Subchaser
Posts: 1201
Joined: 11/15/2002 Status: offline
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quote:
ORIGINAL: TIMJOT Subchaser, I would be really interested in your source. Not that I doubt it, just that early war operations is a particular interest of mine and I am very interested in any new information can get on the subject. I have no doubt a torp attack was initially considered, It obviously would be the first questioned asked as soon as the arrival of force Z was known. But I have never come across any information that would indicate that planning went much beyond that stage. Does your source indicate what the exact plan of attack was? The feasibility of flight paths, approaches, depths, dock locations, harbor defences, ect..... Did they train on a dummy harbor ala the Pearl Harbor attack force? Keeping in mind they only became aware that the Force Z was going to be deployed at Singapore on Nov.28th, that would only leave about a week to prepare for an attack. TIMJOT, I was talking about initial plan of attack discussed at 22 Sentai meeting on 12/9/41, not about plan created before the war, I’m not aware of any such plan actually. The source is Sadao Takai’s “Rikko flyer”, Asahi Sonorama 1986, (Takai was commander of 2nd chutai /Genzan Ku in dec 41) this book is quite rare, and you probably won’t be able to get since it went out of print many years ago, however you can find some of Takai’s claims in book by Masatake Okumiya and Jiro Horikoshi ISBN: 0743479394. Some parts of Takai’s chapter covering attack on Force Z were reprinted in this book. I have both books and both are not in English, so excuse my poor translation. At noon Rear admiral Matsunaga gathered all Sentai officers for meeting at his headquarters. The main subject to discuss was the possible plan of attack on british warships in Singapore port. All pilots were hungry for combat, position of battleships was known and we had a chance to gain more glory than our fellow pilots in Pearl Harbor. HQ officers were analyzing data on depths in harbor in order to choose most acceptable direction of attack and most suitable combat formation. Genzan and Mihoro Ku were supposed to carry bombs, while Kanoya guys were ordered to attack with torpedoes. Pilots from my chutai were disappointed with this decision, they also wanted to attack enemy with torpedoes, they rightfully thought that this was the best way to succeed. This meeting took place on 9th dec, from noon till 1700 when Matsunaga received I-56 report Can anyone who have Horikoshi and Okumiya book repost this quote in good English please. I think that Niiti and Matsunaga decided to arm only Kanoya bombers with torps for port attack, because only this unit at Thu Dau Moi airbase had modified torpedoes type 91 kai 2, designed to be used in shallow waters. All other torpedo bombers participated in attack on Force Z were armed with torps of kai 1 model. I guess amount of kai 2 torpedoes was quite limited. Long time ago I’ve read very interesting article, probably in one of late 80s issue of Warbird international, on attack on Force Z where this point was discussed in detail. I’ll try to find this article.
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