The Attack on Pearl Harbor Quotes

“The Japanese failed in their greatest of all expectations—that the shock of having their Pacific Fleet eviscerated would bring the Americans to the negotiating table. This did not happen; this miscalculation was The Great Strategic Error of the Pacific War.”
― Alan Zimm, The Attack on Pearl Harbor: Strategy, Combat, Myths, Deceptions

“Generally blind to logistics constraints, the Japanese did not care to visualize or understand the constraints under which the Americans would operate.”
― Alan Zimm, The Attack on Pearl Harbor: Strategy, Combat, Myths, Deceptions

“A successful attack against Pearl Harbor would force the Americans into a “long war” strategy from the outset, exactly the kind of war that the Japanese knew they could not win.”
― Alan Zimm, The Attack on Pearl Harbor: Strategy, Combat, Myths, Deceptions

“The full system consisting of radar and human observers connected to an Aircraft Information Center (AIC), which would control the pursuit squadrons and air defenses. The AIC was successfully tested on 27 September 1941, more than two months before the”
― Alan Zimm, The Attack on Pearl Harbor: Strategy, Combat, Myths, Deceptions

“After the attack, US ships would be stripped of linoleum, bulkheads chipped to bare metal to remove flammable paint, wooden furniture was offloaded, paints, oils, and fuels better stored and better controlled, watertight integrity corrected and verified, and other measures taken—damage control quickly took precedence over habitability, comfort, or convenience. The susceptibility of ships to bombs and torpedoes would be greatly reduced as the war progressed.”
― Alan Zimm, The Attack on Pearl Harbor: Strategy, Combat, Myths, Deceptions

“By a combination of bad decisions, bad bombing, and bad ordnance, the 78 dive bombers in the second wave made no substantive contributions to the attack.”
― Alan Zimm, The Attack on Pearl Harbor: Strategy, Combat, Myths, Deceptions

“What the planners saw as a simple task just could not happen under combat conditions. The fact that an attack planned to take two minutes actually took 11 to 15 is an indication of the severity of the problem.”
― Alan Zimm, The Attack on Pearl Harbor: Strategy, Combat, Myths, Deceptions

“The Japanese did not think in terms of maximizing the physical damage to the Pacific Fleet as a whole, but maximizing the damage against the popular symbols of American naval power.”
― Alan Zimm, The Attack on Pearl Harbor: Strategy, Combat, Myths, Deceptions

“Availability percentages of 50–70% were not unusual for US forces, 30% or less for Japanese forward forces. The environment was a significant factor. Jungle heat, humidity, and desert sand were particularly hard on airframes and engines. Early in the war in the Pacific or North Africa theaters, 50% availability rates were a noteworthy accomplishment.”
― Alan Zimm, The Attack on Pearl Harbor: Strategy, Combat, Myths, Deceptions

“In addition, the float plane aviators got fewer hours and were not the same quality as carrier aviators.”
― Alan Zimm, The Attack on Pearl Harbor: Strategy, Combat, Myths, Deceptions

“Recognizing self-limitations was not an area in which the Japanese excelled—a culture where errors could result in suicide tended to limit thinking outside of societal norms.”
― Alan Zimm, The Attack on Pearl Harbor: Strategy, Combat, Myths, Deceptions

“The Japanese were never ones to allow calculations of material forces (or a roll of the dice) to take precedence over their deeply held belief in the primacy of fighting spirit and the unquantifiable superiority of Japanese crews and equipment. These games were “mere mathematical exercises.” They ignored the factors of luck and divine guidance, factors that the proponents were sure favored the Japanese.”
― Alan Zimm, The Attack on Pearl Harbor: Strategy, Combat, Myths, Deceptions

“Yamamoto took the course of action Japan had wanted the Americans to take, and the Americans’ Interceptive Operations did to the Japanese what the Japanese had hoped to do to the Americans.”
― Alan Zimm, The Attack on Pearl Harbor: Strategy, Combat, Myths, Deceptions

“Yamamoto’s strategy had a significant consequence that historians have not previously recognized. The attack on Pearl Harbor by its very nature made Japan’s overall concept for winning the war OBE. For Zengen Sakusen to succeed, the American fleet had to thrust west early in the war, before it was reinforced to overwhelming strength. And yet, the Pearl Harbor attack was to immobilize the American fleet for six months. These goals contradict.”
― Alan Zimm, The Attack on Pearl Harbor: Strategy, Combat, Myths, Deceptions

“Each navy tended to believe its intellectual foundation and abilities were superior to that of the enemy.”
― Alan Zimm, The Attack on Pearl Harbor: Strategy, Combat, Myths, Deceptions

“Insufficient fuel transportation would be one of the three greatest causes of the defeat of the Japanese (the others being the inadequate wartime replacement of pilots, and the starvation of industry by the destruction of Japan’s maritime transport).”
― Alan Zimm, The Attack on Pearl Harbor: Strategy, Combat, Myths, Deceptions

“If the Japanese were not totally blind to logistics, they were at least vision-impaired. They operated their forces with the barest minimum logistics support, often beginning operations with insufficient supplies to carry them through to completion.”
― Alan Zimm, The Attack on Pearl Harbor: Strategy, Combat, Myths, Deceptions

“The Pacific Fleet had four oilers equipped for underway replenishment of warships, but needed 25 for extended operations.”
― Alan Zimm, The Attack on Pearl Harbor: Strategy, Combat, Myths, Deceptions

“RAINBOW forced a “long war” strategy on the Pacific Fleet.”
― Alan Zimm, The Attack on Pearl Harbor: Strategy, Combat, Myths, Deceptions

“While confirmation bias and planning fallacy are an occupational disease of all human planners, national, historical, and military cultural factors made the problem especially prevalent among Japanese planners.”
― Alan Zimm, The Attack on Pearl Harbor: Strategy, Combat, Myths, Deceptions

“Japan had little chance for victory in a long war, and the Japanese knew it. They adopted a short war strategy which offered a chance to win, and built their force, trained their men and developed their tactics to support that strategy. They had no solution to the “long war” scenario—so they ignored it.”
― Alan Zimm, The Attack on Pearl Harbor: Strategy, Combat, Myths, Deceptions

“it was not losses that defeated American aspirations to move west, but the steely hand of implacable logistics.”
― Alan Zimm, The Attack on Pearl Harbor: Strategy, Combat, Myths, Deceptions

“American calculations showed the American battleline outclassing the Japanese battleline, even after Pearl Harbor.”
― Alan Zimm, The Attack on Pearl Harbor: Strategy, Combat, Myths, Deceptions

“The ABDA (American, British, Dutch, and Australian) “Fleet” had no common doctrine, no common language, and could barely communicate with each other. Comparing the ABDA forces to a speed bump would be to exaggerate its power.”
― Alan Zimm, The Attack on Pearl Harbor: Strategy, Combat, Myths, Deceptions