In Remembrance
With solid determination
Posted on 12/07/2015 6:48:58 AM PST by harpygoddess
Today is the anniversary of the Japanese surprise attack on Pearl Harbor on 7 December 1941, which brought the United States into World War II. The meticulously planned and devastatingly successful operation was launched from six aircraft carriers and their escorts, which had managed to penetrate to within 200 miles of Oahu without being discovered.
Of the eight American battleships in port that day, four were sunk or destroyed, and nine other warships were sunk or severely damaged. Over 2,400 U.S. servicemen lost their lives, including 2.000 sailors, most of whom perished on the USS Arizona (BB-39). The only bright spots were the absence of the three U.S. aircraft carriers from Pearl Harbor that day and the strange failure of the Japanese to destroy the Pacific Fleet's enormous fuel supplies, which would have been an easy target. Japan's attack on Oahu put an abrupt end to pre-war American isolationism and united the nation as it had never been before. But as Napoleon Bonaparte noted in his Maxims of War,
"To be defeated is pardonable; to be surprised - never!"
(Excerpt) Read more at vaviper.blogspot.com ...
Unfortunately, the Monty Python video was not posted separately.
Fortunately, we can remember Pearl Harbor in our own way. Especially those of us who are old enough to have been remembering it for 74 years now.
There is part of this nation that will never forget.
The rest, who cares what they think.
There is the argument that the attack is what allowed the US to win the Pacific war. If the Japanese had not attacked PH, but merely declared war, we would have entered the Pacific war with old, semi-maintained, and obsolete warships. We would not have performed as well.
Because we were forced (by the attack) to replace our warships, we had newer and deadlier ships with which to fight.
A failure, but not a strange failure. The Japanese commander did not know where the American carriers were, and so was afraid that his ships might be hit while his planes were away on a second strike PH strike.
What seems strange to me is how the Japanese commander failed to take the gamble.
The original attack plan was to take out the oil depots, the submarine pens and the navy yard. Turn Pearl harbor into an unusable smoking ruin.
However, they screwed it up and none of those targets were hit. I have always wondered what type of collateral damage would have been caused by the oil depots going up in smoke.
I once had a map of the installations and the depot field was huge.
The Japanese were concerned about the carriers, very true.
But had the Japanese actually carried out the original attack plans we more than likely would have been trying to fight the Pacific war from the coast of California.
We visited the Arizona memorial a couple of years ago. Very moving. Especially knowing that it is a grave site of over a thousand service men.
Sadly, there are fewer and fewer living service men and women from that era.
Cool satellite view of the Arizona.
Interesting. So someone high up in the Jap command structure changed the targets from the oil depots to the battleships?
Excellent point. It was supposed to be the target of the third wave of attacks but never happened. It would have made it a lot more difficult for the Pacific Fleet to recover if the fuel depot had been destroyed.
Apparently, they had planned to attack both but called off the third attack with included the depots.
I think that the excuse was that the Japs knew that they had lost the element of surprise and that the risk would have been much greater.
The ships were targeted of course but they were part of the asset list to be hit. Ships, oil depots, sub pens, repair yard.
They had no idea where the carriers were and were very concerned those aircraft would show up and attack their fleet.
I think they bugged out early due to fears the carriers were not far away and the fleet would be in trouble.
In the very early stages of the attack planning someone threw out the idea of actually landing on Pearl Harbor. An invasion force. But it was not seriously considered and this was dismissed.
I have long wondered about the logistics of trying to land an occupying / invasion force into Hawaii. Could the Japanese have pulled it off? I don’t know.
There is part of this nation that will never forget.
The rest, who cares what they think.
Very Well Put..thanks.
We ended up with both. Most of the battle wagons sunk at Pearl went down in shallow water. We refloated them and they fought. In fact five of them blasted the Japanese to hell in Surigao Straight.
FDR had all of those new ships in the pipeline when the Japanese attacked. Thats one reason the Japanese acted when they did - and why Yamamoto said he could only give the military government six months to consolidate their gains in SE Asia. The window of opportunity, in their eyes, was closing in a year, year & a half.
I was 15 months old when Pearl Harbor occurred so I don’t remember it but I do remember the conversations I overheard a few years later.
The Japanese made the same mistake with their submarine fleet as the war progressed - instead of attacking US supply lines and auxiliary ships, which would've hurt our war effort much more, they sent them after the glamorous targets, capital ships.
Which was one of the reasons I never believed FDR knew an attack was coming at Pearl Harbor and let it happen.
If the Japanese pulled off their original plan we’d have been up a creek trying to fight the war from San Francisco.
The higher ups had strong suspicions about and attack coming but exactly where they did not know. I think they all thought it would happen in the Philippines.
That alone would have been enough to pull us into the war.
An attack on the Philippines would probably have been enough to pull us in but as divided as the country was I doubt it would’ve been enough to generate the unified maximum response PH did. Many in the US didn’t think we had any business having colonies, much less defending them.
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