Attack on Pearl Harbor Read Online Free PDF Page B

the destruction of port facilities or fuel transportation and storage might immobilize the American Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbor better than a strike against fleet units. Again there was mirror-imaging in their thinking, expecting the Americans to act as they would have acted. They ignored—or were not aware of—American logistics vulnerabilities, a concern they could have discovered from open-source publications such as Thorpe’s Pure Logistics . Pure Logistics featured an example problem calculating logistics requirements for a “Blue” [US] fleet of 20 dreadnoughts and 20 pre-dreadnoughts crossing a 5,000 nm ocean, with Blue having a mid-ocean base located at just about the same distance from the enemy as Hawaii.
    The Japanese concentrated on destruction of the Pacific Fleet’s warships, a logical approach particularly if they were aware of the CNO’s dictum that a major offensive into the western Pacific would not be conducted until superior US forces were available. However, even with a successful strike at Pearl Harbor, the Japanese could not expect to reduce the American fleet (or, indeed, the Allied fleet, as they were to initiate hostilities with Great Britain and Holland as well the United States) to a combat power less than that of the Japanese fleet.
    The objective of the attack was both material and psychological. The damage inflicted on the enemy was to support the territorial objectives of the war, and to inflict such losses was to establish the psychological state needed to allow the Japanese to win the ultimate victory at peace negotiations. 63
    Contradictory Strategies
    Yamamoto’s strategy had a significant consequence that historians have not previously recognized. The attack on Pearl Harbor by its very nature made Japan’s overall concept for winning the war OBE. For Zengen Sakusen to succeed, the American fleet had to thrust west early in the war, before it was reinforced to overwhelming strength. And yet, the Pearl Harbor attack was to immobilize the American fleet for six months. These goals contradict.
    With a six-month delay imposed upon the Americans, there was nothing to prevent them from waiting an additional six months when the arrival of newly constructed ships would give them the means to establish absolute material superiority. The Japanese concocted a narrative where an enraged American people would supposedly demand rapid revenge for the loss of the Philippines, forcing the fleet to move before it was reinforced. At the same time, the Japanese expected the Americans to be so indifferent to the Philippines that they would later barter it away during peace negotiations. From phase to phase the Japanese assumptions were inconsistent and contradictory. Assumptions changed to accommodate the goal of the moment.
    This was a systemic problem within the Japanese high command. The Japanese never were good at formulating political goals and realistically determining the economic and military requirements to achieve them—witness their performance in China, Mongolia, and Korea.
    The Japanese Decisive Battle strategy was questionable from the start. For example, what was to prevent the Americans from just turning around and refusing combat if they took too many losses during the Interceptive Operations? Of even greater concern, when testing their strategy in wargames, was that the Japanese found it impossible to locate the American fleet and execute their attrition attacks. In paper trials, Interceptive Operations and Zengen Sakusen could not be made to work. Perhaps as an expression of psychological avoidance, the basic Japanese plan was never given a trial in a full fleet exercise on the high seas. 64
    Japanese assumptions regarding the timing of the American counteroffensive consisted of unanswered questions and ill-founded premises. Why would the Americans move west after six months, with a force close to parity with the Japanese? Why would they not complete the salvage and modernization