Pearl Harbor

[CaptainCrunch]

I thought I would add this in because tomorrow is Dec 7, the anniversary of the sneak attack by the Japanese Navy on Pearl Harbor.

Roosevelt wrote a last ditch letter to the Emperor of Japan

President Roosevelt wrote a personal appeal to Emperor Hirohito to avoid war between the United States and Japan. "Developments are occurring in the Pacific area which threaten to deprive each of our Nations and all humanity of the beneficial influence of the long peace between our two countries." the president wrote. "Those developments contain tragic possibilities ... I address myself to Your Majesty at this moment in the fervent hope that Your Majesty may, as I am doing, give thought in this definite emergency to ways of dispelling the dark clouds. I am confident that both of us, for the sake of the peoples not only of our own great countries but for the sake of humanity in neighboring territories, have a sacred duty to restore traditional amity and prevent further death and destruction in the world."[1

6 Japanese fleet carriers carrying a total of about 120 Japanese Zero's a compliment of about 100 Val dive bombers and about 150 Kate Torpedo Bombers were closing in on their early morning launch position to attack Pearl Harbor.

Meanwhile 5 I boats each carrying a mini sub closed to within 10 miles of the entrance to Pearl.

The Japanese flight crews were stood down except for standard patrols and rested and fed.

[GirlySports]

December 1941 must have been a crazy time to be alive. The Russian pushing back on the Eastern front on December 5, Pearl Harbour on December 7 and continuous raids on the Western Front.

[Fuzz]

And people bitch about 2016...

[greyshep]

Visited Pearl Harbor last year, amazing place. Highly recommend visiting.

Thanks for sharing that Captain. The brutality of the Pacific theatre was mind blowing.

[cznTiburon]

Originally Posted by Fuzz

And people bitch about 2016...

But.. Harambe...

[CaptainCrunch]

Just an add on, but there was an excellent documentary on Admiral Kimmel last night, the man disgraced and blamed for the failure to defend Pearl Harbor.

At the time of Pearl Harbor he was the CinC Pacific Fleet and a 4 star.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Husband_E._Kimmel

He was hit by a spent Japanese .50 cal bullet that struck his glasses case and he said "It would have been merciful if it had killed me"

He spent the rest of his life fighting the charge of dereliction of duty and eventually argued that he wasn't given access to Magic a program that intercepted Japanese diplomatic communications.

His son was a submarine commander in WW2 who survived a sinking only to be doused in gasoline and lit on fire by his Japanese captures.

[nixon45]

Originally Posted by greyshep

Visited Pearl Harbor last year, amazing place. Highly recommend visiting.

Thanks for sharing that Captain. The brutality of the Pacific theatre was mind blowing.

I visited at Christmas time last year as well. Pearl Harbor was the thing I was most looking forward to seeing in Hawaii since I am a huge WW2 guy.

Being there was completely surreal and I almost felt completely numb the entire visit.

Watching the oil bubbles come to the surface above the Arizona is something that will stay with me a long time.

An interesting side note I was there the same time the Obama's were vacationing in Hawaii over Christmas. Saw Air Force one and then Marine One (Presidential helicopter if he was onboard) was doing low passes of Pearl Harbor while we were there. Maybe the Obama's were getting an aerial tour of it? That would be cool.

[Kjesse]

One of the worst military decisions in history, although calculated to provide Japan with the edge to control the Pacific.

From: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isorok...ng_giant_quote

This is actually what the admiral said in 1942, realizing the attack was a mistake as they would not be able to win a prolonged war with the USA:

A military man can scarcely pride himself on having 'smitten a sleeping enemy'; it is more a matter of shame, simply, for the one smitten. I would rather you made your appraisal after seeing what the enemy does, since it is certain that, angered and outraged, he will soon launch a determined counterattack.

The war between Japan and the USA is a poignant example of seeing both despair and hope in humanity. One country bombs the hell out of a military installation of another, that country provides payback by way Midway and then two atomic bombs, then agrees to help rebuild their economy leading them to become allies for decades. The cost of that friendship was far too great however.

Its horrible and inspiring, at the same time.

[CaptainCrunch]

Yamamoto was as brilliant as they come in terms of Naval Tacticians. The Americans' really didn't have a thinking mans Admiral until Raymond Spruance took over Task Force 16 2 days before Midway.

Even before Yamamoto put together the operational plan for Pearl Harbor, he realized two things. They had to take the American's out of the war early, and that they wouldn't beat the American's in a protracted conventional war of attrition.

The sleeping giant quote has been debated over and over again throughout history. A lot of people think its a general statement about attacking Pearl Harbor. But the common school of thought was that it was a statement that reflected the bungling of Japan's foreign ministry that turned this from the opening shots of a war to a dastardly sneak attack that would anger their much larger foe.

The unfortunate thing for Yamamoto was that the expected American Aircraft carriers were out to sea, and the Japanese were victims of bad intelligence and luck. The Lexington was delivering fighters to Midway. Enterprise was returning from Wake Island and a combination of bad weather and the Enterprises' need to refuel its excorts delayed its return to Pearl by a day. The Saratoga was picking up a shipment of fighters in San Diego.

Again bad intelligence. If the Japanese would have waited for a day or two they could have caught the American carriers in the attack, and chances are as Yamamoto was hoping the American's would see reason and sue for peace.

As it was, and I'm using an Edmonton term here, the Pearl Harbor attack was visually brilliant for the Japanese as they sank or damaged 19 major surface combatants including 8 battleships, however by failing to trap and sink the 3 US Carriers the Japanese and Yamamoto knew that they'd have to step up their fortification of the pacific, but I think that Yamamoto knew deep down that they were going to lose the war because of those three American Carriers.

Make no mistake he had a very good war, if he would have been killed at Midway or before it, he'd be looked at as the greatest fighting Admiral in history, instead he saw his gains rolled back and his men and ships slaughtered as the weight of American Industry and superior technology finish his nation. But at least he died before he saw the atomic bombs dropped.

[GirlySports]

There were two events in 1939 that provided context to the Pearl Harbor decision. First, there was a little battle in August on the border of Japanese occupied Manchuria and Soviet occupied Mongolia. Started a series of border skirmishes, ended with a semi-major battle, about 100K troops combined, 40K casualties (including wounded, missing and illness),tanks and aircraft. The Russians kicked ass.

The strategic plan had been, allied Germany and Japan would carve up the Soviet Union from both sides, satisfying the Japanese desire for empire. But, they got whipped by the Russians.

I had never heard of this until this weekend. Learning more history is so cool. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battles_of_Khalkhin_Gol

And a month later, friend Germany signs a non-aggression pact with enemy Russia. These two factors caused them to look south for their empire dreams.

Then, with Barbarossa, friend Germany turns on their new friend Russia. Japan starts to wonder, will they turn on us? Or when? US Sec of State Cordell Hull was said to literally screamed this message to the Japanese ambassador to the US, imploring them to make peace with the US.

But, these things made them look to Indochina, Indonesia and the Phillipines for oil and empire. And the necessity to score a first round KO of the US fleet. Had the carriers been in port and got blasted, it might have worked, for a while at least.

[CaptainCrunch]

Originally Posted by GirlySports

There were two events in 1939 that provided context to the Pearl Harbor decision. First, there was a little battle in August on the border of Japanese occupied Manchuria and Soviet occupied Mongolia. Started a series of border skirmishes, ended with a semi-major battle, about 100K troops combined, 40K casualties (including wounded, missing and illness),tanks and aircraft. The Russians kicked ass.

The strategic plan had been, allied Germany and Japan would carve up the Soviet Union from both sides, satisfying the Japanese desire for empire. But, they got whipped by the Russians.

I had never heard of this until this weekend. Learning more history is so cool. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battles_of_Khalkhin_Gol

And a month later, friend Germany signs a non-aggression pact with enemy Russia. These two factors caused them to look south for their empire dreams.

Then, with Barbarossa, friend Germany turns on their new friend Russia. Japan starts to wonder, will they turn on us? Or when? US Sec of State Cordell Hull was said to literally screamed this message to the Japanese ambassador to the US, imploring them to make peace with the US.

But, these things made them look to Indochina, Indonesia and the Phillipines for oil and empire. And the necessity to score a first round KO of the US fleet. Had the carriers been in port and got blasted, it might have worked, for a while at least.

If the Japanese had caught the American Pacific Fleet carriers in port at Pearl with their escorts and sank them, there's no question that Japan would have launched hed a amphibious assault on the Islands.

America would have been caught in a quandry as they would have had to split their Atlantic Fleet that had only 4 carriers, the Wasp, Ranger, Long Island and Yorktown. I think that Atlantic Fleet Command had 8 Battleships but half of them were obsolete and would have performed badly against the Japanese Navy.

The devils choice if the Japanese had taken Hawaii and fortified it would be if you shift ships away from the Atlantic and the expected convoy duty and possibly leave the Brits out to hang, or send your Atlantic Carriers into a battle on Japanese terms in one decisive engagement in the Hawaii waters and possibly leave your west coast open to attack if you lose.

Realitically in 1941, the American Navy could be classed as second rate to the Japanese Navy who had better aircraft and better combatant ships in terms of Battleships and cruisers. The American Carriers were better then the Japanese ones due to their damage control design and defensive measures. The American destroyers and cruisers were better ships, though the Japanese reliance on speed had its issues.


if the American's had lost their carrier and had to shift from Atlantic command they might have looked at the current weakened navy against the Japanese Navy at its height and realize that one more loss would leave your entire Pacific Coast vulnerable and call it a day?

[MoneyGuy]

Originally Posted by CaptainCrunch

Just an add on, but there was an excellent documentary on Admiral Kimmel last night, the man disgraced and blamed for the failure to defend Pearl Harbor.

At the time of Pearl Harbor he was the CinC Pacific Fleet and a 4 star.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Husband_E._Kimmel

He was hit by a spent Japanese .50 cal bullet that struck his glasses case and he said "It would have been merciful if it had killed me"

He spent the rest of his life fighting the charge of dereliction of duty and eventually argued that he wasn't given access to Magic a program that intercepted Japanese diplomatic communications.

His son was a submarine commander in WW2 who survived a sinking only to be doused in gasoline and lit on fire by his Japanese captures.

I follow this story and I recall that three presidents have refused to exonerate him for dereliction of duty. He died in the late 60s never having been cleared of those allegations despite having done nothing except his duty. He was a patsy. I hope that Trump clears him of blame.

[MoneyGuy]

There should be an ongoing WWII thread here. There is lots of interest and many knowledgeable posters.

[CaptainCrunch]

Originally Posted by MoneyGuy

I follow this story and I recall that three presidents have refused to exonerate him for dereliction of duty. He died in the late 60s never having been cleared of those allegations despite having done nothing except his duty. He was a patsy. I hope that Trump clears him of blame.

I was surprised that he wasn't exonerated when it was revealed that he wasn't receiving the real time intelligence gathered by Magic.

But the truth of the matter was that there were decisions made even without the intel that were kind of questionable in terms of how Pearl was defended.

As soon as the British had perfected the shallow water torpedo the American's should have been trying to devise a counter for it, because they knew that the Japanese would adopt it.

The positioning of the Aircraft, the faulty radar right down to what was considered to be a fairly poor level of discipline all fall on Kimmel's lap.

He wasn't at fault for falling to react to intelligence that he didn't have. But the base security and defense were certainly lax.

[FurnaceFace]

Originally Posted by CaptainCrunch

Just an add on, but there was an excellent documentary on Admiral Kimmel last night, the man disgraced and blamed for the failure to defend Pearl Harbor.

At the time of Pearl Harbor he was the CinC Pacific Fleet and a 4 star.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Husband_E._Kimmel

He was hit by a spent Japanese .50 cal bullet that struck his glasses case and he said "It would have been merciful if it had killed me"

He spent the rest of his life fighting the charge of dereliction of duty and eventually argued that he wasn't given access to Magic a program that intercepted Japanese diplomatic communications.

His son was a submarine commander in WW2 who survived a sinking only to be doused in gasoline and lit on fire by his Japanese captures.

I caught part of this documentary, I hope it's on again. It was staggering to hear how poor the communication was and how the US basically had all the pieces of the puzzle in their hands and could have done something to avoid the event or minimize it. Part of it is hindsight I'm sure, but it was facinating nonetheless. Seems the US didn't learn it's lesson as similar mistakes were made prior to 9/11.

[accord1999]

Originally Posted by CaptainCrunch

The positioning of the Aircraft, the faulty radar right down to what was considered to be a fairly poor level of discipline all fall on Kimmel's lap.

He wasn't at fault for falling to react to intelligence that he didn't have. But the base security and defense were certainly lax.

I believe some of that laid in the Army's jurisdiction, though the Army commander suffered the same level of blame as Kimmel did.

[GirlySports]

Captain Crunch: I wonder, did the Japanese have plans to head down to the Panama Canal after Hawaii to pick off any Navy ships coming through? Could US Navy ships in WWII make it through the Canal, or were they too big? If not, how did they get from one ocean to the other?

[CroFlames]

Originally Posted by GirlySports

Captain Crunch: I wonder, did the Japanese have plans to head down to the Panama Canal after Hawaii to pick off any Navy ships coming through? Could US Navy ships in WWII make it through the Canal, or were they too big? If not, how did they get from one ocean to the other?

There is a WWII battleship docked in LA as a museum now. I visited the museum several times, and an old gnarly vet who served on the ship said that it had only 6 inches of total clearance going thru the canal.

This is the USS Iowa, the biggest battleship every constructed. Apparently it's got the same hull design as the carriers.

That vet may or may not have been correct. Visiting that ship is amaze balls though.

[CaptainCrunch]

Originally Posted by GirlySports

Captain Crunch: I wonder, did the Japanese have plans to head down to the Panama Canal after Hawaii to pick off any Navy ships coming through? Could US Navy ships in WWII make it through the Canal, or were they too big? If not, how did they get from one ocean to the other?

The Japanese designed the I-400 class super sub with Panama in mind. This massive sub carried aircraft and its job was to surface, launch the planes in a surprise attack, smash the locks, recover the aircraft and submerge. Later the plan was changed and the bombing attack became kamikaze attacks against the launch. They started training for this mission in 1945 but the war ended before it could be enacted.


Panama's defenses were pretty formidable with heavy artillary that could hit 17 miles away, air patrols antisubmarine nets etc. But the American's didn't think that the attack would ever come and by the end of the war security became incredibly lax.

[CaptainCrunch]