The First Year of the War in the Pacific Pearl to the Canal

[dave]

Jodak was his name and he truly was an expert regarding Pearl Harbor. I have his thread listed below. I have enjoyed the thread about models as well as this one.
Regards
David
lbha.proboards.com/thread/5150/pearl-harbor-countdwon

[yanmacca]

Thanks Dave.

[yanmacca]

What the heck happened to jodak why couldn't he finish his project.
Did mirkle pull the plug, did some members complain?
That thread was really popular and who ever threw their weight around shouldn't be allowed to manage a Web site.
I think their is someone out there who owes jodak an apology.

[yanmacca]

I see that jodak's account is still active, so I wonder if he has left his email number on his profile.
I cannot access his profile from my phone so I will check on my work station computer when I get home after work.
If he has left a contact email, should I give it a go and get in touch?
If so what should I write as an opening line, how do you start a conversation with someone who you really don't know.
I shall get back to you later with any news on his profile.

[mac]

Feb 11, 2020 12:18:21 GMT yanmacca said:

I suppose that the Japanese were on a hiding to nothing no matter what they did

I agree Ian.

Let me take a whiff here for fun.

If the Japanese purpose was to take the US out of the Pacific war then what they needed to do was to take Hawaii. If you knock out the US fleet and take Hawaii and the Philippines, then the US is neutered for a long time isn't it?

Send in Japanese troops in Hawaiian shirts (an advance guard infiltration) as tourists during the months before, have troops at sea nearby in disguised fishing and merchant ships prior to the attack on Pearl, and the after the first strike keep on hitting them as you steam towards Pearl.

My understanding is that the cooperation between US forces in Hawaii was poor and one wonders how they would respond.

The Japanese might as well be hanged for a sheep as a lamb!

Fire when ready

Cheers

[yanmacca]

No can do, Jodak left no email address, but he made his point clear before he left and said;

Well, the I guess "your board" will die, as Pearl Harbor (and me) are the only things keeping it alive. I'll go away and leave it to the ilk of Montrose and Crzhrs to pop in occasionally with their snide comments about anything that is being discussed at the time, or generally insulting comments about southerners. A couple of sad old men on a sad old board.

It was preceeded by a post from Merkle who said;

When I created this board for off-topic threads, I had no idea it would be hijacked for seemingly endless posts about Pearl Harbor. I've let it go -- probably for far too long -- in hopes that the posts will stop next week.

I think it sad that I have to pin this post and the one about the passing of Elisabeth Kimber to the top of this board so they won't be torpedoed by Pearl Harbor notes.

I was going to create a poll to ask everyone how they felt about the Pearl Harbor thread, but I've changed my mind. ProBoards is a free service, folks. If you want to write endlessly about a non-Little Bighorn topic, please start your own message boards rather than destroy mine. I've been working on mine for a dozen years, and I do resent the intrusion. Needless to say, the policy for this board will change on December 8.

I am really shocked that Montrose and Crazy Horse, attacked him, William especially as I have discussed WW2 stuff with him without any discourse, as I remember he actually liked it. Horse was always a strange bird to me, I never really mixed it with him, I don't even recall having a conversation with him.

'Zieg Hal' Merkle had no need to post her 'this is my baby'  post, as I have seen alot worse on her board go unpunished. I was also shocked at the person who posted a 'like' on Merkles post, really!

So to me it looks like a case of your face didn't fit.
Pretty sad stuff, but bravo Jodak, who slapped a few faces before he left, good on him.

[yanmacca]

Mac, the US had around 43.000 troops on Pearl and plenty of heavy guns in open, fixed positions. This is without air force and naval units. The heavy guns would have made a tempting target for Jap dive bombers. I suppose that if landing were going ahead then the US would be on red alert, which meant that blunders like leaving all the AA ammo under lock and key, would have been changed as Major General Walter Short thought that it was too vulnerable to sabotage to left unlocked. This resulted in the AA guns on Oahu not firing a shot against the Jap planes which bombed the fleet.

The US Military had planned to re-enforce Pearl in January 1941, but I am not sure if this was implemented; link

Remember the one about the Spanish sailor getting drunk on Pearl Harbour, a waitress in a grass skirt brought him his drink and he said ‘Grassy Ass’ [Gracias].

[quincannon]

Why would anyone be shocked by Montrose? Does he not have all the answers? Does he not believe that his opinion is superior to any and all others? Did any of you really miss what I picked up about him years ago? According to him he has been everywhere, done everything, and has wrapped the experiences of what to everyone else would take several lifetimes, all in a neat little package called Montrose.

Crazy Horse, like the rancher, the fellow that lives in Montana,  is just another bitter old man who blames everyone but himself for life passing him by.

Enough of that and them.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXx

Logistics Mac, coupled with the need to maintain absolute secrecy with your infiltration by fishing boat plan. It would take a long time to infiltrate enough people to accomplish that mission, probably years, and there are absolutely no assurances that operational secrecy could be maintained. That plan would work well for a limited objective attack such as knocking out a key radio facility, or perhaps a fuel dump, but it is not feasible in my opinion for the conquest of Hawaii as a whole.

On the logistics side, Kido Butai barely had enough fuel to get back to the homeland and there were great fears that they would not make it. When you look at the task force organization for Midway, if that is an example of how the Japanese prepared logistically for an operation, then Hawaii was never in the cards, except in some of their dreams.

I have not even touched on Japanese Army-Navy cooperation. If there is anything that the Japanese Army hated more than Americans or Brits it was the Japanese Navy.

I mentioned recently on one of these threads that Pearl Harbor was not yet fully developed (in 1941) to the fleet base in needed to be. In those days there was not enough of everything needed to do it. Not yet. That would soon change, but until it did it was a very poor political decision that moved the fleet from San Diego to Pearl Harbor. San Diego was no better prepared for the task at hand than Pearl, but the distance of San Diego from the Japanese home islands ruled out an attack on mainland United States. 

As to Short: God help me if it had been my decision, and knowing what was only known then, I would have probably made the same decision he did, and suffered the same consequences. The threat evaluation said that sabotage was the most likely danger to Short's command. He did exactly what he should have done to protect his assets in that environment, including the massing of aircraft, and closely guarding vital facilities including ammunition and fuel. No one in their widest dreams thought of an air raid as a viable operation. Even with the example set by the British raid on the Italian fleet at Taranto ( a rather short range affair by Pacific Ocean standards) the distances involved lulled all these folks to sleep at the prospect of a similar event in Hawaii. Should they have been mindful of having no idea where the Japanese carriers were? Certainly, but still when you have made up your mind something cannot happen, it is a very hard thing for a human being to change his mind and admit he was wrong in mid stride. Afterwards, it is another matter, but afterwards also  does not matter.

As far as cooperation in Hawaii between the Army and the Navy goes, the fault lies in ignoring the Principle of War - Unity of Command. The Navy did not have to cooperate with the Army, nor the Army with the Navy, if they were not inclined to do so, or if cooperation meant that one of the two parties could not meet the objectives they had set for themselves. So under the prevailing circumstances command cooperation was as good in Hawaii as could be expected, but not nearly enough to get the job done for either of those two services. It was no one's fault, except the dumb shit that failed to understand the Principle of War that applied and that dumb shit was Franklin Roosevelt. All this would change with the arrival of Chester Nimitz. He had a duel hatted portfolio of Commander in Chief of the Pacific Fleet (CincPac) and Commander in Chief Pacific Ocean Areas (CincPOA). He is, if my memory does not fail me, the first joint commander in U S history, with the possible exception of George Washington. After Nimitz's arrival he called all the shots in the theater, which was the entire Pacific less the Southwest Pacific in which MacArthur (God help us) had the same authority.

[mac]

"It would take a long time to infiltrate enough people to accomplish that mission" c'mon QC they are in Hawaiian shirts..barely recognizable!

The logisitics, as always, is everything. Given what you have said the whole thing (Japanese thing, not my plan) looks quite crazy doesn't it.

Had the carriers been at Pearl and put out of action, how do you see the first year playing out?

Cheers

[quincannon]

Well there is only a possibility of two carriers being at Pearl, Enterprise and Lexington. The other two carriers that would normally be in the Pacific were Saratoga, at that time east of Pearl, and Yorktown on detached service in the Atlantic.

Had Enterprise and Lexington been sunk or heavily damaged, the only things I see changing are that:

1) Australia may have to absorb additional carrier raids due to a prolonged stay of Kido Butai in Australian waters,

2) Malta being without the reinforcement capabilities afforded to it by Wasp, who would have been immediately ordered to the Pacific along with Yorktown.

3) The carrier raids into the Gilberts and Marshalls, along with the Tokyo raid being scratched from the agenda.

4. Guadalcanal not occurring until the spring of 43.

To sum up, a strategy of dig in and defend the strategic arc extending from the Aleutians through Hawaii, to Samoa to Australia, with no offensive even contemplated until mid 43, and an extension of the war into 46 and maybe 47. Those two carriers being at sea on 7 December made all the difference

[yanmacca]

The Japanese had a lot on their mind in 1942, link

[quincannon]

FRIDAY 13 NOVEMBER 1942 - A date that MUST be remembered. On this day seventy eight years ago to include the fact that it too was on a Friday the Thirteenth, the most important surface sea battle in the history of the United States Navy took place in Ironbottom Sound off the coast of Guadalcanal. The battle, fought in phases, would last two more days, and by the evening of Sunday, 15 November, the back of Japanese sea power would be forever broken in the South Pacific.

Dave mentioned two days ago his thanks to all who had served. I really dispute that in part (only in part) because I truly believe most of us who have worn the uniform deserve nothing more than anyone who loves his country. It is to people like Dave's father who fought in that battle on board USS Portland who really deserve the thanks of a nation, that from time to time forgets that the things we enjoy, were bought and paid for in blood, and not a few tears.

[yanmacca]

Here is a snippet from a Gunnery Officer on the Portland when it supported the attack on Peleliu;

The gunnery officer watched through binoculars as a heavy steel door opened in the side of a ridge. A gun came out, fired at the beach and disappeared back inside the cave as the door swung shut. The officer directed five separate salvos against the hidden emplacement with the Portland’s 8in guns. Between salvos, the Japanese weapon emerged unscathed from its cave and pelted the Marine bridgehead. The gunnery officer finally gave up in disgust. You can put all the steel in Pittsburgh onto that thing, he said and still not get it.

I wonder is Dave’s dad was a gunnery officer on the Portland?

[quincannon]

Portland was heavily damaged on the night of 13 November taking a torpedo that blew off half of her running gear. She went first to Australia for a hasty repair, then to Mare Island, San Francisco for a complete refit and modernization. She was there quite a while as the damage to her was quite extensive. I believe Dave's father was transferred to USS Smith when Portland got to Mare Island. By that time Smith, which had a Japanese dive bomber crash into her bow at the Santa Cruz Island battle, while escorting Enterprise, was just completing repairs.

[dave]

Ian my father was a 17 year old signalman when the USS Portland engaged the Japanese on November 13, 1942. He was on the bridge/signal bridge (not sure) where he was stationed to send and receive any signals from the USS San Francisco. He watched as firing ships, searchlights and explosions fronlit the night. When the Portland was struck in the stern he was wounded and soon transfered from her to the destroyer USS Smith as signalmen were in short supply.

Regards
Dave

PS David Staveley "Brevert or Coffin" father was a destroyer officer. I miss ole Brother Dave myself