Japanese accounts attributed Tan No. 2's failure to unreliable aircraft engines and the distance the strike aircraft had to fly. Ten P1Y aircrew survived the raid. The operation followed two abandoned plans: an earlier large attack scheme and then Tan No. 1. The move of the American fleet to Ulithi prevented the first Tan plan from going ahead, and Tan No. 2 became the only one of these proposals actually carried out. The closing criticism is that feasibility alone did not provide a good reason to launch it.
Chapter · 2:29:04-2:31:59
Why Operation Tan No. 2 failed
Engine failures and excessive distance undermined the raid, while successive abandoned plans left Tan No. 2 as the attack actually carried out.