Pearl Harbour from their eyes

Captain William Outerbridge:

By T. V. Perera

This eye-witness account of the attack on Pearl Harbour by the Japanese during World War II, which led to the subsequent atomic bombs being dropped in Hiroshima and Nagasaki by the Americans, is by Captain William Outerbridge of the US Navy who sank a Japanese Submarine close to the entrance to Pearl Harbour in which the American battle-ships were anchored.

A bomb exploding at Pearl Harbour Ships that were hit Attack on the planes

William outerbridge was the captain of the destroyer USS Ward, whose task was to patrol the entrance to Pearl Harbour. On the morning of December 7, 1941, just hours before the air attack, a Japanese submarine was spotted there. The ward sank it, earning captain outbridge the Navy cross.

“We went to sea on the morning of December 6. We were prepared to open fire, we were prepared to drop depth-charges we were prepared for any eventuality within the ship’s capabilities. Everything went well. The harbour was a beautiful sight from the sea, and drifting across the buoys listening for submarines seemed a comparatively easy task.

Unforgettable day

Attack on ship

On the morning of the 7th at about 0358 the mine-sweepers which had come out at two o’clock in the morning were on station sweeping the channel with their mine-sweeping gear. At 0358 a flashing light signal was received from the condor.

This said in effect, ‘we have sighted a suspicious object which looks like a submarine. It appears to be standing to the westward of our present position’.

The search revealed nothing. We did not locate the submarine. Therefore, I had the ship secured from general quarters, and told the Executive Officer, Lieutenant H. T. Doughty, to let the boys sleep in the next morning.

I turned in, but at about 6.30 in the morning Lieutenant O. W. Goepner, the Gunnery Officer, awakened me.

He was rather abrupt. ‘Captain, come on the bridge’ – I scolded him for talking to the captain like that, but I did not go to the bridge as fast as I could.

We spotted what looked like a buoy, but it was moving. I looked at it and said ‘Goepner, I believe that is a submarine. Go to general quarters and tell him that if it is a submarine we would attack.

So he went to his battle station, and had all the guns loaded. We had all the depth charges on ‘ready’.

We bore down on the object, all that we could make on two boilers which was a little bit better than 20knots. As we bore down on it, I decided not to ram – I didn’t know how big it was, I didn’t know what it was, and I was afraid that if we hit it we would tear the bottom out of our ship. I decided to shoot and drop depth-charges on it.

We opened fire when within about 75 yards of the submarine. Gun one fired first, and missed, gun three fired next. The shell from gun three struck the submarine at the waterline, which was at the base of the conning tower where the conning tower joins the hull of the submarine.

There was a light feather of water when the shell hit, and it appeared to us to have successfully penetrated the target. Several observers on board ship said that they saw a hole in the submarine.

We passed across the submarine’s course so close that the men on the fantail and on gun four thought we were going to ram.

In crossing ahead we dropped four depth charges which exploded at the depth at which they were set to explode and the submarine then appeared to sink. After we had completed the attack we noticed a sampan in the restricted area. This was a white fishing vessel, operated by the Japanese. We turned to the sampan and started after it. As we closed on the sampan, which was headed to Barber’s Point, it hove to.

We went alongside and a Japanese came out waving for the coast guard, and one of their ships came out of the harbour and escorted the sampan back to safety away from the restricted area.

We returned to our station, and picked up another sound contact which we bombed and reported. Executive Officer Doughty was standing on the bridge and we were considering securing from general quarters.

It was then about 7.50 a.m. Then we heard explosions, and Doughty said to me they were over on the beach. I said ‘Well, that’s probably that superhighway that’s being built between Pearl Harbour and Honolulu, they are probably blasting early this morning.’ Then Doughty said ‘No, It’s not. Look over there. There are some planes coming straight down. It appears to me that they’re bombing the place’. And I said, ‘My gosh, they certainly are.’ And that moment was our first indication of the attack on Pearl Harbour.”