US Navy Aircraft Carriers at Pearl Harbor on 12/7/41?

[PanzerWulff]

I was thinking What if the US carriers Had been in port on Dec 7 and had been Sunk,Crippled etc. I doubt we could have participated at Coral Sea or Midway as much as we were able.The Japanese navy would probably would have stregnthened their defenses and with Midway under their control could have made Pearl unusable as a naval base.What do you think??? How would the pacific war played out???
"Panzer"

[Hobbes]

WW2 might have taken a little longer, but the outcome wouldn't have been any different: the US outproduces Japan, goes on the offensive and ends the war with a nuke dropped from a long-range bomber.

The rest is just details    

[Madoc]

PW,

Yeah, that's an ugly thought!  I think the outcome wouldn't change though.  The war would go on longer in the Pacific.  Perhaps with less options to begin with in the Pacific, the US might shift more of its resources to fighting Germany and thus bring the war in Europe to a speedier conclusion.  Then again, perhaps not.  The amount of war materials and support the PTO got was extremely minimal to begin with.  "Germany First!" was the rule.

In the end, I think the sinking of the US Navy carriers at Pearl would mean a lot more dead Americans, a lot more dead Britons, and a whole lot more dead Chinese as the Japanese would run rampant for a year or two longer than in Our Time Line.  Whether this then would've resulted in a whole lot more dead Japanese than in OTL is something else to consider.

Maybe, without the US Navy being strong enough over there and thus with the island hoping campaign being much slower to get started, this might have inspired the USAAC to put a higher priority on getting the B-36 into service.  Thus, we might have seen B-36 raids operating out of the Aleutians - just like de Seversky advocated in "Victory Through Air Power."

And, if the war had continued that much longer I'd imagine we might have also seen the Bearcat, the Tigercat, the Mauler, the Skypirate, and the Boeing F8B's being in the air over Japan in those final days.

Madoc

[Sisko]

Well the Battle of the Coral Sea may have not happened. The Japanese would have been able to seize islands and bomb the Austrlaian mainland more.than in our time line.

They could have even disrupted the flow of material to Australia but that would have just meant that a lot of Australian designs that were never put into production were.

Such as the Sentinal tank, the woomera etc.

I tend to agree that the war would have lasted a lot longer in the pacific but I think the end result wold have been much the same.

[royabulgaf]

Point to consider:  This scenario presumes a longer Pacific war.  Also, the it presumes that the Germans would have lost sooner, if anything.  THis would mean a larger role for the USSR to play in the Pacific war.  East and West Japan, anyone?

Kim M

[BillSlim]

The USN transfers carriers from the Atlantic, as it did eventually anyway. Maybe the Pacific War goes a little differently, and lasts a few months longer, but it still ends in two A-bombs on Japanese cities.
IIRC Hornet, Wasp and Ranger were all in the Atlantic at that time, the first two transferred to the Pacific later on. The Enterprise and Lexington were both close to Pearl on the 7th, but I'll need to check where the Saratoga was.
Once the Essex and Independence classes become available then things would go downhill for the IJN pretty fast.

[BillSlim]

For arguments sake lets assume that the 'Big E and 'Lady Lex' returned early from their cruises and were caught at Pearl. I'd argue that these were the only two carriers likely to be in the area, unless more are transferred, but with the situation in the Atlantic that, IMVHO, is unlikely. However let's see where the USN's carriers would be in this AH.

PACIFIC FLEET.
Lexington class.
USS Lexington (sunk at Pearl Harbor).
USS Saratoga (under refit at San Diego)

Yorktown Class.
USS Enterprise (sunk at Pearl Harbor).

To sum up the Pacific Fleet has lost two out of its three carriers, leaving it with one carrier, which is refitting, thus will not be immediately available. No doubt the refit will be expedited in the circumstances.

Now lets look at what the Atlantic Fleet had.

ATLANTIC FLEET.
Ranger Class
USS Ranger.

Yorktown class.
USS Yorktown
USS Hornet

Wasp class.
USS Wasp.

That is a total of four carriers, more than enough to replace those sunk at Pearl Harbor, even if we discount Ranger as being too small and limited to deploy to the Pacific.
So basically IMVHO the Pacific War is merely extended by the time it takes to redeploy these three carriers, which would give PACFLEET a strike force of 4 CVs.
Ranger will probably have to stand in for Wasp in delivering Spitfires to Malta, and Coral Sea and Midway, or analogues to them, will possibly be fought with other carriers than historic (e.g. Sara instead of Lady Lex).

One other thing to remember, depending on the damage done, Enterprise and Lexington may be raised and repaired. The battleship force was essentially back in action by the Battle of Midway, though the slow speed of TF-1 meant that it was left out.

[elmayerle]

It's not quite this scenario, but Pearl Harbor by Gingrich and Fortischen ends with a set up for a carrier duel off Hawaii after the third wave of Japanese strikes takes out hte drydocks, the fuel farm,and CINCPAC headquarters.  Damn good novel, got mixed opinions of Gingrich as a pol, but he's part of a darn good writing team, hear.

[GTX]

It's not quite this scenario, but Pearl Harbor by Gingrich and Fortischen ends with a set up for a carrier duel off Hawaii after the third wave of Japanese strikes takes out hte drydocks, the fuel farm,and CINCPAC headquarters. Damn good novel, got mixed opinions of Gingrich as a pol, but he's part of a darn good writing team, hear.

Evan,

You've gotten me interested enough to purchase this book.

Regards,

Greg

[NARSES2]

Well my own scenario has the USN losing at Midway and then the Japanese take the Hawaian Islands. Leads to a "Pacific First" Policy.

Nuclear weapons don't come about in my little universe - call me "simplistic" or whatever but I can rationalise better that way

Chris

[B777LR]

Das boot x 1000  

[Geoff]

Midway may have gone the other way even with the IJN splitting its carriers to try to cover the Ilutians as well IIRC.
I like the idea of Das Boot X1000 though , and faster development of USN torpedos.
But I suspect it would have ended in tears for the Sons of Heaven much as in OTL with large nuclear flashes, but perhaps delivered by B-36s

[B777LR]

Midway may have gone the other way even with the IJN splitting its carriers to try to cover the Ilutians as well IIRC.
I like the idea of Das Boot X1000 though , and faster development of USN torpedos.
But I suspect it would have ended in tears for the Sons of Heaven much as in OTL with large nuclear flashes, but perhaps delivered by B-36s

How about nuclear flashes delivered by submarines  

[PanzerWulff]

Thanks for the input guys this is all helping me build the AT for my P-51/N naval mustang and a few other builds in the works  
"Panzer"

[Excalibur]

I'm seeing this sceanario mostly from the modelling opportunity perspective, although I agree that the war would have lasted longer, in the pacific atleast. I'm not sure about the European War ending at the same time, would the Americans have placed a higher priority on defeating Japan?

Another possibility is if Germany is defeated as per real timeline & Japan is still in the war then would the Soviets have launched an invasion of Japan?  I've read a few times that one reason for dropping the bomb was because the Soviets were planning on invading & as they didn't care less about casualties, it would have been an interesting fight.

Anyway, getting back to modelling possibilities, I like the idea of a B-36 in OD over Grey scheme or NMF with nose art etc.. Tigercats, bearcats, maybe Meteors & P-80s in the Pacific theatre. Its a great what if sceanario.

So if WW2 were to last till 1946/47 does that mean the Korean War would be delayed or maybe not start at all?