WI: Kimmel and Short had better intelligence before the attack on Pearl Harbor?

I read a e book by Richard Peters a while back called Battle of Hawaii 1941 for my Kindle. It showed what might have happened if Admiral Kimmel and General short had gotten all the intelligence about the Japanese movements, including what the Japanese consulate in Hawaii was doing.

Whys affect would that have on Short and Kimmel? Would they take it serious, could Kimmel get thfleet oh if he had several days notice? Would the army and the army aircorp be able defend Pearl harbor better? If they did, what would the Japanese do instead? In the book, without the fleet in port the Japanese attacked the oil tank farms, the machine shops, the Uss Pennsylvania, and the submarine base. Besides dispersing the battle fleet they also transferred all of the Enterprise's and Lexington's aircraft to one of the nearby islands to use as a strike force, under admiral Halsey. Thensent the carriers off to do their tasks like otl. What do you think would happen if that had plenty of warning, and what would happen afterwards? Let me know what you think.
 

katchen

Banned
It depends on HOW GOOD their warning was. If they knew where Japan's battle fleet would be, it could be Tsushima in reverse with Admiral Yamamoto committing Oseppuku as soon as he hears about Admiral Nagumo going down with his ship.
 

BlondieBC

Banned
A lot depends on exactly what they believe. There is a big difference in them thinking an attack on Pearl is a bit more likely compared to say spotting the Japanese carriers a few days out. At one end, they will simply do a little less training and have some more men on defense. For example, 10% of the troops training on any given day IOTL would be manning defensive positions. If the know the Japanese fleet is coming, they will try to assemble the fleet and attack the Japanese. It depends on the specifics of what is know.
 
http://www.navweaps.com/index_oob/OOB_WWII_Pacific/OOB_WWII_Pearl_Harbor.htm

this gives a full breakdown on the available forces.

with the following fighters available .

12 P-40C http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curtis..._Mk_I.22_and_.22Tomahawk_Mk_IIA_and_IIB.22.29
87 P-40 B see above
39 P-36A http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curtiss_P-36_Hawk
14 P-26 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P-26_Peashooter
5 wildcat
5 Buffalo ( naval spares )

and following the possibility of the cv's leaving their air groups behind

17 buffalo (Lexington) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brewster_Buffalo
14 wildcat( Enterprise ) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grumman_Wildcat

of these aircraft how many are going to survive a meeting with the first wave .

43 fighters were in the first wave . those A6M were far better piloted on average and more manuverable etc. However many would be drawn off by the first attack . I personnaly am of the opinion that the initial raid would be taken from surprise with a classic "bounce " by at least 60 P-40 about 50 miles out . with another 20 to 40 fighters waiting to finish of the rest over Hawaii . The first raid will suffer huge casualties maybe %50 but the defending fighters will be savaged . I would also expect three raids to be launched and the destruction to be much much less.

If the experience of Malta is anything to go by , the presence of adequate radar guidance is essential .
 
katchen said:
it could be Tsushima in reverse
Not when Nagumo outnumbers Kimmel 6 decks to 2, & has combat experienced aircrews, not to mention aerial torpedoes that actually work...:rolleyes:
 
the attack

In the Richard Peters book, Kimmel sent the carrier safely away while keeping the fighters and bombers on kuai for a strike on the Japanese carriers. Which was in this story successsfull. Sinking three carriers, and dmagaging a third. Which according to history that was how one of the wargame semarios played out in August of 1941.
 
Wouldn't you have to convince the U.S military that Japan could actually attack Pearl Harbor. They believed that the Japanese would strike the Philippines or Dutch East Asia and Australia. Also there was the shallowness of pearl harbor itself that torpedo attacks seem impossible On top of that you had some racism that Japanese had bad eyesight and couldn't possibly make an advance torpedo to hit the ships in pearl harbor anyway.
 
To some degree the US was lucky the attack took place at Pearl Harbor because the sunken ships were recoverable and the crews mostly survived.

Arguably with more warning they would have sortied and some would have gone down for good
 
BBadolato said:
Wouldn't you have to convince the U.S military that Japan could actually attack Pearl Harbor.
That's a big hurdle, true. If OP-20G had been paying more attention to J-19, they'd have noticed the "bomb plot" message. And if they'd been doing traffic analysis on the diplomatic signals, they'd have found suspiciously heavy origination out of Hawaii. It wouldn't have been conclusive, but it might have been enough to tell Kimmel & Short "sabotage readiness" wasn't going to make it.

That, however, also requires a change in expectations, since, in the '30s, a war with Japan was widely expected to start with "5th Column" attacks on facilities, not with an airstrike...
 
Top