Ghosts of Honolulu: A Japanese Spy, A Japanese American Spy Hunter, and the Untold Story of Pearl Harbor

by Mark Harmon

You may wonder how NCIS is related since it wasn’t created until the 1990s, but it’s fitting that we begin with a World War II story. In 1939, President Franklin Roosevelt ordered the Navy to investigate domestic threats of espionage and sabotage, sowing the seeds of what would eventually grow to become NCIS.

“The base is under attack,” he says. “You better get back, right away.” That’s how Douglas Wada, America’s only Japanese American naval intelligence agent, found out that Japan launched a surprise air raid on Pearl Harbor Naval Base.2

Japan’s new Emperor may be Shōwa, but English speakers more often refer to him by his personal name: Hirohito.

Kyoto is a massive medieval Japanese city, preserved in time, except for one modern fascination: baseball.

Since 1927, all Japanese men were required to report for examination at age twenty. Those selected for military duty were obliged to serve for two years and remained eligible for active duty until age forty.

Yoshikawa’s job will begin on the intelligence staff of the Imperial Navy’s Third Division, and his areas of study include the US Pacific Fleet and its bases in Guam, Manila, and Hawaii.

During the 1930s, Shivers served as a special agent in charge of various stations around the country, gaining the ear of director J. Edgar Hoover along the way by targeting bootlegger gangs and the Ku Klux Klan.

Lieutenant Commander Chester Carroll, captain of the USS Helm,

There are cries on deck, and Carroll hears the buzzing of aircraft. There are dark shapes dropping fast onto Ford Island. Now Chet will really see something: returning US air groups practicing dive-bombing runs on Ford Island. But an object separates from the lead airplane when it pulls out of its dive. A dusty impact craters the runway, and when the second bomber pulls up, Carroll watches in horror as a hangar explodes.3 “General

quarters!” Carroll orders, and the crew starts to scramble with purpose.

Of the 167 aircraft of the attack’s second wave on Pearl Harbor, seventy-eight are dive-bombers and the rest are high-altitude bombers.

There are no torpedo planes this time. The dive-bombers are fairly useless against battleships, which have deck armor that can withstand the 550-pound bombs. If aircraft carriers were present, the weapons would be perfectly suited to punch through their wide flight decks.

Of the ten planes, only one cruiser, the torpedo-damaged Raleigh, suffers major damage. The exception is the USS Nevada, targeted by more than a dozen dive-bombing attacks as she limps away from the harbor. Hit by six bombs and on fire, yet somehow still afloat, Nevada ends her epic run by intentionally running aground.

The second wave of the attack on Pearl Harbor ends at 9:55 a.m. There will not be a third—Admiral Nagano leaves the oil storage tanks and repair facilities untouched. When Yamamoto hears of this, he’s incensed at the lost opportunity. The warships have been savaged, but the military port itself will recover all too soon.

Across Oahu, the fires burn. At Pearl Harbor Naval Base, eighteen warships are sunk or grounded, including five battleships. Frantic rescue efforts are underway—there are dying men trapped in the air pockets of overturned ships. Responders can hear them drowning as they cut through the decks to rescue them;

The Japanese planes have left carnage across the island. Dive-bombers attacked Wheeler Field, finding 120 fighters parked in neat rows. Nearly half of the P-40s there are now destroyed and the hangars took a beating; thirty-three men were killed and seventy-three wounded. The raid caught other airplanes in the open at Hickam Field, as well: five B-17s, seven B-18s and two A-20s destroyed and another nineteen airplanes damaged.

Over an hour and fifteen minutes, 2,403 Americans are killed and 1,143 wounded. Of these, roughly forty-nine of the dead are civilians, many struck down by errant five-inch antiaircraft rounds fired by defenders.

Yesterday, December 7, 1941—a date which will live in infamy—the United States of America was suddenly and deliberately attacked by naval and air forces of the Empire of Japan. The United States was at peace with that Nation and, at the solicitation of Japan, was still in conversation with its Government and its Emperor looking toward the maintenance of peace in the Pacific. Indeed, one hour after Japanese air squadrons had commenced bombing in the American Island of Oahu, the Japanese Ambassador to the United States and his colleague delivered to our Secretary of State a formal reply to a recent American message. And while this reply stated that it seemed useless to continue the existing diplomatic negotiations, it contained no threat or hint of war or of armed attack.

It will be recorded that the distance of Hawaii from Japan makes it obvious that the attack was deliberately planned many days or even weeks ago. During the intervening time the Japanese Government has deliberately sought to deceive the United States by false statements and expressions of hope for continued peace. The attack yesterday on the Hawaiian Islands has caused severe damage to American naval and military forces. I regret to tell you that very many American lives have been lost. In addition American ships have been reported torpedoed on the high seas between San Francisco and Honolulu. Yesterday the Japanese Government also launched an attack against Malaya. Last night Japanese forces attacked Hong Kong. Last night Japanese forces attacked Guam.

Last night Japanese forces attacked the Philippine Islands. Last night the Japanese attacked Wake Island. And this morning the Japanese attacked Midway Island. Japan has, therefore, undertaken a surprise offensive extending throughout the Pacific area. The facts of yesterday and today speak for themselves. The people of the United States have already formed their opinions and well understand the implications to the very life and safety of our Nation. As Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy I have di...

No matter how long it may take us to overcome this premeditated invasion, the American people in their righteous might will win through to absolute victory. I believe that I interpret the will of the Congress and of the people when I assert that we will not only defend ourselves to the uttermost but will make it very certain that this form of treachery shall never again endanger us. Hostilities exist. There is no blinking at the fact that our people, our territory, and our interests are in grave danger. With confidence in our armed forces—with the unbounding determination of our people—we will gain the inev...

war has existed between the United States and the...

Japanese Hawaiians are subject to special restrictions. For them, meeting in groups of more than ten is forbidden. Being outside during the nightly blackouts is cause for detention. The entire community is ordered to turn in all firearms, flashlights, portable radios and cameras.

At his home on Kalama Beach, Otto Kuehn hears the rap on his front door, blood frozen. The military police hustle him, Friedel, Hans Joachim and Susie into a truck. All are held in cells at the US Immigration Service’s detention center in Honolulu, held for the crime of being German in Hawaii.

All eyes on the sixth floor are fixated on the young Japanese man, wrapped in an Army blanket and flanked by two Army guards. It’s the Office of Naval Intelligence agents’ first close look at the enemy who attacked their city. The prisoner has no shoes and

is bare-legged—Douglas Wada realizes the man is naked under the blanket. “Look at his face,” says Gero Iwai. The prisoner is a young man, seemingly well built, but his vacant expression, under regulation-cropped black hair, makes him appear ghostly. Wada recognizes the man is physically healthy but shattered by psychological trauma, but that inspires little pity. He recognizes similar pain behind the eyes of many in Honolulu today. This time it’s Iwai who’s been summoned to help interrogate the survivor from a sunken Japanese submarine that attacked Pearl Harbor yesterday.