Could you succeed on a Pearl Harbor time travel mission?

[Reverend Conehead]

Imagine this. You're sent back in time to December 6, 1941, Honolulu, Oahu, Hawaii with nothing but normal civilian clothes that you're wearing, and no modern gadgets like tablets, laptops, smartphones, etc. Your haircut looks normal for that era. You look in every way just like a normal person from that time period. Could you succeed in making a better military outcome of the attack that's to come on the following day?
...
You're just a civilian. You're not some Admiral or General with the authority to order the military to do anything. But you're a 21st century person. You know the attack is coming. You need to convince Admiral Husband E. Kimmel (in command of the Navy) and Lieutenant General Walter Short (in charge of the Army) to get the military ready for the attack. A bunch of P40 planes are sitting ducks parked close to one another on runways. They were set up like that to try to protect them from sabotage. They thought if the Japanese Empire did anything, it would be via a saboteur. They didn't think a real attack would happen, at least not in Hawaii. If you know a lot about the history of that attack, maybe you know the route that the Japanese Navy took to get close to Hawaii undetected. So if you can get either Admiral Kimmel or Lieutenant General to listen to you, you can show them on a globe exactly the route they're on and you say, "If you don't believe me, send out a reconnaissance flight, and they'll find them."
...
So maybe they can send those ships out to sea and spread them out. And they get the P40s all fueled up and hidden, ready to take off and confront the Japanese Zeroes first thing. And have whatever anti-aircraft guns they have all prepped and ready for a fight. If I understand my history correctly, the Japanese would have an advantage with their Zeroes being better quality planes than the P40s. However, the P40s weren't garbage, and the Japanese would have lost the element of surprise. Maybe those P40s get sent up the following morning to intercept the Japanese from an angle they would not expect. Use the element of surprise against them.
...
But could you even convince the Admiral and the Lieutenant General to take you seriously?

 

[rags747]

If we were ready for the attack then the American people never would have been convinced to become involved So with that being said you would probably have been assassinated!

 

[1942willys]

I place the conspiracy nuts about Pearl Harbor in the same category as flat earthers.

The gods of war were determined to humiliate us that day and they did

as regards your mission, you would be thrown in the local peculiar parlor. No chance of you being able to do anything.

 

[dsturgeon]

I place the conspiracy nuts about Pearl Harbor in the same category as flat earthers.

the correct category?

 

[Reverend Conehead]

I place the conspiracy nuts about Pearl Harbor in the same category as flat earthers.

The gods of war were determined to humiliate us that day and they did

as regards your mission, you would be thrown in the local peculiar parlor. No chance of you being able to do anything.

What about this. You're a skilled pilot with tens of thousands of hours flying. You've equipped yourself with a fake pilot's license of that era (since showing your real one would be questionable). What if, on the day before, you're able to rent a plane and fly to the approximate location of the Japanese Navy. You have a friend in the plane with you take a bunch of pictures of it. Then you go back and show the pictures to the admiral. Think that might work?

 

[nobody]

Imagine this. You're sent back in time to December 6, 1941, Honolulu, Oahu, Hawaii with nothing but normal civilian clothes that you're wearing, and no modern gadgets like tablets, laptops, smartphones, etc. Your haircut looks normal for that era. You look in every way just like a normal person from that time period. Could you succeed in making a better military outcome of the attack that's to come on the following day?
...
You're just a civilian. You're not some Admiral or General with the authority to order the military to do anything. But you're a 21st century person. You know the attack is coming. You need to convince Admiral Husband E. Kimmel (in command of the Navy) and Lieutenant General Walter Short (in charge of the Army) to get the military ready for the attack. A bunch of P40 planes are sitting ducks parked close to one another on runways. They were set up like that to try to protect them from sabotage. They thought if the Japanese Empire did anything, it would be via a saboteur. They didn't think a real attack would happen, at least not in Hawaii. If you know a lot about the history of that attack, maybe you know the route that the Japanese Navy took to get close to Hawaii undetected. So if you can get either Admiral Kimmel or Lieutenant General to listen to you, you can show them on a globe exactly the route they're on and you say, "If you don't believe me, send out a reconnaissance flight, and they'll find them."
...
So maybe they can send those ships out to sea and spread them out. And they get the P40s all fueled up and hidden, ready to take off and confront the Japanese Zeroes first thing. And have whatever anti-aircraft guns they have all prepped and ready for a fight. If I understand my history correctly, the Japanese would have an advantage with their Zeroes being better quality planes than the P40s. However, the P40s weren't garbage, and the Japanese would have lost the element of surprise. Maybe those P40s get sent up the following morning to intercept the Japanese from an angle they would not expect. Use the element of surprise against them.
...
But could you even convince the Admiral and the Lieutenant General to take you seriously?

No. You could never succeed at producing a different effect than what happened and here is why:

1) You go back in time and make changes and succeed. Congrats, you just created an alternate timeline while the timeline you came from is still chugging along. (This is the many worlds outcome, and you still aren't changing the history of the reality you came from, you just spawned a new one).
2) You make a change, but now as history unfolds differently the conditions for going back and why you'd go back are different, creating a paradox, destroying the universe. Congrats. (This is the paradox outcome.)
3) You go back and try your hardest to make a change, but reality just doesn't want to cooperate with your foolishness and forces things to unfold as they were going to anyway. (This is the you were always meant to go back outcome.)
3b) You go back in time to make changes and reality b-slaps you to death before you can even try.

 

[NorthoftheRedRiver]

Who says that this didn't happen? There might have been a doomed, lone time-traveler in a US fighter out there taking on the incoming mass. We just never knew that it happened.

 

[Big_D]

Reminds me of Stephen King’s book 11/22/63. Going back to stop the assassination of JFK. Great read and an interesting Stephen King spin on the time travel hypotheticals. What’s the effects without the event ever taking place? Are things changed for the better? They made a miniseries on the book also, but the book is a million times better.

 

[1942willys]

the correct category?

Ah, I wondered if any were on this forum.
Tell me why you think the earth is flat?

 

[Creeper]

This reminds me of one of my favorite movies, "The Final Countdown" starring Kirk Douglas. Its about a modern aircraft carrier fleet that travels back in time to December 7, 1941. It is an interesting concept for a story, not unlike the other what if questions about various historical events. What if the Texans had 6 or 7 M-60 machines guns at the Alamo?

But to answer your question, no one in 1941 would believe you unless you could provide some kind of evidence for your story or how you came about the information in the first place. Certainly no one would believe you traveled back in time. You could possibly go back with a complete personal history of a few men of that times but even that would be unconvincing.

Probably the best way to prepare the US Navy for the attack would be to create some kind of event that would get them to look where the Japanese fleet was hiding before teh attack. But the technology of that day would require something fairly substantial and with more than a day to prepare and allow times for the US Naval intelligence to figure it out.

Remember, the US had radar on the island and didn't believe the signal of incoming aircraft was an attack.

 

[Creeper]

No. You could never succeed at producing a different effect than what happened and here is why:

1) You go back in time and make changes and succeed. Congrats, you just created an alternate timeline while the timeline you came from is still chugging along. (This is the many worlds outcome, and you still aren't changing the history of the reality you came from, you just spawned a new one).
2) You make a change, but now as history unfolds differently the conditions for going back and why you'd go back are different, creating a paradox, destroying the universe. Congrats. (This is the paradox outcome.)
3) You go back and try your hardest to make a change, but reality just doesn't want to cooperate with your foolishness and forces things to unfold as they were going to anyway. (This is the you were always meant to go back outcome.)
3b) You go back in time to make changes and reality b-slaps you to death before you can even try.

In short, traveling back in time is impossible.

 

[1942willys]

In short, traveling back in time is impossible.

the only way it would be possible if the moment you went back in time your particular dimension split off and kept on going as if you never existed and YOU remained in the new dimension your actions created.
Just my sleep deprived mutterings at six in the morning....