What If Pearl Harbor Got the Warning?

Subscribe for a new what-if every few days! December 7th, 1941, 7:02 in the morning. A radar crew on a hilltop in Hawaii sees the biggest echo they’ve ever seen, heading for Pearl Harbor. The officer they call tells them: “Well, don’t worry about it.” What if somebody hadn’t let it go? We change just that one phone call. After it, everyone only does what they really planned, ordered or said in 1941: Kimmel, Halsey, Nagumo, Fuchida, and a 26-year-old corporal on the radar hill. Would a warning have saved Pearl Harbor, or cost the Navy the ship that won the Pacific? Tell me why in the comments. 0:00 7:02 at Opana 1:25 The second phone call 2:46 Twenty minutes 4:48 The plot nobody used 5:59 Six carriers and one 7:25 The last echo 8:07 Our world Narrated with an AI voice. “You” and Eddie are made up; Lockard, Elliott, Tyler, Kaminski, Kimmel, Halsey, Nagumo and Fuchida are real, and everything said to happen “in our world” did. Sources: Army Pearl Harbor Board, Roberts Commission and Joint Committee testimony (Lockard, Elliott, Tyler, McDonald), the Knox report, the logs of USS Ward, Monaghan, Pennsylvania and Nevada, Scouting Six’s action report, the National Park Service, the National WWII Museum, and Nimitz’s 1965 letter (USNI Proceedings, December 1966). Archival photos (public domain): The Opana radar site: US Army, via the National Park Service Inside an SCR-270 radar: 1st Lt. Harold Zahl, US Army Signal Corps The original Opana radar plot, 7 Dec 1941: National Archives, RG 128 USS Arizona burning: US Navy, National Archives 195617 USS Shaw exploding: US Navy, National Archives 80-G-16871 A wrecked P-40 at Wheeler Field: US Navy, 80-G-32906 Husband E. Kimmel: US Navy, NHHC NH 50266 Chuichi Nagumo: NHHC NH 63423 (courtesy of the Naval History and Heritage Command) #whatif #pearlharbor #alternatehistory