Tora Tora Tora

[Bazile]

Just watching this film , again

What would have happened if the American navy fleet was fully prepared for the attack by the Japanese on Pearl Harbour ,do you think.

It would appear that certain info was not passed on or was not taken seriously .

What if all the fleet was destroyed - I understand that one of the aircraft carriers was fortunately out at sea when the attack took place

Would it still have been a case of just waking a sleeping giant and filling it with rage , as the Japanese commander stated ?

[jno]

soome of the ships that sank were hauled up again and went on to fight.

[bookbinder]

I once saw a film about this attack. In one scene, US radar operators detected the Japanese aircraft approaching Pearl Harbor, but their report was dismissed as "just a training mission".
If the US fleet had really been prepared for the attack, there might still have been US involvement in WW2. The US government would not have taken the attempted attack lying down.

[jim360]

I suspect it would have lengthened the War, but probably not changed the ultimate outcome. Although maybe the Soviet victory would have been more dramatic -- ie, the Japanese would have lost to them, rather than to the Americans.

[ToraToraTora]

The outcome for Japan would have been the same regardless. Admiral Yamamoto knew that from the start. Japan could never match the sheer capacity of the US to mechanise and mobilise to war.

[ToraToraTora]

jno: "soome of the ships that sank were hauled up again and went on to fight." - of course the most famous survivor of the attack was the USS Phoenix, that survived the Japanese, but 41 years later, not TGL!

[Sqad]

////What would have happened if the American navy fleet was fully prepared for the attack by the Japanese on Pearl Harbour ,do you think.///

Remember that there was a fighter squadron based in Hawai and if they had intercepted the Japanese strike force AND the battleships were action stations then the loss of life and material would have been much reduced and perhaps the Carrier Force could've been intercepted by submarines.
It had always been rumoured that Bletchley Park knew of the imminent attack and the information was withheld on the instructions ot Churchill.
It would not in my opinion have shortened the war as the main effort was tobe in Europe.

[sanmac]

The USS Phoenix was not "hauled up again", in fact it wasn't even damaged during the attack.

[Zacs-Master]

No one said it was.

[tamborine]

If Japan had not attacked Pearl Harbour, USA would not have joined WWII. UK would have lost & Russia might have won. The outcome doesnt bare thinking of. One good reason for Hiroshima!

[sanmac]

You're right, Zaks, after re-reading TTT's post at 1743 it seems that I misinterpreted it.

[Peter Pedant]

/// It had always been rumoured that Bletchley Park knew of the attack and the information was withheld on the instructions ot Churchill.//

yeah like the attack on Coventry - there are quite a few books on the Brits and Japanese codes. These were book codes and were solvable and solved with "depths" -
which the Brits were doing and the code used was JN 25 I think

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_naval_codes

The Americans had solved the Japanese purple code ( diplomatic ) which they then ignored but did not carry details of Pearl Harbour unsurprisingly

When the Japanese over ran the code stations ( they did a lot of over funning up to 1944) the code gairls just picked up their books and pencils and went elsewhere.

When the one purple machine was recovered from the J embassy in Berlin ( burnt out ) it was JUST as the american engineers had reverse engineered. ( separate rotors for consonants and vowels and based on telephone switching)

The imperial codesters didnt even think the allies wd attmept to break their codes and were planning to massacre the POWs because they 'must' have been communicating with the invasion forces. Sep 1945

[ToraToraTora]

sanmac, the USS Phoenix survived the attack and was later bought by Argentina and renamed the General Belgrano, I think you know the rest.......

[douglas9401]

I smell a trap being laid.

[Bazile]

//It had always been rumoured that Bletchley Park knew of the imminent attack and the information was withheld on the instructions ot Churchill.//

If true , presumably to bring US into the war , or more quickly

[Sqad]

Bazile....true.