Japanese planes at Pearl Harbor....

What if the planes had been identified Japanese in the first place. That would have given the huge time advantage of 50 minutes to prepare for the attack.

What could have happened then? Would the Japanese planes and the fleet be totally destroyed? Or at least the first wave?

http://www.historyplace.com/worldwar2/timeline/pearl.htm

 

Being that this was Hawaii, the weekend, and Peacetime there was only a skeleton crew at duty-stations.

Okay, acting from the premise that the junor officer manning the message center that morning was on top of his game, and had realized the approaching planes were hostile, being only a junior officer he would probaly attempted to contact a senior officer, who may have made the decision to alert the bases. Realisticly this would take 20 minutes before any action was taken. And before the dropp of the first bomb any reaction would have been sluggish.

Okay, given 30 minutes of practical allert, yes, there would have been a greater responce. Instead of the Japaese losing 59 aircrafy, they may have lost 120. The losses on the American part probably would have been about the same, though more aircraft would have gotten into the air.

 

Thanx for the answer Historian #6,

anyway, I might be wrong but wasn´t some sorta warning given to all the US bases after the discussions with the Japanese ended? I mean there should be some kinda plan how to react then even if it was weekend.