B-17's from Mainland delayed to arrive at Pearl

Essentially the B-17's from the Mainland are delayed till the next day to launch. KGWB would not be playing, making it harder to hone in on Oahu, and the Americans upon the radar catching sight, would possibly cause a better defense. Is this in any way possible? Also would Scouting Six from the Enterprise be launched to Pearl, if an attack is under way?
 

Commissar

Banned
Essentially the B-17's from the Mainland are delayed till the next day to launch. KGWB would not be playing, making it harder to hone in on Oahu, and the Americans upon the radar catching sight, would possibly cause a better defense. Is this in any way possible? Also would Scouting Six from the Enterprise be launched to Pearl, if an attack is under way?

Radar Plot Room wasn't connected to anyone by phone due to just being set up and lack of secure lines. Even if noticed, the Captain on duty would have been unable to tell anyone about the contacts.
 
Elements of the Japanese strike arrived early and spent almost 20 minutes circling above Pearl Harbor in broad daylight awaiting the rest of the strike and if that didn't set off alarms...
 
Yes, but the captain knew that since the KGWB was on whenever a flight was coming, but KGWB is NOT!!! playing music, to help the aircraft. With that realization he would put an alert on, would he not?
 
Yes, but the captain knew that since the KGWB was on whenever a flight was coming, but KGWB is NOT!!! playing music, to help the aircraft. With that realization he would put an alert on, would he not?
That would presumed that he ; the officer in charge of the morning shift;
be given info that there will be no in-bound flight of B-17s from the Mainland to land on Hawaii on Dec 7, 1941 and that any unusual body of aircraft suddenly reported by the one Radar station on Hawaii is coming towards Hawaii from the West by North-West Route...

Would the Officer in Charge ; if he believes that the unknown contacts might be hostile;

have the authority to alert his superiors to get the word out to declare a possible Air Raid or can he directly call it on his own??
 

Bearcat

Banned
Go back and re-read Commissar's post.

Even if Lt. Tyler is given full ASB knowledge of the next 5 years... there is not a damned thing he can do about it. By the time he can find a phone, reach anyone who will answer at Wheeler... it will be too late. It would take hours, in reality, to get those aircraft fueled, boresight the guns, sober up the pilots... by the time the Japanese show up on radar, about 50-odd minutes before the first bombs fall, it's just too late. Even with good communications, only a handful of fighters were in condition to actually fight at 0755 on Sunday morning. And there are no such communications.

Readiness is a thing which cannot be improvised after the fact. By dawn on the 7th, the battle of Pearl Harbor had already been lost. Fuchida merely served formal notice.
 

Hyperion

Banned
What about the radio that the radar station used to call the office in the first place?

The idea of the attack being stopped isn't high, but if the watch officer knows nobody is expected and the radar operators report something coming in, he might take a bit more notice.

Even then, there isn't a lot a captain can really do.
 

Cook

Banned
Radar Plot Room wasn't connected to anyone by phone due to just being set up and lack of secure lines. Even if noticed, the Captain on duty would have been unable to tell anyone about the contacts.

Add to that the fact that in December 1941 radar was a gadget invented by eggheads as far as most of the US Army was concerned. "A big blip on the screen? Damn fool thing is playing up again."

KGWB would not be playing, making it harder to hone in on Oahu...

KGWB’s transmission was a bonus, locating Pearl Harbour wasn’t going to pose a problem for experienced naval aviators, and the Japanese pilots were very experienced.

The Japanese had expected to have to fight their way through alerted fighters and anti-aircraft artillery.
 

Tovarich

Banned


Add to that the fact that in December 1941 radar was a gadget invented by eggheads as far as most of the US Army was concerned. "A big blip on the screen? Damn fool thing is playing up again."

Really?
A whole year+ after the 'Battle of Britain', with radar's important role, it was still seen that way by professional military?

(I'm not disputing what you say, Cooky - just surprised.)
 

Cook

Banned
Really?
A whole year+ after the 'Battle of Britain', with radar's important role, it was still seen that way by professional military?

The British didn’t exactly advertise the importance of radar to winning the Battle of Britain.

This was when the United States was only just starting the massive build-up of its’ armed forces; the Army was still effectively a peace time army where ‘alerts’ were scheduled and the Saturday night dance was more important than military preparedness. Also we are talking about Hawaii; not exactly the most critical of military postings at the time.

It would be several more years before close air support and all arms operations demonstrated to all ranks the necessity of treating technology with respect.
 
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jose1357

Donor
Only after PH did the USA realize the full potential of radar, since it detected the enemy hundreds of miles away...
 
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