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

On Thu, 07 Jun 2007 03:27:55 -0400, "Geoffrey Sinclair"
<gsinclairnb@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

"Brad Meyer" <bradm110@xxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:mla8631nlr988b9gbioncc9rjuaqdrc65j@xxxxxxxxxx
On Mon, 04 Jun 2007 03:27:50 -0400, "Geoffrey Sinclair"
<gsinclairnb@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

How about the
Marines are able to capture a working airfield at the start?

Not on Guadacanal. They were well over a weel getting it into shape
for operations. Lter in the war US forces would build airstrips from
scratch in less time then it took to get Henderson operational.

Could you perhaps leave the text I was reply to in the post, since it
was about how much more difficult it would have been to capture
Guadalcanal if the Japanese airfield has been in operation.

As noted if the airfield was operational it should mean any invasion
was spotted before it arrived.

Funny, the seaplane base at Tulagi was operational as well as several
other IJN search options, yet it in fact wasn't discovered. Wake,
Wotje, and certainly Toyko had air search and yet each was suprised.
The simple fact was the IJN didn't think the Americans were comming,
or even capable of coming, and didn't bother to look very well. After
the landing they first thought it was a raid, then consistantly
underestimated (badly) the number of US troops on the island clear up
to the time of evacuation.

I really doubt Japanese logistics were
up to equipping such an airfield with the airpower to stop 3 USN
aircraft carriers.

I don't. After prox fused AA maybe, but not at that point in the war.

The time line I have is Yamamoto pushing it in March as the next plan after
the Indian Ocean operations, and he had his way before the Doolittle raid
hit.

On April 5th the _idea_ of a Midway operation was blessed off by the
Army. The actual planning and the timeline were both rushed as a
result of the Toyko Raid two weeks later. The bulk of their Midway
problems stemmed from hasty planning and hasty execution. Things like
the K operation were allowed to drop through the cracks without
reconsidering the basic tenents of the op plan. Even then, without the
crypto advantage (and Nimitz's over-riding faith in same) the US
probably would have lost the island and had the fleet responded after
the fact to the invasion they may well have lost some carriers as
well.

.

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