Quote:
Originally Posted by urqh
Whats the betting someone may just have seen em coming at some stage....Its one thing to launch a surprise attack from the air...Its another to sneak in a massive amphibious landing and hope it works...Yes in Malaya round back of Singapore..and others...but I think Jugheads former comrades of years gone by, may just have said hold on a doggone darned minute....
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That is indeed the most usual reaction.
And I am sure that it was just the same inside of Pearl Harbor at 0756 on Dec.7'41.
AFAIK. the size of the incoming force changes not a historical thing when there were NO Americans looking for one at all.
The OTL history is full of instances when an early warning of the incoming Japanese air attacks on Pearl Harbor COULD have been sounded, yet NONE AT ALL were. I think because the American defenders of the day could just NOT bring themselves to believe that Oahu, the "Fortress of the Pacific" could be attacked at all, LET ALONE by the scrawny little Japanese, while the battleships of the Pacific Fleet were MOORED inside.
Yet the OTL Japanese did it all the same. Foolishly as it turned out 4 years later but in 1941, who could know what would come to pass ?
Save, I suggest, for Yamamoto ...
IMO, with the Allied oil embargo in place, the Japanese Empire was already dying and had little more to loose by going out fighting.