Posted on 01/13/2015 6:39:39 PM PST by wizkid
The US and Japan were going to war, Pearl Harbor or no Pearl Harbor.
Japan cannot attach Malaya and the Dutch East Indies without taking the Philippines. Otherwise you leave an exposed flank on your line of supply.
Pearl Harbor was not isolated. It was part of a series of attacks whose goal was the oil of the Dutch East Indies.
“I had a bad book that stated that Japan would attack at Pearl Harbor. It was printed in 1934.”
The large population of ethnic Japanese people in the Hawaiian Islands made it natural for many people to assume Japan would have an interest in the Japanese invasion and conquest of those islands. However, those natural assumptions did not go so far as to explain how a Japanese naval invasion fleet was expected to accomplish such an invasion given certain operational limitations. Indeed, all proposals to invade the Hawaiian Islands were rejected on the basis of the operational limitations during the war, but the plan to raid the Hawaiian Islands was adopted given Yamamoto’s assurances the operational difficulties with underway refueling of the strike force and the problems with using aerial torpedoes in shallow harbor waters would be resolved.
Although the Japanese Navy had been experimenting with underway refueling for many years, it had not made actual operational use of such procedures until the Kido Butai embarked on its mission to raid Pearl Harbor and the Hawaiian Islands. Beginning in October 1941, the Japanese Navy prepared to use such refueling methods to make it possible for the shorter-ranged destroyers escorting the strike force to make the full voyage alongside the carriers. Nagumo’s decision to withdraw before launching a third wave attack conserved enough fuel to avoid most of the need to refuel other than about 1,300 tons out of the 70,000 tons loaded aboard the rendezvousing oilers.
Another limitation on the Japanese operational capabilities was the inability to launch aerial torpedoes against target ships in a shallow harbor. Aerial torpedoes normally were dropped and sank to some depth before rising closer to the surface on its run to strike the target ship. The British, however, had just recently used an experimental aerial torpedo to attack the Italian fleet in a shallow harbor. Knowing such an attack was possible, the Japanese Navy conducted its own secret experiments to adapt the aerial torpedoes for use in a shallow harbor without diving too deeply upon launch only weeks before the attack upon the Pacific Fleet in Pearl Harbor.
Given these and other apparent operational limitations, Japanese and American military leaders tended to regard a Japanese invasion or raid upon the Hawaiian Islands as not feasible enough to constitute a likely probability. Yamamoto and his staff disagreed with such assumptions and became determined to secretly develop the means to overcome those operational difficulties, and they did so to the surprise of many military leaders in Japan and around the world.
“Japan was using Pearl Harbor for pilot bombing-attack training for at least that long before the actual attack, they had a full size mock-up apparently. None of this was a big secret.”
Japan had been training for combat with the U.S. Navy ever since the Russo-Japanese War. The fact that the naval air forces were preparing for a strike against the U.S. Navy was expected, whether or not such training was novel or routine. Even if you had a U.S. naval attaché invited to the Japanese training exercise, the choice of target would have not excited too much surprise or concern. What made the difference was the U.S. Navy’s ignorance of the secret Japanese preparations for shallow running aerial torpedoes and operational underway refueling methods. An astute U.S. naval attaché witnessing the experimental aerial torpedoes may have focused the attention of U.S. naval leaders upon the risks of such an attack in Pearl Harbor, but the Japanese successfully kept such secret preparations away from the prying eyes of U.S. intelligence operations.
“Yes, I know that the timing for the attack was tight but do not recall all the reasons why. I believe that the Japanese were desperate to attack the Dutch and British in South Asia to get at oil and they may have had weather constraints since the Japanese had to sail from the North to surprise the US.”
The Japanese had considered two war strategies described as going North or going South. One faction of the Japanese leadership argued for going North, meaning to attack the Soviet Union to conquer its territories while it was engaged with Germany in a losing war. Another faction of the Japanese leadership argued for going South in an offensive against the ABDA (American, British, Dutch, and Australian) alliance in a bid to conquer what they described as the Southern Resource Area. Because going North against the Soviets did not promise the conquest of substantial resources in oil, rubber, bauxite, food, and other items needed to sustain future military and naval campaigns, those arguing to go South and conquer the Southern Resource Area abundant in those resources won the argument.
The timing of the war and offensives to conquer the Southern Resource Area ee dictated by a number of factors.
The effective ending of the Washington Naval Limitations Treaty by Germany and Japan followed by the American appropriations for a massive new U.S. Navy construction programme for larger modern battleships, aircraft carriers, fleet submarines, and other warships established what the Japanese leadership believed was a limited window of opportunity for the Japanese to exploit a brief period where its warships could dominate or compete with the U.S. Pacific Fleet between 1941 to 1944.
The United States had long ago planned to grant independence to the Philippines by 1945-46. In preparation for that future independence, former U.S. Army Chief of Staff General MacArthur had been assigned the task of training and equipping a Filipino army. The first military training classes commenced in September 1941 and was scheduled for graduation by April 1942. The Japanese leadership regarded the organization of a Filipino army as an intolerable threat for their planned conquests of the Southern Resource Area and the defense of the shipping lanes from those conquered lands back to the Japanese Home Islands. Consequently, the Japanese advanced their plans for their offensives from Spring 1942 to November or December 1941 in part to disrupt the organization of a Filipino army capable of interfering with the Japanese war plans for conquest.
Another factor in timing Japan’s plans for conquests were the embargoes the ABDA alliance placed upon such war material and resources as oil, steel, iron, nickel, rubber, and more. The Japanese leadership calculated the Japanese Navy, air forces, and industries had enough oil for another couple of years before its military and naval forces would be compelled to suspend combat operations to provide enough resources to sustain the civilian economy. Given the upcoming American rearmament of its naval and military forces, the Japanese leadership calculated the conquests had to be completed no later than 1942-43 in order to sustain the offensive capabilities of its armed forces.
December 1941 just happened to be the earliest time period Japan could become prepared to launch its Pacific War.
“It is just hard for me to reconcile that someone who was purported to be such a brilliant admiral particularly in regards to his understanding of the importance of aircraft carriers could miss this.”
Yamamoto certainly did not miss the importance of destroying the American aircraft carriers. The plan to strike the U.S. Pacific Fleet while anchored in Pearl Harbor on a Sunday instead of any other day of the week was conceived for the specific purpose of catching one or more of the U.S. aircraft carriers in port at the time of the Japanese air attack. The idea failed largely because of the inability to change attack dates and sheer chance. The U.S.S. ENTERPRISE would have been caught in port at Pearl Harbor on Sunday if it had not had to slow down for its escorting destroyers. Bad weather and seas interfered with the ability of the ENTERPRISE to refuel its destroyers while underway, so the destroyers had to slow their engines to conserve fuel. Even so, they were so low in fuel some were in danger of being towed into port. ENTERPRISE’s delay in returning to Pearl Harbor saved it from being attacked in port.
The U.S.S. LEXIGNTON and other aircraft carriers were also absent from Pearl Harbor on Sunday due to their respective non-routine missions, including missions ferrying combat aircraft to the American garrisons on Midway Island and Wake Island.
Yamamoto and his staff were obligated to coordinate the strike to occur concurrently with all of the other Japanese offensive operations in the other theaters from India, Southeast Asia, China, the South Pacific, Central Pacific, and north Pacific theaters of operations. Accordingly, the date of the strike on Pearl harbor once set could not be changed without also changing the dates and times of the entire war. It just so happened by chance that the Americans atypically assigned non-routine missions for most its the aircraft carriers for the same Sunday the Japanese raid and the entire war had been pre-scheduled.
“It just so happened by chance that the Americans atypically assigned non-routine missions for most its the aircraft carriers for the same Sunday the Japanese raid and the entire war had been pre-scheduled.”
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More proof that much of life is a crap shoot.
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