John Antal opens Next War with a look at the failure of imagination that left America vulnerable to Imperial Japan’s surprise attack and the imaginative planning that went into it — as well as some imaginative planning that did not:
With his usual thoroughness, Genda reported the highest dive-bombing hit rates in the past seven months of practice, by the Japanese Navy’s best carrier pilots, is only 40 percent.
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“There is more than one path to get to the top of the mountain,” Yamamoto replies.
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“The only reason a warrior is alive is to fight, and the only reason a warrior fights is to win. Here, the path of life and death, victory and defeat, is clear.”
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“It will take only six days to adjust the aircraft and we can do this while we are underway. With this new means, we will destroy the four American aircraft carriers, eight battleships, two heavy cruisers and the six light cruisers in the first wave. Conventional attacks will focus on attacking enemy airfields and destroying American planes on the ground. The second wave will target the dockyards and oil facilities. The third wave will involve conventional bombing and will hit any remaining targets.”
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“We will lose 80 of our 353 aircraft through direct strikes,” Genda replies. “Ten percent more if the enemy antiaircraft and their pursuit planes are alert … but I believe we will achieve surprise, so I estimate our losses at 107 aircraft.”
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“Yes, it is the only way to annihilate our enemy with one swift blow. It is a hard choice, I know, but these strikes will be like a Divine Wind that will blow the Americans from the Pacific.”
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“Put your new plan into motion. We will hit the Americans and destroy their power in the Pacific with one strike of the sword. We will use your 80 kamikaze aircraft to change the face of war.”
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The Japanese would only resort to kamikaze attacks in 1944, when their strategic military situation was dire, as they grasped for any means to strike back and delay the inevitable tide of defeat.
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But what if Yamamoto’s forces had conducted the kamikaze strike strategy at Pearl Harbor in 1941, when the US Navy was much smaller and unprepared for such a ferocious assault? What if the Japanese had realized they had to play their one roll of the dice differently?
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The next Pearl Harbor attack will most likely involve long-range precision fires: missiles, unmanned combat aerial vehicles, and loitering munitions.
Precisely. We are finally entering missile age.
That propellor planes have gone out of fashion is not the boldest prediction. Still, assuming the USA is the aggressor, there is a role for stealth bombers too.
A more recent example might be the Russians’ attacks on the Ukrainian Air Force and Air Defence network at the start of the SMO. It will probably be a few years before there is a public, balanced report on that.
Failure of imagination would include underestimating the enemy’s will to respond: recent Ukraine rallying; Afghanistan always; Iraq after US involvement; Vietnam; US after Pearl; Russia after Barbarossa; etc.
Might be something more than lack of imagination; something including wishful thinking; willful ignorance; etc.
Poor FDR and his imagination…
The executive nominally under Bush the Younger experienced such a failure of imagination, a failure of imagination that has brought us right to the present day. One man’s tragedy is another man’s opportunity, as they say.