"Sneak Attack"?

[Bill Greenwood]

The progress in aviation , with the aircraft carrier and carrier borne aircraft made Japans "sneak attack" on Pearl Harbor possible.
And I think that is a basis for why many people in the U S, particlarly in those days have so much animosity toward Japan. I note that Japan did not attack civilan areas on Oahu.I dont know if this was moral method or just best use of airpower?

Is this a fair view? I dont know if there were any genearlly accpeted international agreements back then that prohibited an attack before war was declared ed. My brief research found that Japan had a surprise attacl on Russia in 1904, assume it was naval, and the tatic was applauded by the U S and England as we were on the same side.
If the U S,for instance was to launch a preemptive air strike on Iran or N Korea, would it be secret or war declared in advance? My guess is it would be secret.

I do think Japan has a lot more to aplogize for with their conduct of the rest of the war, horrible treatment of both prisoners and civilians with many civilians killed in China. And they have offered some apologizes like last year, Ie from P M Abe, that Japan " took the wrong course" to war. The wording is sometimes round about , not so direct.

Why would Japan even attack a country 10 times its industrial strength? We had cut off trade in steel and oil to Japan in protest over their actions toward China.

[Glory Aulik]

The progress in aviation , with the aircraft carrier and carrier borne aircraft made Japans "sneak attack" on Pearl Harbor possible.
And I think that is a basis for why many people in the U S, particlarly in those days have so much animosity toward Japan. I note that Japan did not attack civilan areas on Oahu.I dont know if this was moral method or just best use of airpower?

Is this a valid view? I dont know if there were any genearlly accpeted international agreements back then that prohibited an attack before war was declared ed. My brief research found that Japan had a sneak attacl on Russia in 1904, assume it was naval, and was applauded by the U S and England for it as we were on the same side.
If the U S, Brits, or Israel for instance was to launch a preemptive air strike on Iran or N Korea, would it be secret or war declared in advance? My guess is it would be secret.

I do think Japan has a lot more to aplogize for with their conduct of the rest of the war, horrible treatment of both prisoners and civilians with many civilians killed in China. And they have offered some apologizes like last year, Ie from P M Abe, that Japan " took the wrong course" to war. The wording is sometimes round about , not so direct.

Why would Japan even attack a country 10 times its industrial strength? We had cut off trade in steel and oil to Japan in protest over their agression toward China.

Bill, I understand the historical aspect of this post, but I think it's riding a fine line of creating an aviation centered conversation.

[Floatsflyer]

Bill, I understand the historical aspect of this post, but I think it's riding a fine line of creating an aviation centered conversation.

I and others here I'm sure disagree. Bill's post(s) is not only legitimate, it's highly
relevant for this forum and this warbirds sub-section. No fine line here. If the Pearl Harbour attack was not completely 100% about aviation then it was about nothing.

[Kyle Boatright]

I and others here I'm sure disagree. Bill's post(s) is not only legitimate, it's highly
relevant for this forum and this warbirds sub-section. No fine line here. If the Pearl Harbour attack was not completely 100% about aviation then it was about nothing.

The intent of the post is to stir up a controversy about global politics and world power. The first couple of sentences are an attempt to anchor the topic in aviation, but the remainder of the post is trolling at its finest.

[rwanttaja]

I and others here I'm sure disagree. Bill's post(s) is not only legitimate, it's highly
relevant for this forum and this warbirds sub-section. No fine line here. If the Pearl Harbour attack was not completely 100% about aviation then it was about nothing.
No...it's an attempt at a political discussion with a flimsy attempt to make it look like it belongs in an aviation group.

Every capital in the world has an airport, and the local financial health affects the quality of the airport. Hence, discussion of, for instance, the market price of goats in Botswana would then become a legitimate topic for the EAA forums. Don't you WANT good airports????!!!!

Ron Wanttaja

[Bill Greenwood]

Glory,the word "politics is not even in my topic above, I didnt write it. "Global politics and world power" was written by Kyle in his attempt to slant my topic, those arent my words or theme. Mine is about 230 planes attacking with bombs torpedos and strafing, and by surprise. if a discussion of this is not about aviation and warbirds, then what is? No better evidence than EAA s own warbird magazine with stories of AIRPLANES, WARBIRDS that are reputed to have been at Pearl Harbor. Have you ever been to the Pacific AVIATION Museum on Ford Island, which is full of and focused on the PLANES of the attack, including the remains of a genuine Zero which was actually in the attack. I have also taken an aeriel tour of Oahu which retraced the path of the attacking PLANES, which Id highly reccomend to vistors. I also just saw again the movie Pearl Harbor which focuses on two PILOTS as part of the story, with artist license, and I know a couple of PILOTS who actuall FLEW for the movie.
And it is also about navy ships since these were the main target of the attack.

Even the the mini sub has a small aviation connection which I was going to post next, because its of interest and not widely known.
I included the discussion of the nature of the attack since it is such a factor and several posters here had expressed such strong feelings about itand our declartion of war the next day mentioned it.
And for Kyle and Bryan, its not about world politics other than the note that P M Abe attended the ceremony this year.
I invite Kyle to just avoid reading any post I write, since he seems to have a personal objection, though far as I know we've never even met.

Glory, I am not sure if objectors want a harsher view or more forgiving view of this event,but I think my post is not "riding a fine line" but is firmly on the side of aviation and I try to take a factual and fair middle ground.

I have just found an indirect connection between Pearl Harbor and the atomic bomb mission. I was going to post it one day, because I think folks would find it INTERESTING. An the atomic bomb is certainly about aviation, and warbirds, B-29s and my post will have nothing to do with politics.If you read the two books, Enola Gay, and Abondon Ship you may find the information that I just did, and my post will not be about politics though that is a part of the bomb story.

Finally Glory, what sentence or phrase to you object to? I dont see one.The word politics is not even in what I first wrote, much less anything about "global politics and world power"contoversy.

I also have a story of my personal flying at Ford Island which some may find of interest and even learning from it, AND IT WONT HAVE ANY POLITCS IN IT.

[Floatsflyer]

The intent of the post is to stir up a controversy about global politics and world power. The first couple of sentences are an attempt to anchor the topic in aviation, but the remainder of the post is trolling at its finest.

Naaaaahhhh....Bill is just being enthusiastically interesting.

[Floatsflyer]

No...it's an attempt at a political discussion with a flimsy attempt to make it look like it belongs in an aviation group.

Every capital in the world has an airport, and the local financial health affects the quality of the airport. Hence, discussion of, for instance, the market price of goats in Botswana would then become a legitimate topic for the EAA forums. Don't you WANT good airports????!!!!

Ron Wanttaja

Yes, I WANT good airports. I also want reasonably priced goats from Botswana because I believe in fair market value for Botswanian goat herders. I now return you to Pearl Harbour where no goats were harmed during the attack.

[Kyle Boatright]

Naaaaahhhh....Bill is just being enthusiastically interesting.

It is a boundary that certain individuals push and push and push. Some boards move the line to give the boundary pushers more space (or ignore when they are repeatedly over the line), some places (here) are obviously trying to figure out what to do about posts like these, and others ask people not to push the boundaries, then ultimately end up banning posters who can't respect the board's guidelines.

I suspect it is tougher to manage here, because anyone who posts here is an EAA member and the EAA is <probably> pretty leery of denying posting privileges to paying members.

[1600vw]

Some get an e-mail explaining the rules. I guess some don't get this e-mail. I wonder how I would know about this e-mail?

[wyoranch]

I guess I am just not smart enough to see it.
Rick "I should have payed more attention in school" H
or
Rick "sorry Ron for stealing you signature, but you have really come up with some good ones" H

[FlyingRon]

They didn't waste effort attacking parts of Oahu because by and large there was nothing to attack. Honolulu back then wasn't a very significant city and the rest of the island was largely empty (and by and large today it still is).

However, the US Navy Pacific fleet was a very significant target and that's where the impact was. Had they just come in and blown up Honolulu you may or may not have gotten the immediately US response that hitting Pearl did.

Even with the rudimentary technology of the day, the beginning of the attack was detected, it's just that nobody knew what to do with the intel. The fact that the Japanese were up to something was also known as we'd already busted their code machine.

No, you couldn't launch a sneak naval engagement today. Given the threat of nuclear attack from submarines, we've pretty much got tabs on even the underwater traffic, let alone surface shipping. In fact, surface shipping is trivial to track using the radar satellites. Even darkness and cloud cover won't obscure a big hunk of metal making a pronounced wake through the water in a SAR image. Even ATC radar would give a better warning than they had in 1941.

[rwanttaja]

They didn't waste effort attacking parts of Oahu because by and large there was nothing to attack. Honolulu back then wasn't a very significant city and the rest of the island was largely empty (and by and large today it still is).

However, the US Navy Pacific fleet was a very significant target and that's where the impact was. Had they just come in and blown up Honolulu you may or may not have gotten the immediately US response that hitting Pearl did.

Inspired me to do a bit of research. Honolulu was a bigger place in 1940 than I expected; it had 200,000 people in the city and county. Only doubled since then, I really had expected more.

Used Google Earth to check some ranges: About eight miles from the center of Honolulu to Battleship Row, and four miles to Hickam.

The pilots of the Imperial Japanese Navy in 1941 were probably trained as well as any in the world, and the Japanese had good Intelligence. One of the recent retrospectives said that the Japanese expected extremely heavy defenses, and the pilots were doubtful of making it back. With that, it's very unlikely that any of the pilots would have made an eight...or even four....mile error in targeting. Honolulu was not really at risk.

The Naval and Army bases were legitimate targets. I'm guessing the hospitals, etc. didn't have large, visible red crosses at this stage of the war. Still, doubt IJN pilots would have shot up random buildings while there were still targets on the surface in Pearl Harbor. Of course, accidents (and, friendly fire, as Bill said) happens.

No doubt civilian facilities just outside the bases might have taken a few "overs" as well. But the kind of facilities just outside the base perimeters were often the kind that the good church-going citizens of Hawaii woudn't have minded taking a few 20 mm shells.

Interesting trivial point: The Imperial Japanese Navy had a strong British heritage, with their early ships bought from Great Britain and many of the officers trained there. IJN ships even used English for helm commands until about 1930.

Ron "Funny in-name jokes copyrighted 2016 all right reserved*" Wanttaja

* Actually, no. It's been an Internet tradition going back about 30 years....just old guys like me and the other Ron remember....

[L16 Pilot]

Might as well put my two cents in here. The brother of a friend of mine was a gunner on a B29 that was rammed by a Japanese plane on May 7, 1945. Rammed might be a too strong word as it could have been an air to air collision. Either way the plane was going down and my friends brother and two others were able to bail out over Hachimen Mountain on the Japanese island of Kyushu. They were captured by the Japanese and taken to Fukuoka where they were beheaded on June 20, 1945 in response for a B29 raid over the city and Japanese headquarters the previous evening. They may have been the "lucky ones" as the Japanese were using captured airmen in the headquarter area for medical 'experiments' most of which were too brutal to explain. Fast forward some 70 years and I was able to visit the crash site and also a museum dedicated in part to the lost aircrew. I was doing this as part of a research after the fact on a book I had written a couple of years previous to my trip. The local Japanese in concert with the Rotary Club were my hosts for the entire day ending with an evening banquet. They even planted a cherry tree in my honor to commemorate the visit. I only post this to show even old enemies no matter how brutal previously can become friends. It's notable that fully 30 % of Japanese prisoners did not survive while the number is something like 3-5 % for those captured by the Germans.

[Mayhemxpc]

Trying to keep to the purely warbirds related portion...

an an air carrier group, even today, has limited assets. Yamamoto tried to select targets carefully for maximum effect with those limited assets. Even though the IJN initiated a carrier strike, the mindset then was still battleship dominant, so battleships were the target. The fact that civilians were not targeted was a simple cost effectiveness calculation. That said, the targeting showed that Japanese thinking was still very tactical and not strategic. As our own review of the attack determined (1942) the IJN misprioritized the targets. What would have Had a much more serious impact would have been targeting the docks, repair facilities and especially the fuel storage facilities. The saying goes that tactics wins battles, logistics wins wars.

The Hague Convention of 1907 (After the Port Arthur Raid and the Japanese victory) was clear that notification had to be given before the start of actual hostilities. The Japanese tried to deliver the declaration a few minutes before the attack commenced, but were delayed in D.C. So they were trying to meet the letter of the law while avoiding its intent and wound up unsuccessful.

Clausewitz wrote in the early 1800's that strategic surprise was difficult or impossible against a reasonably intelligent opponent. There are too many signs that a war, or even a major military operation is about to happen. These cannot all be hidden. The element of surprise then, is left to the specific timing and place of the attack. Such was true in 1941. Our military and civilian leadership knew war was coming with Japan. Hence the "two Navy" appropriations act of 1940. That air power would be decisive was also no surprise. All of the airplanes we won we won the war with were in design or on order before Pearl Harbor. Up to and including designs studies for the B-36. As the time got closer, we kind of figured that war may even come before the end of 1941. But we did not know exactly when and our best guess would be that the attack would fall on the Philippines. Of course, when the Philippines were hit, they were still unprepared, even though they knew the blow was coming and that it would come first by air attack.

[rwanttaja]

Trying to keep to the purely warbirds related portion...

an an air carrier group, even today, has limited assets. Yamamoto tried to select targets carefully for maximum effect with those limited assets. Even though the IJN initiated a carrier strike, the mindset then was still battleship dominant, so battleships were the target. The fact that civilians were not targeted was a simple cost effectiveness calculation. That said, the targeting showed that Japanese thinking was still very tactical and not strategic. As our own review of the attack determined (1942) the IJN misprioritized the targets. What would have Had a much more serious impact would have been targeting the docks, repair facilities and especially the fuel storage facilities. The saying goes that tactics wins battles, logistics wins wars.

Great post, Chris.

This echoes the same battleship-vs-aircraft argument that had been going on in our own Navy. In fact, one wonders...if the situation had been reversed, would the US still have targeted the battleships in lieu of the logistics facilities? Probably.

Us flying types point back to Billy Mitchell and the Ostfriesland as to "proving" the superiority of the aircraft over the battleship. Wasn't as simple as that, of course...the Ostfriesland was stationary, with no defense firepower, and the time between the bomb hits and the battleship actually sinking was long enough that the ship's crew may well have stopped the flooding and kept the the ship operational. So it was good PR for the Army Air Corps, but the admirals were not convinced. Remember, the first US aircraft carriers were conversions of other ships... Langley from a collier, and Lexington and Saratoga from battlecruiser hulls that we weren't allowed to complete due to the 1922 Washington Navy treaty.

A classic example of the Battleship admirals came from the fleet exercise in the '30s...the first message that went out said, "Lighting has stuck all aircraft in the fleet and they are grounded." So it let them play with their battlewagons without pesky aerial interference.

The last gasp of the Battleship Admirals came in 1945. The Japanese sent the IJN Yamato as part of a kamikaze attack on the US invasion forces around Okinawa. Yamato was the largest battleship ever built. It was accompanied a light cruiser and eight destroyers. All the Japanese crews knew it was a suicide mission.

Admiral Spruance, one of the Battleship Admirals*, was in charge of the US Navy Fleet and caught wind of the sortie. He starting dispatching his battleships to set up one final big-gun duel.

But...Admiral Marc Mitscher, commanding the carriers off Okinawa, found out about the incoming warships. He started moving his carriers toward them. At 1045 the next morning, he launched his strike, and radioed Spruance: "I propose to attack the Yamato strike force at 1200 unless otherwise directed. Will you take them or shall I?'"

Spruance sent back: "You take them."

Yamato took eleven torpedoes and six bombs before it sank. Only four Japanese destroyers survived.

The US lost ten aircraft and twelve men.

Ron Wanttaja

*It should be noted that Admiral Spruance commanded the US ships during the Battle of Midway...which shows even a Battleship Admiral could use air power.

[Gary737]

Why would Japan even attack a country 10 times its industrial strength? We had cut off trade in steel and oil to Japan in protest over their actions toward China.

Yamamoto tried to advise against attacking the US. He had studied there (Harvard?) in 1920s and knew of our industrial potential. But, when he was forced from above, he went all in to plan what they hoped would be a 'fatal' blow in the Pacific...... with the hope that the US would sue for peace and then Japan would have their own ocean as well as Indonesia, the Phillipines, etc to themselves.

Yamamoto knew that our three carriers were the key. To sink them would be 'fatal' to the USN. After all, think about the 'weapon' that Japan was going to use to deliver this fatal blow! Carriers!