This is yet another example of the reason I enjoy this site!
Thank you, Pelham, for the information!
My limited understanding of the history around Pearl Harbor is that the military leaders advised against putting those big boats together in one location. They reasoned out that it would look too much like we were preparing to move on Japan, and that they were overruled by the diplomats.
I didn’t realize the code we (partially, apparently) broke was the diplomatic code.
Must have been infuriating, not to be able to do anything.
Again, thank you!
In 1941 we didn’t have a torpedo that could work in shallow water like Pearl Harbor.
And despite the fact that the Brits apparently did have one, we decided that Japan didn’t. Which of course they did, the ‘Thunder Fish’.
Combined with a belief that Japan couldn’t possibly send a fleet 4,000 miles across the Pacific without us noticing, we thought that the fleet at rest inside Pearl Harbor was safe. Japan proved us wrong on that conceit as well.
Other than the loss of life Japan probably didn’t hurt us all that much. The warships at Pearl were old and slow compared to the Fast Carrier Task Force that we needed and built and used to defeat Japan.