma. Eight minutes later the ship was bottom up in the mud at the harbor. Only thirty-two of the on-hundred-twenty-five men trapped within the ship finally were cut free thirty-six hours later. Again at 8:40 the second wave of Japanese planes approached Pearl Harbor. By then the first shock of the attack had passed. American force...
