Everyone watched the film "Pearl Harbor", but how many people know the eve of this event - "Day of Shame". Did the war start so unexpectedly for the Navy of S. Sh. A., as they are trying to show us, in order to explain the failure of the beginning of the entire war in the Pacific theater of operations of the Second World War?
Let's take a look at the facts from Walter Winslow's book "The God-Forgotten Fleet." US Asian Navy in World War II.
“Admiral Thomas Hart took command of the United States Asian Fleet on July 25, 1939, when relations with Japan were already strained by the ongoing aggression in China and the sinking by the Japanese of the American gunboat Panai on the Yangtze a year and a half ago.
By the end of September 1940, the Japanese army entered the northern part of French Indochina …
At the same time, Japan signed the Triple Alliance with Germany and Italy."
Let me remind you that Germany entered the war on September 1 with Poland, and on September 3 England and France declared war on Germany, and from this the Second World War began, since Great Britain then spread to Australia and the Falklands, off the coast of Argentina.
On October 21, 1940, Admiral Hart orders the withdrawal of all large ships of the fleet from China and establishes its headquarters in Manila.
“… By the end of November 1940, more than 2,000 family members of sailors had been evacuated from the Atlantic region. A few months later, family members of the ground forces followed.
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In mid-November 1940, Hart might have perked up when he received a letter from Admiral James Richardson, "who is" preparing for a possible dispatch to the East Indies a detachment of ships consisting of four heavy cruisers, one aircraft carrier, nine destroyers and four minelayers …
By January 1941, all combat units of the Asian fleet were intensively engaged in combat training in order to achieve operational readiness in case of any development of events.
In May 1941, Admiral Hart learned that … the aircraft carrier, cruisers, destroyers and minelayers would not come. However, he received twenty-three new ocean-going submarines.
On July 24, 1941, meeting nothing more than symbolic resistance from Vichy France, the Japanese army occupied all of French Indochina, while the fleet entered the ports of Saigon, Turan (now Danag) and Camrani.
It was expected that the British would send reinforcements to Singapore within a few months, consisting of an aircraft carrier, seven battleships, four heavy cruisers and thirty light cruisers. The most powerful battleship of Great Britain "Prince of Wales" and the battle cruiser "Ripals" were already on their way to Singapore. Along with them by December 2, the English aircraft carrier "Indomiteble" was supposed to arrive, but on the way it ran aground and sent for repairs.
By November 3, the detachment of Japanese ships at Cam Ranh had grown to fifty ships, which included cruisers and destroyers.
November 29, 1941. A message from the Chief of Staff of the Navy. “This message should be considered as a warning about a possible war. Negotiations with Japan aimed at stabilizing conditions in the Pacific have been terminated. In the next few days, aggressive action by Japan is to be expected.
Admiral Thomas Hart orders 10th Patrol Wing to deploy extensive aerial patrols. Three PBYs were sent to Davao Bay …
December 1 … the passenger liner President Garrison was captured by the Japanese.
… the aircraft of the 10th patrol wing, holding loaded machine guns at the ready, interacted with the British, Dutch and Australians a week before the attack on Pearl Harbor. These planes did not see anything particularly interesting until December 2, when they found twenty Japanese merchant ships, including transports, in Cam Ranh Bay (French Indochina).
On December 2, 1941, Admiral Hart divided his fleet into two operational formations …
On December 4, taking advantage of the bad weather, the ominous armada disappeared from the bay. After 48 hours (on the 6th) she was noticed by an English plane, now she was moving west, towards the Gulf of Thailand. At a time when Nagum's squadron was to attack Pearl Harbor, these transports set out to land thousands of Japanese soldiers on beaches 400 miles north of Singapore, thus initiating an invasion of Malaya.
On 5, 6 and 7 December PBY (flying boat Catalina) of the 10th patrol wing was met by Japanese aircraft conducting aerial reconnaissance off the coast of Luzon. In the Asian Navy, there would hardly be a person, from Admiral Hart to the very last private sailor, who would have even the slightest doubt that the war with Japan was becoming a harsh reality, and did not tighten his belt any more, preparing for battle.
How does it all fit in with what we were shown in the movies ?!
… in the early hours of the morning on December 8, 1941. Massacre on the "line of battleships" in Pearl Harbor …
… Japanese air strikes on the Philippines knocked out two-thirds of the fighters and more than half of the bombers from MacArthur's aviation. These flight forces were already small, but then they were reduced to thirty-seven fighters and seventeen bombers.
At 03:15 am on December 8, 1941 (December 7, Hawaiian time), when Wagner received notification of the attack on Pearl Harbor, he immediately ordered all active PBYs to hang two 500-pound bombs and sent them to four concentration zones within a radius 600 miles (1,100 km) from Manila.
07:05, one plane patrolled the sky, and two others with suspended bombs swayed on the water, waiting for an order, a disaster occurred. … without any warning attacked by Japanese carrier-based dive bombers … both vehicles were shot from machine guns. Warrant Officer (rank equal to a lieutenant in the ground forces) Robert Tills, the pilot of one of them, died while trying to get his plane into the air. He became the first American to lose his life in Asia …
And at 22 we read: “Due to bad weather, the Japanese raids on the air bases around Manila (Clark Field, Iba and Nichols), where the bulk of the American aviation was concentrated in the Philippines, did not begin until 11.35 - this is 8.5 hours after after the news of the Pearl Harbor raid was received at MacArthur's headquarters.
What, then, is the difference between the attack on the USSR and on the base of the US Navy at Pearl Harbor? During the attack on the USSR, there was a non-aggression pact between the USSR and Germany. Naturally, there were incidents of shelling of border patrols by Wehrmacht soldiers, there were violations of the air borders of the USSR, there was even a case of a He-111 ram by an I-16 series 25 aircraft, which, after an investigation, was announced as an "unforeseen collision in the air." Here we see a direct political clash, the imposition of an embargo on strategic materials, the seizure of a motor ship. But the most surprising thing is the successful attack by Japanese aviation on the airbases after 8.5 hours, as the message about the beginning of the war came. And then in general "circus, and only"!
Two days later, Japanese bombers unimpededly destroyed the Cavite military shipyard … the Asian fleet's repair base. On the same day, when the Japanese smashed to pieces the Cavite military shipyard (the most powerful battleships of Great Britain in Singapore), the Prince of Wales and Repals rushed to interfere with the Japanese landing in Malaysia - as a result of which they were intercepted and sunk by hordes of enemy bombers.
Against 10 battleships, 10 aircraft carriers, 18 heavy cruisers, 113 destroyers, 63 submarines and hundreds of Japanese fighters and bombers, the US Asian Fleet has 1 heavy, 2 light cruisers, 13 destroyers, 23 large ocean-type submarines and 6 small S-type submarines. … About the mess that reigned in the American army, the fact that …
On February 26, just 250 miles from western Java, a huge Japanese invasion fleet was sighted, consisting of sixty transports, one aircraft carrier, four heavy cruisers, two light cruisers, and twenty-five destroyers.
February 28, the commander (cruiser) "Perth" Hector M. L. Waller and Captain Rooks received notification that a Dutch naval reconnaissance plane … had reported that there were no Japanese warships in the Sunda Strait for ten hours.
… the command of the army, who knew very well about the Japanese invasion fleet, indicated to Major General Schilling that an imminent landing should be expected in western Java. However, although General Schilling's headquarters was in the same building in Batavia as the British navy's communications post, he was not notified of the Houston and Perth in port.
And at 23:15 on February 28, they were in the thick of the largest landing operation carried out by the Japanese on that day in the southwestern part of the Pacific Ocean. A fierce unequal battle took place and the two cruisers held on more than staunch for almost an hour. 00:20 On March 1, Perth sank, taking more than half of the crew, including one of the greatest heroes in the Australian Captain Navy, Hector MacDonald Loose Waller, recipient of the RAN (Royal Australian Navy) Order of Excellence. 00:31 Houston went to the bottom, taking away half of the team.
Author: Pavel Shasherin