New docs on Pearl Harbor attack emerge
 

http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/sideshow...164032040.html

Apparently Roosevelt had been informed two days before the attack of such possibility.
From the article:"The memo comes from Craig Shirley's new book, December 1941: 31 Days that Changed America and Saved the World, which also reports that the Japanese were building a network of spies through their U.S. embassies and consulates. However, Shirley doesn't blame FDR for failing to act on the memo; instead, he compares the Roosevelt administration's inaction to the executive branch's failure to act on pre-9/11 intelligence."

...interesting comparison, isn't it?

...does he then go on to say, "And DO call me Shirley"?

Shirley he can't be serious?

I've heard of this before on some conspiracy show along with other supporting "evidence". I love conspiracy theories, the Titanic conspiracy is my favourite.

P.S. Knowing this place this thread is bound to end in politics;)

well I don't think there's much conspiracy theory going on frankly: this is just further evidence that the US Government was aware of the threat of a Japanese attack.

The situation was dramatically simple: after the horrors of WW1, isolationism was the running policy, but by 1929 the price of such choice was having horrible effects on the US economy. Roosevelt was aware that the only way of boosting the economy was to join the war effort, but was also aware that the American public opinion wouldn't have been happy with their country declaring war on not clear grounds. They needed a pretext, and they probably deliberately ignored all the intelligence related to a possible attack. They probably expected something like a sunken ship or similar stuff, not such a large scale attack, but whichever the case, that was enough of a reason to wage war against Japan, and automatically its allies.

I think there's no "conspiracy theory" going on, it's a theory believed and accepted by most historians, and which is gathering more evidence.. unfortunately historians are not the public opinion, so yes, it might sound a tad unpopular among the average, flag waving US population, but that's how things are.

Truth is that even if they found a tape with Roosevelt's voice which said "hey, we're just gonna provoke the Japs with an embargo and then wait for them to retaliate so we have an excuse for a war", a lot of people wouldn't still believe it..

I had heard this before also, but is it really accepted amongst the majority of historians? I hadn't thought it was.

Wasn't the japanese capture of rubber (and other raw material) producing countries/areas also concerning/hurting the US?

sorry, I should have said serious historians ;)

Joking aside, the evidence is there, it's down to what people want to believe really.

Apart for the tone of the website (which yes, is a bit OTT), there's a very detailed report here http://whatreallyhappened.com/WRHART...315/pearl.html

and another one
http://www.independent.org/newsroom/article.asp?id=408

The best thing is that everything that doesn't comply with the official line of the Government is automatically tagged as "conspiracy theory" ;)

As long as you don't define "serious historian" as one who agrees with what you believe. Don't take that the wrong way though, I wouldn't be surprised if it was the way you described.

lol no, my assertion about "serious historians" was made in jest :)

As I said, there's a lot of evidence, but if one wants to believe otherwise, then there's not much it can be done.

Just quickly read through some parts of that text, if what Stinnett says is true, then Roosevelt must have known. But if he knew, why didn't he warn the naval base? Was it essential that the attack was devastating? Or was he afraid the Japanese wouldn't attack if they got a last minute warning about the new situation on the base?

To me it seems much more likely that Roosevelt and his generals vastly underestimated the Japanese naval power even though Japan was regarded hostile at that point.
I think they thought the base was well able to defend itself when Japan would attack with ships.

yeah, I think they didn't expect such a large scale attack, and the Japanese wanted to show they meant business.. again, the bigger the attack, the larger the outburst of retaliation.

Often times in history (indeed in everyday life) there are more than one convergent events and decisions that don't necessarily attribute cause and effect to only one line of reasoning.

It may be true that Roosevelt was both aware that some sort of attack was imminent and that it could be the way around the problem of getting public opinion behind a war but that does not mean either that he deliberately let PH happen.

Life is funny like that.

It seems more likely to me that they weren't expecting an attack of that magnitude given they had no idea about the clever mods the Japanese did to their torpedos for shallow water attacks, employing mini-subs, and the ability of their carrier groups to get all the way to Hawaii unnoticed.

Drawing the conclusion that Roosevelt deliberately let it happen is as logically absurd as any other conclusion although I do see it makes for more dramatic storytelling than the mundane version that he didn't really see it coming.

It could have happened that way though, who knows, I'm also not saying it didn't.

I think the whole conspiracy theory phenomenon has taken off over the last 20 odd years because society is so bombarded with movies and television that always find a way to make the impossible and unlikely scenario into a reasonable one, that when we are faced with any circumstantial evidence for the highly unlikely, we would much rather choose the more dramatic option. Perhaps subconsciously.

I think it's a similar scenario to the way rumours spread in a social circle. One person hears something and tells it with just a little extra flair and by the time it gets back around the original situation is always distorted.

Sry but US didn't need to be involved in a war to feed their economy.

The war was alrdy raging in EU and China and all the allies fighting were dependent of US materials. Moreover in 1939 teh US economy had alrdy recovered from the great depression.

http://www.usstuckonstupid.com/sos_charts.php

US were more concerned with the War in the Atlantic and the way to protect their marchand fleet and their neutrality.

The last thing they wanted was a war in the Pacific that proved way more costly than profitable.

http://the.honoluluadvertiser.com/pe...acific/numbers

You'll see easily (bottom page) that despite suffering for nearly no destruction in its continental soil, the War did cost much more to the US than any other nations.

The huge cost of furious destruction all over France is also easy readable.

wait wait wait, we're not talking about Elvis getting anally probed by aliens here, that's why I think the term "conspiracy theory" is a bit abused.

We're talking about a vast amount of intelligence and witnessing gathered over the years, together with the financial/political situation of the time, which depicts a scenario that is light years away from the image of astonishment and righteousness of the infamy speech by Roosevelt.

I mean, if you look at the infamy speech itself, sentences like this are quite frankly the not so hidden sign of a hidden agenda
"Now [war] has come and we must meet it as united Americans regardless of our attitude in the past toward the policy our Government has followed. ... Our country has been attacked by force of arms, and by force of arms we must retaliate. We must now turn every effort to building the greatest and most efficient Army, Navy and Air Force in the world."

Well said.

Sorry man, but it is a known fact that the US are the only country that did actually gain unmatched economic and industrial supremacy from WW2, have a look at this

http://eh.net/encyclopedia/article/tassava.WWII

and in particular at the conclusion:
"The U.S.'s Position at the End of the War

At a macroeconomic scale, the war not only decisively ended the Great Depression, but created the conditions for productive postwar collaboration between the federal government, private enterprise, and organized labor, the parties whose tripartite collaboration helped engender continued economic growth after the war. The U.S. emerged from the war not physically unscathed, but economically strengthened by wartime industrial expansion, which placed the United States at absolute and relative advantage over both its allies and its enemies.

Possessed of an economy which was larger and richer than any other in the world, American leaders determined to make the United States the center of the postwar world economy. American aid to Europe ($13 billion via the Economic Recovery Program (ERP) or "Marshall Plan," 1947-1951) and Japan ($1.8 billion, 1946-1952) furthered this goal by tying the economic reconstruction of West Germany, France, Great Britain, and Japan to American import and export needs, among other factors. Even before the war ended, the Bretton Woods Conference in 1944 determined key aspects of international economic affairs by establishing standards for currency convertibility and creating institutions such as the International Monetary Fund and the precursor of the World Bank.

In brief, as economic historian Alan Milward writes, "the United States emerged in 1945 in an incomparably stronger position economically than in 1941"... By 1945 the foundations of the United States' economic domination over the next quarter of a century had been secured"... [This] may have been the most influential consequence of the Second World War for the post-war world" (Milward, 63)."

you are absolutely right saying that post war US did benefit from the fall down of the war. But my point was that US didn't need to commit itself into a war only to fight the great depression.

In 1939 that was alrdy nearly a thing of the past.

Guys, am I wrong to believe that the naval base did receive a message from Washington that there was a probability they could become target of a Japanese attack but, this message arrived that morning so too late as the Japanese attack was already on the way?

~S~

mmmmh I don't know, the impression you get by the war effort is that industries were striving to start such an unprecedented mass production, so much that a lot of the new stuff produced went straight into surplus storage and in many cases was axed without having even being used. Let's not even go into the issues regarding occupation and the clever idea of the Marshall plan.

In a nutshell, I reckon that the influential industry giants pressed hard on the Congress and ultimately on FDR for an entry to war, which turned out to be the best choice the US made since their birth.

I may be confusing this with world war I, but if the allies had lost the war then the US would have lost the huge loans it made to the other powers. Weapons, ammunition, money, etc.
Yes, I haven't studied it properly, but iirc they were re-development loans which could only be used to pay for material from the US.

One trap we always fall into on subjects pertaining to the US entry into the Pacific War is viewing these events with our modern perspectives and mores.

The view of Japan in the eyes of early/mid 20th Century Americans and Europeans was a very racist and distorted one. The Japanese were viewed as (literally) near sighted, short, people incapable of innovative thought, incapable of building anything but cheap copies of small household trinkets, and would never be able to fight a war against anyone but a poor, and poorly lead country, like China.

All intelligence to the contrary was simply ignored because it flew in the face of our pre-conceived ideas of what Japan was capable of. A perfect example is the stream of intel sent by Claire Chennault to the War Department about the capabilities of the Japanese in the air. General Chennault had first hand experience fighting the Japanese Air Forces, both Army and Navy in his role as air advisor to the Chinese government. Yet he was roundly ignored by the military brass back home.

There was no conspiracy. We simply did not take the Japanese seriously at all, because of our racial bias against Asians.

Very good add.

A lot of US officials did not believe for tht reason that any serious US force could be regulary defeated by the Japanese.

What is ironic is that many Japanese official latter in the war had a reciprocal tough against US armies

The Imperial Japanese were certainly as or more guilty of racism/sterotyping as we in the West were. They saw us as a country of lazy shopkeepers, certainly not warriors capable of defeating "samurai".

Of course ! I shld hve added that. Thx for the correction.

It's so bizarre, the Japanese had good intelligence on our industrial capacity, the number of men we had, and could add to our armed forces, the fact that we had our own domestic fuel supply and large refining capacity, and yet they chose to go to war with us anyway, based solely on their preconceptions of our lack of will to make war.

So many more questions get raised when new info becomes available.

We never stop learning.

El, I think that the Japanese generals at the time knew that they could not win a prolonged war so decided to launch one massive coordinated attack to set the US back some months from even being able to respond coherently. They could shore up their territorial gains in the South Pacific and maybe the US public wouldn't have the stomach for war on two fronts.

They were counting on doing more damage at PH then they managed, especially the carriers.

They also miscalculated the US's resolve and willingness to accept casualties.

Like they had a choice...

lol exactly my thought :)

C'mon guys, do you really think that the US would have done their best to stay out of WW2? If it wasn't Pearl Harbor they would have done something else.

Let's not forget that at the time Japan had dominance over pretty much the whole Pacific, they surely underestimated the capability to fight that the Navy and Marines had, nonetheless they made it a hard one to win, way harder than how it was in the ETO.

My grandfather said there were only 2 times he was really scared during WWII, 1st was a 109 lining up to strafe him, 2nd was when he was told he was going to the PTO, thankfully he didn't have to.

wow, sounds like a scary situation your granpa was in! :shock:
care to tell us more?

He was an Anti Aircraft Gunner/Driver. He went over on D-Day +6. He was in Holland or France (sadly I can't remember which). He was stood next to his Bedford lorry (which towed a Bofors AA Gun) when he noticed a "Spitfire" circling, he waved at it and at that point realised it was a lone 109.

He said he froze for a split second as he realised it was lining up on him. He dived underneath the truck on the first pass before jumping up onto his gun and returning fire. The 109 didn't come back round for another go. (I guess my Grandad was a target of opportunity for somebody on thier way home!)

His total tally for the war, 2 'kills' and one 'damaged' (all for some reason 109's) The 2 kills were both in Holland some time after Market Garden.

I find it amusing that no one in Europe (at least as far as this thread is concerned) seems to think that perhaps some people in the States might have had a positive motive for wanting to get involved in WWII. I dunno, like perhaps saving your asses?

No, that's not possible. My bad.

+1

Yes we know that in Eu. Be sure of tht.

It would be interesting to know would be how many false alarms and miss information had been recieved in the months leading up to the attack and what measures were taken to verify the validity of the information.

Within a couple of days the Japanese had invaded Thailand, British Mayasia AND attacked Pearl Harbour.

In the time eading up to the 7/8th there would have been activity all over the asia pacific region. I wonder which reports would have been taken most seriously?

Cheers

Dont forget the difference that more than 60years makes to our preceptions. In the first half of the 20th century the British Empire was still massive and held huge territories in the Asia-Pacific region. From the Japanese perspective the USA was just another competing empire in the region which they thought the USA had little interest in spending blood or treasure to pursue dominance over. They believed USA interests were more focused to the west and made more detailed plans for the conquests in Hong Kong, Singapore, Burma etc, as well as the Phillipines. They also focused considerable energy to cutting Britain off from India
The Japanese strategy was to kick the europeans out of the 'Sphere of Influence' they wished to make, carving out a pan-Asian empire they would dominate and deal with the rest of the world on their terms. They believed a decisive blow against the USA pacific fleet would blunt their offensive arm and give the Japanese time to establish a solid bloc they could exploit for its natural resources and keep Europeans out. Hence their convenient pact with the Nazi's who were solely focused on Europe/USSR- there was almost complete lack of cooperation between these Axis powers.
The Japanese initially soundly beat the British, French and USA ground forces and seemed on the cusp of meeting their objectives.
In hindsight their strategy was hopelessly flawed as they underestimated the USA's industrial capacity and willingness to accept heavy loss of life. From the Japanese perspective there was little in the Pacific region that the USA required and they seemed to believe that if it became expensive for the USA to remain there they would soon come to terms.
In this regard the dictatorships of the early 20th century consistently proved unable to comprehend that democracies are quite capable of enduring huge sacrifices when they recognise the need to, especially when they are fighting for abstract concepts such as freedom and liberty.
Hitler was also baffled by Britains continued instransigence after they were kicked out of Europe- to his mind it made no sense for Britain to keep fighting because there was nothing in it for them.

Well said Blakduk.

+1



And the P51 won the war don't forget :)

Good post Blakduk

Interesting concept especially the 'saving' part.

War was won by numbers... And I am thankful and happy about it. ;)

Must be the same positive motives that made them invade Iraq and Afghanistan and also bomb Libya.
Makes me wonder what's wrong with Syria, those ppl could use some help too, don't you think?

lol I was kinda waiting for a post along these lines :rolleyes: it's not to the point though, I wonder whether the cause of American entry to war was not that infamous unexpected attack or there was a hidden agenda running..

swiss, as much as I see your point, let's try not to turn this into a political thing.

The geographical location of Syria makes this a very dangerous place to try a Lybia type solution.
Plus, there's a Russian aircraft carrier in Sirian waters making sure nothing happens.

1. I do not understand the part with the geographical location.
2. The Kuznetsov is supposed to arrive in spring 2012, somewhen.
Right now it's somewhere in the Baltic sea, the Syria stop is just pick up supplies. It will also visit Genua, Cyprus, Beirut etc.

3. to Sternjäger: Noted. I'll try.

Lol, hes got a point

On that note is the Pak t-50 carrier based?

And what exactly does all this talk of the current situation in the Mid East have to do with events that happened 70 years ago tomorrow?

Not a lot

T-50..Raptor killer thats all im saying on the matter

Sharing love and having pure positive motives?

There are people in desperate need of the above, just like 70yrs ago.


No Sir.
They only have some Mig29-K, made for India, undergoing sea trials, on board.
The carries will undergo some mods in the end of 2012, if the Ruskies indeed decide to manufacture a carrier version of T50, it could be a real future troublemaker.

OK, I'll play along...

The Russian Navy, if it is ever committed to a real conflict, will have a heroic, but painfully short, campaign.

I can sum it up pretty succinctly in one word...

Toast.

If they are foolish enough to engage the NATO navies in the open Atlantic they might last a week. If they are even more foolish and try to engage in the Med, 2 days, as they will be at the mercy of a navy's worst nightmare... Land based aircraft.

Just how many aircraft does the Kuznetsov embark? I'll tell you... Not enough.

Voilà.
That's what said. No reason to not intervene.
Why is it then, they hesitate?

Who hesitates? The United States? NATO? The Arab League?

Who offered the helping hand last time?

Which "last time"?

Why not stop being obscure and just come out and say it?

BTW, I don't think any Western nation should get involved, because no good will come of it in the end.

Now you're leaving the sandbox.:(

btw today is the 70th anniversary, I would like to remember and salute all the people who paid the highest price on that day.

Me too..today was the today gentleman. Whatever the reasons and for whatever cost we can all agree it was a "game changer"

Right.... Can we carry on with the russcies debate.

Sooo.. T-50 radar? Different league? I think so, detecting heat signatures from the engines means your stealth fighter in no longer stealthy.

Do you think the raptor will now or in the foreseeable future upgrade it's radar system to compensate?

We don't have to worry here in the UK anyway. We have the Eurofighter Typhoon! Yay! Lmao

the mankind would be dead after a few hours, nukes exploding everywhere....

anyway, strange this cold war thinking , still after 20years.

And now, back to FDR and some message about the Japanese not liking us.

The US had some intelligence that was passed on to military bases. There was no specific threat mentioned, and the warning was partially based on the observation that the Japanese embassy in Wash DC was burning documents. That is why the planes at Pearl Harbor were lined up wingtip to wingtip, rather than dispersed, so that the guards could protect them from saboteurs. This was seen as the most likely threat. The US had no knowledge that the Japanese fleet was on the way. Given the communications of the day, its hard to believe FDR had anymore knowledge than anyone else on the subject.

Conspiracy junkies just love to take one item, and inflate it into something completely idiotic.

binky9

Mankind is a pest, I doubt it wouldn't survive a nuclear holocaust.

Binky, I think you're focussing too much on the specific date events than on the whole scenario.

The declarations of surprise and astonishment by the CinC at Pearl Harbour are the perfect example that there was not even the faintest idea among them, and the sabotage thing was just a propaganda aspect. Still, a plethora of intelligence wasn't really enough to give an alert state?
I believe that Washington observed carefully and was well aware of what was happening, but they were just deliberately waiting to be attacked in order to have a valid reason that would shock the public opinion.

...and I hate to say this, but it's pretty much like what happened for 9/11..

Complete and utter nonsense.

The effect is not always based on numbers. In the situation that war have not not been declared a highly mobile force which no one can deny access due to the free travel at sea are a very powerfull tool.

It is about presence and show of force which can exploitet by diplomacy.
In a limit war settings such a force will have the ability to reach far beyond the frontline where the opposition can do little to oppose it. Like the US landing a Inchon, Korea, september 1950 which essentially turned the war.

I can recommend reading "Sea Power a Naval History" by E.B.Potter

http://gifsoup.com/view5/2320932/bla...headdesk-o.gif

And why would that be? :confused:

Well, he read: 9-11 was a gov. conspiracy.

You wrote: Before 9-11 there were terror warnings

hehehe too true ;)

Regarding the opening comments of this topic- it's interesting to note the belief that the USN was caught completely unaware that an attack was imminent. In fact the USN did have good intelligence that a surprise attack was coming but didnt know where- the reason the Enterprise was not at Pearl Harbour when the attack came was because it was delivering planes to Wake Island where US Navy Intelligence guessed the attack was coming. Fortunately for the Enterprise a storm delayed its return to PH and it missed the attack.
Whenever there is a choice of explanation for extraordinary events between a grand conspiracy and incompetence, i know which is more likely to occur.

uhmmm although I can accept that a part of the political class of the time was incompetent, I wouldn't say the same of the US military.

I'm not saying that everybody in the chain of command knew it, but I'm wondering whether the consistent and concrete intelligence that had reached the higher spheres of the time was not being deliberately ignored or dismissed..

Come to think of it, it's the perfect plan: first you poke a potential opponent, then you just sit and wait for him to do the first move, possibly a dramatic, coward and big scale attack. Next thing you know you're in the game: industries working around the clock, hundreds of thousands of young men armed and sent to fight, but above all the war is being fought somewhere else, with no damage to cities, factories and population.

America might not have been willing to go to war again, but first thing they did was declaring war to Germany and send troops and ships to Europe.. even in the collective imaginary, it was a war to fight the Nazis, the Pacific war was never as "glamorous" or famous as the one in the ETO, and then again the US war effort was started and ended with Japan..

It's probably because I like playing the devil's advocate, but again I don't think for a minute that the fact that the USA was the only country to actually become the first superpower and gain so much economic and military strength after WW2 was a coincidence..

"People important enough" certainly thought a Pearl Harbor raid was possible. Until November the Fleet was on high alert and patrol patterns were flown that covered the area 1AF launched from. An attack at that time would have been spotted and probably would have found at least half the Fleet at sea.

BUT - In Winter the North Pacific is very stormy and no fun at all. The USN couldn't have made the raid thhat the IJN did, neither could the RN. When Winter hit, the "people important enough" felt that they were safe in relaxing a bit. The Fleet had been on War Alert status for six months, and ships and a/c were in dire need of long-postponed maintenance - not to mention crews (especially the Patrol Wing guys) needed a break too.

So the Fleet went off alert, and Patrol sectors shifted to basically ASW work south of Oahu. The Carriers were used to deliver planes to outposts instead of covering the Battle Line - all the CVs being away was why Kimmel had the whole Battle Line in PH that weekend; normally half would be at sea.

So the bottom line is that the USN was definitely alert for a PH raid until the weather made one impossible - except it wasn't impossible for the IJN.

The fact that Intelligence was 100% right about what the Japanese were doing in SE Asia distracted from Pearl too. We were watching the invasion fleets in the South China Sea and could not conceive that the Japanese would do the invasions without CV air cover.

from post #55, http://208.84.116.223/forums/index.p...ic=13339&st=40

My use of the term 'incompetence' was probably a little harsh- it's easy with hindsight to see what the plan was. My point was that it is more probable that mistakes were made by USN intelligence rather than a grand plan to get the Japanese to smash the USN pacific fleet at harbour. The idea that US politicians had knowledge of a plan to attack Pearl Harbour and allowed it to happen with their ulterior motive being to provoke the USA population into war is frankly ludicrous.

By the way, the USA did not declare war on Germany- Germany declared war on the USA. It was a serious miscalculation by Hitler.
Although Roosevelt wanted to go to war against the Nazis the political landscape in the USA was still set against getting involved in another European conflict- it was seen as a foreign war whereas the war in the Pacific was seen as a direct threat to USA security.

Post war the USA had a very different global strategy and was much more 'internationalist'- prior to WW2 it was very 'isolationist'.

Great book by John D Lukacs on the Pacific War, he centers it around the escape of 10 men from a Japanese PW camp in the Philippines in 42, and the shock wave it eventually caused. An interesting point he raises is only 15% of the total war effort up to Jan 1944 was expended in the Pacific.

Kind of insane to say come get us when you can't even put up a real fight for the next two years. I'd go with the incompetence theory at the highest levels of government. Some things never change.