Could the IJN have launched a "Third wave" at Pearl Harbour?

[richard schwab]

Admiral Nagumo Had several factors that influenced his decision not to launch a third strike. The US defenses were wide awake, a potential 30% loss rate among his aircrews was predicted. The time to arm and prepare a third strike would mean night landings for the returning aircraft. Not a Japanese operational practice. The fuel status of the fleets ships, the plan called for a strike and quick return. The failure to sink or even spot the US carriers exposed the Japanese fleet to surprise attack itself. The fear of US land bombers surviving the attack and going on the offensive.

Rich

 

[parsifal]

there was not much fight left in Pearl Harbour after the second strike. What was worrying Nagumo and cause him to hesitate and then cancel the third strike was the unknown wherabouts of the US carriers. nagumo freeted that he was walking into an enormous trap...prophetic words, just six months too early.

The issue is whether such a strike was worth it. In tretrospect, possibly not. Taking out the fuel farms ids the often quoted missed objective, but how much would that really have hurt the allies. a lot is made of this, and perhaps it might have delayed meanigful American responses to the japanese for 6 months or so, but really how much difference was American activity from out of Pearl making to the progress of the war anyway....not a lot when you think about it. What the Japanese needed to do was establish their perimater, fortify, buld up reserves and then defeat the Americans sufficiently well to force them to a negotiated settlement. there was more chance of me winning the lottery to be honest.

 

[Shortround6]

Hitting the oil farms is not a 100% proposition. That is to say that just hitting them does guarantee a 100% destruction rate. What the destruction rate would have been is rather variable.

 

[Glider]

I admit that attacking the Harbour would have had little impact on the war. However a conserted hunt for and attack on the Carriers would have been very different

 

[AvengerFights]

The third strike would do not much harm to the US as the historian predicts. Instead the Japanese will suffer more losses which will impaired their conquests of Asia and Pacific Islands. First the surprise element is gone, all of the damaged ship AA guns will be put on full alert and in combined with those on the land. It will be quite disaster for the brittle Japanese plane who need to navigate on lower altitudes to score hit on the fuel depot. Before the Japanese faced the AA guns on the ground, they will have to contend with the remaining CAP which should be about 50 planes. The Americans could repaired those additional damage plane on the ground and still contribute to more Japanese losses. I think it was a wise move for Nagumo to retreat rather than listen to his junior staff to attack the oil depot as unpredictable might happen such as US Navy Carriers could be nearby. It is impossible for the Japanese to destroy the entire oil supply unless the Americans are sitting ducks. The Ploiesti Oil raid was only damaged 40% with 178 B-24s in 1943. Those Japanese planes carry less bombs than the B-24 and poorly armored thus suffer heavy losses, it will be impossible for the IJN to carry out their subsequent operation like Wake Island or those operation in East Indies with planeless carriers. The Pacific war might end early if the third strike was launched. In addition the US have large fleet oilers and other commercial types to deliver their oil stock. Even no refinery left they could brought fuel in their tanks from the Mainland to operate the War ship and refuel from oilers in the sea. The US have vast resources that the IJN could ever destroy.

 

[FLYBOYJ]

Comparing Ploesti to Pearl Harbor is a little far fetched, don't ya think?!?

 

[GrauGeist]

Disagree on several points:
First, there was little time to affect repairs on the fighters as the confusion and damage to the maintenance facilities would prevent any such thing during that morning's events.

There were several P-36 fighters sitting idle at several auxiliary fields that were untouched, but lacked ammunition.

A third wave could have been the most effective out of the all of the attacks IF they have focused on the fuel and oil dumps as well as the Sub pens...which were untouched in the attack.

Concentrating an attack on the storage facilities would have been a staggering blow of the Pacific fleet as there would have been no reserves available and thus depending solely on shipments from the West coast to keep the carriers and other surviving ships mobile. Also the loss of the Aviation fuel would have meant that Naval and Air Corps aircraft would have had to rely again, on whatever could be hurried over from the West coast.

Now, let's take this a step further: knowing that the fuel and oil dumps were destroyed and knowing that the Pacific fleet and Army elements were desperately low on fuel, the IJN could establish a picket line with their subs, targeting the tankers and oilers heading to Pearl from San Diego, San Pedro, Santa Barbara, San Francisco and points north and even the Panama canal.

This would have had disastrous and far reaching effects for U.S. operations in the Pacific - far more than was actually accomplished at Pearl, historically.

 

[syscom3]

Comparing Ploesti to Pearl Harbor is a little far fetched, don't ya think?!?

There are some fundemental differences between knocking out a refinery and setting fire to an oil tank.

 

[BattleshipNightZ]

The American's were "waking up" (if not already "woken up"), so I believe they would have lost more aircraft. But even if Pearl Harbour had been "taken out", it would only have delayed America's victory. As I see no reason why retaking Pearl Harbour, would have been any different to any of the other "island hopping" attacks. Even if America lost the Pearl Harbour fleet, they had the two North Carolinas, the four South Dakotas and the four Iowa's (towards the end of the war); which combined with their air-craft carriers, it would have just taken longer to "wake the sleeping giant".

 

[Sir Percy Ware-Armitage]

It is my opinion that with heavyer losses, that IJN might of taken out the oil tanks and the repair yards that they so crucially missed.

It seems it would have reduced the US Navy potentialities much longer however, other pertinent factors contributed to the IJN debacle in the next few months (quite well known facts from all participating on the present forum): the US code breaking played a definitive role in the IJN subsequent defeats and at Pearl Harbour and as at Midway, Nagumo's timidity added to the catastrophic long term consequences the IJN suffered.

Cherio!

Sir P.

 

[Shortround6]

A lot of the supporters of the 3rd wave over estimate the amount of damage that could have been done. A 3rd wave would NOT have finished off everything left. And even supposedly vulnerable targets were harder than made out to be.

Fuel tanks.

Please note the each tank has a containment wall around it. Burning fuel from one tank could not run to adjoining tanks and set them on fire.
There may have been different fuels in some of the tanks but the majority was bunker C which is pretty heavy stuff, yo have to heat it to just over the boiling temperature of water just to get it to flow through pipes, nozzles and to atomize so it burns in a boiler.

Now Admiral Nimitz did say on a tour of the damage "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." when listing 3 mistakes the Japanese made.
This may have been a statement to help bolster morale.

Sample of Bunker C. Setting fire to this stuff with MG ammo seems a bit dubious. Certainly ONE airplane setting fire to over a dozen tanks seems doubtful. Bunker C is what is left after tanking a lot of the better stuff (like gasoline) out of the crude stock so it is even harder to set on fire than crude oil at a well. Crude oil has a a bit of everything so the light stuff can help get the heavy stuff going.

One old poster mentioned the 29 destroyers. Yes the Japanese could have attacked the destroyers or the subs but each ship/sub is going to require at least one direct hit. The Japanese simply do not have the number of aircraft to target the number of ships/subs/oil tanks/ docks that were left even assuming a superhuman standard of accuracy.

A 3rd wave would have done more damage but not anywhere near the level most pro 3rd strike posters are expecting. AS far as destroying the dry docks, see the St Nazaire Raid, 4 1/2 tons of explosive in the bow of the destroyer that rammed the lock gates plus commandos placing charges on the lock gate machinery and the pumps. much of which was below the level of the dock that people and vehicles traveled on. A few 500lb aircraft bombs (with 250lbs ? of explosive) stand a very small chance of taking out a dry dock for very long.

 

[The Basket]

Did Nagumo achieve his military objective?
If the Japanese fleet launched an attack on the 8th Dec then with possible land based bombers submarines and aircraft carriers on the hunt then maybe game over.
In my view, Nagumo achieved military objective and turned for home with minimal losses. Perhaps a little boring but the war is not going to be won in a day so keep the carriers safe for another day.

 

[drewwizard]

Fortunately the Japanese naval commanders were known to turn and run during WWII. A third wave would have destroyed the fuel supplies on Hawaii. Remember that Hawaii is in the middle of no where. Without fuel, the carriers could not have sailed to reinforce wake island. (it would be a one way trip). They would probably have had to guard the Hawaiian Islands to insure tankers could arrive without being sunk by Japanese submarines or a return of the carriers. Raising the sunken ships would have been delayed for months. It would take months if ever to restock fuel in Hawaii given the logistics, and only if the tankers were rerouted from going to Europe. It's possible that Hawaii could have fallen a month later with little opposition. Very fortunate, we might be speaking Japanese in Hawaii today (not to mention that over half the land is owned by Japanese today).

The third wave would have seen very little opposition. Remember that virtually all the airplanes and facilities were destroyed. The few fighters that managed to take off the first time would have had a hard time refueling and reloading. Many of the ships that were fighting back originally either ran from the harbor, or were badly damaged and sinking. The army became awake, but headed for the beaches to repel a possible invasion.

The smart move by the Japanese would have been to send wave after wave until all the ordnance was expended. Then send in the escort ships to shell the islands while the carriers ran. Even if they lost the whole fleet, the damage done would have essentially taken us out of the pacific war and they would have been ahead. The carriers would have been stranded and siting ducks without fuel and resupply. Likely to then be recalled to the mainland to keep them from being lost. This could have gone really badly.

 

[drewwizard]

A lot of the supporters of the 3rd wave over estimate the amount of damage that could have been done. A 3rd wave would NOT have finished off everything left. And even supposedly vulnerable targets were harder than made out to be.

Fuel tanks.
View attachment 464340

Please note the each tank has a containment wall around it. Burning fuel from one tank could not run to adjoining tanks and set them on fire.
There may have been different fuels in some of the tanks but the majority was bunker C which is pretty heavy stuff, yo have to heat it to just over the boiling temperature of water just to get it to flow through pipes, nozzles and to atomize so it burns in a boiler.

Now Admiral Nimitz did say on a tour of the damage "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." when listing 3 mistakes the Japanese made.
This may have been a statement to help bolster morale.
View attachment 464341
Sample of Bunker C. Setting fire to this stuff with MG ammo seems a bit dubious. Certainly ONE airplane setting fire to over a dozen tanks seems doubtful. Bunker C is what is left after tanking a lot of the better stuff (like gasoline) out of the crude stock so it is even harder to set on fire than crude oil at a well. Crude oil has a a bit of everything so the light stuff can help get the heavy stuff going.

One old poster mentioned the 29 destroyers. Yes the Japanese could have attacked the destroyers or the subs but each ship/sub is going to require at least one direct hit. The Japanese simply do not have the number of aircraft to target the number of ships/subs/oil tanks/ docks that were left even assuming a superhuman standard of accuracy.

A 3rd wave would have done more damage but not anywhere near the level most pro 3rd strike posters are expecting. AS far as destroying the dry docks, see the St Nazaire Raid, 4 1/2 tons of explosive in the bow of the destroyer that rammed the lock gates plus commandos placing charges on the lock gate machinery and the pumps. much of which was below the level of the dock that people and vehicles traveled on. A few 500lb aircraft bombs (with 250lbs ? of explosive) stand a very small chance of taking out a dry dock for very long.

The heavy crude looks to be hard to set on fire, and it is if you use a match. Incendiary bombs would have started a large fire with the spilling oil. Once the fire reached a critical size, it would have been unstoppable. It's a simple calculation of thermodynamic energy in the fuel creating very high temperatures. Once the fire gets big enough, the heat cracks the heavy fuel which feeds the fire more. Hitting the uphill tanks (or worse the one in the middle would have destroyed everything. Planes strafing the water lines from the dams would make sure there was no way to put out the fires (not that water is real effective on an oil fire, especially that size.

No need to attack the ships. Without fuel, they are just decorations and you could return after the island was abandoned to finish things up at your leisure. We were hurt, but we could have easily been crippled. The attack was fortunately more a statement that the Japanese could do us damage. Just think of the repercussions of abandoning Europe in 1941 to protect Hawaii. Would England have fallen? Then Russia?