From the surface, this sneak attack by the Japanese Navy was quite successful in both preparation and actual combat, but from the factual effect, this bombardment of Pearl Harbor for nearly two hours may just be a loneliness.

above_ Japan sneak attacks on Pearl Harbor

• "sinked battleship " one by one resurrected and reinstalled

There is " conspiracy theory " who has always believed that the Pearl Harbor incident was a bitter plan that the US President Roosevelt deliberately sang in order to allow the United States to participate in World War II when he had known in advance the entire Japanese combat plan. The evidence was that there was no US aircraft carrier in Pearl Harbor on the day of the attack, and all eight main battleships were in the port. Let’s not talk about whether the basic logic of this conspiracy theory is smooth. At that time, the navies of various countries, including the United States and Japan, did not recognize the absolute dominance of the aircraft carrier in future naval battles. Without exception, they regarded battleships as the main naval battleships, while aircraft carriers were only auxiliary ships.

Even the Japanese Navy's sneak attack, which dispatched six aircraft carriers, is the primary target of the US battleship rather than the US aircraft carrier. From this perspective, whether the US military's aircraft carrier is in the port actually has little impact on the Japanese army. Four of the eight battleships of the US military were sunk, and four were severely damaged. The bombing effect was indeed very good, and it basically achieved the combat targets pre-determined by the Japanese army.

above_ Japan attacked Pearl Harbor, the sinking Arizona battleship

, but the actual situation was beyond the expectations of the Japanese army. If the warship is sunk into the deep ocean, it will naturally be completely incurable. However, as a military port, Pearl Harbor has an average water depth of only 12 meters. Whether it is sunk or severe damage, it is actually very easy to salvage or repair. In addition to the "Arizona" that could not be salvaged due to the explosion in ammunition depot (later converted into a water museum), and the "Oklahoma" was too severe to be salvaged due to damage, the remaining six battleships including the "Pennsylvania" were successively salvaged out of the water and quickly began maintenance and repair work. Not only that, the US military also took this opportunity to modernize and upgrade these battleships. So much so that these six battleships were completely restored and then they gradually re-entered the Pacific War.

It is worth mentioning that the Surigao night battle in the 1944 Lyte Bay naval battle. These six battleships were the first to be hit, and they launched the last battleship duel in human history with the Japanese Navy Combined Fleet. The ending was that the two battleships of the Japanese "Fusang" and "Shancheng" were sunk. These "old ships" who were reborn in the fire also avenged a single arrow from Pearl Harbor. I wonder what would these Japanese cannon fodders think if they knew that the US warships that were sent to hell were all old ships that had been damaged by war several years ago?

above_Light Bay Battle Old photo

• More strategic ammunition oil depots and military facilities, unscathed

As the largest and most complete comprehensive military base of the US military at that time, Pearl Harbor was not just a simple military port. After years of construction, Pearl Harbor has a complete set of related facilities such as naval yards, maintenance docks, torpedo depots, submarine docks, power plants, ammunition depots, fuel depots and other related facilities. The fuel depots alone store up to 4.5 million tons of fuel! On the day of the Pearl Harbor incident, the US military had lost its ability to resist. Not to mention anything else, the fuel depot that "explodes at a glance" is not only very easy to attack, but also the huge power generated after the explosion is enough to razor the entire Pearl Harbor facility to the ground. No matter where, these hardware facilities are more strategic than those battleships.

However, interestingly, although the Japanese HNA commander Mitsuki Shizuda and others unanimously requested to continue bombing the hardware facilities of Pearl Harbor, Lieutenant General Tada, as the commander of the raid fleet, firmly opposed it. He believed that the main combat purpose had been achieved, so he had to stop when he was good and run away first. As a result, the Japanese army's sneak attack formation also hurriedly returned to the local area according to his order.

above_ Nakamoto Tadakaichi (1887-03-25~1944-07-06) Japanese Navy General

In fact, this is also a typical "thief" mentality in the Japanese Navy. Once you have the result of the battle, you will escape quickly, for fear of staying on the battlefield for too long and causing losses to your side. This is actually the fear of the US military, and the inferiority complex in the bones will not change easily. The Japanese Navy's bad mentality of "fighting and running away" also ran throughout World War II, making it unable to expand its results even if it had the advantage, thus unable to complete a fatal blow to the US military.

Because the infrastructure and fuel ammunition are intact, the subsequent US military's combat operations are not subject to any constraints in logistics support. Even shortly after the Japanese evacuated, the US military began repair and recovery work.

A distinctive example is that at the battle in in 1942, the main aircraft carrier "York City" of the US military was severely damaged. The Japanese army believed that it could no longer continue to enter the battle. However, "York City" carried out intense maintenance operations in the repair dock in Pearl Harbor, and basically recovered its combat effectiveness in just 3 days. The "Ghost Aircraft Carrier" returned to the battlefield and another US aircraft carrier "Enterprise" jointly achieved brilliant results of sinking all four Japanese aircraft carriers (the carrier-based fleet of another US aircraft carrier "Hornet" did not achieve the results of sinking the aircraft carrier). It can be seen that the Japanese army's incomplete sneak attack was ultimately shot by himself in the foot, which was a matter of his own consequences.

above_ The bombed US military aircraft runway

• The huge gap in the comprehensive national strength of the two countries makes the result of the sneak attack on Pearl Harbor negligible

Before World War II, the commander of the Japanese joint fleet, who had experience of military officers abroad and had a relatively clear mind, Yamamoto Izuru General once advised senior officials to not start a war against the United States easily, and said, "Just look at the automobile industry of Detroit and the endless oil fields of Texas " you can know the end of the war. However, the island country, which was completely immersed in the fantasy of defeating the "American and American ghost animals", completely ignored such "dissent", and Yamamoto could only grit his teeth and participate in this war that he had no chance of winning at all.

above_ Yamamoto Izuru (April 4, 1884 - April 18, 1943), the original name of Takano Izuru

, indeed for Japan, the United States' comprehensive national strength is out of reach. During the war, Japan built a total of 25 aircraft carriers of all sizes and sizes, with more than 60,000 aircraft of various types. Objectively speaking, it was quite difficult for a semi-industrial country like Japan at that time. However, these considerable numbers quickly pale in comparison with the United States. The United States manufactured 155 aircraft carriers of all sizes and sizes during the war, and 27 large aircraft carriers alone. This alone exceeded the total number of aircraft carriers of the Japanese army, and the total number of aircraft produced was as many as 300,000. In 1942 alone, the number of aircraft produced in one year was equivalent to the total output of the Japanese army. And this was the result of the United States compressing production after 1944 as the situation was determined.

It can be said that the Japanese army's proud bombing in the Pearl Harbor incident severely damaged several US battleships and destroyed more than 200 US fighter jets. The record of blowing up more than 200 US fighter jets is simply not worth mentioning. From this perspective, sneak attack on Pearl Harbor is more like a loneliness.

above_ Schematic diagram of Japan's sneak attack on Pearl Harbor

After successfully attacking Pearl Harbor, facing the ecstatic Japanese military and civilians, Yamamoto said worriedly, "We just woke up a sleeping giant." The Japanese at that time could not understand the true meaning of this sentence, and less than four years later, this small island country that had been in danger for a while was heading towards a shameful ending of inevitable failure.

Author: Yang Shang Liu Xia Correction/Editor: Lilith

Reference materials: "The vast ocean is a casino", written by Yu Tianren, Chinese Publishing House

Text was created by the team of the History University Hall, the picture is from the Internet, copyright belongs to the original author