The Battles of Pearl Harbor and Midway: American Intelligence Failure and Success - Assignment Example

Running head: THE BATTLES OF PEARL HARBOR AND MIDWAY THE BATTLES OF PEARL HARBOR AND MIDWAY: AMERICAN INTELLIGENCE FAILURE AND SUCCESS Introduction The attack on Pearl Harbor and the Battle of Midway are among the significant naval confrontations in the history of America. The attack on Pearl Harbor by the Japanese, that marked America’s entry into the WWII, aimed at preventing the United States from interfering with their military operations in South East Asia. In addition, the Japanese wanted to cripple the U.S. and expand their control of the Pacific. This was a surprise attack that exposed a weakness on American intelligence. Observation prior to the attack reveals that there was a likely superiority conflict between the battleship service and the carrier service departments in the US navy with each trying to reserve its independent identity. The carrier service, which had always been a subordinate to the battleship administration, was considered not very vital in naval strategy and there was a perception that an attack on Pearl Harbor was impossible. Unlike the Pearl Harbor attack, the Battle of Midway between Japanese and U.S found the United States prepared. However, the battle remained unpredictable until towards the end. In the attack that started on June 4 1942, the Japanese sought to capture the central pacific island of Midway, which was being used by the US as an airfield. The Japanese aimed to destroy the American fleet and use the island as their base. However due to Communications intelligence success, the United states Pacific fleet made a surprise attack on the Japanese sinking four of their carriers and losing one. This paper compares and contrasts the causes of failure and success in the two battles. Similarities Prior to these attacks, there were clear signs of mistrust and suspicions by both Americans and Japanese. In addition, both Tokyo and Washington had been engaged in negotiations aimed preventing any event of war, but these later turned out as the strategies merely used to buy time as the military of the two nations put strategies in place. A clear sign of the inevitable war with Japan became evident when the American intelligence intercepted some sections of the Japanese diplomatic communications. Six messages wired from Tokyo to the Japanese embassy in Washington which communicated the deadline for the bilateral negotiations, and the consequences in case of the failure of the talks, should the US refuse to accept the terms so offered by Japan. For instance, “…and the messages illustrated the Tokyo’s fear or threat of rupture of the negotiations” (Lundstrom & John 2004). The other aspect of similarity is that during both the attacks on the Pearl Harbor and the attack on Midway, the United States intelligence was able to trap the communication from Japan to its key embassies worldwide concerning the issues of war with America and indeed other adversaries. US used all the available means to capture these informations such as the MAGIC in which the Navy and the Army used their unique sections to decode communications from Japan to other foreign embassies. Through this, most private and sensitive communications from Japan to its embassies majorly; Washington, Berlin and Rome, were available for study by both the American political class and the intelligence machineries. Similarly, the Japanese also managed to intercept and decrypt messages by the US. As a result, this implies that the two countries both had competent intelligence. Another similarity between the two was that they both demonstrated advancements in technology, not only by the Americans, but also, by the Japanese. For instance, the PURPLE, which was a top priority of the Japanese diplomatic code, was used for communication purposes. The PURPLE machines in use by the Americans were able on certain occasions to receive the communications even before they reach the intended recipients in various Japanese embassies. The machines also broke into the almost all the codes with greater success. The other system in use was the Radio Traffic. “…the Radio Traffic unit, within the Pearl Harbor Navy Intelligence mostly used to detect and analyze the location of the Japanese boats” (Hoyt & Edwin 2000). From a study of intercepted call signs, the radio traffic could locate the position and the composition of the Japanese fleet although it could not decode the coded messages from the fleet. Differences In contrast however, during the attack on Pearl Harbor, the intelligence seem not to have taken the necessary precautions since in the event of any military campaign, it was the sole mandate of the congress to declare war. One clear fact of the moment, however, was that the congress was hell bent on the isolationist policy and never allowed the American entry into World War Two. Furthermore, as a strategy to enter the war, Roosevelt overlooked the military capacity of Japan by simply stating that the only sure way to enter the war was to maneuver the Japanese to fire the first short, but without inflicting much pain to America. In this sense, America took chances and downplayed the threat that the Japanese posed. In addition, in the understanding of America and the intelligence was the idea that Japan would do this by violating the American interests elsewhere, not in Hawaii. However, this was not the case in the Battle of Midway whereby the plan of Japanese attack was clear to the Americans; thus, American intelligence was well informed in advance of the imminent attack on Midway. Similarly, reports revealed wide spread incompetence, underestimation, and misconception of Japanese capabilities and intentions by the Intelligence crew who were gathering intelligence for pearl harbor. For example, among the spots identified by the intelligence were the; Philippines, East Indies, Netherlands, Burma road, Thailand, Malaya and even the Maritime provinces of Russia. “The surprise is that the other American territories and the Pearl Harbor were not among the listed targets” (Lord & Walter 2005). In fact, Thailand was rated as the most likely point of attack by the Japanese since they have a large number of troops around the region that by numbers increasingly entered the Indochina. The general expectation of the American administration and the predictions by the intelligence was that the attack by Japanese would be staged somewhere in Southeast Indies but not the Pearl Harbor. In fact, as explained by Erminio (2001 “…a secretary of the Navy upon getting the reports of the attack, literally said that it was not true and that that must mean the Philippines”. This contrasts the case of Midway battle in which U. S. knew of the impending attacks, and exactly where it would take place. Another contrast is that on Midway, the possibilities put on the table by the American analysts and the intelligence were much less and more accurate as compared to the attack on the Pearl Harbor. This is to say that the attack on the Midway by the Japanese was much more predictable and certain to the Americans following the interception of the coded information by the Japanese. To further emphasize this, even the commanders on the ground in Hawaii did not expect this and had not taken the precaution for their own security, let alone the territory. Moreover, on Pearl Harbor, there was a lack of good coordination between Army and Navy caused by division of responsibility, secrecy about cytograpphy, as well as lack of enough manpower for intelligence. However, significant improvements had been made prior to the battle of midway, which enable good coordination in preparation for the impending attack. The battle of midway witnessed the use of enticing techniques like sending out an encrypted emergency warnings, which provoked a Japanese response, and thus, giving of instructions that identified their target. On the contrary, a great deal of the information intercepted was not acted upon with regard to Pearl Harbor attack. In addition, in terms of gathering intelligent information, a disparity between the two attacks on the Pearl Harbor and the Midway is that during the attack of the Peal Harbor, America had been receiving critical intelligent information from her embassy in Tokyo. The insights of the Japanese intentions were perfectly reported by the American Ambassador to Tokyo, Mr. Grew. Prange (2010) indicates that Grew, exclusively reported to Washington on the general mind and attitude of the Japanese toward America, and the possible future actions by Japan. According to Gordon (2008) “…on November 17, 1941, Grew precisely estimated that the Japanese future actions; revolved around the possibility of the Japanese exploiting every possible tactical advantage such as a surprise and initiative”. It is worth noting that this critical source of intelligent information for America was not available just moments before the attack on the Midway by the Japanese. Despite the absence, however, US was able to withstand the attack on the Midway and finally defeat the Japanese during this battle. To obtain the intelligent information, especially prior to the attack on the Pearl Harbor, some of the intelligent sources were the attaches and the observers of the allies based in America. According to Hoyt & Edwin (2000), these observed were mainly the British who provided the intelligence on Japan. This source was not very much reliable as some were not readily willing to provide the information and that they only reported on the war theaters in Europe while they ignored the actions of Japan on the East Asia. Other sources such as the media and the commercial ties were equally not reliable as they could not penetrate the Japan’s secrecy codes to deliver the sensitive, confidential and coded information from Japan. Moreover, important information regarding the enemy’s behavior was ignored recklessly by the intelligence and this contributed to the failure to prevent the destruction by the Japanese. For example, the American intelligence downplayed the report by Dusko Popov, a Briton working as a spy for Germany. Having been sent to US to spy on the military installations in Hawaii, he could deduce the intent of the espionage and thereby confided in the British about it. The British in turn organized an urgent meeting with US in New York together with Popov, but the US later dismissed these reports given that Popov had no hard no hard copy of the Germany’s espionage questionnaire. This is in sharp contrast with the Japanese attempted destruction in Midway, in which cases, the American intelligence left nothing to chance and indeed factored in the characteristic behavior of the \Japanese, which is launching attacks without sounding any earlier warning. These were indications of how the US intelligence bestowed confidence and trust only on its ability to break into the Japanese code and intercept their diplomatic messages, while ignoring other less likely but effective sources of the information. As observed by Dulle (2004), having suffered a major blow in Hawaii, the case was rather different in Midway since America kept high degrees of vigilance, and did not underestimate any information source. Another point of difference to not is that due to the Japanese culture of secrecy, the American intelligence found it rather difficult to ascertain the Japanese military capabilities. In essence, the Japanese government also endeavored to keep secret all the military plans. If anything, they went ahead to do the opposite of what they had drawn on paper. In connection to this, the Japanese drew up all the military plans in the Malaya, Philippines and other parts of the East Asia, but never drew any concerning the Pearl Harbor. Also, “…any communication concerning the Pearl Harbor attack plans was only communicated through the word of mouth” (Dulle 2004) and some sections of the military were out of knowledge of this grand plan. So to speak, America fell for this trick and was much concerned about the possibilities of the attack in the South East Asia. This, however, was not the case during the battle of the Midway. Having suffered such catastrophic losses in the hands of the Japanese military, the American intelligent was far much aware of the military might of the Japanese. For this reason, she had put in place, all the requisite military installations to combat and defeat Japan in the event of an attack in Midway. Again, as an attack in Pearl Harbor came by surprise, the attack in Midway did not come with such surprise. It was only predictable that Japan would move in to further neutralize America in the Pacific world and especially in Midway. Conclusion It is evident from the above discussion that the defeat of the America in Pearl Harbor was a matter contributed to by a number of intelligence failure. It ranges from acting on the unreliable sources of information to downplaying some vital information by the same intelligence. The Japanese culture of secrecy also played into the failure of the American intelligence. However, during the battle of Midway, the American intelligence seemed to have learnt from the past and reversed the circumstances that led to their failure in Pearl Harbor. References Allen, Thomas B. (April 1999). "Return to the Battle of MIDWAY". Journal of the National Geographic Society (Washington, D.C.: National Geographic) 195 (4): 80–103 (p.89). Barnhart, Michael A., 1987, Japan prepares for total war: the search for economic security, 1919–1941, Cornell University Press. Bergerud, Eric M., 2000, Fire in the Sky: The Air War in the South Pacific. 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