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Most people seem to talk about the devastating attack on Pearl Harbor by the Japanese. However, apparently enough damage wasn't done to slow down US much or achieve Japan's full aims.
The problems I see with Japan's attack are:
1.) Didn't launch 3rd attack to take out repair and fuel station. Would been more useful than sinking ships.
2.) Failed to destroy any of 3 US Carrier. These would be used effectively by the US later on.
3.) Did not delay the US from engaging the Japanese for too long.
4.) Finally couldn't achieve their main goal of negotiating a peace treaty from US to their benefit. Instead, they ended up initiating a costly war they would lose.
Honestly, it seems like minor success for Japanese and they didn't gain much from the attack at all!
The points in the original post are good ones. Fortunately for the U.S., none of its aircraft carriers were present at Pearl Harbor at the time of the Japanese attack. And the battleships sunk were of the older, slower type. The U.S. also lost quite a few ground-based airplanes which were caught and destroyed on the ground before being able even to take off, so that was a plus for Japan.
On the whole, I think the original post is correct. The attack was a "success" in the limited sense of causing quite a bit of destruction and loss of life of trained personnel at very little cost to the Japanese Imperial Navy; if memory serves 29 Japanese aircraft were lost.
However, the Japanese ruling circles failed to realize to what extent they were awakening a sleeping giant. The ambivalence and doubt the U.S. population harbored about stopping Japanese aggression in Asia and the Pacific (after all, China and French Indochina were far-off places) evaporated overnight. Our efforts to arm ourselves went into high gear. The nation was unified in its determination and whatever possibility existed of an accomodation, compromise, and "peace treaty" with Japan went up in the smoke of the bombs and torpedos of the Pearl Harbor attack. The Japanese believed we were a nation of shopkeepers and business people who lacked the will to fight. They misjudged us, resulting utilmately in the destruction of their own nation.
According to the tacticians of 1941 yes, it was a great success.
Unfortunately hindsight is 20/20 and the attack completely failed to neutralize (or in the case of the sub base even target) the ships that proved to be the two most crucial factors in winning the war in the Pacific (the carriers and the submarines).
Of course the Japanese could never have guessed how effective the "Silent Service" would became later on in the war and were still locked in the old "build a bigger battleship than the other guy" strategy. WW2 would not be won with battleships but they had no way of knowing that in '41.
According to the tacticians of 1941 yes, it was a great success.
Unfortunately hindsight is 20/20 and the attack completely failed to neutralize (or in the case of the sub base even target) the ships that proved to be the two most crucial factors in winning the war in the Pacific (the carriers and the submarines).
Of course the Japanese could never have guessed how effective the "Silent Service" would became later on in the war and were still locked in the old "build a bigger battleship than the other guy" strategy. WW2 would not be won with battleships but they had no way of knowing that in '41.
The first Japanese ship sunk by the US right after Pearl Harbor was a casualty of a US submarine.
According to the tacticians of 1941 yes, it was a great success.
Unfortunately hindsight is 20/20 and the attack completely failed to neutralize (or in the case of the sub base even target) the ships that proved to be the two most crucial factors in winning the war in the Pacific (the carriers and the submarines).
Of course the Japanese could never have guessed how effective the "Silent Service" would became later on in the war and were still locked in the old "build a bigger battleship than the other guy" strategy. WW2 would not be won with battleships but they had no way of knowing that in '41.
I would assume they knew the importance of Carriers some what since it was their main target. In fact, the only reason their attack on Pearl Harbor worked was because of carriers!
I am still to understand sanity behind that attack to start with. What were Japanese smoking, to enterprise something so much destined to bring disaster onto the country, I have no idea. I can understand it, should Germans have been hitting on the East coast, but the way it was -- just plane stupid.
I am still to understand sanity behind that attack to start with. What were Japanese smoking, to enterprise something so much destined to bring disaster onto the country, I have no idea. I can understand it, should Germans have been hitting on the East coast, but the way it was -- just plane stupid.
I guess we would have to understand the USA in context with the times. We were not the #1 superpower back then; we were an isolationist backwater nation in the depths of the Great Depression. We were more like a Brazil or South Africa today.
But we were a second-rate country with vast resources and no way for our enemies to disrupt them.
They also underestimated our will and character too; giving Americans a purpose is very bad war strategy.
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The attack was designed to cripple the Pacific Fleet, and short term, no it was far from a complete success. Long-term, obviously not a success either. I think from the Japanese point of view Pearl Harbor was mistimed. In the long-run, however, the Axis didn't really stand much chance against both the US AND Soviet Union once Europe was nuetralized. The Soviet Union declared War on Japan near the end of the war, and despite it's heavy losses it could still have taken on a pretty weakened Japan in 1945.
It was a total blunder and fiasco for the Japanese. You might want to read the entire article of how the Japanese were not prepared for the attack. How they came to sink carriers only and were armed with the wrong ordinance for battleships. The Pearl Harbor Myth
I saw the movie and in that the entire purpose of the attack was to kill Ben Affleck and Josh Hartnett, it has to be considered a severe failure for the Japanese.
Clearly the Japanese strategy was flawed. Instead of assigning two thirds of all their aircraft to following Ben and Josh around, strafing them everywhere they went, they should have dedicated 100% of their force to this vital task.
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