If the Japanese had gotten the US Carriers on the Pearl Harbor Attack

All this talk of nukes in 1941 in that other thread is pure fantasy. So if this already came up in that thread which I didn't bother to read after the third post, well, . You can stop reading now.

It's no secret that one of the main objectives of the surprise attack on Dec 7, 1941, was the US Carrier fleet stationed at Pearl. Luckily, that day they happened to not be in port. Now what if say the attack was Dec 8, 1941, the day they were scheduled to have been back in port. Those carriers are sunk let's say. How does that change the dynamic of the War? Does the US have the capability of parrying Japan while fighting the Germans or do resources have to be split more evenly? Midway obviously doesn't happen the way it did historically. Is victory in 1945 still inevitable? Discuss.

Pushes US victory back 6 months to a year. Victory was inevitable.

"Luckily" or "conveniently"?

Against Japan, certainly. They were just going to run out of resources eventually one way or another. I do thin kit has profound effects on the European War. Having to rebuild their pacific fleet with now a large dangerous fleet capable or invading Hawaii for sure and who knows what else, how could the USA have poured nearly everything into fighting Hitler. Could D-Day have happened at the same time? Heck, could Operation Torch have happened with any US involvement at all?

Huh? What are you implying? Japanese intelligence thought they were going to be in port that day, that's one of the reasons it went down on the 7th.

Japanese intelligence was incorrect. The carriers were moved to Midway in late November.

Depending on which version of the story you believe, either U.S. intelligence had intercepted Japanese radio transmissions and knew an attack on U.S. soil was planned in early December (whether or not the actual target was known is another dimension of the debate), so at the very least disinformation was broadcast indicating that the carriers were still at Pearl, at most they were ordered out ahead of a possible attack.

Link? 'cause that's the first I've ever heard of that and I daresay that I've done a bit more reading on the subject that you have.

You are suggesting that the U.S. had incredible foresight then. The idea of the aircraft carrier being the dominant naval weapon was fairly new and untested at the time. Battleships were still all the rage. To suggest that the U.S. would deliberately sacrifice those fighting ships and hang their hopes on the carriers is a bit of a stretch.

It's conspiracy theory horseshit.

Enterprise and Lexington were dispatched to ferry aircraft to Wake Island and Midway, respectively.

Enterprise returned to Pearl Harbor on the evening of 7 December (and was actually scheduled to do so on 6 December). In fact, several of her aircraft were shot down by friendly fire.

http://www.history.navy.mil/faqs/faq66-9.htm

^
Where the carriers were at the time.

BTW, John Toland wrote an excellent book back in the 80s titled Infamy concerning the Pearl Harbor situation and exactly what Washington DC knew about beforehand. It's pretty damning.

I'm guessing it's a worthwhile read since I've never gotten past six chapters without throwing it down in disgust.

Not really. The USN build hundreds of carriers during WWII. After Pearl any carrier in the Atlantic transited the Panama Canal and went to the Pacific. Building two more carriers would not have broken the bank or the industrial capability of the US. As they were built in different yards the supply ships would also not have been impeded in any way. As USN deployed Jeep carriers to the Atlantic.

The point is nothing major would be effected. Midway might fall, but the might of the US was it's manufacturing base. We replaced lost equipment 10 or even 100 to 1. The Japs couldn't get close to 1 for 1.

Yeah, but of weren't almost all the those built escort carriers? Loosing those fleet carriers would have severely hampered our ability to launch offensive operations.

The USN built 24 Essex Fleet Carrier and 3 Midway class.

Mewa would have loved this thread.


Anyway, yeah, I think it would have set back VJ Day by 6 months to a year. That time interval could have been crucial, as the Japanese were working on their own atomic bomb.

Link? I've only ever heard that Germany was working on a bomb, and that Japan, just prior to the war, had a choice between working on a bomb and a death ray, and picked the death ray.

This, I think...

http://www.geocities.com/Pentagon/6315/pearl.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_nuclear_weapon_program

These threads are kind of pointless, you know. They always end up with the sentiment that "even if X would've had five gazillion nukes and obliterated all major American cities, we still would've kicked their asses!!!"

You guys have watched "Red Dawn" too many times...

It's Stand By Me Syndrome.

Sometimes it's just fun to engage in completely pointless speculation and fantasy.

Next up: Power Girl vs Super Girl....who wins in that fight...besides hormonal males?

The entire Mediterranean front was a relative waste. The whole point was to placate Stalin.

2 points:

1) You can never watch Red Dawn too many times.

2) We're talking about a specific possibility regarding Pearl Harbor in this thread. What the fuck are you talking about?

I sort of expected you to say that.

The loss of the 3 Pacific fleet carriers would have been a heavy blow, since we would have had only 4 other carriers to draw on(Yorktown, Hornet, Wasp and Ranger). The Japanese had 11 deployable carriers in Dec. 1941. It definitely would have made things more difficult, and our participation in the Atlantic would have been negligible(since neither the Germans nor the Italians possessed a navy capable of getting past the British and assaulting the US......).

To me the more realistic question is what would have happened if everything else being the same, the military had actually been ready for the attack. If there had been an effective combat air patrol and if the fleet had been in some sort of alert mode I'm sure the Japanese attack would still have been tactically successful to some extent because of the superiority of the Zero and the superbly trained Japanese pilots. But as it turned out the second attack wave had a much rougher go of things than the first.

If the American forces had been prepared, I think it's reasonable to assume that the Japanese would have still done a lot of damage, but at least some of the battleships might have survived and Japanese losses would have been much higher. However, it wouldn't have really changed the dynamics of that war, which was carrier driven. At the same time, not taking out the submarine base and leaving the oil facilities intact, meant that the U.S. would be able to immediately launch an offensive threat against Japan.

I can't really see any scenario in which the Americans would have started the war with anything but a defeat, although being prepared might have made it a much more costly victory for Japan in terms of pilot and plane losses.

Most studies agree that the navy been ready we'd have been much worse off. Doctrine called for the BB's to sortie out to sea. The BB's would have caught and sunk at sea where they could not have been salvaged. AA suites on the BB's in 41' were no match for Jap air power. As it was we salvaged most of the BB's.

Admiral Yamamoto had told the Japanese leaders that he would "run wild for six months, after that I make no promises".

Thus even with a planned success at Pearl Harbor (which would've included nailing the three carriers), even Yamamoto only anticipated six months of success before things potentially went south for the Japanese.

I think that the pressure on the U.S. govt. would be to focus equally on Japan as opposed to the agreed on "Germany first" policy with the British.

One thing that would've resulted would've been the transfer of Atlantic fleet battleships to the Pacific. That didn't happen historically but it would've been done if the U.S. Pacific fleet had taken a far heavier blow.

A better question should be

"If the Japanese had destroyed the Pacific fleets fuel storage facilities and submarine support facilities at Pearl Harbor."

People focus on the carrier war, but it was U.S. submarines in the Pacific that eventually got Japan by the throat.

Quite true, buit I was thinking of what might have happened had some of the individual BB's been in some sort of alert status. Herman Wouk made reference to that in his superb "Winds of War". Of course, the BB's could have been sunk at sea, but then again they might have been missed the way the carriers were.

You still can't get around the fact that when they hit Pearl Harbor, the Japanese Navy had the perfect blend of tactics, equipment, personal and overall battle readiness. It's hard to imagine a realistic scenario where things would have worked out better for the U.S.

IIRC, the Japanese were actually surprised at just how quickly the U.S. forces at Pearl Harbor responded. To the quick and heavy antiaircraft fire for example.

People forget that the Japanese did lose 30 or so warplanes and 100 airmen. Plus some midget submarines.