WI Pearl Harbour

According to Discovery channel, a radar station spotted large amount of unknown planes were flying toward Pearl Harbour. However, the superior dismissed the idea because he thought the radar crew pointed the radar at the wrong direction, since another group of B-25 is flying in.

What if, the superior or some officer consider the possiblity of attack on Pearl Harbour, and warned the military at the harbour about it. Will the outcome of the attack be the same?
 
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Actually they detected the large amount of aircraft in Pearl Harbour as well and dismissed it as a training exercise. The lack of attention in Pearl is one of the worst military blunders in history. You always assume the worst.
 

CalBear

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Welcome to the assyulm. :)

You have asked what is probably the biggest WI regarding the entire Pacific War, followed fairly closely by Midway WI's (although we have beat then Midway question to death over the last couple of months).

To go with the short version of the answer to your question: No it would NOT have been the same. It would still have been a rather serious drubbing for the USN & USAAF, but JNAF losses would be higher.

How much higher is an open question since the radar, even if it had been wired directly to the Alert klaxon, would only afford about 50 minutes warning (radar contact was established at 07:02 local time, with the attack commencing at approxomately 07:55 hrs). Nevertheless, even 15-20 minutes warning would have allowed for more of the defensive AAA batteries to be manned, ammo to be distributed on at least some of the moored ships, and watertight conditions set across the Harbor. Even 50 minutes isn't sufficient time to scramble all the fighter and attack aircraft on the various airfields, although it would allow time for the "alert" aircraft to reach altitude and perhaps a few other fighters to get into the air.

Now, if the Alert sounds when USS Ward is initially vectored onto what turned out to be one of the mini-subs (Approx. 03:45 hrs local) or even at 06:30 when the second sighting is called in, things become more difficult for the IJN.

A four hour alert is almost ideal from the American perspective as it allows for fighters to be armed, fueled and launched into defensive positions, bombers, partrol, & attack aircraft to be sent aloft and everything else to be disperised or moved into shelters before the enemy attack. It also allows all defensive sites to be fully manned, for ships to have built up steam to provide power to turrets, rangefinders, and communications independent of shore hook-ups, and to set Battle Station conditions; but NOT enough time for the battleline to attempt to sortie. Any ship that the IJN sank were far better off settling into 40 feet of harbor mud than 5,000 feet of Pacific Ocean. It is not beyond reasonable probabilities that an attack coming with four hours warning would be much closer to the results of the pre-attack IJN wargames; with American losses coming to a couple of battleships and 200 or so aircraft lost or damaged with JNAF losses being around 100 shot down & 100-150 damaged beyond repair.

BTW: It was a flight of B-17s.
 
But wouldn't the Japanese backdown when they see the harbour is on its full alert? Their original plan is to sunk the entire fleet, having a full alert isn't exactly ideal.
 
Back down? They were at war, there's no backing down at that point. If they turned around the American fighters will take off and shoot them down. The Japanese never expected total surprise anyways. Other than the carriers not being there, the attack went better than they expected.
 
I'd like to think that the Ward incident would trigger the radar/ATC making a more serious effort to indentify the incoming tracks and then make a timely alert. Perhaps after 10-15 minutes of trying to contact the incoming plane unsuccessfuly would see the air raid klaxon going off some 35 minutes before the Japanese planes arrived.

But the whole first 4 or so months was a tragic comedy of errors bought on by peacetime inertia and incompetence. There was so much that could have been done with the materiel at hand from Pearl to Singapore and everywhere in between.
 

bard32

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According to Discovery channel, a radar station spotted large amount of unknown planes were flying toward Pearl Harbour. However, the superior dismissed the idea because he thought the radar crew pointed the radar at the wrong direction, since another group of B-25 is flying in.

What if, the superior or some officer consider the possiblity of attack on Pearl Harbour, and warned the military at the harbour about it. Will the outcome of the attack be the same?

I've heard this. It wasn't a flight of B-25s. It was a flight of B-17s. It turned out that it was the first wave of the Japanese raid on Pearl Harbor. That was at 7:55 am on the morning of December 7, 1941. However, the lieutenant, who
was in charge that day, dismissed the possibility of the attack on Pearl Harbor.
This, despite the fact that a few minutes earlier, the destroyer Ward, had sunk a Japanese midget submarine. Three years ago, I think, Robert
Ballard, of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute, who'd discovered the
Titanic, twenty years earlier, and a sunken ship and village in the Black Sea. Ballard was working for the National Geographic Society, and he
was also looking for the other midget subs that were launched to sink the battleships at Battleship Row.
 

CalBear

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I've heard this. It wasn't a flight of B-25s. It was a flight of B-17s. It turned out that it was the first wave of the Japanese raid on Pearl Harbor. That was at 7:55 am on the morning of December 7, 1941. However, the lieutenant, who
was in charge that day, dismissed the possibility of the attack on Pearl Harbor.
This, despite the fact that a few minutes earlier, the destroyer Ward, had sunk a Japanese midget submarine. Three years ago, I think, Robert
Ballard, of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute, who'd discovered the
Titanic, twenty years earlier, and a sunken ship and village in the Black Sea. Ballard was working for the National Geographic Society, and he
was also looking for the other midget subs that were launched to sink the battleships at Battleship Row.

The ATTACK started at 07:55 hrs. The radar sighting was a 07:02 hrs.

As far as Ballard, you were already corrected on his participation in your Pearl Harbor thread.

If you want to post threads without any rational support, it's one thing, but telling other, in their threads, things that you know (or should know, even from the History Channel) are flat wrong is something entirely different.
 
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