In article ,
"Guinnog65" writes:
"Keith Willshaw" wrote in message
...

"Mike Dargan" wrote in message
news:l964d.344733$8_6.85223@attbi_s04...

Right. When people make cracks like "no one imagined an attack on
Pearl," they really mean "no one imagined a bunch of slanty-eyed,
stunted, jabbering, monkey-like gooks would have the technical and
military expertise necessary to attack a modern industrial nation run by
a bunch of white folks."


Sorry to spoil your rant but an attack on a nation run by
white folks was exactly what WAS expected. The problem
was that while they believed attacks would take place at
Midway , Wake and the Phillipines they didnt believe
the IJN had the capability to attack at PH

Sure. And it is unprovable *why* their expectations were such. But certainly
a read of the contemporary documentation wrt Pearl and Singapore as well,
reveals attitudes towards the Japanese that would seem very racist to us
nowadays. It is at least tempting to assume their low expectations of them
were connected to their racist beliefs of them. This 40 years after
Tsushima, mind.

Actually, it's fairly easy to see why - The Imperial Japanese Navy was
only so large - they didn't have enough ships to be everywhere in the
Pacific at once. They _had_ to attack the Netherlands East Indies -
it was the only source of petroleum within reach, and without it, the
IJN and Japanese Industry ground to a halt in short order. With a
somewhat lesser priority, they had to attack the Philippines - not so
much for the resources, but becasue it provided bases that covered the
shipping lanes from the NEI and Indochina to Japan. Everything else
was secondary. They didn't have enough carriers to get airplanes over
the vital locations, and have enough left over for deep strikes. They
could fly htier land-based bombers from their forward based in
Indochina and Formosa, but they'd arrive without fighter escorts. The
same, of course, would apply to any sea-borne invasions force - no
fighter cover, and they'd be sitting ducks in the target area.

It didn't work out that way. One of the most closely held secrets if
the IJN was the unprecedented range of the A6M (Year Zero) fighter.
It could escort the bombers and seaborne convoys from Japan's existing
land bases. This allowed simultaneous attacks on the widely separated
primary tagets, and the deep strikes that were supposed to unbalance
the Allies enough to allow the invasions to be successfully prosecuted
and consolidated.

Much has been made of teh Zero's maneuverability as the key to its
success early in the war. And, indeed, it certainly had that. But
the real key was its fuel economy. Just being able to get fighters
over the battle area trumped everything else. Interestingly enough,
the dogfight performance of the Zero was irrelevant, in these cases.
If the Japanese had been flying (notional) long range P-40s or
Brewster Buffalos, and the Allies flying Zeros, the results would have
been the same - Japanese fighters dropping like a box of rocks on a
gaggle of defenders trying desperately to take off and form up as the
bombs started to fall.


--
Pete Stickney
A strong conviction that something must be done is the parent of many
bad measures. -- Daniel Webster