80th anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor. (1 Viewer)

[Saintman2884]

Depending on the load out of the carriers, a couple of torps would have sunk one, but in a shallow harbor, you want to do more than sink them, you have to destroy their capabilities as an aircraft carrier. They wouldn't have to worry about any of the aircraft still on the carriers because they can't take off, but a lot of them would have flown in ahead of the carriers and there probably would have been a lot more air to air defense available, maybe. Battleships have thick hulls, so dive bombers there work best but you need them on the carriers as well to damage the flight deck. The reason the Arizona went up like it did was because of the magazine exploding. Yes, they probably would have continued to hit Pearl if the carriers were there, until nothing was left standing or floating. You could say that the threat of the carriers and not knowing their whereabouts was greater than any advantage of trying another wave of attacks.

Conspiracy theorists will say that the White House knew something was going to happen and that was why the carriers were conspicuously absent at just the right time. The White House needed American outrage in order to enter the war. If we waited too long and the British fell, we would have been up against Germany and Japan all by ourselves.

Actually, for most American historians and/or WWII historians, its sort of common knowledge that most senior-level American military intelligence heads and operatives knew a large, wide-scale theater wide attack was likely, if not highly probable. But they were divided about just where it would happen first and where would our forces stationed in the Pacific would be hit the hardest. The War Department drew up a controversial war plan in the 1930's called Orange that eerily sort of imagined what any Japanese air and naval attack would resemble, how large and concentrated it would be, specific . economic and or military factors might force or drive the Japanese military machine into a sneak attack on targets in places like Guam, Phillipines, and yes even, our huge large naval base at Pearl Harbor. The war plan sort of predicts the scale, unprececented scope, the severity of damage likely wed suffer to heavy cruisers, docking destroyers, planes, oil drums and tankers, airfields, even attacking Honolulu.

 

[Goatman Saint]

Yeah, had the carriers been there, a 3rd run would have been a forgone conclusion. But something I wonder, on the first run, do they hit the carriers first or the battleships? And I wonder how many torpedoes would they have needed to sink a carrier as opposed to the other ships.

The carrier would’ve been high on the last, however, at that time carriers were not viewed to the level they would become. The large scale carrier warfare we saw in the Pacific was developed more so by Japan, as the 6 big carriers wrecked havoc in the pacific until Midway. The US had to develop their carrier tactics to counter Japan as that was really the only effective force the US had in the Pacific until the fast battleships started appearing, but by then, they were in a secondary position.

In December 1941, the battleships Washington and North Carolina were working up, the 4 units of the South Dakota class were already launched and the iowas were being laid down. 6 modern battleships in the process of fitting out while it was Sept 1940 when the first 3 Essex carriers authorized. The huge Essex buildup and orders came after Pearl Harbor. To me at least, proof that the US was planning on fighting a gun war in the beginning until forced by Japanese tactics.

As far as the third wave, Nagumo was generally a very cautious leader. If I remember it was the air commander that wanted to go again and hit the fuel storage and repair facilities, but Nagumo felt it was too big of a risk. Lucky for the US as that would’ve dealt severe damage to the US ability in the early war, and if the Kido Butai would’ve came across a US carrier at that point in the war it would’ve destroyed any US carrier it met as the Japanese air wing was trained far beyond the US navy in the early war.

My great uncle was killed on the Arizona, and my grandmas brothers, the two who served in the Pacific, were so messed up by it that they were never right the rest of their lives. It’s because of those two that I have such a foul taste in my mouth about the overly happy and eager use of our military by our politicians.

 

[saintmdterps]

Let's not forget this man. In a discussion of fleets and tactics, his individual heroism stood out. Because he was black he was never even trained to fire an AA gun, and yet shot down between one and four Japanese planes from the USS West Virginia as it was slowly sinking.

Dorie Miller, Hero of World War II

Dorie Miller was a messman but responded heroically when the battleship, USS West Virginia, was attacked at Pearl Harbor.

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