Posted on 12/07/2025 5:49:21 AM PST by DFG
Even as total as the surprise was at Pearl, the Japanese still took significant losses and would probably have been badly mauled if the US forces had been on alert.
(The responsibility for the naval defense would have fallen to Admiral Kimmel.) (Yes, there should have been a picket line of ships and/or submarines in the waters around Oahu.)
The Japanese losses were a fraction (5%, actually) of the American losses.
It wasn't the losses that ended their attacks, nor was it the American response. They had more time than they themselves knew, so complete was their surprise and so off-guard were the Americans. The unknown was arguably the driving force in the decision to head home after two sorties.
In the end, the Japanese victory at Pearl Harbor may have helped seal their fate at Midway, as Japan left two carriers behind in their belief that four would suffice; had the American response to the attack been more vigorous, it is likely that the Japanese would have taken us far more seriously six months later and put all six carriers to sea for a second voyage across the Pacific.
Look at all the long range float planes sitting on the ground rather than fanned out hundreds of miles from Pearl on patrol.
The Japanese losses were a fraction (5%, actually) of the American losses.
Japanese aircraft losses were 29 or about 8.5 percent of the strike force.
At that rate, all attacking Japanese aircraft would be lost in 11 such attacks.
For the squids on this thread, who could forget The Horse and Cow, the dive bar just off base.
I do not remember that one.
Didn’t someone in Washington deduce from intercepted Japanese diplomatic messages that an attack on Pearl Harbor was imminent and send a telegram, but because of it being a weekend there were delays and the message was delivered to the commander at Pearl Harbor after the attack had already started?
My father was a Marine stationed at Mare Island on Dec. 7, 1941. He and a friend had gone to the mountains to cut down a Christmas tree in a vehicle that did not have a radio. My father’s parents lived in Sacramento so maybe the tree was for them. At some point on the return trip, maybe at his parents’ house, he learned about the attack and that they had to get back to Mare Island immediately.
[snip] One of the vessels repaired at Mare Island was the USS Indianapolis, which left in mid-July 1945 on the most secret mission of the war – delivering components of "Little Boy," the world’s first operational atomic bomb. The components were unloaded at the island of Tinian on July 26, 1945. Four days later, the Indianapolis headed to Leyte Gulf in the Philippines, was torpedoed and sank. Of the 1,196 men aboard the big cruiser, about 900 made it into the water. After almost five days of shark attacks, starvation, thirst and exposure, 317 men were rescued.
On Aug. 6, 1945, an American B-29 bomber dropped "Little Boy" over Hiroshima. The explosion immediately killed about 80,000 people. Three days later, a second B-29 dropped another A-bomb on Nagasaki, killing an estimated 40,000 people. Japan's Emperor Hirohito announced his country's unconditional surrender in an Aug. 15 radio address, and formal surrender documents were signed Sept. 2 aboard the USS Missouri in Tokyo Bay. [/snip]
(While this doesn't directly answer your question, I have to point out as an aside that on 11/27/41, Kimmel had received a message from the Navy Department that began with the lines, "This despatch (sic) is to be considered a war warning. Negotiations with Japan looking toward stabilization of conditions in the Pacific have ceased and an aggressive move by Japan is expected within the next few days.")
The telegram you describe appears to pertain to the message sent by General Marshall to Pearl Harbor on 12/07/41 at 1300 EST/0800 HST that described a 14-part decrypted communiqué sent to Japanese diplomats in DC that they were to destroy sensitive codes and paper. This message from Japan was decrypted overnight from 12/06/41 until 12/07/41; instructions were given from the codebreakers to have it delivered at the time described (1300/0800). It has to be noted that the message sent to Hawaii was not an explicit warning of a specific attack, and it arrived minutes after the Japanese attack had commenced. It has to be noted as well that this communiqué was not delayed because of the weekend; it was sent via commercial cable, due to concerns about secrecy and delays.
(You would probably be aware that the military in Oahu was practically screaming for more raw intelligence, but the information that was being decrypted and processed back on the east coast was nothing more than noise; the military could forward it to Oahu, but without intelligence behind it, it would take the perfect reading of the evidence to piece together that an attack was coming at 0800 HST on 12/07/41. I have never come across any information that would indicate such a direct message warning of a Sunday AM attack had been sent [whether on time or tardy].)
Eggsactly!
Most war gamers predicted the attack would be in the Dutch East Indies, Philippines, or Australia, NOT Pearl Harbor. When it was discussed, most planners scoffed at the idea....to far....to complicated....
I think my Dad learned of it at Church or shortly after. He was 17 and had to have permission to join, which my Grandparents gladly signed for. But they were just Country folk, and that is what they all did.
I think my Dad learned of it at Church or shortly after. He was 17 and had to have permission to join, which my Grandparents gladly signed for. But they were just Country folk, and that is what they all did. He actually became a SeaBee because they were giving cash bonuses to join.
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