New docs on Pearl Harbor attack emerge

[Sternjaeger II]

Originally Posted by TomcatViP

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.

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.

[fireship4]

US didn't need to commit itself into a war only to fight the great depression

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.

the clever idea of the Marshall plan.

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.

[ElAurens]

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.

[TomcatViP]

Originally Posted by ElAurens

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

[ElAurens]

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".

[TomcatViP]

Originally Posted by ElAurens

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.

[ElAurens]

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.