Posted on 10/23/2019 4:01:45 PM PDT by NRx
doh ! ...I see it now...sorry. you paren’d the FDR. I apologize for the mis-read.
This is yet another example of the reason I enjoy this site!
Thank you, Pelham, for the information!
My limited understanding of the history around Pearl Harbor is that the military leaders advised against putting those big boats together in one location. They reasoned out that it would look too much like we were preparing to move on Japan, and that they were overruled by the diplomats.
I didn’t realize the code we (partially, apparently) broke was the diplomatic code.
Must have been infuriating, not to be able to do anything.
Again, thank you!
He sure was.
In 1941 we didn’t have a torpedo that could work in shallow water like Pearl Harbor.
And despite the fact that the Brits apparently did have one, we decided that Japan didn’t. Which of course they did, the ‘Thunder Fish’.
Combined with a belief that Japan couldn’t possibly send a fleet 4,000 miles across the Pacific without us noticing, we thought that the fleet at rest inside Pearl Harbor was safe. Japan proved us wrong on that conceit as well.
Other than the loss of life Japan probably didn’t hurt us all that much. The warships at Pearl were old and slow compared to the Fast Carrier Task Force that we needed and built and used to defeat Japan.
The Japanese probably did us a favor at Pearl Harbor. They sank some obsolete battleships, but the crews mostly survived. They destroyed some obsolete planes on the ground, but most of the pilots survived to be given new planes.
The strategically important ships, our carriers, we’re not there.
Those old Pearl Harbor ships played a supporting role in providing gunfire for invasions but they weren’t the ships that would chase down and destroy the Imperial Navy.
We had to build a faster and more powerful fleet in order to defeat Japan. Fleet carriers and fast battleships that could keep up with them. The resulting Fast Carrier Task Force was the main strike arm of the Navy and could move at will.
At the start of the Pacific War we had to be careful about engaging the Japanese fleet, we were evenly matched at best, and probably not even that. Then came Midway which I suppose was like payback for Pearl Harbor, with four of Japan’s main fleet carriers being lost.
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