7 Dec. 1941

[Orange_Juice]

Of course it was stupid. Oh and lucky. Never changes with you, does it?

What is stupid is you even interjecting this political hackery crap into this thread. It was doing just fine without it.

Besides, don't you usually start your own thread when you want to spin? Out of character for you to jump into someone else's.

Ya, whatever. You seemed to have no problem trying to put a political spin on the wars. As if Korea was Truman's fault or something.

 

[DiveCon]

Ya, whatever. You seemed to have no problem trying to put a political spin on the wars. As if Korea was Truman's fault or something.

of course, he said nothing of the sort

 

[Gunny]

Ya, whatever. You seemed to have no problem trying to put a political spin on the wars. As if Korea was Truman's fault or something.

Boy, THAT zoomed right over you, huh? The discussion was about Pearl Harbor. The secret clue is the thread title.

Then you have to make some crack about conservatives always being willing to fund a war; which, is BS. That is a recent development.

The fact is, after Pearl Harbor, AMERICANS, not just liberals or just conservatives were outraged and supported war with Japan. It was the conservatives however that were the isolationists back then and did not support war prior to Dec 7th 1941.

I didn't say Korea was Truman's fault.

 

[Procrustes Stretched]

Rousevelt was a distant cousin of FDR who phoned in all the important decisions.

I guess it really depends in whether or not you want to be known as "one of THOSE people" or not whether you become a spellchecker ...

I guess I won't be quitting my day job none too soon.

thanx

 

[Againsheila]

naw, PH lives in infamy. don't confuse the date with it all. people forget dates that are important all the time. just ask any wife.


btw, who is Rousevelt? see? is it more important that I correct you or that I got what you meant?

You can only correct me, if you spell it correctly. How else will I learn?

 

[BlackAsCoal]

You keep resting your case on the fact that YOU think that knowledge of an attack on Pearl Harbor was imminent even though it has been repeatedly stated that while an attack was expected, it was not expected at Pearl.

I know of one minisub that was sunk an hour before the air forces arrived and that was not proven fact until 2002.

That's not what I'm "resting my case" on at all sir. I'm resting my case on facts, dates, names, places, logic, and common sense my brother. I've addressed every question asked. I've never once stated that an attack on Pearl Harbor was imminent. I said everyone knew an attack was imminent and the thinking, although misdirected, was that the attack would happen in the Philippines or Guam. I also said that supposedly no one knew where the Japanese fleet was .. but even using the assumption that no one did .. why was there no response to discovering Japanese subs in Pearl Harbor Bay? Why was there no response to even further picking up Japanese planes on radar one hour before the attack? Is this commonly ignored when the rest of the world is exploding in war and we expect to be attacked? The only illogical answer to that is that everyone was just a bunch of incompetents and the powerful US Navy was incapable of doing anything about it anyway. No one has addressed that with anything credible.

If that makes sense to you brother, so be it.

Additionally, when I posted a thread about this subject which included a larger perspective into today .. you dumped in the trash heap of "conspiracy theory." My post was filled with names, dates, events, and places straight from the historical record. It required research to support my conclusions and it would require research to refute it. Isn't that what intelligent people do? Counter research and thought with research and thought .. You dumped it in the trash heap. The military guys didn't want to hear it. That's not intelligence brother .. that's programming.

Here's a really telling point in all of this .. none of you have acknowledge the weight of Churchill. None of you who argue this is can't be true have acknowledged that FDR and Churchill changed the world. When Churchill said Pearl Harbor was worth the price he meant every word of it. It changed the world and the American empire began in earnest. Churchill was there with FDR every step of the way, and though they often disagreed, they knew they could change the world together. If you don't know the history of the relationship between Churchill and FDR .. you don't know enough history to even be having this conversation. Seriously.

You paint Churchill as just some guy out to sell books.

At no point in this conversation have I even remotely implied that America should not have entered the war. My thoughts are specific to the events of that day and what led up to it .. and I support my conclusions with evidence .. and in the case of Churchill, very heavy evidence. What FDR and Churchill did worked to near perfection ,, so much so that PNAC wanted to emulate it with "A New Pearl Harbor."

No disrespect to anyone .. but had I taken the other side of this argument and I was faced with the comments .. make that Nobel Prize winning comments fron Winston Churchill, that would cause me pause and I would have to discover why he would say these things. I recognize the American thing to do is now discredit the Nobel Prize .. and toss Churchill's ass into the trash heap of conspiracy.

 

[editec]

I'm glad that we can at least have this discussion civily. I appreciate that .. however, I agree wih you .. the Japanese fleet getting that close to Pearl without being detected is completely unbelieveable.

No it's not.

There was no way to detect a fleet except by SEEING IT, back then.

I make the argument that FDR did not act upon the all too obviuos warnings that an attack was imminent on Pearl.

One of us is misinformed, BAC.

I have NEVER read any competent historian say that FDR knew when or where the Japanese would attack.

They'd broken the Japanese DIPLOMATIC code, and even the diplomats did not know an attack was imminent.

PLease explain how Japanese minisubs were sunk prior to the attack and Japanese planes were detected one hour before the attack and there was no response to either.

FOG of war.

Was it common for Japanese minisubs to be crusing around Pearl?

With war exploding all over the world and the knowledge that an attack was imminent, please explain how such warnings were ignored?

Their commander was incompetent.

It happens, ya know.

 

[Xenophon]

I sugest everyone read "Infamy: Pearl Harbor And Its Aftermath" by the late John Toland.

FDR knew.

He had warning from the Dutch (who had broken the NAVAL codes of Japan, just as we had teh diplo codes), warning from the Soviets, and through a british double agent code named 'tricycle' that tried to tell the FBI (Hoover refused to believe him) SIX MONTHS before the attck.

FDR didn't believe or chose not to believe the warnings, but the ONI (office of naval intelligence) tried to ruin several career officers who saw the war warnings and so testified in the mid 40s before congress.

 

[dilloduck]

I sugest everyone read "Infamy: Pearl Harbor And Its Aftermath" by the late John Toland.

FDR knew.

He had warning from the Dutch (who had broken the NAVAL codes of Japan, just as we had teh diplo codes), warning from the Soviets, and through a british double agent code named 'tricycle' that tried to tell the FBI (Hoover refused to believe him) SIX MONTHS before the attck.

FDR didn't believe or chose not to believe the warnings, but the ONI (office of naval intelligence) tried to ruin several career officers who saw the war warnings and so testified in the mid 40s before congress.

I think he saw it as the beginning of aligning the west's power brokers and he really thoght he was gonna pull the west AND Russia together to run the show.

 

[Xenophon]

I think he saw it as the beginning of aligning the west's power brokers and he really thoght he was gonna pull the west AND Russia together to run the show.

It was his dream, the 'four power standard' having the only militaries and policing the world, free of colonialism.

FDR believed almost to the end he could bring stalin on board as long as he appeased him with chucks of eastern europe (which is just another reason FDR was a son of a bitch and a rotten president).

 

[RetiredGySgt]

Not a single valid shred of evidence the US knew Pearl Harbor would be attacked/

As for Radar, again, for the slow, in the US it was experimental and was only used at night. The information it provided was sketching and incomplete. As the Radar station shut down it detected air craft approaching and sent the word up the chain. EVERYONE assumed it a flight of B-17's due from the States. And as a matter of fact those B-17's arrived in the middle of the attack.

No one knew for sure mini subs were trying to break into Pearl Harbor and even if they did that would not lead them to believe an AIR attack was going to happen.

Next we will be regaled with that other great lie that the atomic Bombs were not needed to end the war.

 

[TR_GOP]

December 7th hasn't been a one day remembrance for me this year, I began reflecting on the day and times two months ago. My daughter serves in the US Navy on carrier CVN-72, as the vessel returned to home port they stopped in Pearl Harbor, which afforded her the experience of visiting the Arizona memorial. When she was growing up (seems like yesterday) we took many road trips together on my old Yamaha FJ11000, wherever we traveled I always made it a point to visit war memorials along the way. I'm glad I did that. In light of all the electronic distractions of modern life it's too easy to overlook real history that you can walk on, feel, and gaze upon with your own eyes.

A few days later I flew to San Diego and boarded the USS Lincoln for its final leg up the coast to Everett, WA. During the trip I happened to notice a red Mitsubishi Eclipse chained down with the other private vehicles loaded in San Diego.after the air wing departed. Maybe my imagination is too active sometimes but I thought it symbolic. Here on the hanger deck of a US carrier sat a car manufactured by the same company that made the Zero. How time changes things. Think if you took a time trip back to the US Navy of 1944 and mentioned to one of the sailors "One day your son or grandson will buy a car from the company that makes the Zero". He'll probably say you're nuts.

A week after returning home a local Air Force base held its annual air show, which afforded the opportunity to watch the CAF's Pearl Harbor reenactment. Granted the aircraft are T-6 Texans but in the air they're pretty convincing. It was a good show, but I've been watching the CAF since the 70's and in those days the gasoline pyrotechnics were placed much closer to the flight line, so close you could barely stand the heat. Still, the sounds and smoke again caused me to reflect that day in history.

I reflect on the carnage, the lives lost, and how a nation came together. And, like others here, the circumstances aren't taken at face value. I'm no tinfoil hat wearing conspiracy theorist, by the same token official explanations that push all explanations into one guilt resolving package don't receive my automatic acceptance. In my eyes its a unresolved issue.

Lastly here's one point that I want everyone to here out; consider how easily citizens and warriors on both sides of the conflict were led into dehumanizing the enemy. Remember the atrocities committed on individual levels and decreed by the highest rungs of leadership. Think about what took place in China. In Korea. On Battan. All in the name of the Imperial Japanese Empire. Think about what we did too, don't shy away from the pages of history. Search out the Tokyo firebombing. Look at the pictures from ground zero at Hiroshima and Nagasaki. On all counts ask why. Not only why did the Japaniese do this, ask how could we justify raining down fire and radiation upon civilian populations? Take a look at one of the wartime newsreels. Right there is your answer. Propaganda. The same source that excuses the inexcusable defensive posture at Pearl Harbor.

December 7th is a day of remembrance, but remember the entire episode in human history and look at it through the eyes of the dead, the witnesses, and the participants. The end of War will only come when man develops the intellectual strength, wisdom, and will that prevents himself from being led into it.* Picking better leaders is one, questioning instead of blind obedience is another. Dec 7 is the primary reason I'm no FDR fan.


*This is not a call to pacificism, which is foolhardy in the presence of enemies who lack the presence of mind. Pacifism only works on a global scale. Definitely not in our lifetime, or the lifetime of our childred, but one day it must. If not man will write his own obituary.

 

[BlackAsCoal]

No it's not.

There was no way to detect a fleet except by SEEING IT, back then.

The fleet was detected by the Dutch and I believe the british .. additionally, and more important .. when a Japanese minisub showed up and was SUNK by the Ward, shouldn't recon have gone out to find where the sub came from? The operative word here is SUNK which means that the sub entering Pearl Harbor Bay was considered an act of war and aggression. Sending out a recon plane would have discovered the fleet which was less than 60 miles off shore.

One of us is misinformed, BAC.

I have NEVER read any competent historian say that FDR knew when or where the Japanese would attack.

They'd broken the Japanese DIPLOMATIC code, and even the diplomats did not know an attack was imminent.

I have much respect for your intelligence my brother, but just because you haven't read it doesn't mean it isn't true. FDR's partner in the events of the war, Winston Churchill was just one of many who said FDR knew.

EVERYONE knew an attack was imminent .. Roosevelt pushed for it .. but even if you expected the attack to take place on the moon, when Japanese subs and planes show up at your doorstep .. and you expect an attack from the Japanese .. it is not at all credible to believe we were so bufoonishly incompetent that we would simply ignore this.

FOG of war.

That's a long ass way from credibility .. particularly when the Ward took the actions of war.

Their commander was incompetent.

It happens, ya know.

Again, not credible .. Washington was notified immediately.

Any and everytime someone is faced with an uncomfortable truth about our government, it's covered up with "they were incompetent."

They were incompetent and the US Navy got it's technology from Radio Shack and got it's weapons from Mattel.

You're reaching for an answer brother.

Address Churchill .. do you think him some old fool who had no knowledge of the events .. no knowledge of what FDR was thinking?

 

[RetiredGySgt]

So let me get this right? The Dutch and the British knew all about Pearl Harbor BUT had NO clue as to the attacks coming in the Dutch East Indies? Exactly how did a British or a Dutch military know ANYTHING about a fleet thousands of miles away headed AWAY from them but knew NOTHING of the fleets, invasion fleets and air craft bearing down on them?

The British sortied their two biggest warships against invasion fleets detected, not by radio intercepts but submarines and land based air. And both were lost because the British ALSO failed to understand how important AIR power was on Naval forces.

 

[Gunny]

The fleet was detected by the Dutch and I believe the british .. additionally, and more important .. when a Japanese minisub showed up and was SUNK by the Ward, shouldn't recon have gone out to find where the sub came from? The operative word here is SUNK which means that the sub entering Pearl Harbor Bay was considered an act of war and aggression. Sending out a recon plane would have discovered the fleet which was less than 60 miles off shore.



I have much respect for your intelligence my brother, but just because you haven't read it doesn't mean it isn't true. FDR's partner in the events of the war, Winston Churchill was just one of many who said FDR knew.

EVERYONE knew an attack was imminent .. Roosevelt pushed for it .. but even if you expected the attack to take place on the moon, when Japanese subs and planes show up at your doorstep .. and you expect an attack from the Japanese .. it is not at all credible to believe we were so bufoonishly incompetent that we would simply ignore this.



That's a long ass way from credibility .. particularly when the Ward took the actions of war.



Again, not credible .. Washington was notified immediately.

Any and everytime someone is faced with an uncomfortable truth about our government, it's covered up with "they were incompetent."

They were incompetent and the US Navy got it's technology from Radio Shack and got it's weapons from Mattel.

You're reaching for an answer brother.

Address Churchill .. do you think him some old fool who had no knowledge of the events .. no knowledge of what FDR was thinking?

Nobody believed a sub was sunk, and it was not proven to exist until 2002.

Churchill liked to imbibe liberally, and he was selling a book. I think he had an agenda. You keep falling back on single bits of disconnected evidence that are hearsay -- one person's word -- to justify your argument.

The facts are what they are. The overwhelming avount of ACTUAL evidence does not support your theory.

 

[BlackAsCoal]

Not a single valid shred of evidence the US knew Pearl Harbor would be attacked/

As for Radar, again, for the slow, in the US it was experimental and was only used at night. The information it provided was sketching and incomplete. As the Radar station shut down it detected air craft approaching and sent the word up the chain. EVERYONE assumed it a flight of B-17's due from the States. And as a matter of fact those B-17's arrived in the middle of the attack.

No one knew for sure mini subs were trying to break into Pearl Harbor and even if they did that would not lead them to believe an AIR attack was going to happen.

Next we will be regaled with that other great lie that the atomic Bombs were not needed to end the war.

You don't have a clue of what you're talking about.

There has been plenty of evidence presented here that determined we knew Pearl would be attacked.

"No one knew the minisubs were trying to break into Pearl Harbor?"

Major stupid .. why then was it sunk?

Japan is an island and they were completely out of everything .. including fuel. They were so desperate they sent their fighters and planes up on suicide missions, knowing they could not replace the planes.

The nuclear TESTS were not needed to to end the war .. Japan is an island and was completely out of everything .. THUS, a blockade would have brought Japan to its knees.

 

[Xenophon]

So let me get this right? The Dutch and the British knew all about Pearl Harbor BUT had NO clue as to the attacks coming in the Dutch East Indies? Exactly how did a British or a Dutch military know ANYTHING about a fleet thousands of miles away headed AWAY from them but knew NOTHING of the fleets, invasion fleets and air craft bearing down on them?

The Dutch did know, their attache in cairo wired the White House from Cairo using British channels, and the brits also saw the message.

Whether they understood what the attack was going to be is up for grabs since neither the Dutch nor British naval service viewed the carrier as a dominte weapon.

The British sortied their two biggest warships against invasion fleets detected, not by radio intercepts but submarines and land based air. And both were lost because the British ALSO failed to understand how important AIR power was on Naval forces.

Admiral Phillips (the Brit Z force Cmder) believed he would have RAF fighter support during his sorte, something that failed to materialize. The only Asiatic officer not to be caught with his pants down appears to be Admiral thomas Hart USN, who ordered the Huston away from Caviete and lost no ships to the intial Japanese air assualt. (there is an excellent book on teh Huston called 'the last battle station' that describes this action).

 

[BlackAsCoal]

Nobody believed a sub was sunk, and it was not proven to exist until 2002.

Churchill liked to imbibe liberally, and he was selling a book. I think he had an agenda. You keep falling back on single bits of disconnected evidence that are hearsay -- one person's word -- to justify your argument.

The facts are what they are. The overwhelming avount of ACTUAL evidence does not support your theory.

That's ridiculous .. every single word .. ridiculous.

My posts are full of connected information and statements from central figures and FAR more the the accounts of one person.

Churchill's statement that FDR knew was not the imbibe in any regard and had it not been supported by evidence he would have been the laughing stock of the western world and he would have been villified by America to the end of time.

You simply do not want to hear it

And, by the way, your argument about the Gulf of Tonkin Incident was disingenuous at best my friend. You knew I was reffering to what Juhnson said about the incident .. which never happened. It was the Johnson account that sent America into deeper involvement in Vietnam .. and you know it .. THUS, it was a deception just as I said it was.

Consider your own admonition about "man up"

 

[BlackAsCoal]

December 7th hasn't been a one day remembrance for me this year, I began reflecting on the day and times two months ago. My daughter serves in the US Navy on carrier CVN-72, as the vessel returned to home port they stopped in Pearl Harbor, which afforded her the experience of visiting the Arizona memorial. When she was growing up (seems like yesterday) we took many road trips together on my old Yamaha FJ11000, wherever we traveled I always made it a point to visit war memorials along the way. I'm glad I did that. In light of all the electronic distractions of modern life it's too easy to overlook real history that you can walk on, feel, and gaze upon with your own eyes.

A few days later I flew to San Diego and boarded the USS Lincoln for its final leg up the coast to Everett, WA. During the trip I happened to notice a red Mitsubishi Eclipse chained down with the other private vehicles loaded in San Diego.after the air wing departed. Maybe my imagination is too active sometimes but I thought it symbolic. Here on the hanger deck of a US carrier sat a car manufactured by the same company that made the Zero. How time changes things. Think if you took a time trip back to the US Navy of 1944 and mentioned to one of the sailors "One day your son or grandson will buy a car from the company that makes the Zero". He'll probably say you're nuts.

A week after returning home a local Air Force base held its annual air show, which afforded the opportunity to watch the CAF's Pearl Harbor reenactment. Granted the aircraft are T-6 Texans but in the air they're pretty convincing. It was a good show, but I've been watching the CAF since the 70's and in those days the gasoline pyrotechnics were placed much closer to the flight line, so close you could barely stand the heat. Still, the sounds and smoke again caused me to reflect that day in history.

I reflect on the carnage, the lives lost, and how a nation came together. And, like others here, the circumstances aren't taken at face value. I'm no tinfoil hat wearing conspiracy theorist, by the same token official explanations that push all explanations into one guilt resolving package don't receive my automatic acceptance. In my eyes its a unresolved issue.

Lastly here's one point that I want everyone to here out; consider how easily citizens and warriors on both sides of the conflict were led into dehumanizing the enemy. Remember the atrocities committed on individual levels and decreed by the highest rungs of leadership. Think about what took place in China. In Korea. On Battan. All in the name of the Imperial Japanese Empire. Think about what we did too, don't shy away from the pages of history. Search out the Tokyo firebombing. Look at the pictures from ground zero at Hiroshima and Nagasaki. On all counts ask why. Not only why did the Japaniese do this, ask how could we justify raining down fire and radiation upon civilian populations? Take a look at one of the wartime newsreels. Right there is your answer. Propaganda. The same source that excuses the inexcusable defensive posture at Pearl Harbor.

December 7th is a day of remembrance, but remember the entire episode in human history and look at it through the eyes of the dead, the witnesses, and the participants. The end of War will only come when man develops the intellectual strength, wisdom, and will that prevents himself from being led into it.* Picking better leaders is one, questioning instead of blind obedience is another. Dec 7 is the primary reason I'm no FDR fan.


*This is not a call to pacificism, which is foolhardy in the presence of enemies who lack the presence of mind. Pacifism only works on a global scale. Definitely not in our lifetime, or the lifetime of our childred, but one day it must. If not man will write his own obituary.

Excellent post indeed brother.

 

[editec]

The fleet was detected by the Dutch and I believe the british ..

That's news to me. How far up the Chain of command did their warning get?

additionally, and more important .. when a Japanese minisub showed up and was SUNK by the Ward, shouldn't recon have gone out to find where the sub came from?

And if you had would you have found the Japanese fleet and carriers which were 275 miles North of Pearl?

Not bloody likely, you wouldn't have.

And certainly not in time to do all that much if you had either.

The operative word here is SUNK which means that the sub entering Pearl Harbor Bay was considered an act of war and aggression. Sending out a recon plane would have discovered the fleet which was less than 60 miles off shore.

275 miles off the coast of Hawaii is what I read. That's according to the Japanese Imperial Navy's reports.

First of all, they'd have had to know what direction to fly in. Finding a fleet in that vast ocean when you don't know in which direction (exactly) to go isn't easy, your know?

There was no radar that would pinpoint that fleet on 12/07/41

I have much respect for your intelligence my brother, but just because you haven't read it doesn't mean it isn't true. FDR's partner in the events of the war, Winston Churchill was just one of many who said FDR knew

.

Churchill wasn't above rewriting history OR getting it wrong, either, BAC.

He often did exactly that to make himself appear less culpable for his own mistakes, ya know. He didn't for example, assume much responsibility for the disaster at Galipoli.

EVERYONE knew an attack was imminent .. Roosevelt pushed for it .. but even if you expected the attack to take place on the moon, when Japanese subs and planes show up at your doorstep .. and you expect an attack from the Japanese .. it is not at all credible to believe we were so bufoonishly incompetent that we would simply ignore this.



Again, not credible .. Washington was notified immediately.

Any and everytime someone is faced with an uncomfortable truth about our government, it's covered up with "they were incompetent."

The incompetence defence does stretch our credibility muscle, I agree.

But history is replete with such military incompetence. Every "surprise attack" in history is pretty much the result of military incompetence.

Because it is the duty to the military NOT to be surprised, and it is the DUTY of the enemy to surprise the enemy.

Sometimes the surprise works out, sometimes not.

Address Churchill .. do you think him some old fool who had no knowledge of the events .. no knowledge of what FDR was thinking?

I surely don't think that Churchill was in on a plot to allow the attack on Pearl Harbor, do you?

And if there was a plot among hundreds of Americans starting with FDR, do you think FDR would have dragged Winston into it?

Why would he do that? Bring Churchill in on the plot, I mean.

That makes no sense.

Chuchill can intuit that FDR knew, I suppose, but KNOW?

No way.