Pearl Harbor Day

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Sareth
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Pearl Harbor Day

Post by Sareth »

So, 69 years ago the U.S. was officially dragged into WWII by the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. I am curious about how people now think of that event and the context surrounding it now that we are at such a remove? (I have my opinion, but wish to refrain until I hear from others without my opinion influencing how and what they say.)
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Graybeard
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Re: Pearl Harbor Day

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Sareth wrote:So, 69 years ago the U.S. was officially dragged into WWII by the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. I am curious about how people now think of that event and the context surrounding it now that we are at such a remove? (I have my opinion, but wish to refrain until I hear from others without my opinion influencing how and what they say.)
IMO, relatively little has transpired in at least the last fifteen years, and I'd probably say the last fifty, to change the basic view of what happened at Pearl Harbor. Some things originally hidden from sight in diplomatic traffic (see that other thread...) have become public, for example the fact that the Japanese intention wasn't that the attack be quite as much of a sneak attack as it actually was -- there was a screwup that delayed Japanese diplomats just enough that they announced their country's intentions after the bombing had started, rather than just before. To this I say "big effin' deal." It was still a sneak attack, and a half hour's warning that it was coming wouldn't have changed much. There probably have been some additional insights into the Japanese mindset of the time, but I don't think most of those are recent, and they serve mainly to confirm what people thought they already knew: intensely militaristic society (then) that felt its back was to the wall and catastrophically misjudged the consequences of the attack. Nothing new there, but the long-standing views of that position seem to have been corroborated.

That's a US-centric view, however, and I'd be interested to see whether there have been any changes in the view from East Asia. We have Errant Threads readers there, and your opinions would be valued. Another thing: one place where there has been some real revision of views has to do with the possibility of a Japanese invasion of Australia. It is now clear that the Japanese had little interest in actually invading (at least in the early going), not out of any political or moral concerns but simply because they didn't think they could do it successfully. Not so much Pearl Harbor, but much of the early course of the war revolved around the fear that they were seriously thinking about it, which was one of the reasons why Guadalcanal was considered so crucial: Japanese control of the island would have been a huge step toward the "planned" (sic) invasion. I wonder whether the realization that they'd all but abandoned such "plans" has caused any rethinking of the war from the Australian point of view. Any Aussies or Kiwis among us? I'd really value your opinions.

Incidentally, one thing that definitely has emerged from later scholarship about the war, not Pearl Harbor, is a realization of how important the Australian military contribution to the Pacific Theater was, and how awesome the Australian soldiers were. A reasonable case can be made that the "Diggers" in that theater were the best foot soldiers that any army has had, anywhere, ever. Their role was not appreciated fully during and soon after the war by the public (even in Oz and New Zealand), largely because MacArthur's publicity machine played it down. That isn't true any more.
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Sareth
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Re: Pearl Harbor Day

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Yes, I too would love to get the picture of non-U.S. views of this, and of the war as a whole. We tend to get over-focused on our part in the war even though we were relative latecomers who got off fairly lightly. (This is not to in any way make light of the U.S. dead and wounded, but 400,000 does pale next to the nearly 10,000,000 dead suffered by the Russians. Not to mention the infrastructure losses, where the U.S. suffered mild damage in Hawaii, Guam, and Unalaska, while places like France or Germany were pretty much completely destroyed.) It's good to get perspectives from the other nations who suffered more in pretty much every way.

I'd particularly love to hear the Australian view. The Pacific War was particular hell for them, and they really did a hell of a job. There's a reason the only U.S. Navy vessel to ever be named for a foreign city is the U.S.S. Canberra (CA-70).

The one thing I keep coming back to, personally, was the characterization of the attack on Pearl. As you pointed out, it has by and large been portrayed as a very underhanded trick. I have to wonder if I am in the minority at disagreeing with that assessment.

For me, the fact it was a sneak attack is almost a red herring. It really shouldn't have been a surprise to anyone. The exact time and location, certainly. But the fact it was the way the war would start for the U.S.? No, not really. The Japanese had used the same basic strategy in the past, in both the Russo-Japanese war and the Cino-Japanese war, neither of which they received any significant censure for. It was a known tactic. Add in that diplomatic relations had been broken off,we had misplaced the most important chunk of their navy, and we had embargoed them of badly needed supplies, we should have seen it coming miles away.

Further there's the characterization of it as dirty pool. Wars without declaration starting them had been fought previously by many nations, including the U.S. (for example, the French-American war of 1798-1800, or the Spanish-American war, which officially started with a Spanish declaration on the 23rd, but really started with U.S. naval attacks in Cuban waters on the 21st) and have since (Grenada, the Falklands). It's actually a fairly widespread practice, but only the Japanese have caught hell for it.

To my mind, it was a tactically brilliant move. The attack was extremely well planned and competently executed. Tactically, the only major flaw in it was the failure to destroy the U.S. carrier force and submarine force. These are both understandable, however. The fact the carrier force was away left the Japanese the choice of sticking around and hunting it while short on fuel and just as likely to be found first (Midway six months early) or getting out while the getting was good. The failure to nail the submarine pens and fuel supplies can be excused by no one realizing just how crucial they would prove to be.

Strategically, it was a wash. Yamamoto had warned the high command he could only control the war for six months, and then the U.S. would likely be resurgent. It is my opinion that they accepted his prediction, and that this was basically why they went for Pearl like they did. It is my belief that their hope was that they could smash the entire fleet (including the carriers) and thus be able to end the war within those six months through a negotiated settlement. Their failure to get the carriers eliminated any chance the U.S. would accept a settlement. (The fact Germany declared war on the U.S. on the 11th probably didn't help, either, as it complicated any offers for peace.)

So for me, personally, it was actually a respectable opening move. But maybe that's just me.
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Re: Pearl Harbor Day

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Very nice analysis there, and there are only a few points on which I differ with it.
Sareth wrote:Yes, I too would love to get the picture of non-U.S. views of this, and of the war as a whole. We tend to get over-focused on our part in the war even though we were relative latecomers who got off fairly lightly. (This is not to in any way make light of the U.S. dead and wounded, but 400,000 does pale next to the nearly 10,000,000 dead suffered by the Russians. Not to mention the infrastructure losses, where the U.S. suffered mild damage in Hawaii, Guam, and Unalaska, while places like France or Germany were pretty much completely destroyed.) It's good to get perspectives from the other nations who suffered more in pretty much every way.
In addition to the Russian carnage, one should cite the incredible atrocities suffered by Poland (from both sides! a larger fraction of the Polish population perished in the war than of any other country), the Baltic states (citizens of which often were simply left the choice of deciding which side would execute them for treason or subversive activities or collaboration), China (the most reliable casualty reports for the Rape of Nanking alone surpass all deaths sustained by the United States), etc. I find it hard to work up much sympathy for Japan, but the fact is that that country too was just devastated, and the atomic raids were very far from the worst of it. This said, I don't think much of that is new. By about 1960, it was pretty clear just who had suffered the worst from that war. During the Cold War, it was normal for the West not to say much in praise of the USSR's contribution, which was a highly bogus perspective, and to point out that a lot of the suffering was self-inflicted, which remains more or less accurate. But the truth was out there.
The one thing I keep coming back to, personally, was the characterization of the attack on Pearl. As you pointed out, it has by and large been portrayed as a very underhanded trick. I have to wonder if I am in the minority at disagreeing with that assessment.
You're not the only one, by any means, but it WAS an underhanded move, made to appear even more so by the diplomatic screwup. It just wasn't unique, you're right about that. One thing that did make it appear uniquely underhanded was the contrast to, of all things, the way Germany had handled the commencement of hostilities. The Germans actually played by the rules in conducting diplomacy (of sorts...) right up until the day before the shooting started, and Polish forces were about 70% mobilized by the time of the attack (which, to be sure, involved German underhandedness in the form of a "provocation" they had staged themselves). Similarly, the Soviets were well (if ineffectually) mobilized by the start of Operation Barbarossa, with a similar diplomatic charade right up to the last minute and both sides knowing that war was imminent. With American attention having been focused on Europe for over two years before Pearl Harbor, this way of "playing fair"(!) seemed the norm. It ... wasn't.

That the Japanese would behave that way wasn't exactly news, you're right about that too. It just wasn't newsworthy. Their behavior in Manchuria had been clear enough, and military planners knew exactly what it meant. The public, however, did not, being focused on Europe and lacking (for better or worse) a news distribution system to call Asian developments forcefully to their attention. Lacking that, all of the Asian developments, although monitored closely by the US government (a thing often overlooked is that the United States military had been under a "war warning" for two weeks at the time of Pearl Harbor), were largely ignored by the common man. Even Pearl Harbor seemed a loooong way away from Washington or New York or Chicago or even San Francisco -- until the shooting started.
To my mind, it was a tactically brilliant move. The attack was extremely well planned and competently executed. Tactically, the only major flaw in it was the failure to destroy the U.S. carrier force and submarine force.
There was a far more significant screwup than that, actually: failure to take out the tank farms that contained a very large fraction of all of the fuel for ships and aircraft in the Pacific. Accomplishing that could have slowed the Allied counterattack down by as much as six months. But anyway...
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Re: Pearl Harbor Day

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Well, the failure to take out the tanks was a bad thing, but understandable. Nagumo was concerned by the lack of the carriers in Pearl. He had to assume (rightly) that the American carriers were in the neighborhood. Now that they knew that they were at war, and that the perpetrators of the attack had to be nearby, he was worried about being caught while his fighter cover was away. So he canceled the third wave that was meant to deal with the tanks. (Additionally, he had to worry about the fact the second wave had taken significantly higher casualties than the first, showing that the Americans were quick to get back on their feet once the initial shock wore off, and he was a HELL of a long way from home.) It was a mistake in hindsight, yes, but at the time his reasoning was sound. It could even be said to have been vindicated by Midway, where his fear was realized by the American attack that struck when he had no fighter cover.

Probably a greater concern was the fact the Japanese chose to attack a shallow harbor, allowing all of the sunk vessels but two to be salvaged and put back in the fight. Had their hopes been realized, those ships wouldn't have made it back into the fight before it was over, but with the longer war, they were. Luring the fleet out into an open sea battle would have risked far more casualties on the Japanese side, but would have meant all U.S. losses were gone completely.

I sometimes wonder if Nagumo should have hung around hunting for the carriers... But that's all what-ifs from an armchair tactician.
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