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DrADZ -> RE: Attack on Pearl Harbor, new book (8/13/2011 6:53:20 PM)
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Thank you for your note. I originally came to the site because of my interest in WITP. I have had an ambition to build my own Pacific War campaign simulation for a long time. Back in the 1990s I published a WW II surface warfare simulation called Action Stations!, and I always wanted to expand it to carriers and airpower, and then go to the strategic level. But WITP and WarPlan Orange have been sitting on my shelf for many moons, and I wanted to find out if upgrading to the WITP Admiral’s Edition would be worthwhile before wading into the manual. Advice solicited.
Regarding Nikademus’ opinion of Attack on Pearl Harbor, I assert that he has misrepresented the book in many ways. In a previous posting I showed one of the more egregious examples. In scanning his comments I see that much of it is based on his opinion, not facts or data. Consequently, that is one reason why I mentioned (i.e. “name dropped”) some my qualifications – a reader has to make a decision on who he is to trust.
Let me offer up some of my views on the issue of aircrew quality, about which Nikademus avers that I have a “bug up my bum.”
First, you have to understand the context of the discussion. The data shows that the overall results of the Japanese attack on the Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbor seriously underperformed both the potential of the attack and the Japanese expectations. The Japanese had 16 priority targets (8 BB and 8 cruisers). They were expecting, and ought to have achieved, 27 torpedo hits, 5 to 8 AP bomb hits, and 49 GP bomb hits. The level bombers did great, but the torpedo bombers seriously underperformed expectations. There were 19 torpedo hits, of which 6 were either overkill or wasted against inappropriate targets, and the dive bombers did nothing to advance the objective of the attack (including the 5 hits on Nevada, which I argue were superfluous since Nevada was already out of the war for six months due to a torpedo hit, and the Japanese know that their GP bombs could not penetrate battleship armor). The Japanese had the potential to sink or destroy 14 of the 16 priority targets, with additional hits available, but they placed killing hits on only three. The attack achieved about one-fifth of its potential.
Why? I detail in the book the command errors, planning errors, and execution errors that contributed to this poor result. In that context, it is also reasonable to question the quality of the aircrew and the effectiveness of their training.
Many – I would contend, most – of the general history books on the Pacific War revere the combat abilities of the early-war Japanese aviators. Burton wrote of these historians: “Japanese aviation abilities, heavily downplayed before the war, were suddenly accorded almost mystical reverence.” Nikademus believes that it is silly to claim this in 2011, and he cites Shores. I will admit that I have not read much of Shores’ work yet – I have two of his books on my shelves awaiting the time – they were not consulted for Attack because of my impression that there would not be much information on Pearl Harbor. If Nikademus could provide me with a citation and reference to which of Shore’s works supports his position I would be grateful.
Be that as it may, most readers – most historians – do not appear in 2011 to be as informed as Nikademus. Books claiming that the Japanese were all elite pilots remain in print and continue to appear. I have given five public talks on the Attack to audiences that range from the “interested general public” to defense department professionals, and in each there has been surprise that I would offer data that suggests that the Japanese were not the superpilots of legend. You can go to various web sites and watch television specials to see the myth repeated again and again, citing these legacy sources.
Consequently, it seemed worthwhile to address this issue in the book, both to document the corrective evidence, and for completeness in investigating the poor performance of the raiders. I am bewildered as to why Nikademus is so upset that I devoted a portion of the book to the topic.
Claims of the Japanese aviator’s prowess are generally buttressed by a few points:
1) A claimed average of 800 hours per aircrew;
2) The high attrition rate in the flight training program, implying selectivity;
3) The approximate two month period of intensive training before the attack.
The 800 hours claim is, in my view, not impressive. Take a chotai of 9 pilots, 8 nuggets with 500 hours each and one honcho with China War experience and 3,000 hours. Average: 777 hours. But this group is not going to perform like 800-hour pilots – it is like the old adage, “if you place your head in the furnace and your feet on a block of ice, on average you are comfortable.” In reality, the only experienced pilot will be spending most of his time watching out for the nuggets, and the overall performance of the unit will be more like 500 hours than 777 hours.
A component of the cited 800-hour average is the approximate 2-month period of intensive training for the raid. According to the log book of one dive bomber pilot, they were racking up about 30 hours a week during this training period. 8 weeks, 240 hours of training, and the new nugget has 740 hours of training, just about at the 800-hour average.
So, the 800 hour average figure really does reflect a bunch of nuggets just out of training leavened by a few experienced leaders.
This fits in with the testimony. The Japanese trained to a one-year cycle. In September they did their annual shuffle – bringing in the new aviators and discharging or transferring the experienced people. People from the previous cycle were not retained, as the Japanese believed that carrier duty was so arduous that 1 year was the most an individual could take before they were too exhausted to be combat effective.
The additional problem was that 500 flight hours of Japanese training was not the same as 500 hours of US training. US fighter pilots left basic training and went to their squadrons with time in type, training in air combat maneuvering, formation flying proficiency, aerial gunnery and strafing training using live ammunition, carrier deck maneuvering training, ground touch-and-gos on a simulated flight deck, and at least 5 actual carrier deck landings. When they got to their squadrons they had all the pieces to fly combat immediately (although most squadrons put them immediately into their tailored training programs, with the rest of the pilots). My understanding is that a Japanese pilot was to be trained in all these skills AT THE SQUADRON LEVEL. They came out of basic knowing how to fly, spin recovery, some basic acrobatics, some cross country flights, and not much more. They were to become combat aviators from the training they were to receive in their squadrons. They learned to fly in basic and fight in their squadrons, while US pilots learned to fly and fight in basic.
Thus, the Japanese fighter pilots has to LEARN formation flying in the weeks before Kido Butai departed – not, as Nikademus claims, just refresher training for proficiency.
This system was dreadful, and ill-served Japan in the future war. Many other observers have noted that, while the US brought back experienced aviators into training roles, the Japanese did not, and most of their aviators would not get rest and eventually perish while in the front lines. Well, the system did that. The experienced aviators were not needed to teach basic training to newbies, any pilot could do that. They were needed to teach tactics and pass on their combat experience, which in the Japanese system was to be performed in the front lines by the experienced pilots! So, the greenies were sent forward, and because of losses had to be committed before they were fully trained, and they went down in flames next to the veterans who were supposed to be their instructors.
As I also stated, there was a severe shortage in carrier-qualified aviators. The Japanese did not do a good job in anticipating their manning requirements. 1941 saw Zuiho, Shokaku, Zuikaku, Shoho, and Taiyo commissioned, increasing the carrier aircraft capacity by over a third. The Japanese had not ramped up their training program to provide sufficient aviators to fill these slots! They had to scramble to fill all the slots just for Kido Butai, stripping aviators that were to go to other carriers. After that, some of the escort and light carriers were used as aircraft transports in the beginning of the war due to a lack of aviators, and some carriers had obsolete Type 97 fighters because of a shortage of Zeros. Kido Butai tried to raid the training establishment for more aviators, especially Zero pilots, but were largely unsuccessful.
The point is that the aviators on Kido Butai were not some elite group with China War experience, but rather mainly the regular product of the training establishment with some odds-and-ends sweepings from whatever they could steal from the ground establishment, with only the leadership positions filled with experienced aviators. I do not know percentages for these groups, but the math would imply that the experience was concentrated on the chotai leader level and up.
It should also be noted that most of the China War experience came not to the tailhook squadrons, but to the IJNAF land-based squadrons. The carrier squadrons launched only a handful of strikes before the war moved inland and out of their range. A few tactical squadrons of Zeros were moved forward. But the idea that all the experienced Japanese naval aviators were steely-eyed veterans with hundreds of hours of China War combat experience is dead wrong.
The additional problem embedded in the Japanese system is that the wholesale August-September transfers would totally rip apart unit cohesion. I have five tailhook navy aviators in my group at APL, and they testify that it would take about three months to rebuild unit cohesion after such a mass migration. A lack of unit cohesion in some units was very evident in the Pearl Harbor attack, especially among the carrier attack bombers from the Soryu and Hiryu carrying torpedoes in the attack.
The other thing is the rate in which the training hours were accumulated during the workups to the Pearl Harbor raid. Experienced pilots can get something out of 30 flight hours a week, but nuggets cannot. There was just too much information being pumped into them, without the needed context to fit it together – the needed foundation needs time to be internalized, and that time was not available. I saw a related phenomenon when I was the head of curriculum for Operations Research at the Naval Postgraduate School. The OR curric is very heavy on advanced mathematics, statistics, and computer programming, and the professors literally firehosed the students (because the profs like to get to the cutting edge stuff quickly, their primary interest). Well, in education and training there is a concept called “soak time.” You can fire-hose the student and they can study for the tests and get the grade, but they will not have absorbed more than a fraction of the material. We had to do a lot of re-teaching in the advanced coursed. Dumping 240 flight hours on to a nugget over two months might seem impressive, but the training just will not be as effective as the same number of hours over a more reasonable period.
My bottom line in evaluating the situation is that the 800-hour claim is not as impressive as is accepted in the western histories.
This correlates well with some other data points. A) the original plan called for a night launch, with the strike to arrive over the harbor at dawn. This plan was changed to a dawn launch because the 5th carrier division did not achieve night carquals. How many hours of night training was thus wasted? What does this say about the proficiency of the aviators? B) The entire operation was delayed (IIRC, one week?) when the planners assessed that the aviators were still insufficiently trained.
As for the Japanese attrition rate in training, this is more a symptom of a dysfunctional organization than a sign of excellence. Read Saburo Sakai’s memoires, and he relates (IIRC) thing like men being washed out for failing at kendo, or not being able to climb a greased pole, or not being able to stand on your hands for a specified duration. That, and the brutal and demeaning treatment. During the war and immediately after the US Navy and Army lined up a bunch of scientists to try to devise tests to identify good fighter pilots candidates. They learned that a very high percentage of the top ten percenters (those that accounted for more than 50% of the kills) were late bloomers. The Japanese method of washing out candidates was so capricious that they undoubtedly lost a large number of these potential late bloomers.
We have also the testimony of several of the Japanese aviators that the 5th Division was really young and “really green.” Nicademus would have you believe that these comments reflected the snobbishness of the other carriers (based on – what, Nick? Your own unimpeachable opinion?). Nick must have missed the Kate pilot from the 5th Division, who echoed this opinion. At 19 he stated that he was one of the more experience carrier attack aviators on his ship - he recalled that his gunner and radioman were even younger - and the only one on his ship who had actually dropped a practice torpedo. His testimony fits in well with all the other facts related above.
That is a fair summary of the arguments. Where there are opinions expressed, they are based on facts, testimony, and a pretty fair understanding of how military organizations operate. I would submit that Nikademus offers only his own opinions, and the secondary sources he mentions would need to be double-checked first – after all, if Nikademus cannot quote my views or arguments accurately, how are we to feel secure that his sources are being cited accurately?
There are other points where Nikademus is in error. He misquotes my points shamelessly.
For example, I never stated that the 5th Division did not have any experienced pilots!
I never said that Blue kills would go up exponentially if more US fighters were aloft!
And I certainly never used “cutting derogatory language” in referring to the Japanese, certainly not to the extent that Nik has used cutting and derogatory language in referring to my work (double standard here, Nik?).
There are others.
It is very clear to me that Nikademus does not comprehend what he reads, or that his preconceived notions warp his interpretations of what he reads, based on a comparison of what I wrote and what Nikademus claimed that I wrote. It is frustrating to me as an author to put together what I feel is a pretty important work, only to have someone misrepresent the book, claim that it is junk, and convince others that the book is not worth reading.
I appreciate the opportunity to offer some corrections to the discussion.
But this is getting a bit long.
Best regards, Alan Zimm
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