Pearl Harbour and Days of Infamy

by Newt Gingrich

  Genda cleared his throat.

  “Perhaps I should go from the tactical to the strategic,” Genda opened, and Yamamoto nodded.

  “The Spitfire is a superior plane at nearly all altitudes and aptly designed for its mission, short-range defense and the gaining of aerial supremacy against similar and numerically superior enemy fighters. Against a formation of bombers its light-caliber weapons do not rapidly inflict killing damage, while in turn it is hit by the bomber’s defensive fire. Other than that weakness, it is a formidable opponent. The disadvantage the British had was their lack of a number of trained pilots; in desperation they were throwing boys up with but twenty hours in their planes. A wasteful school of training in terms of loss of both planes and pilots; but within days, the survivors were as hard-edged as the Germans. But it is a profligate approach. Better to have spent the time and money beforehand to train; I’d say half their combat losses were due to this factor alone.

  “In contrast the German 109 is a superb fighter as well and does carry heavier armaments. If a pilot could turn inside his target and get off a good deflection shot, it usually was a kill, especially against the slightly slower Hurricanes.”

  “Your conclusion.”

  “Speed and heavier weaponry are crucial for our fighters.”

  “And defense?” Yamamoto asked. “Some complain that our new Zeroes are superb as long as it is we who are doing the hitting, but collapse or burn if but a few hits are taken.” Genda nodded in agreement. The Zero had come on-line during his tour in England. He had finally gotten his hands on one only a month back. It was stunning when compared to the old Model 96, over 50 percent faster, but that speed came at the sacrifice of any type of defensive armor. Ironically, in simulated combat, the slower 96 could actually evade the Zero then turn inside it. More than a few of the naval pilots, though proud of this ultimate achievement of Japanese aviation design, expressed concern about the Zeroes’ ability to stand up to a head- on attack or to being jumped in a hit-and-dive attack. Training now was emphasizing luring the enemy into a turning fight, the old traditional “dogfight” as the Westerners called it, where it was believed it could outfly anything the West had, even the Spitfire.

  “We could sacrifice speed for more crucial armament, but that I fear would be a false path,” Genda continued. “Speed is everything, both for choosing when to attack and, if need be, when to run. I think a neglected lesson of the fight between the English and the Germans is the engines. Their Rolls-Merlin engine is beautiful in design, elegant, inline rather than radial so there is a significantly smaller profile when approached both head-on and from astern and less torque as well. From what I was able to learn, it is a tremendous power plant. If we could match the design or exceed it, that would give us the additional power to improve defensive armor without sacrificing speed. On the other side, both the Spitfire and the German 109s lack range. Our Zeroes have them truly beat in that. Their designs are for short-range tactical support, ours is for longer- range strike, and that is crucial. If we ever met a British carrier with Spitfires we could easily stay well out of their range and strike at our leisure.”

  “So you maintain that speed and range, for now, are the crucial factors, along with superior pilots in numbers.”

  Genda nodded.

  “The bombers?”

  “I did not get any opportunity to observe the British bombers, but all reports are they are abysmal, wedded to their doctrine of strategic bombing rather than tactical support.

  “However, the German bombers, especially their Heinkel 111s, which are good tactically, appeared to me to be very vulnerable to air attack and lack the ability to absorb punishment.”

  He remembered the lone Hurricane downing the Heinkel above the Thames. More defensive firepower astern, twin 12.7s, or even a 20-millimeter gun and armored engine protection on the Heinkel might have saved it.

  “I saw some limited use of their new Ju-88s, and that plane is a superb model. It can function as a medium-altitude bomber, as a dive bomber, or a low-level strike bomber. It is fast, maneuverable, and though not heavily armed, survives better due to speed and a less bulky profile. If I was to pick one plane from the German air force for our army or navy it would be their 88 ... it’d be a superb torpedo-attack plane and, without any conversion, on its very next mission dive-bomb carrying an armor-piercing weapon. It is a plane too large, though, for carriers, but would be superb as a ground-based weapon.”

  Yamamoto nodded and jotted down a few notes on a pad of paper.

  “Your report was damning of the German strategy. Explain why.”

  “Their faults were twofold, sir,” Genda said, now warming to the heart of what he had hoped would be asked.

  “And they were?”

  “The first attack. I understand the logistical problems the Germans had, of first occupying France, repairing damage to airfields, then establishing lines of supply from Germany for fuel, weaponry, ammunition, spare parts. But still it did give the British a crucial breathing time of well over a month and a half from the end of the fighting in northern France until the first blows were delivered.”

  “And you would have done what instead?”

  “Placed the highest priority on massing every single plane available along the coast, from Dunkirk down to Rouen, even if it meant removing air cover from what was left of their campaign against the French in the south, for that fight was already a foregone conclusion. Mass all of it, as quickly as possible. And then strike with everything, every single plane on the first day. Not just one strike, but as quickly as planes returned, if still flyable, to reload, and put them back up so that it was continual waves unrelenting from dawn till dusk.”

  “A tall order regarding logistics?”

  “An advantage our carriers have and land-based planes do not,” Genda said, with a smile.

  “Elaborate.”

  “Our ships sail fully loaded for numerous strikes; our deck crews trained for rapid recovery, turnaround, and relaunch; all weapons and fuel stored but a few decks away. The Germans should have planned better for this air offensive and had the stockpiles already in waiting, prepared to rush forward the moment resistance in northern France and Belgium collapsed, ready within four weeks of the beginning of their offensive to bring the coastal airfields in France back into operation and then start pounding the British airfields on their home island. Such a strike, with such speed, might very well have shattered morale even before Churchill could have, with his defiant words, rallied England to the fight.

  “I know it is disrespectful, but their Goering is a strutting popinjay,” and Genda used the English word, for there was no real equivalent in Japanese.

  “Once he allowed the English to escape Dunkirk, he should have devoted the next month to the buildup of a truly massive strike, the single killing blow. Instead he wasted away the best weather of the summer in trying to lure the British air force into fighting out over the Channel.

  “No,” Genda said forcefully. “I would have put fifteen hundred planes over the coast of England on the first day, and delivered five thousand sorties by the end of that first day.”

  “The target?”

  “Sir, why their airfields, of course. The Spitfires and, for that matter, the Hurricanes have limited time in the air. If Goering had come on in waves, after but an hour or two the British pilots would have been forced to land while under attack and then surely have been destroyed on the ground, or forced to flee farther inland to refuel and rearm while what was left of their forward airfields was totally destroyed.

  “The following day repeat the process, pushing farther inland if need be until finally a zone a hundred miles deep from the coast was swept clean of any ability by the British to launch aircraft. At that moment, the invasion could go forward, the few surviving British pilots and aircraft now forced to fly a hundred miles into the fight where swarms of German fighters would meet them. Once the first lodgments were made on the coast, even the most tenuous of holds by pa
ratroopers, glider troops, and sea-borne attack, forces could start landing German planes on English soil and continue the push farther inland. He could have done that in a campaign of less than two weeks. Instead he wasted away the best weather of summer with probes, and feints, and coastal attacks on shipping, rather than concentrating on one target and one target only ... the Royal Air Force.” Yamamoto nodded.

  “Also, as the British gained proficiency, due to the slow start of the German campaign, the British learned to send their Hurricanes in against the bombers while the Spitfires fended off the fighters. I could see where the Germans were putting more and more of their fighters into a defensive role, covering only the bombers that were taking heavy losses.”

  “And you would have done what instead?”

  “It never would have happened that way if the Germans had used the strategy I just outlined. Let us say on day one the German bombers took heavy losses pounding the British airfields and this wonderful defensive device of theirs, the ability to use radio waves to track incoming planes. I would have held the bombers back in the morning and early afternoon, simply sending in wave after wave of fighters to exhaust the British fighter command in all-out fighter-to-fighter battles without the need for the bulk of planes designed for offensive strike delegated instead to defend the bombers. Then the final punch of the day with all bombers massed and protected, the British fighter pilots, those left, going into the battle exhausted after having flown three or four sorties earlier in the day.”

  “I agree fully. I do not understand how a man of Goering’s experience did not see that,” Yamamoto replied, warming yet again to this young, intelligent, aggressive pilot before him. He had admired his courage when Genda presented his unorthodox views at the conference at the War College more than three years back and had marked him in his mind for greater things yet to come.

  “And your second point? The strategic view?” Yamamoto asked.

  “Sir, there is where I am still amazed. In spite of the German failure in their application of force throughout July and August, they did pound into submission most of the airfields in southeastern England, forcing their abandonment. Granted, the British dispersed planes to smaller, concealed airstrips useful for just a squadron or two, but nevertheless superiority was in the German hands--and then, just when victory was at hand, their utter foolishness of turning their force on London.”

  “We all know that now,” Yamamoto said. “I would think that the day the Germans started their terror bombing of London, Churchill breathed a sigh of relief.”

  “Exactly, sir. But the deeper point is that here was the moment where the Germans still might have delivered the knockout blow. They had finally learned not to send their attacks in as smaller uncoordinated waves of but two or three hundred planes. I witnessed their biggest attack, somewhere around fifteen hundred planes in the air at once.”

  He stopped for a moment, the memory of standing on the bridge, the massive air armada passing overhead, and its targets a waste. Never had he dreamed of such power in the hands of Japan. Over a thousand planes in the air at the same time. By all the gods, if given such power for a month, swarming forth from a dozen carriers, he could conquer the entire Pacific, giving to his beloved Emperor the most stunning victories in the history of warfare.

  “If, on that day, they had sent that tremendous stream of bombers against the surviving major airfields, Biggin Hill, Duxford, two, three hundred bombers hitting each, followed a half hour later by low-level raiders strafing and disrupting the salvage effort, and perhaps catching surviving fighters back on the ground,” he sighed, “they would have shattered British fighter command that day, and the invasion could have followed the day after. Instead they bombed wharves and warehouses-- invasion or not, a waste of effort--and, sir, as we both know, there was never the invasion that should have ended that war, which might now very well drag on for years.”

  He sighed, as if the wasted opportunity were his own personal loss.

  “Victory or defeat in that battle over England, it was entirely about airpower, the first such battle in history, but most definitely not the last. If the Germans had built a dozen battleships, what good would they have been, other than to serve as targets to be hit. If they had had five hundred more fighters instead, and the understanding of how to use them, the swastika would be flying over London this day.”

  “Sir, I think you know of my statement, which has caused me some embarrassment.”

  Yamamoto smiled.

  “I think so, but go on.”

  “The three most useless follies of humanity: the building of the pyramids; the Great Wall of China; and now, our building of the Yamato and Musashi.”

  Yamamoto kept a straight face. More than one of his battleship admirals had howled for Genda’s blood when he dared to say that in public. And yet he agreed. If Yamato and Musashi had been laid down as carriers, construction time and cost would have been cut in half, and at 72,000 tons each, the greatest carriers the world had ever seen, capable of launching two hundred or more planes each, would already be ready for sea.

  “The Germans failed in delivering the one single strike that can bring victory, and that, sir, is the key to airpower: that first killing strike with massive, overwhelming force.”

  Yamamoto refilled his cup and Genda’s.

  “Your report on massed carriers used to deliver an opening strike is of great interest,” the admiral said, “a profound change of doctrine.”

  “Sir, if all six fleet carriers, the ones we currently have and the two new ones about to be commissioned, were in a single mission we could put four hundred or more offensive planes in the air, have a reserve, and maintain as well an impenetrable cover over that fleet.”

  Yamamoto sipped his tea and stood up, leaning over to look at the map of the entire Pacific region, spread out on the table.

  “We must strike hard, we must strike first, we must strike in such a way that will so provoke them that they will not wait, they will sortie with whatever survives our first attack, and we then annihilate that. Only when the American navy in the Pacific has been sunk will we be able to force the Americans to agree to a negotiated peace. That must be our goal. Japan cannot possibly win a long war of attrition with the Americans. Their production capabilities will simply drown us. We must hit them so hard in the first round that they decide negotiation is the only realistic response. Anything less than that will lead to our ultimate defeat,” Yamamoto concluded with quiet but deep conviction.

  Genda smiled and nodded. ”Pearl Harbor,” he whispered.

  Yamamoto, who was famed for his “poker face,” said nothing as he stepped back from the table.

  “You will soon receive official orders to help draw up plans for such an attack. It is just that I wanted to hear your thinking first, and I see now that it matches mine.”

  “Sir, I do not have access to whatever intelligence has been gathered regarding what the Americans station there.”

  “You will now be included.”

  “I’ve studied what is open information. The army airfields and naval airfield will have to be suppressed. It will mean at least three hundred or more strike aircraft to do so and I would estimate our losses to be heavy.”

  “That is anticipated and will be provided for.”

  Genda could not suppress a grin. As a professional challenge this was the pinnacle. Years of study, of lecturing, of observing, and now at last, the chance to test his theories. ”I do not take this lightly,” Yamamoto said. “Both of us know America, both of us know the weaknesses she has shown, but we also know the hidden strengths. If drawn into a protracted war with her, eventually we will lose. It is impossible to match her numbers, her strength, unless somehow we can rally all of the Orient and define it as a war of liberation from Western Imperialism.”

  Genda sat back saying nothing.

  “But the army, with its brutish behavior in China, has only served to enlist more enemies than friends, and I fear that wherever
we go, it will be the same, so this will be a fight we must fight alone to victory or ignoble defeat. The army has only served itself and to instill in all who meet it terror and hatred. Nanking is a blot on the national soul that can never be erased. Never was it such in the days of the traditional samurai. It is a sickness that I fear will haunt us for a century to come. Let us at least hope that the navy shall fight with honor and chivalry as it was in the days of old. We must strike America in such a way that will cripple her ability to wage a war at sea and then annihilate what they have left, the same as we did with the Russians, first at Port Arthur and then when their Baltic and Black Sea Fleet arrived off Tsushima, but in so doing, not create a rage that few understand. The Americans can indeed be roused if they feel themselves morally offended. If we can achieve a complete early victory, then we can negotiate with honorable concessions offered to achieve the security we desire. ”Yamamoto looked back to the sleet slashing against the porthole window.

  “Achieve that, and then let us assume, just assume that in the years to come Stalin actually does fight against Hitler and defeat him. Perhaps at some future date, after establishing parity with the Americans, we might actually find ourselves side- by-side to face the Communist threat. Stranger things have indeed happened. If it should turn the other way, there would be time enough later to pick up the pieces in Siberia after Stalin’s collapse.

  “That is our task, to wound, to defeat, but not to so enrage America that regardless of loss, regardless of the folly of attempting to totally destroy us while the Russians smile and wait to fill in the vacuum ...” and his voice trailed off.

  He looked over at Genda.

  “I want a comprehensive campaign plan within ten days.”

  His words carried with them a note of dismissal.

  Genda stood up, formally saluted, and taking his hat he stepped out of the room into the blast of sleet and icy rain. The entire ride back in the open launch, he did not feel the cold.