June 25, 2004 DATELINE: Columbus, Ohio. This morning, Origins 2004 resounded to a replay of one of the most famous battles in the last 100 years. There was a buzz of excitement at the table layout. Many recognized individual units and their locations. Others located key features. It was, for a moment, a time almost 65 years in the past, on a peaceful December morning in Hawaii, before the world changed. It was Pearl Harbor.

The game started at 9 am. The players for both sides were ready. This game was for the first wave of Japanese attackers. They rolled in swiftly on the harbor and its facilities. Top on the raiders target list were the Fleet Fuel Tanks behind CINPAC Headquarters. Vals came screaming down from the mountains to dive on the tanks, bombing them mercilessly. It didn't take many hits to set the tank farm ablaze. While one group was attacking the fleet ships, more Vals and high level Kates went after the dry-docked Pennsylvania. Several runs were made on the Pennsylvania. In the confusion of the opening attack, nobody had readied the antiaircraft guns and the Pacific Fleet was to suffer greatly for it. The Pennsylvania was rocked by numerous explosions that left her a bombed out, flaming, smoking hulk, resting on her blocks in the drydock.

Meanwhile, torpedo planes and dive-bombers wrought havoc on what they had mistaken as a new battleship class parked off Ford Island in the Middle Loch. The light cruiser USS Phoenix was pummeled and pounded by torpedoes and bombs, eventually settling to the soft mud of the bottom of the harbor. While this was going on, Vals and Kates attacked Battleship Row severely damaging the Nevada, Arizona, Tennessee and West Virginia. Farther ahead of the USS Oklahoma was the fleet oilier Neosho, in the process of unloading aviation fuel to the tanks on Ford Island. She was singled out for a dive bomber and torpedo attack that left her broken, burning and sitting on the bottom. As a coda to this first wave, the Japanese Zeros assigned for top cover strafed the seaplane base at Ford Island, damaging the aviation fuel tanks, but not setting them alight. The also destroyed approximately 8 PBY Catalina amphibious aircraft.

The Second Wave game started at noon. For this mission, other ships were singled out. Next to the drydocks was the light cruiser USS St. Louis. She was getting a head of steam up to prepare to move out of the harbor, as was USS Nevada. Unfortunately for St. Louis, she was about to be savaged by torpedo and bombing attacks that would leave her sitting on the bottom as a smoldering, crushed hulk, that had once been a proud warship. On the other side of the loch from St. Louis was the USS San Francisco. After a successful pair of dive bombing attacks, she exploded spectacularly, her magazines detonating with a thunderous roar heard across the harbor. On Battleship Row the Tennessee continued to be assaulted by torpedo and bombing attacks that settled her to the harbor's muddy bottom. Across from her, near the scene of the cruiser carnage, lay the California, set alight by high level and dive-bombers, and finally ripped open by them and torpedo strikes. As California smoldered and settled to the mud, air strikes continued on other vessels in the flaming hell that Pearl Harbor had become. The Maryland was taking abuse from other Japanese aircraft as was the light cruiser USS Honolulu.

Still, all was not that bad for the Americans, as they did manage to put up four P-40 Warhawks to oppose the onrushing Japanese juggernaut. They did well, along with improved AA fire from all of the ships in the harbor, began to get the range on the airborne Samurai from the Land of the Rising Sun. The Nevada also managed to slip her moorings and get started out to sea. At this point, between the AA and fighters, the Americans had shot down 10 Kates, 7 Vals and 2 Zeros. The grand total of enemy aircraft up to this point was 29 enemy planes of various types downed. This is the exact same number as was shot down to this point in the actual attack. However, there was one more strike to take place.

The third and final strike on Pearl Harbor would see the most damage inflicted yet. Many ships that had been attacked in the previous two waves were utterly demolished in this last attack. The Japanese would also concentrate more power on other targets in the harbor as well. The Nevada was one of the first to feel the sting of the lashing Japanese air attacks. Barely had she slipped her moorings from Battleship Row, then the Japanese began to target her. She was savagely bombed and torpedoed, and took so much damage that her engine room flooded and she was stopped dead in the water. She drifted helplessly as Japanese bombers and torpedo planes attempted to finish off her slowly, sinking hull. Eventually, they would succeed, leaving the Nevada settled in the harbor silt just a few yards from her berthing. The Arizona didn't fare so well, either, as she was bombed repeatedly. Eventually the IJN's finest would succeed in sinking this proud ship, as well. During the attacks on Arizona, the Kates and Vals also targeted the Vestal for destruction. She was holed and sunk alongside the Arizona. While she took torpedoes destined for the proud battlewagon, she could not prevent her demise. The battleships West Virginia and Oklahoma would also be sunk in this final attack, after so valiantly resisting the attempts at their destruction in the first two waves. Also sunk were the target ship USS Utah and the seaplane tender USS Curtiss parked on Carrier Row. These two ships had been unmolested up to this point, but suffered severely under the attentions of the Japanese carrier pilots. Along with Utah and Curtiss, the Heavy Cruiser USS New Orleans and Light Cruisers Detroit and Helena were also attacked. Unlike their counterparts on Carrier Row, the Japanese would sink these ships. One of the final victims of the air raid was the USS Narwhal, parked at the Submarine Base.

Twelve P-40s managed to take to the air to defend the skies over the harbor. Their efforts brought down 6 Kates, 5 Vals and 3 Zeros for a total tally of 43 aircraft lost for the Japanese this day. The Americans suffered at least that many damaged and destroyed, as well as the loss of 18 warships, of which seven were main line battleships, with another 4 ships damaged, some heavily.

One final thought on all this: Dale Kemper did a wonderful job on the layout and ships, and it really helped bring home some of the atmosphere of the "Day which will live in Infamy," but it didn't quite hit me until I started taking the last pictures after the third strike. It was only then that I realized what we were running. As I walked around the table I started humming "remember Pearl Harbor and stopped midway through as I realized that this was a real event to people of my father's generation. It was just as real for them as September 11 has unfortunately been for this generation. The words of the Pearl Harbor survivors still ring out across the waters of time to us: NEVER FORGET.