Pearl Harbor 珍珠港（2001） Movie Script

STRATEGIC ANALYST We've done what you ordered, Admiral, and war gamed the likely outcome of a Japanese attack against each of our major bases in the Pacific. Wake, Guam, Midway, the Philippines. In each case, we lose.

ADMIRAL KIMMEL:

You left out Hawaii.

STRATEGIC ANALYST Pearl Harbor can't be attacked effectively from the air. It's too shallow for an aerial torpedo attack.

Pearl Harbor's safe. It's everywhere else that we're vulnerable.

ADMIRAL KIMMEL:

Step up surveillance of Japanese communications. They're gonna do something somewhere. I can feel it.

EXT. THE SKIES ABOVE OAHU - DAY A seaplane takes tourists on an excursion above Pearl Harbor and around the island of Oahu. One Japanese tourist shoots pictures rapidly...first of the ships as seen from overhead; then he leans to the other side of the plane and shoots pictures of the airfield below them.

EXT. PEARL HARBOR - DAY Another Japanese tourist hikes through the hills above Pearl Harbor. He takes an excellent camera from his picnic basket, and shoots pictures.

CLOSE - THE PICTURES, being carried down a hallway, into -- INT. JAPANESE PLANNERS OFFICE - DAY The courier places the pictures onto the table in front of Yamamoto, Genda, and the other JAPANESE OFFICERS.

GENDA:

Look at the ships -- all grouped. Perfect targets!

JAPANESE OFFICER And the planes! They are -- what is that American expression? Sitting geese?

YAMAMOTO:

Sitting ducks.

JAPANESE OFFICER How can they be so foolish?

YAMAMOTO:

They think no one would be stupid enough to attack them at Pearl Harbor.

GENDA:

Or perhaps they think no one is capable.

Look at this... He moves to a diagram displayed on the wall -- a simple display showing water depth and ship displacement.

GENDA:

Pearl Harbor's depth of only forty feet makes them feel safe. A torpedo dropped from an airplane plunges to one hundred feet before it can level off. That is a conventional torpedo. But we have been experimenting.

From a stand beside his diagram he takes a set of wooden fins, attached to a circular metallic band.

GENDA:

Wooden fins. We are testing them tomorrow.

EXT. JAPANESE ISLAND - DAY Yamamoto and his planners have flown to a quiet Japanese island, sunlit and pleasant. They are gathered on the shore of the island's natural harbor. Wooden targets -- basically huge plank barriers -- are sunk into the water like ships at anchor. A squadron of Japanese planes zooms overhead, taking up attack positions.

GENDA:

We have chosen this place because its depth is exactly the same as Pearl Harbor's.

Genda speaks into a field radio. A lone plane drops out of formation and goes into a low-level approach, speeding up and dropping its torpedo.

BELOW THE SURFACE we see the torpedo as it plunges at two hundred miles an hour into the sunlit sea. With the wooden fins the torpedo makes a sharp dip and levels off above the sea floor.

ABOVE THE SURFACE the planners see the path of the torpedo; it hits the wooden barrier with a satisfying THUNK. The planners are impressed -- but Yamamoto is not satisfied.

YAMAMOTO:

Uncharged torpedoes have different balance.

GENDA:

I have arranged a live fire drill -- with your permission.