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VToncologyNurse

Joined: 01/04/2005 Posts: 2441
Likes: 1443


It depends on how you define "win".


The main source for my PH knowledge is Prange's book "At Dawn We Slept." I think that's a pretty thick one that covers a lot.

Setting the matter of intel failures aside for a moment, let's just say for the sake of argument that we had some idea (or at least a more detailed idea) it was coming. I still think there's NO WAY the Hawaii forces find the First Air Fleet and sink a significant portion of it -- which might be how some people define "win."

Now, if the American forces were patrolling Hawaiian waters in a certain way, it might have convinced the Japanese to retrench/postpone that specific operation, since its success was predicated on complete surprise. The Japanese went to GREAT security lengths to conceal the operation -- it was a security classic. In that case, having even their best possible covert actions exposed would have sobered em up a bit.

That being the case, the Japanese in later actions (i.e. Midway) wouldn't have put so much stock in surprise attacks. This implication might have made their reasoning at Midway much more conservative and rational, in which case they would have CRUSHED the American carrier task forces, basically ending the naval war in the Pacific right there.

So I would say that the situation between Dec 1941 and June 1942 (as it happened) was actually a best-case scenario for the Americans. The PH outcome made the IJN overconfident, which led them into a strategy which destroyed their fleet. Meanwhile, for the American side, it was a sobering wake-up call followed by the necessary re-building of morale (thx to Chester Nimitz) for ultimate victory.

By losing in THAT fashion at Pearl (critically: no carriers lost), it was actually a long-term win for the USA. That's what makes the conspiracy theorist types wonder if we actually baited the Japanese into it -- curious that the Enterprise, Hornet, et al weren't in port, huh?

(In response to this post by bourbonstreet)

Posted: 05/27/2019 at 10:49PM



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Current Thread:
  We screwed up, but... -- Chris Coleman  05/28/2019 09:59AM
  The classic what did we know and when did we know it -- Hokie1992 05/28/2019 06:14AM
  It depends on how you define "win". -- VToncologyNurse 05/27/2019 10:49PM

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