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Pearl Harbor

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Caleb
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« on: August 05, 2007, 05:26:41 am »

Plan

Several Japanese naval officers had been impressed by British Admiral Andrew Cunningham's Operation JUDGMENT, in which 20 obsolete carrier-based Fairey Swordfish disabled half the Italian fleet. Admiral Yamamoto dispatched a delegation to Italy, which concluded a larger and better-supported version of Cunningham's strike could force the U.S. Pacific Fleet to retreat to bases in California, thus giving Japan the time and space thought necessary to erect a "barrier" defense to protect Japanese control of the resources (e.g., oil) of Southeast Asia and the Dutch East Indies. Most importantly, the delegation returned to Japan with information about the shallow running torpedoes Cunningham's engineers had devised.

Some Japanese strategists may also have been influenced by U.S. Admiral Harry Yarnell's performance in the 1932 joint Army-Navy exercises, which assumed an invasion of Hawaii. Yarnell, as commander of the attacking force, placed his carriers northwest of Oʻahu in rough weather and simulated an air attack on the morning of Sunday, February 7, 1932. The exercise's umpires noted Yarnell's aircraft were able to inflict serious "damage" on the defenders, who for 24 hours after the attack were unable to locate his fleet. Yarnell's tactic was dismissed as impractical.

Primarily, Yamamoto’s idea for a surprise attack on Pearl Harbor was inspired by his hero, Fleet Admiral Marquis Tōgō Heihachirō, who in 1904 had, without declaring war, attacked the Second Russian Pacific Squadron at the Battle of Port Arthur in the Russo-Japanese War. The Russians lost two battleships and several cruisers, and never fully recovered. A year later, a young Ensign Yamamoto was injured in the Battle of Tsushima, where the Japanese destroyed almost the entire Russian fleet.

Yamamoto's placing main emphasis on battleships was in keeping with the Mahanian doctrine shared by all major navies during this period, including the U.S. Navy and Royal Navy, which held dominance at sea depended on defeating the enemy fleet, achieved by destroying the battleship force (the "battle line"). Prewar, Japan expected to meet the U.S. Battle Force in a "decisive battle area" around Okinawa, an expectation in startling symmetry with the U.S.'s War Plan Orange
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