Pearl Harbor: The Seeds and Fruits of Infamy - Ludwig von Mises ...

316 Pearl Harbor: The Seeds and Fruits of Infamy
Intelligence Summary.” He shared this report with Kimmel on
December 2, at his usual 8:15 a.m. briefi ng. 19
Layton: Almost a complete blank of information on the carriers
today. . . . We haven’t seen the carriers except Cardiv 3
[Carrier Division 3] and sometimes Cardiv 4. . . . I felt apprehensive.
. . . I did not list Carrier Division 1 or Carrier Division
2 because neither one of those commands had appeared in traffi
c for fully 15 and possibly 25 days.
Kimmel: What, you do not know where the carriers are? . . . Do
you mean to say they could be rounding Diamond Head and
you wouldn’t know it?
Layton: [If they were,] I hoped they would be sighted before
now. 20
Dawn on Sunday at Pearl Harbor
It was clearly recognized in Hawaii that the way to assure
against a surprise air attack was to conduct long-range air-patrol
reconnaissance. But Hawaii had nowhere nearly enough planes,
trained pilots, fuel, or spare parts. As Admiral Patrick Bellinger,
commander, Patrol Wing Two at Pearl Harbor, later testifi ed:
[T]o be reasonably sure that no hostile carrier could reach a
spot 250 miles away and launch an attack without prior detection,
would have required an eff ective daily search through 360°
to a distance of at least 800 miles. Assuming a 25-mile radius
of visibility, this would have required a daily 16½ hour fl ight of
50 PBY-5 planes. Th is, in turn, would have necessitated a force
19 Ibid., pp. 4831, 4833. See also Edwin T. Layton, Roger Pineau, and John
Costello, And I Was Th ere: Pearl Harbor and Midway—Breaking the Secrets
(New York: W. Morrow, 1985), pp. 228–30.
20 Joint Committee, Pearl Harbor Attack, part 10, pp. 4837–39, Layton testimony
before the Joint Committee.