USN leaves Hawaii undefended

According to this English documentary series(German subtitles?), American admirals and naval experts/historians claim that had the Japanese planned the attack differently, they could/would have forced the US Pacific Fleet to withdraw from Pearl Harbour back to San Francisco leaving Hawaii 'undefended'.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=599oByAMyek&mode=related&search=

This might be applicable to the 'what if' room as well?

 

Yeah sorry, should mention it's only the 1st of 8 or so tube sections of the documentary?

You can view all the rest in order by paying attention to the 'related' list to the right, just make sure you view them in order.

1-1, 1-2, 1-3, 1-4, 1-5
then
2-1, 2-2, 2-3, 2-4, 2-5

for example.

You might be surprised what just the American historians think about how wrong we've been about history so far.

btw
in another forum, someome brought up a great point
where the critics claim they couldn't get the same rooster splash from the propellor
but neither from the airborne torpedo splash
the same qualification that they 'might' if they used salt water for the test could be applied to the original 'rooster' theory.

and someone else pointed out that it is very possible that no-one would notice a that small conning tower there since eyes and attention would be on the air attack
interesting point

fascinating program showing just how wrong our history books have been to date.

still wonder what happened to that 5th one?
ive asked Japanese friends to search Japanese language online and so far nothing

 

Hey Dash
Yes, definately good program.
Not what we learnt or taught in our history texts, true.
Fascinating revelations, took a while to sit through them all. I must've missed these things when they were on TV. Do have the channel at school.
I tend to agree about the mini-sub firing 2.
Just copied over submarine history series on Italian and British successes too. But didn't mention this stuff. Wonder if he's in trouble for copy-right reproduction? Great program, thanks.
Oh, right, yeah, absolutely agree. They would have done much better with the other plan. Could have changed everything.

 

Yes, excellent program! It made for some fine viewing.

 

I'll check out the video but I seriously doubt the US would have ever voluntarily given up the Hawaiian islands. There were a lot of better, face-saving options than that.

 

Without seeing any of the above, I cannot comment on it specifically, but it is well known that had the carriers been taken out, or particularly if they repair facilities and/or fuel storage been taken out, we would have moved fleet operations to San Diego. Only a token force would have been left on the islands. Even though they decided to continue to use Pearl, it was a close decision at the time.

 

I doubt that the US would have abandoned Hawaii as a naval and military base under any reasonable circumstance that could have been had from a Japanese strike on the islands. Even if the repair facilities and other logistics systems for the fleet were attacked they would largely have survived. The US Navy would have been loath to just give up any ships damaged or sunk that could be repaired. The US Army, which had significant strength on Oahu, would have no reason to just pull up stakes and leave either.
While damage to the fuel storage and repair facilities would have had some effect on operations these would have been short term at best. The loss of one or more carriers might have had an effect on early US offensive planning but, again, in the long term its effect was minimal. I can see the US in worst case scenarios going through with their merchant / liner carrier conversions that were already planned for as a stop-gap until the new Essex class was available.
On the whole, attacking Pearl Harbor was going to be nothing but a tactical success for the Japanese.

 

I have heard that the (one of the) original Japanese plans was to incompacitate the U.S. Fleet in Hawaii (Battleships/Carriers), then leave (never hoped to invade/take it) and then...take/occupy Midway on the way back from Pearl.
Meeting another invasion fleet there. We all know they had the ships/troops to do it, and we were in no shape to support/reinforce.
Had they done this, taken, occupied, reinforced, made into a staging area, supply area, strongpoint, sub base, search nexus...a different attitude, strategy, sense of security, and perhaps war/time frame/result would have occured.
I'm glad they ran home to gloat before smarter people suggested thinking about the long haul.