Posted on 06/30/2013 4:07:24 AM PDT by Homer_J_Simpson
If set to go off shallow enough, it should work. Since most aircraft and blimps spotted U-Boats near or on the surface (when they spotted them at all) they tended to set the charges to go off at a fairly shallow depth.
Makes sense. I've learned more about the Halifax today than I previously knew so, I'm in no position to comment further.
I think depth charges are generally less effective at shallow depths but if the charge is set to go at a relatively shallow depth and the depth charge lands close enough, the shock effect could at least damage the outer hull area sufficiently to prevent the u-boat from submerging. If the charge goes off even closer, it may be able to rupture the pressure hull.
I don't know if depth charges contained a sufficiently large quantity of explosive that if they went off directly beneath the hull of a surfaced u-boat the hull would snap in a manner similar to that of modern non-contact torpedoes.
I also don't know if aerial depth charges could use contact fuzes but given the low altitude of release, aircrews might have been understandably reluctant to release a contact fuzed explosive that might blow them out of the air.
If you follow the evidence, the show's sources would be RECOLLECTIONS 30 years later about what these messages supposedly said. None of the revisionists---not one---has ever been able to produce a single Japanese sailor or officer who would testify that ANY transmission was made. That's all it would take---one eyewitness, yet not a single one has ever been found.
Thanks.
I was satisfied before that our conspiracy theory folks were stretching too little data over too large a subject.
There’s just no “smoking gun” to prove their case.
This particular TV show was called, if i remember, “Secrets of WWII” and focused on contributions from Bletchley Park code breakers.
Likely they stretched the facts a bit.
And I suppose if you compared it to other shows like “Ancient Aliens” it’s no more exaggerated than those...
;-)
Well, what bugs me (and I’m sure it bugs Jacobsen) is that no one has ever discussed this stuff with him, and he has a dozen articles on it. Also, even though it’s old, the book “Pearl Harbor: Final Verdict” by Clausen and Lee revealed stuff NO ONE has ever addressed. Clausen had clearance for MAGIC-—something none of the congressional inquiries had, or, at least, could reveal. So witnesses were constantly lying or changing stories because they couldn’t reveal MAGIC. Clausen found, among other things, that Gen. Short reversed the “alert” codes at Pearl in July of 41 and never told Marshall or the War Dept. “1=high” and “3-low” became JUST THE OPPOSITE. So when Washington asked if Pearl was on level 1 alert, Short told them yes . . . meaning to him, the lowest level. But Washington thought it was on the highest level!
It’s very interesting that Baldwin basically took on Doolittle and the Air Force on this one. He shows a lot of journalistic integrity, in sharp contrast to today’s NYT.
That said, it is clear people in the know thought that Japan was preparing attacks somewhere, they just didn't know where or when. Had I been in a high position I would have guessed the Philippines and/or Guam. Still, Pearl had an official war warning from Washington, they could have been better prepared.
It shocked everyone in Washington that Kimmel and Short had known that a Japanese midget sub had been sunk IN PEARL just two nights earlier. That alone should have been full alert warning, as those did not get from Japan to Hawaii on their own!
I know it came as a shock, but for crying out loud the rest of the world had been at war for a couple of years already. It's one thing for civilians to live in a dream world that we can stay out of it, but the professionals should have had some sense.
An interesting aspect to all this is looking at what difference it would had made even if they were on the proper alert in Hawaii. I did a study of the layout and number of assets that Short had at his disposal to protect Oahu and was pretty surprised by what I found.
Two of the primary flak positions on Oahu that were designated to protect the harbor itself only existed on paper. These were supposed to be the new 90mm flak guns of which none had been delivered to Hawaii by the time of the attack. There were only 82 3-inch guns on the island and twelve of those were in positions that never even saw a Japanese aircraft.
A more effective anti-aircraft weapon for the low level aircraft would have been the 37mm guns. These were being used before the U. S. adopted the 40mm Bofors. There was only 144 slated to be positioned in all of Hawaii, the bulk of which were to be on Oahu. Of those only 20 had been delivered. More interestingly though was that the ammunition for the 37mm guns did not arrive until December 5th, 1941. So the small number of crews for these guns would have had no time to get proficient with them.
Even .50 caliber machine guns were in short supply. The approved defensive plan called for 308, but they only had 109. Both Bloch and Short had sent communications calling for at least 500 of these to effectively defend the island if not more.
Finally, there are the air assets. The P-36s and P-49s on the island were not a match for even the Japanese torpedo bombers much less the Zero. Of the twelve P-40Cs and eighty-seven P-40Bs thirty five were playing the role of “hanger queen” and were not even in condition to fly.
I’m not big on going into “what-if” history, but I think if General Short had issued the proper alert which would have had gun prepped with ammo, and planes in the sky, the outcome would not have been significantly different.
Others have pointed out that had Admiral Kimmel received advanced warning of the Japanese attack, the US battleship fleet would have sailed out to meet them, and since both its aircraft carriers were far away, would likely have been sunk -- but this time in depths from which no recovery was possible.
So damage to the US battleship fleet, instead of being temporary and repairable would be permanent, irreparable.
Of course, as it turned out, those old battleships didn't make much difference, long term...
Generally true about the battle wagons, although all returned to service (except, obviously, the Arizona) and several saw combat in the invasions of islands (one was effectively retired, I think).
Admiral Kimmel himself was the first to make that assessment. He went even further to say that it probably would have been worse for the attacking Japanese to have arrived at and Pearl Harbor devoid of ships.
In some of his first testimony he stated that it would have been a bigger disaster had the Japanese arrived, and with no fleet to attack, turned on the dry docks and fuel depots at the naval base. This would have forced the fleet to withdraw to the continent essentially giving up the central Pacific. This is another reason why the failure of Nagumo to launch a 3rd strike, which would have targeted these assets, was a critical error in the attack.
As for the battleships, you’re right, they were no longer main players anymore. But in a way, the temporary loss of them in this attack forced the U. S. Navy towards this evolution in naval fighting. All of the battleships attacked at Pearl went on to fight the Japanese with the exception of the Arizona, and the Oklahoma which was re-floated and then decommissioned (I don’t count the Utah since it was already re-designated as a target ship).
America as a whole was much better prepared for war in 1941 than 1939, but that's not saying much considering where we started.
I think the biggest problem we had in 1941 was we were trying to be all things to everyone and we really were not ramped up industrially to do that just yet.
We had lend-lease aid going to Britain, and in late 1941 made a similar agreement with Stalin to do the same. The First Moscow Protocol was actually mostly filled by the British because the American production was unable to keep up with the amounts promised to the Soviets that year (and 1942 as well).
Then we were trying to fortify our bases against attack. Hawaii was not the only base that needed work. Panama had a wish list as did Midway, Guam, the new bases acquired from the British in the Caribbean and other locations as well. Then to top it all off MacArthur convinced Marshall that the Philippines could be defended if he was given priority on materials. This made the situation for defending Hawaii almost impossible.
One interesting problem this cause for General Short was that it created a catch-22 for him in acquiring even simple raw materials. He was told to make up for deficiencies in his government provided supplies of lumber, and concrete by buying these items from local vendors. However, local vendors could not get their stock orders filled because it required these materials to be attached to a government order in order to get priority on the limited shipping in the Pacific (Short could not do this, it had to come from Washington). Projects like building hardened hangers at Hickman didn’t even get started as a result of the logistical SNAFU.
The idea that the Philippines was defensible against the Japanese seems laughable. I suppose you could talk yourself into believing it at the time, because that was before the Japanese seized Hong Kong and S.E. Asia.
And in fact, by 1941 we had been sending a lot of our stuff to England and the USSR to keep them from getting overrun. There is evidence that a significant number of tanks outside Moscow in the winter of 1941 were American and British-—and you can bet they didn’t all get there in two weeks!
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