The Zero's Maneuverability (2 Viewers)

[MiTasol]

In safety terms preparedness means you have the relevant procedures and equipment in relevant places to cover identified risks.

Readiness means all staff know what to do (and where the checklists are if needed), where the equipment needed is located and that all exit paths are identified by green arrows at floor level opposite doors. Visitors to a building must be briefed on following the green arrows.

NOTE the arrows are at floor level because overhead signs etc rapidly get hidden in the smoke of a fire. Overhead illuminated signs also have a high failure rate but still some countries like Australia still mandate them. If you are crawling along the floor under the smoke you cannot see those signs but you can see the arrows - especially if they are photo luminescent.

Simple example.

You are prepared for a fire if you have an Emergency Response Plan for fires, appropriate fire extinguishers/blankets etc, and the list of emergency numbers to call with a map of assembly points etc on the reverse is velcroed to the inside of every exit door so that no-one has to go searching through desks or for notices on the wall where the fire is for those numbers and the exit arrows in place.

You are ready for a fire means all the staff know where the fire extinguishers etc are, which ones to use (and more importantly in some cases, like electrical fires, which one NOT to use) for each type of fire, how to use them (from using one in a training environment), etc, and that the list of emergency numbers etc are on the tear off tags on the doors and that the first person out each door SHOULD but MAY NOT grab them. If the fire is in an area with pumped fuels or similar liquids they must also know where the kill switches are for all of those pumps. Same for any other fire risks, for example stay well away from any high pressure cylinders as they can go off like a bomb.

It is amazing how quickly someone who is terrified of fire becomes confident in using a fire extinguisher after using one on a training fire for a matter of seconds. That followed by some good videos on what to avoid and why, plus an annual refresher increases staff safety massively.

EDIT - also people need to know to how and where to kill all electrical power the building. These days in particular electrical fires are a very high risk as so many are caused by batteries or battery chargers. Turning off the mains will kill many electrical fires if done early enough. Although it will not kill a battery fire it may prevent the nearby electrical equipment adding to the fire.

 

[ThomasP]

re

I don't buy that one above at all. Having recent combat experience or no recent combat experience doesn't excuse a complete lack of preparedness, and they were unprepared. I was in two armed services, and preparation is basic to military phiilosophy. You prepare not for the enemy's expected actions, but for his capabilities for action. If you don't, you are simply unprepared, and they were.

The findings of the report were not considered an excuse - but they were considered the reason.

You can trace the path of lack of preparedness back as far as you want to - all the way to the end of WWI or before - and not find the necessary skill set available to the US Navy or US Army. Remember, the US Navy fought no serious naval battles in WWI, and the US Army fought set-piece trench warfare for only about 1 year. In between the wars there were no major actions fought by either service (the USMC can claim to have a small amount of skirmish warfare experience from their 'banana wars' actions).

This is not really any different than what happened with the US Army (or equivalent) at the the beginning of their actions in WWI. A somewhat new form of warfare emerged during the war, for which the US had no experience - with the last serious combat being the Civil War over 50 years before. Yes, they had liaison with the French and British, but no significant experience - either in the combat troops or in the command structure. Consequently, the US decided to throw their inexperienced combat units into the fray with no experienced command structure, and nearly every unit broke and ran the first time they faced the enemy in a serious action. The effects of this behavior was so bad that the experienced French and British did not want to fight with the Americans on their flanks, and the leader of the Expeditionary Force (General Pershing - who's last experience was in the Spanish-American War) ordered every man who ran shot. Fortunately, Pershing's subordinates did not think this was a good idea and delayed any implementation (by subterfuge and outright refusing to obey orders) until calmer heads prevailed.

Also, as I said in my post upthread:

NOTE also that every major Allied combatant had similar problems with reacting effectively during the early stage of the war when attacked by the Germans and Japanese. There is a reason for this.

No one was prepared for the form of warfare that took place at the start of WWII, except to a degree the Germans (who had been preparing for the war for 5-6 years) and Japanese (on land at least, since they had been fighting a land war for ~4 years) - and both were on the offensive. Being on the offense presents a huge advantage in modern maneuver warfare - particularly in the opening stages of a theater or zone. Being able to choose when and where the attack is to be makes a very big difference. Yes, a prepared defense can sometimes stop such an offense, but without unlimited materiel and manpower you cannot defend everywhere in a large area theater - as was determined by the planners of War Plan Orange in their decision to abandon the Philippines. And as was demonstrated by the Maginot Line in the ETO, the Hong Kong defenses and Singapore in the PTO, the fort and hardpoint defense system in FEI, etc.

It has been said that Pearl Harbor and the PI should have had standing flights of CAP and many long range search aircraft out at all times after the war warning was issued - but there were limited resources available in terms of fuel and in some cases spares. Remember, the intercepts of enemy transmissions told the US that Japan was going to attack - but not when, or at least not until it was too late. At the time, 2 weeks of more-or-less round the clock long range patrol by the PBYs would have reduced the available aircraft to 4-5 per squadron out of the original strength of 12 per squadron.

It can reasonably be said that at least the AA guns should have been manned at all times, and that there should have been more ready aircraft at Pearl.

Since they were not expecting to be attacked (successfully) in harbor, what should the Navy have done differently at Pearl? I do not know enough about navy shipboard SOP at the time - would it have been reasonable to have all watertight bulkheads closed ~all the time?

Seriously, who was there to competently train our troops and command structure? Who in the US military hierarchy had the magic 8-ball?

 

[GregP]

I don't buy that, either.

Knowing how to be prepared for an enemy's capabilities is not a "skill-set" we ever lost.

After WWII, we had a distinct lack of combat experience, to be sure ... but we KNEW how to think and be prepared for what was coming. What we lacked was the money and leadership to ensure we were as prepared as the budget allowed for. I have not done an in-depth analysis of who to blame for that, but it comes back to leadership. A good leader works with what he has to work with, and they didn't do that very well. Instead, they prepared to LOOK good, march well, and give fine parades, with great bands and John Phillip Sousa marching music. They did it well, but that does NOT prepare you for a conflict.

Had I been commander-in-chief (yes, I know I wasn't), some heads would have rolled. As it turns out, the Army and the Navy fought each other during WWII almost as hard as they fought the Japanese ... yet another sign of poor leadership. You get the two leaders in a room and tell them, "figure out how to cooperate and get along or I'll replace both of you. You have 2 hours to convince me you can do it, and you need to keep convincing me you can cooperate with one another or retire." The list of issues was long, but we got it done anyway ... after a long, drawn-out conflict essentially involving the world. And we had a few "lucky breaks" along the way to lend assistance. The French, British, and Italians also had their leadership challenges, so maybe that was just the way it bound to be.

Fortunately, the Axis had even worse leadership than we did. Involving Goering and Hitler in any leadership positions was almost enough to guarantee failure, despite having good equipment and good people under them. Two worse people to plan and execute a war can hardly be imagined.

How lucky we were in that regard!

 

[muskeg13]

Pearl Harbor ships were at minimal staffing levels, ammunition was locked away, air patrols were not on a wartime footing.

This is not completely true. Since the November War Warning, the Pac Fleet actively maintained 25% of it's shipboard AA on 24-hour readiness. For the battleships, this equated to 2-5" and 2-.50 Cal MG per ship with crews standing nearby, communications and AA fire control manned and operable with ammunition immediately available. ADM Kimmel reported that regular liberty had been granted the night before the attack, with 3/4 of the officers and 1/2 of the men having liberty, but by the time of the attack, 90% of the men and 75% of the officers were aboard. Several of these "ready" AA guns were effectively engaging within seconds, even before "General Quarters" was alerted, but there was no advanced warning and no manned AA defense outside of the Fleet. A few Army AA batteries began to engage 25 minutes later, after most of the damage from the first attack wave had occurred.

XXXII. CONDITIONS AT PEARL HARBOR PRIOR TO ATTACK

One glaring flaw in the preparations for war in my opinion is the lack of adequate anti-torpedo defense being in place for berthed vessels. Given the RN success at Taranto over a year earlier in November 1940, the USN knew an aerial torpedo attack against ships in a relatively shallow harbor occur, and Pearl Harbor is actually a bit deeper than Taranto. "Tora Tora Tora" got this bit wrong. There were plans to construct and emplace torpedo nets to protect the fleet, particularly for the BBs, but due to the prevailing lackadaisical pre-war attitude, this project was given back-burner treatment.

Very few senior commanders in the far flung theaters that would see action first actually took the threat of war seriously.

 

[Thumpalumpacus]

This is not completely true. Since the November War Warning, the Pac Fleet actively maintained 25% of it's shipboard AA on 24-hour readiness. For the battleships, this equated to 2-5" and 2-.50 Cal MG per ship with crews standing nearby, communications and AA fire control manned and operable with ammunition immediately available. ADM Kimmel reported that regular liberty had been granted the night before the attack, with 3/4 of the officers and 1/2 of the men having liberty, but by the time of the attack, 90% of the men and 75% of the officers were aboard. Several of these "ready" AA guns were effectively engaging within seconds, even before "General Quarters" was alerted, but there was no advanced warning and no manned AA defense outside of the Fleet. A few Army AA batteries began to engage 25 minutes later, after most of the damage from the first attack wave had occurred.

XXXII. CONDITIONS AT PEARL HARBOR PRIOR TO ATTACK

The shore AA was largely unready, according to Rich Frank:

Technically the explicit mission of guarding the Pacific Fleet when it was at Pearl Harbor rested not with the Navy, but with the Army with its fighter aircraft and anti-aircraft guns.

[...]

Thus, when Washington issued "War Warning" messages separately to Short and Kimmel at the end of November, Short replied that he was only preparing against the danger of internal revolt or subversion, not external attack. Washington failed to challenge his readiness. Those anti-aircraft guns to protect Pearl Harbor were not deployed or had their ammunition locked up. No fighters were ready to engage a Japanese attack.

[...]

The second huge deficiency in readiness was the failure to create an effective air information (or control) center. Washington had provided a radar network. But to make the center effective, it needed close cooperation of the Army and Navy to distinguish hostile from friendly aircraft picked up by radar.

[...]

Army anti-aircraft batteries probably would still have been mobilizing [even if the three tactical warning signs were acted-on -- Thump], as likely would have been defending fighters.

The Three Missed Tactical Warnings That Could Have Made a Difference at Pearl Harbor | The National WWII Museum | New Orleans

Historian Richard B. Frank discusses three major mistakes which denied the fleet at Pearl Harbor time to prepare for the incoming Japanese attack.

www.nationalww2museum.org

Your point about the Navy crews is apt, but they weren't the ones charged with defending the installation (except in a larger operational sense).

One glaring flaw in the preparations for war in my opinion is the lack of adequate anti-torpedo defense being in place for berthed vessels. Given the RN success at Taranto over a year earlier in November 1940, the USN knew an aerial torpedo attack against ships in a relatively shallow harbor occur, and Pearl Harbor is actually a bit deeper than Taranto. "Tora Tora Tora" got this bit wrong. There were plans to construct and emplace torpedo nets to protect the fleet, particularly for the BBs, but due to the prevailing lackadaisical pre-war attitude, this project was given back-burner treatment.

Would there have been enough room? Pearl was quite a bit more cramped than Taranto.

Very few senior commanders in the far flung theaters that would see action first actually took the threat of war seriously.

 

[Bergjon12]

Lots of information has been bestowed on us. We are truly blessed.

In the immortal words (paraphrased) of Mel Brooks, General Short seems to have been the leading hole in the territory. His attitude does not seem to be grounded in reality.

Kimmel appears to have approached the situation more reasonably but was let down by several factors outside his immediate control.

Washington did furnish information which was understandably short on detail, but could have been more hands-on. There was insufficient initiative available to put Short in his place, for one thing. Washington failed to single out Pearl as a potential target. That seems odd, but who was the tactical genius in Washington who had well and truly carried the sink in his hands through the door on Taranto? Let's not forget that Roosevelt was a narcissist, and they inevitably spread their poison throughout any organization they head, resulting in lethargy and window dressing.

As I have covered, Mac of Ph had the information, the plans and the direct orders, but preferred to play Viceroy first, then Garbage General.

 

[Thumpalumpacus]

Washington failed to single out Pearl as a potential target.

[...]

As I have covered, Mac of Ph had the information, the plans and the direct orders, but preferred to play Viceroy first, then Garbage General.

America's intelligence apparatus had no idea which target would be struck first. They suspected that Malaya and Singapore were first on the menu. MacArthur should have been on the front foot. He got the war warnings, too, after all -- and he was a few thousand miles forward of Pearl.

 

[Geoffrey Sinclair]

Hawaii's zone is now UTC-10, it was UTC-10.30 in 1941. So 8.00 am Hawaiian time in 1941 is the same as 8.30 am today when it comes to things like the amount of daylight present but obviously not the affairs of humans which go by the clock. When the IJN strike took off around 6am, there was enough light for Akagi to use signal flags to order the launch to start, and since the Akagi was north of Pearl Harbor dawn was slightly later for it, given it was December.

From Day of Infamy by Walter Lord, 7 December Hawaii,
Air Plotting centre, only 1 officer present Lt Tyler, fighter pilot, second time on duty, without any explanation on what he was to do. Initially full staffing hours were 0700 to 1600, but changed to 0400 to 0700 then training to 1100 after the 27 November war warning was received, but no training on a Sunday. Opana radar station could normally expect around 40 plots on its 0400 to 0700 shift, the 6 personnel lived about 9 miles away, doing 3 man shifts, but decided to do a 2 man on 7 December.
HQ, 14th Naval District, watch consisting of 1 officer plus 1 Hawaiian enlisted man who spoke little English.

3.42 Minesweeper Condor spots a submarine at 100 yards range closing, around 1,000 yards from the harbour entrance
3.58 Condor blinkers a message to Ward, the duty destroyer, which sounds General Quarters and starts to search
4.43 Ward reverts to normal watch, no submarine found
4.58 anti torpedo net at harbour entrance completes opening, it will be left open
5.30 or so, in response to a radio query Condor tells Ward the submarine course when first spotted, not last seen, Ward moves to an area the submarine could not be.
5.34 Ward send thanks to Condor, Bishop's point radio station follows the exchange, does not make a report.
6.27 about, sunrise
6.30 Antares (towing a barge) passes a mile from Ward which notices something hanging off the tow wire, above a PBY starts circling
6.40 Ward identifies submarine, sounds General Quarters, shortly after the PBY releases smoke markers
6.45 Ward opens fire, then the PBY makes a run dropping depth bombs
6.45 Opana reports to Air Plotting centre a couple of aircraft plots 130 miles North
6.48 Ward intercepts a sampan which tries to escape, starts escorting it to the Coast Guard
6.51 Ward reports "depth bombed sub operating in defensive sea area" in code but lots of debris and whales had been depth bombed over the previous months.
6.53 Ward reports "Attacked, fired on, depth bombed and sunk submarine operating in defensive sea area", in code as per usual orders.
6.54 Opana told it can begin shutting down for the day, the 2 staff decide to stay on air until breakfast truck arrives so they can do more practice.
7.00 Air Plotting centre, time for breakfast for all people except the phone switchboard operator and Lt Tyler
7.00 about, PBY sends combat report, coded.
7.02 Opana picks up a big return, 137 miles north 3 degrees east
7.03 Ward gains a sound contact, deploys depth charges, gets a large black oil bubble as a result, alerts HQ to stand by for more messages, resumes sampan escort
7.06 Opana calls air plotting centre, gets the private on switchboard duty, who talks to Lt Tyler, no need for action
7.12 Ward 6.53 message decoded and in hands of 14th Naval District, phone call to Admiral Bloch's chief of staff, who orders to verify, contact CINCPAC duty officer and 14th Naval District operations officer.
7.15 radar plot a distance 62 miles, then or slightly later Opana operators talk to Lt Tyler direct, who thinks navy planes (carriers out) or the B-17 coming in from the US, hence why the commercial radio had stayed on air all night
7.15 Admiral Bloch on phone to operations centre, a 5 to 10 minute debate, by the end of which no one was sure Ward had seen anything, decision taken current response satisfactory, await further developments.
7.20 (about) CINCPAC HQ gets the Ward message, attempts to call back are blocked by a continual busy signal
7.25 orders for duty destroyer Monaghan to join Ward, then also call the Coast Guard about the sampan and then orders to close the harbour gate, all with separate phone calls, each taking time
7.30 Air plotting centre switchboard operator shift change, one private for another.
7.30 PBY ordered to verify message, air search plan being drawn up, CINCPAC HQ notified
7.30 CINCPAC HQ gets phone call with the PBY report, sunk a submarine, time to compare notes with what Ward reports
7.39 Opana loses the radar plot in its "dead zone", breakfast truck arrives about then
7.40 Fuchida signals for surprise attack plan.
7.40 Admiral Kimmel is informed about Ward's submarine activities, by now the sampan incident is taken by some as an indication nothing important happened.
7.45 Opana staff on way to breakfast
7.50 second call to Admiral Kimmel attempted, this time to report the sampan
7.51 duty destroyer Monaghan gets signal to join Ward.
7.53 Tora Tora Tora success signal sent
7.55 Preparation flag for morning colours hoisted, people begin to notice lots of aircraft. The destroyer Helm is the only ship in harbour under way, receives a wave from planes passing 100 yards away.
7.55 "All ships in harbour sortie"
7.57 Helena torpedoed, Utah, Raleigh already torpedoed.
8.00 around, off course B-17 arrive from the north.

For some in 1940/41 part of the explanation for the sudden collapse of the Netherlands, Belgium and France (and to an extent Norway) was a 5th Column doing sabotage, Hawaii had around 158,000 people of "Japanese blood", nearly half the population, when General Short decided they were the biggest threat and told his superiors he was acting accordingly no one objected. An effective 5th column, as envisaged pre war, would be relatively simple to set up, since the majority of the population was not American. It would also be highly effective. Were the Hawaiians 100% happy with US rule? Did the US have enough Japanese speakers to track the population? There was plenty of opportunity to stockpile enough weapons to make a start, then for example raiding army stores to equip the rest of the saboteurs as part of an attempt to capture the island. Pre war no US person knew how much effort was needed to make a 5th column work, nor how detectable it would be. There were enough Japanese in Hawaii expressing admiration for Japan to make the US assume this meant there were enough volunteers, the idea that people who leave a country often do so because they find a better life was discounted. The US built a picture based on, in one sense, that old colonial revolt fear, the majority of the island's population was not of American origin, a Japanese revolt might have help from the Hawaiians, or at least neutrality. Governing when a large minority hate you and a large majority are not sympathetic to you is very hard to do. Once the picture was formed the inevitable steady stream of ambiguous information was interpreted accordingly.

In November/December 1941 the USN assumed the IJN carriers were either headed south like much of the fleet, or were being held in reserve to counter any setbacks or USN moves, in accordance with the long held and well known IJN strategic defensive war plan against the USA.

1) the IJN could not put a large carrier fleet into Hawaiian waters except from the mandated islands, according to intelligence.
2) Pearl had enough search aircraft to guard this approach.
3) Pearl Harbor had 161 out of the USAAF total of 1,618 fighters at the end of November 1941 (the Philippines had 228, Latin America 231 according to the USAAF Statistical digest). Oahu had several radar sets available, plus the radars on USN ships.
4) Until Shokaku and Zuikaku could be considered operational the carrier raid from the north was 1 IJN carrier.
5) Until at sea refuelling was possible any carriers coming from the north would have minimal escorts.
6) The possibility of an airstrike was always on the table, the point was how probable, how much to tie Pearl Harbor up on that possibility, cutting into the time and material needed for other things like training.
7) The "best" use for the IJN carriers was covering the landings in South East Asia (like the IJN Naval General Staff wanted).
8) The known IJN war plan was to attrition the USN as it advanced, the carriers and most battleships in home waters waiting to engage the advancing USN fitted into this.

In order to actually do the strike commercial tankers had to be used, which caused station keeping problems.

"After a lengthy maritime strike in the winter of 1936-37 General Drum resubmitted his recommendations with the argument that the Army must extend its protection to the outer islands if it wished to assure an adequate supply of food for Oahu in time of war. Oahu produced only 15 percent of its own requirements in food, but the other islands could readily make up the deficiency in an emergency if communication was maintained with them. Again the War Department objected. In both 1935 and 1937, its basic argument against broadening the Army mission in Hawaii was the following: "If the Fleet is in the Pacific and free to act, Oahu will be, with the completion of the existing defense project, secure against any attacks that may be launched against it. It is only in the case that the Fleet is not present or free to act that the security of the Hawaiian Islands can be seriously threatened." (10) That the presence of the fleet in or near Hawaiian waters provided a more or less automatic guarantee against any serious attack on Oahu continued to be a widely held conviction both in Washington and Hawaii until the Japanese demonstration to the contrary in December 1941." (10) Memo, ACofS WPD for Col Miles, WPD, 29 Jul 37, and other papers in WPD 3878-3.

So Hawaii did not need external food supplies provided you could do inter island shipment and the presence of the fleet lessened the threat to Hawaii, which was actually correct, the other side was it raised the threat to the fleet.

The US radar stations on Hawaii tracked the Japanese aircraft as they flew back north. The information was lost in the system, probably fortunately given Enterprise then searched south west, rather then heading north.

 

[GrauGeist]

Here's what the Far East Airforce had on hand, 8 December 1941, to stop the Japanese attack:
(note that these aircraft were distributed among 6 airfields, not concentrated at one location)
5th BC
19th BG (H):
(10) B-18
(4) B-17C
(15) B-17D

5th ABG:
(2) B-18

27th BG (L):
(3) B-18

5th IC
24th PG:
(12) P-26
(26) P-35
(24) P-40B
(65) P-40E

2nd OS:
(2) O-46
(3) O-49
(11) O-52

The Japanese aircraft employed in the initial attack on Clark and Iba fields were:
(85) A6M
(26) G3M
(80) G4M

 

[SaparotRob]

Hawaii's zone is now UTC-10, it was UTC-10.30 in 1941. So 8.00 am Hawaiian time in 1941 is the same as 8.30 am today when it comes to things like the amount of daylight present but obviously not the affairs of humans which go by the clock. When the IJN strike took off around 6am, there was enough light for Akagi to use signal flags to order the launch to start, and since the Akagi was north of Pearl Harbor dawn was slightly later for it, given it was December.

From Day of Infamy by Walter Lord, 7 December Hawaii,
Air Plotting centre, only 1 officer present Lt Tyler, fighter pilot, second time on duty, without any explanation on what he was to do. Initially full staffing hours were 0700 to 1600, but changed to 0400 to 0700 then training to 1100 after the 27 November war warning was received, but no training on a Sunday. Opana radar station could normally expect around 40 plots on its 0400 to 0700 shift, the 6 personnel lived about 9 miles away, doing 3 man shifts, but decided to do a 2 man on 7 December.
HQ, 14th Naval District, watch consisting of 1 officer plus 1 Hawaiian enlisted man who spoke little English.

3.42 Minesweeper Condor spots a submarine at 100 yards range closing, around 1,000 yards from the harbour entrance
3.58 Condor blinkers a message to Ward, the duty destroyer, which sounds General Quarters and starts to search
4.43 Ward reverts to normal watch, no submarine found
4.58 anti torpedo net at harbour entrance completes opening, it will be left open
5.30 or so, in response to a radio query Condor tells Ward the submarine course when first spotted, not last seen, Ward moves to an area the submarine could not be.
5.34 Ward send thanks to Condor, Bishop's point radio station follows the exchange, does not make a report.
6.27 about, sunrise
6.30 Antares (towing a barge) passes a mile from Ward which notices something hanging off the tow wire, above a PBY starts circling
6.40 Ward identifies submarine, sounds General Quarters, shortly after the PBY releases smoke markers
6.45 Ward opens fire, then the PBY makes a run dropping depth bombs
6.45 Opana reports to Air Plotting centre a couple of aircraft plots 130 miles North
6.48 Ward intercepts a sampan which tries to escape, starts escorting it to the Coast Guard
6.51 Ward reports "depth bombed sub operating in defensive sea area" in code but lots of debris and whales had been depth bombed over the previous months.
6.53 Ward reports "Attacked, fired on, depth bombed and sunk submarine operating in defensive sea area", in code as per usual orders.
6.54 Opana told it can begin shutting down for the day, the 2 staff decide to stay on air until breakfast truck arrives so they can do more practice.
7.00 Air Plotting centre, time for breakfast for all people except the phone switchboard operator and Lt Tyler
7.00 about, PBY sends combat report, coded.
7.02 Opana picks up a big return, 137 miles north 3 degrees east
7.03 Ward gains a sound contact, deploys depth charges, gets a large black oil bubble as a result, alerts HQ to stand by for more messages, resumes sampan escort
7.06 Opana calls air plotting centre, gets the private on switchboard duty, who talks to Lt Tyler, no need for action
7.12 Ward 6.53 message decoded and in hands of 14th Naval District, phone call to Admiral Bloch's chief of staff, who orders to verify, contact CINCPAC duty officer and 14th Naval District operations officer.
7.15 radar plot a distance 62 miles, then or slightly later Opana operators talk to Lt Tyler direct, who thinks navy planes (carriers out) or the B-17 coming in from the US, hence why the commercial radio had stayed on air all night
7.15 Admiral Bloch on phone to operations centre, a 5 to 10 minute debate, by the end of which no one was sure Ward had seen anything, decision taken current response satisfactory, await further developments.
7.20 (about) CINCPAC HQ gets the Ward message, attempts to call back are blocked by a continual busy signal
7.25 orders for duty destroyer Monaghan to join Ward, then also call the Coast Guard about the sampan and then orders to close the harbour gate, all with separate phone calls, each taking time
7.30 Air plotting centre switchboard operator shift change, one private for another.
7.30 PBY ordered to verify message, air search plan being drawn up, CINCPAC HQ notified
7.30 CINCPAC HQ gets phone call with the PBY report, sunk a submarine, time to compare notes with what Ward reports
7.39 Opana loses the radar plot in its "dead zone", breakfast truck arrives about then
7.40 Fuchida signals for surprise attack plan.
7.40 Admiral Kimmel is informed about Ward's submarine activities, by now the sampan incident is taken by some as an indication nothing important happened.
7.45 Opana staff on way to breakfast
7.50 second call to Admiral Kimmel attempted, this time to report the sampan
7.51 duty destroyer Monaghan gets signal to join Ward.
7.53 Tora Tora Tora success signal sent
7.55 Preparation flag for morning colours hoisted, people begin to notice lots of aircraft. The destroyer Helm is the only ship in harbour under way, receives a wave from planes passing 100 yards away.
7.55 "All ships in harbour sortie"
7.57 Helena torpedoed, Utah, Raleigh already torpedoed.
8.00 around, off course B-17 arrive from the north.

For some in 1940/41 part of the explanation for the sudden collapse of the Netherlands, Belgium and France (and to an extent Norway) was a 5th Column doing sabotage, Hawaii had around 158,000 people of "Japanese blood", nearly half the population, when General Short decided they were the biggest threat and told his superiors he was acting accordingly no one objected. An effective 5th column, as envisaged pre war, would be relatively simple to set up, since the majority of the population was not American. It would also be highly effective. Were the Hawaiians 100% happy with US rule? Did the US have enough Japanese speakers to track the population? There was plenty of opportunity to stockpile enough weapons to make a start, then for example raiding army stores to equip the rest of the saboteurs as part of an attempt to capture the island. Pre war no US person knew how much effort was needed to make a 5th column work, nor how detectable it would be. There were enough Japanese in Hawaii expressing admiration for Japan to make the US assume this meant there were enough volunteers, the idea that people who leave a country often do so because they find a better life was discounted. The US built a picture based on, in one sense, that old colonial revolt fear, the majority of the island's population was not of American origin, a Japanese revolt might have help from the Hawaiians, or at least neutrality. Governing when a large minority hate you and a large majority are not sympathetic to you is very hard to do. Once the picture was formed the inevitable steady stream of ambiguous information was interpreted accordingly.

In November/December 1941 the USN assumed the IJN carriers were either headed south like much of the fleet, or were being held in reserve to counter any setbacks or USN moves, in accordance with the long held and well known IJN strategic defensive war plan against the USA.

1) the IJN could not put a large carrier fleet into Hawaiian waters except from the mandated islands, according to intelligence.
2) Pearl had enough search aircraft to guard this approach.
3) Pearl Harbor had 161 out of the USAAF total of 1,618 fighters at the end of November 1941 (the Philippines had 228, Latin America 231 according to the USAAF Statistical digest). Oahu had several radar sets available, plus the radars on USN ships.
4) Until Shokaku and Zuikaku could be considered operational the carrier raid from the north was 1 IJN carrier.
5) Until at sea refuelling was possible any carriers coming from the north would have minimal escorts.
6) The possibility of an airstrike was always on the table, the point was how probable, how much to tie Pearl Harbor up on that possibility, cutting into the time and material needed for other things like training.
7) The "best" use for the IJN carriers was covering the landings in South East Asia (like the IJN Naval General Staff wanted).
8) The known IJN war plan was to attrition the USN as it advanced, the carriers and most battleships in home waters waiting to engage the advancing USN fitted into this.

In order to actually do the strike commercial tankers had to be used, which caused station keeping problems.

"After a lengthy maritime strike in the winter of 1936-37 General Drum resubmitted his recommendations with the argument that the Army must extend its protection to the outer islands if it wished to assure an adequate supply of food for Oahu in time of war. Oahu produced only 15 percent of its own requirements in food, but the other islands could readily make up the deficiency in an emergency if communication was maintained with them. Again the War Department objected. In both 1935 and 1937, its basic argument against broadening the Army mission in Hawaii was the following: "If the Fleet is in the Pacific and free to act, Oahu will be, with the completion of the existing defense project, secure against any attacks that may be launched against it. It is only in the case that the Fleet is not present or free to act that the security of the Hawaiian Islands can be seriously threatened." (10) That the presence of the fleet in or near Hawaiian waters provided a more or less automatic guarantee against any serious attack on Oahu continued to be a widely held conviction both in Washington and Hawaii until the Japanese demonstration to the contrary in December 1941." (10) Memo, ACofS WPD for Col Miles, WPD, 29 Jul 37, and other papers in WPD 3878-3.

So Hawaii did not need external food supplies provided you could do inter island shipment and the presence of the fleet lessened the threat to Hawaii, which was actually correct, the other side was it raised the threat to the fleet.

The US radar stations on Hawaii tracked the Japanese aircraft as they flew back north. The information was lost in the system, probably fortunately given Enterprise then searched south west, rather then heading north.

A great breakdown of events. Wonderful post.

 

[Dimlee]

With things like Japanese air strikes on Siberian airfields

This is new information for me. Can you elaborate?

 

[GregP]

None of this, while interesting and worthwhile, has a lot to do with the maneuverability of the Zero.

Perhaps a new thread for it?

Just a comment, not scolding anyone.

I just think it will be hard to find this thread 2 years from now if you don't remember the title was Zero Manruverability.

 

[Bergjon12]

None of this, while interesting ans worthwhile, has a lot to do with the maneuverability of the Zero.

Perhaps a new thread for it?

Just a comment, not scolding anyone.

I just think it will be hard to find this thread 2 years from now if you don't remember the title was Zero Manruverability.

Topic drift is a thing. Perhaps the mods can help.

 

[Geoffrey Sinclair]

IJA versus Red Army, there was skirmishing leading to heavier combat April to August 1938, then open division/corps/army level operations Khalkhin Gol or Nomonhan in 1939. Try searching for the names, there are a number of books as well.

 

[Dimlee]

IJA versus Red Army, there was skirmishing leading to heavier combat April to August 1938, then open division/corps/army level operations Khalkhin Gol or Nomonhan in 1939. Try searching for the names, there are a number of books as well.

Sorry, but the question was about "Japanese air strikes on Siberian airfields". Were there any?

(I read my first book about Khalkin-Gol/Nomohnah over 50 years ago. But thank you for your recommendations.)

 

[Barrett]

I have a book by one WW2 F6F pilot said that he trained on the F6F and did not fly the F4F until he got to the Pacific, at a base where they needed pilots to test F4F's and presumably FM-1's and FM-2's that had come out of depot maintenance. He said that compared to the F6F, the F4F was like going from a family sedan to a sports car. Since he had a lot of experience by then he loved flying the Wildcat, just for fun, although I have no doubt he would vastly prefer the F6F in combat. Of course the FM-2, lighter and with more HP at lower altitudes than the F4F was pretty peppy in its own right.


Yes, that is the way you do it with a taildragger. Not only does it allow he aircraft to accelerate more quickly, but it generally puts the rudder and fin in a better position to provide better control authority. And oddly enough, pushing forward on the stick sounds like an invitation to disaster, given that you have no nosewheel, but it is the proper thing to do and that goes for landing as well.

Back in the mid-80's I was thinking about buying an airplane and wondered about taildraggers. I had only 4 hours in a Champ years before and took an hour of instruction in a Citabria., flying from the airfield where they filmed The Rocketeer a few years later. I have never yelled so much in an airplane in my life. All would be going just fine and I would touch down and then give it the power to take off again - whereby the airplane would hop into the air and turn sideways. YEEOOOWWWW!

In the words of Wolfgang Langswhich, "The conventional gear is a good take off gear but it is a poor landing gear." So I bought an airplane that is the easiest to land around.

But the interesting thing about the Zero is that not only was it a superb dogfighter under optimum conditions, it was also easy to fly.

I'm late to the party but want to acknowledge Mlflyer's comment about Wolfgang Langewische. My dad required me to read Stick and Rudder before I started flying. Twice.
Still one of the finest examples of expository writing...

 

[Barrett]

Paraphrasing a very early 2000's dinner table conversation I once had with my father, an F4F driver, indeed, a career naval aviator, on the subject landing and ground loops.

Ground loops . . . easy to do in an F4F. The structure and positioning of the landing gear gave the inexperienced pilot the opportunity to bring a landing roll-out to a grinding halt. The structure of the landing gear allowed for some lateral play. You could walk up to a parked F4F's wingtip, grab it with both hands and chin yourself. In the process, the shock absorber on the side you were on would depress and that wing would go down and the opposite wing would go up. When you let go, all would return to an even keel. The positioning of the gear was close to the fuselage and allowed, even accentuated, this tipping effect.

Now picture an F4F coming in for a landing . . . anything, like a sudden cross wind, that might tend to push the plane to the left, or worse, to the right due to engine torque, would have the same effect on the landing gear. A push to a given side causes the landing gear to depress on that side with the resulting raising of the wing on the opposite side. If the push is hard enough, it can even cause the wheel on the off side to lose contact with the ground. This is especially likely if the push occurs early in the roll-out when the speed of the airplane is still high enough to generate lift and thus create a vicious circle of events. The wing on the off side starts to go up, creating more lift on that side due to change in attitude, causing the wing to go higher still, causing the off side wheel to break contact with the ground.

A pilot without any practice in dealing with this problem tends to want to do something about it as soon as it starts to occur . . . the problem is that the instinctive reaction is to hit the brakes . . . except by then lift has taken over and the brake you want to hit is on a wheel that is up in the air. If the pilot hits both brakes (gotta slow this damn thing down so there's no more lift) then he winds up braking on the downside wheel only with a result that increases the forces pushing that side down causing the wingtip to contact with the ground which in most cases results in a great cloud of dust and screeching of unhappy metal as the plane pivots around on it's wing tip and come to the above mentioned grinding halt . . . a ground loop. "I was thoroughly scared the one time it happened to me," he said.

There are ways to avoid this. The first way is not to do anything. When a wing starts to go up don't respond. Let nature take its course and eventually the plane will lose enough speed to lose lift and the off side wing will come down of it's own accord. Takes a lot of willpower, but can be done. The second way is to avoid the problem by making the plane work for you. Remember that the F4F, and 99.44% of its contemporaries, were tail draggers. If your landing gear is out under the wing somewhere, like the SBD or the A6M2, for examples, the ground loop is not a common, indeed a rare, problem. But for planes like the F4F and, say, the Me-109 or Spitfire, the landing gear placed very close to the fuselage presents the problem. The natural tendency is to strive for the "3 point" landing, with all wheels contacting the ground at the same time. This type of landing finesse contributes to the problem . . . with the tail wheel contacting the ground at near to the same time as the main gear, the wings are at an attitude that still provides lift. (Put your arm out your car window with you hand out flat, fingers together, parallel with the ground. Now, rotate your hand at the wrist so that the leading edge of the flattened surface is angled up about 5 degrees . . . Viola! Lift.) If you land the F4F in a tail high position (move your hand back to where it is parallel to the ground) lift goes away. The solution then was to land tail high and then as the plane slowed to where its speed was no longer sufficient to provide lift, the tail would come down of its own accord and you have a nice smooth landing with no (or little, anyway) possibility of a ground loop.

The reverse of this landing method worked just as well for take offs. As you start the take off run, you get your tail up as soon as you can by gently applying forward pressure on the stick. This causes the tail to come up while keeping the wings parallel to the ground as speed builds up. At the proper speed you only need center the stick, the tail starts to go down, the main wings start to rotate up, and it feels like you're jumping off the runway. This take off method became a handy habit to have when the tail draggers started to go away as tricycle gear came in to more and more use in the late 40's and into the 50s'. With tricycle gear, you were already in a tail high position, so you merely needed to exert enough pressure to keep the plane down on the runway until the desired speed was acquired, then off the pressure and off you go.

Dad said he got in the habit of using the tail high landing and take off methods with all the tail draggers. It has the added bonus of providing adequate visibility over the nose in either evolution, something that went away as soon as the tail went down on landing or that didn't appear until the tail came up on takeoff. It worked remarkably well in the F4U-1 with its well-known, near legendary, landing bounce. Most of the landing bounce problem was cause by folks attempting the "3-point" landing and succeeding. Dad said he never had a landing bounce in an F4U because he used the tail-high method. Couldn't understand what everyone was upset about when there was a simple solution to the problem.

Of course, all of the F4F ground loop issue is a landing field problem. The problem goes away on carrier landings because of the arrestor hook. He said he knew pilots at whose land landings he would just cringe and wait for the loop, but when they came in on a carrier it was like the easiest thing in the world.

This sort of conversation we'd have after dinner and the girls had left the table. God knows how they started, but afterwards I'd go off and write it down. I think somewhere in the boxes of papers there may even be a draft of a missive he wrote to one of his correspondents on the subject of F4F landings, but where and in which box? I dunno.

The Leonards represent the gold standard.
Like totally.
I'll just add my two bits:
I learned to three-point tailwheel machinery because it permitted shorter landing runs on our grass strip. The Naval Aircraft Factory N3N-3's original 30x5 Bendix wheels and brakes had their limits. Partly why so many Ns (WHICH WERE NOT REPEAT NOT "CANARIES") have BT wheels usually with those Lycoming add-ons.

Yours for original configurations & engines.

Call me a Wright flier! (500 hours worth!)

 

[MIflyer]

Air Plotting centre, only 1 officer present Lt Tyler, fighter pilot, second time on duty, without any explanation on what he was to do.

Sounds familiar. 2nd Lt, Operations Duty Officer at Tinker AFB at night and on weekends. The only thing you knew to do was greet all aircraft who had a Lt Col or above on board. And maybe change the towels and do some cleaning in the DV Lounge. Hawaii in 1941 or Oklahoma in 1974, it don't matter. Same idiots in charge. Don't even know how to write a friggin' manual.

An effective 5th column, as envisaged pre war, would be relatively simple to set up, since the majority of the population was not American. It would also be highly effective.

When that Zero crashed on one of the smaller islands after the attack the pilot told a Japanese immigrant and a Neisi that the Imperial forces were going to invade and they better shape up. They used the pilot's pistol and the machine guns from the Zero to take over the island. There was no radio communication available except for the radio in the Zero. This tended to confirm the fears of a Japanese uprising and was a factor in the decision to expel all Japanese from the US West Coast, with camps for those who refused to leave. But the Japanese population of the HI Islands was so vital to operation of the economy that there was no expulsion or camps there.

 

[GrauGeist]

When that Zero crashed on one of the smaller islands after the attack the pilot told a Japanese immigrant and a Neisi that the Imperial forces were going to invade and they better shape up. They used the pilot's pistol and the machine guns from the Zero to take over the island. There was no radio communication available except for the radio in the Zero. This tended to confirm the fears of a Japanese uprising and was a factor in the decision to expel all Japanese from the US West Coast, with camps for those who refused to leave. But the Japanese population of the HI Islands was so vital to operation of the economy that there was no expulsion or camps there.

The "Niihau Incident", which gave traction to removing people of Japanese descent from the entire west coast of North America as well as Brazil strongly regulating people of Japanese descent there, which by the way, was the largest concentration of Japanese people outside of Japan.

 

[MIflyer]

Brazil strongly regulating people of Japanese descent there, which by the way, was the largest concentration of Japanese people outside of Japan.

Peru has quite a few Japanese, too.