At 3:40 A.M., about the time that Bulkeley was leaving the Commandantia, General MacArthur was replacing the telephone on the table next to his bed in his family penthouse in the Manila Hotel. An on-duty corporal had picked up word of the sneak Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor over an English-language radio station, and he told a headquarters officer who quickly telephoned MacArthur.
Photograph taken from a Japanese plane during the torpedo attack on ships moored on both sides of Ford Island shortly after the beginning of the Pearl Harbor attack. View looks about east, with the supply depot, submarine base and fuel tank farm in the right center distance.
A torpedo has just hit USS West Virginia on the far side of Ford Island (center). Other battleships moored nearby are (from left): Nevada, Arizona, Tennessee (inboard of West Virginia), Oklahoma (torpedoed and listing) alongside Maryland, and California.
On the near side of Ford Island, to the left, are light cruisers Detroit and Raleigh, target and training ship Utah and seaplane tender Tangier. Raleigh and Utah have been torpedoed, and Utah is listing sharply to port.
Japanese planes are visible in the right center (over Ford Island) and over the Navy Yard at right. U.S. Navy planes on the seaplane ramp are on fire
“Pearl Harbor!” the general muttered in amazement. “That should be our strongest point!” MacArthur dressed, read the Bible for ten minutes (as was his daily custom), and hurried off to his office. There a knot of grim-faced officers had gathered. No one knew what was going on in the Pacific. Rumors abounded.
William B. Breuer, Sea Wolf: The Daring Exploits of Navy Legend John D. Bulkeley (Novato, Calif.: Presidio Press, 1989), 27.
Short Stories on Honor, Chivalry, and the World of Nobility—no. 491
