What did the US navy do when they got bombed at Pearl Harbor?

Answer 1

For about twenty years before Pearl Harbor there had been a split in the thinking at the top of the Navy. The Navy had always been controlled by the battleship admirals, the "big gun club". They were still in charge, but were being challenged by the newer ideas of the aircraft carrier admirals, who believed ship-borne naval aircraft would have a major role to play in any future war.

There had been no US aircraft carriers in Pearl Harbor at the time the Japanese attacked, which was extremely fortunate for the US, because the US had only three aircraft carriers for the Pacific at that time. What was damaged in Pearl Harbor were the big gun battleships so beloved by the traditional admirals. And, the damage had been inflicted by carrier aircraft. The day after Pearl Harbor two British big gun ships, a battleship and a battlecruiser, the HMS Prince of Wales and the HMS Repulse, were sunk by Japanese aircraft operating from Saigon (now Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam). These two ships were underway on the open seas, not sitting stationary in a harbor, and still, despite violent evasive maneuvers, could not avoid being sunk and could damage only a tiny number of the attacking aircraft. In short, the type of fleet which made the "big gun club" so proud was obsolete for most purposes and incapable of defending itself against air attack.

This realization had to be faced by the US Navy, which, fortunately already had numerous aircraft carriers being built and would soon lay down the keels for many more. The three carriers the US had in the Pacific would have to carry the load until new ships could begin joining the fleet. Battleships still had a role. The US Navy finished ten new "fast battleships" just before or during the war, and these were fast enough to keep up with the speedy aircraft carriers. The new "fast battleships" were covered with anti-aircraft guns. Their secondary armament was twenty five-inch naval cannons, in ten twin turrets, five on each side of the ship. These could fire a seventy pound shell up to eleven miles every two seconds. These shells had a top-secret US weapon in them - the proximity fuse. This was a tiny radar set in the nose of each shell, which would explode the shell when it came near an enemy aircraft. This meant you did not have to actually hit enemy aircraft, just come close, to destroy them. So, the fast battleships COULD protect themselves from air attack, and could also cover the aircraft carriers. So, that's how they spent the war, basically sailing along beside the ever-increasing number of US carriers to provide anti-aircraft protection. The big gun admirals found this deeply humiliating. Every once in a while they'd let the fast battleships bombard an enemy-held island before an invasion, just so they'd feel better, but mostly the pre-invasion bombardments were handled by the older, "slow" battleships (including eventually all but two of those sunk or damaged at Pearl Harbor). Their guns were still fearsome, especially if you're a foot soldier and they're shooting them at you.

Naval thinking for generations had envisioned, in wars at sea, the eventual climactic battle between the opposing fleets of battleships. This was how they thought the war at sea would go. Since the US "battle line" was unavailable after Pearl Harbor, while being refloated and repaired, the US Navy had to come up with alternatives. Besides the aircraft carriers, the US Navy turned to submarines. Submarines were THE most successful part of the US Navy in WWII.

Submarine sailors made up 1% of the US Navy, and sank 55% of Japanese ships sunk. Nations invested years and millions into building highly complex capital ships, battleships and aircraft carriers, the pride of their fleet and the most complex machines built by man at that time. And along comes a relatively cheap submarine, with a crew of less than 100 men, and with a few inexpensive torpedoes sends your glorious big ships straight to the bottom.