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Ya-ta Boy
Joined: 16 Jan 2003
Location: Established in 1994
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 Posted: Wed Feb 20, 2008 2:32 am Post subject: |
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| what points in another area are you talking about? I believe FDR was a bad president for creating this mess of a federal government we have now and then allowing the country to get sucked into a massive war to fix the economy. Why do you have a problem with that? |
Let me say this a little more clearly since English doesn't seem to be your first language...
1. I can accept that you don't think he was a good president on domestic affairs. The conservatives have been whining about that since the New Deal started and you've said nothing new there. Fine.
2. a. Since this thread is about Pearl Harbor, I would like you to tell me what FDR should have done that he didn't do to prepare the country for an attack in the Pacific. You say he didn't know the day or the place. Fine. I agree. Now, where did he fail the country in this particular instance? b. Of the things he did do to prepare the country, which were wrong in your view?
Please, give some specifics, not just vague allegations. |
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chris_J2
Joined: 17 Apr 2006
Location: From Brisbane, Au.
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| Posted: Wed Feb 20, 2008 6:40 am Post subject: WW2 |
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Umm... The Japanese bombed Darwin in Australia, just 2 months after Pearl Harbour on February 19, 1942. Is it really so hard to connect the dots? Japan was a military power out of control. Still giddy with victory over Russia, China & Korea.
Australia entered the war on September 3, 1939, long before the US. Japan declared war on Australia on 7 December 1941.
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December 7
Japan declared war on the United States, United Kingdom, Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the Union of South Africa. United Kingdom, Australia and New Zealand declared war on Finland, Hungary and Romania. Canada declared war on Finland, Hungary, Japan and Romania. Panama declared war on Japan. Yugoslavia at war with Japan.
December 8
The United States, United Kingdom, Australia, Republic of China, Costa Rica, The Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Haiti, Honduras, The Netherlands, New Zealand and Nicaragua declared war on Japan. |
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Declaration_of_war
The RAAF became the first service to see action in the Pacific when Australian aircraft shadowing the Japanese invasion convoy bound for Malaya were fired at on 6 December 1941 |
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_history_of_Australia_during_World_War_II#Prelude_2
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| A Royal Commission conducted in 1942 estimated that 243 people had been killed and that's been taken as the official figure, but anyone who was in Darwin that day and a whole lot of other evidence will point to the fact that, or the suggestion that a great many more people, in fact, were killed and very reliable witnesses that I've spoken to estimate that the death toll could have been anything between 500 and perhaps 1200 people |
http://www.abc.net.au/worldtoday/stories/s248595.htm
Wartime censorship curtailed accurate reporting, to prevent a mass panic / exodus, fleeing south from Darwin. I recently spoke to a guy last September, & his words were, that there were "a lot more than 243 bodies according to his sources", that day. The conclusion? Japan overestimated its capacity to defeat both the US, & Australia/ NZ
Japanese bombing of Darwin, Feb 19, 1942.
There was no conspiracy in Australia. Despite the fact that the incoming Japanese attack aircraft squadron, was initially mistaken for the returning US squadron, which had left Darwin for Kupang in Timor, but had to return to Darwin, due to poor weather. Compare this to the 2 aircraft carriers that had left Pearl Harbor. PM Curtin was responsible for neither the Japanese attack, nor the flaws in preparation/warnings/absence of all available defences. Is it really so inconcievable, that the same applied to the US President?
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| The excuse given in evidence for the delay (in a timely warning about the incoming Japanese attack planes), was based upon the fact that earlier that morning, a number of U.S. planes - P.40's - had set out for Koepang (Kupang) and, meeting with adverse weather, had returned. Some discussion, it is said, ensued as to whether the planes referred to in the above message were the American planes returning or enemy planes, and that this discussion accounted for the greater part of the delay which ensued. |
http://www.ozatwar.com/darwin02.htm
Last edited by chris_J2 on Wed Feb 20, 2008 7:45 pm; edited 4 times in total |
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OneWayTraffic
Joined: 14 Mar 2005
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| Posted: Wed Feb 20, 2008 8:16 am Post subject: |
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| nicholas_chiasson wrote: |
-er...Japan...a country that had been military expanding since the Russo-Japanese War in the advent of the 20th century, had invaded Manchuria, and Korea, and was obviously posed to attack the phillipines and SE Asia, was FORCED into a war?
-the Seminole Indians were forced into a war, the Japanese started what they couldn't finish. And Pearl Harbor WAS a disater for the US navy. No way around it. It could have been a fatal disaster if the carriers had been in port, but they were not. COnsidering we had superior intelligence, we were lucky to win at all. To argue that FDR was evil for the second World War is illogical. |
The Japanese could have taken out the whole fleet and captured the base for all the difference it would have made.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_production_during_World_War_II#Aircraft_carriers
The USA had many times the productive capacity of Japan, and a whole Alantic fleet as well. They could have still won, though it would have taken longer. (Or maybe not. A submarine could deliver a nuke right into Tokyo harbor.)
Remember that just 2 years after Pearl Harbor the USA wasn't only outproducing Japanese aircraft more than 2:1, it was making far superior models as well. The Zeke was a good (if light) design, but the Hellcat, Corsair, P-38 were better.
A fully sucessful attack on Pearl would have cost America greatly in the short run, but cost Japan more in the long run. They never wanted to beat America, but simply force the USA to acceed to the new world order. A great miscalculation.
Of course that doesn't change the fact that knowing the Japanese were going to bomb Pearl, and leaving your Battleships in harbor, your carriers even closer to Japan (resupply run to Midway.) and all your aircraft lined up on the airfields is really dumb. FDR wasn't dumb. Midway was quite close enough as it is.
*Favorite bit of WWII trivia.* The Japanese never hit the huge fuel oil supply tanks at Pearl. The tanks held more oil than the whole IJN had to run on and were spared. I think it's a conspiracy on the half of high ups in the Japanese government who wanted their country destroyed so America would rebuild it, so Japan could conquer the world with Nintendo. JAPANESE CONSPRACY!!! |
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regicide
Joined: 01 Sep 2006
Location: United States
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| Posted: Wed Feb 20, 2008 11:02 am Post subject: Re: did US know Japan attack was forthcoming circa 1941? |
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A question that is rarely posed and has long been in my mind is the incompetence of MacArthur on the Philippines. MacArthur had been the leader of the military forces in the Philippines--first as Field Marshal of the Philippine Army. (since 1937) Then, five months before the attack on Pearl Harbor he was called back to active duty by the US military. He clearly had plenty of time to dig in for, what many knew, was an eventual attack by Japanese forces. ( despite there being a treaty in place with Japan) Most business interests had pulled out of Manila in the late thirties, citing rising Japanese imperialism.
The military forces were there in December of 1941 but that was not going to be the problem. MacArthur had EIGHT hours between the time Pearl Harbor was attacked and when the Japanese attacked the Philippines--and MacArthur did nothing to prepare for that attack!
THE JAPANESE ATTACK FINDS GENERAL MACARTHUR UNPREPARED
Japanese preparations for the invasion of the Philippines
By 6 December 1941 (Hawaii time), the Japanese had assembled about five hundred fighters and bombers at airbases on Formosa (now Taiwan) for their assault on the Philippines. The task of this huge fleet of Japanese aircraft was to support a seaborne invasion by destroying the United States Far East Air Force, and seizing control of the skies over the Philippines for Japan.
The Japanese were not expecting to be able to employ their standard tactic of a swift surprise attack for their invasion of the Philippines. The Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor would take place at 8.00 a.m. on 7 December 1941 (Hawaii time). However, because of the difference in time zones, and the separation of Hawaii and the Philippines by the International Date Line, at the time of the attack on Pearl Harbor it would be 2.30 a.m. on 8 December 1941 in Manila. The Japanese had planned for their bombers and fighters to begin taking off from Formosan airbases at 2.30 am on 8 December. This timing would enable the Japanese aircraft to reach the Philippines by daybreak on that same day. By that time, the Japanese expected that the commander of American air forces on the Philippines (MacArthur) would have responded to their attack on Pearl Harbor by placing his air defences on full war alert. The Japanese expected that their fighters and bombers would meet stiff opposition from American fighters when they arrived over the Philippines.
MacArthur thought that the new American B-17D heavy bomber (above) could prevent a Japanese invasion of the Philippines. Unfortunately, his inaction during the nine hours following Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor caused his air power to be destroyed on the ground.
Before Japanese aircraft could take off from Formosa at 2.30 a.m. on 8 December, thick fog began to envelop the airbases. As hours passed with no sign of the fog lifting, senior Japanese commanders and their staff became increasingly concerned that the Americans might strike first at the Formosan airbases which were crowded with aircraft, fully armed, fuelled, and waiting to take off. They need not have worried. In the Philippines, General MacArthur had neglected to place his command on a full war footing even after learning about the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.
http://www.users.bigpond.com/pacificwar/gatheringstorm/Philippines/Japanattacks.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Douglas_MacArthur |
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chris_J2
Joined: 17 Apr 2006
Location: From Brisbane, Au.
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| Posted: Wed Feb 20, 2008 3:59 pm Post subject: |
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| The Japanese never hit the huge fuel oil supply tanks at Pearl. The tanks held more oil than the whole IJN had to run on and were spared. |
The Japanese did not repeat this mistake in Darwin. (as evidenced in the previous image I posted).
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Eight ships were sunk in Darwin Harbour:
USS Peary, a United States Navy destroyer
USAT Meigs, a large US Army troop transport ship
two Australian passenger ships, being used as merchant troop transports:
Neptuna
Zealandia
HMAS Mavie a Royal Australian Navy patrol boat
Mauna Loa, a 5,436 ton US merchant freighter[7]
British Motorist, a UK-registered merchant refuelling oiler[8]
Kelat, a 1,849 ton coal storage hulk[9]
Among the ships damaged but not destroyed was a hospital ship, AHS Manunda.[10]
The USAAF lost ten P-40s, one B-24 bomber, and three C-45 transport planes. The US Navy lost three PBY Catalina flying boats. The RAAF (Royal Australian Air Force) lost six Lockheed Hudsons.
The air raids caused chaos in Darwin, with most essential services including water and electricity being badly damaged or destroyed. |
Lol at the Nintendo conspiracy! |
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Ya-ta Boy
Joined: 16 Jan 2003
Location: Established in 1994
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| Posted: Wed Feb 20, 2008 6:58 pm Post subject: |
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| estion that is rarely posed and has long been in my mind is the incompetence of MacArthur on the Philippines. |
I think this is a fair question. The answer, at least part of it, is that the US underestimated Japan. Could Japan stage two major military attacks thousands of miles apart on the same day? I have not studied the details of this aspect of WWII, but I think it's possible to say that MacArthur didn't expect the Japanese militarily capable of this. It could also just be simple incompetence. |
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regicide
Joined: 01 Sep 2006
Location: United States
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| Posted: Wed Feb 20, 2008 7:31 pm Post subject: |
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| Ya-ta Boy wrote: |
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| estion that is rarely posed and has long been in my mind is the incompetence of MacArthur on the Philippines. |
I think this is a fair question. The answer, at least part of it, is that the US underestimated Japan. Could Japan stage two major military attacks thousands of miles apart on the same day? I have not studied the details of this aspect of WWII, but I think it's possible to say that MacArthur didn't expect the Japanese militarily capable of this. It could also just be simple incompetence. |
The answer seems to be pressure from the Philippine government, who had a treaty with Japan and expected it to be honored.
It still doesn't explain why MaArthur did not make some preparations. He could at the very least moved his aircraft out of Clark and other bases, and used those nine hours to do something. It seems to me that pressure from Manila could only justify not striking first--in Taiwan.
But to just freeze up and do nothing. Very hard to understand. |
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Kuros
Joined: 27 Apr 2004
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| Posted: Wed Feb 20, 2008 8:47 pm Post subject: |
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| regicide wrote: |
| Ya-ta Boy wrote: |
| Quote: |
| estion that is rarely posed and has long been in my mind is the incompetence of MacArthur on the Philippines. |
I think this is a fair question. The answer, at least part of it, is that the US underestimated Japan. Could Japan stage two major military attacks thousands of miles apart on the same day? I have not studied the details of this aspect of WWII, but I think it's possible to say that MacArthur didn't expect the Japanese militarily capable of this. It could also just be simple incompetence. |
The answer seems to be pressure from the Philippine government, who had a treaty with Japan and expected it to be honored.
It still doesn't explain why MaArthur did not make some preparations. He could at the very least moved his aircraft out of Clark and other bases, and used those nine hours to do something. It seems to me that pressure from Manila could only justify not striking first--in Taiwan.
But to just freeze up and do nothing. Very hard to understand. |
Fog of War |
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mateomiguel
Joined: 16 May 2005
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| Posted: Wed Feb 20, 2008 10:57 pm Post subject: |
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why do all conspiracy theories follow the same pattern, use the same ideas, all down to the same phrases and idioms? its like mix and match, or Legos. Take a little bit of "highest levels of our government," add in a dash of "and they sit back and did nothing," and season it with a healthy dose of "that's what they want you to believe," and you're set up for free beers forever.
I just tune out whenever I see the pattern now. Its like a broken record, no matter if its about oil companies or the CIA or nazi templars or whatever. Its the same myth retold a thousand different times. The Greeks probably conjured up conspiracy theories about their gods. Oh, wait, I guess most greek myths blame the gods for everything and could probably count as conspiracy theories already.
And even if it is true, so what? Yeah, yeah, powerful and nefarious entities have shaped the entire world at their whims and have killed us minions by the millions. With this newfound knowledge, I can now... uh... um... shake my fist in impotent rage?
This particular conspiracy theory is especially weak, because it assumes that the US needed to sacrifice men and materiel before it was ready to go to war. If the US knew enough about the attack to send the carriers out and (evilly) leave the battleships in, why didn't they just send all the ships out? I'm sure that a swarm of Japanese bombers blowing up all secondary targets they could find in Hawaii would have been enough to goad the American public into war, without destroying the battleships. And they would be useful for the upcoming war. No, I think that there was no conspiracy here. |
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Gopher
Joined: 04 Jun 2005
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| Posted: Wed Feb 20, 2008 11:22 pm Post subject: |
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| mateomiguel wrote: |
| why do all conspiracy theories follow the same pattern, use the same ideas, all down to the same phrases and idioms? |
Good question. Their advocates mindlessly repeat a countercultural, antiEstablishment trope (only not as countercultural and not as antiEstablishment as they think: Hollywood coopted them decades ago and now profits from them). They have their square peg that they insist fits into all holes... |
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Ya-ta Boy
Joined: 16 Jan 2003
Location: Established in 1994
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| Posted: Wed Feb 20, 2008 11:34 pm Post subject: |
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| If the US knew enough about the attack to send the carriers out and (evilly) leave the battleships in, why didn't they just send all the ships out? I'm sure that a swarm of Japanese bombers blowing up all secondary targets they could find in Hawaii would have been enough to goad the American public into war, without destroying the battleships. And they would be useful for the upcoming war. |
Yes to this, and yes to the conspiracy part of the post.
This allegation has been around for decades. I think part of the reason is to simply smear a popular president. His political enemies couldn't defeat him at the polls, but they can throw mud at him and hope something sticks. At least some people will believe it. |
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regicide
Joined: 01 Sep 2006
Location: United States
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| Posted: Thu Feb 21, 2008 10:51 am Post subject: |
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| Gopher wrote: |
| mateomiguel wrote: |
| why do all conspiracy theories follow the same pattern, use the same ideas, all down to the same phrases and idioms? |
Good question. Their advocates mindlessly repeat a countercultural, antiEstablishment trope (only not as countercultural and not as antiEstablishment as they think: Hollywood coopted them decades ago and now profits from them). They have their square peg that they insist fits into all holes... |
The same could be said for you folks. You are all the same too. The first thing is the arrogance that you all have because of your feeling of being �on the right side� of the issue. Then, how you are never satisfied with any piece of evidence, no matter how powerful�you always need more. But there will never be enough�and you know it.
The other interesting characteristic of your collective thinking is the need for a grand plan. JMO is the master of this art, but since you are cut from the same mold, and follow each other with your herd mentality, you all require that �someone would have talked".
I don�t know how to tell you folks this, although it has been mentioned before, that people who participate in these kinds of criminal activities are not the types that have loose lips. And if they would shoot their mouth off, there are systems in place to deal with that.
Your expectations of the world are na�ve at the very least. |
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wannago
Joined: 16 Apr 2004
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| Posted: Thu Feb 21, 2008 11:49 am Post subject: |
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| Ya-ta Boy wrote: |
| This allegation has been around for decades. I think part of the reason is to simply smear a popular president. His political enemies couldn't defeat him at the polls, but they can throw mud at him and hope something sticks. At least some people will believe it. |
Look, there is a lot of historical documentation on this. Here is one piece that puts in succinctly, although its still fairly lengthy:
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...President Franklin D. Roosevelt wanted to enter the war in Europe, especially after the fall of France (June 1940). In this desire he was supported by the old elite of Anglophile Wasps and by the increasingly influential Jewish lobby. In June 1941 they were joined by the assorted leftists who cared about the Soviet Union more than about America. After meeting FDR at the Atlantic Conference (August 14, 1941) Churchill noted the "astonishing depth of Roosevelt's intense desire for war." But there was a problem: the President could not overcome the resistance to "Europe's war" felt by most Americans and their elected representatives.
The mood of the country was a problem, and Roosevelt therefore resorted to subterfuge. He systematically and deliberately provoked the Japanese into attacking the United States. His real target was Hitler: Roosevelt expected the German dictator to abide by the Tripartite Pact and declare war on America, and hoped that Hitler's decision would be facilitated by a display of America's apparent vulnerability. Accordingly, even though Roosevelt was well aware of the impending attack on Pearl Harbor, he let it happen and was relieved, even pleased, when it did. The evidence is circumstantial, of course, and chronologically its more important elements proceed as follows:
1. In the summer of 1940 Roosevelt ordered the Pacific [fleet] to relocate from the West Coast to Hawaii. When its commander, Admiral Richardson, protested that Pearl Harbor offered inadequate protection from air and torpedo attack he was replaced.
2. On October 7 1940 Navy IQ analyst McCollum wrote an eight-point memo for Roosevelt on how to force Japan into war with U.S., including an American oil embargo against Japan. All of them were eventually accomplished.
3. On 23 June 1941 - one day after Hitler's attack on Russia - Secretary of the Interior and FDR's Advisor Harold Ickes wrote a memo for the President in which he pointed out that "there might develop from the embargoing of oil to Japan such a situation as would make it not only possible but easy to get into this war in an effective way. And if we should thus indirectly be brought in, we would avoid the criticism that we had gone in as an ally of communistic Russia."
4. On 18 October Ickes noted in his diary: "For a long time I have believed that our best entrance into the war would be by way of Japan."
5. The U.S. had cracked key Japanese codes before the attack. FDR received "raw" translations of all key messages. On 24 September 1941 Washington deciphered a message from the Naval Intelligence HQ in Tokyo to Japan's consul-general in Honolulu, requesting grid of exact locations of U.S. Navy ships in the harbor. Commanders in Hawaii were not warned.
6. Sixty years later the U.S. Government still refuses to identify or declassify many pre-attack decrypts on the grounds of "national security"!
7. On November 25 Secretary of War Stimson wrote in his diary that FDR said an attack was likely within days, and asked "how we should maneuver them into the position of firing the first shot without too much danger to ourselves. In spite of the risk involved, however, in letting the Japanese fire the first shot, we realized that in order to have the full support of the American people it was desirable to make sure that the Japanese be the ones to do this so that there should remain no doubt in anyone's mind as to who were the aggressors."
8. On November 25 FDR received a "positive war warning" from Churchill that the Japanese would strike against America at the end of the first week in December. This warning caused the President to do an abrupt about-face on plans for a time-buying modus vivendi with Japan and it resulted in Secretary of State Hull's deliberately provocative ultimatum of 26 November 1941 that guaranteed war.
9. On November 26 Washington ordered both US aircraft carriers, the Enterprise and the Lexington, out of Pearl Harbor "as soon as possible". This order included stripping Pearl of 50 planes or 40 percent of its already inadequate fighter protection. On the same day Cordell Hull issued his ultimatum demanding full Japanese withdrawal from Indochina and all China. U.S. Ambassador to Japan called this "The document that touched the button that started the war."
10. On November 29 Hull told United Press reporter Joe Leib that Pearl Harbor would be attacked on December 7. The New York Times reported on December 8 ("Attack Was Expected," p. 13) that the U.S. knew of the attack a week earlier.
11. On December 1 Office of Naval Intelligence, ONI, 12th Naval District in San Francisco found the missing Japanese fleet by correlating reports from the four wireless news services and several shipping companies that they were getting signals west of Hawaii.
12. On 5 December FDR wrote to the Australian Prime Minister, "There is always the Japanese to consider. Perhaps the next four or five days will decide the matters." |
http://www.freerepublic.com/forum/a3a3522a943db.htm
If you want to attack the source of this, go ahead, but the facts all check out. These documents all exist.
I am convinced that he wanted in and was willing to let the attack happen to a) get in the war against Germany and b) fix the economy. Was looking the other way and letting the attack happen (and thereby sacrificing American lives) the right thing to do? Was Bush's decision to enter Iraq the right thing to do? Its all a matter of perspective I guess.
And you're damned right I compare FDR's decision to look the other way to Bush's decision to invade Iraq. If Bush is the worst President ever (as so many on this board scream), then FDR is a very close second. My vote goes for FDR as the worst ever. W is certainly nowhere near the top either, but he didn't *beep* the U.S. as FDR did for 12 long years. |
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jkelly80
Joined: 13 Jun 2007
Location: you boys like mexico?
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| Posted: Thu Feb 21, 2008 12:37 pm Post subject: |
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| wannago wrote: |
I am convinced that he wanted in and was willing to let the attack happen to a) get in the war against Germany and b) fix the economy. Was looking the other way and letting the attack happen (and thereby sacrificing American lives) the right thing to do? Was Bush's decision to enter Iraq the right thing to do? Its all a matter of perspective I guess.
And you're damned right I compare FDR's decision to look the other way to Bush's decision to invade Iraq. If Bush is the worst President ever (as so many on this board scream), then FDR is a very close second. My vote goes for FDR as the worst ever. W is certainly nowhere near the top either, but he didn't *beep* the U.S. as FDR did for 12 long years. |
There was no guarantee that a Japanese surprise attack would bring Germany in against the US, especially since it was four months after they launched Barbarossa against Stalin. It was a colosally stupid move by Hitler, and luckily he mismanaged a still winnnable campaign in the Eastern Front badly enough to give us time to mobilize and get Overlord under way before Moscow or Stalingrad fell. |
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Ya-ta Boy
Joined: 16 Jan 2003
Location: Established in 1994
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| Posted: Thu Feb 21, 2008 3:40 pm Post subject: |
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I have no quarrel with the idea that FDR wanted to get us into the war. He was right to do so. It was not in our national interest to let Japanese militarists take over China. It was even less in our interest to have a radical militaristic Germany take over Europe.
I'm not a pro-war kind of person, but there are wars that are necessary, and WWII is one of them.
My quarrel is the groundless allegation that FDR knew about and allowed Pearl Harbor to happen, with was the contention of the original post.
Your irrational hatred of a man that saved your country is blinding you. |
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