WHERE WERE THE CARRIERS?

Most everyone will recall that one significant shortcoming of the Pearl Harbor raid from the Japanese perspective was its failure to destroy the American Navy’s aircraft carriers.  Yamamoto had targeted them in particular, appreciating as he did, the importance of naval air power.  It was with some disappointment that the airstrike launched knowing the carriers were not in port.  But just where were our carriers at 0755, 7 December 1941?

For the past year, US attentions had focused on the Atlantic where four of our seven carriers were based.  German U-boats had already attacked US warships escorting freighters on Roosevelt’s “Neutrality Patrol.”  In fact, REUBEN JAMES (DD-245) had been sunk in September 1941 on just such a mission.  Dawn on December 7^th found YORKTOWN (CV-5) in Norfolk and RANGER (CV-4) a day out, both having just finished Neutrality Patrols.  Brand new HORNET (CV-8), just 2 months in commission, was also readying herself in Norfolk.  WASP (CV-7) was serving as our training carrier and lay at anchor in Grassy Bay, Bermuda, observing the usual Sunday morning routine between Caribbean cruises.

In the Pacific, SARATOGA (CV-3) was fresh out of dry-dock in Bremerton.  The morning of December 7^th found her pulling into San Diego to embark Marine Corps aircraft intended for Wake.  After hearing the news from Hawaii, SARATOGA got underway immediately, hoping to reinforce the besieged garrison at Wake.  She reached Pearl Harbor on the 15^th, stopping only for fuel.  But the tiny island outpost at Wake fell before SARATOGA could arrive.

Two carriers were in the waters around Hawaii.  ENTERPRISE (CV-6) was returning from an aircraft ferrying assignment, having delivered VMF-211 to Wake Island.  She had planned to make Pearl that day, in fact, her scout planes arrived over the harbor in the midst of the Japanese attack and joined the defense.  She pulled in on this day, pausing briefly to refuel, then departed to hunt down the Japanese.  Though she did not locate the enemy strike force, her aircraft did sink the sub I-170 on the 10^th.  Our oldest flattop in service, LEXINGTON (CV-2), was returning from Midway, having likewise delivered a squadron of Marine fighters.  Upon learning of the Pearl Harbor attack she promptly launched search planes in an unsuccessful attempt to locate the Japanese fleet, then diverted south to rendezvous with ENTERPRISE and INDIANAPOLIS (CA-35).

After today’s disaster, YORKTOWN cast off for Hawaii on December 16^th.  HORNET was readied for Doolittle’s Tokyo raid, departing Norfolk on 4 March 1942.  WASP was pulled from training duties and eventually transferred to the Pacific after the loss of YORKTOWN at Midway in June 1942.  RANGER remained in the Atlantic.

Watch for more “Today in Naval History”  13 DEC 25

CAPT James Bloom, Ret.

Department of the Navy, Naval History Division.  Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships, Vol 2 “C-F”. Washington, DC: GPO, 1977, p. 356.

Department of the Navy, Naval History Division.  Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships, Vol 3 “G-K”. Washington, DC: GPO, 1977, pp. 368, 434.

Department of the Navy, Naval History Division.  Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships, Vol 4 “L-M”. Washington, DC: GPO, 1969, pp. 47, 104.

Department of the Navy, Naval History Division.  Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships, Vol 6 “R-S”.  Washington, DC: GPO, 1976, pp. 31, 85, 340.

Department of the Navy, Naval History Division.  Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships, Vol 8 “W-Z”.  Washington, DC: GPO, 1981, pp. 144, 534.

ADDITIONAL NOTES:  RANGER is perhaps the least well-remembered of our seven pre-WWII carriers.  She remained in the Atlantic and Mediterranean until August 1944, when she also transferred to the Pacific.  Here she was relegated to pilot training duties off the California coast.

Our first carrier, the former LANGLEY (CV-1), was still in service, but had been converted to a seaplane tender (AV-3) in the 1930s.  She was operating with the Asiatic Fleet at the war’s outbreak and was sunk by Japanese planes in late February 1942.

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                              DETERMINATION vs. COMPLACENCY

Japan emerged from the First World War as a bona fide naval power, a rival to US primacy in the Pacific.  And as early as 1918, Imperial Defense Policy identified the United States as her foremost potential enemy.  The mandates of the 1922 Washington Disarmament Conference caused further dissention; Japan (correctly) perceiving that the US-backed formula for capital warship limitation was structured to insure American parity, if not dominance in the Pacific.  She reacted with a naval policy which acquiesced to US strength in numbers but emphasized ships of greater firepower.  Imperial naval cadets were indoctrinated with hostility toward America.  A decade later even the Japanese citizenry sensed the eventuality of war with the United States.  It was not a surprise then, when Japan vacated the continuing arms limitation talks in 1936.  The next year Japan began to solidify her western Pacific empire by inciting a war with China.

Meanwhile many US planners remained complacent, secure in a misplaced confidence in our strength and Japan’s weakness.  Unruffled US attitudes are reflected even days before the Pearl Harbor attack:

“Nobody now fears that a Japanese fleet could deal an unexpected blow on our Pacific possessions…Radio makes surprise impossible.”  Josephus Daniels, former Secretary of the Navy, 16 Oct 1922.

“War between Japan and the United States is not within the realm of reasonable possibility…A Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor is a strategic impossibility.”   MAJ George Fielding Eliot, USA, military scientist, Sep 1938.

“The Hawaiian Islands are over-protected; the entire Japanese fleet and air force could not seriously threaten Oahu.”   CAPT William T. Pulleston, Chief of Naval Intelligence, Aug 1941.

“No matter what happens, the U.S. Navy is not going to be caught napping.”   Frank Knox, Secretary of the Navy, 4 Dec 1941.

“Well, don’t worry about it…it’s nothing.”   LT Kermit Tyler, Ft. Shafter Duty Officer after being told the newly installed RADAR had picked up what appeared to be incoming aircraft, 7 Dec 1941.

Not until Japan invaded Indochina in July 1941 did we embargo oil and steel.  Historians credit that oil embargo as the final impetus inciting Japan to strike at the US Fleet.

Continued tomorrow…

CAPT James Bloom, Ret.

Cerf, Christopher and Victor Navasky.  The Experts Speak:  The Definitive Compendium of Authoritative Misinformation.  Pantheon Books, New York, NY, pp.115-16, 1984.

Fuchida, Mitsuo and Masatake Okumiya.  Midway: The Battle that Doomed Japan.  USNI Press, Annapolis, MD, pp. 25-32, 1955.

Prange, Gordon W.  At Dawn We Slept:  The Untold Story of Pearl Harbor.  Penguin Books, New York, NY, pp. 3-8, 1981.

ADDITIONAL NOTES:  The anti-American sentiments in Japan in the decades before WWII are well described in Fuchida’s book above.  In fact, believing the United States to be her eventual enemy, Japan began in the 1920s to rotate the elite of her young naval officers through diplomatic or training duty in America.  By the late 1930s, the Imperial Navy had a core of senior officers familiar with American traditions, attitudes, and motivations.  Among these was Combined Fleet commander-in-chief ADM Isoroku Yamamoto, the architect of the Pearl Harbor attack.

Some historians have criticized the Pearl Harbor attack this day for failing to destroy the shore facilities and even for failing to invade the Hawaiian Islands.  But Japan’s intentions were to impede the United States’ ability to intervene in the western Pacific long enough for Japan to secure an empire.  They targeted what they perceived to be the center of gravity of our seapower, the ships of our US Fleet–not the Pearl Harbor base nor the Hawaiian Islands.  Ironically, in the minds of US planners of that day our bases were the potential targets.  The presence of a strong fleet in port, it was reasoned, would cause a would-be aggressor to think twice.  Thus, following scheduled exercises in the Fall of 1941, the US Fleet normally homeported at San Pedro was held in Hawaii as a deterrent.

It could be argued that the Japanese assessment that our fleet was our center of gravity was flawed.  The ships could be replaced, but the forward bases essential to their operation in the Philippines, Guam, Wake and Shanghai proved difficult and costly to recover.

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