What was our greatest strategic error in WWII and what woukd you have done?

[gipper]

NO!

FDR knew an attack was coming and yet he refused to warn the commanders at Pearl and Philippines. Why did he not forewarn them?

I think I read this a few decades back. Do you have a linm to refresh my memory? I can't remember if it was hours or days before or what. Give me more specifics please.

Are we in agreement that FDR knew the Japanese intended to attack the US, before they did?

FDR's failure to warn commanders at US bases in the Pacific, which entailed a wired communication that he could have been easily completed from the White House, in a matter of a few minutes, means he purposely refused to do so. Is this not deceptive? If his actions were known to Americans at the time, he would have been impeached and removed from office.

Also....his actions during the months leading up to Pearl Harbor, to instigate war with Japan, are unknown to Americans today. However they clearly indicate a POTUS desperately trying to start a war.

 

[Picaro]

Well, while the 'libertarians' and assorted right wingers continue their standard creative writing seminars, the Peanut Gallery can do some research on the extent of the U.S.'s intelligence network in the Pacific at the time, and the paths by which such intelligence was passed on and the weaknesses of a network that consisted of a handful of naval radio operators and the accuracy of intelligence available, and decide for themselves how much 'Roosevelt could have known' about if, where, and when the Japanese were going to attack, much less if they were going to attack.

Hint: A tiny handful of men were involved, and had no way of discerning what was accurate and what wasn't out of a vast amount of radio traffic being generated by both the Japanese diplomatic corp and its military. The same intelligence problems exist today, even with far more operatives and electronic aids and a ton of pros at work.

 

[whitehall]

Strange things happened on the morning of Dec. 7 1941 and COS George Marshall was in the middle of it. There were several congressional hearings about the FDR administration's conduct regarding Pearl Harbor and Marshall was one of the few officers who had access to the "Magic" decode operation. He was FDR's boy having been promoted over a ton of more qualified Army officers. Marshall was said to have had a nearly photographic memory but in all the hearings he testified in he could not remember where he was the night of Dec. 6 into the early morning hours of Dec. 7th 1941. It was a Sunday but the general usually arrived on time at his office especially when "Magic" indicated that something was going on. His staff was frantically trying to find him when they received the decoded message of an imminent attack but Marshall claimed he was horseback riding when he arrived late. He read and re-read and re-re-read the message until the Army message center went down and he was unable to send a coded message to Pearl. Ever conscious of the secrecy of "Magic" he was reluctant to pick up a phone so he sent a Western Union telegram which arrived a little later than the Japanese Zeroes.

 

[Camp]

The debate about what the military knew or didn't know began on Dec 8, 1941. The idea that FDR or the military withheld knowledge of the attack has been relegated to the realm of conspiracy theories. The weakest part of the argument is that the commanders were in fact warned to be prepared for what many thought was an impending attack. They were not given a specific date, time and place, but the commanders at Pearl were unprepared just as MacArthur was. Not because they weren't told, but because they did not prepare properly.