Brilliant Pearl Harbor resource

[MG1962]

I came across this while researching other matters. Each of the highlighted links takes you to sections of the orginal board of enquiry conducted after the attack.

One section made me smile - the questioning of the two RADAR operators on duty that morning. Aside from the unusal RADAR contact they had. Their thoughts were towards why the truck to take them down to chow was running late. That just seems so human, it couldn't be made up

http://www.ibiblio.org/pha/myths/index.html

Enjoy

 

[PerryLogan]

Thank you. This will be excellent for clobbering the woowoos.

 

[R.Mackey]

MYTH: The Opana Point Radar reported the Japanese attack 1 hour before the planes arrived over the harbor, but Adm. Kimmel refused to do anything about it.

FACT: ...Interestingly enough, the new radars tracked the planes coming and going, but the Army did not tell the Navy about this pointer to the Japanese carriers until the 8th, a fact which quite possibly saved our carriers.

Myths of Pearl Harbor website

That's an interesting and significant observation, partly because I've never seen it before, not even in Morison.

Anyone who ponders the problem of Pearl Harbor should keep in mind certain basic factors.

First, a carrier-borne air strike is the most difficult of all forms of attack to detect, because even a large fleet of ships makes a very small spot on a big ocean. United States carrier forces obtained surprise time after time during the war. The Halsey-Doolittle raid on Tokyo was a surprise to the authorities there, even though the carriers had been reported by picket boats; Admirals Halsey, Wilson Brown, Fredrick Sherman and Charles Pownall delivered a series of surprise attacks on Japanese-held islands during the first two years of war; Halsey's spectacular raids on Okinawa, the Philippines and Indochina in 1944-45 caught the enemy flat-footed; and off Luzon in 1944, reconnaissance planes from Mitscher's and Ozawa's carriers searched for each other a full day without finding anything. So there is nothing astonishing about the Pacific Fleet's failing to detect the approach of a Japanese striking force, at a time when it was unalerted by war or even by a breach of diplomatic relations.

From History of United States Naval Operations in World War II, Vol. III, pg. 127

I've always been satisfied with the "official" reasoning given, but your link certainly adds a few new wrinkles. Thanks for that.

 

[Free Thinkr]

I came across this while researching other matters. Each of the highlighted links takes you to sections of the orginal board of enquiry conducted after the attack.

One section made me smile - the questioning of the two RADAR operators on duty that morning. Aside from the unusal RADAR contact they had. Their thoughts were towards why the truck to take them down to chow was running late. That just seems so human, it couldn't be made up

http://www.ibiblio.org/pha/myths/index.html

Enjoy

Hey there, brother!