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To: LS; Homer_J_Simpson
LS: "So you continue to cite a historian who has been shown to be incomplete and inaccurate by numerous more recent revelations..."

Pal, your problem is not me, it's Homer, and that's who you should take up your complaint with.

I quote Prange because it's Homer's "textbook" for this course.
If you don't like Prange, then suggest Homer use a different book, and I'll quote from it.

But in my opinion, Prange did a pretty good job, considering that he didn't know everything which has since come to light.
The result is, Prange -- "fair and balanced" -- spreads the blame around to almost everyone from Washington to Pearl Harbor.
That seems fair to me.

LS: "You refuse to admit Short changed the "alert" status (and still have yet to admit you fully understand that. DO YOU???)"

It's true, I've read nothing about Short's alert status codes, or how they may have somehow prevented top-brass in Washington from issuing adequate warnings against the coming Japanese air attack on Hawaii.

LS: "You have yet to admit that Kimmel and Short did NOT have long-range recon out despite the fact they received what ALL historians call a "war" message days earlier..."

Not true. I've explained the problem of long-range recon at least twice, but you don't remember what I said, do you?
Do you need me to repeat or expand on it?

As for "war warning" messages, there were some in November 1941, but they did not warn against air attacks, and indeed specifically directed General Short to defend against sabotage.

LS: "You refuse to acknowledge that cryptanalysts all confirm that NO Purple codes or other codes got through to Washington and/or were even decrypted, nor that the 14 part "war" message was not passed up the chain (this is undeniable)."

Pal, as I'm certain you well know, the subject of codes and code-breaking success is complicated and confusing in the extreme.
It is so tangled up in precise meanings of critical words that almost anyone who wades into the subject can expect to make some mistakes somewhere.

For example, in your statement above -- your reference to "Purple" is incorrect.
Words like "purple," "magic" and "J codes" all refer to Japanese diplomatic correspondence whose codes had been broken and read by US intelligence for many years.

Breaking and reading Japan's diplomatic codes produced a number of general warnings of the coming attack.

But specific fleet movement data could only come from Japan's Naval Codes -- Kaigun Ango -- of which there were four categories:

  1. Code Book D, also known to US code-breakers as the 5-number code.
  2. Radio call sign codes for Japanese officials, ships and shore stations.
  3. Ship Movement (SM) code for reporting arrivals and departures of naval vessels.
  4. Shin (S) code, used for contacting merchant vessels.

So debates over more specific Pearl Harbor warnings involve not Purple or J-code "Magic," which were quickly read, but rather Japan's naval codes -- long said to have not been broken and read until after December 7, 1941.

But Stinnett and others show evidence that some Japanese Naval Code messages were at least partially read.

14 posted on 02/27/2011 5:45:45 AM PST by BroJoeK (a little historical perspective....)
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To: BroJoeK
Prange is detailed, and did well for what he had at the time. So did doctors who believed in applying leeches under the humoral theory of medicine.

I don't need to "take up a complaint" with anyone other than you. YOU are the one who invokes Prange at every turn. If another so-called historian cites Prange, he is citing errors. Clausen and Lee are the only source to correctly incorporate the relevant material, and others, including Prange, IGNORED their findings.

You can't just slough off the codes as "tangled up" and that's why I have repeatedly referred you to Jacobsen AND OTHER cryptanalysts who utterly reject Stinnett as not knowing what he's talking about. Again, if you actually LOOK at Stinnett's end notes, he doesn't support a single solid statement with a broken code or testimony. The only thing he supports are "should have/could have" kinds of statements. ALL of his claims about radio traffic have been debunked. NONE of his so-called cryptanalitic evidence has survived scrutiny of the men who did this for a living, yet you continue to obfuscate, wiggle, and otherwise ignore their testimony and analysis, which is really all that matters.

The change in the alert status was critical, because Marshall, having ALREADY TOLD KIMMEL AND SHORT TO EXPECT WAR, was confident that Pearl Harbor, on "Alert 1," was able to defeat any attack easily---ESPECIALLY AIR, because that was what they had trained for. You really think infantry was going to storm the beaches at Oahu???

To have sent a second, "here they come" message would have alerted Japan that we were reading their DIPLOMATIC AND NAVAL codes.

Your explanation of utter failure to use long-range recon was insufficient and would have gotten Kimmel and Short court-martialed in any reasonable court.

Finally, my "pals" at least pay attention when I give them genuine and real sources rather than running back to a debunked source---and again, I'm not saying ALL of Prange is worthless, just the most critical elements about the Pearl Harbor warning. But that's the part you continually cite.

15 posted on 02/27/2011 6:14:08 AM PST by LS ("Castles made of sand, fall in the sea . . . eventually." (Hendrix))
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To: BroJoeK; LS

Remember how I told you that you had a credibility issue. This is an example of it right here. Stinnett is not a scholar. He is not a historian. He is a man who wrote with an agenda and from my research into his book on Pearl Harbor, shaped the evidence he had to fit his agenda. Not a good resource. LS on the other hand is a scholar, he is a historian. He has written probably the best book on U.S. History that you can buy. In fact, when my oldest was taking his 10th grade U.S. History course I made LS’s book the required textbook.

You say you pay scholars to give you information. This is somewhat of a silly statement on your part since first you imply that hacks like Stinnett and Victor are scholars, which they are not. And then you have a real scholar offering you information for free and you fight it every step of the way because it runs counter to your own predetermined biases.

This makes any argument you make weak at best, and laughable in general.


16 posted on 02/27/2011 8:31:23 AM PST by CougarGA7
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