Pearl Harbor Defense

John Carrier wrote:
The Pearl Harbor debacle is often blamed on lack of resources caused by
inadequate support from the politicians. Wrong. Short and Kimmel had
both quantitative and qualitative superiority but were hopelessly inept.


While agreeing on the ineptitiude its clear that the IJN had a clear
superiority in terms of modern fighter aircraft.

Dig out Gordon Prange's book and do the numbers. P40s were adequate
against the Japanese in China, thousands of miles from their supply
depots. Why wouldn't they bave been adequate over Oahu?


I doubt USAAC training addressed the vastly superior Zero turning
performance.

No kidding.

Flying Tigers were successful because of tactics developed
(quickly) given the P40's few advantages versus the Zero.

P40s with a height advantage would have been a serious problem for Vals
and Kates. The few that did get off the ground, including some P36s,
more than held their own with the Zeros.


Also, why wasn't Kimmel running patrols? He didn't have resources to
cover 360 degrees, but he certainly could have covered the NW quadrant for
a couple of hundred miles. Washington had been bombing him with warnings
for weeks. Geez. Couldn't he have just read the newspapers?


Nobody dreamed Pearl would have been the target.

Nonsense. Ever hear of Billy Mitchell? What kind of military mind
would assume that his major base would not be a target?

Given that he had
insufficient resources to mount a real patrol effort, he elected to do
(virtually) nothing instead.

I'll agree that sitting on their butt's doing nothing was the best that
Kimmel and Short could do. Certainly better than their pathetic
conspiracy mongering.

Cheers

--mike

R / John\