44:35 - “…but if you use the wrong tactics, the results are distinctly unpleasant.” …is one of the most hilariously tongue-in-cheek expressions of how not to fight an A6M Zero I’ve ever heard. Good one, Jon! 😎
Interesting tidbit about USS Ward: she was converted to be a fast transport (APD16) and served in the Solomons, Cape Gloucester and Leyte. On Dec 7, 1944, 3 years to the day , she was struck by a kamikaze. A destroyer, USS O'Brien, was sent to scuttle her with the deck guns. That destroyer was commanded by William Outerbridge, her commander on Dec 7 41.
This is one of my favorite stories. William Outerbridge displayed something that would still be rare in the US Navy even eight months later off Guadalcanal: diligence of duty and alacrity of response.
I lived on oahu for 3 years when I was with the 25th Infantry Division.I tried to learn as much as possible about the attack.Anytime I get to hear new information.It's always a plus
The bombing of Wheeler and other airfields was not part of the "Suprise Achieved" attack plan written by Genda. The bombing was, instead, a breakdown in communication. Genda had written up 2 different attack plans, one for suprise achieved (plan 1) and one if there were fighters and naval AA waiting for them (plan 2). They did these 2 plans because their #1 concern was NOT the airfields, it was protecting their torpedo bombers. Torpedoes were their preferred weapon of choice. Take a look at the water geysers from torpedo hits in the captured photos of the attack. That shock wave bouncing off the shallow bottom created massive damage to the WWI era battleships. Months of shallow water torpedo testing showed the IJN brass that their planes had to fly right at stall speed and close to the water to "drop" successfully. Low and slow was extremely dangerous for them as they were easy targets. Heck, the USS Nevada splashed 3 torpedo bombers alone with just 3 AA guns manned and firing. If surprise was the plan, the torpedo planes were to attack first, giving them the safety of surprise. If not, then plan 2 called for bombing the airfields and AA batteries and letting the Zeroes tangle with any airborn fighters first. Only then, after things were neutralized/safer, were the torpedo planes to go in. Attack leader Fuchida, looking at the harbor through binoculars, determined to use plan 1 the "suprise" plan and fired off a flare to instruct the attack wave which sequence to use. But the Zero fighters didn't respond to the flare. So he fired off a 2nd flare directly at them, which they responded to but confused the rest of his attack force. Bombers shot ahead, attacking airfields thinking it was plan 2 while torpedo bombers swung around and lined up as in plan 1. Bombing the airfields first (and errors in attacking lesser targets on Carrier Row) by mistake tipped off the men aboard the ships on Battleship Row. Every battleship had some AA guns armed and manned. Remember that these are warships, not cruise liners. In port, during peace time, they still had a few AA guns manned. Those torpedo planes that were shot down were most of the losses of the first wave and this is why. Fuchida initially admitted his mistake with the flare signalling - but later in life changed his story.
I have read H P Willmott’s ‘Pearl Harbour’, the 2001 book that Parshall mentioned, and it’s excellent. Willmott is a ‘hard’ historian, he doesn’t indulge in hyperbole and sentiment, instead taking a colder analytical approach. He analyses the economic capabilities of both the US & Japan and in his view, the biggest folly committed by the Japanese was deciding to go to war with the United States in the first place. Willmott refers to the US losses at Pearl as ‘slight’. He is not being cold blooded, he means that in strategic terms, the US Navy suffered a nasty bruise- painful but certainly far from fatal. The Pacific Fleet was a long way from being ‘destroyed’ or even ‘crippled’. Willmott also devotes a chapter to discussing the feasibility of the Japanese launching a third wave. The author argues that even though the Japanese only lost 29 aircraft in the first two waves, many more were damaged and either written off or requiring repairs. The Japanese had also used up all of their special 800kg bombs so the third wave pilots would have only had 250kg bombs which, as shown in the second wave attack, were considerably less effective. Also fuel would have been a major problem if Nagumo had decided to linger near Hawaii for longer, possibly forcing him to abandon some of the escorting destroyers due to fuel starvation.
I love the way Jon always giggles whenever someone mentions Fuchida. The Flying Tigers first combat mission was Dec 20th, 1941. Weeks after Pearl. The most famous of the "Pearl Harbor pilots" was George Welsh. He left the military in 1944 and became a test pilot. During the Korean war even though he was officially a civilian advisor he, supposedly, shot down atleast 2 MiG-15s. Still a test pilot, he was first person to go horizontally super sonic in a jet (the X-1 was rocket). The F-100. Later he died when his F-100 broke up while pulling a 7(?) G turn. He was 36. As for sending sacrificial ships to bait Japan I recommend looking up USS Isabel. Roosevelt did EXACTLY that.
Keep in mind when considering Roosevelt's actions in 1940 and 41. He knew the US would be pulled in one way or another, but he also knew it would probably be when we were not ready. He was trying to buy time.
The USS Ward noticed a PBY (Flying Boat) circling the sub before being warned by the Antares that there was a sub following it in. The Pearl Harbour alert centre was still under construction - most of the US command seemed to have come up with an imaginary timeline that the Japanese would start the war around April 1942, which led to the apathy and defence and communications infrastructure being still under construction. The duty officer didn't have anyone to immediately alert - there wasn't an air squadron ready to launch.
Lieutenants Ken Taylor and George Welch were the 2 P 40 pilots that took off out of Haleiwa. Their planes were up there for a gunnery exercise. They grabbed a convertible Oldsmobile to get out to their airplanes. They did call ahead to have their planes armed and warmed up. They shot down a total of 4-6 enemy planes with Welch getting three or four and Taylor getting one or two. Both of them landed successfully, reloaded, and got back in the air and both of them survived the war. Welch was an ace and was later killed test flying the North American F-100 Super Sabre. Taylor went on to become a National Guard, Air Force Brigadier General and was a technical advisor on the movie
Cornelia Clark Fort (February 5, 1919 - March 21, 1943) was an American aviator who became famous for being part of two aviation-related events. The first occurred while conducting a civilian training flight at Pearl Harbor on 7 December 1941, when she was the first United States pilot to encounter the Japanese air fleet during the Attack on Pearl Harbor. She and her student narrowly escaped a mid-air collision with the Japanese aircraft and a strafing attack after making an emergency landing. The following year, Fort became the second member of what was to become the Women Airforce Service Pilots or WASP. Fort was working as a WASP ferry pilot on 21 March 1943 when she became the first female pilot in American history to die while on active duty. She was involved in a mid-air collision and crashed ten miles south of Merkel, Texas, in Mulberry Canyon.
Interesting take on the 3rd attack wave. Sal Mercogliano (What's going on with shipping) talked about the logics of the early war with his episode 6 oilers. In that, he addresses the importance the US placed on logistics. He suggested that the Japanese learned how much it hurt to have logistics and repair facilities hit from the US carrier raids just after Pearl.
I saw the models on public display after the movie came out in San Francisco in a building near Fisherman's Wharf a block from the cable car turntable and they were excellent models of high quality and back then I built ship models and would have loved one in my collection. The models were later sold off at auction and I always wondered who bought them and where they are today.
I would argue that the United States entered WW2 once we started doing convoy escort. This is why Germany's declaration of war read more like saying that yes there is a state of war between Germany and the US. Lend Lease was another way the US violates the Neutrality laws. Just like we have been doing in Ukraine.
Used to fly with the chief pilot of the movie Tora Tora Tora. Retired Lieutenant Colonel Art Wildern. He flew P-47's in the ETO and was a DFC recipient.
we live uphill from Boeing Plant 2 -- when we moved here an old Italian farmwife remembered hearing the B-17s taking off -- during the War, planes for the Pacific had an MG test fire and male USAAF pilot those for Britain had no test-firing sound as they had female Ferry Pilots ...
Great discussion guys - I really enjoyed it. There is one question that has always bothered me, and you have kind of covered it and that is why didn't the Japanese actually INVADE the Hawaiian islands and capture Pearl Harbour? Yamamoto said that he could only give Japan 6 months to a year. If they had have invaded Hawaii and captured Pearl Harbour he could have given Japan a lot more time than that. Pearl Harbour was a critically important base for the remainder of the war. Re-fuelling capability or not the USN would have been badly hamstrung fighting the war from San Diego. They would have to recapture Pearl Harbour first. The battles of the Coral Sea and Midway may never have happened, and Port Moresby would definitely have been captured. In terms of manpower for an invasion of Hawaii the Japanese could have used the troops they sent to Hong Kong and Malaya. Those targets could have waited. Britain was in no shape to attack from those colonies at that time. And how were you guys going to get to New Zealand, Guadalcanal and Australia without Pearl Harbour - via Cape Horn? I'm no military strategist but it seems to me that if their best Admiral is saying he can only give them 6 months why wouldn't they try to capture this vital base? They had surprise on their hands. The civilian population would not have been able to put up much of a fight.Sure, the base itself would have been a tough nut to crack and would have inflicted a lot of casualties but it would also not have been able to defend itself adequately due to a lack of co-ordinator between the services. Did they ever have war games to test how they'd repel an invasion? Probably not I'd be interested in your opinion on this. Without capturing Pearl Harbour Japan doomed itself to failure. If the object of the attack was to force the USA to sue for peace, Pearl Harbour would have been one hell of a bargaining chip to have.
You are asking for a major change in strategy. Not sure it would have worked anyway. We had over 30,000 troops in Hawaii. More were available. Japan had no real logistical train to support troops. Also, their fleet could not stay to support the troops. Oil and other problems.
9:15- Ironically, there turned out to be many times the amount of oil in the Sakhalin Islands (at the northern end of the Japanese Archipelago) as there was in Indonesia. Unfortunately, it was not recoverable using the technology prevalent in the 1940s.
I was stationed at the Naval Air Station when Tora Tora Tora premiered in New Orleans. I had Duty Driver that night and was given the pleasure of driving Two Senior Admirals from 8th Naval District Command as Guests of Honor to the event. Obviously these two would have had experience in WW2 but on the return drive their conversation was whether U.S.N. Reserve Commander Richard Nixon should have been passed over for upgrade to Captain as there was.a distinct possibility of him becoming Commander in Chief someday. It was a great movie, then and now; thank you for the background story.
51:00 The two off-base pilots who got back to Haleiwa Field in a Buick were Lieutenants George Welch and Ken Taylor.. Both have Wikipedia entries survived the war. There were, I believe, 14 American pilots who got airborne that day in response to the attack. Some B-17s and some patrolling US aircraft also encountered Japanese planes... as did, iirc, a civilian student pilot.
There are at least three Midway episodes for BOATS. No kidding. I think Dan has two for the 2019 movie (two different historians). And, at least one for the 1976 movie, where Dan and a historian watch the entire movie together and break down each scene.
@@eggrollorsoup6052 Craig Symonds wrote a great book on the Battle of Midway. It is very much the American version of the battle and pairs well with Tully and Parshall’s Shattered Sword. With those two books, you get a good look at the battle from the participants perspective
As others have mentioned, I've covered both Midway movies before. You'll find them all in a single place here: www.basedonatruestorypodcast.com/midway/
WOW! I only saw Tora, Tora, Tora once as a kid when it came out. Hearing Jon on your chanell gives me the same deep thrill down my spine. Since I was four I was into military stuff on a mission not to experience a new world war. Especially for me the Dutch defence (!) in the interbellum untill 1940 and as a side note for me the Dutch East Indies. This video is by far one of the most intelligent well documented and presented deep insights into the war at that point I've ever come across and that's saying a lot! The alternate possible scenarios are well argued based on the well researched facts. For instance debunking the myth of Rooseveld tricking the US into the war by not acting on info on the attack on Pearl Harbour. The psychology at play is well understood in plausable scenarios based on facts. Excellent! Okay, a point of critique then. Even though no doubt bloody hot seeing as exibit a a glass of ice with some water the fan is distracting. Or maybe I should have seen it as the prop of a Zero😅 Anyway, not only promoting the own work but a brilliant expo of other valued work. And, indeed when studying WW2 as a whole 1942 is the most interseting year. (Preventing the war repeating itself however........(which we are at now)......) Anyway top notch! 1:25:38
For Mini-Series which deals with the run-up to US involvement in World War Two ‘The Winds of War,’ based on Herman Wouk’s novel of the same name is quite good. There was also a continuance-followup Mini-Series called ‘War and Remembrance’ which was based on the Herman Wouk continuation book. Readers will want to read both of those books as well as Wouk’s ‘The Caine Mutiny.’
The Caine Mutiny might be my favorite book. I read it four or five times. Eventually I became fascinated that at different stages of my own service as a naval surface officer, how differently I would identify with and evaluate the roles and actions of the various characters; it was like reading a completely new story.
I disagree. Many of the actors in that miniseries were too old for their parts. Jan-Michael Vincent and Ali MacGraw were the worst cases of casting. On the other hand, Polly Bergen was spot-on as Robert Mitchum’s wife.
As historical fiction, those are 2 great TV Mini Series. You can write a book report from watching them. But they did cast a bit too old. Especially Robert Mitchem. Though he was part of the great generation. And I like how War and Remembrance spends a full 3rd of the series on the Holocaust and how it evolved throughout the course of the war.
saw it as a U.S. Army kid in Fulda saw Empire of the Sun on Seoul Yŏngsan, 1st college summer, Dad was Base Commander == all non-military activities -- he called it City Manager & his favorite job ...
43:35 The Flying Tigers began to arrive in China in April 1941 but first saw combat on 20 December 1941, 12 days after Pearl Harbor.. Chennault was therefor in no position to give advice on how to fight the Zero, which they hardly faced anyway since it was strictly a Japanese NAVY plane.
Fantastic Podcast! I wanted to comment on the scene in the movie Tora! Tora! Tora! where the Navy Band is playing the National Anthem on the USS Nevada. The attack begins in the middle of the anthem and the band plays faster and faster until they finish and then run for cover. You mentioned this but I wanted to give some perspective. I was an Army musician. At the time that I was in, all Army, Navy and Marine Corps musicians attended the School of Music on the Navy Base in Little Creek, Virginia. We learned military traditions and what was expected of a military musician. I remember being told that when we played the National Anthem in an official capacity that it must be played from start to finish and not stopped in the middle for any reason. I do not know if this is fact or just tradition. It would make sense that it is true. This may be why they showed this in the movie. If anyone knows for sure, I would be curious to learn the truth. Just a quick history fact. The Saturday night of December 6th 1941 there was a "battle of the bands" contest from all of the Navy battleship bands. The band from the USS Arizona won the contest and trophy that night. The next day all of them were killed. At the school of music there was a small museum honoring all of the Navy bandsman lost that day. When you put on the uniform no matter what your job is, you never know when you will be in "harms way".
Oh that makes a lot of sense! This is purely my speculation, but if even if it's not historically accurate for the attack at Pearl, I love the idea that the filmmakers might've added this bit to be a tribute to military musicians ensuring the anthem was played from start to finish no matter what. Thank you for sharing your experience!
@@BasedonaTrueStoryPodcast I decided to do some checking into this just for fun. The Military Band Protocol states that in case of an extreme emergency it is left up to discretion and is outside the normal protocol rules. If it really occurred at Pearl how the movie showed and played to the end, then most likely the National Anthem is never interrupted. I can't think of any emergency more extreme then that day!
@@tomt373 Dugout dug was a pia and it was easier and safer to push him into a lesser theatre in the Western Pacific. Although, I wonder just how badly morale really would have been if he had been left at Batan?
@@PeteOtton Well, for the Japanese, he would have been a major "trophy" to rub in the face of the U.S. On the other hand, considering all of the men lost under his command there, their mothers, brothers, fathers over here, maybe they would have said "good for him". Of course he would have been trotted off to Japan and kept in special quarters.
There was no operational radar in the Philippines on December 7th or rather December 8th. Also, the AAF units were attacked on the ground after completing a patrol.
@flyingwombat59 The planes in the Philippines were still grouped up like the ones in Hawaii. The Philippines were not a war level defense when they were attacked.
It only makes sense though, that the IJN would seek to destroy the floating dry docks and other facilities. Without those, many of the Battleships could not have been salvaged and repaired for operations in 1943 in the Central Pacific.
I've wondered for years whey the Japanese didn't send a 3rd wave. Delighted to have it explained so well at last. Thanks Jon. (Compared with the early vids I've seen of you, your on-camera persona is much more animated and fun, and more informative too. Keep practicing -- I love your vids)
43:51 Re: Claire Chenault. I've not seen definitive evidence that Cheault knew anything specific about the capabilities of the A6M Zero Fighter before 12/7/1941. Firstly, the assignment given to his AVG by Chiang Kai-shek was the defense of the Burma Road. Consequently, the enemy in China was the Japanese Imperial Army and its air force, not the IJN and its air force. Secondly, the first operational missions flown by the AVG happened more than a week after PH. Chenault did have some detailed knowledge about the IJA's Ki-43 Hayabusa (Allied codename: Oscar), which allowed him to train the AVG pilots to use hit-and-run tactics and avoid dogfighting. Like the Zero, Nakajima's fighter was light and agile with no pilot armor or self-sealing tanks. However, the Oscar lacked cannons. The early versions encountered by the Flying Tigers were armed with only two 7.7mm MGs mounted under the nose cowling. Consequently, even if a P-40 pilot was careless enough to let an Oscar get on his tail, the Japanese pilot would still have difficulty shooting down the American. The seat armor did a fairly good job protecting the pilot and the engine from rifle-caliber fire coming from directly behind. The Oscar pilot could shred a P-40's control surfaces from behind, but he might use all his ammo to do it. The A6M2 Type 21 Zero had two 20mm cannons in addition to its nose-mounted 7.7mm MGs, i.e. more than enough firepower to down any American fighter with some good, solid hits. The AVG did a remarkably good job and really shocked the Japanese Army Air Service which had enjoyed air superiority over China until the Tigers began their missions. But that was AFTER Pearl Harbor.
Ugaki’s diary is an eye opener on the timing of Pearl Harbour. The date was set well in advance - if for no other reason than it takes time for the fleet to get to Hawaii.
The Flying Tigers were fighting Japanese Army aircraft, mostly the Oscar Ki-43 I think. The Zero was a Navy aircraft so little to no experience gained by the AVG.
Are you sure? When I was eight (54 years ago) I read God Is My Copilot. It was a first hand account of those engagements. I can't remember the dude's name, but I remember he wouldn't shut up about the Zeros and the tactics they used with their P-40s when engaging them. I do remember him saying, while the P-40s weren't as nimble, they could definitely outrun them on lateral movements. Of course my memory might be failing me a bit. But, it affected me enough to build Revel models of a Flying Tiger and a Mitsubishi Zero. I had them hanging from my bedroom ceiling with a Flying Tiger in pursuit of a Zero.
Umm… in early 41 the Japanese Navy deployed A6M Zeros to China and virtually destroyed the Chinese Air Force (flying biplanes) in days. At least one Zero was lost to ground fire, but none of the AVG was operational at that time (there were Americans flying for China, but they were Chinese-Americans and have been forgotten). IJN withdrew the A6Ms, and the army reassumed responsibility for ops in China. Their main aircraft was the Ki-27; the new Ki-43 flew its first combat mission at the end of October 41, and the Ki-27 remained the main army fighter during the first year. It shares an engine and shape with the Zero, and the Zero reporting name was initially used for both. This resembles Americans in France referring to “Tiger-tanks” that were actually up-armored PzKw IVs. Chennault allegedly sent some info to Washington, but I have never seen it, and mostly people extrapolate without citing sources. Anybody seen the report?
@@eggrollorsoup6052 True, the P40 was not nimble, but it could take a lot more punishment and was heavily armed. A common way of attacking a zero was to gain an altitude advantage and dive through a formation of A6Ms with guns blazing, then dive away. The Zero, being a lighter aircraft, could not keep up with a diving P40. The P40 could then regain altitude and rinse and repeat. Engaging in a dogfight with a Zero often led to less than optimal results for the AVG pilot.
Since Jon was speaking on having a tripwire event to get us into the war, I wish he had mentioned the U.S.S. Panay. Roosevelt's attempt in 1937 that didn't trigger us to go to war because the Japanese promptly apologized and paid us some money as compensation.
The AAF chief at Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, was Major General Frederick L. Martin. Martin was the first commander of the First Circumnavigation of the World in 1924. Unfortunately, he flew his plane into an Alaskan mountain due to poor weather conditions. He and his mechanic, Sgt Alva Harvey spent 10 days hiking to safety. Martin was exonerated for his actions. He was given a training command. He was 59 when Pearl Harbor was bombed. I suspect he was considered too old for a combat command.
52:14 "It's an entirely different kind of flying, altogether." - Robert Hays 1:00:24 "I'm not gonna tell the king! You tell the king!" - Aryeh Nasbacher 1:09:52 I have watched the Seconds from Disaster episode about Pearl Harbor, and they affirmed that logistical facilities were low-priority for Japanese Naval attack doctrine, but they also put forward the argument that Japanese air coordination relied heavily on visual cues and when fuel dumps are attacked they make very thick smoke while they burn.
The hubris in believing that only the US NAVY had developed underway replinishment (Nimitz as a junior officer was one of the engineering officers most responsible for developing it
I was stationed on Ford Island when Tora was fiming. As such I learned a lot of movie magic. Ever since I have viewed action magic with colored eyes and still enjoy the magic.
Re: The 14-Part message. Yamamoto learned one thing very well during his sojourn in the United States besides how to play poker: He learned that Americans hate betrayal more than anything else. Japan had opened its war against Tsarist Russia with a surprise attack on Port Arthur, which essentially neutralized the Russian navy's Pacific squadron at the outset, forcing Nicolas and his admirals to organize a new naval force for the Pacific out of ships and sailors based in the Baltic and the Black Sea. The crazy planning and incompetent execution of that scheme to bring a hodgepodge fleet of coal-burning warships from the Baltic to Japan via the South Atlantic and the Indian Ocean with no base facilities anywhere en route led directly to Japan's great victory at Tsushima where a very young Isoroku Yamamoto first experienced naval combat, losing fingers in the bargain. Japan won its war with Russia, but Yamamoto discovered Americans weren't like the fatalistic Russians. He realized from the outset that a declaration of war needed to precede his attack on Pearl Harbor if only by 30 minutes if Japan was to have any chance of fighting a short war against the United States. Unfortunately, being C-in-C of the Combined Fleet included no such power. The Emperor and the Japanese Foreign Ministry had to provide that, thus the 1 pm Eastern Standard Time delivery time of Japan's communiqué. However, Yamamoto was himself betrayed. For some reason that historians have not discovered, the 14-Part Message does not contain a declaration of war. It simply breaks off negotiations over the American trade embargo. The actual declaration came by radio at about 9 pm that night, Washington time. Instead of helping Yamamoto's plan for a short war ending in a negotiated peace that left Japan with her East Asian empire intact, the Foreign Ministry's bungling and duplicity guaranteed the final result of Japan's total defeat, occupation, and rule by the Last Shogun, Douglas MacArthur. The ambiguity of the 14-Part Message is little understood by most Americans who assume that when Admiral Nomura finally handed that document to Cordell Hull, the last page ended with Japan's explicit declaration of war. It didn't. And that's why General George C. Marshall's telegram ended with the order to "be on alert accordingly".
True Americans tend to be outraged by treachery. Mel Brooks got it right when in "Blazing Saddles" he says that if you shoot Mongo, you only make him angry.
It is good that people review history, each generation retells the story in their own words. That makes it easier to understand, as phrases, words, and common ideals change over time. Consider that this movie was made with actual living participants advising in the making of this movie, with both American, and Japanese, scripts written, from their own perspectives, with almost all of it based upon recorded facts, we get one of the MOST historically accurate movies ever. AS time goes on perceptions change, and facts become questioned. Perceptions change. But this movie nails down a lot of facts.
Jon Parshall comes across as an arrogant 20-20 hindsight armchair historian with a somewhat poor memory of the two pilots that managed to take off.. Regarding the attack on Wheeler about 10 minutes before the attack on Pearl Harbor, Oahu is a small island. As the war bird flies, the distance is about 10 miles. Any bombs exploding at Wheeler would have been heard at Pearl Harbor in less than a minute. So, there should have been at least a few minutes advance notice at Pearl Harbor that something was happening. Also, was the 14th part of the coded message to Nomura sent in Japanese language or English? Parshall seems to imply that it was sent in Japanese language. But is this true? This seems odd. If the message was supposed to me given to the U.S. in English, wouldn't it have been sent as a coded message in English? Why risk a language translation error by Nomura and his staff?
To clarify the comments about the Flying Tigers' combat reports possibly alerting other U.S. Army pilots about the capabilities of the Mitsubishi Zero: The Flying Tigers' first combat against the Japanese took place on 20 December 1941, almost two weeks after Pearl Harbor. So -- no...
I watched Tora Tora Tora again for the first time since childhood. I agree. Very good movie & actors. Liked it when a kiddie too.. Doesn't seem long. Are the venerable actors too old?
With 90 minutes warning, I agree that some fighters could have been sent up. In addition, couldn't someone have ordered the ships to close up hatches and ports in the battleship (such as the Oklahoma) torpedo blisters?
With enough advance warning, the capital ships would have time to leave and go to a safe place like say 200 miles southeast of Oahu, to avoid detection by the IJN force.
@@alanstevens1296 Nagumo's orders included instructions to search the Lahaina Roads area in case the American battleships weren't in port. Given the lack of air cover and the minimal AAA batteries installed on America's warships as they existed in late 1941, it's lucky the ships were in Pearl Harbor rather than at sea without Enterprise and Lexington. Only two BBs were permanently lost on 12/7/1941 -- Arizona and Oklahoma (Utah was a target/training auxiliary). California, West Virginia, Tennessee, and Nevada were raised and rebuilt better than they were when they sank. If they had encountered Nagumo's force at sea, they would have all been lost forever.
@@enscroggs Lahaina Roads is a major deep water anchorage in several HI about 60 miles from Pearl, a logical place to look. I am suggesting 200 miles to the south which would have been at least 150 miles from any of the HI. The chances of being discovered would be infinitesimal and that location is out of range of the IJN bombers based on where they were sortied. It's unlucky the ships were in Pearl Harbor rather than at sea in such a place as I said. Given even more time they could have been a lot farther than 200 miles.
Very few fighters could have been sent up in time. There was a program about Pearl Harbor years ago on History Channel or National Geographic or Discovery Channel that spelled out how there was no mass fueling setup for planes at the time. Most planes had just a little gas stored in their tanks, and not enough for much of a flight. Planes would have to be fueled one at a time by just a handful of fuel trucks. It was not a speedy process.
Haha! I had a chance to cover that other movie with another WWII historian who would concur with your analysis. If you want to listen to that episode, it's here: www.basedonatruestorypodcast.com/212-pearl-harbor-with-marty-morgan/
A couple of points. First, the recent Dune movies show at least some willingness to go through multiple two-hour movies for a good story. Second, while FDR was trying to get the US into the war, he was trying to do so against Germany. There had been an undeclared shooting war in the Atlantic tor most of 1941, which included destroyers having orders to attack German u-boats on sight, US ships reporting the position of German ships in the clear for the British to hear, and several u-boat attacks on US destroyers, including the sinking of the USS Reuben James at the end of November, 1941.
so Horikushi Jiro was the designer of the Zero -- the final Studio Ghibli / Miyazaki anime film was "The Wind Rises", a bio-pic It shows how authoritarian / militaristic rule followed the 1923 Great Kantø Earthquake ( the Cherry Blossom trees at DC Reflecting Pool + at UW Quad & Seward Park in Seattle were Thank You gifts for relief supplies shipped over ...
@@highdesertarizona Unless you want the fleet to crawl to the Philippines at 9-12 knots or not have destroyers with the fleet the slow oilers weren't going to cut it. And that speed would have been perfect for the IJN's submarines to pick off capital ships.
No matter how many inaccuracies there were in Tora! Tora! Tora! it is still a far more accurate movie than that terrible CGI laden sh!tshow Pearl Harbor!
When the movie first came out, the review of it in Time Magazine mentioned that it cost more to make the movie than it did for the Japanese to actually bomb Pearl Harbor?
The 14-part message given to Cordell Hull after the attack was NOT a declaration of war, and this fact is even mentioned in Roosevelt's Day of Infamy speech. It was hardly even an ultimatum, and its content ultimately amounted to stating that the Japanese government was breaking off negotiations with the United States. The actual Japanese declaration of war was published nearly 8 hours after the attack, and was never intended to be delivered at the same time. Unfortunately, "Tora! "Tora! Tora!" is the main culprit for the propagation of the myth that the 14-part message ended with a declaration of war, and it really is a blemish on the film that even Jon Parshall seems to have been taken in by it. In my opinion, this alone should cap the film's rating at a B- at best for historical accuracy.
In my opinion, that particular lie was started by the US occupation forces when they decided it would be much easier to get cooperation for the Japanese people if they kept the emperor in place. It was MacArthur.
@@edwardmantler3810 Likely true. I would recommend watching a video or two that Dr. Alexander Clarcke has put out about Japanese leadership in the lead up to actual war. It seemed like many officials were pushing the line of The Emperor hasn't outright said no, so I'm going to keep on doing what I am doing, and it was impolite for the Emperor to outright say no. A rule vs. reign philosophy, with not enough checks and balances left.
One mistake that I noted when I saw the movie was that we see Admiral Nagumo nod his head to have the carriers turn into the wind to commence launching, and then we see planes launching from a carrier with the island on the starboard side. However, Nagumo's flagship was the Akagi, which had a port-side island (as did the Hiryu). I always wondered if that was just a mistake by the producers.
6:30 They literally explained that at the beginning. They used post-war US ships that were mocked up to look Japanese. The Yorktown (CV-10) has a starboard island.
The _Akagi_ model created for _Tora! Tora! Tora!_ was a mirror of the real _Akagi._ This was done to match footage of the US Navy carrier _Yorktown_ used as a stand-in for _Akagi_ for the sequence of the planes launching to attack Pearl Harbor. I'm surprised they didn't just make an accurate model of _Akagi_ and image flip the _Yorktown_ launching scenes.
Akagi, was one of the few if not only carrier to have the island on the port side. I think it had to do with the torque was more likely to send aircraft to the port side.
"Negligence and incompetence" takes away the brilliance, professionalism, and courage of the IJN air service in 1941. America made mistakes on 12/7/1941, but even if all those mistakes were instead executed perfectly, we were doomed to take a beating that day.
@@enscroggs True, but if all of what few AA guns ashore and aboard ship had been fully manned and supplied with ammo, ships in condition Z with some fighter cover over head, salvage might have been quicker and easier and there might have been few planes and pilots available for the Indian Sea raid, which might have had disastrous sooner for the IJN. Midway might not even have happened.
As you say, I think this is the start of a negotiation. It has to be seen in the context of Trump’s complaints about NATO. Right now, the US bears the burden of defending Greenland, while Denmark enjoys the benefits of exploiting its resources. I think if a new agreement were to allow U.S. companies to explore for gold, oil, rare earths, etc., that would probably work. But if Denmark still dig in her heels, there’s all manner of pressure that can be brought on the Danish government to come around.
Just finished Harry Turtledove's books (Days of Infamy & End of the beginning) alternate history version of Dec 7. In this version the Japanese Invade Hawaii. Was somewhat disapointed. Interesting idea though. Was wondering if the Japanese actually had the capability to do that.
@@BasedonaTrueStoryPodcast Liked the premise wasn't jazzed up on the characters. Spent too much time dwelling on a Japanese family of fisherman & a surf bum. According to the book the fleet was trapped in the harbor. What would have happened then? Don't know didn't say. Kimmel & Short surrendered. What would have happened to them. don't know didn't say. instead were treated to pages & pages of people catching fish & a guy that supposed to have invented sail boarding in1941. Pretty cheesy. My father was a construction worker for Pacific Bridge in Hawaii from 39-42. He worked on dry dock # 2. Seems a guy like that's experience
@@BasedonaTrueStoryPodcast Ran out of room. experience would have been more interesting then those people. All & all I was generally disappointed in the book.
I doubt it. They were delayed in taking Wake by the ferocity of the handful of Marines and needed air support from 2 of the carriers of Kido Butai. It would have significantly slowed them down to travel with transport ships needed for an invasion and sending them out sooner with a long slow transit time might have raised alarm bells for the Americans. West Virginia beached herself to keep from blocking the channel to open sea. The subs and destroyers might have made a nuisance of themselves to an invading force. Halsey with Enterprise was on the way back, delayed by a storm (Halsey seemed to have a knack for going through heavy weather.) While he did send his planes ashore, if there had been an invasion they would have been useful in repelling an invasion. Also Lexington and Saratoga were only another day or two out as well. The strike force had less ability to linger than Fletcher and the carriers did at Guadalcanal. The Japanese also didn't have the sea lift capacity nor the troops available for an invasion of Honolulu in December 41 and still be able to conduct the other operations they wanted to (They were using foreign flagged ships prior to the war for ~1/3 of their shipping needs, which suddenly evaporated.) Taking Honolulu would have also left them very exposed at the end of a very long supply chain with very few ships available. They needed Java for the oil and even taking Pearl intact would only by a very short amount of oil. Even with bad torpedoes the USN would have worked hard to sink Japanese shipping to and from Pearl. The attack on Pearl also made it possible for the IJN to deal with the diminished presence of the British Royal Navy. If they were stuck in the east of the Pacific the RN has a little bit of time to regroup and support the Dutch. This will thwart one of the major objectives for the Japanese: Oil. Without Java the war is over for them in 6 months, even if they do somehow miraculously switch most of their ships back over to coal boilers they have no aircraft with aviation gas. And the British were their equals at surface night fighting and superior at night flying. Even if they landed on Honolulu, FDR would have ordered every ship on the west coast out to counter this along with all available army and marine troops aboard liners as fast as possible. It would have been a blood bath but in the end I think the US would have won a battle for Hawaii. It might have precluded a battle for the south west Pacific in the Solomon Islands. Which would have made things very interesting as to where the US starts the island hopping campaign. Especially if the British and Dutch with a few light USN ships relieve / retake Singapore. Remember the Australians and New Zealanders were battle hardened from their participation in the North African Desert. I'm going to assume McArthur still loses the Philippines, but that is a big mac problem that can only be solved with Hoover firing him. If FDR does it he becomes a political liability and I don't want to think about how he screws up the war aims if he becomes president.
Roosevelt was trying to start a war with Germany. Japan, he was trying to force into submission with sanctions, but knew they might respond with military action. He was ok with that too, because he thought we could easily crush them. He just didn't know exactly where they would attack.
Roosevelt likely considered Germany a bigger threat, and by October '41 had even begun an undeclared naval war in the North Atlantic, complete with "neutrality" patrols and "sink on sight" orders concerning German submarines. He was probably trying to string Japan along because he suspected Hitler's invasion of Russia would eventually fail. Ironically, the Germans had stalled outside of Moscow by December '41, and the Russians counter-attacked by December 5th, two and a half days before the attack on Pearl Harbor, about two weeks after Kido Butai's date of no return, which was 27 November. The 1941 oil embargo was originally conceived to be 10%, followed by a 10% increase each month to put ever more pressure on Japan. As it turned out, the embargo was 100% and immediate, prompting the Japanese to plan on seizing Indonesia while their Navy still had the oil to mount the operation. As part of this larger operation, they attacked Pearl Harbor to cripple the US Navy in the Pacific and protect their flanks. While Roosevelt might have been trying to avoid war with Japan, he probably thought, like most other American leaders that Japan could be crushed easily enough, not realizing that combined carrier operations had become such a game-changer in those six months in the middle of 1941.
That’s crazy how Fuchida invents this story in his mind about wanting to blow up the oil storage, and tells himself this tall tale in his head over and over for 20 years until he truly believes the idea originated with him, when the reality is the bit about bombing the fuel was planted by being asked about it in 1946. What’s even crazier odds that this city had supposedly “converted to Christianity” yet 2 decades after the war he still believes that looking like he was more dedicated to killing a Americans than his bosses were is going to make him look GOOD. SMH these wars are just not good for the human psyche
I have to disagree with Jon a little bit on the importance of the repair facilities and fuel dumps. If the Japanese had destroyed them (and another target, the sub pens) but even just the facilities, the fleet would have had to pull back to the west coast, San Fran. sure they could have refueled and all that, but I believe it would have had a profound affect on other events. Lets say coral sea still happens, the Yorktown would have had to return to San Fran and not Pearl to get repaired, an additional 1000+ miles and I don't believe there is anyway she would have been ready for Midway.
I know counter-factual scenarios are a rabbit hole, but it just occurred to me, what if the U.S. hadn't moved the fleet to Hawaii? Would the Japanese been able to attack them at San Diego?? Would they still have attacked??
Far less likely. a) much much lower chance the Kido Butai could have made it all the way to the West Coast undetected, b) the US fleet probably wouldn't have been as concentrated - or its location as predictable - as there were major port facilities at Bremerton, San Francisco, Long Beach, and San Diego, and c) logistics was already a stretch to get to Hawaii, so obviously that much more of a challenge with the extra distance. On that last logistic bit. It's true enough that assessing the IJN not have the underway replenishment capability for such an attack on Pearl Harbor was an intelligence failure. But I think it was a fairly understandable one, and am somewhat disappointed with Jon's portrayal of US complacency on that particular point. At the time Combined Fleet began seriously planning the PH operation earlier in 1941, the IJN in fact didn't yet have the necessary capability, at least not for a large carrier task force of such size. Part of the operation's planning, preparation and training was a crash program to figure out that logistics piece. It remained one of the biggest concerns even as the force left Japan at the end of November for the transit. Nagumo even had some contingency plans to proceed with a smaller force if it turned out enroute that all six carriers simply couldn't make it due to fuel. So the idea that the IJN didn't have the replenishment capability for a Hawaii attack was pretty reasonable, and had actually been largely correct only a few months (even weeks perhaps) prior.
@@cragnamorra A perfectly sound argument against a West Coast attack. And I agree with you btw, I think people in general (and Jon too apparently) seem to take for granted what a stretch that was. In many ways it was one of those operations that only perfection could sustain.
The fleet was moved as the result of a political decision, an attempt to put pressure on Japan with regard to its war in China, without consideration of Hawaii's vulnerability. Admiral Richardson, Kimmel's predecessor, vehemently opposed moving the base and was sacked. In fact, Richardson is depicted in the film. He is the guy riding with Martin Balsam in the PBY that is flying over Pearl Harbor towards the beginning of the film.
@@cragnamorra Also much more likely to encounter shipping that would likely report back, "Hey what's with all the Japanese ships sailing this way." But that probably just means the Kido Butai would be used elsewhere, Wake? Midway maybe gets invaded, in December 41 that could have happened? or maybe a longer raid into the Indian Ocean?
Once Japan was at war with the USA...the US would never have settled...was just a matter of time and dead bodies (on both sides). The irony/tragedy is that Japan ended up achieving all their goals via peaceful methods.
We were getting pretty good insights into the diplomatic traffic in 1941, but usefully decrypted military traffic was sparse until early 1942 from everything I've read. Of course conspiracy theorists don't differentiate the two and claim we had nearly word for word copies of everything. I thought the movie implied that rather well with the code breakers having to read between the lines of what the Japanese were willing to commit to the less secure diplomatic code, especially more than a couple of days ahead of the attack.
@@markrossow6303 Fascinating woman as was her work. But she was focused mostly on the German and South American regions, and counter espionage, including a Japanese spy. Work on the Japanese naval codes was primarily handled by other groups such as US Navy signals intelligence out of DC, and the combat intelligence unit at Pearl Harbor.
In regards to your "two truths and a lie", I am confused! You state that #1 is the lie (about the Japanese wanting to launch a third wave). But, #3 appears to be correct answer... Jon Parshall earlier clearly elaborated that there is no "written" evidence that Yamamoto made such a quote. Are you here implying that there is "non-written" evidence that Yamamoto may have made such a quote?
Seems to me the problems were, Nothing like the CIA exhisted & prejudice on the part of both combatents. The US refused to take the Japan serious. the Japanese thought the Americans were soft.
How much were the carriers broadcasting what they were up to and how good was Japanese signal intelligence? If everyone is keeping quiet it's hard to know where and what anyone is up to. After all we didn't know where the Japanese carriers were? If we did, Kimmel Probably would have gone chasing after them, assuming he had his carriers with him for air cover.
According to the film, before they launched the attack their information (presumably from observers on the ground in Hawaii) was that only one US carrier was in port at Pearl, and this was a point of concern.
44:35 - “…but if you use the wrong tactics, the results are distinctly unpleasant.” …is one of the most hilariously tongue-in-cheek expressions of how not to fight an A6M Zero I’ve ever heard. Good one, Jon! 😎
Interesting tidbit about USS Ward: she was converted to be a fast transport (APD16) and served in the Solomons, Cape Gloucester and Leyte. On Dec 7, 1944, 3 years to the day , she was struck by a kamikaze. A destroyer, USS O'Brien, was sent to scuttle her with the deck guns. That destroyer was commanded by William Outerbridge, her commander on Dec 7 41.
That would be a story withing its self
This is one of my favorite stories. William Outerbridge displayed something that would still be rare in the US Navy even eight months later off Guadalcanal: diligence of duty and alacrity of response.
I see Jon Parshall I press play.
Same here. His "big picture" approach really helps us understand the "why" of what happened.
So true, I wish he narrated the shattered sword audio book
100%
DITTO!!
YES!
I lived on oahu for 3 years when I was with the 25th Infantry Division.I tried to learn as much as possible about the attack.Anytime I get to hear new information.It's always a plus
The bombing of Wheeler and other airfields was not part of the "Suprise Achieved" attack plan written by Genda. The bombing was, instead, a breakdown in communication.
Genda had written up 2 different attack plans, one for suprise achieved (plan 1) and one if there were fighters and naval AA waiting for them (plan 2). They did these 2 plans because their #1 concern was NOT the airfields, it was protecting their torpedo bombers. Torpedoes were their preferred weapon of choice. Take a look at the water geysers from torpedo hits in the captured photos of the attack. That shock wave bouncing off the shallow bottom created massive damage to the WWI era battleships.
Months of shallow water torpedo testing showed the IJN brass that their planes had to fly right at stall speed and close to the water to "drop" successfully. Low and slow was extremely dangerous for them as they were easy targets. Heck, the USS Nevada splashed 3 torpedo bombers alone with just 3 AA guns manned and firing.
If surprise was the plan, the torpedo planes were to attack first, giving them the safety of surprise. If not, then plan 2 called for bombing the airfields and AA batteries and letting the Zeroes tangle with any airborn fighters first. Only then, after things were neutralized/safer, were the torpedo planes to go in.
Attack leader Fuchida, looking at the harbor through binoculars, determined to use plan 1 the "suprise" plan and fired off a flare to instruct the attack wave which sequence to use. But the Zero fighters didn't respond to the flare. So he fired off a 2nd flare directly at them, which they responded to but confused the rest of his attack force. Bombers shot ahead, attacking airfields thinking it was plan 2 while torpedo bombers swung around and lined up as in plan 1.
Bombing the airfields first (and errors in attacking lesser targets on Carrier Row) by mistake tipped off the men aboard the ships on Battleship Row. Every battleship had some AA guns armed and manned. Remember that these are warships, not cruise liners. In port, during peace time, they still had a few AA guns manned. Those torpedo planes that were shot down were most of the losses of the first wave and this is why.
Fuchida initially admitted his mistake with the flare signalling - but later in life changed his story.
nice
I have read H P Willmott’s ‘Pearl Harbour’, the 2001 book that Parshall mentioned, and it’s excellent.
Willmott is a ‘hard’ historian, he doesn’t indulge in hyperbole and sentiment, instead taking a colder analytical approach.
He analyses the economic capabilities of both the US & Japan and in his view, the biggest folly committed by the Japanese was deciding to go to war with the United States in the first place. Willmott refers to the US losses at Pearl as ‘slight’. He is not being cold blooded, he means that in strategic terms, the US Navy suffered a nasty bruise- painful but certainly far from fatal. The Pacific Fleet was a long way from being ‘destroyed’ or even ‘crippled’.
Willmott also devotes a chapter to discussing the feasibility of the Japanese launching a third wave. The author argues that even though the Japanese only lost 29 aircraft in the first two waves, many more were damaged and either written off or requiring repairs. The Japanese had also used up all of their special 800kg bombs so the third wave pilots would have only had 250kg bombs which, as shown in the second wave attack, were considerably less effective. Also fuel would have been a major problem if Nagumo had decided to linger near Hawaii for longer, possibly forcing him to abandon some of the escorting destroyers due to fuel starvation.
This was an excellent video in my first experience with your channel. I subscribed and we will be looking through your past videos. 👍🏽
Thank you for the kind words! I hope you enjoy digging into past videos as much as I've enjoyed creating them! 😊
The Royal Navy had demonstrated this type of attack at Taranto one year before December 7th
And we did it at night with bi-planes
@@daniellastuart3145 I thought we did it twice? In different years.
I love the way Jon always giggles whenever someone mentions Fuchida.
The Flying Tigers first combat mission was Dec 20th, 1941. Weeks after Pearl.
The most famous of the "Pearl Harbor pilots" was George Welsh. He left the military in 1944 and became a test pilot. During the Korean war even though he was officially a civilian advisor he, supposedly, shot down atleast 2 MiG-15s. Still a test pilot, he was first person to go horizontally super sonic in a jet (the X-1 was rocket). The F-100. Later he died when his F-100 broke up while pulling a 7(?) G turn. He was 36.
As for sending sacrificial ships to bait Japan I recommend looking up USS Isabel. Roosevelt did EXACTLY that.
Keep in mind when considering Roosevelt's actions in 1940 and 41. He knew the US would be pulled in one way or another, but he also knew it would probably be when we were not ready. He was trying to buy time.
The USS Ward noticed a PBY (Flying Boat) circling the sub before being warned by the Antares that there was a sub following it in. The Pearl Harbour alert centre was still under construction - most of the US command seemed to have come up with an imaginary timeline that the Japanese would start the war around April 1942, which led to the apathy and defence and communications infrastructure being still under construction. The duty officer didn't have anyone to immediately alert - there wasn't an air squadron ready to launch.
Lieutenants Ken Taylor and George Welch were the 2 P 40 pilots that took off out of Haleiwa. Their planes were up there for a gunnery exercise. They grabbed a convertible Oldsmobile to get out to their airplanes. They did call ahead to have their planes armed and warmed up. They shot down a total of 4-6 enemy planes with Welch getting three or four and Taylor getting one or two. Both of them landed successfully, reloaded, and got back in the air and both of them survived the war. Welch was an ace and was later killed test flying the North American F-100 Super Sabre. Taylor went on to become a National Guard, Air Force Brigadier General and was a technical advisor on the movie
Taylor said when the operation was over, his airplane had 300 bullet holes in it
@@maxsmodels Balls is balls, Taylor had both.
Future WWII ace Francis Gabrieski was at Pearl Harbor. He got into the air. He didn't shoot any planes down.
@@maxsmodels --Shows how tough P-40s were!
I love this film and it’s one I watch regularly. Interesting trivia - Akira Kurosawa was fired for filming Zeros taking off for two weeks.
But I am sure he did it with cinematic artistry. 😂
Cornelia Clark Fort (February 5, 1919 - March 21, 1943) was an American aviator who became famous for being part of two aviation-related events. The first occurred while conducting a civilian training flight at Pearl Harbor on 7 December 1941, when she was the first United States pilot to encounter the Japanese air fleet during the Attack on Pearl Harbor. She and her student narrowly escaped a mid-air collision with the Japanese aircraft and a strafing attack after making an emergency landing.
The following year, Fort became the second member of what was to become the Women Airforce Service Pilots or WASP. Fort was working as a WASP ferry pilot on 21 March 1943 when she became the first female pilot in American history to die while on active duty. She was involved in a mid-air collision and crashed ten miles south of Merkel, Texas, in Mulberry Canyon.
Interesting take on the 3rd attack wave.
Sal Mercogliano (What's going on with shipping) talked about the logics of the early war with his episode 6 oilers. In that, he addresses the importance the US placed on logistics. He suggested that the Japanese learned how much it hurt to have logistics and repair facilities hit from the US carrier raids just after Pearl.
I saw the models on public display after the movie came out in San Francisco in a building near Fisherman's Wharf a block from the cable car turntable and they were excellent models of high quality and back then I built ship models and would have loved one in my collection.
The models were later sold off at auction and I always wondered who bought them and where they are today.
I would argue that the United States entered WW2 once we started doing convoy escort. This is why Germany's declaration of war read more like saying that yes there is a state of war between Germany and the US. Lend Lease was another way the US violates the Neutrality laws. Just like we have been doing in Ukraine.
Used to fly with the chief pilot of the movie Tora Tora Tora. Retired Lieutenant Colonel Art Wildern. He flew P-47's in the ETO and was a DFC recipient.
nice
I hate to get out on such a limb here but I think Jon’s shirt is 11/10
Jon explains, for the first time, that B-17s normally looped around to approach the airfields from the north.
we live uphill from Boeing Plant 2 -- when we moved here an old Italian farmwife remembered hearing the B-17s taking off -- during the War, planes for the Pacific had an MG test fire and male USAAF pilot
those for Britain had no test-firing sound as they had female Ferry Pilots ...
Great discussion guys - I really enjoyed it.
There is one question that has always bothered me, and you have kind of covered it and that is why didn't the Japanese actually INVADE the Hawaiian islands and capture Pearl Harbour?
Yamamoto said that he could only give Japan 6 months to a year. If they had have invaded Hawaii and captured Pearl Harbour he could have given Japan a lot more time than that.
Pearl Harbour was a critically important base for the remainder of the war. Re-fuelling capability or not the USN would have been badly hamstrung fighting the war from San Diego. They would have to recapture Pearl Harbour first. The battles of the Coral Sea and Midway may never have happened, and Port Moresby would definitely have been captured.
In terms of manpower for an invasion of Hawaii the Japanese could have used the troops they sent to Hong Kong and Malaya. Those targets could have waited. Britain was in no shape to attack from those colonies at that time.
And how were you guys going to get to New Zealand, Guadalcanal and Australia without Pearl Harbour - via Cape Horn?
I'm no military strategist but it seems to me that if their best Admiral is saying he can only give them 6 months why wouldn't they try to capture this vital base? They had surprise on their hands. The civilian population would not have been able to put up much of a fight.Sure, the base itself would have been a tough nut to crack and would have inflicted a lot of casualties but it would also not have been able to defend itself adequately due to a lack of co-ordinator between the services. Did they ever have war games to test how they'd repel an invasion? Probably not
I'd be interested in your opinion on this. Without capturing Pearl Harbour Japan doomed itself to failure. If the object of the attack was to force the USA to sue for peace, Pearl Harbour would have been one hell of a bargaining chip to have.
You are asking for a major change in strategy. Not sure it would have worked anyway. We had over 30,000 troops in Hawaii. More were available. Japan had no real logistical train to support troops. Also, their fleet could not stay to support the troops. Oil and other problems.
9:15- Ironically, there turned out to be many times the amount of oil in the Sakhalin Islands (at the northern end of the Japanese Archipelago) as there was in Indonesia. Unfortunately, it was not recoverable using the technology prevalent in the 1940s.
I was stationed at the Naval Air Station when Tora Tora Tora premiered in New Orleans. I had Duty Driver that night and was given the pleasure of driving Two Senior Admirals from 8th Naval District Command as Guests of Honor to the event. Obviously these two would have had experience in WW2 but on the return drive their conversation was whether U.S.N. Reserve Commander Richard Nixon should have been passed over for upgrade to Captain as there was.a distinct possibility of him becoming Commander in Chief someday.
It was a great movie, then and now; thank you for the background story.
Tricky Dick Nixon, "Best Poker Player in the U.S. Navy"
But wasn't Richard Nixon already President(01/20/69-08/09/74) at the time the movie came out?
51:00 The two off-base pilots who got back to Haleiwa Field in a Buick were Lieutenants George Welch and Ken Taylor.. Both have Wikipedia entries survived the war.
There were, I believe, 14 American pilots who got airborne that day in response to the attack. Some B-17s and some patrolling US aircraft also encountered Japanese planes... as did, iirc, a civilian student pilot.
So good to see Jon and the wallpaper. Excellent talk. Midway next? Thank you
There are at least three Midway episodes for BOATS. No kidding.
I think Dan has two for the 2019 movie (two different historians). And, at least one for the 1976 movie, where Dan and a historian watch the entire movie together and break down each scene.
And, I just checked. Jon is in two of these. And someone with the first name Craig is in one of the 2019 podcasts.
@@eggrollorsoup6052 Craig Symonds wrote a great book on the Battle of Midway. It is very much the American version of the battle and pairs well with Tully and Parshall’s Shattered Sword. With those two books, you get a good look at the battle from the participants perspective
Yep see that wallpaper a lot with unauthorized history of pacific war
As others have mentioned, I've covered both Midway movies before. You'll find them all in a single place here: www.basedonatruestorypodcast.com/midway/
WOW! I only saw Tora, Tora, Tora once as a kid when it came out. Hearing Jon on your chanell gives me the same deep thrill down my spine.
Since I was four I was into military stuff on a mission not to experience a new world war.
Especially for me the Dutch defence (!) in the interbellum untill 1940 and as a side note for me the Dutch East Indies.
This video is by far one of the most intelligent well documented and presented deep insights into the war at that point I've ever come across and that's saying a lot!
The alternate possible scenarios are well argued based on the well researched facts.
For instance debunking the myth of Rooseveld tricking the US into the war by not acting on info on the attack on Pearl Harbour.
The psychology at play is well understood in plausable scenarios based on facts.
Excellent!
Okay, a point of critique then. Even though no doubt bloody hot seeing as exibit a a glass of ice with some water the fan is distracting.
Or maybe I should have seen it as the prop of a Zero😅
Anyway, not only promoting the own work but a brilliant expo of other valued work.
And, indeed when studying WW2 as a whole 1942 is the most interseting year.
(Preventing the war repeating itself however........(which we are at now)......)
Anyway top notch! 1:25:38
Nice.
For Mini-Series which deals with the run-up to US involvement in World War Two ‘The Winds of War,’ based on Herman Wouk’s novel of the same name is quite good. There was also a continuance-followup Mini-Series called ‘War and Remembrance’ which was based on the Herman Wouk continuation book. Readers will want to read both of those books as well as Wouk’s ‘The Caine Mutiny.’
The Caine Mutiny might be my favorite book. I read it four or five times. Eventually I became fascinated that at different stages of my own service as a naval surface officer, how differently I would identify with and evaluate the roles and actions of the various characters; it was like reading a completely new story.
I disagree. Many of the actors in that miniseries were too old for their parts. Jan-Michael Vincent and Ali MacGraw were the worst cases of casting. On the other hand, Polly Bergen was spot-on as Robert Mitchum’s wife.
As historical fiction, those are 2 great TV Mini Series. You can write a book report from watching them. But they did cast a bit too old. Especially Robert Mitchem. Though he was part of the great generation. And I like how War and Remembrance spends a full 3rd of the series on the Holocaust and how it evolved throughout the course of the war.
@@flyingwombat59Robert Mitchum was cast too old for the role. He was playing someone in his late 30s, not in his 50s.
I saw this movie when it first came out. It was at the base theater in Iwakuni, Japan.
saw it as a U.S. Army kid in Fulda
saw Empire of the Sun on Seoul Yŏngsan, 1st college summer, Dad was Base Commander == all non-military activities -- he called it City Manager & his favorite job ...
One of my favorite movies. This is an incredible video!
43:35 The Flying Tigers began to arrive in China in April 1941 but first saw combat on 20 December 1941, 12 days after Pearl Harbor.. Chennault was therefor in no position to give advice on how to fight the Zero, which they hardly faced anyway since it was strictly a Japanese NAVY plane.
Fantastic Podcast! I wanted to comment on the scene in the movie Tora! Tora! Tora! where the Navy Band is playing the National Anthem on the USS Nevada. The attack begins in the middle of the anthem and the band plays faster and faster until they finish and then run for cover. You mentioned this but I wanted to give some perspective. I was an Army musician. At the time that I was in, all Army, Navy and Marine Corps musicians attended the School of Music on the Navy Base in Little Creek, Virginia. We learned military traditions and what was expected of a military musician.
I remember being told that when we played the National Anthem in an official capacity that it must be played from start to finish and not stopped in the middle for any reason. I do not know if this is fact or just tradition. It would make sense that it is true. This may be why they showed this in the movie. If anyone knows for sure, I would be curious to learn the truth.
Just a quick history fact. The Saturday night of December 6th 1941 there was a "battle of the bands" contest from all of the Navy battleship bands. The band from the USS Arizona won the contest and trophy that night. The next day all of them were killed. At the school of music there was a small museum honoring all of the Navy bandsman lost that day. When you put on the uniform no matter what your job is, you never know when you will be in "harms way".
:'-(
Oh that makes a lot of sense! This is purely my speculation, but if even if it's not historically accurate for the attack at Pearl, I love the idea that the filmmakers might've added this bit to be a tribute to military musicians ensuring the anthem was played from start to finish no matter what. Thank you for sharing your experience!
@@BasedonaTrueStoryPodcast I decided to do some checking into this just for fun. The Military Band Protocol states that in case of an extreme emergency it is left up to discretion and is outside the normal protocol rules. If it really occurred at Pearl how the movie showed and played to the end, then most likely the National Anthem is never interrupted. I can't think of any emergency more extreme then that day!
McArthur didn't save his planes with hours warning.
Too bad it took until President Truman to fire his arse. FDR was too taken up with old family stuff.
@@tomt373 Dugout dug was a pia and it was easier and safer to push him into a lesser theatre in the Western Pacific. Although, I wonder just how badly morale really would have been if he had been left at Batan?
@@PeteOtton Well, for the Japanese, he would have been a major "trophy" to rub in the face of the U.S. On the other hand, considering all of the men lost under his command there, their mothers, brothers, fathers over here, maybe they would have said "good for him". Of course he would have been trotted off to Japan and kept in special quarters.
There was no operational radar in the Philippines on December 7th or rather December 8th. Also, the AAF units were attacked on the ground after completing a patrol.
@flyingwombat59 The planes in the Philippines were still grouped up like the ones in Hawaii. The Philippines were not a war level defense when they were attacked.
It only makes sense though, that the IJN would seek to destroy the floating dry docks and other facilities. Without those, many of the Battleships could not have been salvaged and repaired for operations in 1943 in the Central Pacific.
I've wondered for years whey the Japanese didn't send a 3rd wave. Delighted to have it explained so well at last. Thanks Jon. (Compared with the early vids I've seen of you, your on-camera persona is much more animated and fun, and more informative too. Keep practicing -- I love your vids)
I agree that he explained the absence of a 3rd wave very well!
43:51 Re: Claire Chenault. I've not seen definitive evidence that Cheault knew anything specific about the capabilities of the A6M Zero Fighter before 12/7/1941. Firstly, the assignment given to his AVG by Chiang Kai-shek was the defense of the Burma Road. Consequently, the enemy in China was the Japanese Imperial Army and its air force, not the IJN and its air force. Secondly, the first operational missions flown by the AVG happened more than a week after PH. Chenault did have some detailed knowledge about the IJA's Ki-43 Hayabusa (Allied codename: Oscar), which allowed him to train the AVG pilots to use hit-and-run tactics and avoid dogfighting. Like the Zero, Nakajima's fighter was light and agile with no pilot armor or self-sealing tanks. However, the Oscar lacked cannons. The early versions encountered by the Flying Tigers were armed with only two 7.7mm MGs mounted under the nose cowling. Consequently, even if a P-40 pilot was careless enough to let an Oscar get on his tail, the Japanese pilot would still have difficulty shooting down the American. The seat armor did a fairly good job protecting the pilot and the engine from rifle-caliber fire coming from directly behind. The Oscar pilot could shred a P-40's control surfaces from behind, but he might use all his ammo to do it. The A6M2 Type 21 Zero had two 20mm cannons in addition to its nose-mounted 7.7mm MGs, i.e. more than enough firepower to down any American fighter with some good, solid hits. The AVG did a remarkably good job and really shocked the Japanese Army Air Service which had enjoyed air superiority over China until the Tigers began their missions. But that was AFTER Pearl Harbor.
t.y.
Ugaki’s diary is an eye opener on the timing of Pearl Harbour. The date was set well in advance - if for no other reason than it takes time for the fleet to get to Hawaii.
The Flying Tigers were fighting Japanese Army aircraft, mostly the Oscar Ki-43 I think. The Zero was a Navy aircraft so little to no experience gained by the AVG.
Are you sure? When I was eight (54 years ago) I read God Is My Copilot. It was a first hand account of those engagements. I can't remember the dude's name, but I remember he wouldn't shut up about the Zeros and the tactics they used with their P-40s when engaging them. I do remember him saying, while the P-40s weren't as nimble, they could definitely outrun them on lateral movements.
Of course my memory might be failing me a bit. But, it affected me enough to build Revel models of a Flying Tiger and a Mitsubishi Zero. I had them hanging from my bedroom ceiling with a Flying Tiger in pursuit of a Zero.
@@eggrollorsoup6052 You are correct. My mistake.
Umm… in early 41 the Japanese Navy deployed A6M Zeros to China and virtually destroyed the Chinese Air Force (flying biplanes) in days. At least one Zero was lost to ground fire, but none of the AVG was operational at that time (there were Americans flying for China, but they were Chinese-Americans and have been forgotten). IJN withdrew the A6Ms, and the army reassumed responsibility for ops in China. Their main aircraft was the Ki-27; the new Ki-43 flew its first combat mission at the end of October 41, and the Ki-27 remained the main army fighter during the first year. It shares an engine and shape with the Zero, and the Zero reporting name was initially used for both. This resembles Americans in France referring to “Tiger-tanks” that were actually up-armored PzKw IVs.
Chennault allegedly sent some info to Washington, but I have never seen it, and mostly people extrapolate without citing sources.
Anybody seen the report?
@@eggrollorsoup6052 True, the P40 was not nimble, but it could take a lot more punishment and was heavily armed. A common way of attacking a zero was to gain an altitude advantage and dive through a formation of A6Ms with guns blazing, then dive away. The Zero, being a lighter aircraft, could not keep up with a diving P40. The P40 could then regain altitude and rinse and repeat. Engaging in a dogfight with a Zero often led to less than optimal results for the AVG pilot.
@@marclang2685 It must have been a shock to A6M pilots when the F6F showed up.
The Japanese typist is exactly what my mother used to encourage me to take typing in HS. And I did, much to my benefit.
That was brilliant, Thank you !
( informative, entertaining, ...)
Since Jon was speaking on having a tripwire event to get us into the war, I wish he had mentioned the U.S.S. Panay.
Roosevelt's attempt in 1937 that didn't trigger us to go to war because the Japanese promptly apologized and paid us some money as compensation.
The AAF chief at Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, was Major General Frederick L. Martin. Martin was the first commander of the First Circumnavigation of the World in 1924. Unfortunately, he flew his plane into an Alaskan mountain due to poor weather conditions. He and his mechanic, Sgt Alva Harvey spent 10 days hiking to safety.
Martin was exonerated for his actions. He was given a training command. He was 59 when Pearl Harbor was bombed. I suspect he was considered too old for a combat command.
52:14 "It's an entirely different kind of flying, altogether." - Robert Hays
1:00:24 "I'm not gonna tell the king! You tell the king!" - Aryeh Nasbacher
1:09:52 I have watched the Seconds from Disaster episode about Pearl Harbor, and they affirmed that logistical facilities were low-priority for Japanese Naval attack doctrine, but they also put forward the argument that Japanese air coordination relied heavily on visual cues and when fuel dumps are attacked they make very thick smoke while they burn.
finding out that Mr. Jon lives in Minnesota explains his wallpaper patterns
have you watched Martin Mull's "History of White People in America" ?? a particular fav of my Wife ...
Great presentation, but next time, please don't hang your own wallpaper. 😂
The hubris in believing that only the US NAVY had developed underway replinishment (Nimitz as a junior officer was one of the engineering officers most responsible for developing it
Great episode, thank you
Glad you enjoyed it, thank you for watching!
George Welch and Ken Taylor were the two pilots that got aloft at Pearl and are credited with 6 kills. They were 2 of 5 that got airborne that day.
Thanks for filling in that info!
I was stationed on Ford Island when Tora was fiming. As such I learned a lot of movie magic. Ever since I have viewed action magic with colored eyes and still enjoy the magic.
Nice
Re: The 14-Part message. Yamamoto learned one thing very well during his sojourn in the United States besides how to play poker: He learned that Americans hate betrayal more than anything else. Japan had opened its war against Tsarist Russia with a surprise attack on Port Arthur, which essentially neutralized the Russian navy's Pacific squadron at the outset, forcing Nicolas and his admirals to organize a new naval force for the Pacific out of ships and sailors based in the Baltic and the Black Sea. The crazy planning and incompetent execution of that scheme to bring a hodgepodge fleet of coal-burning warships from the Baltic to Japan via the South Atlantic and the Indian Ocean with no base facilities anywhere en route led directly to Japan's great victory at Tsushima where a very young Isoroku Yamamoto first experienced naval combat, losing fingers in the bargain. Japan won its war with Russia, but Yamamoto discovered Americans weren't like the fatalistic Russians. He realized from the outset that a declaration of war needed to precede his attack on Pearl Harbor if only by 30 minutes if Japan was to have any chance of fighting a short war against the United States. Unfortunately, being C-in-C of the Combined Fleet included no such power. The Emperor and the Japanese Foreign Ministry had to provide that, thus the 1 pm Eastern Standard Time delivery time of Japan's communiqué. However, Yamamoto was himself betrayed. For some reason that historians have not discovered, the 14-Part Message does not contain a declaration of war. It simply breaks off negotiations over the American trade embargo. The actual declaration came by radio at about 9 pm that night, Washington time. Instead of helping Yamamoto's plan for a short war ending in a negotiated peace that left Japan with her East Asian empire intact, the Foreign Ministry's bungling and duplicity guaranteed the final result of Japan's total defeat, occupation, and rule by the Last Shogun, Douglas MacArthur.
The ambiguity of the 14-Part Message is little understood by most Americans who assume that when Admiral Nomura finally handed that document to Cordell Hull, the last page ended with Japan's explicit declaration of war. It didn't. And that's why General George C. Marshall's telegram ended with the order to "be on alert accordingly".
t.y.
True Americans tend to be outraged by treachery. Mel Brooks got it right when in "Blazing Saddles" he says that if you shoot Mongo, you only make him angry.
Great interview
Thank you!
It is good that people review history, each generation retells the story in their own words. That makes it easier to understand, as phrases, words, and common ideals change over time. Consider that this movie was made with actual living participants advising in the making of this movie, with both American, and Japanese, scripts written, from their own perspectives, with almost all of it based upon recorded facts, we get one of the MOST historically accurate movies ever. AS time goes on perceptions change, and facts become questioned. Perceptions change. But this movie nails down a lot of facts.
The 2 pilots went to a subsidiary field on the North Shore called halleava.The pilot's names were lieutenant's welch and taylor
Tyler...
Hey Jon, I like your screen saver
Another compelling analysis. Thanks
I'm glad you enjoyed it! Thanks for watching!
Jon Parshall comes across as an arrogant 20-20 hindsight armchair historian with a somewhat poor memory of the two pilots that managed to take off.. Regarding the attack on Wheeler about 10 minutes before the attack on Pearl Harbor, Oahu is a small island. As the war bird flies, the distance is about 10 miles. Any bombs exploding at Wheeler would have been heard at Pearl Harbor in less than a minute. So, there should have been at least a few minutes advance notice at Pearl Harbor that something was happening.
Also, was the 14th part of the coded message to Nomura sent in Japanese language or English? Parshall seems to imply that it was sent in Japanese language. But is this true? This seems odd. If the message was supposed to me given to the U.S. in English, wouldn't it have been sent as a coded message in English? Why risk a language translation error by Nomura and his staff?
To clarify the comments about the Flying Tigers' combat reports possibly alerting other U.S. Army pilots about the capabilities of the Mitsubishi Zero: The Flying Tigers' first combat against the Japanese took place on 20 December 1941, almost two weeks after Pearl Harbor. So -- no...
That's great to know! Thank you for adding that info!
Dang dude how did you get Jon on here? I want him to do a show with me on my channel!! 😂
Well done.
Thanks
Semper Iratus Fidelis
The very first bomb actually struck a SEAPLANE beaching ramp.
I watched Tora Tora Tora again for the first time since childhood. I agree. Very good movie & actors. Liked it when a kiddie too.. Doesn't seem long. Are the venerable actors too old?
44:06-Had the AVG (Flying Tigers) actually had any combat experience against the Japanese Zero prior to Dec. 7th?
No
With 90 minutes warning, I agree that some fighters could have been sent up. In addition, couldn't someone have ordered the ships to close up hatches and ports in the battleship (such as the Oklahoma) torpedo blisters?
With enough advance warning, the capital ships would have time to leave and go to a safe place like say 200 miles southeast of Oahu, to avoid detection by the IJN force.
@@alanstevens1296 Nagumo's orders included instructions to search the Lahaina Roads area in case the American battleships weren't in port. Given the lack of air cover and the minimal AAA batteries installed on America's warships as they existed in late 1941, it's lucky the ships were in Pearl Harbor rather than at sea without Enterprise and Lexington. Only two BBs were permanently lost on 12/7/1941 -- Arizona and Oklahoma (Utah was a target/training auxiliary). California, West Virginia, Tennessee, and Nevada were raised and rebuilt better than they were when they sank. If they had encountered Nagumo's force at sea, they would have all been lost forever.
@@enscroggs
Lahaina Roads is a major deep water anchorage in several HI about 60 miles from Pearl, a logical place to look.
I am suggesting 200 miles to the south which would have been at least 150 miles from any of the HI.
The chances of being discovered would be infinitesimal and that location is out of range of the IJN bombers based on where they were sortied.
It's unlucky the ships were in Pearl Harbor rather than at sea in such a place as I said.
Given even more time they could have been a lot farther than 200 miles.
Very few fighters could have been sent up in time. There was a program about Pearl Harbor years ago on History Channel or National Geographic or Discovery Channel that spelled out how there was no mass fueling setup for planes at the time. Most planes had just a little gas stored in their tanks, and not enough for much of a flight. Planes would have to be fueled one at a time by just a handful of fuel trucks. It was not a speedy process.
@@The_Fat_Controller.
Depends on how much time. In 12 hours there could be a very nasty surprise for the attackers.
You have a John Parshal you get a subscription
The movie whose name we do not say with Ben Affleck was utter garbage on so many levels.
Haha! I had a chance to cover that other movie with another WWII historian who would concur with your analysis. If you want to listen to that episode, it's here: www.basedonatruestorypodcast.com/212-pearl-harbor-with-marty-morgan/
A couple of points. First, the recent Dune movies show at least some willingness to go through multiple two-hour movies for a good story. Second, while FDR was trying to get the US into the war, he was trying to do so against Germany. There had been an undeclared shooting war in the Atlantic tor most of 1941, which included destroyers having orders to attack German u-boats on sight, US ships reporting the position of German ships in the clear for the British to hear, and several u-boat attacks on US destroyers, including the sinking of the USS Reuben James at the end of November, 1941.
t.y.
I agree. Parshall is a star of explanation.
And recognising how USA/ UK underestimated Japan's capability.
By the way, find the read "War Plan Orange", written early in the 20th century, was commanded to be put in place by FDR.
We already had the third Pearl Harbor movie: Midway from 2019.
I know, right? There's more accurate information about Pearl Harbor in that movie than there is in the 2001 Pearl Harbor, lol.
Haha! That's a good point. I already talked with Jon about that movie, too: www.basedonatruestorypodcast.com/midway/
so Horikushi Jiro was the designer of the Zero -- the final Studio Ghibli / Miyazaki anime film was "The Wind Rises", a bio-pic
It shows how authoritarian / militaristic rule followed the 1923 Great Kantø Earthquake
( the Cherry Blossom trees at DC Reflecting Pool
+ at UW Quad & Seward Park in Seattle
were Thank You gifts for relief supplies shipped over ...
Is it true that our navy didn't have enough oilers in 12/41 to keep the whole fleet refueled enroute to the Phillippines and back?
I know the US was real short on fleet oilers that could keep up with the carriers at the beginning of the war but had plenty of slower regular oilers.
@@highdesertarizonaexactly. There were a handful of fleet oilers, and then they lost one at the beginning of May when Neosho was sunk at Coral Sea.
@@highdesertarizona Unless you want the fleet to crawl to the Philippines at 9-12 knots or not have destroyers with the fleet the slow oilers weren't going to cut it. And that speed would have been perfect for the IJN's submarines to pick off capital ships.
Drachinifel has just produced a video on US fleet oilers.
No matter how many inaccuracies there were in Tora! Tora! Tora! it is still a far more accurate movie than that terrible CGI laden sh!tshow Pearl Harbor!
Tora Tora Tora was the greatest war movie ever made!
It is truly excellent. It's all the more remarkable because it was made without the CGI effects so commonly in use today.
Damn straight !!
Do you also have a video breaking down the accuracy of Pearl Harbor made by Jerry Bruckheimer and Michael Bay around 2001?
hmm
When the movie first came out, the review of it in Time Magazine mentioned that it cost more to make the movie than it did for the Japanese to actually bomb Pearl Harbor?
Might Nagumo have been influenced by the knowledge that they didn't find and carriers in the harbor and didn't know where the carriers were?
He says exactly that in the film. He doesn't know where the carriers are and he can't waste his limited fuel on searching for them.
I didn't know the movie. But it sounds interesting. Does this really happen?
It did one of the most tragic events in american history and the movie is well worth watching
I still love the movie .
It's a classic!
The 14-part message given to Cordell Hull after the attack was NOT a declaration of war, and this fact is even mentioned in Roosevelt's Day of Infamy speech. It was hardly even an ultimatum, and its content ultimately amounted to stating that the Japanese government was breaking off negotiations with the United States. The actual Japanese declaration of war was published nearly 8 hours after the attack, and was never intended to be delivered at the same time. Unfortunately, "Tora! "Tora! Tora!" is the main culprit for the propagation of the myth that the 14-part message ended with a declaration of war, and it really is a blemish on the film that even Jon Parshall seems to have been taken in by it. In my opinion, this alone should cap the film's rating at a B- at best for historical accuracy.
You forgot to ask: The movie keeps saying the emperor was against war and had no power over the military. Is that a lie or not?
In my opinion, that particular lie was started by the US occupation forces when they decided it would be much easier to get cooperation for the Japanese people if they kept the emperor in place. It was MacArthur.
@@edwardmantler3810 Agree
@@edwardmantler3810 Likely true. I would recommend watching a video or two that Dr. Alexander Clarcke has put out about Japanese leadership in the lead up to actual war. It seemed like many officials were pushing the line of The Emperor hasn't outright said no, so I'm going to keep on doing what I am doing, and it was impolite for the Emperor to outright say no. A rule vs. reign philosophy, with not enough checks and balances left.
saw it in theater, Fulda
The Japanese leaving early after a victory without driving home the final nail in the coffin is very on brand for their navy throughout the war.
One mistake that I noted when I saw the movie was that we see Admiral Nagumo nod his head to have the carriers turn into the wind to commence launching, and then we see planes launching from a carrier with the island on the starboard side. However, Nagumo's flagship was the Akagi, which had a port-side island (as did the Hiryu). I always wondered if that was just a mistake by the producers.
6:30 They literally explained that at the beginning. They used post-war US ships that were mocked up to look Japanese. The Yorktown (CV-10) has a starboard island.
@@Off-HandedBarrel And who is to say Yorktown was playing Akagi in that scene? Why not Kaga? Or Sōryū. Or Zuikaku? Or Shokaku?
@Off-HandedBarrel Yep
The _Akagi_ model created for _Tora! Tora! Tora!_ was a mirror of the real _Akagi._ This was done to match footage of the US Navy carrier _Yorktown_ used as a stand-in for _Akagi_ for the sequence of the planes launching to attack Pearl Harbor. I'm surprised they didn't just make an accurate model of _Akagi_ and image flip the _Yorktown_ launching scenes.
Akagi, was one of the few if not only carrier to have the island on the port side. I think it had to do with the torque was more likely to send aircraft to the port side.
The pilots that flew from the ancillary airfield at pearl harbor flew P36s, not P40s.
🤔what ever became of that "flock" of B17s?
Unfortunately, the best the Japanese could be in their newer "carrier operation" navy, was patterning what the USN already started.
I feel that the tragedy of pearl Harbor was a combination of negligence and incompetence. If anyone would like to comment, please do.
I think complacency had a lot to do with it too.
"Negligence and incompetence" takes away the brilliance, professionalism, and courage of the IJN air service in 1941. America made mistakes on 12/7/1941, but even if all those mistakes were instead executed perfectly, we were doomed to take a beating that day.
@@enscroggs True, but if all of what few AA guns ashore and aboard ship had been fully manned and supplied with ammo, ships in condition Z with some fighter cover over head, salvage might have been quicker and easier and there might have been few planes and pilots available for the Indian Sea raid, which might have had disastrous sooner for the IJN. Midway might not even have happened.
As you say, I think this is the start of a negotiation. It has to be seen in the context of Trump’s complaints about NATO. Right now, the US bears the burden of defending Greenland, while Denmark enjoys the benefits of exploiting its resources. I think if a new agreement were to allow U.S. companies to explore for gold, oil, rare earths, etc., that would probably work. But if Denmark still dig in her heels, there’s all manner of pressure that can be brought on the Danish government to come around.
Just finished Harry Turtledove's books (Days of Infamy & End of the beginning) alternate history version of Dec 7. In this version the Japanese Invade Hawaii. Was somewhat disapointed. Interesting idea though. Was wondering if the Japanese actually had the capability to do that.
Wow, I haven't read any of Harry Turtledove's books in a long time so this is a great reference!! Do you think they're worth reading again?
@@BasedonaTrueStoryPodcast Liked the premise wasn't jazzed up on the characters. Spent too much time dwelling on a Japanese family of fisherman & a surf bum. According to the book the fleet was trapped in the harbor. What would have happened then? Don't know didn't say. Kimmel & Short surrendered. What would have happened to them. don't know didn't say. instead were treated to pages & pages of people catching fish & a guy that supposed to have invented sail boarding in1941. Pretty cheesy. My father was a construction worker for Pacific Bridge in Hawaii from 39-42. He worked on dry dock # 2. Seems a guy like that's experience
@@BasedonaTrueStoryPodcast Ran out of room. experience would have been more interesting then those people. All & all I was generally disappointed in the book.
I doubt it. They were delayed in taking Wake by the ferocity of the handful of Marines and needed air support from 2 of the carriers of Kido Butai. It would have significantly slowed them down to travel with transport ships needed for an invasion and sending them out sooner with a long slow transit time might have raised alarm bells for the Americans. West Virginia beached herself to keep from blocking the channel to open sea. The subs and destroyers might have made a nuisance of themselves to an invading force. Halsey with Enterprise was on the way back, delayed by a storm (Halsey seemed to have a knack for going through heavy weather.) While he did send his planes ashore, if there had been an invasion they would have been useful in repelling an invasion. Also Lexington and Saratoga were only another day or two out as well. The strike force had less ability to linger than Fletcher and the carriers did at Guadalcanal. The Japanese also didn't have the sea lift capacity nor the troops available for an invasion of Honolulu in December 41 and still be able to conduct the other operations they wanted to (They were using foreign flagged ships prior to the war for ~1/3 of their shipping needs, which suddenly evaporated.) Taking Honolulu would have also left them very exposed at the end of a very long supply chain with very few ships available. They needed Java for the oil and even taking Pearl intact would only by a very short amount of oil. Even with bad torpedoes the USN would have worked hard to sink Japanese shipping to and from Pearl. The attack on Pearl also made it possible for the IJN to deal with the diminished presence of the British Royal Navy. If they were stuck in the east of the Pacific the RN has a little bit of time to regroup and support the Dutch. This will thwart one of the major objectives for the Japanese: Oil. Without Java the war is over for them in 6 months, even if they do somehow miraculously switch most of their ships back over to coal boilers they have no aircraft with aviation gas. And the British were their equals at surface night fighting and superior at night flying.
Even if they landed on Honolulu, FDR would have ordered every ship on the west coast out to counter this along with all available army and marine troops aboard liners as fast as possible. It would have been a blood bath but in the end I think the US would have won a battle for Hawaii. It might have precluded a battle for the south west Pacific in the Solomon Islands. Which would have made things very interesting as to where the US starts the island hopping campaign. Especially if the British and Dutch with a few light USN ships relieve / retake Singapore. Remember the Australians and New Zealanders were battle hardened from their participation in the North African Desert. I'm going to assume McArthur still loses the Philippines, but that is a big mac problem that can only be solved with Hoover firing him. If FDR does it he becomes a political liability and I don't want to think about how he screws up the war aims if he becomes president.
Um, no, the Flying Tigers' first action against the Japanese was AFTER Pearl Harbor attack!
Roosevelt was trying to start a war with Germany. Japan, he was trying to force into submission with sanctions, but knew they might respond with military action. He was ok with that too, because he thought we could easily crush them. He just didn't know exactly where they would attack.
I tend to agree with your statement
Roosevelt likely considered Germany a bigger threat, and by October '41 had even begun an undeclared naval war in the North Atlantic, complete with "neutrality" patrols and "sink on sight" orders concerning German submarines. He was probably trying to string Japan along because he suspected Hitler's invasion of Russia would eventually fail. Ironically, the Germans had stalled outside of Moscow by December '41, and the Russians counter-attacked by December 5th, two and a half days before the attack on Pearl Harbor, about two weeks after Kido Butai's date of no return, which was 27 November. The 1941 oil embargo was originally conceived to be 10%, followed by a 10% increase each month to put ever more pressure on Japan. As it turned out, the embargo was 100% and immediate, prompting the Japanese to plan on seizing Indonesia while their Navy still had the oil to mount the operation. As part of this larger operation, they attacked Pearl Harbor to cripple the US Navy in the Pacific and protect their flanks. While Roosevelt might have been trying to avoid war with Japan, he probably thought, like most other American leaders that Japan could be crushed easily enough, not realizing that combined carrier operations had become such a game-changer in those six months in the middle of 1941.
Why was the word able to fire anyway
Wouldn't think they would have the ability to free fire like that
That’s crazy how Fuchida invents this story in his mind about wanting to blow up the oil storage, and tells himself this tall tale in his head over and over for 20 years until he truly believes the idea originated with him, when the reality is the bit about bombing the fuel was planted by being asked about it in 1946. What’s even crazier odds that this city had supposedly “converted to Christianity” yet 2 decades after the war he still believes that looking like he was more dedicated to killing a Americans than his bosses were is going to make him look GOOD. SMH these wars are just not good for the human psyche
:'-(
The Winds intercept was ignored
Correct me if I am wrong.But I believe the third wave was designed to go after the submarine pens oil storage depot and dry docks
I have to disagree with Jon a little bit on the importance of the repair facilities and fuel dumps. If the Japanese had destroyed them (and another target, the sub pens) but even just the facilities, the fleet would have had to pull back to the west coast, San Fran. sure they could have refueled and all that, but I believe it would have had a profound affect on other events. Lets say coral sea still happens, the Yorktown would have had to return to San Fran and not Pearl to get repaired, an additional 1000+ miles and I don't believe there is anyway she would have been ready for Midway.
I know counter-factual scenarios are a rabbit hole, but it just occurred to me, what if the U.S. hadn't moved the fleet to Hawaii? Would the Japanese been able to attack them at San Diego?? Would they still have attacked??
Far less likely. a) much much lower chance the Kido Butai could have made it all the way to the West Coast undetected, b) the US fleet probably wouldn't have been as concentrated - or its location as predictable - as there were major port facilities at Bremerton, San Francisco, Long Beach, and San Diego, and c) logistics was already a stretch to get to Hawaii, so obviously that much more of a challenge with the extra distance.
On that last logistic bit. It's true enough that assessing the IJN not have the underway replenishment capability for such an attack on Pearl Harbor was an intelligence failure. But I think it was a fairly understandable one, and am somewhat disappointed with Jon's portrayal of US complacency on that particular point. At the time Combined Fleet began seriously planning the PH operation earlier in 1941, the IJN in fact didn't yet have the necessary capability, at least not for a large carrier task force of such size. Part of the operation's planning, preparation and training was a crash program to figure out that logistics piece. It remained one of the biggest concerns even as the force left Japan at the end of November for the transit. Nagumo even had some contingency plans to proceed with a smaller force if it turned out enroute that all six carriers simply couldn't make it due to fuel. So the idea that the IJN didn't have the replenishment capability for a Hawaii attack was pretty reasonable, and had actually been largely correct only a few months (even weeks perhaps) prior.
@@cragnamorra A perfectly sound argument against a West Coast attack. And I agree with you btw, I think people in general (and Jon too apparently) seem to take for granted what a stretch that was. In many ways it was one of those operations that only perfection could sustain.
The fleet was moved as the result of a political decision, an attempt to put pressure on Japan with regard to its war in China, without consideration of Hawaii's vulnerability. Admiral Richardson, Kimmel's predecessor, vehemently opposed moving the base and was sacked. In fact, Richardson is depicted in the film. He is the guy riding with Martin Balsam in the PBY that is flying over Pearl Harbor towards the beginning of the film.
@@cragnamorra Also much more likely to encounter shipping that would likely report back, "Hey what's with all the Japanese ships sailing this way."
But that probably just means the Kido Butai would be used elsewhere, Wake? Midway maybe gets invaded, in December 41 that could have happened? or maybe a longer raid into the Indian Ocean?
Once Japan was at war with the USA...the US would never have settled...was just a matter of time and dead bodies (on both sides).
The irony/tragedy is that Japan ended up achieving all their goals via peaceful methods.
Yep. (ever at Fulda ??)
We were getting pretty good insights into the diplomatic traffic in 1941, but usefully decrypted military traffic was sparse until early 1942 from everything I've read. Of course conspiracy theorists don't differentiate the two and claim we had nearly word for word copies of everything.
I thought the movie implied that rather well with the code breakers having to read between the lines of what the Japanese were willing to commit to the less secure diplomatic code, especially more than a couple of days ahead of the attack.
look up Elezabeth Smith Friedman ...
"The World Beneath" podcast covers her
@@markrossow6303
Fascinating woman as was her work. But she was focused mostly on the German and South American regions, and counter espionage, including a Japanese spy.
Work on the Japanese naval codes was primarily handled by other groups such as US Navy signals intelligence out of DC, and the combat intelligence unit at Pearl Harbor.
In regards to your "two truths and a lie", I am confused! You state that #1 is the lie (about the Japanese wanting to launch a third wave). But, #3 appears to be correct answer... Jon Parshall earlier clearly elaborated that there is no "written" evidence that Yamamoto made such a quote. Are you here implying that there is "non-written" evidence that Yamamoto may have made such a quote?
No, I'm not trying to imply that at all. I simply didn't think to include the word "written" in my two truths and a lie bit.
Seems to me the problems were, Nothing like the CIA exhisted & prejudice on the part of both combatents. The US refused to take the Japan serious. the Japanese thought the Americans were soft.
Why didn't the Japanese realise the US carriers weren't in port at pearl harbour??
How much were the carriers broadcasting what they were up to and how good was Japanese signal intelligence? If everyone is keeping quiet it's hard to know where and what anyone is up to. After all we didn't know where the Japanese carriers were? If we did, Kimmel Probably would have gone chasing after them, assuming he had his carriers with him for air cover.
According to the film, before they launched the attack their information (presumably from observers on the ground in Hawaii) was that only one US carrier was in port at Pearl, and this was a point of concern.