Nagumo off Oahu — the third wave

Vice Admiral Chūichi Nagumo commands the Kidō Butai, the 6-carrier force that has just struck the US Pacific Fleet. His first 2 waves caught Pearl Harbor by surprise on the morning of 7 December 1941: 8 battleships hit, hundreds of aircraft destroyed on the ground, and Japanese losses limited to 29 planes. The aviators return to their decks, elated.

But the essentials still stand. The base's vast fuel tanks — over 4 million barrels in the open —, the dry docks and the repair shops are untouched; these are what make Pearl Harbor a usable forward base. Above all, the American aircraft carriers, the prime targets, were absent: they are somewhere at sea, their position unknown.

The air group commander, Mitsuo Fuchida, urges Nagumo to renew the attack and finish the installations. Nagumo must decide quickly, in a rising sea: order a 3rd wave to destroy the fuel and the shipyards, at the risk of heavier losses and a counterstrike from the missing carriers; steer south to hunt the enemy fleet; or withdraw at once toward Japan, keeping his precious striking force intact.