WI: Japanese Victory at Midway

# 3 is an impossibility under historic circumstances. It is unlikely, although not impossible, that the Japanese could have wiped out the American carrier force, but actually TAKING the Island? Even if they managed it it would have made Tarawa look like an Administrative Landing. The Japanese had not practices a landing in advance, despite the fact that they had two SEPARATE commands (a SNLF detachment and a reinforced under the command of Col. Kiyonao Ichiki (of Guadalcanal infamy) totaling only 2,500 men to invade two separate islets (one of which had a heavy platoon of light tanks that the Japanese didn't even know existed) defended by 3,500 troops, mostly Marines (including a Raider battalion) in prepared defensive positions. There was NO floarting reserve to provide support for the IJA/SNLF except construction laborers.

The Japanese plan called for a brief bombardment by a cruiser division (4 CA) followed by a landing at dawn. American defenses include four 7"/45 guns (secondary guns from the Mississippi class of pre-dred BB class) that had the capacity to punch straight through the belt of the Mogami and her sisters, along with five 5"/51 coastal defense guns.

The Americans invaded Tarawa (defended by ~2,600 troops and 2,000 construction laborers) with 18,000 Marines supported by 6 CV, 5 CVL, and 6 CVE (with many of the pilots Marines who have actual CAS training and the other Navy pilots have done considerable practice against land targets), 12 BB, 8 CA, 4 CL, 66 DD. The American landing force took 3,100 casualties (1,009 KIA) depsite being directly supported by more battleships than the Japanese navy possessed, better than double the carrier aircraft carried by the Kido Butai at Midway, etc.

Zero chance the Japanese don't take massive casualties, even if the manage to win the m]land battle (IMO the chances of that are under 30%).
I Think here you are factually incorrect, although I do get your point. Their entire marine force may be wiped out, but by only comitting 2500 they cant really take massive casualties after WW2 standards.
Sorry, couldnt resist.
 

CalBear

Moderator
Donor
Monthly Donor
I Think here you are factually incorrect, although I do get your point. Their entire marine force may be wiped out, but by only comitting 2500 they cant really take massive casualties after WW2 standards.
Sorry, couldnt resist.
True, it's all relative. Especially if one of the unfortunate souls is your relative.
 

BlondieBC

Banned
You joke, but its actually kinda interesting how thorough this failing resonates in the German military (at least Imperial and Nazi Germany, largely because it was the same people). They could do the tactics fine, but fell down when it came to the larger picture. If you read accounts of German generals during WWII it becomes apparent. Its also a big part of the "Hitler's screwups cost Germany the war" myth came from.

Your facts are off.

Imperial Germany was great at logistics. It is the interwar period which causes the logistics issues in WW2. If you look at the bio of the German officers in WW2, you will see lots of officers that were competent company or battalion level officers in WW1, and were Generals in WW2. These officers are generally missing all those years as a staff officer in the 0-3 to O-6 range where these skills are typically learned. A WW1 general had slavishly studied tables with marching rates, supply rates and the like. A WW1 general in the east tended to do the 'bit and hold' strategy when gaining land and normally avoided overstretched supply lines. Grand strategy was planned with logistical considerations high in the list. In WW2, not so much on all these factors.
 

CalBear

Moderator
Donor
Monthly Donor
You'd think that an island empire could have learned something from the British experience.
The issue was that everything, I mean everything, was dedicated to the concept of Decisive Battle. Submarines, long range air power, the cruiser and carrier force were all merely there to shape the battlefield for the heavies to fight it out, ideally between Okinawa and Taiwan with the U.S. fleet obligingly sailing straight into Japanese controlled airspace so nothing interfered with the major battle. Effectively their entire Naval Doctrine was creating Tsushima Strait.

There were two reasons for this. The first is obvious, the engagement was the greatest in IJN history and put the cap on the war that put Japan at the grown-up's table. Admiral Togo, who every man on the Japanese battle planning staff had met, or at least seen at Eta Jima (Togo died in 1934), was a near deity to the IJN office corps, so every word he spoke may as well have been carved in stone. Duplicating his victory was the goal of every senior Japanese officer (think Admiral Nelson & Trafalagar's status in Victorian England and you are approaching Togo in Japan).

The second is actually more critical, but is much less considered; it was the only war the Japanese could win. You plan to win any war, otherwise you find a way yo avoid it until you can win. The Plan, however, doesn't always work out. Witness the Schlieffen Plan and the Maginot Line, both were designed to win the only way the planners thought possible, both failed and their countries wound up in the exact war the Plan was meant to avoid. The Japanese, for many reasons didn't put too much effort into finding a way to avoid the war that they thought was inevitable. That meant finding the way to win. Japan was never going to be able to match the U.S. or UK ship for ship, that meant having each ship be superior to those of other powers, and creating a doctrine that whittled a superior enemy force down to size before the main battle.

The other reason to not consider the British example too closely was that the Japanese expected, and more or less had, to win quickly. No one in Japan seriously believed they could engage in a long war of attrition with the West. The goal was to achieve a flash knockdown and create circumstances that would make any effort to reverse conditions too expensive for the return (i.e. a 18th Century colonial war). Japan's goal was to create a defensive perimeter anchored in Burma, the DEI, the Mandates and Wake that would curtain off the Western Pacific and China and then make peace. Extensive ASW or extensive actual submarine warfare against merchant shipping simply didn't fit into the goal so it was ignored.
 

CalBear

Moderator
Donor
Monthly Donor
Your facts are off.

Imperial Germany was great at logistics. It is the interwar period which causes the logistics issues in WW2. If you look at the bio of the German officers in WW2, you will see lots of officers that were competent company or battalion level officers in WW1, and were Generals in WW2. These officers are generally missing all those years as a staff officer in the 0-3 to O-6 range where these skills are typically learned. A WW1 general had slavishly studied tables with marching rates, supply rates and the like. A WW1 general in the east tended to do the 'bit and hold' strategy when gaining land and normally avoided overstretched supply lines. Grand strategy was planned with logistical considerations high in the list. In WW2, not so much on all these factors.
Imperial German planners were great at planning, somewhat less great at execution. They, not that is is in any way unique to Imperial Germany, heavy on "Management by wish".

I mention the Schlieffen Plan in my previous post. The Plan required XX divisions and YY amount of transport. In mid 1914 the Germans lacked the strength to execute the Plan, rather than use a different option Molke changed the Plan to suit available forces, violating the basic premise of the Plan in the process. Logistically the Plan was unsupportable, but the General Staff wanted it to be so the tried it. The lacked the strength to pull off the quick kill and wound up in four years of bloodletting as a result (The Bush Administration pulled their own, vastly less bloody version, of this particular SNAFU in 2003).
 

Anderman

Donor
Actually, I'm pretty sure it wouldn't end even then. To use a fake Yamamoto quote, "to invade the United States would prove most difficult because behind every blade of grass is an American with a rifle."

Whether he actually said that or not (probably not) it's a true statement.

Didn´t General Toyo something like that during the war crimes trial in Tokyo when was asked about a invasion of the USA ?
 

SsgtC

Banned
Didn´t General Toyo something like that during the war crimes trial in Tokyo when was asked about a invasion of the USA ?
Honestly, I'm not sure anyone had ever actually said that. In the WWII timeframe, it was a just basic truth of the United States
 
The issue was that everything, I mean everything, was dedicated to the concept of Decisive Battle.

More than once, I have had the thought that the most dangerous United States naval officer against Japan in World War II was...Alfred Thayer Mahan.

It's almost like he was a computer virus. Only operating in the headspace of the Japanese naval officer corps.

The second is actually more critical, but is much less considered; it was the only war the Japanese could win. You plan to win any war, otherwise you find a way yo avoid it until you can win. The Plan, however, doesn't always work out.

Your observation brings to mind something I cam across re-reading Prange's At Down We Slept just the other day. It's a quote by RADM William Furlong, speaking to the criticism that the Japanese missed the chance to do more damage in the Pearl Harbor attack: "Their mission may have been wrong," said Furlong, "but they stuck with it."

That might just about serve as an epitaph for Japanese planning and doctrine in World War II - and how they got into it in the first place.

That Furlong, Spruance, and other USN officers failed to appreciate that the Kido Butai really wasn't well equipped to destroy the assets at Pearl (dry docks, oil farms, machine shops) they prized the most is really beside the point; they did, at least, already appreciate the willful inflexibility of Japanese thinking. Appreciating that a short, decisive engagement war was the only one they could win, too many increasingly came to think that the war they really wanted (a total war with the two greatest naval powers on the planet with all of SE Asia as the prize stakes) would be just that kind of war. For that to be possible, the Americans had to be soft and easily demoralized enough to be shocked into terms by one or two sharp blows. Or failing that, that the Germans would keep rolling sixes.

And after all, Pearl Harbor itself sure looked like a decisive battle all by itself. Nagumo had knocked out the entire American battle line, sinking or disabling over 250,000 tons in battleships alone, which by the way is more than double everything Togo had sunk at Tsushima! That it was all old hardware, and very easily and quickly replaceable by vast American shipyards and steel mills wasn't entirely lost on men like Genda and Yamamoto, but that it would only serve to enrage the American public into a total effort rather than shake it seemingly was.

In fact, Prange makes a fine case that both sides greatly misunderstood the other all along, even with one of them reading much of the other's mail. U.S. leaders consistently underestimated Japanese capabilities and intentions (making Pearl Harbor possible due to a failure of imagination), and Roosevelt and Hull never really understood the Japanese mind. But the great power with ten times the industrial capacity, twice the population, superior management culture and technical establishment and vastly greater war-critical natural resources could afford to make its failure good, albeit at some considerable cost. Japan, as the (greatly) inferior power, required much more of its leadership. And it didn't get it.
 
Last edited:
Appreciating that a short, decisive engagement war was the only one they could win, too many increasingly came to think that the war they really wanted (a total war with the two greatest naval powers on the planet) would be just that kind of war.
To be fair to Japan, that was the kind of war they'd had with the West in the past. Russia had more or less folded exactly the way they wanted the Americans to in the Russo-Japanese War for instance. What had been forgotten was WHY Russia folded so quickly, that being the massive civil problems it was having (including a literal revolution while the war was ongoing.)
 
To be fair to Japan, that was the kind of war they'd had with the West in the past. Russia had more or less folded exactly the way they wanted the Americans to in the Russo-Japanese War for instance. What had been forgotten was WHY Russia folded so quickly, that being the massive civil problems it was having (including a literal revolution while the war was ongoing.)

Well, it was the kind of war they had had with China and Russia in the past. Problem is, China was not a western power, and Russia was only a quasi-western power.

And neither of them had anything remotely like the naval or industrial power of even Britain, let alone America.

But having never fought a true western power, that surely made it easier to so badly misunderstand the mindset of one.
 
To be fair to Japan, that was the kind of war they'd had with the West in the past. Russia had more or less folded exactly the way they wanted the Americans to in the Russo-Japanese War for instance. What had been forgotten was WHY Russia folded so quickly, that being the massive civil problems it was having (including a literal revolution while the war was ongoing.)

Given the social events in the Depression it would be understandable if some Japanese leaders thought the US to be in the same situation as 1905 Russia. Two bonus Armies of veterans occupying the Capitol. The publicity of the Businessmens Plot. News images of refugee camps of unemployed & homeless families, frequently publicized lynchings, upsetting and populist demagogue politicians like Huey Long, political assassinations like Huey Long. A Japanese Army officer could cherry pick the newspapers stories from the US and see a nation falling apart.
 
While Japan was expecting a short war, and therefore had at least a semi-rational basis for not making ASW a priority, the fact that even without ANY enemy action they did not have near enough Japanese flagged merchant ships, especially tankers, to carry the goods they planned to seize. Sure they could and did seize some non-Japanese shipping, but even that did not make up the deficit. Somebody somewhere must have then assumed that once the Japanese, through force of will, had forced the Americans and the Europeans to accept their conquests they would them supinely resume shipping the goods in their merchant fleets.

It cannot be said too many times - the expectation of a short victorious war has been almost universal, at least in the side that starts it. Rarrely turns out that way.
 

BlondieBC

Banned
Imperial German planners were great at planning, somewhat less great at execution. They, not that is is in any way unique to Imperial Germany, heavy on "Management by wish".

I mention the Schlieffen Plan in my previous post. The Plan required XX divisions and YY amount of transport. In mid 1914 the Germans lacked the strength to execute the Plan, rather than use a different option Molke changed the Plan to suit available forces, violating the basic premise of the Plan in the process. Logistically the Plan was unsupportable, but the General Staff wanted it to be so the tried it. The lacked the strength to pull off the quick kill and wound up in four years of bloodletting as a result (The Bush Administration pulled their own, vastly less bloody version, of this particular SNAFU in 2003).

Two thoughts on this one. First, this reflects not a failure of logistical ability, but instead is a political decision made at the highest levels to ignore the logistical realities. It also reflects the Reichstag not funding requested transport units and combat units in the Army bills. It reminds me of Bush II ignoring the Army CoS estimate for the size of forces need to occupy Iraq. Second, I measure an army not against perfection but how the other armies perform. The British land plans were sheer fantasy. France was fighting on home turf, so probably not a good reference. The shortages of Russians are legendary. Ottoman logistics were non-existent to a large extend. If Imperial Germany does not have the best logistical planning ability of any nation, who do you have as #1 in 1914?
 
Last edited:

BlondieBC

Banned
The issue was that everything, I mean everything, was dedicated to the concept of Decisive Battle. Submarines, long range air power, the cruiser and carrier force were all merely there to shape the battlefield for the heavies to fight it out, ideally between Okinawa and Taiwan with the U.S. fleet obligingly sailing straight into Japanese controlled airspace so nothing interfered with the major battle. Effectively their entire Naval Doctrine was creating Tsushima Strait.

There were two reasons for this. The first is obvious, the engagement was the greatest in IJN history and put the cap on the war that put Japan at the grown-up's table. Admiral Togo, who every man on the Japanese battle planning staff had met, or at least seen at Eta Jima (Togo died in 1934), was a near deity to the IJN office corps, so every word he spoke may as well have been carved in stone. Duplicating his victory was the goal of every senior Japanese officer (think Admiral Nelson & Trafalagar's status in Victorian England and you are approaching Togo in Japan).

The second is actually more critical, but is much less considered; it was the only war the Japanese could win. You plan to win any war, otherwise you find a way yo avoid it until you can win. The Plan, however, doesn't always work out. Witness the Schlieffen Plan and the Maginot Line, both were designed to win the only way the planners thought possible, both failed and their countries wound up in the exact war the Plan was meant to avoid. The Japanese, for many reasons didn't put too much effort into finding a way to avoid the war that they thought was inevitable. That meant finding the way to win. Japan was never going to be able to match the U.S. or UK ship for ship, that meant having each ship be superior to those of other powers, and creating a doctrine that whittled a superior enemy force down to size before the main battle.

The other reason to not consider the British example too closely was that the Japanese expected, and more or less had, to win quickly. No one in Japan seriously believed they could engage in a long war of attrition with the West. The goal was to achieve a flash knockdown and create circumstances that would make any effort to reverse conditions too expensive for the return (i.e. a 18th Century colonial war). Japan's goal was to create a defensive perimeter anchored in Burma, the DEI, the Mandates and Wake that would curtain off the Western Pacific and China and then make peace. Extensive ASW or extensive actual submarine warfare against merchant shipping simply didn't fit into the goal so it was ignored.

The analysis above is true, but I don't think it is the primary reason the Japanese chose not to plan for either executing or defending against merchant warfare. There were two big rival schools of thoughts heading into WW1. One is most commonly referred to as the Mahan Doctrine, and was the dominant school of thought in the USA, UK, and Japan. The other school was what the British called a 'Second Class Navy' strategy. Most of the intellectual work was done by French, and the actual application was done by the Imperial German Navy. This strategy failed, and led to the USA entering the war over the usage of the doctrine by Germany. From the perspective of a mid-1920's or mid-1930's planner, it would seem reasonable to expect the the USA and UK to follow cruiser rules. And in an ATL where Nazi Germany was not spamming out U-boats for Unrestricted Submarine Warfare, it is quite possible that in a USA versus Japan war that cruiser rules would be followed.

There is no compelling reason to prepare for merchant warfare with any significant portion of the naval budget. Cruiser rules will be followed and in the vast open spaces of the Pacific, submarines will have trouble catching the fast moving fleets, especially when the battle will be fought under Japanese land base air coverage. Both our analysis get to the same place, but I think my description is closer to what a planning staff officer in 1935 would tell you.

I am also not so sure that the Schlieffen Plan and Maginot Line plan are good comparison to Japan. Both would have worked except for events outside of the planners ability to know. If USW was not resumed in 1917, Imperial Germany wins. If Hitler is not appeased in 1938, the Maginot line will likely hold. Or if the French fix their flaws with their command and control procedures. So both of these plans were likely to work baring very specific and unlucky dice rolls. The Japanese War Plans for WW2 would be expected to fail due to the 17-1 size disadvantage in economic size.
 

CalBear

Moderator
Donor
Monthly Donor
Two thoughts on this one. First, this reflects not a failure of logistical ability, but instead is a political decision made at the highest levels to ignore the logistical realities. It also reflects the Reichstag not funding requested transport units and combat units in the Army bills. It reminds me of Bush II ignoring the Army CoS estimate for the size of forces need to occupy Iraq. Second, I measure an army not against perfection but how the other armies perform. The British land plans were sheer fantasy. France was fighting on home turf, so probably not a good reference. The shortages of Russians are legendary. Ottoman logistics were non-existent to a large extend. If Imperial Germany does not have the best logistical planning ability of any nation, who do you have as #1 in 1914?
In 1914 the powers all played on a wish and a wing. The Germans had the long term advantage of playing defense in the West for most of the war, while the Entente was constantly on the offensive everywhere. Where German logistical skills did prove decisive was in the East, although the Russians were a textbook example of generalized incompetence.

Well, it was the kind of war they had had with China and Russia in the past. Problem is, China was not a western power, and Russia was only a quasi-western power.

And neither of them had anything remotely like the naval or industrial power of even Britain, let alone America.

But having never fought a true western power, that surely made it easier to so badly misunderstand the mindset of one.

The Japanese error was expecting to fight the same sort of war as happened in 1894 and 1904-5. Those WERE classic colonial empire wars, over bit and pieces of territory that were simply pawns on a chess board, useful but not vital. What Japan failed to realize is that WW I, especially WW I on the Western Front, utterly changed the other Great Powers vision of what war really was. The Japanese were not unique in this, the Italians under Mussolini also thought the same 19th Century rules would continue to apply.

Both countries thought they were getting into a dogfight with other dogs, dogs can kill each other in fights, but it isn't the point most of the time. The point is usually about territory or mating or some specific bit of food, both sides generally walk away, one more scuffed up than the other, but they both walk away. What they actually got into was a Pride Dominance fight between lions, kill or die is the only rule in those, which is why smaller males avoid fighting bigger ones.
 
What Japan failed to realize is that WW I, especially WW I on the Western Front, utterly changed the other Great Powers vision of what war really was. The Japanese were not unique in this, the Italians under Mussolini also thought the same 19th Century rules would continue to apply.

That's certainly true, though I don't think a limited great power war was impossible by the 1930's - just considerably less likely. These western states had all become mass democracies, and mass democracies are more likely to be idealistic about major wars.

In fact, both Japan and Italy managed such wars, of a sort, in the 30's - Japan in Manchuria in '31, NE China in '37, and then Khalkhin Gol in '39; Italy in Ethiopia in 1936. The objectives in each case were quite clearly very limited, which was the key reason America, France and Britain declined in each instance to intervene. (Yes, it's also true that none were made direct parties to each conflict, though the Panay bombing skirted the line). Whereas what Japan did in December 1941 was clearly a vastly more ambitious play, attacking multiple powers simultaneously in a bid for basically half of the Pacific Rim.

All that said, the United States by that point was a walking Pride Dominance Fight waiting to happen. It had never lost a war, and its public had no experience of the police-action-you-can bug-out-of yet.
 

CalBear

Moderator
Donor
Monthly Donor
That's certainly true, though I don't think a limited great power war was impossible by the 1930's - just considerably less likely. These western states had all become mass democracies, and mass democracies are more likely to be idealistic about major wars.

In fact, both Japan and Italy managed such wars, of a sort, in the 30's - Japan in Manchuria in '31, NE China in '37, and then Khalkhin Gol in '39; Italy in Ethiopia in 1936. The objectives in each case were quite clearly very limited, which was the key reason America, France and Britain declined in each instance to intervene. (Yes, it's also true that none were made direct parties to each conflict, though the Panay bombing skirted the line). Whereas what Japan did in December 1941 was clearly a vastly more ambitious play, attacking multiple powers simultaneously in a bid for basically half of the Pacific Rim.

All that said, the United States by that point was a walking Pride Dominance Fight waiting to happen. It had never lost a war, and its public had no experience of the police-action-you-can bug-out-of yet.
The Japanese actually believed that they could do the same thing that had been done after the Panay Incident, although on a larger scale. There was actually at least discussion, if not an actual finalized plan in place, to offer a large indemnity to the U.S. and UK after the successful of the acquisition of the "Southern Resource Area" and what was expected to be a fiat accompli as far as the war went. The discussion included granting the Philippines "independence" within the Co-Prosperity Sphere as a part of the smoothing of America's feathers.

The idea was actually remarkably similar to the way that the Seven Year's War ended in the Western Hemisphere, or even the end of the U.S./Mexico War, where money changed hands for territory, a real estate deal with gunfire.

Problem was it was no longer 1760 or 1849, and The Great Game had ended.
 
The idea was actually remarkably similar to the way that the Seven Year's War ended in the Western Hemisphere, or even the end of the U.S./Mexico War, where money changed hands for territory, a real estate deal with gunfire.

I laughed so hard at this statement and I think that is partially due to how accurate this is x'Dx'Dx'D.
 

Geon

Donor
If he's smart, he fortifies the heck out of key islands that the U.S. cannot easily bypass (one is astonished to see how late in the game the Japanese waited until beginning serious work fortifying the Marianas, for example), builds up a pool of trained naval pilots, and saves his fuel (save for training), waiting for a decisive battle when the U.S. offensive begins in earnest.

It's not much of a strategy, but then Japan has no really good cards to play. The Spring 1942 perimeter was pretty much the Japanese logistical outer limit. Major objectives (Moresby or maybe the northern New Hebrides aside) beyond it were all more or less beyond Japanese capabilities.

The problem is that this really wasn't how Yamamoto's mind worked; and he was a little too full of victory disease with his incredible run of successes. Winning at Midway will intensify that, and create pressure to keep up the offensives. I think if his carrier force is still intact, it will be hard for him to resist trying Operation FS, and frankly that was an even bigger recipe for disaster than Midway was.

I agree with you that if Yamamoto is smart he will fortify the key islands.

Also I agree that Yamamoto was looking to keep up the offensive. Yamamoto was intelligent as well as a gambler. He would not have ignored fortifying the islands at the cost of offensive operations. The FS Operation was postponed then cancelled because of the battles of Coral Sea and Midway. But it is possible that if Midway was the disaster we are hypothesizing here that Yamamoto might actually see seizing New Caledonia, Fiji, and Samoa as the perfect way to try and cut off American troops and supplies reaching Australia.

He might actually succeed too. I think it would be pushing Japanese supply lines to their absolute limit but if Yamamoto moved fast enough-i.e. within the six month window bought by the Midway battle he might, I emphasize might be able to pull it off.

However conversely, would the USN risk its two or at this point three carriers to try and stop him? I think so. I think you might have your decisive battle in the vicinity around the targets of Operation FS.

Also, something not discussed here. With a major naval disaster at Midway it is likely Nimitz is sacked. The political pressure to replace him will be just too great for FDR. Likewise, I think the assassination attempt against Yamamoto is butterflied away. That also has implications for later war strategy.
 

nbcman

Donor
I agree with you that if Yamamoto is smart he will fortify the key islands.

Also I agree that Yamamoto was looking to keep up the offensive. Yamamoto was intelligent as well as a gambler. He would not have ignored fortifying the islands at the cost of offensive operations. The FS Operation was postponed then cancelled because of the battles of Coral Sea and Midway. But it is possible that if Midway was the disaster we are hypothesizing here that Yamamoto might actually see seizing New Caledonia, Fiji, and Samoa as the perfect way to try and cut off American troops and supplies reaching Australia.

He might actually succeed too. I think it would be pushing Japanese supply lines to their absolute limit but if Yamamoto moved fast enough-i.e. within the six month window bought by the Midway battle he might, I emphasize might be able to pull it off.

However conversely, would the USN risk its two or at this point three carriers to try and stop him? I think so. I think you might have your decisive battle in the vicinity around the targets of Operation FS.

Also, something not discussed here. With a major naval disaster at Midway it is likely Nimitz is sacked. The political pressure to replace him will be just too great for FDR. Likewise, I think the assassination attempt against Yamamoto is butterflied away. That also has implications for later war strategy.

The only thing that would prevent a mission to shoot down Admiral Yamamoto's plane on a morale building tour would be that the Admiral's flight would be out of range of an interception or that there was no message intercepted and decoded in time.
 
Top