Pearl Harbor From the Japanese Perspective: Why No Third Wave?

On December 7, 1941, two waves of Japanese carrier planes struck the U.S. Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbor. The attack cost more than 2,400 American lives. On the Japanese carriers, planes were being made ready to fly again. But the order never came. The carriers turned north and went home. There was no third wave. For decades, the usual answer in English has been that Vice Admiral Chuichi Nagumo, the cautious carrier commander, turned down his airmen when they asked to strike again at the fuel tanks and the repair yards. This video looks at what the Japanese side actually recorded: the orders written before the fleet sailed, Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto's private letter, the diary of his chief of staff, a wartime report that gives Nagumo's reasons, the words of Mitsuo Fuchida, who led the attack, to American interrogators in 1945 and in the years that followed, and the official Japanese war history. All times are Tokyo time, as in the Japanese records. In Tokyo, it was already the morning of December 8. In the Japanese records, the two waves count as a single strike, so what Americans call the third wave, they call the second strike. CHAPTERS 0:00 Introduction 2:28 Two Aims: Yamamoto and the Navy General Staff 7:12 The Plan: Strike Once, Then Go Home 11:19 The Morning of the Attack 16:15 On Akagi's Bridge: The Decision 23:40 Yamamoto's Side: "It Would Be Perfect" 29:13 How the Legend Took Shape 35:41 After Pearl Harbor 38:44 So, Why Was There No Third Wave? MAIN SOURCES Senshi Sosho (Japanese official war history), vol. 10: Hawai Sakusen (The Hawaii Operation). Boeicho Boei Kenshujo Senshishitsu, 1967. Senshi Sosho vol. 43: Middowei Kaisen (The Battle of Midway), 1971. Orders of the Carrier Striking Force, Admiral Yamamoto's letter to Navy Minister Koshiro Oikawa (January 7, 1941), the 1942 lessons report based on the Striking Force's action report, and Capt. Yoshitake Miwa's wartime memoir of Yamamoto, as printed and cited in Senshi Sosho vol. 10. Ugaki Matome, Sensoroku (diary). English edition: Fading Victory (1991). U.S. Strategic Bombing Survey, Interrogations of Japanese Officials (1946): Cmdr. Mitsuo Fuchida (Nav. No. 29 and No. 6), Cmdr. Yasuji Watanabe (Nav. No. 13). Mitsuo Fuchida and Masatake Okumiya, Midway (1951). English edition: Midway: The Battle That Doomed Japan (1955). Mitsuo Fuchida, "I Led the Air Attack on Pearl Harbor," U.S. Naval Institute Proceedings, September 1952. Report of the Joint Committee on the Investigation of the Pearl Harbor Attack, U.S. Congress, 1946. Gordon W. Prange, At Dawn We Slept (1981). Jonathan Parshall, "Reflecting on Fuchida, or 'A Tale of Three Whoppers'," Naval War College Review 63, no. 2 (2010); Martin Bennett's reply, Naval War College Review 66, no. 1 (2013). National Park Service, Pearl Harbor National Memorial. Japanese text shown on screen is quoted from the records named above. English translations are by this channel. PHOTOGRAPHS Record photographs are U.S. government photographs from the Naval History and Heritage Command, the National Archives (including the 80-G series and U.S. Army Signal Corps photographs) and the Library of Congress. Japanese photographs, including photographs taken from Japanese aircraft during the attack and the portraits of Yamamoto (NH 63430, NH 78628), Nagumo (NH 63423), Shimada (NH 63427) and Fukudome (NH 63419), are from the collections of the Naval History and Heritage Command and the National Archives. Each photograph is labeled on screen with its source and date. MAPS Coastlines: Natural Earth. Terrain and sea depth: Terrain Tiles (Mapzen/Tilezen; SRTM, GMTED, ETOPO1). Ship positions are shown only where the records give them. Illustrations of ships and people are simplified and are not exact depictions. Narration uses a synthetic voice. Research, script and translations by this channel. #PearlHarbor #Yamamoto #WW2