Pacific Naval Battles of World War II and Geopolitical Analysis.

November 1941, Japanese navy reinforced Japanese islands in the Pacific.

President Roosevelt, meeting with American generals, simultaneously issued an alert to Hawaii and the Philippines.

Once again, to avoid a possible war between the United States and Japan, on December 6, President Roosevelt sent a personal letter to Emperor Hirohito of Japan assuring that the United States had no intention of attacking Indochina and offered to undertake similar guarantees in China, Thailand, Malaysia and Indonesia if Japan withdrew all its troops from the territories of these countries.

On December 7, 1941, the Japanese delegation submitted to the US government Tokyo's letter regarding Washington's proposal of November 26. Japan could not accept the US President's proposal as the basis for a negotiation.

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Thus, the effort of the Americans, represented by the head of the US government at that time, President Roosevelt, to avoid a war with the Japanese in the Pacific was inevitable. A war was only a matter of days and hours.

3.2. Naval battles in the Pacific during World War II and geopolitical analysis.

The relationship between the United States and Japan has reached a dead end, war is only a matter of time. In Europe, the Soviet-German war is taking place extremely fiercely, the Anglo-German-Italian war is devastating in North Africa, on the Atlantic and Arctic Oceans. The meeting between Admiral Hart, Vice Admiral William R. Purnell and Rear Admiral W. Rockwell, commander of the Cavite base, Tom Philips to discuss the Asian front.

Commander Hart raised the US's concerns about a Japanese attack at any time because, according to him, Japan would take advantage of Germany's victories on the European battlefield since June 1941, and moreover, the US had frozen the bank accounts that the US had lent Japan to buy Indonesian oil. From the beginning of December 1941, photos taken during the US Navy's aerial reconnaissance of the East Sea showed that the Japanese navy was moving, and there were many signs that Japan was preparing for landing operations in Thailand.

Philippines, Malaysia and possibly Borneo.

He believed that when the war broke out, Japan would attack the US, the UK and the Netherlands. From that analysis, the United States drafted a defense plan in conjunction with the Royal Navy of England and the Netherlands. Based on the results of the aerial reconnaissance, Admirals Hart and W. Rockwell came to the conclusion that the Japanese could land somewhere on the Malay Peninsula, from where they could advance to Bangkok or Singapore. The US was concerned about the increasing presence of Japanese submarines in the Pacific [18, p.16].

On the afternoon of December 6, a British reconnaissance plane discovered a Japanese convoy at latitude 8, longitude 100, south of Hon Khoai (Ca Mau), moving west.

All day on December 7, every American in the Philippines waited for war every minute, because the Japanese air base in Taiwan or Hainan was only a two-hour flight from Manila. At Clark Air Base, 16 B-17 Stratofortresses sat side by side as if awaiting an inspection. The main US air base in the Far East was waiting for an additional force of 30 Stratofortresses. The US Asiatic Fleet Chief of Staff told his commander, Admiral Hart, that war was only a matter of time.

But where would the Japanese attack first: Singapore, the Philippines, the Panama Canal. They never thought the Japanese would attack Pearl Harbor. A surprise air attack on Pearl Harbor – not a rehearsal.

3.2.1. Phase 1: Japan dominates

3.2.1.1. The Battle of Pearl Harbor

*Geo-strategic location

(see figure 3.1)

The Hawaiian Islands of the United States in the middle of the Pacific Ocean are a long chain of islands connecting each other from West - Northwest to East - Southeast with a total area of nearly 17,000 km 2 and about half a million people. The largest of these is Hawaii Island (over 10,000 km 2 ) located at the easternmost point of the archipelago, but the most important is Oahu Island with an area of about 150 km 2 , located about 140 miles northwest of Hawaii. On the south coast of Oahu Island is the city of Honolulu (200,000 people), the capital of the entire archipelago. Also on the south coast of the island, west of Honolulu

About 6 miles away is Pearl Harbor, the main base of the US Pacific Fleet (since 1940).

The US Pacific Fleet was built on a bay that cut deep into the island's mainland and divided into many hidden bays and channels, with an island in the middle of the bay called "Ford Island" as a natural pier. Pearl Harbor had ideal natural conditions to protect the fleet against any external attack. The harbor's defenses were extremely careful with a special steel mesh system against torpedoes and submarines. In addition to Pearl Harbor, the fleet had another base, Lahaina Harbor on Maui Island, an island located about halfway between Oahu and Hawaii [18, p.46].

The US Pacific Fleet was truly the most powerful fleet in the world at that time with about 170 ships of all kinds, the main force being 4 aircraft carriers: Yorktown, Saratoga, Enterprise, Lexington; 11 battleships: Mississippi, Aidaho, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Arizona, Califonia, West Virginia, Maryland, Tennessee and the flagship Pennsylvania and dozens of cruisers. The entire massive force was under the command of Admiral Husband Kimmel, the fleet commander since February 1941.

To protect the fleet and the islands, there was an army force of nearly 43,000 soldiers and officers, of which 35,000 were stationed on Oahu. This force was equipped with very modern weapons. On the island of Oahu, there were 5 airports, the most important being Hickam airport near Pearl Harbor and Wheeler airport in the north of the island. On December 7, 1941, there were a total of 233 army military aircraft on the island, including 150 fighters, 35 modern B17 flying fortresses, and the rest were other bombers. With the above force, General Walter Short, commander of the army on the island of Hawaii, still thought that he lacked defense means, especially weapons to counter enemy air attacks. With 81 Catalina seaplanes and 6 additional B17s on reconnaissance missions for the entire archipelago, Admiral Kimmel also believed that he did not have the ability to regularly conduct long-range reconnaissance of the entire sea area around the archipelago. Therefore, he focused on patrolling the southern sea area, where the Japanese Marshall Islands were located.

In a submission to President Franklin Roosevelt on April 24, 1941, Secretary of Defense Henry Stimson and Army Chief of Staff George Marshall unanimously affirmed that: “ Thanks to its strong defense, its garrison forces, and its natural characteristics, the island of Oahu can be considered the strongest press in the world ” [18, pp. 46-47].

Located in the middle of the North Pacific, Pearl Harbor is both a command base, a logistics base, and a maintenance and repair facility for the Pacific Fleet's warships. From this base, the US Navy's Pacific Fleet can control the entire North Pacific with its surface ships, submarines, and air forces.

Speaking of the power of Pearl Harbor, General Marshall told FDR that the harbor was invulnerable and that it was the least likely target. The general said:

It is…the most powerful fortress in the world…Enemy transports, naval escorts and transports will begin to arrive in a state of air combat at a range of about 1,267 km. This attack will increase in intensity until, at about 338 km from the target, the enemy forces will be subjected to all types of bombers closely supported by our modern attack aircraft [cited in 5, p. 187]

On the other hand, with the terrain of Pearl Harbor, the Americans thought that the depth of the bay was only about 10m, making it impossible to launch torpedoes, so they only guarded against bombers and submarines without dropping torpedo nets around the warships. Now, they were surprised to witness the new invention of the Japanese on how to use torpedoes in shallow waters, allowing planes to fly close at slow speeds to launch torpedoes that skimmed the water surface at very slow speeds, only about 30-40 nautical miles per hour [18, p.56].

On the other hand, at the time the Japanese army attacked Pearl Harbor, the defense capability here was very low. The Japanese Consulate in Honolulu, Tadashi Morimura, telegraphed to Tokyo that: The United States was not prepared to deal with an attack.

of Japan here, “there were no torpedo nets around the battleships, no air defense balloons near Pearl Harbor ” and affirmed that “ it was possible to take advantage of this very favorable opportunity to launch a surprise attack ”, at the position of the warships in the harbor he emphasized “ there were no reconnaissance missions from the fleet ” [Quoted from 18, p.20].

Thus, when the US-Japan relationship was only waiting for war to break out, the US in Hawaii was not well prepared for a war with Japan in terms of spirit, material and technology. In particular, the British navy's experience of the Atlantic war was not properly noted by the US navy.

* Japan's plan

The Japanese general staff initially considered launching a simultaneous attack on Malaya and the Philippines and then capturing Indonesia. But Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto, commander of the Japanese Combined Fleet, opposed this plan because it did not target the most important American force in the Pacific, the fleet. He proposed a surprise attack on Pearl Harbor to cripple the American fleet. At the same time, the Japanese army would launch landings on Wake Island, Guam, Hong Kong, Malaya, the Philippines, the northern islands of Indonesia and occupy Thailand. The Japanese hoped to capture the Philippines in two months, Malaya in three months, and control the area bounded by the international dividing line and the chain of islands from New England to Sumatra and central Burma in five months.

The Japanese planned a limited war with clear economic objectives. The Allied positions could be said to lie in two circles, about 1,500 and 3,000 miles from the Japanese port of Yokohama. The inner circle included Hong Kong, Mali at 1,782 miles, Guam 1,352 miles, and Wake Island. The outer circle included Singapore, Jakarta, Surabaya, Rabaul in New England at 2,526 miles. Other targets outside this circle that the Japanese could attack were Calcutta, Colombo, Sydney, Ackland at 4,789 miles. San Francisco or Vancouver at 4,262. And Panama was 7,682 miles from Yokohama, that is, a little closer than the entrance to the Suez Canal to the south at about 100 miles.

[21, p.140]. The original Japanese plan did not envisage the capture of several small positions within a distance of three thousand miles, such as Kiska Island in the Aleutians at 1,977 miles. Midway Island at 2,250 miles and strongholds on islands farther away than Rabaul that the Japanese could capture from this position in the Southwest Pacific by attacking from island to island with aircraft from aircraft carriers supporting planes from airfields on land. Operations against Midway Island or the Aleutians could not be supported by airfields on land. In addition, Japan could not attack the territory of the United States and Great Britain and threaten the existence of these two countries [21, p.141].

The attack on Pearl Harbor had several purposes. First, the Japanese hoped to prevent the Pacific Fleet from interfering with the Japanese conquest of the East Indies. Second, the Japanese hoped to gain time to consolidate their position and strengthen their navy, before new American warships were built under the Vinson-Walsh Act. Finally, it was intended to be a blow to American morale, which might discourage the Japanese from continuing their conquest of Southeast Asia without interference. As military commentator Philippe Mason has written: Along with the military plan, General Tojo also worked out a political plan to monopolize all of Southeast Asia, to eliminate all white Europeans and to build a “commonwealth” that would give Japan a monopoly on the economy, thanks to its resources of Indonesian oil, tin, and especially Malaysian rubber. The expansion only involved depriving the Dutch and British of their colonial interests in the region, which necessarily meant a war with the United States. With the strategic location of the Philippines, the United States could threaten the sea traffic from Japan to Southeast Asia. Therefore, the Japanese military command had to consider destroying the majority of the main American forces at Pearl Harbor in Hawaii through a surprise attack [14, p.23].

The attack on Pearl Harbor was not intended to draw Japan into a protracted war against the United States, but as a knockout punch. It was intended to achieve economic and political goals. It

was designed to eliminate the American floating fortress, the Pacific Fleet, thus forcing the United States to withdraw from Southeast Asia, secure its sovereignty over the Pacific Ocean, and prepare the way for conquests in Southeast Asia, which would yield the oil and other vital natural resources they lacked. Especially since they were under an American embargo. Once this conquest was accomplished, they intended to lock these countries into a defensive belt so strong that the Americans would be reluctant to attack it because it would cost them dearly in lives. They hoped to then negotiate a peace that would allow Japan to consolidate and expand its “Great Co-Prosperity Zone” in East Asia. The Japanese were well aware that the United States had begun to focus its attention on the war in Europe, and President Roosevelt was eager to join in that battle. One thing the Japanese could not imagine was that the Americans could undertake a protracted war in both oceans. The Japanese did not properly assess the potential of the United States [1], [5], [19].

The author of the plan to attack and destroy the American fleet at Pearl Harbor was Fleet Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto, 57 years old and had been devoted to the Imperial Japanese Navy for 40 years, up to 1941.

The plan to attack Pearl Harbor originated from the tactics of the Japanese navy during the Russo-Japanese War (1904-1905). Under the command of Admiral Heihachiro Togo, in 1904 the Japanese fleet did not declare war and took advantage of the darkness to launch a surprise attack and destroy the Russian fleet at Port Arthur. In 1905, another surprise attack by the Japanese fleet in the Tsushima Strait sank the second fleet of the Tsar, in which the young lieutenant Isoroku Yamamoto was wounded in the leg and left arm.

In the 1930s, aircraft carriers appeared, Yamamoto was one of the advanced naval officers who quickly realized the great power of aircraft strikes launched from aircraft carriers, so he considered aircraft carriers as the main attacking force of the navy instead of battleships with giant guns.

The Japanese naval leadership was always preparing for war against

The US followed the tactic of luring the US fleet out of its base in Hawaii towards Japan and ambushing and destroying it in its own waters. Meanwhile, Yamamoto was then the navy chief, and Yonai, the navy minister, always opposed the alliance with the Axis powers to wage war against the US.

Yamamoto, a former Harvard University student and Japanese naval attaché in the United States, understood very well the material strength of the United States compared to Japan. He affirmed that the Imperial Navy could not defeat the United States and Britain. When Prince Konoe became Prime Minister and asked his opinion on a war with Britain and the United States, he immediately said: “ If told to fight without thinking about the consequences, I would fight and win in the first six months or a year; but I do not believe that I will win in the second year, and especially the third year. I hope that the day will come when everything will be done to avoid a Japan-US war ” [cited in 18, p.35].

Through his experience and understanding of the enemy, Yamamoto understood better than anyone that a long-term war of victory against the power of the United States was impossible.

However, Yamamoto still developed his tactical thinking based on the hypothesis of a war with the United States. He advocated fighting the American fleet in the farthest seas that the Japanese fleet could reach, such as the Marshall Islands.

In 1940, he told Rear Admiral Shigeru Fukudome, his fleet chief of staff, “ I think an attack on Hawaii is now possible, and our air force needs to be trained in this direction to win ” [cited in 18, p.35]. He planned to strike a surprise blow at Pearl Harbor to cripple the American fleet; at the same time, by all means, let the Japanese army invade Southeast Asia before the United States could rebuild its fleet.

In Europe, on November 11, 1940, the British aircraft carrier “Illustrions” entered the Ionian Sea, 170 miles from the naval base of Taranto (Italy) and launched a bombing raid with 21 torpedo planes. The moonlit attack did not hinder the raiding force in reaching its target. The British planes torpedoed three Italian battleships: one sank, two were put out of action.

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