Empire of Japan attacks America, this day in 1941

[Mushroom]

How did the 1905 war between Japan and Russia start?

Well, that is actually rather complex. And in essence is because both nations wanted to expand their influence in the region.

After the Boxer Rebellion, both nations got concessions for bases in China. And what Russia wanted and lacked until then was a year-round port in the region, which is why they worked to obtain Port Arthur from China.

However, this also put them right into the area that Japan wanted to expand into. At that time, Russia was wanting to move into Manchuria, and Japan was taking over Korea. And Japan proposed that the two nations recognize the territorial goals of the other and not compete. But Russia refused to do that, as they also had eventual goals of moving farther south and into Korea. Then Russia actually demanded that the borders between the two be established in Korea on the 39th Parallel, just north of the 38th Parallel used as the dividing line in Korea after WWII. They insisted everything north of there would belong to Russia, with a 50 mile wide demilitarized zone between them.

Well, that offended the Japanese, as they already largely controlled Korea. It also put them on edge, as they had already had multiple conflicts with Russia dating back to the 16th century, and most recently in the First Russo-Japanese War in 1895. And after almost a year of negotiations went nowhere and Russia refused to budge, Japan attacked Port Arthur. And by the end of the war, Russia lost most of the territory they had gained from China, and Japan was soon in control of Mongolia.

 

[Mushroom]

I don't think that any of the ships at Pearl Harbor even had radar.

Both the USS West Virginia and USS Pennsylvania had RADAR.

Both of them mounted the new CXAM RADAR set, and had been installed on both of those only months before.

However, as they were in port the sets were useless. Ground clutter and the other ships would have rendered any information useless. And they were not tied to any weapon systems, so were only early warning. So any use of it would have been absolutely pointless once the first aircraft arrived.

And BTW, it was essentially the exact same system that the Army operated as the SCR-270. The exact same unit that was at Opana and detected the incoming aircraft.

 

[Mushroom]

So you were there to check all this out first hand, huh ?

The point of that comment is what, exactly?

 

[there4eyeM]

Well, that is actually rather complex. And in essence is because both nations wanted to expand their influence in the region.

After the Boxer Rebellion, both nations got concessions for bases in China. And what Russia wanted and lacked until then was a year-round port in the region, which is why they worked to obtain Port Arthur from China.

However, this also put them right into the area that Japan wanted to expand into. At that time, Russia was wanting to move into Manchuria, and Japan was taking over Korea. And Japan proposed that the two nations recognize the territorial goals of the other and not compete. But Russia refused to do that, as they also had eventual goals of moving farther south and into Korea. Then Russia actually demanded that the borders between the two be established in Korea on the 39th Parallel, just north of the 38th Parallel used as the dividing line in Korea after WWII. They insisted everything north of there would belong to Russia, with a 50 mile wide demilitarized zone between them.

Well, that offended the Japanese, as they already largely controlled Korea. It also put them on edge, as they had already had multiple conflicts with Russia dating back to the 16th century, and most recently in the First Russo-Japanese War in 1895. And after almost a year of negotiations went nowhere and Russia refused to budge, Japan attacked Port Arthur. And by the end of the war, Russia lost most of the territory they had gained from China, and Japan was soon in control of Mongolia.

Yes, they were known to attack without warning.
My only point is that any decent military planner would have at least considered the possibility of Japan doing what it did. That is not to say there was exactly a plot to get the U.S. into war. How could they have known Hitler would be stupid enough to declare war? Still, it is perplexing that the Philippines was so unprepared even though they knew about Pearl. In total, we observe that a great deal of incompetence was in play.

 

[Mushroom]

My only point is that any decent military planner would have at least considered the possibility of Japan doing what it did. Still, it is perplexing that the Philippines was so unprepared even though they knew about Pearl.

They were beefing it up, big time. From around 9,000 in 1939 to over 31,000 in 1941. Plus over 100,000 in the Philippine Army itself. As well as in 1941 three squadrons of fighters and two squadrons of bombers. With more arriving all the time, like the flight I had already mentioned.

But they could only increase them so fast.

 

[there4eyeM]

They were beefing it up, big time. From around 9,000 in 1939 to over 31,000 in 1941. Plus over 100,000 in the Philippine Army itself. As well as in 1941 three squadrons of fighters and two squadrons of bombers. With more arriving all the time, like the flight I had already mentioned.

But they could only increase them so fast.

...and all the planes were sitting nice and neatly on the ground waiting for the Japanese to destroy them.

 

[Mushroom]

...and all the planes were sitting nice and neatly on the ground waiting for the Japanese to destroy them.

And do you know why?

Because one of the alerts that had recently gone out about possible attack states it was likely to be sabotage. So placing them like that in the middle of an open area would make it harder for saboteurs to be able to sneak in and damage them.

 

[there4eyeM]

And do you know why?

Because one of the alerts that had recently gone out about possible attack states it was likely to be sabotage. So placing them like that in the middle of an open area would make it harder for saboteurs to be able to sneak in and damage them.

In the place of those 'in charge' at that time, commanding a military operation, knowing Japan had attacked hours ago, would you not have started at least rotating a percentage of you assets to be always airborne? There was great incompetency committed around that time and much was allowed to go with the least attention possible in order to better organize war making capacities.

 

[whitehall]

There was none before it either. Probably the closest thing like that we had before WWII was the organization that Allan Pinkerton unofficially ran during the Civil War.

So even insinuating that that was the fault of President Roosevelt is a failure, as the country never really had such an organization.

The Brits were strong allies and had a espionage and counter espionage and intelligence network while the U.S. was virtually in the dark well into the war. Midway in the war the Supreme Court finally had to rule about what agency was in charge of espionage and Hoover's G. Men got the nod even though they had no experience in the field. As a result the FBI was more concerned with identifying and arresting enemy agents but had no idea of how to conduct an espionage mission or how to turn enemy agents. The old racist based assumptions about the Japanese military persisted well into the first year of the war.

 

[Mushroom]

As a result the FBI was more concerned with identifying and arresting enemy agents but had no idea of how to conduct an espionage mission

And that is the exact role of the FBI, counter-espionage inside the US. Not conducting espionage missions themselves.

Maybe actually understanding what the various terms mean would help.

 

[Mushroom]

In the place of those 'in charge' at that time, commanding a military operation, knowing Japan had attacked hours ago, would you not have started at least rotating a percentage of you assets to be always airborne? There was great incompetency committed around that time and much was allowed to go with the least attention possible in order to better organize war making capacities.

Actually, they were preparing to follow the war plan outlined before the attack happened. And that is to conduct their own strike against Japanese forces in Taiwan.

However, not unlike what happened to the Japanese at Midway, part way through those preparations they got new orders cancelling the attack and instead ordering a defensive posture. At which time the aircraft were changing their loadouts when the Japanese attack arrived.

Not that it would have mattered, there were only around 20 fighters at Clark that were even capable of responding. Most of the recent arrivals were still having their weapons mounted and engines modified to operate in the environment. Half of the fighters were actually grounded because they had just finished an intense cycle of gunnery practice, and were waiting on more ammunition and replacement parts to arrive so they could be put back into service.

At that time the Japanese attacked, there were more operational bombers in the Philippines than there were fighters. Not that it would have helped, when the Japanese showed up with over 100 of their own bombers.