Rising Sun over Hawaii....

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Subject: Rising Sun over Hawaii....
Godofgamblers 3/3/2008 2:03:12 AM

IN this scenario, the IJN invades Hawaii instead of a hit and run attack on Pearl. One of the invasion groups that struck Wake, or Indonesia, instead re routed to Hawaii and siezed enough real estate to make it unusable as a resupply/logistical center. The US lines of communication with Australia-NewZeland-Philipines would have been broken irrevocably for at least a year and a half. All points west severed it also catches the US oil stock and fleet repair assets in the port. Nobody can argue I think that the US forces could have repelled the invasion by say 15,000 Japanese Marines fresh from duty in China. The entire Japanese gambit in WWII was to make the US sue for peace rather than fight it out in a protracted conflict. We know what happened when the Japanese missed our carriers and ran off. In my new scenario the battle of Guadalcanal never happens because the IJN have successfully severed the artery in the middle of the pacific.

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Herald12345 3/22/2008 4:32:29 AM

But you seem to miss the point that Spruance didn't even KNOW about Browning's screw-up until mid-morning the next day. Moreover, it's clear that Spruance was far less upset than you portrayed him. He simply made a decision on the problem and ignored the resulting tantrum. To do anything else would have been out of character. If he had been as upset about Browning as he was with Mitscher, he'd have let Nimitz know about it, and Browning got a decoration for his 'brilliant contribution to the victory at Midway".

Browning never got that award from Spruance. Fletcher put it in. Spruance didn't lose his temper in public because as Samuel Eliot Morison pointed out, ?throwing an admiral's tantrum would have been deleterious to the smooth functioning of the battle staff.? You will note who walked off the job, and abandoned his post in the middle of battle. I would have SHOT him, but not until after the battle was won.

And how do you blame "lack of training" for the fact that in the second strike on 4 June, Mitscher simply didn't order the launch of the second deck load of the strike?? Hornet's a/c didn't arrive until after the Enterprise and Yorktown (flying from Enterprise) a/c finished with Hiryu because they'd spent nearly half an hour circling the ship waiting for the rest of the strike to join them, while Mitscher sat on his bridge, deep in thought, with the a/c sitting on deck waiting to go. When it was finally brought to his attention, he decided that it was too late and sent the first half along on its own, without the CAG or the two squadron leaders, all of whom were with the second load. Spruance would probably have passed on the awkward and mis-directed first strike as lack of experience, but the second seems pretty hard to explain.

Mitscher's FU's like any physical events were local. You can't fix what you don't know about until you find out after the fact now can you?

Fletcher has been systematically marginalized and discredited for a very good reason: he represented a threat to the ongoing 'coup d'etat' that the aviation community within the Navy officer corps was carrying out against the 'gun club'. The whole basis of their take-over (ever since, surface warfare officers have been the 'poor relations' and the best route to flag rank in the US Navy has been aviation) was that the carrier was the new centerpiece of naval power, and ONLY aviators could command carrier forces properly. Fletcher was a blatant demonstration that surface officers COULD command carrier forces effectively. Pushing him aside during the war wasn't hard, since Ernest King didn't like him, and the early port-war historians when with the opinions of the aviation admirals who later 'won the war'. S.E. Morison set the mold on this, and his opinions have been generally accepted for decades, even though his critical references to Fletcher were often inconsistent with his view of other officers.

Well Morison didn't have much kind to say about Halsey, and the fact that Spruance a gunnery officer rose to command the carrier fleets and was the go-to guy for both Nimitz (a submariner) and King (another submariner) seems to make nonsense of that whole thesis doesn't it? Sure Spruance knew jack diddly about carrier operations initially, but what did that matter when he kept winning and learning? And boy how he he learned. The one thing he constantly hammered away at in his battle critiques was reconnaissance, reconnaissance, reconnaissance. He forgave bungled sorties, poor strike co-ordination over the target, missed execution of transmitted instructions in the middle of battle; but he always harped on the poor reconnaissance reports he received from his own aerial scouts, from the USAAF, or from supporting land-based naval

viation. He remarked in the after action reports from the Marianas Turkey Shoot that the only decent reconnaissance and tracking reports he received during the whole battle came from USS Albacore and USS Cavalla, SUBMARINES who were rather busy themselves sinking Japanese carriers and evading Japanese depth charges at the time when they made their contact reports . He wrote that Ozawa had no trouble finding him at all at any time during the battle, when the Japanese admiral wanted..

Example: In his multi-volume history, Morison comments on Spruance's delay in launching his a/c while closing with the Japanese Fleet, and the later, similar delay by Fletcher. Ignoring the fact that both men delayed launch for exactly the same reason (they had to get into something like effective

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Herald12345 3/22/2008 5:04:35 AM

In regard to the original question of this thread, the Japanese studied the idea of trying to capture Hawaii to death and found that it just wasn't possible. They couldn't get enough troops from the Army to try it, they didn't have the sea lift, even if that had gotten the troops, and, even if they'd somehow found the troops and the sea lift and taken the Islands, they didn't have enough cargo ship capacity not already committed to something else to keep a garrison on Hawaii supplied.

That horse I already killed.

As to a landing raid, it would have been far easier, and safer and just as effective to make another air raid. Actually, if they'd gone after the fuel storage facilities and the dry docks, they'd have had a much greater effect that hitting the BBs. With the fuel supply gone, the BBs would have had to withdraw to the West Coast anyway, with no hope of interfering with Japanese expansion until the facilities were repaired and restocked, and they could have tried to slow that down with submarine attacks.

Nagumo's carriers might just barely had enough ammunition for a third strike. CREF where I pointed out that they had but 45% magazine loads when they raided Pearl. Come to think of it, they might not have had enough for a full third strike

Fuel supply was a major problem for the first year of the war, as it was. During the entire Guadalcanal campaign, there was NO meaningful reserve o

The USN, right from Pearl Harbor on had virtually every, even faintly modern a/c it could get, committed either to combat, or to training up new air groups. Only a handful of F4Fs were anywhere except in combat. The entire Guadalcanal campaign swung around desperate efforts to scrape up a few more F4Fs to get only the island. No until the late fall when the FM1s (copies of the F4F-4 built at Eastern by GM) began reaching the ships and squadrons was that shortage even half-way met. The situation for dive bombers was only slightly better. Douglas was barely turning them out fast enough to meet combat and training needs, although it might have been possible to squeeze a little SBC production out of Curtis. There were NO extra torpedo bombers available at all until the TBFs began to arrived in June, and then it took a few months just to catch up with the needs of the existing carriers. Ranger and Wasp had not had torpedo squadrons at all during 1941 due to the shortage of TBDs. At best, they could have scraped up half trained pilots flying F3F and SBC biplanes, and even that would have forced cut-backs in the training of new groups for the CVs.

Sea Wolfs [torpedo bomber undergoing development along with the Avengers and Vengeances [in co production with the Dauntless] rushed into fleet production, would have helped don't you think?

The one point at which the CVL(S)s would probably have been welcome would have been in the period between November '42 about about March '43. With the original carrier force reduced to SARATOGA and ENTERPRISE, both damaged, and the new ships not fully worked up, but with enough a/c now available to put together groups to fly from them with minimum effect on the expansion program, that might have looked good at the time. But, as they did not know then, but we do know now, the IJN carrier force had gutted its air groups as Eastern Solomons and Santa Cruz, and wouldn't be combat capable again until AT LEAST mid year. So even there, it was just as well that nothing like that was actually done.

The carrier shortage sure was understood to be an acute danger that was inevitable as a result of every Fleet Problem from XIII on. THAT is the reason for the panic conversions of those Cl

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Herald12345 3/22/2008 5:52:35 AM

Your point on Fletcher's supposed negligence at failing to hide under the rain squalls at Midway presupposes that YORKTOWN hat the opportunity to reach the squall line in the very limited time between the recovery of the last a/c of it's strike and the arrival of the Japanese strike. Apparently Spruance didn't consider the possibility worth discussing. Until the TF17 strike had been recovered, YORKTOWN's movements were heavily constrained. Following the launch of the strike, she had to proceed at best practical speed along the pre-planned option bearing, so that the returning strike could find her, and so that the strike's return flight would be shortened as much as possible. Once the returning strike arrives, the carrier must turn into the wind and make best speed possible so that the a/c can be recovered. None of that allows for any serious deviation. Unless the ship was within a very few miles (certainly no more than about five) it would not be possible to reach the squall before the ship came under attack. Entering the squall before the a/c were recovered would be avoided, if possible, because it would make finding the ship more difficult for its own a/c, and seriously slow the process of a/c recovery.

1. Yorktown waved off her returning strike orbiting her when Hiryu's planes found her[they followed the strikers back]. Those Yorktown planes thumped down on Enterprise, so what the hell are you talking about?

2. Every American carrier from Lexington in 1934 on had a low powered radio homing beacon installed that it could transmit for its aircraft to guide in on. Yorktown had hers going when she confirmed by radio that her aircraft were reporting they were returning to base.

The line of squalls was ten miles to the S of Yorktown The Enterprise hid when her strike was outbound and she only came out of it long enough when she had to recover Yorktown's returners, then she ducked back in..

As to the question of Fletcher's 'running away' form Guadalcanal, I put forward my position: that performing his mission demanded that he preserve his air group. You response was to redefine his mission as one that was basically unlimited, but to be accomplished with very limited resources. No. His mission was set out in the operational plan for the landing. He was committed to providing air cover for the TWO DAYS that Kelly Turner assured all involved, would be sufficient to off load the Marines, and an adequate amount of supplies. It was Turner who had already decided to pull out, in spite of the fact that his unloading plan had fallen apart on him (a fact of which he failed to inform Fletcher) before he received Fletcher's specific advisory that he WOULD be conforming to the op. plan and withdrawing after the second day.

I said that he was supposed to cover the invasion for the unloading for the transports. On that we BOTH agree. After that you and I part company.

You seem to have agreed with my position that Fletcher could NOT have done anything about the withdrawl of the Japanese cruiser force after Savo, but complain that the defeat was still Fletcher's fault due to lack of scouting from his carriers. Definately NOT SO. The CHOKAI force didn't come within range of scouting from Fletcher's carriers until late enough in the day that they could be confident that any scouts would be on their way back to the ships. They WERE spotted by shore-based scouts, The CHOKAI was mis-identified as a seaplane tender, and intelligence advised both Turner and Fletcher that the Japanese were attempting to establish a seaplane base in the central Solomons. They were advised of the possibility of attack by the supposed lender's escorts, but were assured that would be the following night at the earliest. That was why Adm. Crutchley felt free to pull AUSTRALIA out of the line for his meeting with Turner. And Turner had planned to pull his entire force out at sun-up after doing some final unloading that night, so an attack the following night didn't worry him.

The fact that Fletcher, as the senior OTC, didn't follow up on a contact report, to keep tabs on a surface threat to an invasion for which he was responsible to provide air cover doesn't bother you? Spruance always hounded his scouting forces for contact reports, as he never assumed that the enemy was going to do something. He wanted to know where the enemy was, ALWAYS.

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Herald12345 Brainfart! 3/22/2008 7:08:22 AM

Not Fitch, McCain was running land based naval air there at the time. Fitch would come later.

Herald

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larryjcr 3/22/2008 11:33:32 AM

In regard to the original question of this thread, the Japanese
studied the idea of trying to capture Hawaii to death and found that
it just wasn't possible. They couldn't get enough troops from
the Army to try it, they didn't have the sea lift, even if that had
gotten the troops, and, even if they'd somehow found the troops and
the sea lift and taken the Islands, they didn't have enough cargo ship
capacity not already committed to something else to keep a garrison
on Hawaii supplied.

That horse I already killed.

As to a landing raid, it would have been far easier, and safer
and just as effective to make another air raid. Actually, if
they'd gone after the fuel storage facilities and the dry docks,
they'd have had a much greater effect that hitting the BBs.
With the fuel supply gone, the BBs would have had to withdraw to
the West Coast anyway, with no hope of interfering with Japanese
expansion until the facilities were repaired and restocked, and
they could have tried to slow that down with submarine attacks.

Nagumo's carriers might just barely had enough ammunition
for a third strike. CREF where I pointed out that they had but 45%
magazine loads when they raided Pearl. Come to think of it, they might not have had enough for a full third strike

Fuel supply was a major problem for the first year of the war,
as it was. During the entire Guadalcanal campaign, there was
NO meaningful reserve o

The USN, right from Pearl Harbor on had virtually every, even
faintly modern a/c it could get, committed either to combat,
or to training up new air groups. Only a handful of F4Fs were
anywhere except in combat. The entire Guadalcanal campaign
swung around desperate efforts to scrape up a few more F4Fs to get
only the island. No until the late fall when the FM1s
(copies of the F4F-4 built at Eastern by GM) began reaching the
ships and squadrons was that shortage even half-way met. The
situation for dive bombers was only slightly better. Douglas
was barely turning them out fast enough to meet combat and
training needs, although it might have been possible to squeeze a
little SBC production out of Curtis. There were NO extra
torpedo bombers available at all until the TBFs began to arrived
in June, and then it took a few months just to catch up with the
needs of the existing carriers. Ranger and Wasp had not had
torpedo squadrons at all during 1941 due to the shortage of TBDs.
At best, they could have scraped up half trained pilots flying F3F
and SBC biplanes, and even that would have forced cut-backs in the
training of new groups for the CVs.

Sea Wolfs [torpedo bomber undergoing development along with the Avengers and Vengeances [in co production with the Dauntless] rushed into fleet production, would have
helped don't you think?

The one point at which the CVL(S)s would probably have been
welcome would have been in the period between November '42 about
about March '43. With the original carrier force reduced to
SARATOGA and ENTERPRISE, both damaged, and the new ships not fully
worked up, but with enough a/c now available to put together
groups to fly from them with minimum effect on the expansion
program, that might have looked good at the time. But, as
they did not know then, but we do know now, the IJN carrier force
had gutted its air groups as Eastern Solomons and Santa Cruz, and
wouldn't be combat capable again until AT LEAST mid year. So
even there, it was just as well that nothing like that was
actually done.

The carrier shortage

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JFKY 3/22/2008 12:06:46 PM

Herald is like an Economist?He likes to make Assumptions. That?s fine as far as it goes. ?Let?s ASSUME that US re-armament began in 1938.? IF, you assume that, then it?s POSSIBLE that the President Class liners might have been converted. It?s just as reasonable to assume that the Navy would have built more CV?s and surface combatants, from scratch as to think the US Navy would buy up pre-existing hulls and convert them. In fact, I?d argue that in PEACETIME, that the US Navy would have chosen to construct, new, PURPOSE-BUILT combatants, rather than convert. Please note the Essex was a pre-war design and the Independence Class CV(L)?s were wartime conversions. Only under the press of wartime needs did the USN decide to convert vessels. So even within the larger assumption that the US began to re-arm in 1938, it?s unlikely we?d see any ?President Class CV(E/B) in the fleet.

But, the REALITY is that the US did not begin to re-arm until 1939, and then only in the sense that the US began to fulfill orders for the French and British Missions, seeking aircraft. So there is NO possibility of a 1938 re-armament program. It was not until 1940 that the Two Ocean Navy Act and the Selective Service Act were passed, in response to the Fall of France. There was NO desire to re-arm prior to this. In fact, the Selective Service Act was only renewed by fewer than 5 votes, in 1941. Even in 1941, the United States was reluctant to re-arm, so it is fair to say that it would be IMPOSSIBLE for the US to begin re-arming in 1938! And hence no President CV(B/E)?s no more aircraft to outfit them, no new types of aircraft. The fleet that was in existence in 1941 was the fleet the US was going to have plus or minus a few units.

I also notice that Herald can be selective in his history. The Japanese may or may not have sortied with full magazines in December 1941. But Herald gives, sometime, the US 2-6 more carriers, so it?s just as possible that the Japanese step up arms production and sortie with full magazines. Or, alternatively, that rather than developing the Yamato?s Japan builds more bombs, torpedoes, and develops a fast Underway Replenishment Group for the Kido Butai. Once you start making assumptions that are not based on any historical reality but rather WHAT WAS WITHIN A NATION?S TECHNICAL GRASP, you can begin to assume anything and the thinking becomes interesting but ultimately pointless.

For Pearl Harbor it?s nice to ask, ?What about a Japanese Invasion or raid?? But it becomes clear that Japan did not have the troops or the shipping to support such an undertaking, and that had a raid been attempted it would have, more than likely, been bloodily repulsed. The more real questions are, ?What IF:

1)<

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RockyMTNClimber No Pearl? 3/22/2008 1:13:22 PM

In regard to the original question of this thread, the Japanese studied the idea of trying to capture Hawaii to death and found that it just wasn't possible. They couldn't get enough troops from the Army to try it, they didn't have the sea lift, even if that had gotten the troops, and, even if they'd somehow found the troops and the sealift and taken the Islands, they didn't have enough cargo ship capacity not already committed to something else to keep a garrison on Hawaii supplied.

As to a landing raid, it would have been far easier, and safer and just as effective to make another air raid. Actually, if they'd gone after the fuel storage facilities and the dry docks, they'd have had a much greater effect that hitting the BBs. With the fule supply gone, the BBs would have had to withdraw to the West Coast anyway, with no hope of interfearring with Japanese expansion until the facilities were repaired and restocked, and they could have tried to slow that down with submarine attacks.

Fuel supply was a major problem for the first year of the war, as it was. During the entire Guadalcanal campaign, there was NO meaningful reserve of fuel in the south pacific area. If an IJN sub had managed to sink just ONE of the tankers carrying fuel there from the west coast, or even seriously damage even ONE of the handful of oilers delivering the fuel to the ships, the USN in the entire theatre would have been paralyzed for weeks. At one point, the fuel reserve of the carrier forces was down to only two days, as a result of a routing error sending a tanker to the wrong island, rather than to where it was expected.

There has also been a number of posts concerning the idea of converting passenger liners into CVL(S) types as stop-gap increases in the number of USN flight decks. That would certainly have been possible from a technical viewpoint, although the loss of the ships as troop transports would probably have had a negative effect on the Guadalcanal landings, and perhaps even TORCH. The problem I see is, where would you get the planes to put on the ships, and the pilots to fly the planes??

The USN, right from Pearl Harbor on had virtually every, even faintly modern a/c it could get, committed either to combat, or to training up new airgroups. Only a handful of F4Fs were anywhere except in combat. The entire Guadalcanal campaign swung around desperate efforts to scrape up a few more F4Fs to get only the island. No until the late fall when the FM1s (copies of the F4F-4 built at Eastern by GM) began reaching the ships and squadrons was that shortage even half-way met. The situation for dive bombers was only slightly better. Douglas was barely turning them out fast enough to meet combat and training needs, although it might have been possible to squeeze a little SBC production out of Curtis. There were NO extra torpedo bombers available at all until the TBFs began to arrived in June, and then it took a few monts just to catch up with the needs of the existing carriers. Ranger and Wasp had not had torpedo squadrons at all during 1941 due to the shortage of TBDs. At best, they could have scraped up half trained pilots flying F3F and SBC biplanes, and even that would have forced cut-backs in the training of new groups for the CVs.

I have always remained perplexed as to how the IJN could have accomplished something relevant at Pearl Harbor instead of what I really think was a complete disaster for them. Sure they tagged a few battleships but as I have already mentioned those results only removed a few modern ships from the USN inventory. The price paid by Japan was terrible. The complete and total committment of the US people

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larryjcr back to Herald 3/22/2008 2:27:56 PM

Your point on
Fletcher's supposed negligence at failing to hide under the rain
squalls at Midway presupposes that YORKTOWN hat the opportunity to
reach the squall line in the very limited time between the recovery
of the last a/c of it's strike and the arrival of the Japanese
strike. Apparently Spruance didn't consider the possibility
worth discussing. Until the TF17 strike had been recovered,
YORKTOWN's movements were heavily constrained. Following the
launch of the strike, she had to proceed at best practical speed
along the pre-planned option bearing, so that the returning strike
could find her, and so that the strike's return flight would be
shortened as much as possible. Once the returning strike
arrives, the carrier must turn into the wind and make best speed
possible so that the a/c can be recovered. None of that allows
for any serious deviation. Unless the ship was within a very
few miles (certainly no more than about five) it would not be
possible to reach the squall before the ship came under attack.
Entering the squall before the a/c were recovered would be
avoided, if possible, because it would make finding the ship
more difficult for its own a/c, and seriously slow the process of a/c
recovery.

1. Yorktown waved off her returning strike orbiting her when
Hiryu's planes found her[they followed the strikers back]. Those
Yorktown planes thumped down on Enterprise, so what the hell are you
talking about?

2. Every American carrier from Lexington in 1934 on had a low
powered radio homing beacon installed that it could transmit for its
aircraft to guide in on. Yorktown had hers going when she confirmed
by radio that her aircraft were reporting they were returning to
base.

The line of squalls was ten miles to the S of Yorktown The
Enterprise hid when her strike was outbound and she only came out of
it long enough when she had to recover Yorktown's returners, then she
ducked back in..

As to the question of Fletcher's 'running away' form
Guadalcanal, I put forward my position: that performing his
mission demanded that he preserve his air group. You response
was to redefine his mission as one that was basically unlimited, but
to be accomplished with very limited resources. No. His
mission was set out in the operational plan for the landing. He
was committed to providing air cover for the TWO DAYS that Kelly
Turner assured all involved, would be sufficient to off load
the Marines, and an adequate amount of supplies. It was
Turner who had already decided to pull out, in spite of the fact that
his unloading plan had fallen apart on him (a fact of which he
failed to inform Fletcher) before he received Fletcher's
specific advisory that he WOULD be conforming to the op. plan
and withdrawing after the second day.

I said that he was supposed to cover the invasion for the
unloading for the transports. On that we BOTH agree. After that you
and I part company.

You seem to have agreed with my position that Fletcher could NOT
have done anything about the withdrawl of the Japanese cruiser
force after Savo, but complain that the defeat was still Fletcher's
fault due to lack of scouting from his carriers.
Definately NOT SO. The CHOKAI force didn't come within
range of scouting from Fletcher's carriers until late enough in the
day that they could be confident that any scouts would be on
their way back to the ships. They WERE spotted by shore-based
scouts, The CHOKAI was mis-identified as a seaplane tender, and
intelligence advised both Turner and Fletcher that the Japanese were
attempting to establish a seaplane base in the central Solomons.
They were advised of the possibility of attack by the supposed
lender's escorts, but were assured that would be the following
night at the earliest. That was why Adm. Crutchley felt
free to pull AUSTRALIA out of the line for
his meeting with Turner. And Turner had planned
to pull his entire force out at sun-up after doi

Quote Reply

larryjcr To Herald 3/22/2008 6:29:20 PM

Done a bit more research. The central Solomons were the responsibility of the SouthWestPac forces (McArther). However, both Truner and Fletcher specifically requested that McCain (SouthPac air forces) send patrols up the slot, as both saw it as an obvious approach route. Fletcher specifically requested searches that would reach the end of the sectors at dusk, and search with radar on the way back to detect any enemy force trying to slip down the sound behind the usual morning searches. Neither trusted the search coverage by SP forces who often diverted the B17s to other duties and left the job to shorter range RAAF Hudsons. The boundry between SWP and SP areas was just West of the tip of Guadalcanal. Originally, it had passed right thru the island, but King had gotten it moved a little west while planning the WATCHTOWER operation to put the island in the SoPac area.

Following quote from R.B. Frank's GUADALCANAL:

"Unfortunately for the Allies, on August 8, the holes in the air search net idnetified by Fletcher and Turner proved amply wide enough to let Midawa wiggle through. The weather impeded several South Pacific theater flights, including those in Sector II, the only sector through which Midawa passed. The right half of the sector was not searched at all and the left half to a distance of only 650 miles from Espiritu Santo, 100 miles less than scheduled. In any event, these planes would not have found Midawa, because, exactly as Fletcher foresaw, Mikawa entered the area about 1700, roughly nine hours after the morning flights reached the limits of their patrol. McCain and his staff failed to honor Fletcher's request for an afternoon search of Sector II on August 8, an inexplicable lapse in view of the contact reports on August 7, sepecially that of S-38."

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larryjcr To Herald 3/22/2008 6:32:12 PM

Sorry about that. It is, of course, Mikawa and McArthur. My typos, not Frank's.

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