Lieutenant Graham Bonnell:

Pearl Harbour from their eyes - Part II

T.V.Perera

This is the story of eye-witness Lieutenant Graham Bonnell of the US Navy to the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbour, who although was in the Pearl Harbour’s Navy Yard at the time of the attack was lucky to escape as his ship was at that time being overhauled.

The Japanese prepared for war some time before Pearl Harbour. In the 1930s agents were sent to the USA and native Americans were recruited to help. Their primary mission was to spy on US Naval bases along the Pacific coast and in Hawaii.

In spring 1941 Takeo Yoshikawa, a retired naval officer, was assigned to the Japanese embassy in Honolulu. Using the cover-name Ito Morimura, he was in fact the Japanese Navy’s chief agent , dedicated to discovering all he could about US defences around Pearl Harbour.

Dressing up as a Filipino labourer or acting as a Japanese playboy, Yoshikawa built up a comprehensive picture. Only days before the Pearl Harbour attack, he hired a private plane from which to take photographs of wheeler and Hickam airfields.

Lieutenant Graham C. Bonnell, of the US Navy’s corps was stationed aboard the USS San Francisco, which in December was undergoing overhaul in Pearl Harbour’s Navy Yard. When the Japanese attacked, his ship was no more than a hulk. Luckily for Bonnell, this may have made it an unattractive target.

”I awoke around 7.30am and lay in my bunk in a period of semi-consciousness as I often did when I first awoke in the morning. A few minutes later, I heard the screaming dive of an airplane. I looked out of Ford Island, and saw a plane diving on one of the hangars. I saw the red balls on it clearly, but their significance did not register.

I laid back in my bunk, assumed it was practice and thought, ‘Navy bombers are the best in the world’. Then there was a loud explosion and I jumped out of my bunk again in time to see one of the hangars on Ford Island go up in smoke.

The general alarm on the ship sounded. My assigned battle-station was the communications room in the superstructure, and I got dressed hurriedly and made for it. Since we were stripped down, we could not engage the enemy in any way, nor could we get underway...

The gun crews aboard were organized, sent to other ships in the harbour to help engage the enemy, and the boat crews were organized to help remove the wounded and trapped personnel from the ships being attacked...

I did not feel any fear. No one seemed to show any. I could see the gun crews on the other ships. Every time a Japanese plane was shot down the men slapped one another on the back, and shouted congratulations. Being up on the superstructure and charged with getting the incoming information to the personnel aboard the dockside.

I had a good chance to view what was taking place in the harbour. It was like a circus of horrors. There was something going on at each different point. The Oklahoma, a 33,000 ton ship, was hit.

I saw it tilt and then the Nevada attempted to get out of the harbour and was attacked by a dive bomber. By the time I looked back, the Oklahoma had capsized.

Time passed quickly. When I looked at my watch it was four o’clock in the afternoon. Rumors of all kinds were constantly flooding the harbour area. One was that the Japanese were landing on various points of Oahu. Everyone became on edge then”.