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Who could imagine an attack on Pearl Harbor ?
The concept of an aerial attack on Pearl Harbor was not new, having been surfaced by the late General Billy Mitchell in 1924 at time of a visit to the islands. He in fact had predicted an aerial attack. Subsequent fleet exercises and war games in the 1930s incorporated successful simulated air attacks.
In 1932, during wargames simulating an attack on Hawaii, Admiral Harry Yarnell, playing the opposition force, put carriers northwest of Pearl Harbor and attacked early on a Sunday morning. Although the judges declared that he had created a great deal of distruction, and his task force remained undetected for 24 hours, the results were thrown out because the battleship screen would have stopped the carriers well short of Hawaii.
As Secretary of the Navy Josephus Daniels put it, "We no longer fear a Japanese attack in the Pacific: Radio makes surprise impossible."
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