Quote:
Originally Posted by Admiral Halsey
Ok and new the latest scenario for you guys to ponder over.(This one is sort of cliched but i've yet to see an alternate history where this was the PoD.) The date is December, 7th and Private Joseph L. Lockard and Private George Elliot are on duty at the Opana Radar Site. They're heading for breakfast soon when at 7:02 am something big starts to appear on the radar set. They inform Lt. Kermit Tyler who tells them not to worry as it's just a flight of B-17's coming from the mainland but they both insist it's way to big for it to be them. After some convincing Kermit comes and checks it out at 7:30 am where upon seeing the size of the blip realizes that they were right and sounds the alarm. Now considering the time the alarm is raised what effect if any does this have on the attack?
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So, saying Kermit raises the alarm at around 7:30-7:35, that's approximately 23-18 minutes before Fuchida signals Totsugeki raigeki. I'd say that any warning would be negligible, if indeed it got to Pearl Harbor before the Japanese did which is extremely debatable. The US was still mostly on a peace-time footing and as such communications weren't as fast as they would become in war-time later, so perhaps it might have arrived at the same time as the Japanese declaration of war...
So, not a great deal really, IMHO at least. Perhaps a similar outcome to when Iba Field radar reported the Japanese raid incoming on Clark Field over an hour before they arrived, and yet the Japanese still managed to achieve tactical surprise.