November 28th

By now the Japanese fleet has been at sea for nearly 4 days. They left from numerous ports in the Japanese Empire and met together at sea.
There are 6 aircraft carriers and their escorts - 2 battleships, 3 cruisers, 9 destroyers plus the auxiliary tankers. They are encountering heavy seas and some of the tankers which must refuel the ships are having trouble keeping up.
They have 350 planes aboard the carriers in what is the largest collection of naval air power the world had ever seen. Under our noses they had written the book on projecting air power. They had the best fighters, torpedo planes and light bombers of all the naval powers and an elite cadre of the finest pilots. They're about to give all their hard work and all their theories the supreme test.
Pearl Harbor is only 9 days away.

They're about to poke a sleeping bear with a stick. Crys were heard from Pearl Harbor that should never have been heard. A mushroom cloud awaited a couple of their cities for it. Other Japanesse cities and villages would be burned to the ground. The lesson of how Japan's aggression would end should have been written in Arabic, for those who would need to know as time moved forward.

My grandfather was at Pearl. He always told me. That everyone knew the attack was coming. But all the experts said it could never happen.

We were unaware and unprepared. We had some of the best equipment in the world (B-17 Liberator) and no idea of how to succesfully employ it in wartime(witness our failure in daylight precision bombing in Europe). We drew down our forces and refused to see the writing on the wall, all we wanted was peace, we felt that freedom and liberty of others wasn't worth fighting for. Look what we did to leaders like General Billy Mitchell who tried to bring our forces into the 20th century and paid for it with his career. And did we learn? Were we prepared for Korea? How well were are forces trained to fight a conventional war in Viet Nam? (after we bought our hard iron bombs back from the Germans) Heck we even started to drawn down our forces well we were still fighting the 1st Gulf war, they eliminated my position while I was in Saudi Arabia during Dessert Sheild (won't need EOD troops to deal with IEDs 'cause Russia folded) , yes I was part of Teddy Kennedey's "peace dividend" If we had the resolve to deal with Saddamm Hussien in '90& '91 maybe the sons and daughters of they guys that were there in 90 & 91 wouldn't be there today. And look who our enemey was in Japan, a fantical people lead by leaders that had them convinced that they COULD NOT LOOSE BECAUSE GOD WAS WITH THEM, and our indication is they would fight down to the last women or child to die for their God, sorry I mean Emperor (posted by a USAF Veteran 1985-91)

Wis- not to be a know it all, but the B-17 was a Flying Fort, and a B-24 was a Liberator. Not bad for a submariner---

How did we fail in daylight precision bombing in Europe? New to me.

My grandfather was a US army officer serving in the 33rd div, 6th US army group and he spent the entire war in the pacific and some time in Japan as part of the occupation force. He NEVER forgave them as a nation for the pain they caused to so many people starting with the sneak attack on Pearl Harbor on a sleepy sunday morning in December.
bill

Ya the U.S. was caught with there pants down then and if it keep up like it has been going it is going to happen again and probably not all that far down the road to boot. Bad thing is if the U.S. gets caught this time we will not have the right people in the right places to be able to do more then just get us in trouble

More people were killed in Japan by fire bombing than by atomic bombs. The Japanese who were responsable for the war, never did aplolgize! They were not sorry for what they did. Whole familys commited suicide in mass rather than except peace as they were taught by their emperor and the army leaders. We fire bombed cities in Japan and europe. Our Navy and Marine flyers that were taken prisoner on the island of Chichi Jima were beaten, executed and then disected and their organs and parts of their thighs were cooked and eaten by the Japanese officers. Young George Bush a Navy flyer and later Presedent of the United States, barely escaped being taken prisoner on that island when his plane was hit as he dived on the island to bomb the radio instalation there.

For a real eye opener, read accounts of the Japanese Imperial Army during the five years or so leading up the Pearl, beginning with the Rape of Nanking in 1937.

Reading of all the atrocities committed by the Japanese before WWII kinda leaves you convinced that when we dropped the atomic bombs the Japanese got no where near what they deserved.

Dad, dispised the entire subhuman asian toilet rimanimals , During1942-45 he was in a Amphibious tank crew in the Pacific ,, He fought to land on 4 different battle islands... He saw the very worst side of the japanese warculture .., and He never wanted to talk about it ,, and it marked my Dad and many others like him for life..

Who supplied the oil until 1940 to lubricate their war machine??

An interesting story about the insight Admiral Nimitz had into the "Mistakes" the Japanese made when they bombed Pearl Harbor.


Tour boats ferry people out to the USS Arizona Memorial in Hawaii every thirty minutes. We just missed a ferry and had to wait thirty minutes. I went into a small gift shop to kill time. In the gift shop, I purchased a small book entitled, "Reflections on Pearl Harbor" by Admiral Chester Nimitz.
Sunday, December 7th, 1941--Admiral Chester Nimitz was attending a concert in Washington D.C. He was paged and told there was a phone call for him. When he answered the phone, it was President Franklin Delano Roosevelt on the phone. He told Admiral Nimitz that he (Nimitz) would now be the Commander of the Pacific Fleet. Admiral Nimitz flew to Hawaii to assume command of the Pacific Fleet. He landed at Pearl Harbor on Christmas Eve, 1941. There was such a spirit of despair, dejection and defeat--you would have thought the Japanese had already won the war.

On Christmas Day, 1941, Adm. Nimitz was given a boat tour of the destruction wrought on Pearl Harbor by the Japanese. Big sunken battleships and navy vessels cluttered the waters every where you looked. As the tour boat returned to dock, the young helmsman of the boat asked, "Well Admiral, what do you think after seeing all this destruction?" Admiral Nimitz's reply shocked everyone within the sound of his voice. Admiral Nimitz said, "The Japanese made three of the biggest mistakes an attack force could ever make or God was taking care of America. Which do you think it was?" Shocked and surprised, the young helmsman asked, "What do mean by saying the Japanese made the three biggest mistakes an attack force ever made?"
Nimitz explained.

Mistake number one: the Japanese attacked on Sunday morning. Nine out of every ten crewmen of those ships were ashore on leave. If those same ships had been lured to sea and been sunk--we would have lost 38,000 men instead of 3,800.

Mistake number two: when the Japanese saw all those battleships lined in a row, they got so carried away sinking those battleships, they never once bombed our dry docks opposite those ships. If they had destroyed our dry docks, we would have had to tow everyone of those ships to America to be repaired. As it is now, the ships are in shallow water and can be raised. One tug can pull them over to the dry docks, and we can have them repaired and at sea by the time we could have towed them to America. And I already have crews ashore anxious to man those ships.

Mistake number three: every drop of fuel in the Pacific theater of war is in top of the ground storage tanks five miles away over that hill. One attack plane could have strafed those tanks and destroyed our fuel supply. That's why I say the Japanese made three of the biggest mistakes an attack force could make or God was taking care of America.

I've never forgotten what I read in that little book. It is still an inspiration as I reflect upon it. In jest, I might suggest that because Admiral Nimitz was a Texan, born and raised in Fredricksburg, Texas--he was a born optimist. But anyway you look at it--Admiral Nimitz was able to see a silver lining in a situation and circumstance where everyone else saw only despair and defeatism. President Roosevelt had chosen the right man for the right job.

We desperately needed a leader that could see silver linings in the midst of the clouds of dejection, despair and defeat.

My mom showed me this the other day. Makes you happy someone could see the bright side of a horrible situation

canadian here ! always though that u guys shoulda just kept dropping bombs till there was nothing left they sure as hell woulda done it to you
horrible, horrible race of people ( at that time ) & the hurt they caused the world
but i guess all is good now they make a tv or i phone & we kiss their azz to buy it
bob

Precision bombing in WWII? Reality now, back then, it was a pipe dream. Carpet bombing was the standard. No smart bombs. No steering/guidance capability like now. Yes, they did a great job, but no where the control of today. Even a big difference between the first Gulf War, when the US had Special Forces troopers on site, literally sticking a target on the wall of a building for the smart bombs to aim for, vs now, they can be guided in without boots on the ground. Yeah, we have technology to make the big strikes, make buildings disappear, but it"s the mop-up that kills our people.

To quote Lord Mountbatten " I loath the Japanese..."

My Father was in Pearl as a Radioman. He said they picked up a Jap mini-sub on sonar, inside the nets in Pearl Harbor on Dec 5 and were told to 'not worry about it' as we were not at war with the nnalert. Kind of a spooky bit of history that sticks in my mind. That along with the 'goody two shoes' of today spreading their venom about the how bad we were to use atomic weapons against the poor enemy.
Joe Fabregas

(quoted from post at 23:00:22 11/28/11) Precision bombing in WWII? Reality now, back then, it was a pipe dream. Carpet bombing was the standard. No smart bombs. No steering/guidance capability like now. Yes, they did a great job, but no where the control of today. Even a big difference between the first Gulf War, when the US had Special Forces troopers on site, literally sticking a target on the wall of a building for the smart bombs to aim for, vs now, they can be guided in without boots on the ground. Yeah, we have technology to make the big strikes, make buildings disappear, but it"s the mop-up that kills our people.

Click to expand...

Whoops, I had a big long post wrote up and put in a era correct term for our asian enemy, the all-seeing filter poofed it.

Mainland Japan was the only place the USAAF practiced carpet bombing, where we had no concern for collateral damage, in the occupied countrys of europe and the pacific, we used daylight strategic bombing that was very precise when you look at the number of planes and bombs involved, when 99% of the ordinance falls inside the target area, be it a railyard, factory, refinery, or sub pen, that is precision. And when you look at the precision with which fighter pilots on both sides could bomb targets, they rival what we are capable of today, albeit at much greater risk to the pilot and machine, but they could easily take out a tank, a machine gun nest, a cave, or an individual house.

Look up some aerial photographs of USAAF daylight bombing results VS. British night bombing results or the aftermath of the Blitz in England, you will see how precise our big birds really were.

Hmm. I kinda doubt it. First off, the Japanese weren't targeting dry docks or fuel farms, they were targeting BATTLESHIPS. Torpedoes and dive bombs aren't going to be particularly effective against dry docks, anyway. And the Japanese deliberately chose to attack on Sunday morning because their reconnaissance had shown this would be the most effective time. And their attack proved to be very devastating.

One major thing where we lucked out was that all the Pacific fleet aircraft carriers were at sea during the attack. Had they been in port, the attack might have effectively eliminated the Pacific fleet.

The link below has some criticism of this particular internet hoax, including actual numbers of men who were aboard ships during the attack.
Nimitz and the three mistakes

I think you are right about the japanese desire to sink battleships, but it still shows the big mistake they made. While undertaking the second major naval air attack in history (with the British attack on the Italian fleet at Taranto preceding and partially inspiring Pearl Harbor), the japanese made the mistake of thinking that ships of the line would be the deciding force in future battles, not realizing that they were helping to usher in the era of carrier supremacy, making battleships obsolete in ship-to-ship warfare.

The japanese WANTED to sink our carriers BUT they just happened to not be at pearl. They knew that naval warfare was going to change and when they didnt sink the carriers they knew if we didnt sue for peace that we had the ability to still wage war even if it was with only a few carriers.
bill

All these stories and movies etc etc... a relative, who died in the 80's was a warrant officer for years, an aid to admiral Kalbfus. He was in the 'Asiatic fleet' from the 20's till he got the job with the one star in the late 30's. They were all suspicious of the 'sneak attack', since codes were hacked into from the early 30's, and pby's and subs, blimps, coast guard weather pickets were all over every ocean. As for the 'admiral so and so and the crew of the whatever were doing this and that'- 4 things were going on- best, at sea, on regular watches, eyes open. They know a 'potential threat' was out there. Not just to look for Japanese, but to report German or Italian sightings to Canadian and British hunters. Second, in church services, much more common then than now. 3rd, shacked up with some chick on land, with no wheels to get back to base like nowdays. 4th, hung over like a !@#$% in their bunk, or crashed somewhere on deck, as long as the OD knew you were back aboard. Want to know why the ships couldn't fight back? Drink a 12 pack, go to bed on the kitchen floor, set an alarm clock- loud, and go out and.... do anything, try to start a car, turn a wrench, shoot a weapon- ain't going to happen the way you want. Guys fueling fighters and brass studying maps?.... yeah, the weekend previous. The big brains thought if the Japanese would attack, it would have been Manilla, the last week of November. Since that came and went, lets get wasted! Sometimes you don't have to be smart to get in postitions of authority.... the battleship fleet was intending to spend the winter in Australian waters for war games with commonwealth ships, like the Prince of wales and Repluse, that both sank the same way, later that day- or the next? international date line thing is confusing! You want a movie- Russ said was exactly like the prewar navy, look for 'Sand Pebbles' with Steve McQueen. That was what he did at the same time and places that was going on. When authors- or guys- say it was like this or that- 'cause they were in the navy in the 1971, or 1951, wasn't the same animal as 1921 or even 41....

> Hmm. I kinda doubt it.

I think you - and some of those on the forum you linked to - are missing the point.

Nimitz walked into a place of woe & misery & dejection. His comments focused on something positive, a point to build from, and something to look forward to.

Actual real items are less valuable when fighting a war than the attitude and moral of those fighting & supplying a war.

Doesn't matter if those 3 points were technically 'real' and 100% accurate summery of the situation or not. It matters that people of the day had something positive to hang their hat on, something to build from.

The point is not to make an accurate, ironclad summery of the opposition in one day - the point is to rally the troops at hand and those back at home to see some positives, to gather round and start rebuilding.

Another way of saying what he did: "We got manpower, we got infrastructure to build with, we got an energy supply to build with - let's go use those and get on with it." That message is quite accurate, and if it can be delivered with a bit of a put-down upon the other side so much the better.

Good leader.

We are lacking those qualities in govt at this time, imho. I'm not going to name names, as it crosses to all sides - again imho.

--->Paul

I think the point here was that they should have planned out the attack better and they would have caused longer repair times and harder for us to get back in the war.

There was precision bombing in W.W II. Do some reading about the RAF 617 Dambusters squadron if you doubt there was precision bombing. They took out complete factories and left the personnel buildings and canteen's intact. They dropped tall boy(12,000lb) and grand slam(20,000)bombs that penetrated the ridiculously thick German U-boat pens. They had fins so they would spin and go supersonic. The Germans thought the bombs were rocket powered when they heard them falling. Of course they're most famous for taking out 3 major dams over 2 nights. Some experts claim taking the dams out shortened the war by a couple of years because without the dams, German steel production and manufacturing was severely compromised. There were even rumors that if the USA didn't drop the bombs on Japan, 617 squadron was headed over there.