"Day of shame"
December 7, 1941 Japanese deck aviation dealt a sudden crushing blow to the Pacific the fleet US naval base in Hawaii Pearl Harbor. At the same time, Japanese troops and the fleet attacked the British, Dutch and American possessions in the Far East and the South Seas. The war began in the Pacific.
In the USA, Pearl Harbor was called the Day of Shame. Official propaganda in the United States explained that the surprise attack on Pearl Harbor, where the main strike forces of the American Pacific Fleet were destroyed and sunk in a matter of hours, was caused by the cunning of the Japanese aggressor. The American government allegedly craved peace, and the Japanese empire, having lulled the vigilance of Washington, delivered a sudden treacherous blow.
However, when World War II ended, it became clear that in Washington they could not have been unaware of the plans of the Japanese military and political leadership to attack Pearl Harbor. Then why was Pearl Harbor possible? It is obvious that the owners of the USA were pushing Japan towards Russia-the USSR. The Japanese were supposed to attack the USSR along with Hitler's "blond beasts", or a little later. In order to crush the Soviet (Russian) civilization and the Russian globalization project, which was based on the idea of social justice, with a simultaneous blow from the west and east. At the same time, the Russians, Germans and Japanese had to drain their forces in this battle of the titans. As a result, the owners of the United States and Britain poisoned and destroyed their main competitors on the planet.
Even before the start of the big war in Europe, the United States and Britain secretly encouraged and supported the aggression of militarist Japan against China. If Nazi Germany was the western cudgel of the United States and England, then Japan was eastern. The masters of the West have long understood that it is best to fight with someone else's hands, someone else's "cannon fodder." With the tacit support of the United States, Japan occupied and robbed a large part of the Middle Kingdom. At the same time, the United States profited from the delivery weapons and other products and Japan, and China. China fell into even greater financial and economic dependence on the United States. The masters of the West very far-sightedly determined that sooner or later both the territories and the loot would go to them. The plunders in China, Korea and other countries of Southeast Asia have somehow appropriated the masters of the West. In addition, the war in the Pacific allowed the United States to strengthen and consolidate its military presence in the region. Including Japan itself, which has become a huge "unsinkable US aircraft carrier" off the coast of Russia and China.
According to the US plan, after the capture and plundering of most of China, Japan was to attack the eastern part of Great Russia (USSR) with all its might, to occupy Primorye, the Far East and Siberia. The secret US plan was supported by most of the Japanese generals. However, the Japanese have guessed that they want to use them. And they decided to strike a sudden blow to the United States, although they knew about different "weight categories" - the military and economic power of the United States exceeded the potential of the Japanese Empire by an order of magnitude. In the United States, having seen that Japan is turning south, they decided to use the attack of the Japanese armed forces to create the image of a “perfidious” aggressive Japan. The Japanese empire was turned into the main culprit, the instigator, who unleashed the slaughter in the Asia-Pacific region. And the owners of the United States and England, who unleashed the war in the Asia-Pacific region, remained in the shadows.
Towards World War II
Initially, Japan’s aggression was encouraged by Britain and the United States. It was London and Washington that armed Japan and helped it to build a modern, first-class navy. Then Japan was thrown against China and the Russian Empire. During the First World War, Japan threw "bone" - allowed to seize the possession of the German Empire. The collapse of the Russian Empire and the Civil War allowed Japan to begin the seizure of Russia's Far Eastern possessions. However, the intervention failed and the Japanese, like other invaders, had to get out of Russia.
In Japan itself, despite the alliance with the Anglo-Saxons, directed against the Middle Kingdom and Russia, they saw that for domination of the Pacific Ocean, it was necessary to put an end to the colonial, predatory claims of Great Britain and the USA. The Japanese empire sooner or later had to face the United States in the struggle for hegemony in the Asia-Pacific region. The alliance with the Anglo-Saxons was justified while Japan benefited from it. At the same time, Tokyo was thinking about how to limit American influence in the Pacific and the Far East. How to expel Western colonizers from Asia and take their place. The question of which civilization, Eastern or Western, dominated the earth was decided. Thus, the battle of predators has been brewing for a long time.
The United States also believed that war with Japan was inevitable. American H. Lee already in the year 1909 in the book "The Valor of Ignorance" described the future Japanese-American war. He described how the US outposts would fall - the Philippines, Hawaii and Alaska in the hands of the Japanese. The book was very popular among Japanese officers. The book was simply translated into Japanese: “The war between Japan and America.” In 1925, the columnist for the British newspaper The Daily Telegraph published a book, The Great Pacific War. The journalist predicted a surprise attack on Pearl Harbor.
The military also believed that there would be war, and they were developing appropriate plans. Up until the second half of the 1930, the American military strategists assumed that the United States and Japan would face off against each other. For the same reason, and in the interests of maintaining military secrecy, the plan of war with Japan was encrypted as “one-color” - the plan “Orange” (“Orange”). When in 1936-1937 the axis Berlin - Rome - Tokyo arose, it was necessary to bear in mind the possibility of a coalition war. Appeared "multicolored" plans. The main plan was “Rainbow-2” (“Rainbow”). It provided for concerted action by the United States, Britain and France. The British and French were to take the front in Europe; Americans - in the Pacific. With the assumed correlation of forces and taking into account the distances, Washington believed that the Philippines and Guam would have to surrender at the first stage of the war. They will be recaptured at the final stage of the war. The Rainbow 2 Plan was approved by the United States 30 July 1939 Joint Council. In accordance with it, preparations were made for war with Japan. If necessary, changes were made to the plan.
The plan unreservedly recognized the extreme importance of Hawaii as a US naval base. The US Pacific Fleet, created by order of President W. Wilson in June 1919, was repeatedly advanced to the Hawaiian Islands in 1920 and was based in Pearl Harbor on Oahu. In 1932, the Americans themselves worked out the scenario of a naval base bombardment, which was later used by the Japanese. The Americans conducted the fleet exercises in conjunction with ground forces in Hawaii. The commander of the "aggressors" G. Yarnell with the squadron came from bases in California. At sea, he rebuilt his squadron: he left the battleships and cruisers in the rear guard, and advanced the aircraft carriers "Saratoga" and "Lexington". In Hawaii, waiting for the traditional battle, with the use of battleships, but miscalculated. Yarnell in the morning of February 7 40 miles from Hawaii raised 152 aircraft from aircraft carriers. They struck at airfields near Pearl Harbor and won complete air supremacy.
These exercises showed that naval aviation is capable of delivering a powerful blow to the fleet and the base as a whole. The lesson was clear. However, the relevant conclusions are not made. On the contrary, they read that it was an accident and the aircraft carriers would be destroyed, and the attacking aircraft would suffer heavy losses. In Japan, they also carefully studied the results of the maneuvers, but came to other conclusions. In 1936, the Japanese Naval Academy released "Research on strategy and tactics in operations against the United States." Japanese analysts concluded: "In the case of the main forces of the American fleet in Pearl Harbor, hostilities should be opened with sudden air strikes." The US military maneuvers of 1937 have confirmed this conclusion. At this time, a squadron advanced to the Hawaii, which had aircraft carrying about 400 aircraft. Again, the American airfields of Oahu were suddenly "destroyed" from the air, and the next day the "aggressor" calmly landed troops. Thus, both the Americans and the Japanese knew that the possibility of a sudden air strike exists.
The American admirals then drove their squadrons to Hawaii from naval bases in California. The arrival of the American fleet in the Hawaiian Islands usually coincided with the aggravation of the international situation. The permanent bases of the Pacific Fleet were located on the west coast of America, where the ships returned after their stay in Hawaii. When the 1 of September of the 1939 of the year began a big war in Europe, the layout of the American fleet was changed. From the beginning of 1940, the main forces of the Pacific Fleet were concentrated in Hawaii, first under the pretext of the exercises, and since May 1940, the fleet received an official order to stay at Pearl Harbor for an indefinite time. According to the command of the US armed forces, the ships in Hawaii were completely safe. Relying on Pearl Harbor, the fleet could act effectively against Japan in the event of war and exert military-political pressure on it in peacetime.
In Japan at that time there were two parties of militarists. The army command supported the war with the USSR. The Kwantung Army was aimed at the Soviet Far East and it was constantly strengthened. The fleet, on the other hand, demanded in advance to occupy the colonies of the Western powers in the South Seas in order to provide the Japanese Empire with resources for further struggle for supremacy in Asia and the Pacific. The naval command was acutely aware of the limited economic and resource potential of Japan, which determined the naval strategy. The Japanese knew that the shipyards of the country could not compete with the American shipbuilding; in the future battle they relied not on quantitative, but on qualitative superiority. The goal was to create a balanced naval force, which was based on first-class battleships. The flagship of the Japanese fleet - the battleship "Yamato" was the largest warship of its time.
Japanese battleship "Yamato"
At the end of 1930, Japan’s strategy began to change. The impetus for this was the success of aviation development. Some Japanese naval commanders came to the conclusion that the use of aircraft from aircraft carriers against warships makes it possible to gain superiority over the superior forces of the enemy. The Japanese began to build large aircraft carriers at the time. Japan received the world's best carrier-based aircraft in 1941, and the 1 th air fleet was the first major aircraft carrier strike in the world. The admirals of the Japanese linear fleet considered this a dangerous delusion, but supporters of deck aircraft were able to insist on their own.
The immediate tasks of the Pacific War in Tokyo saw the occupation of a vast area in the south and the creation of a defensive perimeter along the line connecting the Kuril and Marshall Islands, the Bismarck Archipelago, the Islands of Timor, Java, Sumatra, and Malaya and Burma. The attack on the western colonies inevitably led to war with the United States, England and Holland. If England and Holland in Japan at that time were not afraid, the United States was a serious threat. America had superiority in the economy, the armed forces and the resource base. The appearance in the theater of military operations of the strong Pacific Fleet of the United States could disrupt plans for the rapid capture of the South Seas area and lead to a delay in hostilities. As a result, Japan would be involved in a protracted war, a war of attrition. For such a war, Japan was not ready and could not withstand it. America surpassed Japan in a protracted war in all respects.
The new commander of the United Fleet, Admiral Yoroku Yamamoto, directly told the then head of government, Prince Canoe: “If they tell me to fight, then in the first six to twelve months of the war against the United States and England I will act swiftly and demonstrate a continuous chain of victories. But I must warn you: if the war lasts two or three years, I’m not sure about the ultimate victory. ” In the case of a long war with the United States, Yamamoto wrote, “it is not enough for us to take Guam and the Philippines, even Hawaii and San Francisco. We will need to take Washington and sign a peace treaty in the White House. ”
It was necessary to neutralize the American fleet. There was a question - how? The admirals of the "battleships" offered the traditional option - sea battle. Meet the American fleet on the way to Japan and give battle. However, such a scenario jeopardized plans for seizures in the main direction - the South Seas. Innovators in the naval business have offered their own version. The commander of the United Fleet, Isoroku Yamamoto, proposed simultaneously with an offensive in the south to strike at Pearl Harbor from the air.
A sudden, swift and successful attack on the main forces of the American fleet could radically change the situation in the Pacific. Yamamoto said: "When studying stories The Russian-Japanese war is the most important lesson for me - our fleet began it with a night attack on the Russians in Port Arthur. In my opinion, this is the most outstanding strategic achievement of the war. Unfortunately, we did not complete the attack and did not achieve fully satisfactory results. ” Yamamoto was determined not to repeat this mistake. The plane, which replaced the ship as the main strike vehicle of the fleet, was to help in this matter. Yamamoto and his supporters in 1930-ies made great efforts to prepare the carrier-based aircraft for the new war. By 1941, Japan had aircraft carriers, and a significant number of experienced pilots and navigators for carrier-based aircraft.
The news that the US Pacific Fleet is now permanently based at Pearl Harbor has added weight to the arguments of supporters of an air strike. In addition, from Europe came news about the successful use of naval aviation. On the night of November 11 1940, the English aircraft carrier "Illustrious" approached 170 miles to the Italian base Taranto in the Ionian Sea and lifted the torpedo bomber into 21. Navigators on a bright moonlit night successfully led the strike team to the goal. Torpedoes hit the target. Three Italian battleships were hit in the harbor of Taranto: one sank, the other two were seriously damaged and were permanently incapacitated. The lessons of Taranto have been celebrated both in the USA and in Japan.
To be continued ...
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