How would you have avoided the attack on Pearl Harbor?

Except that time travel never works. I always end up in a nearby alternate universe.

 

Not so...they mearly create a new timeline...we stay in our old...

 

Or if you think of it as singular and rigid...then one could change the little things but not the big things, they will just keep happening a different way...

 

Omar was a wino.

 

I'd have word in the ear of my mate the emperor...

Sorry, what was the question again?

 

Well, it was that or take the cruise ship to Singapore. I hear that place is impregnable!

 

Me too. Spread them around and and don't keep a regular schedule.

How about a heavy use of torpedo nets and barrage balloons. Maybe that would have given the Japanese pause when their spies reported it.

 

My guess is that once the Japanese had made the decision to go to war with us, only moving the fleet back to the west coast would have made the attack seem too risky for the reward of sinking it.

 

I think that the attack in more western Asia was started by the Japanese some 1-2 hrs earlier? I think this should have alarmed all bases to an immediate attack possibility. Of course there has been all kinds of trouble "is it true" "No, it can´t be" but anyway. Even Stalin waited nearly 12 hrs if I recall correctly before giving an order for counter attack. Before that he forbid any hostilities against the Germans.

 

50 minutes or so. But how long will it take for word of the attack on Kota Bharu to work it's way up the British chain of command, then be passed to the US chain of command and disseminated to respective commands.

Still, look at how many hours advance warning MacArthur had...Then look at all the good he did with it.

Finally, the blow struck at Kota Bharu in no ways points to a blow at Pearl Harbor. Malaysia, in general, was an expected target, and the Americans and British had been keeping tabs on the Japanese since December 1/2. Pearl Harbor was never expected to be the target of a Japanese attack.

 

Would accepting the Hepburn Reports recommendations for the expansion of facilities at Guam have been enough? I'm not talking about going all out and building a "fully equipped fleet base" though. Expansion of airfields and building submarine facilities might have been enough. If you station even a small fleet of subs and have them out to sea along lines of communication to the Aleutians, Hawaii, PI etc, then the likelihood of surprise for Japan at PH drops. Of course Guam now becomes a larger target, but I would rather lose a small task force by invasion and a sub base than such a large portion of the Pacific Fleet.

 

Building bases is all well and good.

But where are you going to get the submarines, the aircraft, and all the US Army accoutrements for basing at Guam?

A small fleet of subs is not going to cut the mustard, nor will a a small air fleet - Simply look at all the PBYs Pearl had, and how little they could do with them.