They meet friendly young Lieutenant Mitsuo Fuchida of the Imperial Japanese Navy and the three discuss the growing military strength of Japan and the increasing political tensions across the Pacific.

Back in Japan, Fuchida and Commander Genda Minoru formulate the new naval doctrines in which air-power will supersede the battleship as the prime weapon of the Imperial Fleet.

In December 1937, Watson is on board the US Navy gunboat USS Panay on the Yangtze River near Shanghai when it is strafed and sunk by Japanese aircraft despite the vessel clearly displaying the American flag.

A few days later, Stanford, now a journalist, has the misfortune to witness, and narrowly escape (with the assistance of German businessman John Rabe), the brutal atrocities committed on the Chinese civilian population of Nanjing by the Imperial Japanese Army.

In September 1940, Genda, now a naval attaché in London, watches the Battle of Britain being fought over the English capital and he later gives his critical appraisal of the Campaign to USAAC Colonel Carl Spaatz.

Fuchida strives to develop new techniques in attacking vessels in shallow-water harbors whilst Japanese Prime-Minister Konoye, with little authority over his country's armed forces, reluctantly submits plans for military expansion to the Emperor for approval.

On November 28, the US carrier USS Enterprise, Admiral William Halsey commanding, departs Pearl Harbor, bound for Wake Island with a cargo of fighter aircraft.

The first and second waves of Japanese aircraft launched from the six fleet carriers of Yamamoto's Imperial Task Force located north of Hawaii attack Pearl Harbor and US Naval & Army airfields on Oahu.

Fuchida, personally leading the attack, notes, as the second wave departs, that many of the harbor facilities including the main dry dock and the oil storage tanks along with all of the US submarines are still intact.

But the attackers cause heavy damage nonetheless, destroying No 1 dry-dock, the oil tank farms and the headquarters of the Pacific Fleet, killing the Commander-in-Chief Admiral Kimmel.

He dispatches two of his battleships, the Hiei and the Kirishima, to mount a nocturnal bombardment of Pearl Harbor, hoping to provoke a counter-strike by the US carriers, thus exposing the location of the latter.

James Watson, his arm injured by shrapnel during the earlier attacks, has made his way home to his half-Japanese wife Margaret and his mother-in-law ‘Nan’ who is a Nisei, a first-generation Japanese immigrant to Hawaii of whom there are many thousands living on the islands.

The US Navy manages to deliver its first return blow when a small force of warships led by Rear-Admiral Draemel on board the destroyer USS Ward, engages the Japanese battleships off the coast of Oahu.

The gallant American force suffers heavy losses, including the Ward, taking Draemel with her along with the cruiser USS Minneapolis but they manage to score a torpedo hit on the Hiei, crippling the large battleship.

Having lost a full squadron of dive-bombers the previous day at Pearl Harbor, Halsey has only 56 aircraft remaining on the Enterprise with which to engage the entire Japanese fleet.

On Oahu, Watson, Captain Collingwood and assistant Dianne St Clair desperately try to re-organise communications to co-ordinate the groups of US warships that are scattered throughout the Pacific and now converging on Hawaii.

Aircraft from the IJN carriers Soryu and Hiryu attack Halsey's force, sinking the cruiser USS Salt Lake City and badly damaging the Enterprise, leaving her still able to launch but not recover her planes.

The Enterprise is attacked again by a second wave from Ozawa's force, the Japanese pilots believing it to be a second US carrier as Halsey's crew had extinguished the fires from the previous strike.

US Task Force 12, comprising the carrier USS Lexington and her escorts, led by Admiral Newton, now enters the fray, having returned from Midway atoll where she had ferried aircraft prior to the Japanese attack.

Meeting heavy resistance, the motley flight is all but wiped out but Lt Dan Struble, dying and his aircraft afire, crash-dives into Yamamoto's flagship carrier, the Akagi.

The severely damaged Enterprise, thanks to a superhuman effort on the part of her crew, has managed to stay afloat and is commencing a slow, dangerous crawl to the safety of the West Coast of the US mainland.