"New" book on Pearl Harbor, attack analysis.

A further note on Thomas's comment. Kimmel was promoted to full admiral when he became CINCUS in order to be able to give orders to any rear admiral assigned to his command. This is SOP. At the end of his tour he would have reverted to rear admiral. If, upon retirement, it was considered that he had done a job that was totally outstanding he would have been considered for formal promotion to full admiral when he had pulled the pin.

I don't think presiding over one of the worst disasters in USN history qualifies as "totally outstanding".
 
SpitfireIX said:
Presumably this is the same Alan Zimm who created the old DOS naval war game Action Stations. Zimm was a US Navy officer, and he made the original version to test naval AI concepts; he chose WWII because of the large amount of unclassified data available. He then created a PC version for all of us naval war game grognards. The gunnery and damage models are outstanding, but the interface is extremely primitive and clunky, and the radar and visual spotting rules leave much to be desired. I still play it in DOS Box once in a while.

I'll definitely be reading the book after finals are over.
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Ooooo, I remember that. And after a bit of surfing I find some of his book reviews good also.
OK, added to my list.
 
If there is one person responsible for the attack on Pearl Harbor it would be Kimmel. The IGHQ give Yamamoto permission to run the attack based on his assurance there would be a "big bag" at Pearl. This was based on nearly a year's worth of observations by a IJN lieutenant, Yoshikawa Takeo, who would attached to Japan's Honolulu consulate. He noted that there were nearly always significant numbers of major units in the harbor on the weekends.

Predictability is a major no-no for a military force. Kimmel was re-taught this the hard way.
 
Gawdzilla said:
If there is one person responsible for the attack on Pearl Harbor it would be Kimmel. The IGHQ give Yamamoto permission to run the attack based on his assurance there would be a "big bag" at Pearl. This was based on nearly a year's worth of observations by a IJN lieutenant, Yoshikawa Takeo, who would attached to Japan's Honolulu consulate. He noted that there were nearly always significant numbers of major units in the harbor on the weekends.

Predictability is a major no-no for a military force. Kimmel was re-taught this the hard way.
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But is that a tribute to the audacious thinking behind the attack rather than a flaw in Kimmel's mind set? Traditionally fleet anchorages have been strong points of defense for hundreds of years because of the concentration of forces.

Did the US have (to use modern parlance) actionable intelligence that the Japanese navy had sallied forth in fleet strength and a US installation might be their primary target?
 
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Gawdzilla said:
If there is one person responsible for the attack on Pearl Harbor it would be Kimmel. The IGHQ give Yamamoto permission to run the attack based on his assurance there would be a "big bag" at Pearl. This was based on nearly a year's worth of observations by a IJN lieutenant, Yoshikawa Takeo, who would attached to Japan's Honolulu consulate. He noted that there were nearly always significant numbers of major units in the harbor on the weekends.

Predictability is a major no-no for a military force. Kimmel was re-taught this the hard way.
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This is a perfect example of Kimmel's lack of "the superior judgement" expected of high-ranking military officers. The fact that it does not constitute "neglect of duty" does not mean that Kimmel's removal from command was unjust, nor does it mean that he should be advanced on the retired list.

OTOH, I feel that Short's failures do rise to the level of neglect of duty. He failed to read the extensive briefing materials prepared by his predecessor, Charles D. Herron, and he appointed an officer with no intelligence training or experience to be his G-2. And despite all the war warnings, Short failed to have even a single interceptor on combat air patrol.

I think that one of the great "what-ifs" of World War II is "what if the US Army's mandatory retirement age had been 65, rather than 64, and Herron had remained in command in Hawaii for another year?"
 
MG1962 said:
But is that a tribute to the audacious thinking behind the attack rather than a flaw in Kimmel's mind set? Traditionally fleet anchorages have been strong points of defense for hundreds of years because of the concentration of forces.

Did the US have (to use modern parlance) actionable intelligence that the Japanese navy had sallied forth in fleet strength and a US installation might be their primary target?
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The war warning was given some 2 weeks prior to the attack, so some attempt should have been made to move out of a peace-time mindset.
 
MG1962 said:
But is that a tribute to the audacious thinking behind the attack rather than a flaw in Kimmel's mind set? Traditionally fleet anchorages have been strong points of defense for hundreds of years because of the concentration of forces.

Did the US have (to use modern parlance) actionable intelligence that the Japanese navy had sallied forth in fleet strength and a US installation might be their primary target?
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Zimm's evaluation of the attack is that "Yamamoto should have had his head handed to him on a platter."
 
If you want to get the short version of this book read the last three chapters. I would suggest you read them first even if you are going to read the whole book. It's like a huge equation on a chalkboard and down at the bottom right corner is E=MC2
 
Some of you will be familiar with "The Great All-out Battle" (GAOB) concept. For the others I'll explain. Japan's naval thinkers had, by 1941, decided that the USN was their primary enemy and that this force could be destroyed in a Tsushima-like battle. The USN would obliging present itself to the IJN near Japan, after an advance through waters laced with Japanese submarines and other hazards that would pare it down to parity, at least, with the IJN. Exactly why the USN would do this is not covered insofar as I can find. I sometimes suspect they were closet fans of the Royal Navy's forces that defeated the Armada.

Based on GAOB the IJN disdained logistics in favor of speed and maneuverability. Their ships where "short-legged" because the battle would be fought in areas where they could return for food and fuel as needed without undue absence from their stations.

Then Yamamoto decided he must attack Pearl Harbor. The IJN was given less than eleven months to turn its philosophy on its head, and they couldn't do it. Zimm notes the inflexibility of the Japanese plan and the unwillingness of the planners to accept that their plans were inadequate to the task. He says that "Yamamoto should have had his head handed to him on a platter", and only a series of unlikely happenstances prevented an utter disaster for the IJN.
 
Ah, the decisive battle concept. It really should be left to historians, not planners.
 
Gawdzilla said:
Then Yamamoto decided he must attack Pearl Harbor. The IJN was given less than eleven months to turn its philosophy on its head, and they couldn't do it. Zimm notes the inflexibility of the Japanese plan and the unwillingness of the planners to accept that their plans were inadequate to the task. He says that "Yamamoto should have had his head handed to him on a platter", and only a series of unlikely happenstances prevented an utter disaster for the IJN.
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To be fair Yamamoto was a vocal critic of his own plan. Most of those involved in planning the war knew they were on a fools errand, and the general thinking seems to have been, with a master damaging strike there would be opportunities for Japan to resolve an honorable peace.

The deference to authority saw them continue planning even after Barbarossa delivered them a much better tactical option in the north and the chance to disengage from the tripartite treaty.
 
Gawdzilla said:
Some of you will be familiar with "The Great All-out Battle" (GAOB) concept. For the others I'll explain. Japan's naval thinkers had, by 1941, decided that the USN was their primary enemy and that this force could be destroyed in a Tsushima-like battle.
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As I have pointed out before, reasoning of this kind makes no sense. Suppose the IJN destroys the US Pacific Fleet down to the last bosun's whistle: Then the USA builds another one!

The Japanese Empire couldn't stop that from happening, because it had no means of inflicting serious damage on the continental heartland of the USA. During the entire war the number of US residents directly killed by Japanese military action in the 48 states was 6. Unfortunate children on a picnic with their schoolteacher, who blundered into a Japanese incendiary device which had been carried across the Pacific under a hydrogen-filled paper balloon.
 
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MG1962 said:
To be fair Yamamoto was a vocal critic of his own plan. Most of those involved in planning the war knew they were on a fools errand, and the general thinking seems to have been, with a master damaging strike there would be opportunities for Japan to resolve an honorable peace.
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Zimm is working on a tactical level, not a strategic one. With his analysis in mind I'd have to give the plan a C-/D+ grade.
The deference to authority saw them continue planning even after Barbarossa delivered them a much better tactical option in the north and the chance to disengage from the tripartite treaty.
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Meh, the weather was better down south. :D
 
Craig B said:
As I have pointed out before, reasoning of this kind makes no sense. Suppose the IJN destroys the US Pacific Fleet down to the last bosun's whistle: Then the USA builds another one!
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The IJN didn't face the OBBs in serious combat until Suriago Strait anyway. If there had been an GAOB it would have been the fast BBs vs. Yamato, Musashi, etc. The Japanese knew we were building the North Carolinas, the SIMAs, and the Iowas. The 20-knot OBBs were the ones the Japanese hoped to fight, but Yamamoto's plan scotched that.
The Japanese Empire couldn't stop that from happening, because it had no means of inflicting serious damage on the continental heartland of the USA. During the entire war the number of US residents directly killed by Japanese military action in the 48 states was 6. Unfortunate children on a picnic with their schoolteacher, who blundered into a Japanese incendiary device which had been carried across the Pacific under a hydrogen-filled paper balloon.
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Don't forget they captured Hollis Wood's Xmas farm. :D
 
Done with finals (whew!). I went to the public library yesterday. The good news is, they have the book. The bad news is, it's part of the genealogy collection, which means it's non-circulating. :( Don't ask me what it has to do with genealogy; we have one of the largest genealogy collections in the country, but there are some strange items in it, including Naval Radar by Norman Friedman. :confused: So I'll have to wait until I have a free Saturday to go downtown and read it.
 
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