Attack on Pearl Harbor

battle_name=Attack on Pearl Harbor

Nagumo's decision to withdraw after two strikes

Some senior officers and flight leaders urged Nagumo to attack with a third strike to destroy the oil storage depots, machine shops, and dry docks at Pearl Harbor. The United States had considered the vunerabilty of the fuel oil storage tanks before the war and secretly started construction of the bomb resistant Red Hill fuel tanks before the Japanese attack.

Related Topics:
Secretly - Red Hill fuel tanks

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Destruction of these facilities would have greatly increased the U.S. Navy's difficulties, as the nearest immediately usable fleet facilities would have been several thousand miles east of Hawaii on America's West Coast. Some military historians have suggested that the destruction of oil tanks and repair facilities would have crippled the US Pacific Fleet more seriously than the loss of several battleships. Nagumo decided to forgo a third attack in favor of withdrawing for several reasons:

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• Anti-aircraft performance during the second strike was much improved over that during the first, and two-thirds of the Japanese losses happened during the second wave, due in part to the Americans being alerted. A third strike could have been expected to suffer still worse losses.
• The first two strikes had essentially used all the previously prepped aircraft available, so a third strike would have taken some time to prepare, allowing the Americans time to, perhaps, find and attack Nagumo's force. The location of the American carriers was and remained unknown to Nagumo.
• The Japanese pilots had not practiced attack against the Pearl Harbor shore facilities and organizing such an attack would have taken still more time, though several of the strike leaders urged a third strike anyway.
• The fuel situation did not permit remaining on station north of Pearl Harbor much longer. The Japanese were acting at the limit of their logistical ability to support the strike on Pearl Harbor. To remain in those waters for much longer would have risked running unacceptably low on fuel.
• The timing of a third strike would have been such that aircraft would probably have returned to their carriers after dark. Night operations from aircraft carriers were in their infancy in 1941, and neither the Japanese nor anyone else had developed reliable techniques and doctrine.
• The second strike had essentially completed the entire mission: neutralization of the American Pacific Fleet.
• There was the simple danger of remaining near one place for too long. The Japanese were very fortunate to have escaped detection during their voyage from the Inland Sea to Hawaii. The longer they remained off Hawaii, the more danger they were in from U.S. submarines and the absent American carriers.
• The carriers were needed to support the main Japanese attack toward the "Southern Resources Area", the Philippines, the Dutch East Indies, Malaya, and Burma, which was intended to capture oil and other supplies. The Japanese government had been reluctant to allow the attack at all as it took air cover from the southern thrust, and Nagumo was under strict orders not to risk his command any more than necessary. As the war games during the planning of the attack had predicted that from two to four carriers might be lost in the attack, Nagumo must have been very happy to suffer no losses and did not want to push his luck.