[Milsurplus] Japan's Pearl Harbor Blunders?

[Joe Connor]

Ray, your points are well taken, as are John's. Once we had decisive battles like Coral Sea and Midway, where the capital ships never even saw each other, even the older admirals realized the day of the battleship had ended. Their main role would be using their big guns to support landings. 

If I remember correctly, there was a modern radar unit on Oahu (SCR-270?) and it did pick up the incoming Japanese planes. However, it was mistakenly believed that it was a flight of B-17s flying in from the west coast. I'm not sure if that was a function of poor equipment, poor use of the equipment, poor command use of the information the radar unit produced, or a peacetime mentality that could not conceive of the Japanese having the audacity to attack Pearl Harbor.

If I remember correctly, there was at least one radar unit near Clark Field in the Philippines. In the days immediately before the war, the Japanese flew over Luzon at night. Our radar picked them up and fighters (I guess they were called pursuits back then) scrambled to intercept them. Our pursuits never found the intruders. The radar didn't detect the attacks that obliterated Clark Field and the Cavite Naval Base in the first few days of the war. Again, I'm not sure if the fault lies with the equipment, the operators, the command or a peacetime mentality.

                                      Joe Connor



>________________________________
> From: Ray Fantini <RAFANTINI at salisbury.edu>
>To: Joe Connor <joeconnor53 at yahoo.com>; "Military Surplus Mail List (milsurplus at mailman.qth.net)" <milsurplus at mailman.qth.net> 
>Sent: Tuesday, February 12, 2013 11:45 AM
>Subject: RE: [Milsurplus] Japan's Pearl Harbor Blunders?
> 
>
>Still think you have to consider the whole Japanese concept of the decisive battle and how deeply it is ingrained in many of their actions, also perhaps it just human nature that in every war people start out with the idea that it’s going to be just like the last war and often hold on to obsolete tactics. It’s easy for us today to see the aircraft carrier as the ultimate weapon system but think many as late as pearl harbor or afterwards still held on the outmoded belief that the battleship was king. Maybe at the battle of the Coral Sea and definitely by Midway everyone knew that the day of the battleship was thru but before the war bet there were many battleship proponents, after all how much did japan spend on building Yamoto and Musahi?
>I would think an interesting point to look at is the differences between the poor use of radar and communications that was presented at Pearl Harbor and how by the battle of the Coral Sea we had developed the capability to spot incoming flight by radar  and vector intercept aircraft to attack incoming flights before reaching our carriers. Great example of command, control and communications just five months after pearl harbor.
> 
>RF
> 
>From:Joe Connor [mailto:joeconnor53 at yahoo.com] 
>Sent: Tuesday, February 12, 2013 11:11 AM
>To: Ray Fantini; Military Surplus Mail List (milsurplus at mailman.qth.net)
>Subject: Re: [Milsurplus] Japan's Pearl Harbor Blunders?
> 
>Short-term, yes; long-term, no.
> 
>Yamamoto had traveled in the U.S. and understood our potential industrial might better than any other Japanese leader. He knew that he could run wild for the first six months of the war, before we could harness our industrial strength. He was understandably wary of "waking the sleeping giant." Therefore, he knew he needed a knock-out punch at Pearl Harbor. He scored a knock-down, not a knock-out.
> 
>The psychological effects of the attack are interesting, too. On the one hand, the sneak attack rallied the American people like nothing else could have done. On the other hand, it scared the crap out of our admirals. The resulting timidity cost us any chance to relieve or reinforce Wake Island and any chance to bring badly needed help to the Philippines.(By the time of Coral Sea and Midway, of course, Nimitz had gone a long way towards snapping the Navy out of its post-Pearl Harbor funk).
> 
> 
>                                Joe Connor
> 
>>
>>________________________________
>>
>>From:Ray Fantini <RAFANTINI at salisbury.edu>
>>To: "Military Surplus Mail List (milsurplus at mailman.qth.net)" <milsurplus at mailman.qth.net> 
>>Sent: Tuesday, February 12, 2013 10:15 AM
>>Subject: [Milsurplus] Japan's Pearl Harbor Blunders?
>>
>>
>>Within the context of war plan orange and the Japanese response to that plan along with the IJN love of the idea of the great decisive battle the attack on Pearl Harbor was both a tactical and strategic success. The key to orange was for the US pacific fleet to marshal, sail across the pacific, fight a decisive battle agents the IJN fleet with battleships and blockade the Japanese mainland. I know I left a lot out like relieving the Philippines but that's the short version. 
>>Prewar Japanese plans in response to orange committed IJN submarines and aircraft carriers to strike at the US fleet while it was in rout across the pacific but still counted on a decisive battle being fought by battleships for control of the home waters.
>>The attack on Pearl Harbor exceeded the Japanese requirements by removing US pacific fleet battleships as a factor.  The problem was that this was going to be a new war not fought with battleships but with aircraft carriers and the Kantai Kessen theory of decisive battles proved to be false with the war turning into a long hard fought event.
>>The attack on Pearl Harbor may be one of the most successful and well executed battles ever fought, true that long term strategic outcome was a disaster for japan, but that day in fulfilling prewar requirements the IJN hit the ball  out of the park.
>>
>>Ray F
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