… an impressive panorama was unfolding in front of the pilots: ninety American warships, sparkling in the morning rays of the Hawaiian sun. From here, at 10,000 feet, Pearl Harbor least of all resembled a formidable naval base; rather a luxurious yacht club with even rows of anchorages. The Americans seemed to be specially preparing for the "visit" of the Japanese - they placed the ships in a geometrically correct order, threw open all doors and hatches, abandoned anti-torpedo nets - Pearl Harbor, lost in the ocean, was considered absolutely invulnerable to any enemy.
… Admiral Kimmel stretched sweetly and rolled over on his other side. He walked along the wet road hugging a Hawaiian beauty, and around - Bam! Bam! - the elastic drops of a tropical shower pounded merrily. Bam! Bam! - the noise became more and more disturbing and persistent. The Hawaiian beauty flew out of the admiral's embrace and melted without a trace in the rain. Bam! Bam! BAM!
Kimmel opened his eyes and realized to his amazement that the annoying noise was coming not from his dreams at all, but from the open window of the mansion. He immediately recognized this sound - five-inch anti-aircraft guns 5 / 25 are firing. “What are the teachings on Sunday? I didn’t give orders …”Something rumbled outside the window, driving the remnants of sleep out of the admiral's head. Admiral Kimmel jumped out onto the veranda like an arrow and was numb at the sight of the surreal picture. Over the burning ships, planes with Japanese insignia rushed through wisps of black smoke. And in the midst of all this disgrace stood the sleepy commander of the Pearl Harbor naval base in a night robe.
On December 7, 1941, Japanese carrier-based aircraft destroyed the US Pacific Fleet - a canon phrase from school textbooks, supported by a solid Hollywood blockbuster, penetrated deeply into the minds of citizens. Nobody somehow thinks about the fact that the American "Pacific Fleet" can be destroyed only together with the Pacific Ocean. Like any "fleet" of the US Navy, it is just an area of responsibility with a non-permanent ship composition formed on a rotational basis.
However, this is not even the point. A closer look at the history of the attack on Pearl Harbor gives a completely opposite picture. The great operation in the history of Japanese carrier-based aviation in fact appears to be a mediocrely planned and equally mediocre attack. Only the criminal negligence of the American command, aggravated by inadequate training of the crews of the US Navy ships, allowed the Japanese to avoid a catastrophe and implement at least part of their plans.
Japanese aircraft carriers failed the mission. Even without taking into account the industrial potential of America, which is capable of delivering one new destroyer to the fleet every day, the results of the Japanese raid look more than controversial.
Everyone knows that the battleship Arizona was lost in Pearl Harbor, but few people thought about what kind of ship it was. In fact, the Japanese sunk a rusty World War I bucket that was launched in 1915. There were no new battleships in Pearl Harbor that day! The "youngest" of the battleships was launched in 1921, and the oldest dreadnought "Utah" - in 1909 (by that time it was already used by the Americans as a radio-controlled target ship).
But all this is nonsense compared to the fact that Pearl Harbor was home to the largest US Navy filling station in the Pacific Ocean - an oil storage with a capacity of 4,500,000 barrels of oil. The destruction of a strategic facility could completely paralyze the American fleet in the Pacific region. For comparison, Hawaii's oil reserves were equal to all Japanese oil reserves! Subsequent events clearly showed: it was necessary to destroy the gas station at any cost. The damage would have been greater than the sinking of all the ships in Pearl Harbor.
Alas, the Japanese pilots directed all their fury against the "battleship row" - seven decrepit American pelvis moored along Ford Island. Like children, honestly.
In addition to the oil storage facility, the American naval base contained a number of tempting targets that remained untouched - for example, the giant dry dock 10/10 and nearby mechanical workshops. The Japanese presented all this to the US Navy - as a result, when the second wave planes were still circling over the harbor, the Americans had already begun repair and restoration work. Hospitals, piers, ammunition storage facilities - the entire infrastructure of the base remained intact!
Six months later, this will become a fatal circumstance - with the help of the preserved docks, cranes and mechanical workshops of Pearl Harbor, the Americans will have time to restore the aircraft carrier Yorktown, damaged in the Coral Sea, and strike a decisive blow near Midway.
Luck disguised as tragedy
In total, out of about 90 anchored US Navy warships, the Japanese managed to sink or seriously damage 10, including:
five battleships (in brackets - year of launching):
- "Arizona" (1915) - explosion of a powder magazine, the ship was completely destroyed. Killed 1,177 people - the largest disaster in the history of the American fleet.
- "Oklahoma" (1914) - overturned after being hit by nine torpedoes, raised in November 1943, due to the severity of the damage it was not restored. Sank in the ocean 500 miles from Hawaii while being towed for stripping in 1947.
- "Nevada" (1914) - multiple damage from bombs, one torpedo hit. To avoid sinking, the ship ran aground. In general, I got off cheaply. Two months later, it was removed from the shallows, returned to service after repairs in October 1942. He supported the landing force with fire during the landing in Normandy. Survived two atomic explosions in Bikini Atoll.
- "California" (1919) - hit by an aerial bomb and two torpedoes. Three days after the attack, the flooding became irreversible and "California" lay on the bottom of the bay. It was raised four months later, returned to service after repairs in January 1944. The battleship survived the war safely and was scrapped in 1960.
- "West Virginia" (1921) - nine torpedoes and two bombs did their job, the flaming battleship sank in its parking lot. It was raised in May of the following year, restored by July 1944.
Also, the Japanese managed to damage three destroyers, a mine layer and a target ship:
- "Cassin" and "Downs" - completely destroyed in a fire in the dock. Purely out of principle, they were restored in 1944. The surviving mechanisms were removed from the fire victims and installed in a new building.
- "Show" - explosion of artillery cellars in the bow of the hull. Despite the falling off the bow, crawled under its own power to San Francisco. Already in August 1942 he returned to Pearl Harbor after repairs.
- minelayer "Oglala" (1907) - at the time of the Japanese attack was moored to the left side of the cruiser "Helena". One of the fired torpedoes passed under the bottom of the Oglala and hit Helena, damaging both ships by the explosion. "Helena" remained afloat, and "Oglala" drank water and lay on the bottom right at the pier, raised in 1942, restored and returned to service.
- the radio-controlled target ship "Utah", a former dreadnought (1909) - still lies at the bottom of the Pearl Harbor.
Attentive readers have probably already noted that the list of irrecoverable losses can be limited to "Arizona" and "Oklahoma". All other ships, with the exception of "Utah", returned to service. The dispute about the burned-out destroyers and the sunk target ship is meaningless due to the discrepancy between the subject matter of the dispute and the scale of the attack on Pearl Harbor. American casualties look like a mockery of Admiral Yamamoto's plans.
Eight more warships received moderate damage, among them:
- battleships "Tennessee" (1919), "Maryland" (1920), "Pennsylvania" (1915)
Tennessee was hit by two bombs, and the burning oil spilled from the battleship Arizona charred the paint on the stern of the battleship. The damage was completely repaired by March 1942.
Maryland also received two bomb hits, but got off relatively easily. Of the entire crew, only 4 sailors died, the repair was completed in February 1942.
The battleship "Pennsylvania" hid from the Japanese torpedoes in the dry dock and, in general, also survived the raid safely. The exploding ammunition load of the destroyers Cassin and Downs, which were standing nearby, caused only cosmetic damage to the battleship (nevertheless, 29 people from the Pennsylvania crew died). The damage was completely repaired by April 1942.
Three cruisers received damage:
- the previously mentioned "Helena" (1939); the ship was hit by one torpedo; repairs were completed at shipyards in California in early 1942.
- the old cruiser "Reilly" (1922) - received a torpedo on board, but remained afloat and shot down five Japanese bombers. The damage was repaired by December 22, 1941.
- cruiser "Honolulu" (1937) - from a close explosion of a bomb, a leak opened in the underwater part of the hull. The crew had no losses. The renovation was completed on the same day.
In addition, the following were damaged:
- the newest seaplane base "Curtiss" (1940), on which the downed Japanese plane fell. A few minutes later, it was again attacked by a bomber. As a result, a crane was torn off, 19 dead. The renovation was completed on February 13, 1942.
- the floating workshop "Vestal" (1908), with the beginning of the raid, hastened to be thrown ashore. She was damaged in the explosion of the battleship "Arizona", repaired by August 1942. It was actively used in the Pacific Ocean: during the war years it provided emergency assistance to 58 damaged ships.
Such an amazing result: only 18 damaged ships out of 90 that were at that moment in Pearl Harbor is explained by the disgusting coordination of the Japanese attack, multiplied by the blind fury of the Japanese pilots, who chose only large contrasting and, as it seemed to them, important targets. As a result, some of the battleships received 9 torpedoes each, while the rest of the ships and the base's infrastructure remained intact. For example, not a single bomb fell on the submarine base, but the pilots chose another "important" target - the old dreadnought (target ship) "Utah" with the main battery turrets removed. It seemed to the Japanese that it was … an aircraft carrier.
The depth of the bay in the area of the "battleship row" barely reached 10 meters, the towers and superstructures of the sunken battleships freely rose above the surface of the water. All this made it possible in a short time to raise almost all the "sunk" ships and return them to service even before the end of the war.
Moreover, the Japanese, in a sense, "played into the hands" of the Americans - during the repair, all damaged ships underwent extensive modernization, which included the replacement of all anti-aircraft artillery and the modernization of the fire control system. "West Virginia" lost its lattice mainmast, the "Nevada" completely rebuilt the bow superstructure, and the old "California" has changed so much externally and internally that its silhouette became similar to the silhouette of the newest battleships of the South Dakota class.
By the way, the contemporaries of these battleships, who did not come under attack from the Japanese aviation, did not undergo such a deep modernization and by the end of the war they were inferior in terms of the aggregate combat characteristics to their "sunk" brothers.
Finally, from a purely military point of view, the irrecoverable loss of two and the temporary loss of six battleships did not greatly affect the combat capabilities of the US Navy. At the time of the attack on Pearl Harbor, the American fleet had 17 ships of the line! And during the forced absence of "sunk battleships", the Americans built eight more much more formidable "Iowa" and "South Dakot".
And the most interesting thing is that even without the intervention of the Japanese, there was still no way to use the old battleships before 1943. All battleships built according to projects from the First World War had one major drawback - they were extremely slow-moving. The deceased "Arizona" barely developed 21 nodes - too few to accompany modern aircraft carriers. And to release an obsolete battleship into the ocean without fighter cover was tantamount to suicide.
Ironically, by the time the repairs of the damaged battleships were finished, a suitable task appeared for them - the destruction of the Japanese defensive perimeter in the Pacific Islands. Most of the naval battles died down, the Yankees seized complete supremacy at sea and in the air. Now it was only required to shell the pieces of land occupied by the Japanese, slowly moving from atoll to atoll. This is where California, Tennessee, West Virginia and Maryland came in handy.
However, these old ships had an excellent chance to get even with the Japanese for Pearl Harbor - on the night of October 25, 1944, the "veterans" shot the Japanese battleship Yamashiro in the Sugario Strait.
Subtle reasons for Japan's failure
Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto, having received the first reports of the results of the raid on Pearl Harbor, was furious. Despite the general jubilation, supported by Japanese propaganda, he understood that the "stunning blow" did not work. Several old battleships were sunk, all other ships and the base survived.
Admiral Yamamoto planned to lose up to half of his pilots, but destroy everything on the island. The last Japanese aircraft from the "second wave" landed on the aircraft carrier at one o'clock in the afternoon - by this moment the aircraft of the "first wave" had already been refueled, armed and ready for a sortie again. Young hot pilots were eager to fight. Many important targets remained at Pearl Harbor. Why wasn’t another blow struck ?!
Alas, the direct commander of the operation, Rear Admiral Tuichi Nagumo, refused to repeat the strike. And, as it turned out, he had pretty good reason for this.
In the first minutes of the attack, the American anti-aircraft gunners showed their complete incompetence - out of 32 coastal anti-aircraft batteries, only eight were able to open fire. By shooting at random at low-flying aircraft, they caused more damage to their own base than the Japanese. On one of the streets of Pearl Harbor, a child was killed by an anti-aircraft shell.
The ships standing in the harbor also opened rare anti-aircraft fire, but their position was complicated by the lack of anti-aircraft ammunition - in order to avoid sabotage and accidents, the cellars were tightly locked. And the keys, as is always the case, turned out to be difficult to find.
As a result, the "first wave" of carrier-based aircraft lost only nine aircraft.
By the time the "second wave" appeared, the keys to the artillery cellars had already been found, Admiral Kimmel woke up, and the base personnel arrived at their combat posts according to the combat schedule. As a result, the Japanese lost twice as many aircraft - 20 aircraft.
The total losses amounted to 29 aircraft and 56 pilots, and another 74 of the returned aircraft were damaged and could not take off in the near future - a third of all the aircraft participating in the operation were out of order!
A new blow would be met with even more concentrated anti-aircraft fire and an even larger number of fighters (during the first raid, several American aircraft managed to rise into the air, shooting down 7 Japanese aircraft), which would entail new, even larger losses. Despite the fierce strikes at the airfields, the Yankees probably retained shore-based bombers and torpedo bombers. And somewhere nearby there were two American aircraft carriers - if a Japanese squadron was found, the Japanese would find themselves in a rather dangerous position.
Therefore, Tuichi Nagumo acted wisely - he deployed his aircraft carriers and left the danger zone at full speed.
Figures of dry statistics inexorably testify - during the attack on Pearl Harbor, 2,400 military and civilians were killed, only 0.5% of all US casualties in World War II. This is a lot, and at the same time, not enough. This is much less than the number of victims of the 9/11 attacks. The material damage from the Japanese attack was also small.
But why then do the Americans stubbornly replicate the tale of their "great national tragedy"?
The answer seems obvious to me: for America, this blow was like a gift of fate. America was waiting for a war with Japan and the Pearl Harbor attack was the best reason. Everything happened even better than the Americans expected - the Japanese admirals and naval pilots turned out to be extremely naive and somehow completely unprofessional. With difficulty hiding a smile, the Americans accepted the challenge and began to ruthlessly crush the Japanese army and navy. Victory was only a matter of time.
Now there is nothing better than telling a beautiful legend about his “first defeat in a dishonest battle” and his subsequent “just revenge”. And how else - without "defeat in a dishonest battle" the legend will lose its charm. There remains only the harsh truth of life - the Americans "led" the Japanese to a fight, and, as a result, became hegemon in the Pacific region.
