Re: IJN and Pearl Harbor: oil fields were left intact?

Just a "couple of hundred carrier planes" against an enemy that has
insignificantly few isn't an asset? The AA at Pearl Harbor back in the early
40's wasn't THAT dense. Considering all the trouble it took just to GET to
PH why the hell WOULDN'T you want to maximize the damage you could inflict.
Why not maximize your return on investment? It's not like you're going to be
sailing back to PH any time soon.

"R Leonard" <rdkcleon@xxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:1180618291.117251.206970@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Most of the question of their failure to do so comes from the US side
and not the Japanese side, sort of a "I wonder why they
didn't . . . ?" This is usually followed with "We would have tried to
level the place." Yes, yes, sure you would, with just a couple of
hundred carrier planes in your strike force, uh huh, right." But it is
indicative of the American strike operational mentality to look to the
fleet service facilities as targets not to be wasted . . . Certainly
by the end of the war, with massive AAF bombing forces available and
carrier task forces that could throw 1100 sorties at a single target,
Japanese shore installations were sorely attacked, but they were never
totally taken out . . . kind of gives you an idea of the difficulties.


Rich


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