During U.S. naval exercises in the 1930s, carrier aircraft twice successfully “attacked” Pearl Harbor. After taking notice, the Imperial Japanese Navy would repeat the formula on 7 December 1941.
; the familiar sound of aircraft had caught their attention, but something was different this time.Down at Pearl Harbor, the weather was nicer. The rain had stopped and the clouds were thinning. The majority of the Pearl Harbor–based Pacific Fleet was at anchor along or near Battleship Row, in dry dock receiving maintenance, or at the submarine base. It was dawn, and only a skeleton crew for each ship was on call. Most sailors still were in their racks, many sleeping off hangovers; attending religious services; or eating breakfast.
Without warning, waves of aircraft descended from the northeast out of the overcast sky, 152 aircraft to be exact—fighters, bombers, dive bombers, and torpedo planes. Enemy fighter aircraft strafed ground targets at Schofield Army Barracks, Hickam and Wheeler Army Airfields, Barbers Point Navy Airfield, and the seaplane base at Kaneohe while strike aircraft attacked hardened targets along Battleship Row, on Ford Island, and at other areas. When the attack was completed, all Army aircraft on the island were destroyed, and every Navy warship at Pearl Harbor had been sunk.
Hearing of the total surprise and devastation unleashed on the fleet at Pearl Harbor, the attacking commander smiled wryly. His name? U.S. Navy Rear Admiral Harry Yarnell. The date was Sunday, 7 February 1932.
Development of Fleet Problems
In the lull between World War I and II, the U.S. Navy conducted a total of 21 Fleet Problems. These large-scale naval exercises, which took place from 1923 to 1940, helped Navy leadership develop and refine strategy, tactics, organization, and technologies.1 The problems provided an extremely realistic opportunity to plan and conduct operations on a transoceanic scale, a boon to a generation of new officers who would lead U.S. naval forces in World War II. On occasion, joint exercises were conducted with the U.S. Army. These Grand Joint Army-Navy Exercises were integrated with, or scheduled immediately adjacent to, a Navy Fleet Problem.
During this period the U.S. Navy evolved from a battleship-focused force to one that saw the future in terms of a combined-arms naval force of surface, subsurface, air, and Marine forces capable of projecting U.S. power across the Pacific toward Japan, relying heavily on tactics developed during the Fleet Problems. In 1939, Secretary of the Navy Claude Swanson noted that the Fleet Problems were “of the utmost value in training the personnel of the fleet,” while Admiral James Richardson, Commander-in-Chief of the U.S. Fleet from 1940 to 1941, stated that they were “fought with zest and determination.”2
Shortly after the fleet was restructured in 1922, the Navy initiated the first of the Fleet Problems. At the time, the fleet was rarely called on to show the flag or go into combat, and thus it was available to become a giant laboratory for at-sea exercises and large-scale battle experiments. The Fleet Problems were intended to provide naval leaders with the most realistic training possible short of combat. They would teach officers how to think through problems and train them in the development of operational plans and orders, testing doctrines and technologies in the process.3
Like the wargames conducted at the Naval War College, the Fleet Problems often were used to address major strategic, operational, and tactical questions of the day. Unlike the exercises at the war college, the Fleet Problems were conducted in real-time across huge expanses of ocean, giving participants experience in the real-world operating conditions that could be expected during wartime, something that could not be truly simulated in the classroom. Occasionally, the Fleet Problems were used to determine potential sites for air and naval bases or to evaluate bases for their vulnerability to attack.
In all, the Fleet Problems were critical to training the fleet. The senior commanders received training in how to conduct extensive transoceanic naval campaigns, and the problems helped develop the concept of the carrier task force and carrier air doctrine.4 In particular, the use of the USS Lexington (CV-2) and Saratoga (CV-3) during Fleet Problems IX through XV permitted highly realistic large-scale naval experimentation, leading to the evolution of the independent carrier task force.5
Exercise Target: Hawaii
From 31 January to 12 February 1932, Grand Joint Army-Navy Exercise 4 (GJE-4) was conducted as a lead-up to Fleet Problem XIII in March. GJE-4 called for the Blue (U.S.) force to recapture Hawaii from the Black (Asian, i.e., Japanese) force that had captured it earlier. The Blue force included the carriers Lexington and Saratoga, along with an expeditionary amphibious force of 40,000 troops on board 25 transports.6 The Blue force’s Admiral Richard Leigh worked with veteran airmen Rear Admiral Yarnell and Captain John Towers to create a battle plan.
Admiral Yarnell, known for his unconventional thinking, was a strong proponent of naval aviation, believing the long-range strike capabilities of a carrier task force had surpassed those of the fleet’s current capital ship: the battleship. He pushed strongly for construction of more aircraft carriers and reduction in the number and role of battleships, a view frowned on by many of his fellow admirals.
Yarnell now had an opportunity to prove the value of the carrier and its associated air wing. Unlike previous years, when radio transmissions from Yarnell’s large fleet were intercepted and the force was discovered and defeated, the admiral attempted something novel. He decided to break off a subset of the Blue fleet as an “advance raiding force,” consisting of the two carriers and just four destroyer escorts.7 This would be the first appearance of this new naval grouping, afterward known as a task force. The force then would conduct a surprise attack on the island of Oahu, focusing on Army airfields and the Navy base at Pearl Harbor. Yarnell believed that attacking on a Sunday was critical; most military personnel would be off-duty and thus unable to report quickly to their battle stations. Admiral Leigh adopted the plan.
Oahu Military Forces Destroyed
The Advance Raiding Force departed the West Coast along with the rest of the Blue fleet in late January under radio silence, then separated from the fleet on 5 February and proceeded toward Hawaii independently. As the force approached within a day’s steaming of Oahu, it encountered a squall, which had the fortunate side effect of hindering the Black force’s ability visually to locate the relatively small task force.8
After a high-speed, 25-knot run to within 100 miles north of Oahu, the carriers launched 152 aircraft in two waves just before dawn on Sunday, 7 February. The aircraft were a mix of escort fighters, dive bombers, and torpedo planes. Yarnell’s aircraft, which approached from northeast of the island and were undetected until descending out of the cloud cover to begin their attacks, achieved total surprise. After striking Army airfields across Oahu, the bombers went after naval installations at Pearl Harbor. Attacking aircraft fired flares to simulate machine gun fire and dropped flour-bag “bombs” on the ships in the harbor. While opinions on Black fleet damage varied, it was clear the attack was an outright success.
On 18 February, a public critique of GJE-4 involving approximately 350 Army and Navy officers was held at Pearl Harbor, with considerable uproar over the results. Judges were, by Admiral Yarnell’s standard, stingy with the awarded damage against Army airfields overall, but nonetheless they judged that all Army aircraft had been destroyed and all Navy warships at Pearl Harbor had been sunk.9 Yarnell believed that in real life the air raid would have devastated Army aviation assets across the board, a view proved by Japanese air attacks nine years later.
Umpiring of the event was conducted by Army officers, who may have been embarrassed by the success of the naval aviators; some of them went on to complain about the “legality” of attacking on a Sunday morning. Yarnell noted that the combat capability of the two carriers was not sufficient for war in the Pacific, and more were required in the region. A minimum of six and possibly as many as eight carriers were required to provide a mutually supporting balance of striking power and fleet air defense, a finding reiterated during later Fleet Problems.10
Lesson Unlearned
In 1938, Fleet Problem XIX consisted of several parts. After conducting general tests of fleet capability during Parts I through IV, the fleet reorganized and reset for Part V. During that exercise (conducted 25–30 March) Red (U.S.) forces were to defend Hawaii from Blue (Japanese) forces. Following the advice of his friend Rear Admiral Ernest King, Vice Admiral Edward Kalbfus planned a surprise air attack on Pearl Harbor. King directed the carrier Saratoga to detach from the main fleet and steam independently to a point northwest of Hawaii. While transiting behind a storm front (as similarly done during Grand Joint Exercise 4), she would launch an air attack against Pearl Harbor very early on Tuesday, 29 March, from 100 miles north of Oahu.
Like the strikes six years before, the impact of the air attack was devastating and set the stage for a successful invasion of Oahu by Blue forces.11 Although heightened security resulted in no press coverage of the surprise attack, details were leaked to the press months later.12 The overwhelming success of the attack, with fewer attacking assets used than during the 1932 exercise, clearly showed that the U.S. military had not reacted sufficiently to mitigate issues exposed by the earlier “attack.”
In stark contrast to elements within the U.S. Navy—especially the battleship admirals, who refused to acknowledge the success or innovativeness of the 1932 attacks—naval leaders in Japan paid close attention. Japanese military observers were on board fishing vessels off Oahu, taking detailed notes about all they saw that day.13 The Japanese Consulate in Honolulu sent a detailed memo to Tokyo, detailing how the surprise attack was accomplished.14 The Japanese War College studied the original 1932 attack four years later and came to the conclusion “in case the enemy’s main fleet is berthed at Pearl Harbor, the idea should be to open hostilities by surprise attack from the air.”15
The planning details of the 7 December 1941 attack were nearly identical to those of Admiral Yarnell’s 1932 attack, with the notable exception of an increase in aircraft carriers involved to six. This echoed Yarnell’s earlier statements that ideally six to eight carriers would be needed to support major offensive operations in the Pacific. The attack was launched on a Sunday from northeast of the island after a high-speed final run toward Oahu under radio silence, leveraging the masking effects of a winter Pacific storm. The Japanese force launched a similar number of aircraft (180) to attack island airfields and then proceeded to attack warships at anchor.
Japanese military leadership had learned the value of the 1932 attack. U.S. military leadership had not. Thus, the United States paid dearly in blood and treasure. Had U.S. military leaders been more open to the impact of naval air power in the years leading up to 7 December 1941, might the United States have escaped “a date which will live in infamy”?
1. Albert A. Nofi, To Train the Fleet for War (Newport, RI: Naval War College Press, 2010), xiii.
2. Ibid., xxvi.
3. Ibid., 2.
4. Ibid., 4.
5. Douglas Smith, One Hundred Years of U.S. Navy Air Power (Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2010), 95.
6. Nofi, To Train the Fleet for War, 151.
7. Smith, One Hundred Years of U.S. Navy Air Power, 104; George Morgenstern, Pearl Harbor—The Story of the Secret War (New York: Devin-Adair, 1947), 17.
8. Morgenstern, Pearl Harbor, 17.
9. Nofi, To Train the Fleet for War, 154; “Day of Infamy: The First Pearl Harbor Attack . . . 1932,” www.ussflierproject.com/tags/pearl-harbor-attack-1932/; Morgenstern, Pearl Harbor, 18; John C. Ackerman, “The First Aerial Bombing of Pearl Harbor,” www.johncackerman.com/pdf/ASO/2012/February-2012-ASO.pdf.
10. Smith, One Hundred Years of U.S. Navy Air Power, 106, 108.
11. Ibid., 116.
12. Nofi, To Train the Fleet for War, 231.
13. “Mock Attack on Pearl Harbor Set a Pattern for Japanese,” St. Petersburg, FL, Independent (Evening Edition), 6 December 1971, https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=950&dat=19711206&id=-VdQAAAAIBAJ&sjid=vlcDAAAAIBAJ&pg=4184,1567064&hl=en.
14. Morgenstern, Pearl Harbor, 18.
15. Ackerman, “The First Aerial Bombing of Pearl Harbor”; “Day of Infamy.”