THE CARRIERS CONTROVERSY

THOUGHTS ON WHERE, WHEN, AND WHY
Adam Larson / Caustic Logic
The 12/7-9/11 Treadmill and Beyond
Feb 23 2009
last update 3/29

Protection for Projection?
As of December 1941, the Pacific Fleet stood depleted, a victim of Atlantic-heavy deployment in solidarity with Great Britain. A scant three aircraft carriers were left between Japan and the west coast: USS Enterprise, USS Lexington, and USS Saratoga. There had been four, until the USS Yorktown was among the quarter of the Pacific fleet transferred to the Atlantic. With the depleted Pacific portion of the Fleet permanently based in Hawaii throughout 1941, these were generally stationed at Pearl Harbor, but when the attack of December 7 came, none of the three was there to be harmed.

As the dawn rose red, USS Enterprise was the closest, just over 200 miles west and on a return journey from Wake Island. The Lexington was much further out, en route to Midway; both were ferrying fighter jets to the islands (see below ). The Saratoga was 2000 miles east and far too busy to help cover their shifts; She had undergone modernization in Bremerton from January to April, "participated in a landing force exercise in May and made two trips to Hawaii between June and October as the diplomatic crisis with Japan came to a head," a Navy history explains. "When the Japanese struck at Pearl Harbor on 7 December 1941, Saratoga was just entering San Diego after an interim drydocking at Bremerton," for unspecified reasons. [1]

While there are apparent reasons for all these movements, the coincidence that Pearl Harbor would be left with absolutely no carriers at just the time of Japan’s sneak attack remains worthy of note and one of the prime areas of controversy in the ongoing debate over what happened and why. While this apparent coincidence cannot provide solid proof of foreknowledge, as a supplement to the already large body of evidence, it's worth an examination.

The much-re-posted “Pearl Harbor Myths” mini-article sums up this myth “The US carriers were hustled out of port just before the attack, to "save" them for a war that FDR already knew would be dominated by the flattop.” [2] While piece doesn’t do so, many have tackled this myth by arguing that the value of the aircraft carrier for naval warfare was not known at the time. Whatever someone may have claimed to recognize or not at one point or another is immaterial. The carrier in fact became the dominant weapon in the Pacific war, starting with the six that Japan’s Imperial Navy had sent towards Hawaii just before the US blithely sent its remaining two away from there on errands. graphic: timeline of carrier activity in and near Pearl Harbor 11/25-12/7 1941. Whichever country supplied them ,there was nearly always at least on carrier nearby. [r-click, new window for larger view

Any analyst worth his weight in Styrofoam should have foreseen the craft’s potential value in projecting air power, and any decision-makers involved in any provocation would have access to these views and choose to either ignore to act on them. Whatever was decided and by whatever means, the carriers were given special consideration and put in a special place, out of the harbor during the attack, and in fact projecting air power – just in the wrong direction.

Becoming a Way Station
There was a method to this madness, if it did ultimately prove a flawed and boneheaded method. The increasing likelihood of war with Japan in the second half of 1941 had caused the US War cabinet to look west and further west, right past Hawaii and the relatively exposed Pacific Fleet, to the distant Philippines, as the most likely flash point. There was a decision to pursue a deterrent bombing capability built up there, to turn the strategic liability into more of an asset, and a serious check on Japan's southward plans. [3] It involved suspending the normal and correct belief that the Philippines were indefensible, and this attitude was circumvented at just the right time to leave Hawaii as a neglected rear area rather than the critical front line.

What was lacking, ultimately, was enough planes to both defend the Philippines and offer a meaningful deterrent to other moves. This paradigm was still being pursued up until December 7, and in the process, Hawaii was neglected and treated, as Kimmel’s intel chief Edwin Layton put it, as ”only a way station to ferry B-17s to build up MacArthur’s forces” on Luzon. [4] When war looked more imminent, the pace of this process only quickened, while the military's joint board “resolved to reject the State Department’s hard-line proposals,” Layton explains, and “opposed “the issuance of an ultimatum to Japan,”” at least until the “imperfect threat" of the buildup was brought up to strength. [5]

Meanwhile, as the US military urged a façade of negotiation to cover their buildup against Japan's ambitions, Washington was shocked to learn of Japanese faux-diplomacy covering for a military build-up against US, UK and Dutch interests. What exactly this information was is a little uncertain, and will get a post of its own. But it became known in DC early on November 26, causing secretary of State Hull to “kick the whole [diplomacy] thing over” with an ultimatum they could not accept, and which he probably knew would spark the war. [6] This was the point when the US effectively decided to switch from talking to military preparations. Immediately after this, during November 26/27, the war council conferred and had warnings sent to all Pacific commanders pointing to possible Japanese attacks almost anywhere but Hawaii. And the two remaining aircraft carriers in Hawaii were requested to boost everything west of there “as soon as possible.” [7]

On November 28, Adm. Kimmel complied and sent the Enterprise, commanded by Admiral Halsey, and its accompanying warships to ferry 12 Grumman F4F-3 Wildcats to Wake Island. The task force began its return journey on December 4, and the following day, Lexington and its retinue set off towards Midway with 18 Vought SB2U-3 Vindicators. [8] These planes were to defend the Islands against Japanese moves and/or provide regional cover for 48 more B-17s to be flown trough there en route to the Philippines on December 7. [9] It's impossible to say if this bombers west strategy was purely a genuine military strategy or, at least in part, a smoke screen to give reason to the neglect of Hawaii - but it served the purposes of the latter, and the former was a miscalculation at best, with that final batch of bombers in fact helping mentally short-circuit radar defense at Pearl Harbor on just the wrong morning!

The Enterprise ETA Rebuttal
That attention seems thus drawn away from Pearl Harbor could be seen as supporting the “conspiracy theory” interpretation that Hawaii’s vulnerability was engineered. Further, it only makes sense to suspect the carriers’ locations would be worked into any such plans, and if so, then their absence seems to have been desired during the attack. There are arguments against this, and the best is the Enterprise; as the Pearl Harbor Myths pieces further explains:

“Enterprise was doing her best to get back into Pearl. Her first ETA was Saturday evening, but a storm delayed her. The next time set was 7 AM, 55 minutes before the attack started, but that proved too optimistic as well.”

When you’re dealing with high-stakes illusion, as we may be, a time written on paper does not a real plan make. The science of meterology was nothing then like it is now, but weather prediction was possible. I propose this ETA was fudged with a false presumption of clear sailing but knowing a storm would delay real arrival to (plus six, carry the five…) just after dawn on “X-day.” But the point gets a little better, that article explains, since the 12/6 arrival was scheduled back in August, well before anyone could have known about the Japanese plans to barely avoid:

"What really crushes the "carriers hustled out of port" myth is the fact that Enterprise was scheduled to be in port on Dec. 6th and 7th, as shown in the Employment Schedule promulgated in August, '41. No orders were ever recieved to change this. The mission to Wake was planned to coincide with the original schedule so that it would not be known that the island had recieved additional air support. The trip was kept secret, even the loading of the planes had a "cover story".

If it turns out the arrival time was set well in advance, then Dec 6 is a close coincidence that may then have been fudged upward similar to the above but with shove-off time set hours late, again wrongly presuming clear sailing, to get the carrier arriving back no earlier than the Japanese. Twice the estimates proved “too optimistic” for reality, and these erred guesses, apparently on Halsey's part, are all that gives the sense that one carrier was supposed to be back in time to join the party. But the reality, of course, is it just missed it, and reality is what matters to me.

Thrift or Thrown Game?
While I admit this fudged ETA business is quite speculative, it would serve to make the carrier absence look less suspicious, and give a hand to those who'd like to explain away these clues. That it does look dubious is testified by conspiracy theorists latching onto the “myth,” a natural impression which may have been predicted as a down-side to mitigate. If they knew it would look off, this raises the fair question of why the planners would risk such a move in the first place - carriers were valuable and scarce at the time, but ultimately expendable and easily replaceable in the post-attack climate. Given their utility alone it hardly seems worth the risk to have all of them out when at least one lost would look more natural. Thus “saving’” all three could hardly have been simple thrift, and this is likely only a secondary explanation. *

An obvious primary reason to consider, in keeping with the general thrust of this investigation, is to deplete Pearl Harbor's defenses. Minus the carriers and their decks full of fighting planes, the Japanese raiders quickly decimated almost all the remaining ground-based aircraft, which had been bunched to avoid against dread sabotage. The Enterprise returned 12 planes lighter but still holding most of its own fighters and bombers, which were close enough as the attack unfolded that they actually took part in the latter half of the defense. What kind of role they’d have played if fully in port is unsure; as it was, it seems Enterprise planes only took down one Japanese bird of the 29 lost in the attack, while losing several to enemy and understandably jumpy friendly fire. [10]

The people in the know seem to feel this carrier movement impeded the defense. Fleet intel chief Layton later summed up the effect of the carriers’ departure in that accidentally ironic way that could, with the slightest shift of view, mean exactly its opposite :

“That Stark, as well as Marshall, agreed to reduce the fighter strength at Pearl Harboor by half, and to run the risk that “there will be nothing left at Hawaii until replacements arrive,” was in itself evidence that whatever warning of Japan’s war moves had been received in Washington, it contained no hint of an attack on Pearl Harbor.” [11]

Prophecy Fulfilled
So with the defense aspect of carrier placements duly rendered ambiguous, let's return to the earlier point about the understood role of the carrier; if it was not seen prior to 12/7, it surely was after, and early probing into its potential can be seen in the curious “Doolittle Raid” of April ’42. It was just two weeks after December 7 that the President first told his war cabinet he wanted Japan proper bombed as soon as possible - partly to boost US morale but more so to shake Japan’s, and specifically as an answer to Pearl Harbor. ‘Sure, you can hit us in Hawaii,’ the message seemed to be, ‘but we can hit you at home.’ Lacking land bases close enough this early in the war, the raid was to be launched from a carrier, itself a move widely thought impossible for the larger bombers that would be needed. But after months of practice with B-25s and simulated carrier decks, they made it work, launched and rained some token destruction on Tokyo, and gave Japan its first hint of their grim future before crash-landing in or near free China. The just-completed carrier USS Hornet provided the deck for the raid, and the USS Enterprise showed up on time for its assigned escort duty on this symbolic revenge mission. [12]

By the time the raid was being planned, the ‘derelict’ Adm. Kimmel had been sacked and replaced with new Pacific Fleet commander Adm Chester Nimitz, the prophet and eventual hero of Pacific carrier warfare. Nimitz was destined for the spot, and seems to have foreseen more about the Pacific War than flat-top dominance. Earlier in 1941, he was tapped for command of Pacific Fleet, but perhaps on good advice from, say, Adm. Richardson (the outgoing CinCPAC to be replaced), turned it down, leaving the spot open for Kimmel. According to Nimitz’ son, in a 1996 History Channel documentary, the admiral said at the time:

"It is my guess that the Japanese are going to attack us in a surprise attack. There will be a revulsion in the country against all those in command at sea, and they will be replaced by people in positions of prominence ashore, and I want to be ashore, and not at sea, when that happens.” [13]

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* To add to the thrift reason, we must consider not only the carriers but their escorts. I did a little research looking at this site on what was present on 12/7:
http://www.history.navy.mil/faqs/faq66-2.htm
and this one on what was away with the carriers:
http://www.history.navy.mil/faqs/faq66-9.htm

In Port:
Battleships – 8
Heavy Cruisers – 2
Light Crusiers – 6
Destroyers –30
Total = 46 war ships
Additional auxiliary ships, minesweepers, submarines, tenders, etc… 55

With the carrier task forces:
Two carriers, obviously
6 Heavy Cruisers
14 destroyers (split 9/5)
total = 22 war ships

So 3/4 of the heavy cruisers were absent, and about 1/3 of the destroyers. A 22 ship-reduction leaving 46 behind is about 1/3 detachment in sheer numbers, which is itself significant. About the quality and value of the classes of ships relative to each other I don't know - would this be the most valuable third? Layton's assessment [And I was There, p 263] is a little exaggerated, but informative:

"At this point [Dec 5-7], the disposition of of Kimmel's forces was as follows: All the carriers were at sea with specific missions. All the heavy cruisers and more than half of the fleet's destroyers were at sea protecting the carriers. Only the battle force - the old, slow battleships with their escorts of light cruisers and destroyers - was still at Pearl Harbor."

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sources
[1] USS Saratoga CV 3. From: Dictionary of American Fighting Ships, published by the Naval Historical Center.
[2] “Pearl Harbor Myths”
[3] Layton, Edwin T. with Roger Pineau and John Costello "And I Was There": Pearl Harbor And Midway -- Breaking the Secrets."New York. Quill. 1985. P 171.
[4] Layton et al. P 170.
[5] Layton et al. P 177.
[6] Layton et al. PP 198-206
[7] Layton et al. 210
[8] See [1]
[9] Layton et al. 209
[10] Wikipedia. USS Enterprise (CVN-65)
[11] Layton et al. P 210.
[12] Wikipedia. Doolittle Raid.
[13] Conservapedia. McCollum Memo.

THE BATTLE OF PEARL HARBOR: ALTERNATE OUTCOMES

IT TAKES A LOT TO "LIVE IN INFAMY'
Adam Larson / Caustic Logic
The 12/7-9/11 Treadmill and Beyond
Feb 20 2009
last edited 2/24

A Question of Motive
When confronted with the “FDR knew” conspiracy theories, defenders of the dominant narrative sometimes point out as a logical flaw the ‘unanswered’ question of why Roosevelt or his advisers want to withhold intelligence and defenses from Hawaii if they had known the attack was coming? The truly naïve fall for the usually valid but simplistic presumption that losing ships and people is ‘a bad thing,’ and to be avoided. When they can get to the next level and adjust their cynicism goggles, concede the political opposition to be overcome and the importance of entering the war, it’s not hard to imagine an attack might have been desired. But these semi-rational coincidence theorists often stop the line of reasoning there, and contend that a foiled attack (or at least a met one) would have been sufficient for the cause.

For example, in his 1963 The Two Ocean War, Samuel Elliot Morrison dismissed the notion that FDR provoked or enabled the surprise attack, first by pointing out that “a little reflection” would show this “impossible,” since others would have to be involved, whom he names and finds too “loyal and honorable” to have participated. Besides this leap of faith, Morrison notes:

“More reflection might suggest that if Roosevelt and his cabinet ministers and armed service chiefs had schemed to get us into the war, their purpose would have been better served by warning the Hawaiian commanders in time to get the Fleet to sea and the planes airborne. Even a frustrated attempt to strike Pearl Harbor would have been sufficient cams [sic?] belli to satisfy the most isolationist congressman.”

That’s as bold and unsubstantiated a presumption as the first one. Another expression of this sentiment was offered in a 2001 Salon piece by Judith Greer, in which she stated that “no one has quite explained how being alert and prepared to beat off the attack would have significantly diminished its political effect.” The notion that “no one” has explained this is absurd; the reasoning is worked into nearly every explanation of the theory I have read, and that she is unaware of this is unlikely. What she seems to mean is ‘no one has offered an explanation I was willing to consider.’

Anatomy of a Useful Crisis
In case anyone would like to have it laid out again, I will illustrate in different ways the obvious and massive difference in “political effect” between a repulsed attack vs. the one we got. It may help to first realize what a big word “political” is in this context, and to consider the difference between the public attitudes of US and Great Britain, vis-avis fighting in the war. Few Americans can truly imagine the ”political” effect of actual Nazi bombs falling freely by the hundreds on the cities and baby carriages of Great Britain. Without the brutal daily reminders that made war a no-brainer, we’d have to suffice with, and maximize, a single such event to remember and keep remembering.

The first and foremost consideration is establishing the clarity of the aggressor/victim situation; the public would not tolerate our entry as an aggressor, but might be forced to concede to a ‘defensive’ war if the other side fired the first shot. Consider this line from the vague and misleading warning to Army commanders in the Pacific, sent Nov 27: “If hostilities cannot, repeat, cannot be avoided, the United States desires that Japan commit the first overt act.” This is not quite the order to ‘let yourself get shot’ that some present it as, but it does illustrate, at the least, that Washington explicitly desired a well-defined they-started-it beginning (to the extent they wanted a beginning at all, of course).

As it wound up, hostilities could not be avoided, and the Japanese fired hundreds of first shots. Our side managed but a few in return, quite obviously in defense, and the administration got their desired clarity in spades.

Once the evident moral conditions above are met, the scale of devastation works to your advantage, magnifying the outrage in direct proportion to the loss; a whole fleet crippled can provide the emotional steam to run a dozen such fleets.

Like ships, the number of dead is best in the high/painful range, since in the right hands, a frightening or depressing situation can be molded and used to mobilize a nation, so long as that nation feels otherwise vital enough to resist and change the situation. The one-sided surprise slaughter of thousands of young sailors would set a revenge charge in the American psyche to help keep America not just technically involved, but emotionally invested and their Congressional representatives likewise kept in line. Even the isolationists would be stuck in the pincer move.

By reminders it could continue to motivate throughout the war, instilling and nourishing a need to totally end the enemy so we can never be scratched like that again. FDR himself showed his awareness of this aspect immediately: “we will not only defend ourselves to the uttermost,” from that point on anyway, “but will make very certain that this form of treachery shall never endanger us again.” No one hits us without paying big, the American psyche demands. The promise was sort of finalized with Truman's first official statement after we vaporized Hiroshima and Nagasaki: "The Japanese began the war from the air at Pearl Harbor. They have been repaid many fold.”

Hypothetical Outcomes
An illustrative exercise for understanding the decisions made in Washington prior to the surprise is to consider the possibilities as they might have - play it out a bit, war-gaming style. You’re President Roosevelt, or any of his cabinet who would have to chose to join any conspiracy - in just the situation they were in, mid-late 1941. Europe is almost totally under Axis control, Japan is in control of a good portion of Asia and clearly preparing for more expansion. The Pacific Fleet wants to go back to the mainland, feeling exposed and edgy at Pearl, the US public and congress remain divided on entry to the war, perhaps leaning towards for, but not enthusiastically on average. You receive two or three solid clues that Japan plans to strike the exposed US Fleet (probably clues of their other simultaneous southward offensives as well) and you’re presented with two main options: get the intel to the people who need it to meet the threat, or don’t, and doom them to fulfill the terms of a maximized useful crisis, as outlined above. Here are four general possible outcomes to consider:

1) Tipped off of a Japanese sneak attack from the northwest, the Pacific Fleet readies itself – the carriers are brought back, all their planes armed and readied, guns loaded, radar manned and watched carefully, surveillance missions flown in the right direction. Spies on the island see all this mobilization and get word to Tokyo that surprise is lost, causing a last-minute order to abort the mission. The striking force retreats, and this attack is foiled, but the other prongs of Japans strike-out occur, including the Philippines, Shanghai, Thailand, and Midway Island, just hundreds of miles from Hawaii. US and Allied interests in Asia and the Pacific are threatened, the Philippinees fall, with US deaths, and America is jolted, but in both directions. Isolationists win, FDR croaks, an uncertain Truman put the fleet back in California to avoid a successful repeat, and the US remains neutral as the Axis make further progress yet. The US finally goes to war after a 1943 German air raid on New York launched from occupied Greenland, supplied from occupied Great Britain. It’s too late by then and we lose. But you get to avoid sacrificing innocent people.

2) Same as above, up to the US response - war is pushed through Congress based on the Philippines attack and thwarted designs on Hawaii. Headlines with the big type saying WAR do get to be seen, but the details are ambiguous, and only somewhat motivating. America thus enters WWII but forever tainted with the question ‘did the Japanese really intend to attack Pearl Harbor or did FDR make that part up?’
3) You tip off the military and have a plan drawn up where the Harbor would be left quiet with Carriers instead moved out to sea, under a cover story, just far enough from spy eyes on the island to prevent the strike force from turning back. A mid-sized squad sorties from the Enterprise and spots them 400 mi nw of Hawaii. The carriers with destroyer support swing into place and the two sides engage in battle, sending planes against each other. Whatever the outcome, with a definite battle in place nearer Hawaii than the Japanese should have been, the aggression is obvious enough and outrage would be a bit more clear. Headlines might read “WAR: Jap force engaged off Hawaii: 2-300 US dead, fleet unharmed” So far this is looking like a decent proposal that allows a strong level of furor and still avoids sacrificing perhaps thousands of peacetime recruits in a unilateral massacre.

4) You keep the clues close and don’t share, keep the target vulnerable. Convince your subordinates to do the same, which is not as hard as normal, given the unusual stakes, the grim necessity, and the fact that it’s already rolling and there’s no way back. No reception or defense is prepared in Hawaii, a total surprise attack happens, dozens of hundreds of American sailors are killed. The battle is one-sided, the aggression and culpability 100% clear-cut, simple, undeniable, and massive in effect. The legal repercussions of the slaughter are near-automatic. Headlines read “WAR: Jap sneak attack on Hawaii: 3000 dead, Shocked US United, vows ‘absolute victory.’" The emotional surge channeled by moral certainty adds fuel and conviction to the embryonic war effort. So sustained, it doesn’t just exist but thrives and helps greatly in the Herculean task of smashing the Axis in both Europe and Asia.

The human costs are high, the moral issues troubling, and the limits on openness pretty obvious. Under normal circumstances, it would be hard to justify. But the payoff to the inevitable war effort is leaps and bounds beyond the other options, and in that dark winter at the apparent edge of global Fascist conquest, it might have seemed wise to cash in anything you had.

But Is It Memorable?
Having trouble deciding? Check these propaganda posters that were circulated after the real-world Pearl Harbor attack, which had the effect, if not the cause, of option 4. Unprovoked deceitful treachery, causing smoke and damage to a flag. We’re to remember, just like the loved ones of the fallen remember their loss. We should help fund the war in their sake, refuse to surrender, in the names of the dead, calling from Heaven, avenge them – defy the smoke of humiliating, emasculating defeat by working, fighting, sacrificing, firebombing to final victory.
Now imagine if this kind of sentiment would fly nearly as well under the terms of possibilities 1 or 2 or 3. What would you propose instead to generate such a degree of public sentiment? Nice speeches with epic language? Or would you roll over to the isolationists and let the world burn around you? Careful now, if FDR did have these clues, and it seems he was waiting for them, he actually pondered the options without the crutch you have of saying “FDR didn’t know.”