Remember also those arrogant admirals (and other leaders) who failed to listen to intelligence and failed in their one task....to protect the US. The ships were, effectively sitting ducks, the base at Pearl Harbor was, at best, a target.
The failure was not the soldiers and sailors, but the leaders under whom they served.
There are those who believe that the entire war in general, and the attack on Pearl Harbor in specific, were part of a greater conspiracy. I think the attack was just plain incompetence.
There was also an Intel and communications failure that didn't help... Although the notification would have given them a little time to react, it wouldn't have been enough...
ReplyDeleteAt Dawn We Slept by Gordon Prange is still he best work on Pearl Harbor. He debunks the whole FDRS knew theory quite well.
ReplyDeleteIt is easy to connect the dots after he fact, but a whole lot of people were just guessing. For instance if you believe the biggest threat to aircraft in Hawaii was sabotage it made perfect sense to keep the planes bunched in a group under guard. Since the attack was by air and not sabotage, that plan led to disaster. It was either/or, and on December 6, which was the more likely scenario -- sabatoge or a sneak attack by Japanese naval forces from the Northwest?