First I want to reference you to BroJoeK's post #18 since it is the source of my response. In it he outlines some of the claims made by Robert Stinnett in his book "Day of Deciet: The Truth About FDR and Pearl Harbor". Mr. Stinnett is convinced that FDR not only knew Pearl Harbor was going to be attacked by the Japanese, but intentionally kept the personnel in Hawaii in the dark about the fact in order that Japan would succeed and allow FDR to declare war on Japan and thus getting into the war in Europe. I won't go into all the errors, omissions and misrepresentations in Stinnett's work because it would take up too much print, and quite frankly I don't have that sort of time, but I will look just at the pages in BroJoeK's post for now. There are other items on Stinnett's work I have gone over in the past and I'm sure I will have to go over more in the future as well. This is just one example that demonstrates that Stinnett's work is just not a reliable resource on the events leading up to the attack on Pearl Harbor.
From start to finish of the items quoted in post #18 are from "Day of Deceit" starting on page 122 and ending on 124.
First there was the order of battle, including a reconfiguration of the Japanese fleet, that Stinnett claims was given to Kimmel by Rochefort on September 4th and was in an official report at the end of October. There is no citation for the September 4th statement and the citation for the October report is one of Stinnett's infamous "in author's file" citations which is pretty much unobtainable, unless you have a lot of money to waste on it(I have already contacted the author on sources for this book in which I was told I could have his notes for a fee that would have worked out to be around 15 to 25 dollars per page depending on the item). Now there are two problems with Stinnett's claim that Rochefort told Kimmel of this reorganization on September 4th. First, as I said, he provides no citation to back up this claim, and the wording of what exactly Rochefort told Kimmel is vague anyhow. Second, the War Plans Department estimate on the Japanese military situation on September 17th makes no mention of this new configuration and in fact mentions the old format (PHA 14-1355). Looks like Stinnett's September 4th statement is really conjecture and not supported by any facts. As to the report on the new configuration in October, even if that report was sent to Kimmel at that time, the CAST report makes mention of the 1st Air Fleet or its possible purpose. In fact it is mostly about the units that are believed to be slated for action in the Southern Pacific which everyone expected to happen regardless (and did).
His next citation is what I call a "non-citation". This is a case where the statement made in the sentence or paragraph has nothing to do with the citation attributed to it. If you are a general reader this makes it appear as a supported statement when in reality it is nothing of the sort. To demonstrate this I think I should list both the paragraph and the citation so everyone can see the example of a non-citation.
The paragraph reads: Japan's Fast Carrier Force was concentrated in the First Air Fleet, which had been formed on April 1. This force and 30 submarines of the Sixth Fleet would be aimed at Pearl Harbor on December 7. Japan's Fourth Fleet, based at Truk, was assigned to capture Guam and Wake and prevent an American military advance through the Central Pacific.11
Now here's reference number 11 from that chapter:
During the pre-Pearl Harbor era, the Pacific Fleet was in the early stages of forming a Fast Carrier Force. In 1940, Vice Admiral Charles A. Blakely faced stiff opposition from the 'battleship admirals,' who distrusted air power. However, his concept of the fast carrier strike force was later adopted by Admiral Chester Nimitz. The Pacific War was essentially won by Navy task forces built around 16 aircraft carriers of the Essex and Independence classes supported by escort carriers call baby flattops.
The first thing that should be noticed is that this citation is not a citation at all. It is just a general comment of the formation of American task forces in World War II. It does not refer the reader to any primary or secondary source material that would support the statements in the cited sentence/paragraph. Secondly, there is nothing in this citation that supports anything in the paragraph itself. Nothing on the April 1st formation of the First Air Fleet, nothing on 30 submarines of the 6th Fleet aimed at Pearl Harbor, and nothing on the 4th Fleet being assigned to take Guam and Wake. Classic non-citation.
Finally, the last cited data point is Yamamoto's Radio Silence order of 25 November 1941. This is an often cited intercept and even if Stinnett had cited it incorrectly or vaguely, it is very easy to find. The key point on this intercept is right there in Stinnett's text itself though. It was not translated until March 18th 1946, after the war was over. In November of 1941, this intercepted message didn't tell U.S. officials or military personnel anything of any worth. This is a deceptive tactic used by Stinnett in several points in this work. He will mention a piece of information that could not have been known at the time to support his thesis. Sometimes it's like this in which he acknowledges it right in the paragraph by stating, the item was not decrypted until after the fact, but there are other cases where he represents unknowable data as if they knew it at the time. This is a piece of intellectual dishonesty on the part of the author in order to put an idea into the readers head so that they may follow him down the path to a incorrect conclusion.
From a scholarly standpoint, Stinnett's work on the attack on Pearl Harbor has the earmarks of a puff piece done by a tabloid magazine. While it makes for interesting reading, it really does not stand up to any form of serious scrutiny. This is probably a reason why the author of this book is so guarded with his actual notes. It also demonstrates a clear separation between the scholarly historian, and the popular historian. Particularly in their motivations for writing in the first place.
Didn’t you learn anything from Dan Rather? Just because it is fake, it doesn’t mean that it isn’t accurate.
However.
It also demonstrates a clear separation between the scholarly historian, and the popular historian. Particularly in their motivations for writing in the first place.
I beg to differ, somewhat.
Scholarly historians should be focused only on pursuit of the truth, to the extent it is attainable. In my experience they are no more likely to do so than a popular historian, perhaps less.
Academic historians are even more likely to be caught up in the trendy ideologies of their time. They may not have the same financial incentive as a popular historian, at least to the same degree, which often means they are even more focused on making a name for themselves among their peers. Nobody ever made a name for themselves by writing a book showing that the traditional interpretation of history was correct, or that the revisionist POV popular among their colleagues was incorrect.
The booklet was small, only a little larger than an index card, and about forty or fifty pages long. The cover was a thick, canvas-like material and was dark blue in color. It was stamped "Top Secret" on the cover and the first page.
The booklet contained the Office of Naval Intelligence's analysis of the attack, the methods used, and their conclusion of what forces were used. They believed that the attack had been carried out by three, maybe four, aircraft carriers. They thought that the Akagi had been undergoing a modernization at the time and might not have been available and that the Shokaku and Zuikaku were not yet ready for combat operations (they had been rushed through the final steps of being fitted out and were commissioned on August 8 and September 25, respectively).
Now it is possible that some ONI personnel knew exactly which ships were part of the Pearl Harbor raid due to post-attack MAGIC intercepts, but this published report did not have those details, nor did it give a hint to them.
Thanks for the ping. I dont buy into the “FDR knew” stuff either.
When I first heard about it, I found it interesting, but through my own reading, dismissed it.
I think the issue with Stinnett is not whether he makes consistently well researched and cogent arguments, but whether anything he says is historically valuable, and if so, what?
CougarGA7: "As to the report on the new configuration in October, even if that report was sent to Kimmel at that time, the CAST report makes mention of the 1st Air Fleet or its possible purpose.
In fact it is mostly about the units that are believed to be slated for action in the Southern Pacific which everyone expected to happen regardless (and did)."
Pal, I need you to take a close look at those two sentences.
In the first, the word "no" appears to be missing, if that is indeed what you intended.
In the second, the word "mostly" could easily hide the First Air Fleet data which your missing "no" presumably denies was there.
In summary, you should re-write those two sentences.
They don't now say what you apparently meant.
CougarGA7: "The key point on this intercept is right there in Stinnett's text itself though.
It was not translated until March 18th 1946, after the war was over.
In November of 1941, this intercepted message didn't tell U.S. officials or military personnel anything of any worth.
This is a deceptive tactic used by Stinnett in several points in this work."
All Pearl Harbor conspiracy authors, and all conspiracy theories are based on claims that US intelligence could decode and translate not just Japanese Purple diplomatic codes, but also various so-called five-number Naval codes, well before December 1941.
And this drives us so deep into the technical weeds that a layman (i.e., yours truly) is not going to figure it all out.
So the answer of people like Stinnet to your words above would be along the lines of: there was plenty of time for that message to have been decoded, translated and reported to higher headquarters.
Therefore: there is no reason to believe that the 1946 translation was the first time this message was understood.
The official version has always been that no one in Washington expected an attack on Pearl Harbor.
But there have always been reports suggesting otherwise.
The question is, how credible, really, are they?
that’s very valuable analysis, thank you
I haven’t read Stinnett but when I read some of the other conspiracy mongers in the past their work seemed unconvincing.
It’s easy to say after the fact that a whole bunch of people should have been more attuned to what the Japanese might be up to, but to try to put all the blame on FDR or to claim that it was some conscious conspiracy to have the US fleet at Pearl Harbor nearly destroyed is absurd.
I’m no fan of FDR, far from it, but for someone to argue he WANTED the US Pacific fleet to be destroyed in a surprise attack is ludicrous. If his aim was to get the US into the war that would be as well or better served by an initiation of hostilities in which the US fleet was not devastated in a surprise attack. A battle which the US fleet was prepared for and primed to try to win would still get us into the war while having the obvious advantage of not sending a good part of the the fleet to the bottom, perhaps.
Cougar
Sorry to have been away from posting for so long, but I’ve been busy on some projects. More on that some other time. But thank you for copying me with your post.
I read your post and your last paragraph really sums up the situation with Stinnett quite well. His work is “popular history” with an agenda, rather than a true scholarly work. Not that I consider myself any sort of historical scholar, but as a general rule I avoid the “pulp fiction” sort of histories out there. Some of you may cringe but that includes Stephen Ambrose; I don’t think I have any of his books in my library. Ambrose is a fine author and I believe he does strive for accuracy in his work, but his type of writing is not my cup of tea. I prefer the dry, turgid stuff like David Glantz. I like lots of maps, appendices and footnotes to authority.
No writer of history is going to be 100% accurate in what they write, and their opinions and conclusions will always be subject to analysis. I don’t agree with all of Glantz’ opinions in his books about the Russo-German war, but I will be the first to admit that he’s probably forgotten more about that war than I will ever know.
To get back to your point, I don’t consider Stinnett to be “history,” probably even less so that Herman Wouk, who I wouldn’t consider an historian at all. A true historian reveals all of his sources and subjects himself to the process of peer review, rather than engaging in concealment and subterfuge. Maybe a better analogy for Stinnett is that he is to history what Al Gore is to the theory of “anthropogenic global warming:” A man who won’t let facts get in the way of an agenda.