War Topic: what would YOU have done re Pearl Harbor?
 

There was a recent discussion here about an historian on PBS and his ideas regarding what the IJN was going to do. Along with a suggestion that they invade Hawaii, etc, and the suggestion that they hold it in order to cause the US to beg for peace.

Now, all the political discussions aside, if YOU were in charge of the Japanese fleet, and committed to making the first stike on Pearl, how would YOU have followed-up on that attack, i.e., send in another wave of bombers, send in an invasion force, take over Midway (or invade/hold Midway AND Hawaii)?

So as a strategy game, how would YOU have brought the US Navy to it's knees? Remember, the first strike already took place - you're committed now to either win greatly, or die in an atomic fireball.

No pressure.

I think Japan would have had they found the AMerican carriers. THe fact that they didn't at the time of the attack probably made them a little leary about hanging around waiting for them to counter attack.

I think what we had here was a classic case of fog of war.

-S

Never would of happen even if it went all Japans way, America would recover and fight back.

That would be true. Most of the US is a proud nation so I doubt that would even happen today, given more equal military terms such as found back then.

-S

Good point - as I run this scene in my head, I see Japan sending in an invasion force to take Hawaii, and another force taking Midway, securing their ports and bases for use by the IJN. Using them as a base, the only thing the US would have left would be to use carriers to transport planes into the battlefield to try to take Hawaii back.

My point was that it would have been 10 times harder for the US to recover had Hawaii been taken and held.

I agree with you, however, that the US would have never begged for peace. It just would have taken much longer (I think) for the US to have won the war in the Pacific had they lost Hawaii from the get-go.

Well the Nihon Kaigun site has a good article explaining why it would have been almost impossible for Japan to put together a force to invade Hawaii.


http://www.combinedfleet.com/pearlops.htm

Probably no matter what Japan would have or could have done, in the end the constant shifting of balance in favour of the immense industrial potential of the US would have decided it all against japan. I am sure that JDR was convinced to win it from the very beginning. For those Japanese knowing America, it must have been clear from the beginning that they were starting a desperate fight for pure survival. In the movie "Tora Tora Tora", Yamato is presented as a commander who knew this very well. Without trying to brake the American strangling of Japan's need for oil, it also would have been a desperate situation for Japan. So they were damned when striking Pearl, and were damned if not striking Pearl.

I belong to those people thinking that JDR knew all this very well, and saw this as the needed key event to get the war-antipathic US (the population) into the war in Europe, which until Pearl Harbour was no popular option.

What I would have done as Japanese commander after the strike on Pearl? The movie paints it like the commander wanting to preserve the Japanese fleet for the war that just had been launched by hurting the awakling giant. In principle that was right, and there was not much meaning in going to possess Hawai, strategically, it would have left the Japanese wih too much space and too long supply lines to cover, imo. But i would have stayed a while in the region, trying to find and sink the missing carriers, before heading West again.

Thanks for that link, very interesting read.

Based on the information I just read, Japan seemed to have jumped the gun, starting this war a tad too soon, then, since they didn't have the resources to subdue and hold Hawaii.

As an alternative, a carrier could have been stationed near enough to launch an occasional attack on Pearl during the repair process, keeping the base unusable for the US. Failing that, it seems they sealed their own fate when they attacked, and then left us to repair, rebuild, and come back at them.

My main question though, is what could have been done differently, i.e, wait a few more months until an invasion COULD have been made, etc? I realize that the further out the IJN extended itself from home base, the more difficult it is to hold on to stuff.

I'd agree with that tactic. There's not a lot of bases in the Pacific, so carriers were the most important thing out there. Losing them would be costly. Perhaps Silent Hunter X will have the option to make it go either way, unless there's already a game out there that does this.

Were the Japanese so full of themselves to think they could win a war against America? I don't think so, there aim was to deliver a blow that would slow down there entry in to the war and full offensive operations but bad luck hit Japan at Peal as the American carriers were at sea and at Midway even more bad luck.

It seems to me the Japanese wanted to dig in hard on what they captured and after some bitter fighting and heavy loses to America they would sit down and draw up some treaty, granted that is a what if scenario. From the American point of view there would be no such thing and they would fight on and defeat Japan which attacked them and started the war.

This may be a bit OT, but I thought I'd share it with you...

My grandfather, who is 93 and in excellent shape, was a Radioman 2nd class on a DE with the carrier group that was returning to Pearl. I asked him when I saw him last year, "Why were the carriers late in getting to Pearl?" I've always been curious about this...

He said that they had hit some heavy weather and reduced speed because some of the smaller vessels were not making headway. The task force slowed appreciably, I can't remember the exact speed he told me, and hence were a day late in returning to Pearl.

He said as they steamed into the harbor that the men stood dumbfounded at the railings, staring at the carnage, not a word was spoken...

My Grandfather then told me, it was like everyone became of one mind, one resolve... The Japanese were going to get a pay back...

Adm Yamamoto said in his personal notes that he expected the IJN to "run free" through the Pacific for maybe two years, then the American forces would start to take control and eventually defeat them.

the IJN made a fatal mistake they should have remained in place off pearl harbour untill they got the carriers they came for the carrier force commander made this mistake and it cost japan the war maybe an invasion of the island would have achieve similar results but it wasnt a time for half measures

Rig ship for dive, and the USS SUBSIM sails for Tokyo, fisticuffs may ensue.

Ah, I've no idea what I'd do, if I ended up in US command something would have had gone dreadfully wrong along the line :)

It was not really a mistake of the Japanese: their plan intended to kill the battleships, heavy cruisers and carriers indeed. It's just that luck plays a role in war, and the carriers shortly before had left the harbour, and their return was delayed, which saved them from being in place when the Japanese hammer fell down. The Japanese expected them to be there, and planned to kill them, but had no chance to know of the carriers having left shortly before. there were several occaisons were bad luck and coincidence massively messed up the war from a Japanese perspective, especially during Midway and the way in which the Japanese carriers got lost. Several air attack waves of the americans went very badly before, and costed the Navy alost all participating airplanes withoiut sinking a single destroyer, and then all changed completely within just three minutes due to the constant changing of armament of the Japanese planes wich led to all that explosives on deck when by random chance (more or less) a new wave of bombers arrived, and destroyed three? four? carriers. A chain of extremly unlucky coincidences (from a Japanese perspective, for it meant the turning point in the war).

I don't know, to my mind the big thing is getting the troops needed to do the job. Japan could not run a land war in Asia, especially China, watch the Red Bear (still a worry from my reading both the USSR and Japan kept forces in the Far East despite the Non-aggression pact). The Army refused troops for a Navy idea to invade Australia.

If we look at the big picture, the sanctions being imposed on Japan by America - which to some extent forced their hand into military action against the US - could really only have meant one thing: The Japanese had to deliver a knockout blow to the US military's ability to wage war across the Pacific, therefore, the carriers had to be the primary target, which of course they were supposed to be. This really was the only chance for Japan to force an agreeable settlement from the US with regard to America's trade embargo and blockading efforts on them.

With the massive industrial base that the US was able to muster, victory in a protracted war was of course a near certainty for the US, although it was certainly going to cost many lives too.

So, if we were doing it all again for the Land of the Rising Sun, then a follow up attack on the carriers (or better intelligence so the first attack hit them) would be the way to go, the threat of further action on the US mainland being all that would be necessary for a favourable negotiation and an end to the conflict before the US could start churning out B-29s at the rate of one every three hours, or whatever it was they managed by 1945 (something close to that I seem to recall).

And here's one for all you fascinating fact fans: The guy who planned the attack on Pearl Harbor - General Minoru Genda - visited California in 1959 to test fly the Lockheed F-104 Starfighter, as Japan were considering it for the soon to be formed Japanese Self Defence Force (i.e. the 'no, we're not going to attack anyone force'). Japan subsequently bought the Starfighter, and it was produced under license by Mitsubishi in 1960, yup, the same company that built the A6M Zero-Sen fighter that took part in the Pearl Harbor attack. This following, Genda's rcommendation that the F-104 was 'The best fighter in the world'. As a result, Genda was awarded the United States Air Force Legion of Merit! Just shows you what a bit of business can do for things, doesn't it?

:D Chock

Off topic, but I have to:

I once heard a lecturer state that Japan's biggest mistake was in not investigating the American character enough. He pointed out all the movies (actually only one, I think) in which a Japanese leader of one sort or another says "Yes, I attended the university at Berkeley (Yale, Harvard, fill-in-the-blank) and Americans are soft and eager to please."

He then pointed out that if they had visited someplace like Georgia or Alabama, "Where people keep their relatives chained up in the basement", they might have thought twice before attacking us.:rotfl:

Just taking out the fuel dumps at Pearl would have been a cost efficient way to increase the impact the attack had on the US Navy...

i might have sailed the entire strike force into the entrance of Pearl harbour...scuttled the fleet.....then surrendered/negotiated for peace... hoping that that utterly bizaare act might have had some sort of impact on the world stage...course it might have helped if the damn declaration of war had arrived on time ...

Even if the IJN had destroyed every ship in the American fleet, they would have still had a hard time with the out-dated IJA.

I would have just spent more time consolidating and/or expanding the territory gains in
the west if I had only military motivations.


It didn't?

My info source is totally unreliable, but it informed me that the declaration was sent and arrived in the USA
before the attack, but did not arrive in Washington and was not translated and read until after the attack had started.
Is there any truth in this?