Japanese Attack On Pearl Harbor

[BertiWooster]

Watched yesterday , the film tora tora tora .

1. What is the consensus as to what would have happened if the Japanese had managed to find and destroy the American aircraft carriers ?

2. Did the japanese millitary ( in the inquest afterwards ) think it was correct not to have launched the second attack wave and go searching for the carriers ?

It seems to me that - as the Japanese admiral stated - all they managed to do was ' awaken a sleeping giant and filled it with rage '

[123everton]

The Japs would still have had to invest huge swathes of land to ensure security, materially this would eventually have put them at a disadvantage.
The Second Russo Japanese War (1938ish) showed that the Japs could be beaten on the ground, quite easily and with a willingnes to sue for terms.
Presuming Germany still attacked Russia in 1941, presuming that K.M.T and P.L.A forces held out in China and presuming that we ourselves were able to stabilise the conflict in Burma then it's reasonable to assume a Japanese defeat although over a longer period.
One advantage we possessed that the Axis didn't was long range strategic bombers, so Australia would have been the most likely destination for a strike back whilst the fleet was being rebuilt.
P.S.
Check out "The Cruise Of The Lanikai" by Rear Admiral Foley, one of those little events that got dwarfed by Pearl Harbour.

[sigma]

I seem to recall from somewhere that America knew that the attack was imminent but "allowed" it to go ahead and thereby having a justifiable reason for going to war.

[jno]

the outlines of sigma's post can be found here

http://www.apfn.org/apfn/pearl_harbor.htm

I have no idea whether there's a word of truth in it, but I suspect it wasn't suspected until after 1963, the beginning of the golden age of conspiracy theories.

[VHG]

>I seem to recall from somewhere that America knew that the attack was imminent...

In the same way they allowed the twin towers to be blown up (or even blew them up themselves) to justify invading Iraq.

I seem to remember that Tora Tora Tora showed that in most cases it was US incompetence that allowed the Japaneese to attack Pearl Harbour.

In fact it was unusual for an American film to be so hard on itself, normally they give the impression they won the was single handed.

btw It is one of my favorite films, I like the "documentary" style of film making.

[VHG]

Talking of Tora Tora Tora.

I was flicking round the movie channels on Sky the other day and saw a mini series from 1978 called "Pearl" about the Pearl Harbour attack.

It was TERRIBLE (full of soap characters and terrible romantic storylines).

What surprised me was that they had some scenes from Tora Tora Tora interwoven in it.

It was really strange seeing Angie Dickinson and Robert Wagner in a romantic embrace, then it would cut to a scene from Tora Tora Tora on a japaneese aircraft carrier, with a "voice over" in English (the original Tora film had subtitles for when the Japanese spoke).

Strange

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0077059/

[R1Geezer]

I watched world at war recently and aside from the Sleeping dragon comment, I think several top Japanese milatary men had said even before Pearl harbour that once mobilised the material strengtht of the US alone could not be beaten, add into that the potential for Britain and Russia to also join in they knew they where doomed probably even on the day of Pearl Harbour. if they got the carriers it may have delayed the inevitable but not by much. Makes you wonder why they went ahead and woke the dragon.

[TTG]

Not read anywhere where America would have stood had Japan not attacked Pearl Harbour.

[razza]

I have been to Pearl Harbour,American navy show a film and give a talk to what really happened on the morning of 7/12/41.No need of a conspiracy theory,in fact the US fired the first shot previous to that when they fired upon Japanese mini subs,that would have been enough in itself to justify American partcipation.The conspiracy theory relates to the fact that they saw the planes coming via radar,and were mistaken for their own bombers coming back from a sortie.More like crass stupidity than conspiracy.The first time I went in 1982 there wasnt a Japanese tourist to be seen at Pearl Harbour,the second time I went in 1989 there were hundreds of them.