[Homer_J_Simpson]

Free Republic University, Department of History presents World War II Plus 70 Years: Seminar and Discussion Forum
First session: September 1, 2009. Last date to add: September 2, 2015.
Reading assignment: New York Times articles delivered daily to students on the 70th anniversary of original publication date. (Previously posted articles can be found by searching on keyword “realtime” Or view Homer’s posting history .)
To add this class to or drop it from your schedule notify Admissions and Records (Attn: Homer_J_Simpson) by freepmail. Those on the Realtime +/- 70 Years ping list are automatically enrolled. Course description, prerequisites and tuition information is available at the bottom of Homer’s profile. Also visit our general discussion thread

[Homer_J_Simpson]

[BlueLancer]

"ARMY SENT SOUTH ONLY TO CHECK CHINA," TOKYO REPLIES TO ROOSEVELT INQUIRY ...

"... and, yes, it's still there ..."

[I still care]

As I started to read it took me a second to realize this was the day before Pearl Harbor. It was a September 10th type of day, the day before the World changed.

I did notice that, unlike 9/11, the paper was full of stories about the Axis, including the war communiques. How the Mighty Times has fallen.

I do enjoy the top Billboard song listing - it adds pop culture atmosphere.

[Rinnwald]

I hope the Japanese reply to Secretary of State Hull eases tensions, and everything works itself out in the Pacific.

Also, interesting story about the Mars seaplane fire on the front page. The Martin JRM Mars is one of the few WWII era airplanes still working. As of 2010, the remaining two (out of seven built) were still working as fire-fighting tankers.

[BroJoeK]

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December 1, 1941:

"SS Colonel Karl Jäger, commander of Einsatzkommando 3, reports to Berlin that 85 percent of Lithuanian Jewry has been destroyed"

Hanna Lehrer, a Munich Jew, wears both her personal Jewish star around her neck and the mandated Yellow Star badge identifying her, isolating her, and alienating her from other Germans.
Hanna was later sent to Riga, Latvia, where she was killed.

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[BroJoeK]

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December 5-8, 1941:

"Seven thousand Jews from Novogrudok, Belorussia, are forced to stand all day and night in frigid temperatures outside the municipal courthouse.
Five thousand are taken away to their deaths on the 6th; the remaining 2000 are impressed into forced labor at suburban Pereshike."

"Vichy France leader Philippe Pétain (second from left) marches with top Nazi official Hermann Göring (fourth from left) in St. Florentin-Vergigny, France, in December 1941.
The Vichy regime not only collaborated with the Germans, but went out of its way to round up Jews who were not French citizens and ship them off to death camps in Poland before the Germans asked them to.
In the minds of many Vichy supporters, France may have lost to Germany but at least stood victorious over the Jews."

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[BroJoeK]

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December 6, 1941:

" The Soviets mount a million-man counteroffensive outside of Moscow.

"Late in 1941 about 80 Jews residing in Bielefeld, Germany, were rounded up along with hundreds of other German Jews for transport to the Riga-Kaiserwald concentration camp in Latvia.
This camp specialized in murdering Jews by means of poison-gas vans.
One of the SS's innovations was to load Jews into a poison-gas van and kill the Jewish occupants while the van was driving to a mass grave site.
The dead Jews could then be conveniently dumped into the pit, which was covered over with dirt by other Jewish prisoners."

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[BroJoeK]

I am not a fan of Patrick Buchanan, and it's not clear to me here just exactly what he's trying to say, but his column today is in the news.

Thought you might be interested:

"Said ex-President Herbert Hoover, Republican statesman of the day, “We have only one job to do now, and that is to defeat Japan.”

"But to friends, “the Chief” sent another message: “You and I know that this continuous putting pins in rattlesnakes finally got this country bit.”

"Today, 70 years after Pearl Harbor, a remarkable secret history, written from 1943 to 1963, has come to light.
It is Hoover’s explanation of what happened before, during and after the world war that may prove yet the death knell of the West."

[PeterPrinciple]

Admiral Numura indicated that it might be several days before his government completed its study of Secretary Hull’s document but he explained that he based his view on press dispatches. “We learn much more from Tokyo dispatches in your newspapers, “ He remarked than from our own small messages.”........................

As the two envoys stood before the cameras smiling, Mr Kurusu turned to a correspondent and said, “the photographers make us smile, but your correspondents always write of the seriousness of the situation.”

Upon emerging from Mr, Hulls office a half hour later, the envoys had nothing to say. They left looking serious.

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Read the above slowly to get the full flavor.

[BroJoeK]

"During separate interviews with the author, Kisner and Whitlock identified the 129 intercepts that refute Layton’s claim of radio silence.
Whitlock analyzed the radio direction finder reports obtained by Station CAST, and Kisner analyzed the intercepts obtained by his operators at Station H.

The 129 reports, dated during the 21-day period, were compiled by the author from three sources found in Archives II:

• (1) Japanese naval intercepts,
• (2) Japanese code movement reports filed by warships, and
• (3) the TESTM radio direction finder reports obtained by Station CAST.

Admiral Nagumo, the commander-in-chief of the Hawaii-bound force, was the most talkative.
He originated nearly half of all Japanese naval radio broadcasts intercepted by the US Navy monitoring stations.

The author compiled the seven categories of intercepts:

1. Radio transmissions by Admiral Nagumo: 60
2. Tokyo radio to the vessels of the First Air Fleet: 24
3. Broadcasts originated by carriers: 20
4. Broadcasts originated by Carrier Division Commanders: 12
5. Messages originated by Carrier Division Commanders: 8
6. Messages originated by the Midway Neutralization Unit: 4
7. Tokyo radio to individual Carrier Division Commanders: 1

"Radio silence was ignored as more Japanese naval broadcasts hit the airwaves.
The first military intercept that specified Pearl Harbor as the target came from Japan’s highest naval commander, Admiral Osami Nagano, Chief of the Imperial Navy General Headquarters.
He breached security in a radio broadcast and disclosed that a Japanese carrier strike force would attack Hawaii.
The broadcast was beamed from Tokyo to the communications officer of the Eleventh Air Fleet, a powerful naval air command based on Formosa, composed of 500 bombers and fighters that had been massed for an aerial attack on General MacArthur’s command in the Philippines and other objectives in Southeast Asia.

"Nagano’s broadcast was first publicly disclosed in a postwar article written by Commander Koiichi Shimada, an air officer of the Eleventh Air Fleet, who wrote that his command received a radio dispatch from Imperial General Headquarters packed with highly secret information.
The message said:

IMPERIAL HEADQUARTERS IS QUITE CONFIDENT OF SUCCESS IN JAMMING THE ENEMY’S RADIO FREQUENCIES SO THAT ANY WARNING DISPATCHED TO THE PHILIPPINES AS A RESULT OF THE CARRIER STRIKING FORCE’S ATTACK ON HAWAII WILL NOT GET THROUGH.
MEANWHILE, IN ORDER TO ASSURE SUCCESS OF THE HAWAII ATTACK, IT IS IMPERATIVE THAT ELEVENTH AIR FLEET IN FORMOSA TAKE EVERY PRECAUTION TO GUARD AGAINST THE ENEMY’S LEARNING OF OUR MILITARY MOVEMENTS BEFORE THE ATTACK TAKES PLACE.21

"The disclosures contained in this Tokyo-to-Formosa broadcast are confounding.
Why would Japan’s top naval officer abandon basic radio security?
An even more important question for the Pacific Fleet:
Was the broadcast intercepted by US Navy cryptographers, or was Commander Dyer of HYPO correct in asserting that Japan did not transmit a single message naming Pearl Harbor as the target?

Stinnett, Robert (1999-12-14). Day of Deceit, page 209 - 210

[CougarGA7]

• AMERICA EXPECTED TO REJECT JAPAN'S REPLY ON INDOCHINA - HULL MAY ASK PROOF, SUGGEST TROOPS RECALL - Hawaiian newspaper headline

• "1. On American continent in Oct. Army began training barrage balloon troops at Camp Davis, N.C. 400,500 balloons considering use in defense of Hawaii & Panama. So far as Hawaii concerned though investigations made, they have not set up mooring equipment, nor have they selected troops to man them. No training for maintenance balloons. No sign barrage balloons equipment. In addition, it is difficult to imagine that they have actually any limits to barrage balloon defense. I imagine that in all probability there is considerable opportunity left to take advantage of a surprise attack against there places. In my opinion battleships do not have torpedo nets. Details not known; will report results of investigation." - Cable from Japanese Hawaiian Consulate to Tokyo in the PA-KY code. This message was not translated until December 8th.

• "1. On evening 5th, among battleships which entered port - one sub tender. The following ships observed at anchor on 6th. 9 battleships, 3 light cruisers, 3 sub tenders, 17 destroyers, in addition 4 light cruisers, 2 destroyers lying at docks (heavy cruisers & air plane carriers all left). 2. 'It appears that no air reconnaissance is being conducted by the fleet air arm.'" - Cable from Japanese Hawaiian Consulate to Tokyo PA-K2 code. This message was not translated until December 8th.

• 13 parts of the Japanese 14 part message is delivered to Admiral Wilkinson at his home by Admiral Beardall. General Miles, head of the Army G-2 see the message at this time as well since he was dining with Wilkinson at the time.

• At around 5:54 p.m. Hawaii time, a dispatch for Kimmel arrives authorizing him to destroy his secret codes or documentation "now or under later conditions of greater emergency."

• Colonel Bicknell reports the Navy message reporting the Japanese orders to destroy codes in the Saturday meeting conducted by General Short.

• Colonel Clyde Dusenbury, who is on duty with Colonel Bartton as the first parts of Japan's fourteen part message comes in. He claims that Bratton left at 9 p.m. and he received the fourteenth and last part of the message at midnight eastern time at which time he went home. He states he did not deliver the fourteen part message until the next morning of December 7th.

• FDR tells Halifax that he hopes that an appeal to the Emperor may still avert war.

• General Georgi Zhukov launches a major counter attack against the Nazi's pushing them away from Moscow.

• Lieutenant-General F.I. Golikov's 10th Army captures Mikhailov and Serebrainye Prudy.

• Vannevar Bush calls a meeting in Washington of the discuss the ramping up of the atomic bomb program.

• Washington calls San Francisco and asks for all of the day's intercepted traffic be sent via teletype. This was the first time the Army had used the TWX system to send intercepts to the capital.

[GreenLanternCorps]

Unfortunately things on these threads are about to get rather grim, for at least the next six months in the Pacific.

Before that begins, I wanted to share with the class this incomplete but excellent alternate timeline called “Pacific War Redux” constructed on the website alternatehistory.com:

http://www.alternatehistory.com/discussion/showthread.php?t=94005

This alternate timeline assumes that the United States Navy and Army go on a wartime in footing for both implementing defense plans and acquiring equipment. instead of taking their time and slowly ramping up, despite having been given an effective “blank check” by Congress in the Two Ocean Navy Act of 1940.

I hope you guys will enjoy reading it as much as I have.

(Note: I have a love-hate relationship with alternate history.com.

It is the best site on the web for alternate history discussion. However, the site admin is very liberal and banned me for disagreeing with the repeal of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” and my reasons for it, when I voiced them in the “off topic” politics forum of the site.

If I ever re-register, I’ll be a good little Young Pioneer and stay out of the off topic forums.

However, Pacific War Redux is one of a number of excellent alternate timelines you will find on the site, for those so interested.)

[dfwgator]

Well guys, I’m going away for a few days, hope nothing significant happens while I’m gone.

[rdl6989]

This is truly fascinating. I don’t post on these threads much, rather I sit back, read, and learn. I must confess that I once was among those who believed Roosevelt knew it was coming.