Attack on Pearl Harbor: Strategy, Combat, Myths, Deceptions by Alan Zimm

Author:Alan Zimm [Zimm, Alan]
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Publisher: Casemate
Published: 2011-05-06T04:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER EIGHT

BATTLE DAMAGE ASSESSMENT

The initial damage assessment was reported to Admiral Nagumo by Commander Fuchida. He had lingered over the harbor until after the departure of the second wave to evaluate the results. He returned to Akagi and made a quick round of the other aviators, comparing observations prior to going to the flag bridge. His initial estimate was two battleships sunk, four battleships with severe damage, and four cruisers greatly damaged.

A Japanese submarine reported a tremendous explosion in the harbor after dark. Later the Naval General Staff received a report through diplomatic channels that a battleship had been sunk by midget submarines after the air attack, a report that was accepted happily and uncritically.

After Fuchida’s initial report, the aircrews were individually debriefed, recording their assessments as to what they attacked and their results. Admiral Kusaka, “a man of the highest integrity who would scorn to embroider,”1 relates how “on each carrier a minute examination was conducted against the claimed result of the attacks, gathering the returned fliers. Its results were successively sent to the Akagi.”2

On Akagi,

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