Now what would that question be? For ten years, every graduating naval cadet in Japan was asked the same question: “How would you carry out a surprise attack on Pearl Harbor?”
When that question first appeared on the exam, there was no correct answer. Then in February of 1932, nine years and ten months prior to the real attack on Pearl Harbor, the Japanese discovered what they believed was a foolproof plan. That strategy was in fact the one they eventually employed.
Yet for nine years more, the question “How would you carry out a surprise attack on Pearl Harbor?” appeared on the Japanese Naval Academy final exam.
With literally hundreds of various suggestions, gleaned from the fertile minds of Japanese youth, not one could rival the strategy of the 1932 plan. How they really surprised us at Pearl Harbor is the rest of the story.
In the fall of 1941, a Japanese ship arrived at Honolulu. Four members of the crew, who were posing as stewards, were really officers in the Japanese Imperial Navy. Two submarine experts and two surface ship and air operation experts.
Had we been more suspicious at the time, they might have wondered why that particular ship had taken the route it did to the islands. A far-north approach, passing the icy Aleutians.
Today we know that the four Japanese naval experts were testing a plan the Japanese had been counting on for almost ten years. Much to their gratification, the Japanese naval officers sighted neither ships nor aircraft on this far-north desolate swath of sea.
A month later a fleet of Japanese ships would take this same route to Hawaii, only then it would be for real.
The Japanese officers, disguised as stewards, took plenty of shore leave, saw the sights, took snapshots, and spoke with the island natives. They even took tourist plane rides over Pearl Harbor and more snapshots. They were testing a plan, and so far, the plan was on target.
The consulate gave these Japanese “stewards” maps of Pearl Harbor and the military airfields. Just to make certain, they purchased souvenir sets of picture postcards containing aerial shots of Pearl Harbor, views of Battleship Row and the mooring area by Ford Island.
Returning to Japan, the naval officers spies were confident; the plan they had had for a decade was the right plan. Indeed, it was the plan they used December 7, 1941, and the United States was indeed surprised.
In 110 minutes, 8 big battleships and 3 light cruisers had been sunk or damaged, 188 planes had been destroyed, and 2400 men had been killed. The blow not only paralyzed us in the Pacific for the greater part of a year, it also exposed our inexcusable optimism and our unbelievable unreadiness for battle.
Behind our anger was the one burning question: How did they do it?
Before 1950, six investigations were launched in search of an answer.
The Japanese plan of attack was more than theory: it had been proved effective. For in 1932 United States Admiral Harry Yarnell decided to demonstrate the vulnerability of Pearl Harbor by slipping two aircraft carriers in close from the northeast. He launched 152 aircraft that theoretically could have obliterated all airplanes on the ground and sunk most of the ships at anchor.
Japanese naval attaches in Honolulu read about the exercise, were so impressed that they filed voluminous dispatches to Tokyo.
Their report ultimately manifested itself as the Japanese Master Plan.
That’s right.
Almost a decade before the surprise attack on Pearl Harbor, we showed the Japanese how to do it!
Comments:
This has always intrigued me. The release of a television and film version about the attack on Pearl Harbor caused me to consider that others might also be intrigued by this story.
This story is from “More of Paul Harvey’s The Rest of the Story” by Paul Aurandt. A Bantam edition 1981, ISBN 0-553-14594-0
The four Japanese sailors imagined by Paul Harvey wouldn't have returned to Japan before the fleet left for Pearl Harbor.