How would you have avoided the attack on Pearl Harbor?

Absolutely nothing wrong with it what so ever, but then far to common sense for a peacetime navy to do. Senator Blowhard from the Great State of Podunk " You mean to tell this commitee that you are just steaming around in the middle of nowhere so as to confuse some potential attacker? Do you think the Navy is just made of Money?"

 

If you really believe PH is threatened do you want to prevent an attack on it? Or just be prepaired to counter it? If that's the case starting shortly after the oil embargo ship additional radar, fighters, and AA guns to Hawaii. Some more long range search aircraft would be useful as well. Putting a line of subs out on picket duty might be useful as well. Furthermore exercise should be run that emphasise fighter direction control and quickly maning AA defences and coordination between that army and navy (perhaps an overall commander for the military in Hawaii).

If the Japanese attack PH especially a "sneak" attack then you have all you need for a well supported declaration of war. It really doesn't matter as far as that goes if the Japanese force that attacks gets crippled in the process.

 

The question then becomes how much of a "bang" would the Japanese have needed? There's also the question as to how the US would have percieved what the goals and intentions of the Japanese were.

If you prevent PH how much presure is going to be on the Navy to relieve the Philipines? Can they resist it or do we end up in even worse shape in early 42?

Back to your original post. I think that would have considerable impact. The only problem would be is if the Japanese picked up a pattern and acted on that. Or decided that there were enough valuable targets in Hawaii to go even if they might not catch the fleet.

 

... as you've pointed out, the key to projecting seapower is movement with purpose, ships move, when they do so they're doing their job. It's a strategic fundamental, even a ship out and unaccounted for retains a measure of offence, a ship accounted for in port loses much of its effectiveness, it becomes defensive. This was Kimmel's greatest failure, his deployments invited attack rather than deterrence. I would just add Singapore, Rangoon, Batavia and ...Hong Kong to your list, IF there was to be anything like a deterrent, to attacking what the Japanese really wanted. Of course, there were alternatives to attacking Pearl Harbor.



The 2 major bodies of naval war planning; the Japanese Naval General Staff and Combined Fleet, disagreed as to how to commence hostilities with the West. As is well known, Yamamoto, C.-in-C. Combined Fleet, familiar with the US after time spent there, advocated a preliminary strike on the USN at its PearlHarbor base, and his wishes prevailed.


However, Nagano, Chief of the IJN Naval General Staff had spent time in Washington as well. His plan was much more orthodox and cautious. He stayed firmly with the principle of maximum concentration of force, and striking southward to capture the oil areas of the Netherlands East Indies at outset of hostilities – the eventual goal of both plans. The seizure would be accomplished before the U.S. Pacific Fleet could interfere, and if it did come out to attack, the Japanese Fleet would intercept and destroy it in the western Pacific, what in effect it had been designed to do since the Washington Treaty had limited it to an unfavourable ratio vis-à-vis the USN.


Nagano was not a forceful character, certainly not in Yamamoto’s league but “what if” the Japanese strike south first…

 

... as well, tried to edit but was locked out twice. IF Kimmel was projecting sea power and the IJN, unable to predict when to get that "Big Bag" in Pearl Harbor, moved south as per Nagano, in all likelyhood US ship(s) in the area would become embroiled, and a US declaration of war would result.

What would be the result of any post-declaration clash between the IJN and USN/RN be? A greater US/RN loss than Pearl Harbor & Malaya?

 

I like the idea of spreading out the ships, but I think this is still a possibility:

If there was not a large fleet at Pearl Harbor, the Japanese likely would have still paid attention to it because there it was still a sizable US base. If they determined it is important enough to attack despite the US fleet being spread out, I think they may have placed an emphasis on knocking out the support infrastructure (mainly the dry docks, oil tanks and warehouses). I'm not an expert on this, but I say this would be more damaging than sinking the BBs.

If a good portion of the support infrastructure was completely destroyed, the USN would have effectively lost a major support base. With the loss of the support facilities at Pearl, US ships would have to go back to San Francisco for major refurbishment or repairs, which would reduce the size of the US fleet available in the combat zone.

What are you thoughts on this?

 

I"ve been having problems replying to this thread as well.

I took that as what they hoped for. My question is what would they have settled for? I certainly don't have a good idea. There's also the question of whether one of these squadrons you are moving around would be tempting enough bait and moving through an area where they could get enough intel to target it.

Indeed but there likely would be considerable public and political pressure to "do something". Likely the navy could have figured out something that wouldn't have hurt too much to loose. There's also the question of whether or not the Japanese then go for the Philipines hopeing to draw the US out or ignore the US all together hopeing they'll stay out of it. I don't know enough about the decision makers and politics to guess which way they would jump here.

That would probably do it as we're only talking a year or so. Your comments on the required fleet train are significant. If the USN started this in say August of 41 I would expect the need for a larger train to be pretty obvious by September. How soon could they do anything about this? One alternative could be the US stopping by friendly powers to resupply. New Zealand and the Dutch possessions as well as Australia and perhaps Singapore suggest themselves.

Note that when the IJN heads south it means that any fleet in that area is going to go to war alert and be less vulnerable to a premptive attack. They won't assume they are save like they did in Hawaii.

 

Interesting discussion, and this post by IWD is pretty close to my thinking on this. It really comes back to readiness,I think it was a threat that we could not conceive at that time.

 

References? What are you trying to do scare off the CT'ers?

 

Proponents for a third wave in the actual attack were turned down by Nagumo because he felt that, among other things, the American defenses would be more alert and could inflict serious casualties. For the sake of arguement, lets say that 3 or 4 battleships were in harbor on the day of the attack. The first wave of the attack concentrates on the heavy ships and the airfields. Nagumo/Yamamoto deem this strike to be enough to destroy the BBs, but there are still enough aircraft left for a second wave. I think that the Japanese still would have launched the second wave, and would have allocated at least one group of that wave aimed at the drydocks and oil stores. With the pacific fleet spread out, it would not pose much of a threat to the IJN until it joined together. With a good chunk of its tonnage at the bottom and (much more importantly in my opinion) its support base at Pearl knocked out, it would be very difficult to hold the Japanese at bay.

I know the paragraph above is bordering on "what if", but I don't think scattering the ships alone would have been enough to discourage an attack. Pearl was still a big target even without the American fleet. Alternatively, if Pearl Harbor was not attacked, what would the Japanese do to start the war? San Francisco is out of reach, while Manila isn't as important as Pearl.

These are just some thoughts - I welcome the opinions of those that know more about Pearl than I do.