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Obvious to onlookers on the Honolulu hills was the fact that Pearl Harbor was being hit hard. From the Navy's plane base on Ford Island (also known as Luke Field), in the middle of the harbor, clouds of smoke ascended. One citizen who was driving past the naval base saw the first bomb fall on Ford Island. Said he: "It must have been a big one. I saw two planes dive over the mountains and down to the water and let loose torpedoes at a naval ship. This warship was attacked again & again. I also saw what looked like dive-bombers coming over in single file."
When the first ghastly day was over, Honolulu began to reckon up the score. It was one to make the U.S. Navy and Army shudder. Of the 200,000 inhabitants of Oahu, 1,500 were dead, 1,500 others injured. Not all the civilian casualties occurred in Honolulu. The raiders plunged upon the town of Wahiawa, where there is a large island reservoir, sprayed bullets on people in the streets. Behind the Wahiawa courthouse a Japanese plane crashed in flames.
Washington called the naval damage "serious." admitted at least one "old" battleship and a destroyer had been sunk, other ships of war damaged at base. Meanwhile Japan took to the radio to boast that the U.S. Navy had suffered an "annihilating blow." Crowed the Japs: "With the two battleships [sunk], and two other capital ships and four large cruisers heavily damaged by Japanese bombing attacks on Hawaii, the U.S. Pacific Fleet has now only two battleships, six 10,000-ton cruisers, and only one aircraft carrier."
Perhaps more important than the loss of ships was damage to the naval base, some of whose oil depots may have gone up in flames. Heaviest military toll was at Hickam Field, where hundreds were killed and injured when bombs hit the great barracks and bombs were reported to have destroyed several hangars full of planes.
These reports may have been inaccurate — most of them came through in the first excitement of the attack and could not be confirmed. Thereafter virtually the only news about Hawaii came through a few bare communiques from the White House. It was all too likely that there was serious damage which was not reported.
But the curtain of censorship settled down. The Fleet units which were fit for action put to sea. The White House said that several Jap airplanes and submarines were downed, but what happened in the next grim stage of the deadly serious battle was hidden for the time being by the curtain.
*Between April 6, 1917 and Nov. 11, 1918, the U.S., according to Jane's Fighting Ships for 1918, lost 1 armored cruiser, 2 destroyers, 1 submarine, 3 armed yachts, 1 coast guard cutter and 2 revenue cutters—but not a single capital ship.