America crimninally unprepared for WW2?

[whitehall]

Like Woodie Wilson a couple of decades before him FDR told America that he would never send their sons to fight in a foreign war. Meanwhile he was allegedly conspiring to have Japan to attack so he could get the US into the "real war" in Europe. FDR was elected in 1932 on a platform to end the recession and it turned into the "great depression" during his (first) two terms. He defied standards of policy that every other president had adnered to and forced the Country to pass a law that set presidential term limits. By the time Japan was able to sail across the entire Pacific Ocean undetected and attack Pearl Harbor FDR was in his 3rd term and America was busy violating all kinds of international treaties by supplying England and Russia with military supplies. By the spring of 1942 the entire US Army in the Philippines will have surrendered to the Japanese.

 

[percysunshine]

Sooo ... the point of your cut and paste is....what?

 

[whitehall]

Sooo ... the point of your cut and paste is....what?

Cut and paste? Do you know what cut and paste means? Where did you ever see this opinion in print?

 

[Old Rocks]

So you don't like FDR and are willing to repeat stupid lies to prove it. So what.

 

[Toronado3800]

Like Woodie Wilson a couple of decades before him FDR told America that he would never send their sons to fight in a foreign war. Meanwhile he was allegedly conspiring to have Japan to attack so he could get the US into the "real war" in Europe. FDR was elected in 1932 on a platform to end the recession and it turned into the "great depression" during his (first) two terms. He defied standards of policy that every other president had adnered to and forced the Country to pass a law that set presidential term limits. By the time Japan was able to sail across the entire Pacific Ocean undetected and attack Pearl Harbor FDR was in his 3rd term and America was busy violating all kinds of international treaties by supplying England and Russia with military supplies. By the spring of 1942 the entire US Army in the Philippines will have surrendered to the Japanese.

Sticking to WWII:

The Pacific fleet was in the right place ready for war. Oops, ready for the last war tactically. Not inspired but not criminal. There is a general pattern of the victors of the last war still using its technology and tactics in the next.

FDR wasnt the pacifist NAZI lover. Folks like Charles Lindburgh were. There was a ridiculous isolationist movement in America. Amazing our military got as ready as it did.

FDR saw the great evil brewing in Europe and Japan then changed his mind about not intervening. Would you have disagreed?

I have always suspected someone showed secret concentration camp photos to that pilot also to get hin to shut up and rsise war bonds.

Do you disagree with anything I said?

 

[Neubarth]

Like Woodie Wilson a couple of decades before him FDR told America that he would never send their sons to fight in a foreign war. Meanwhile he was allegedly conspiring to have Japan to attack so he could get the US into the "real war" in Europe. FDR was elected in 1932 on a platform to end the recession and it turned into the "great depression" during his (first) two terms. He defied standards of policy that every other president had adnered to and forced the Country to pass a law that set presidential term limits. By the time Japan was able to sail across the entire Pacific Ocean undetected and attack Pearl Harbor FDR was in his 3rd term and America was busy violating all kinds of international treaties by supplying England and Russia with military supplies. By the spring of 1942 the entire US Army in the Philippines will have surrendered to the Japanese.

Whitehall, revisionist history is not history. All it is is imaginary scenarios.

We lost a few old ships at Pearl Harbor. It was no great loss to a country with our industrial might. The loss of note was in the young men who died. Lives can never be replaced. Broken hearts seldom fully mend. My Grandmother lost her youngest son in the Korean War, my uncle Buddy who was an Air Force Colonel. She cried for years after he was shot down. She never got over it and the emotional pain stayed with her until the day she died.

Prior to World War One and Two, America was "Anti Foreign War" in its political stance. How I wish we had stayed that way after World War Two. Unfortunately, our involvement overseas has brought attacks against us and that is only additive towards more and more and more killing.

I am a former military officer, and I wonder if all that killing and the loss of so many of our sons in Asia has accomplished anything positive for the world. I look and wonder.

 

[rightwinger]

Amazing the turnaround the US Military Industrial complex made

We literally went from biplanes to jets in six years

 

[Old Rocks]

Like Woodie Wilson a couple of decades before him FDR told America that he would never send their sons to fight in a foreign war. Meanwhile he was allegedly conspiring to have Japan to attack so he could get the US into the "real war" in Europe. FDR was elected in 1932 on a platform to end the recession and it turned into the "great depression" during his (first) two terms. He defied standards of policy that every other president had adnered to and forced the Country to pass a law that set presidential term limits. By the time Japan was able to sail across the entire Pacific Ocean undetected and attack Pearl Harbor FDR was in his 3rd term and America was busy violating all kinds of international treaties by supplying England and Russia with military supplies. By the spring of 1942 the entire US Army in the Philippines will have surrendered to the Japanese.

Whitehall, revisionist history is not history. All it is is imaginary scenarios.

We lost a few old ships at Pearl Harbor. It was no great loss to a country with our industrial might. The loss of note was in the young men who died. Lives can never be replaced. Broken hearts seldom fully mend. My Grandmother lost her youngest son in the Korean War, my uncle Buddy who was an Air Force Colonel. She cried for years after he was shot down. She never got over it and the emotional pain stayed with her until the day she died.

Prior to World War One and Two, America was "Anti Foreign War" in its political stance. How I wish we had stayed that way after World War Two. Unfortunately, our involvement overseas has brought attacks against us and that is only additive towards more and more and more killing.

I am a former military officer, and I wonder if all that killing and the loss of so many of our sons in Asia has accomplished anything positive for the world. I look and wonder.

In one way, the loss of the battlewagons was a plus. It forced us to rely on the real warships of that time, the carriers. For the battlewagons were in reality by that time, just artillery carriers for amphibious assaults. And large sitting duck targets for aircraft.

 

[Old Rocks]

Amazing the turnaround the US Military Industrial complex made

We literally went from biplanes to jets in six years

There was a lot of prior planning involved in that turnaround. One of my uncles was working in a factory that made boxes for fruit. The day after Pearl Harbor, they shut down for a week, and the maintance people went to work on the plant. When they started up again, they were producing ammunition crates. The same uncle ended up fighting all the way across North Africa, Sicily, and halfway up the boot of Italy before he was hurt and sent back to the States.

 

[rightwinger]

Amazing the turnaround the US Military Industrial complex made

We literally went from biplanes to jets in six years

There was a lot of prior planning involved in that turnaround. One of my uncles was working in a factory that made boxes for fruit. The day after Pearl Harbor, they shut down for a week, and the maintance people went to work on the plant. When they started up again, they were producing ammunition crates. The same uncle ended up fighting all the way across North Africa, Sicily, and halfway up the boot of Italy before he was hurt and sent back to the States.

Italy was a tough fight

 

[Douger]

Amazing the turnaround the US Military Industrial complex made

We literally went from biplanes to jets in six years

................and proceeded to sell them to various enemies so they could see which asshole had more testosterone to use them.

 

[pinqy]

The first peactime draft was started in 1940. The US clearly knew and expected to eventually join the war over a year before it started.

 

[Toronado3800]

Thank you for the info on the draft

 

[whitehall]

Japan sailed across the Pacific undetected and attacked the US fleet while General MacArthur was hobnobbing with the Philippine aristocracy and pretending he was wasn't commander of the front line of the most critical area in the world. FDR appointed a COS who was better at supervising CCC pick and shovel laborers than commanding Troops. Marshall had the decoded message in his hands for hours before the attack but he sent a telegram which arrived at the same time as the Zeroes. By all accounts MacArthur was confused and disorientated and within three months his entire Army was lost while he and his family were rescued. The Brits were shocked that no espionage network existed in the US. The courts had to finally decide if Wild Bill Donovan's group of amateurs or Hoover's FBI would be the lead spy network. Either choice would be bad but they chose Hoover's FBI which had no experience in espionage. Don't go blaming Lucky Lindy, America was criminally negligent.

 

[Toronado3800]

Japan sailed across the Pacific undetected and attacked the US fleet while General MacArthur was hobnobbing with the Philippine aristocracy and pretending he was wasn't commander of the front line of the most critical area in the world. FDR appointed a COS who was better at supervising CCC pick and shovel laborers than commanding Troops. Marshall had the decoded message in his hands for hours before the attack but he sent a telegram which arrived at the same time as the Zeroes. By all accounts MacArthur was confused and disorientated and within three months his entire Army was lost while he and his family were rescued. The Brits were shocked that no espionage network existed in the US. The courts had to finally decide if Wild Bill Donovan's group of amateurs or Hoover's FBI would be the lead spy network. Either choice would be bad but they chose Hoover's FBI which had no experience in espionage. Don't go blaming Lucky Lindy, America was criminally negligent.

All internal military problems associated with a country not accustomed to having a large peace time army in a modern fast moving world.

McArthur is not my favorite military commander, agreed. He was better at public relatikns, very good in fact, than war command.

Still he was in the right place. He just lost. Like the French and BEF. He was in the right place, ready for war, underestimated his enemy and lost. Heck, like the Soviet Union six months earlier in fact. Fine equipment, in the right place, just not up to the task on a military level (though the purges were Stalin's fault).

Now unlucky Lindy (kidnapping, Nazy sympathizer) and folks like him were very important to this issue. They were making FDR's life miserable. FDR would probably have declared war if he thought he had the population behind him. BUT this popular three term president COULD NOT get us involved any more than he did for some reason.

That reason? A good number of Garman sympathizers and isolationists/pacificists. Not that the trenches of WWI just two decades before (desert storm ago for them, everyone would remember) wouldnt have left a bad taste in my mouth.

FDR was ready. The military was not then again neither were the Brits who lost Singapore the Repulse and the Prince of Wales near instantly themselves.

 

[Toronado3800]

But notice esteemed sir that I did not disagree with many of your points.

I accept the military did not perform well was was the trend with our allies of the time.

I also blame those who did not want war using Lindy as a poster child. Everyone knows his name. No one knows the name of second generation every town's Henry Manstein on Elm Street who did not want war with the land his grandparents came from. Or Main Street Bob McCarthy was was in support of Hitler once he started kicking godless communist butt.

Them folks I blame not FDR.

Thank you for reading. We agree on many points.

 

[whitehall]

Japan sailed across the Pacific undetected and attacked the US fleet while General MacArthur was hobnobbing with the Philippine aristocracy and pretending he was wasn't commander of the front line of the most critical area in the world. FDR appointed a COS who was better at supervising CCC pick and shovel laborers than commanding Troops. Marshall had the decoded message in his hands for hours before the attack but he sent a telegram which arrived at the same time as the Zeroes. By all accounts MacArthur was confused and disorientated and within three months his entire Army was lost while he and his family were rescued. The Brits were shocked that no espionage network existed in the US. The courts had to finally decide if Wild Bill Donovan's group of amateurs or Hoover's FBI would be the lead spy network. Either choice would be bad but they chose Hoover's FBI which had no experience in espionage. Don't go blaming Lucky Lindy, America was criminally negligent.

All internal military problems associated with a country not accustomed to having a large peace time army in a modern fast moving world.

McArthur is not my favorite military commander, agreed. He was better at public relatikns, very good in fact, than war command.

Still he was in the right place. He just lost. Like the French and BEF. He was in the right place, ready for war, underestimated his enemy and lost. Heck, like the Soviet Union six months earlier in fact. Fine equipment, in the right place, just not up to the task on a military level (though the purges were Stalin's fault).

Now unlucky Lindy (kidnapping, Nazy sympathizer) and folks like him were very important to this issue. They were making FDR's life miserable. FDR would probably have declared war if he thought he had the population behind him. BUT this popular three term president COULD NOT get us involved any more than he did for some reason.

That reason? A good number of Garman sympathizers and isolationists/pacificists. Not that the trenches of WWI just two decades before (desert storm ago for them, everyone would remember) wouldnt have left a bad taste in my mouth.

FDR was ready. The military was not then again neither were the Brits who lost Singapore the Repulse and the Prince of Wales near instantly themselves.

MacArthur was the wrong man for the job. He was an old soldier who had done his duty in WW1. In retrospect he was a grand strategist and didn't have the right stuff as a front line officer especially in an area which was deemed to be the hot spot in the likely war with Japan. MacArthur failed big time and only the US media saved him from disgrace. The Medal of Honor award helped but if you look up the citation it is embarassingly short and lacking the substance of the highest award for valor. Clearly it was political. Now getting back to the preparidness or lack of it. Lindy was not an elected representative. Whatever he said or didn't say had nothing to do with the primary duty of the federal government "to provide for the common defence". FDR blamed subordinates, Marshall blamed subordinates and MacArthur blamed subordinates for their own lack of leadership.

 

[editec]

Unprepared?

Yes.

Criminally unprepared?

Not really.

 

[Toronado3800]

MacArthur was the wrong man for the job. He was an old soldier who had done his duty in WW1. In retrospect he was a grand strategist and didn't have the right stuff as a front line officer especially in an area which was deemed to be the hot spot in the likely war with Japan. MacArthur failed big time and only the US media saved him from disgrace. The Medal of Honor award helped but if you look up the citation it is embarassingly short and lacking the substance of the highest award for valor. Clearly it was political. Now getting back to the preparidness or lack of it. Lindy was not an elected representative. Whatever he said or didn't say had nothing to do with the primary duty of the federal government "to provide for the common defence". FDR blamed subordinates, Marshall blamed subordinates and MacArthur blamed subordinates for their own lack of leadership.

Sir, allow me to clarify where we disagree because I do not think we are that far off.

We agree American units got caught pants down on Dec 7th despite the units being in the almost in the perfect place at the right time.

We agree Lindy was against the war. He is only my poster child for the isolationists with all the streets in town named after him.

We agree there was a large isolationist movement in America prior to the war. I can even make three excuses for this:

One set of my great grandparents were not forty years off the boat from Italy. They still used my Grandparents to translate for them and lived in a ghetto where Italian was more common than English. Understandable they did not want to invade Anzio and kill relatives.

Also, World War 1 was only twenty years previous. Same countries, same continent, bloody war which apparently did not accomplish anything. Why do it again.

Three, the last reason many Americans were against involvement in the war, Germany WAS after all at war with Communist Russia. There was a large anti-Socialist/Communist movement in America. Stalin was also a monster the world would have been better w/o.

We agree on all those being facts?

Do we agree public opinion made it more difficult for FDR to start the war offensively?

Do we agree there was even sizable opposition to the Lend Lease effort which thwarted its effectiveness? (only 37% of Republicans and 79% of Democrats in the Senate supported it)

Thanks for your time.