Pearl Harbor What if?

[IRISH]

All right, I need the experts of this forum to give me their opinions.

What if Admiral Kimmel and General Short had listened to Lt Col. Mollison and taken his comment seriously. Had they put Pearl on full alert, sent the Lexington and Enterprise as they had to reinforce Midway and Wake.

What could have been done to counter attack or defend? Give me your thoughts!

IRISH

Revision & Clarification:

If Lt Col Mollison's remark made a point and McMorris had not ruled it out what do you think the out come might have been if the following steps were taken.
1. Air and Navy aircraft were placed on alert with crews ready to man their planes on 1 hour notice.
2. The BBs were sitting ducks, Halsey made the statement when asked if he wanted the to take the BBs with him. But had the been on a higher level of readiness. Oklahoma may not have capsized?, California may have had her water tight doors secured.....
3. AA guns would have been manned quicker.

It was Nagumo who realized he lost 2/3s of his aircraft in the second wave due to a more effictive AA.

That given, if the Navy had put in place a wider search plane pattern, had the radar and Ward attack been report right away and received a higher reaction due to a step up in security. Fighters are scrambled and AA guns are manned.

Granted that the Japanese pilots are more experienced, but Talyor and Welch got 6 kills between them, 4 others were shot down as well. Had there been more aircraft to meet the Japanese I can't help but think there could have been some difference.

IRISH

[groundlber]

My father was assigned to a destroyer at Pearl Harbor, but was ashore at church services when the Japanese attacked. He said that if the Pacific Fleet had sortied before the attack, the Navy would have lost just as many ships and even more men. In addition, the ships would have been sunk in hundreds or thousands of feet of water
instead of tens of feet. So any ships sunk would be lost forever.
The Army Air Forces would have been outclassed by the Japanese, both in aircraft and pilot experience. I don't think they would have had any better chance of success than the Navy.
Just my (and my late father's) opinion.
Groundlber

[Mk 1]

I guess the key to building this case scenario is what do we mean by "What if Admiral Kimmel and General Short had listened to Lt. Col. Mollison"? How much and how specific do we presume that warning would have been?

Here is what little I know about this "warning". At a meeting on November 27 between Kimmel, Short, and both staffs, Mollison expressed concern over the plan to have the Army assume command of the defenses of Wake and Midway islands. He suggested this would divert aircraft from the defense of Hawaii and Pearl Harbor. When asked by Kimmel if he thought the Japanese could actually attack Pearl, he said he did. Kimmel's chief of war plans, Captain McMorris, replied that he felt there was no chance at all of a Japanese attack on Pearl. Kimmel, ever the cautious peace-time commander, chose to compromise, and cut the planned diversion of aircraft by 50%.

I have never read/heard of Mollison providing any specific warning, only a general suggestion of risk. As it was, that risk was appreciated well enough to keep Pearl surrounded by Army Air Corps fields full of fighters, and both Army and Navy fields full of long-range search aircraft (Catalinas for the Navy, Bolos and Flying Fortresses for the Army). It was also appreciated well enough that a few of the Army's brand new, newfangled and poorly understood radar stations were established to keep watch over Pearl.

None of that succeeded in giving sufficient warning of the inbound attack.

OK, so what changes if the two general officers "listened"? I say best case there are a few more planes on Oahu to get caught on the ground on December 7. Worst case one or both of the carriers are in port, and are caught and mangled in the attack.

As it was, the only battleship that was fully lost as a result of the Pearl Harbor attack was the Arizona. The others, all of them that were considered worthwhile for combat, were recovered and refurbished. None of the battlships in Pearl were fast enough to operate with carriers, though, so they all were religated to shore-bombardment duties while the newer classes sailed in the fleet strike forces in case of surface action (which was rare enough in any case). So even if one or both carriers had been at Pearl, they would likely have been salvaged after the attack. But still, it would have delayed the Navy's reactions, and might have affected operations throughout 1942 and early 1943.

If somehow there had been enough warning of a specific nature, so that the scout planes (and submarines) had been looking to the North of Hawaii, and had spotted the Japanese at near the extreme range of their scouting (only reached by the Japanese on the morning of December 7), or had been at a high enough alert to actually react to the radar warnings that were so casually dismissed that morning, the results would probably have been an even greater disaster. Because either case would only have allowed between one and two hour's warning at best.

Steam powered ships take time to become mobile. If the fleet had been caught just as it sortied, the results would have been more fully-manned capital ships being sunk in deeper waters (as it was, only Arizona had the main part of its crew aboard, and most of the "sunk" battleships barely had their decks awash by the time they were settled in the mud). And the greatest risk of all, a capital ship being sunk in the harbor channel, might well have been realized, thus crippling the Navy's single greatest anchorage in the mid-Pacific until salvage operations could be conducted.

Could the Army have repelled the attack? More likely the majority of the defensive aircraft would have been caught manning, taxiing, taking-off, or climbing out. There was no aircraft in the US inventory that could fight against a well-handled Zero from a severe energy dis-advantage, which is what they would have had. Sure, some would have made it to altitude, and probably more Japanese planes would have been shot down, but the toll would have still be lop-sided, and the US would have lost not just planes but pilots too.

As it was, the only warning that could have benefited the US would have been specfics of fleet size, strength, location, and speed, received two or more days in advance. At that point the USN might have sortied a fully prepared battle fleet. That fleet would hardly have been an equal to the Kido Butai, but as at Midway, knowing your enemy's plan is a substantial force multiplier. Still we were not yet at war with Japan, so what would that fleet have done?

My father was assigned to a destroyer at Pearl Harbor, but was ashore at church services when the Japanese attacked. He said that if the Pacific Fleet had sortied before the attack, the Navy would have lost just as many ships and even more men. In addition, the ships would have been sunk in hundreds or thousands of feet of water instead of tens of feet. So any ships sunk would be lost forever.

I don't know what your father's rank was on that destroyer, but he displayed a very well rounded "10,000 foot view" on an event that me must have witnessed from ground level. A very perceptive man, I would say.

[av8rmongo]

Mk 1,

Come on, you can do better than that. When our hosts offer the ultimate What-if (WM '47) why are we trying to inject actual reality.

If the What-If is:

What if Admiral Kimmel and General Short had listened to Lt Col. Mollison and taken his comment seriously. Had they put Pearl on full alert, sent the Lexington and Enterprise as they had to reinforce Midway and Wake.

Then I think we can deal with it as offered. I don't disagree with anything you've said but what you've said conditionalizes the alert posture based on relevant historical records. So suspend reality for a moment. We agree there was little reason for them to do it but what if they did. What if that one comment sparked a revelation and caused them to take a radical departure from our reality?

If you're on a full alert then I don't think there is any reason to have ships in Pearl unless its the odd ship in for refueling replenishing stores or whatever. If the ships are not in Pearl, and the spies/sympathizers would have known this and communicated it would the attack have happened at all? The whole Mahanian concept was to strike a decisive blow against the US. It wouldn't have mattered if that was in port or at sea but a fleet is harder to find at sea. Would they have taken the time to search?

If the attack doesn't happen then what? It seems clear the Japanese couldn't, or at least didn't feel they could, tolerate the ploitical/economic conditions the US placed on them. Would they try again later or press home the attack no matter what? Could they count on achieving such secrecy again? What-if they decide to delay but their forces are discovered while "resetting"? Would that have been enough of a provocation for the US to declare war? And then what is the outcome? Does the US sail boldly out to combat the Japanese secure in the knowledge of our tactical superiority and give the Japanese fleet the decisive battle they hoped for - since Mahan was pretty influential on our side as well. Lots of options.

I further agree that pilot for pilot the Japanese were better at that stage of the "war" and losses would have been one-sided but in the "full alert" scenario I don't think you suffer anywhere near as many losses on the ground and quantity has a quality of its own if (I can paraphrase). Which would further reduce the effectiveness of the Japanese attack.

Overall, I think it would make an interesting game. Maybe an interesting PBEM campaign given the political dimension needed to determine what path to follow.

Paul

[chrisswim]

As it was, the only battleship that was fully lost as a result of the Pearl Harbor attack was the Arizona. The others, all of them that were considered worthwhile for combat, were recovered and refurbished.

As I recall the Oklahoma is on the bottom of the ocean. It rolled over at Pearl, righted & floated, towed and then sank.

[voltigeur]

I have spent many lonely moments with nothing to do thinking about how Pearl could have gone differently. I have to say that no matter what you change unless you get either submarines or bombers over the Japanese carriers you change nothing of any significance.

Whether you believe it was fortune or by design the US Navy emerged with its most effective weapons intact and an almost new navy. Even on old hulls Pearl Harbor survivors were upgraded with new weapons configurations that made them more ready for the combat of WW2.

The other part of the intellectual exercise is if you did manage to strike the carriers and sink 2 or 3 (a disaster for the Japanese) then would America have put the effort in to World War 2 as a whole? If the war could have been won at sea in the Pacific with just a transfer of ships from the Atlantic, a much smaller building program and no perceived threat to our existence an American victory could have actually hurt the overall war effort.

Talking to many people who were alive at the time they all say without exception that Pearl Harbor motivated the entire war effort. The defeat drove home to all Americans (including those that were pro Nazi and pacifist) that this was a fight for national survival and nothing would stop an all out effort.

If the Army Air Force and navy had managed to sink 3 of the 5 Japanese carriers and maul their air wings it is possible the US would not have made the commitment that it did.

[TAMMY]

May I suggest this scenario.

The Japanese fleet remain undetected.

The US carriers are out for Midway and Wake

The US battleships leave Paerl Harbour on 6/12 unknown to the Japanese, so their attack is launched the same.

The Japanese p'lanes found some covering air patrol on Pearl Harbour opposing the attack. This opposition may icause some delay to the Japanese but would not stop the attack.

Having no naval targets the Japanese planes bombard the harbour installations with heavy damages to them. The planes will have more losses than historically but how many? Then they will return to their ships and go back to Japan.

The above because I think that the chance of the battleships to attack the Japanese fleet was practically zero. The same for an air counter attack as the fleet had not benn detected.

The heavy damages to the installations would have put out Pearl Harbour as a base forcing the US fleet to wothdraw to the West Coast.

All in all it may be a worst result than the historical one.

[Mk 1]

As it was, the only battleship that was fully lost as a result of the Pearl Harbor attack was the Arizona. The others, all of them that were considered worthwhile for combat, were recovered and refurbished.

As I recall the Oklahoma is on the bottom of the ocean. It rolled over at Pearl, righted & floated, towed and then sank.

I claim no particular expertise on naval matters so could well be wrong, but as I recall the OK was indeed re-floated, repaired to the point of being seaworthy, but then determined to be un-battleworthy, struck from the list, stripped and left to rot. It was not so much that she could not be returned to service, but that it was not deamed worthwhile upgrading her to "modern" standards. Not a cost factor (money was almost no consideration), but a waist of shipyard space that could have otherwise been working on ships that the navy could use.

It was post-war, while she was being towed to the breaker's yard, that she sank.

I have spent many lonely moments with nothing to do thinking about how Pearl could have gone differently. I have to say that no matter what you change unless you get either submarines or bombers over the Japanese carriers you change nothing of any significance.

Agree.

It is extremely difficult for a peacetime military to protect itself from a determined sneak attack by a military that is already on a war footing. This was one of the key lessons taken from the Pearl Harbor experience. It affected the entire USAF and USN approaches to the cold war era and continental defense. Yet even with 20 or 30 years of learning, there were still numerous drill events that uncovered how unlikely it was/is that a peacetime military would respond effectively to a sneak attack. The attitudes of peace (both psychologically for the individual, and bureaucratically for organizations) are simply too different from the attitudes of wartime.

The other part of the intellectual exercise is if you did manage to strike the carriers and sink 2 or 3 (a disaster for the Japanese) then would America have put the effort in to World War 2 as a whole? If the war could have been won at sea in the Pacific with just a transfer of ships from the Atlantic, a much smaller building program and no perceived threat to our existence an American victory could have actually hurt the overall war effort.

Ah, but the Naval building program was started in 1940, and well underway by the time of Pearl. All of those world-beating ships, the Ess-e-x class carriers, the SoDak and the Iowa Battleships, the Baltimore, Atlanta and Cleaveland cruisers, and destroyers by the bushel basket that started appearing in the fleet in 1943 would be there anyways, quite regardless of what happened at Pearl Harbor.

If you look at the US Government war planning documents, it is really quite remarkable how clear-minded the Army, Navy, and Roosevelt administrations were about what was coming, and what the US role would be. For example, in mid-1941 Roosevelt called a Joint Board of the US Army and US Navy to prepare what was called the US VIctory Plan 1941. The plan was completed and presented to the President in September of 1941 (ie: 3 months before Pearl Harbor). In it, the US Navy requirements are listed as:

Type:................Built.................Building........Add'l Req'd
BB........................15....................17......................0
CV..........................6....................12......................6
CB..........................0......................6......................4
CA........................18......................8......................0
CL........................19....................40....................16
DD.....................170..................194....................80

In addition to these combat units a total of 1,100 coastal and utility craft were already building by that time.

Clearly the USN was going to be a thoroughly modern monster by 1943, no matter what happened at Pearl.

Talking to many people who were alive at the time they all say without exception that Pearl Harbor motivated the entire war effort. The defeat drove home to all Americans (including those that were pro Nazi and pacifist) that this was a fight for national survival and nothing would stop an all out effort.

I agree that Pearl Harbor was a rallying point for US public opinion. But the very fact that the Japanese attacked would probably have been enough to drive that issue forth in the US political scene. We might not have seen young men lined up around the block to enlist the next morning, but even if the US had achieved a victory on December 7, there would still have been a war, and the US would still have built the mightiest military in the world to win that war.

[voltigeur]

the fleet in 1943 would be there anyways, quite regardless of what happened at Pearl Harbor.

I'll have to concede to those who have done more research than I have on that point.

and the US would still have built the mightiest military in the world to win that war.

In numbers yes I agree. The Army started its run-up to war in 39. I agree that the US was not as weak as the high school history books have suggested. I don't disagree that we would have won WW2 when we entered.

I don't take an adamant position on US public opinion; it seems from what I read to be as fickle then as it is now. I do think overall the public would have backed the war. There were however before Pearl Harbor large pacifist movements and many Nazi sympathizers. Those movements vanished immediately when Pearl was attacked.

The really big loser at Pearl was Hitler. Roosevelt was inching us into the war and not getting much traction with public opinion. The environment changed from reluctance to the acceptance of rationing and long hours in the factory not to mention some guys committing suicide because they were not accepted in the military.

Again just an interesting talking point.

[TAMMY]

[/quote]The really big loser at Pearl was Hitler.

You forget that was Hitlker, immediately followed by Mussolini, to declare war to USA on Dcember 11, not vice versa.

I would not be so sure that Roosevelt wuld hsve declared war to Germany at the same time as to Japan. More probably he would have continued his support to UK without a state of war with Germany at least till the situation with Japan woul stabilise.

This probably means not before Midway.

[IRISH]

This is going off course, I would like the opinions of what the outcome might have been had the following happened:

Revision & Clarification:

If Lt Col Mollison's remark made a point and McMorris had not ruled it out what do you think the out come might have been if the following steps were taken.
1. Air and Navy aircraft were placed on alert with crews ready to man their planes on 1 hour notice.
2. The BBs were sitting ducks, Halsey made the statement when asked if he wanted the to take the BBs with him. But had the been on a higher level of readiness. Oklahoma may not have capsized?, California may have had her water tight doors secured.....
3. AA guns would have been manned quicker.

It was Nagumo who realized he lost 2/3s of his aircraft in the second wave due to a more effictive AA.

That given, if the Navy had put in place a wider search plane pattern, had the radar and Ward attack been report right away and received a higher reaction due to a step up in security. Fighters are scrambled and AA guns are manned.

Granted that the Japanese pilots are more experienced, but Talyor and Welch got 6 kills between them, 4 others were shot down as well. Had there been more aircraft to meet the Japanese I can't help but think there could have been some difference.

IRISH

[Mk 1]

Revision & Clarification:

Ah good. Now we have some specific changes to the actual history to consider.

If ... the following steps were taken.
1. Air and Navy aircraft were placed on alert with crews ready to man their planes on 1 hour notice.
2. The BBs were sitting ducks, Halsey made the statement when asked if he wanted the to take the BBs with him. But had the been on a higher level of readiness. Oklahoma may not have capsized?, California may have had her water tight doors secured.....
3. AA guns would have been manned quicker.
...
That given, if the Navy had put in place a wider search plane pattern, had the radar and Ward attack been report right away and received a higher reaction due to a step up in security. Fighters are scrambled and AA guns are manned.

OK, so we presume that the carriers were still out on their errands, but the battlefleet was still in port. Weekend liberties were curtailed, and watches were well attended. By whatever means (still not clear that the radar reports of the Ward's actions would have been digested in time, but assuming they are) the alarm goes up in time to man the guns and scramble the fighters. A good scenario for consideration!

I would expect higher casualties among the Kido Butai's airfleet. Substantially higher.

I would also expect that the attacks would still get through. The first wave would decimate the airfields, and the US fighter opposition to the second wave would be substantially less than the first. Still probably more than it was in actual history, though.

The battleships would still have been torpedoed. That attack was un-expected. No alert would have driven the navy to rig anti-torpedo nets in harbor. There were enough Kates to do the job, and torpedoing moored ships, once the depth of the torpedoes had been managed, was like shooting fish in a barrel. The level bombing of the inner ships on the row, though, would probably have suffered greatly. Those Kates had to fly as straight and as slow as the torpedo bombers, but for a longer run, at the optimum altitude for AA fire and fighter interceptions. They did shocking amounts of damage (including blowing up the Airzona) for a relatively small number of planes. I expect they would have been largely mitigated by an active defense. So instead of all the moored battleships getting whacked, only half would have, and the other 3 or 4 would have been fit for duty in 1942 rather than in 1943.

In the meantime the Japanese would have lost a proportion of their strike force that was more similar to what was lost in successful sea engagements (like Coral Sea). Not a crippling loss, but one that would further limit their abilities in the first half of 1942. Oddly, it might have had the effect of waking them up to the need to expand/accelerate their naval aviation training program at a time when they could still do something about it, making them a tougher nut to crack in late 1943 / early 1944.

I guess one wildcard is the question of whether Kido Butai would have been found. But even there I don't think there is much potential to make a big change to history. I think there is very little chance of pre-strike discovery, as both the US Navy and Army did not anticipate an approach from the north, and would have focussed their search patterns to the west and south-west. BUT ... it was entirely possible (and doctrinal) that an alert air defense would have followed the first or second strike waves back to the fleet, and so discovered it. By that time there would have been little left to assemble in terms of a strike package, but still we could expect some number of B-17s, B-18s, and A-20s to make the trip, and some of the SBDs at Pearl might have been sent along. The likelyhood of even one hit would be diminishingly small.

As it was the two US carriers were in no position (aircraft and ordnance-wise) to launch strikes. But if they had been at a higher alert status, maybe their aircraft delivery missions would have been different, and more ordnance would have been carried? They could have been moved to an intercepting position, but I shudder to think how a fleet engagement would have played out at that point. Cruisers and destroyers did in fact sortie from Pearl, but in actual history had no idea where to go to find the Japanese. If they knew where to go, they would have, although to what positive end I can not imagine. The battleships, even if alive and well, were too slow to catch anything but an injured straggler from Kido Butai, and I don't know how any substantial injury could have been inflicted. The most likely outcome of an aggressive USN reaction would have been several ships mauled, and one or two sent to a deep-water resting place. Kido Butai was not to be trifled with at this moment in history.

It was Nagumo who realized he lost 2/3s of his aircraft in the second wave due to a more effictive AA.

Not 2/3s of the aircraft in the second wave by any means. But of his few losses, 2/3rds might well have been due to more effective AA fire that the second wave faced.

Granted that the Japanese pilots are more experienced, but Talyor and Welch got 6 kills between them, 4 others were shot down as well. Had there been more aircraft to meet the Japanese I can't help but think there could have been some difference.

Yes Taylor and Welch did well. But they were attacking bombers (and fighters) that did not believe there were any US pursuits in the sky at that time.

That is not to say that a full US air defense would not have inflicted higher casualties on the Japanese. I think it would have. But the ratio would probably have favored the Japanese, and they would have had a substantial advantage in numbers over the first-line fighter strength that could have scrambled to meet them.

Still a large number of variables are present, and things might well have turned in unexpected directions. An interesting possibility. But alas I feel the US forces were not strong enough to defend against the attack that they faced, even if they had been given some hours of warning.

[Schwerepunkt]

...the Nihon Kaigun had fleet submarines in place in case of just such an opportunity and American losses might well have been greater. The USN usually assembled at Laihaina and if after exiting from PH, Kido Butai pilots would have found them and sunk the major units in deep water.
Japan's number one priority (misplaced at the time) was to sink the US Pacific Fleet including carriers if they were present. It was America's great fortune that the CVs were at sea doing replenishment missions. Admiral Halsey, on his way back with Enterprise, hearing of the Japanese attack prepared his aircraft to fly off strikes but it is just as well he did not. The few dive bombers who made it in to Pearl were massacred.l
History shows that the minute the first bomb landed on the Army Airfields and/or Pearl Harbor, Japan lost the Second World War.
And the point about Hitler was well made, his decision to declare war on the United States was absolutely insane. He felt he neede to keep his end of the Tripartite Pact but what did Japan do when Germany was in conflict with the Soviet Union and asked for help on the Siberian Front? Nothing, Japan's experience with Marshall Zhukov taught them hard lessons.