Pearl Harbor Attack Archival Footage Inspection - Episode 504

I've seen that Arizona footage for years now and my jaw still hit the floor when you guys pointed out how far up the cage mast and deck heaved up in the detonation. I had never noticed that aspect of it before.

In the video showing the Japanese footage of Hong Kong (time mark 9:00 in your video), the scene was showing a ship yard that Jon said he cannot identify. That ship yard is "TaiKoo Dockyard". Landfill and development made it very difficult to identify these days. The give away is the road at the dockyard perimeter and the hill. That road is King's Road -- dividing Korn Hill and the dockyard area. The plane filming would have been flying East to West entering Hong Kong harbor from the eastern harbor entrance. The dockyard is gone and with much landfill, turned that area to sky rise buildings and shopping center now known as TaiKoo-Shing (ie: Tai Koo City). You can find "Taikoo Shing Hong Kong" in Google map, and find "Taikoo dockyard" in Wikipedia. Even in late 1960's, most of King's Road would have been about a few minutes walk from the shore line if you walked very very slow. East of the dock, King's Road become Shau Kei Wan Road, 100 feet from shore. Now you would see blocks and blocks of high rise totally hiding the shoreline that was.

PS: Thank you for all your hard work. I enjoy every episode. This one in particular. As I looked at the dockyard and the road... In my childhood, I walked that part of King's Road more times than I can count. It also hit me that my parents would likely have heard those planes overhead -- well, my Mom would likely have seen it while my father would be yelling at her to come back inside... Not sure where they were exactly, but sure to be less than 1/2 mile from that dockyard.

Worrying about an air counter attack from the US and assigning planes to do something with the airfield was Japan planning for themselves. The US had no plan to counter such an attack while things are burning. I doubt they were even doing the Midway type morning spoke search, following returning planes to the carriers for a vector probably would have been useless because they were not in a position to do anything with the information.

You can see at 45 minutes, the PT Boat was actually rolling a depth charge off the back end, followed immediately by the crew running away from the impending explosion back towards the middle of the boat.

Ogalala was mored against Helena, torpedoes passed under her and hit Helena. These explosions sprung the seams on Ogalala. She began to roll TOWARDS Helena and the dock, so she was towed aft, where she could sink without trapping Helena.

Thank you Seth and Jon.

Another excellent episode, I can't wait for the next one. I have a question concerning Japanese aircraft torpedos. Jon mentioned that the japanese had an aircraft torpedo shortage prior to the attack on Pearl Harbor. Did the Japanese have enough aircraft torpedos onboard their carriers incase they ran into trouble on the way back to Japan?

HI Seth, really enjoyed your appearance on WW2TV , I didn't know that Bill had taken a step away, hopefully he is in good health. Please pass on my best wishes, in JP, safe hands to fill Bills absence.

Amazing stuff. Makes the disaster even more horrifying.

It’s hard to believe but the second they said they are coming over Oahu now the whole world changed at that very minute! And is still affecting the world even today!
Just amazing to think what was going on threw these guys minds and if they had any idea how the where shaping the world

HMS Moth was scuttled then refloated by the Japs and renamed the Suma.

The Kodak girl is a calibration target used to verify the digitizer functionality and provide a consistent tone map for scanned footage - it has a grey scale, color scale, and a photo of a person in a colorful outfit (probably somebody who worked in Rochester) to provide calibrated film density levels for computerized adjustment, and the person is there to provide something easy for a human to visually check if it's in calibration or not because the human brain is very good at recognizing differences in faces. Same reason there are faces on our money for anti-counterfeit.

I read somewhere that a wag remarked regarding Oglala that The Japanese scared her to death.

I just heard the announcement from Jon about Bill's new position. I have enjoyed the podcast and a lot of the insight that Bill brought! I know he will do a great job and congratulations!

真珠湾攻撃に向かう南雲艦隊の艦橋での士官の映像がありますが、アメリカの方々からすれば、若く見えるのかもしれません。日本人はどちらかというと昔から欧米人に比べて実年齢よりも若く見える方が多い様に見受けられます。今でも日本の４０代やそれ以上の年齢の方々をみると、欧米の方々からすると随分若く見えるのかも知れません。撲としても、今の４０代は男の子や女の子に見えなくもない位に若い風体の方が多いですし、５０代でも青年に見えなくも無い人が多数いらっしゃいます。８０代くらいになってやっとおじいさんおばあさんといった感じでしょうか。欧米の方々は老年になると肌が皺だらけですが、日本人で老年の方でもつやつやとした肌の方が意外に多いです。食べ物の違いなのでしょうか。。。。本筋ではないのでどうでも良いことですね。

This was like sitting in my Dad's living room watching home movies! Wonderful!

Praying outside the emperors palace for victory and also praying for son and brother to come home like all people

I have a question, and you’re certainly the gentlemen to ask. What happened to Japanese POWs? I know there were so very few, but there must’ve been some. Would they have been sent stateside like the Germans? Did they all go to the same place? The German ones had very interesting stories about their experience. I wonder if there are any Japanese memoirs. I love listening to you guys. It’s a privilege soaking in the vast knowledge you’re sharing. Best wishes to you all!

Thanks!

Very interesting, especially for me as I was crew on a sub in the drydock 40 years after the infamous day

Great episode

Your narrative gave life to the archival footage and made it more meaningful. Thanks for another great episode.

Don't ever think we will get bored with those films...

Thank you for all your research. Your knowledge is incredible.!

Bill will be missed, but there’s none better than John, while Seth is the captain of the ship, best podcast of the pacific war on the internet.

Love the break down guys this is just the best

Thank you a ton, gents. I loved it!

Seth was right - I haven’t seen a majority of this footage. And I’ve been reading/watching history for 50+ years.
This format with Jon and Seth going over the archival footage was as enjoyable as it was enlightening. The color commentating was like a good broadcast booth
covering an NFL game. Without a doubt, both Seth and Jon know the subject matter. i look forward to the future episodes using this set-up. Say "Hi" to Bill... if anyone has a colorized picture of the last frame, please share

Looking for specific footage in the Nathional archives takes a special kind of skill!

Very interesting, thanks guys!

Another fabulous episode as always. I really am hoping for an in depth look at logistics. Shoutout to John on Sal’s channel. Also a very good episode.

Because of the way I usually watch and listen to these podcasts, I don't usually get to comment. Thank you to everyone involved in Unauthorized History. I look forward to every Tuesday and listening in on 2 and some times 3 brilliant minds. You bring true history to life. Thank you!

An excellent episode that provides some detailed analysis of the iconic footage from the Day of Infamy. The deconstruction of Arizona's demise is haunting - Mom served on the staff of ADM Isaac Kidd Jr who kept in his office some of his famous father's belongings which were recovered from the battleship's wreck - including his partially melted USNA class ring. Dad commanded an instillation in Hawaii during the 1980s that was once the site of MCAS Ewa Field and visited the "Arizona junkyard" on Waipoo Point where the rusting remains of BB-39's superstructure sit to this day; back then pieces of Arizona were given away as retirement gifts to military and civilian personnel. The Brooklyn class light cruiser heading out the channel is either St Louis or Phoenix; the close up Bagley-class destroyer is likely Bagley herself coming out of the nearby shipyard pier and passing 1010 Dock.

Fantastic, as usual. Its really nice to get some of the context behind these reels.

Some thoughts on Taranto though:

Personally I do not believe that Taranto had much in the way of influence on the Japanese. I think perhaps the best that could be said of Taranto is that it convinced them it was possible to convert torpedoes to run in very shallow waters like Taranto and Pearl harbour. Other than that though I feel that a strike on Pearl harbour was very much in the thoughts of the Japanese long before Taranto.

There were supposed to be two carriers, Illustrious and Eagle. True Eagle was not very large, but she suffered a fire and then an engine breakdown that put her out of the operation. Her Swordfish were transferred to Illustrious not to increase the number of aircraft for the strike, but because Eagles Swordfish crews were if not the most experienced in the RN at the time, they were pretty damned close to it. The air group of Illustrious on the flip side was so brand new they squeaked every time the ship turned to hard.

Interestingly Taranto was actually conceived and planned before the war. The Royal Navy at that time was the only Navy in the world to have a Night Strike capability. The pre war plans for Port Strikes were a large part of the reason for that Night Strike Doctrine. The other major reason being the RN had concluded that torpedo bombers were hideously vulnerable to AA and enemy fighters during the day, so they figured they would suffer fewer losses if they just sent them in at night, when you could guarantee there were not enemy fighters (at least pre war and early war), and when AA would be relatively inaccurate.

Even thinking about taking off, finding a target, striking a target, then returning to and landing on a carrier, at night, in the late thirties and very early forties, sends a shiver up my spine! There is a reason why the Fleet Air Arm Navigators were extensively trained, and highly regarded. It was not unusual for a Navigator to command an FAA Squadron in WWII, or even a Carrier....

EDIT: Largely not relevant I know, but some might finding it kinda cool. And just to make a quick point, while two carriers were originally planned for the Taranto Strike, it would not have changed the fact it was still very much, as Jon stated, a hit and lets get the f*** out of the area kind of operation!

Frankly I do not believe the IJN could have mounted an operation like Taranto even on the same scale, because while superbly trained, their strike pilots were not trained to fly at night... Not to the same kind of extant Fleet Air Arm strike crews were.....

But then the Royal Navy could never have pulled off a Pearl harbour... so not trying to say one is better than the other, just two very different doctrines and capabilities....

Thank you for providing us with such interesting revelations. I appreciate your efforts. I would like to make a suggestion for those who may not be as familiar with the content as others in your audience: Please begin this type of program (which relies on the archival footage available) with a brief overview of the battle or scenes that will be shown. A concise introduction, similar to what a high school teacher might present to their class, could help familiarize viewers with the content they are about to see. Additionally, you could refer to this preliminary overview during the discussion of the archival footage to provide further context.

Thank you again to everyone involved in the series (including Bill!) for all your contributions. I have listened to or watched every episode.

Great show! I've been looking forward to more historic video footage! My Uncle was a Navy Diver and helped bring the battleships back to life.

Drachinifel (sp?) Did a great 3 part series on the Pearl Harbor salvage ops. Highly recommend watching that.
Maybe you can have him on here to talk about it.
Fascinating stuff.

You guys might want do the salvage operations at Pearl Harbor at some point, but anyway great job, looking forward to seeing more of these breakdowns.

Interesting how all the "wounded" have arm injuries....

Arizona footage shows how bad USS West Virginia’s list was. My Father was aboard and said everyone thought it was rolling over. Counterflooding saved many lives.

Don't be afraid to add still photos to your analysis! They are often higher resolution, and can help clarify identifying features.

Wecome aboard John, Shattered sword one of the best books I've ever read.