Posted on Aug 17, 2018
This Is Where Japan Might Have Gotten the Idea for Pearl Harbor
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Military History
WWII World War Two
Italy
United Kingdom
Pearl Harbor
Posted >1 y ago
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When America (Commodore Perry) "opened up" Japan, Japan didn't know what being a world power meant. So they copied what they saw the best doing and hired the best to train them. They hired America to train their army and as Britain had the world's largest and most powerful navy, the Royal Navy was hired to train Japan's. So "might" is not a question. The Japanese "did" get the idea for Pearl off of the British. Although a signatory of Germany's Tripartite Act, Japan made no overtures to assisting Germany in her war against Russia, France or Britain. Only Italy assisted Germany in the invasion of France. So sharing of data with Japan continued right up to December 6th, 1941. In fact, the layout of Pearl was similar to Taranto with the repair and ammo facilities spread out accordingly. The only deviation is the Japanese attacked at day rather than Britain's night time action.
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COL (Join to see)
As you say, there was no "might" about this, and there is no revelation here. Military historians have discussed for decades the connections between Taranto and Pearl Harbor. In the 1970 movie Tora! Tora! Tora!, the characters talk openly about the possibility of such an attack on Pearl Harbor given the recent British success at Taranto. Still, the study of Taranto is no less interesting.
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PO3 Donald Murphy
In fact, British sources discussed Taranto at length with Japan and dissection was done to goad the Japanese into possibly making an alternate move such as taking Britain's side against Germany in return for Britain alienating Russia. Had the Japanese followed the British plan, they'd have launched several waves within minutes of each other and would have -
1. Blocked the harbour.
2. Destroyed the repair and supply infrastructure.
3. Sank capital ships.
4. Eliminated fuel tanks and ammo dumps.
5. Night time would have negated American AAA and fighter defense - also, America like Italy, had a distressing habit of turning the radar off at night. By the time American operators rebooted the radar, they'd be on the sixth wave.
Britain was handicapped by small carrier airwing loadouts. Had they possessed Japanese or American strength carriers, the ENTIRE Italian Navy would have been sunk that night.
1. Blocked the harbour.
2. Destroyed the repair and supply infrastructure.
3. Sank capital ships.
4. Eliminated fuel tanks and ammo dumps.
5. Night time would have negated American AAA and fighter defense - also, America like Italy, had a distressing habit of turning the radar off at night. By the time American operators rebooted the radar, they'd be on the sixth wave.
Britain was handicapped by small carrier airwing loadouts. Had they possessed Japanese or American strength carriers, the ENTIRE Italian Navy would have been sunk that night.
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