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Thread: Pearl Harbor, New Program

  1. #11
    rwanttaja's Avatar
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    It's kind of funny, really. When I remodel my Fly Baby, I'd like to paint it like a Mitsubishi Claude, a pre-war Japanese fighter. But I know there's still considerable anti-Japanese feeling from the war, and don't want to offend anyone.


    Rudyard Kipling, the British author ("The Jungle Book," "Captains Courageous," etc.) lived in Vermont for several years in the 1890s. He later commented how many people still had anti-British sentiment left over from the Revolutionary War... 110 years earlier.

    Mind you, the American Civil War (aka, "The War Between the States," "The Late Unpleasantness," or "The War of Northern Aggression") still generates some ill feelings, too......

    Ron "Fifty-Four Forty or Fight!" Wanttaja

  2. #12
    rwanttaja's Avatar
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    Interesting graphic in the paper today, the anniversary of the attack. It showed warship profiles, and the number of casualties on each. Also showed casualties at Hickam, Wheeler, Ford Island, and other airports around Oahu.

    The curious thing, it showed six fatalities from USS Enterprise. Now, one of the things that saved our bacon on December 7th was the fact that the carriers didn't get in until the evening of the 7th and thus didn't come under attack. So I'm a bit curious about the fatalities listed for the Big E.

    Anyone got any insight? I was thinking maybe they'd left a small detachment behind when they'd sortied earlier. I know the Big E's CAP was shot at when it entered harbor, but don't see any actual shoot-downs due to friendly fire listed.

    Ron Wanttaja

  3. #13
    DaleB's Avatar
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    I found this on Wikipedia:

    Friendly fire brought down some U.S. planes on top of that, including five from an inbound flight from Enterprise. Japanese attacks on barracks killed additional personnel.
    Measure twice, cut once...
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  4. #14
    rwanttaja's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by DaleB View Post
    I found this on Wikipedia:
    Thanks...don't know how I missed it. Think I searched for "Enterprise" but only looked at the first result.

    Ron Wanttaja

  5. #15
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    If Wikipedia ever goes away, I'm going to get a lot dumber.
    Measure twice, cut once...
    scratch head, shrug, shim to fit.

    Flying an RV-12. I am building a Fisher Celebrity, slowly.

  6. #16

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    Ron, I dont think there is firm evidence that one of the mini subs ever got inside Pearl Harbor, through the anti sub nets, or fired a torpedo there.
    The Ward sighted, fired on and sank a mini sub just outside the harbor entrance, 6:30 am BEFORE the air attack, began.. A few years back that sub was found, but I dont recall if it had a torpedo still on board or not, same as one which ran aground elsewhere.
    I saw a program on the search for this mini sub about 2000, I think. One of the surviving Ward crewmen said then that the search was too far out to sea, should be a few miles and that they had shelled and hit the conning tower. Experts doubted him, but when found the sub was where he said with a hole right through the tower. I think a arial torpedo can be pretty large too.
    Last edited by Bill Greenwood; 12-08-2016 at 12:09 PM.

  7. #17
    rwanttaja's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Bill Greenwood View Post
    Ron, I dont think there is firm evidence that one of the mini subs ever got inside Pearl Harbor, through the anti sub nets, or fired a torpedo there.
    The Ward sighted, fired on and sank a mini sub just outside the harbor entrance, 6:30 am BEFORE the air attack, began.. A few years back that sub was found, but I dont recall if it had a torpedo still on board or not, same as one which ran aground elsewhere.
    I saw a program on the search for this mini sub about 2000, I think. One of the surviving Ward crewmen said then that the search was too far out to sea, should be a few miles and that they had shelled and hit the conning tower. Experts doubted him, but when found the sub was where he said with a hole right through the tower. I think a arial torpedo can be pretty large too.
    Certainly, there's no hard evidence that any of the subs made it into the harbor. Even the perceived "bigger" hit could have been an aerial torpedo with a secondary explosion from munitions on Oklahoma.

    I had thought the midget subs carried the famous Long Lance torpedo, but they had reduced-size version that was 18 inches in diameter vs. the 24 inches of the Long Lance. Found a cool site that presents the differences between Japanese submarine, ship, and aircraft torpedoes:

    http://www.combinedfleet.com/torps.htm

    The type 97 used on the midget subs had about ~75% more explosive than the Type 91 Mod 2s carried by the Kates at Pearl. Same diameter, though, so there were probably a lot of similarities beyond the extra explosive in the midget-sub torpedo. Total weight of the mini-sub torpedoes wasn't that much more than the aircraft ones.

    One of the aspects of the Pearl Harbor attack is that there were many "Experts" who claimed an aerial torpedo attack would be impossible....that the floor of the bay was too shallow, and the torpedoes would hit the bottom before they could level out and find their running depth. However, a year earlier, the British Royal Navy had attacked the Italian Navy anchorage in Taranto Bay with good results. One thing I'd read is that the Japanese had installed breakaway fins on their torpedoes to reduce their post-impact dives.

    Ron Wanttaja

  8. #18

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    Quote Originally Posted by rwanttaja View Post
    One thing I'd read is that the Japanese had installed breakaway fins on their torpedoes to reduce their post-impact dives.

    Ron Wanttaja
    Yep. The US basically did the same thing and more with its air dropped torpedoes during the war, expanding the launch envelope from low and slow to as high as 2400' and 410 knots.

  9. #19

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    Several planes that may have been at Pearl Harbor, like the Collings P-40 are in the latest Warbird magazine.

  10. #20
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    Up front...I am not saying that deliberately withholding information the might have saved some thousands of lives is ever morally justified. Pearl Harbor -- if so, and Coventry (more definitely known) are just two cases.

    That said, it has been remarked that the anger felt by the American people to that attack carried us through final victory in the war. Without that anger, we might have made a political calculation that unconditional surrender just wasn't worth it. Certainly if Pearl Harbor had not been successful we would not have executed the Doolittle Raid. We might not have gone to make lots of escort carriers and tried the battleship based strategy - fighting the war with what we had.

    Many years ago there was an interesting alternate history short story on what would have happened if the B-17's had caught the IJN and disrupted it before it got within range of Pearl. The Philippines still fall, but without bloody minded vindictiveness the American people eventually begin to ask about the cost and a peace is negotiated. The author ends it at that but it could go on from there. The atomic bomb is never completed or tested in the war. This either means that a conventional WW3 breaks out in 1950 or so, with all of the carnage from that (no nuclear threshold to keep things from going all out) or the bomb does get finished about 1948 or so. No one really knows the kind of destruction it can cause (no example of Hiroshima and Nagasaki) and we have nuclear war in the 1950's. Probably not immediately world ending then (the US, the USSR, France, the UK and eventually China did explode over 1000 bombs and more than 100 of these above ground in the 50's and 60's and we are still around) but the effects would have significantly set back civilization.

    All speculation of course. In the end there was a surprise attack. The American people were incensed, and bloody minded vengeance ended the war with an example that kept the world from intercontinental warfare since then.
    Chris Mayer
    N424AF
    www.o2cricket.com

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