Alan D. Zimm

by Attack on Pearl Harbor: Strategy, Combat, Myths, Deceptions

  The plan was simple, constrained by the training level of the personnel with which he had to work. But it also was so simple that it could have been disastrous. There was no attempt to have the aircraft arrive over their targets simultaneously in a time-on-target strike. There was no control over the fighters to have them maintain a CAP with their bombers and over the airfields. There was no provision for SEAD, even though SEAD tactics were practiced for attacks against fleet units at sea. Probably worst of all, the torpedo aircrews were given a complicated prioritization scheme for the selection of their targets that was unworkable under combat conditions, one of the reasons for the poor distribution of weapons over the available targets. The second-wave dive-bombers were to hit targets of opportunity also in accordance with a prioritization scheme, which became a muddled affair when their objectives were changed literally at the last moment before take-off, and upon arrival over the target, smoke and cloud cover restricted visibility at the dive-bombers’ normal pitch-over altitude. The plan for the employment of fighters ignored any responsibility to protect the strike’s heavy hitters, the torpedo bombers, in favor of slap-dash strafing attacks against scattered airfields. Even then, the distribution of fighters against airfields made little sense: more first-wave fighters were sent against a base serving reconnaissance seaplanes rather than against bases serving fighters and bombers.

  Genda did not include a full rehearsal of the specific attack in his timetable, allowing only two days for all the aircraft types and formations to practice in a group setting against fleet units anchored in an open bay—a setting dissimilar to what the attackers would find at Pearl Harbor. This allowed several planning problems to slip through. Practicing the attack against a mock-up of the carrier moorings might have discovered the problem of making torpedo runs into the rising sun, and perhaps could have prevented wasting valuable torpedoes on the Utah. The coordination and deconfliction of crossing torpedo bomber attack routes did not happen. The problem of overconcentration on some targets was noted, but apparently no action was taken to resolve the issue. The problem of deploying the torpedo bombers into long strings was not practiced, and was to be a serious problem in the actual attack.

  Prior to sailing, all of Genda’s plans assumed that surprise would be achieved. This is astonishing, particularly considering that he had almost a year to work on alternatives, and that the operations order specified that the attack would be launched even if Kido Butai was detected as much as a day prior to the attack. Several other plans based on other sets of assumptions were put together during the transit to the target, but they were only minor riffs on the original theme. They were not well thought out, as exemplified by the flare signaling method that was supposed to shift the attackers from one plan to another. The confusion that resulted directly led to most of the B5N Kate losses, and the premature bombing alerted the American AA fire that may have contributed to the low percentage of hits by the torpedo bombers.

  Overall, the attack plan created by Genda (with assistance from Fuchida and other Japanese experts) was simplistic and much less than state of the art for the period. It was not the product of genius. It succeeded because there were 40 aircrews in B5N Kate torpedo bombers who struck with fortitude, overcoming the plan’s problems to deliver their attacks with skill and determination, and 15 of them managed to hit the targets they needed to hit. Aside from that, to paraphrase the intrepid World War I pilot Manfred von Richtofen, “Anything else is rubbish.”

  Fuchida, the Intrepid Warrior

  Fuchida’s reputation has waned over the last several decades.

  He began by having a tremendous influence on the postwar history of the early engagements of the Pacific War. His reputation and influence hit its zenith with the adulatory depictions of his actions by Prange in At Dawn We Slept and Prange’s biography of Fuchida, God’s Samurai, along with the publication of Fuchida’s own book, Midway, the Battle that Doomed Japan. It began to diminish with the discovery of serious discrepancies in his accounts. His Midway tale, where he claimed that the Japanese carriers were minutes from launching their own strike when the American dive-bombers struck, has been shown to be a fabrication.9 His claim that he was on the deck of the Missouri during the surrender ceremony is a wistful fabrication.

  With these cracks in the façade, it was appropriate to go back over all of Fuchida’s statements regarding Pearl Harbor and look on them with analytic scrutiny. Many of the statements have been found to be suspect. Many apparently are the product of a man trying to inflate his own reputation and blame Japan’s failures on others—“If they would only have listened to me…” Others are the product of complex professional, personal, and cultural pressures.

  This analysis has found additional problems with Fuchida’s judgment regarding the planning and execution of the attack. In addition, there were statements that he made postwar that did not stand up to scrutiny:

  • He claimed he pointed out to Genda the need for level bombers employing AP bombs. The timeline of weapons development does not support this claim.

  • He claimed he informed Genda of the double berthing of battleships and the possibility of torpedo nets. He claimed he was the one to put these factors together to realize that level bombers were needed, and convinced Genda to include level bombers with AP bombs in the plan. Considering the reputed brilliance of Genda, and the fact that AP bombs were on order well before Fuchida joined the program, these claims are suspect.

  • He claimed he ordered his level bombers to concentrate on one battleship in order to ensure that at least one of the US heavies was destroyed. The level bombers’ attacks were nearly evenly distributed over the inboard ships along Battleship Row, making it questionable if such instructions were actually issued. He might have been trying to indirectly claim credit for the Arizona’s magazine explosion. If it was given, that instruction might have been spread to the torpedo bomber aircrews and could assume some of the blame for the over-concentration of torpedoes against Oklahoma and West Virginia.

  • The planned torpedo attack technique, four long strings of bombers with many crossing routes from which to choose, coupled with Fuchida’s blunder with the flares, resulted in an uncontrolled attack with mutual interference, aborted runs, and at least one jettisoned torpedo. The aborted runs forced re-attacks, which dragged out the duration of the torpedo attack, allowing AA resistance to intensify, which may have contributed to the torpedo misses and to torpedo bomber losses. While it is likely that Fuchida did not put together these routes, he was a supervisory planner and a B5N Kate crew-member, and ought to have noted that the planned routes required deconfliction.

  • He shares blame with Genda and the other planners for the unworkable prioritization plan for matching aircraft with targets, which was impossible to execute under combat conditions.

  • He shares blame with Genda for refusing to adjust the attack plan to account for the latest intelligence reporting the absence of carriers in the harbor. This directly contributed to wasting six torpedoes against ships moored at the carrier anchorages.

  • The planning did not provide fighter cover for the torpedo bombers all the way to the target. He did not ask for appropriate SEAD support for the torpedo bombers, even though he was a torpedo bomber pilot, and such support was considered necessary for attacks against fleet targets.

  • He chose an approach route to the target different from what was planned. While that may have been forced on him by the clouds over northern Oahu, he could have regained his planned track, but made no effort to do so. This eliminated the possibility that the torpedo attacks on the east and west sides of Ford Island could be delivered simultaneously.

  • His decisions led to the loss of five B5N Kate torpedo bombers, and to the inaccurate delivery of many torpedoes.

  • He acquiesced to the decision to send dive-bombers against the Nevada to sink her in the channel, when the chances of that happening using GP bombs were close to nil. His belief that sinking a ship in the channe
l would bottle up the fleet was ill-informed.

  • He acquiesced to the decision to send dive-bombers against the Nevada to sink her in the channel, when the chances of that happening using GP bombs were close to nil. His belief that sinking a ship in the channel would bottle up the fleet was ill-informed.

  • He approved a report crediting more torpedo hits than were reported by his subordinate commanders. He estimated almost double the number of torpedo hits than actually occurred.

  • He approved a report that grossly inflated the number of GP bomb hits attributed to the dive-bombers of the second wave on fleet targets, and the effects of those hits.

  • He approved a report that assessed Neosho as sunk when photographic evidence would have shown the berth to be empty. He inexplicably failed to note Neosho’s movement away from Battleship Row.

  • He similarly approved a report that Vestal was sunk, with inadequate evidence.

  There were a lot of cultural and institutional pressures on Fuchida as he put together the BDA Report. He was part of a community of aviators looking to prove themselves; he had friends who participated in the attack who he did not want to put “on report” for poor performance; he would not want to over exaggerate the results of the attack, as this might lead his nation into disastrous strategic decisions in the future; he wanted his component of the aviation community, and the aviation community as a whole, plus himself, to look good in front of the Imperial Navy, the Japanese government, as well as before his god-emperor. And he craved attention, a sense of self-significance. Mark Twain described such men as “The bride at every wedding, the corpse at every funeral.” Or, in this case, at every surrender ceremony.

  In the early postwar years, Fuchida said that he felt he “was like a star that had fallen. At one moment I was Captain Mitsuo Fuchida, and the next I was nobody!” When he converted to Christianity, he grabbed a microphone from the missionaries and shouted, “I am Mitsuo Fuchida who led the air raid on Pearl Harbor. I have now surrendered my heart and my life to Jesus Christ.”10 It was typical of Fuchida that he would mention his name and fame as if God would be impressed.

  Fuchida’s report of the net damage to the Pacific Fleet, in spite of individual distortions and exaggerations and falsifications, was in the aggregate remarkably accurate. It is in the details that his accounts suffer.

  There is one last clue that would suggest that any machinations in the BDA report to make the dive bombers look good became known during the war. Looking at Fuchida’s wartime record, he served as the strike leader of the attack on Pearl Harbor, and then served afloat as a key leader on board Kido Butai’s flagship for the first six months of the war. At Midway he broke both of his ankles jumping down from the bridge to the flight deck to escape the fire that engulfed the island superstructure. After Midway, he never again served in a front-line billet. He ended the war as an obscure aviation staff officer at an obscure airfield. With the horrendous losses the Japanese experienced in aviation personnel and their need for experienced aviation leaders, why was the hero of Pearl Harbor, a proven combat leader, sidelined in a backwater assignment?

  The key might be the “Japanese Study of the Pearl Harbor Operation,” a review of the Pearl Harbor attack conducted in August of 1942. This study significantly pared back the number of hits credited to the second wave dive bombers. This study could have discovered that Fuchida had inflated the returns, and concluded that he no longer could be trusted with a front-line leadership role. Perhaps. Again, there is no definitive answer.

  In Japan, Fuchida is recognized as an unreliable source. They are amazed that this is unknown in the Western world. As more is learned about Fuchida and more scrutiny given to his decisions and statements, the more his reputation suffers, a sad legacy for a pioneer aviation warrior.

  Nagumo, the Timid Commander

  Nagumo has been castigated by historians, depicted as a timid commander who did not really understand air power. His decision to forgo a third wave strike has been criticized as a monumental lost opportunity, under the presumption that destruction of the naval shipyard or the fuel storage facilities would have changed the course of the war.

  Analysis indicates that a third wave strike would not have had the devastating consequences most writers have assumed. It could not have destroyed the shipyard, and any damage that could have been done would likely have been quickly repaired. Significant damage could have been inflicted on the fuel storage tanks had the Japanese concentrated all their third effort against them, but the damage could have been put to rights in a few months, would have only required a relatively minor redirection of American oil transportation assets and materials, and likely would not have had any great impact on operations.

  Under this light, Nagumo’s decisions look much better than before. In two sets of wargames he had been conditioned to expect losses. He was burdened with custody of Japan’s consolidated fleet carrier striking force in a navy that revered the offensive; damage to or loss of Kido Butai would severely curtail Japanese offensive potential, or could lose the war at the outset. His recommendations regarding the planning of the attack were mostly ignored, which had to prey on his mind. He was burdened with the worry that a careless IJN submarine would be spotted, causing loss of the element of surprise.11

  In the face of these responsibilities and pressures, he fully accomplished his mission with miniscule losses, something that the Japanese had no right to expect. Additional strikes would have risked everything for diminishing returns. Unlocated American carriers remained a threat.

  Nagumo’s reputation stemming from his decisions during the Pearl Harbor expedition ought to be at least partially rehabilitated by what has been learned in this analysis.

  Yamamoto the Daring Gambler

  “As Commander-in-Chief I have resolved to carry out the Pearl Harbor attack no matter what the cost.”12

  In the light of what has been learned in this study, this statement takes on an entirely new significance.

  Yamamoto’s attack on Pearl Harbor was not just a tactical operation designed to damage the US Pacific Fleet. It perforce represented an entirely new strategy to win the war. The objective “sold” to the Naval General Staff was for the attack to immobilize the Pacific Fleet for six months, allowing the Japanese to make their conquests to the south unhampered by a risk to their flank. It actually eliminated the Naval General Staff’s “short war” strategy, the basis upon which the fleet had originally been designed.

  Yamamoto’s intent was to shock the Americans to the negotiating table, not immediately, but after the completion of the two-phase invasion of the south. If the Americans were not sufficiently intimidated, if instead they found the resolve to fight an extended war, if the Pearl Harbor attack required them to wait for six months to recover their strength, there was nothing to stop the Americans from waiting another six months or a year and thereafter confronting the Japanese with an overwhelming material superiority.

  The Americans had no imperatives to meet the Japanese in a decisive battle under any conditions that might lead to a Japanese victory. The Japanese could not force that battle without American cooperation. The Japanese did not have access to any American center of gravity, the destruction of which would bring the war to an end on their terms. When Yamamoto stated that he would “dictate his terms in Washington” perhaps, subconsciously, he had this very limitation in mind, because he certainly could not dictate them from anywhere else. The Japanese Army and Navy could not get him to Washington; Washington would have to extend an invitation.

  Yamamoto gambled with the core of the air striking power of his navy without a guarantee that there would be a pot of gold as a reward. The gamble was, from its outset, flawed; the odds that it would succeed, low; the chances that it would accomplish its purpose, unimaginable to the American people.

  Authors have excused Yamamoto’s failed strategic judgment. Historians like Prange have implied that it was not Yamamoto’s fault that the Pearl Harbor attack stoked
an incredible desire for retribution in the American people, it was really the fault of incompetent diplomats who did not deliver Japan’s declaration of war in a timely manner. But the Fourteen-Part Message delivered to the American Secretary of state hours after the attack was not a declaration of war. Even if delivered promptly, it would not have assuaged American rage at Japan’s “sneak attack.” Indeed, Yamamoto was warned by his own subordinates that he should not attack Hawaii because Japan should avoid anything that would get “America’s back up too badly.” The warning was ignored, as was all other opposition to his plan.

  Some authors claim that Yamamoto thought that the Fourteen-Part Message was actually a declaration of war. Was Yamamoto deceived by his government, or have historians gotten this wrong? Historians have not addressed this issue, which has deep implications for pre-war government-Navy relationships. It is more likely that Yamamoto was accurately informed as to its contents and that postwar apologists have used this as a smokescreen to obscure Yamamoto’s remarkably bad judgment regarding his prediction of the American people’s response to his surprise attack.

  Eventually, as the planning process brought the attack into focus, it is evident that the attack became an end in itself. If weather prevented underway refueling, the force would proceed with only Kaga, Shokaku and Zuikaku, and would attack the Pacific Fleet battleships with twelve torpedoes and fifteen AP bombs.13 If Kido Butai was discovered within a day’s steaming of Pearl Harbor they were still to attack, even though the element of surprise was gone and the losses to Japan’s nearly irreplaceable ships and aircrews were calculated to be horrendous. Clearly, the attack on Pearl Harbor had departed from the category of a “calculated risk” into something more akin to a schoolyard dare.