The Sage of Main Street
Gold Member
The carriers were shadowing the Japanese fleet trying to provoke an attack that would start the war FDR wanted.President Roosevelt was in his third term and the U.S. had little or no intelligence network. The Brits were shocked to learn that the U.S. was virtually isolated from European and Asian and Nazi intelligence. A best seller titled "In the Garden of the Beasts" is based on the U.S. Ambassador to Germany during the pre-war years. The FDR administration didn't seem interested in Nazi atrocities even when Americans became the victims. All the FDR administration seemed interested is trying to convince the Hitler regime to pay their WW1 debits and that wasn't going to happen. Meanwhile FDR "intelligence" experts claimed that the Japanese were nearsighted little people who were incapable of building a plane much less flying one. The criminal lack of intelligence led to the debacle of Pearl Harbor but FDR's legendary eloquence conned the public.
Pearl Harbor has never made sense, even to its contemporary Japanese leadership. That is when Hiro Hito's best generals have accepted that Japan lost the war. That is even before the USA joined in.
Even Manchuria couldn't provide enough resources to Japan to win against the USA, Japan needed the entire Asia, and the Japanese generals knew this. M
Therefore it looks more likely, and logical, that Pearl Harbor was a USA insider job.
The vital Carriers were conveniently at sea when Pearl was attacked. Coincidence? COS George Marshall was late for work that day (yes he worked on Sunday) and in subsequent congressional investigations into Pearl Harbor revealed that the General who was credited with a near photographic memory couldn't remember where he was during the early morning hours of Dec. 7th. When his frantic staff finally showed him the "Magic" intercepts that indicated an imminent attack the General read them and re-read them and re-re-read them until the Military message center inexplicably went down and he sent a lame Western Union telegraph that arrived in Hawaii at the same time as the Zeroes. One thing an officer learns is to never blame subordinates for your own failures but that's just what COS Marshall did. The Roosevelt administration passed the buck downward until an Admiral and a General (who had no access to Magic or any other intelligence) were relieved of duty and disgraced. It should be noted that a favored General who was in charge of the Philippine Army and failed to enact the "War Plan" and allowed his air force to be destroyed on the ground and subsequently lost his entire Army (abandoned it under orders) and alone was rescued, was awarded the Medal of Honor.