Attack on Pearl Harbor (35 page)

Fuchida had a complex set of personal and cultural imperatives acting on his decision processes. No simplistic labels fit, and none should be applied.

Two Alternative Explanations

The preceding analysis is based largely on circumstantial evidence and cannot be considered conclusive. There is no available surviving testimony as to what actually happened during the BDA reconstruction on the
Akagi
. Besides the possibility of deliberate falsification of the data, there are alternate explanations.

Fuchida could have instead been the victim of vague and unclear reports from the other carriers.
Akagi
’s aviators could have been given such low hit percentages perhaps because Fuchida had personal access to them to cross-examine and ferret out exaggerated claims. The other carriers were able to pass on exaggerated claims because their aviators were not immediately available for questioning by the assessors on the flagship.

The dive-bombers’ attack on the fleet was made under difficult conditions, through heavy AA fire, ubiquitous smoke, and dense cloud cover. The aviators could have become disoriented as they circled looking for gaps in the clouds. Damage assessment photographs taken at the end of the attack might have shown
Neosho’s
berth obscured by smoke or covered with burning oil, suggesting that the oiler was sunk and burning. The reports sent to Fuchida might have required extensive interpretation, and Fuchida might have been working to represent the results of the attack as accurately as humanly possible. So, one alternative explanation is that
the additional GP bomb hits, and their locations on Battleship Row, could just have been an honest mistake
.

A second alternative is a middle ground between the two. Fuchida may have received reports that were vague and subject to interpretation. In the background, operating in his subconscious, were all the factors mentioned previously: the desire to support his ally, the dive-bombing community, and carrier aviation in general by making the dive-bombers’ performance look good. There were also his expectations, conditioned by the long training period, which made him expect to see 40 to 50 hits by the dive-bombers. His inherent cultural bias was not to call down criticism on his fellow aviators or question claims. He did not want to cause the dive-bomber crews any embarrassment by suggesting that their performance was poor. Consequently, he was psychologically primed to see 50 hits. All the imperatives mentioned above would drive him to look hard for those 50 hits. A second explanation is that, with all the conditioning from the long days of training and planning,
his mind would make him willing to see the additional hits on the scantest of evidence
.

So, the exaggerated effectiveness of the second-wave dive-bombers recorded in the BDA report to the Emperor could have been the result of:

In the absence of definitive evidence, readers must decide for themselves which case is the more compelling.

Other Comments on the Accuracy of the Japanese Battle Damage Assessment

The underestimated damage on
Nevada
is understandable. She was hit by only one torpedo, and sank well after the strike departed. Had the mistaken flooding of the magazine and the progressive flooding not occurred, the assessment of moderate damage would have been accurate.

The same held for
California
. Under normal combat circumstances two torpedo hits would not have been enough to sink her.

The assessment that
Tennessee
was sunk by three 800kg AP bomb hits is questionable. It might have been prompted by the burning oil released from
Arizona
that engulfed her at the end of the second-wave attacks. The heat from these external fires was so intense that fires were started in some of
Tennessee
’s internal compartments, and her magazines were flooded as a precautionary measure. The Japanese probably thought that
Arizona’s
magazine explosion was actually
Tennessee
, as the assessment of the ship in
Arizona
’s berth was that she was only “seriously” damaged.

Vestal
was misidentified as an oiler and assessed as sunk by a single AP bomb.
Vestal
had moved during the lull between the attack waves. Presumably she was in photographs of the attack by the first wave, and absent from photographs made by the second wave, and this was used as justification for a claim she was sunk. Like
Neosho
, if she would have sunk much of her superstructure would have remained above the water, so this was a poor assessment.

The net assessment was remarkably accurate with respect to the battleline and poor with regards to cruisers and auxiliaries. Compared to some of the later battles when the Japanese pilots returned wildly optimistic reports on the damage they inflicted, the overall assessment of the Pearl Harbor attack against the mission-critical targets was good, even though some of the details were exaggerated.

Most of the opposition to the Japanese torpedo bombers came from .50-cal water-cooled machine guns. Shown is a battery mounted on
Enterprise
at the Battle of the Coral Sea. The gun sight is not mounted. The white liquid splashed on the gun mounting and catwalk is protein foam, used for firefighting. The loader, to the left of the gunner, has cans of ammunition reloads at his feet. Guns like this on destroyers and battleships were responsible for four of the five B5N Kate bombers shot down.
Source: Naval Archives, Washington DC

Wisconsin
outboard of the salvaged
Oklahoma
. The Japanese could choose to fight
Oklahoma
on the open seas, or attack Pearl Harbor, delay a fleet encounter, and face
Wisconsin
later in the war. Either choice would likely have led to defeat.
Source: Naval Archives, Washington DC

Pearl Harbor, 30 October 1941, looking south, with the channel to the open sea at the top. This is the view that the Japanese should have seen from their planned IP north of the harbor. B5N Kate torpedo bombers would then have split east and west to attack Battleship Row and the carrier anchorage nearly simultaneously.
Source: Naval Archives, Washington DC

An A6M Zero fighter plane. This photograph is from a set of recognition photographs taken of a captured A6M Zero taken in 1943.
Source: Naval Archives, Washington DC

A B5N Kate carrier attack bomber, from a series of recognition photographs of a captured plane taken in 1944. A torpedo or up to three 250kg bombs could be slung externally under the fuselage.
Source: Naval Archives, Washington DC

Two Japanese B5N Kate carrier attack bombers in formation. This is a Japanese photograph taken in 1939.
Source: Naval Archives, Washington DC

A B5N Kate carrier attack bomber taking off from a carrier early in the war. This photograph was taken from an early WWII Japanese newsreel.
Source: Naval Archives, Washington DC