That was one thing the ‘76 movie has over the new one: spotlighting the role of the Navy’s PBY Catalina flying boats in finding the Japanese carriers first.
“That was one thing the ‘76 movie has...: spotlighting the role of the...flying boats in finding the Japanese carriers first.” [BradyLS, post 36]
“And... [IJN] concentration on sinking the battleships instead of...carriers was either bad luck, bad intelligence or outdated thinking by not realizing this would be a carrier war...just as huge.” [vigilence, post 48]
_At Dawn we Slept_ by Gordon Prange, Donald Goldstein, and Katherine Dillon, is the definitive tome on the attack, including all facets from planning, through execution, to (and through) the aftermath.
The authors draw the broad conclusion that US defenses were surprised because of lack of air-mindedness on the part of senior commanders. Applies not only to ADM Kimmel and GEN Short on a personal level, but to their assistants, deputies, and staffs as well. Hawaii’s Army Dept had planned for a ground attack; USPACFLT had planned for a naval attack. Neither department conferred with the other.
Air power was still an unproven concept in 1941, especially its offensive aspects. Attack by shipborne air power was still less proven, despite some earlier successes; no one imagined tiny little carrier-launched airplanes could be remotely so effective. All of it seems obvious in hindsight, but foreseeing capabilities and their potential requires genuine (some say mysterious) insight.
Both senior armed services were of a more traditional mindset in 1941. And backward-looking attitudes persisted for a long stretch, even after 7 December 1941. During hot action in the Pacific later, the captain of the battleship USS South Dakota stood fearlessly upright while other bridge occupants dove for cover from an incoming Japanese bomber. A 225-kg bomb burst on one of the forward turrets; miraculously, the captain received not a scratch. Later he was heard to say that he “thought it beneath the dignity of the captain of an American battleship to flop for a d**ned Jap bomb.”
Deficiencies in luck, intelligence, and forward thinking all played a role.
Some latter-day critics make a big deal out of the radar detection of the first wave of incoming Japanese aircraft, pointing out how the Air Corps duty officer mistook it for a flight of B-17s arriving from CONUS. In reality, had he reached the right conclusion, it would not have mattered much: no interceptors were on cockpit alert, there was no way to warn them if there had been, and there was no command and control system to direct their efforts had any significant number had managed to get airborne.
Some other Monday morning quarterbacks assert that the American fleet could have fared better had ships received sufficient warning, gotten up steam, and sailed forth to engage in high seas combat. The notion isn’t supportable for a couple reasons: (1) no American had reliable information on where the enemy vessels were; (2) had the American fleet managed to get to sea and engage, it’s likely it would have gone down with all hands. The Japanese were alerted, ready, and more proficient. And the US fleet would have been devoid of air cover - the carriers were not yet back from ferrying fighter reinforcements to outlying islands.
Critics who point to American decryption of enemy message traffic overestimate the potential it had in 1941; even six months later, much was still guesswork - as the 1976 film about Midway makes plain. The mere fact of decryption means less than dilettantes assume. Without a host of linguists to translate, a host of analysts to fit the bits together, a distribution system to get the right details to the right people, a small army of clerk/typists and mid-level functionaries to coordinate everyone’s efforts, and a hierarchy of operational commanders and senior leaders accustomed to reading enemy traffic and deducing their next move, a decoded message doesn’t have much value all by itself.
One stroke of luck favored the Americans: USN’s carriers were not present that morning. The Japanese had hoped to catch them at anchor, but did not want to risk lingering in the area to search them out. Thus the new generation of capital ships escaped all harm. Additionally, their absence caused ADM Nagumo - a cautious, conventional commander - to forego any third wave and to retire Japan’s fleet from the vicinity.
I wish they had shown that as well. On the flip side, it was cool seeing an Aichi Jake seaplane scouting the US fleet.