Posted on 12/07/2019 12:18:50 PM PST by SeekAndFind
When Japanese bombers appeared in the skies over Pearl Harbor on the morning of December 7, 1941, the U.S. military was completely unprepared for the devastating surprise attack, which dramatically altered the course of World War II, especially in the Pacific theater. But there were several key reasons for the bombing that, in hindsight, make it seem almost inevitable.
Tensions Began During the Great Depression
Before the Pearl Harbor attack, tensions between Japan and the United States had been mounting for the better part of a decade.
The island nation of Japan, isolated from the rest of the world for much of its history, embarked on a period of aggressive expansion near the turn of the 20th century. Two successful wars, against China in 1894-95 and the Russo-Japanese War in 1904-05, fueled these ambitions, as did Japan’s successful participation in World War I (1914-18) alongside the Allies.
During the Great Depression of the 1930s, Japan sought to solve its economic and demographic woes by forcing its way into China, starting in 1931 with an invasion of Manchuria. When a commission appointed by the League of Nations condemned the invasion, Japan withdrew from the international organization; it would occupy Manchuria until 1945.
In July 1937, a clash at Beijing’s Marco Polo Bridge began another Sino-Japanese war. That December, after Japanese forces captured Nanjing (Nanking), the capital of the Chinese Nationalist Party, or Guomindang (Kuomintang), they proceeded to carry out six weeks of mass killings and rapes now infamous as the Nanjing Massacre.
The U.S. Was Trying to Stop Japan’s Global Expansion
In light of such atrocities, the United States began passing economic sanctions against Japan, including trade embargoes on aircraft exports, oil and scrap metal, among other key goods, and gave economic support to Guomindang forces. In September 1940, Japan signed the Tripartite Pact with Germany and Italy, the two fascist regimes then at war with the Allies.
Tokyo and Washington negotiated for months leading up to the Pearl Harbor attack, without success. While the United States hoped embargoes on oil and other key goods would lead Japan would halt its expansionism, the sanctions and other penalties actually convinced Japan to stand its ground, and stirred up the anger of its people against continued Western interference in Asian affairs.
To Japan, war with the United States had become to seem inevitable, in order to defend its status as a major world power. Because the odds were stacked against them, their only chance was the element of surprise.
Destroying the Base at Pearl Harbor Would Mean Japan Controlled the Pacific
In May 1940, the United States had made Pearl Harbor the main base for its Pacific Fleet. As Americans didn’t expect the Japanese to attack first in Hawaii, some 4,000 miles away from the Japanese mainland, the base at Pearl Harbor was left relatively undefended, making it an easy target.
Admiral Yamamoto Isoroku spent months planning an attack that aimed to destroy the Pacific Fleet and destroy morale in the U.S. Navy, so that it would not be able to fight back as Japanese forces began to advance on targets across the South Pacific.
Japan’s surprise attack on Pearl Harbor would drive the United States out of isolation and into World War II, a conflict that would end with Japan’s surrender after the devastating nuclear bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945.
At first, however, the Pearl Harbor attack looked like a success for Japan. Its bombers hit all eight U.S. battleships, sinking four and damaging four others, destroyed or damaged more than 300 aircraft and killed some 2,400 Americans at Pearl Harbor.
Japanese forces went on to capture a string of current and former Western colonial possessions by early 1942—including Burma (now Myanmar), British Malaya (Malaysia and Singapore), the Dutch East Indies (Indonesia) and the Philippines—giving them access to these islands’ plentiful natural resources, including oil and rubber.
But the Pearl Harbor attack had failed in its objective to completely destroy the Pacific Fleet. The Japanese bombers missed oil tanks, ammunition sites and repair facilities, and not a single U.S. aircraft carrier was present during the attack. In June 1942, this failure came to haunt the Japanese, as U.S. forces scored a major victory in the Battle of Midway, decisively turning the tide of war in the Pacific.
My point is that the article’s content is nothing new. Some historian thinks they have come up with a new explanation whereas it has been out there for the last 78 years or so.
No joke, a Nazi Party official in Nanking (I think his last name was Rabe) intervened on multiple occasions to save Chinese civilians from atrocities, and communicated with Berlin about the horrors he had seen.
Interestingly, even the Japanese realized they had screwed up at Nanking...when subsequent Chinese cities were taken, the MPs were sent in ahead of the occupation troops, and when the troops finally came in they were accompanied by their senior officers.
I guess irony is lost on you.
So true. Che-— what a monster. You know what you pointed out even exists among a generation of young Cuban Americans (the ones, notably who supported obamaumao and his cuban/Raul Castro— who is a paedo, btw—gambit). Che’ is a potemkin fake hero to ocasio no cortex types who work the propaganda. He was a sadistic psychopathic killer- who especially liked killing children, teen boys in particular.
This generation was an active target of cuban espionage— to divide them from their parents historical real life experience with communists/Fidelistas. Goal: to make them apply the natural “children revolt against parents” inclinations, and expand them for political backlash to weaken the anti-communist ex-pats. Which they have done for some time, in their “liberal” press. Humberto Fontavo could tell us a lot about this. Now they are are older and the “proof” is more evident to them, the more mature of that generation are changing.
That’s a pretty mean thing to say.
President Roosevelt, Admiral Stark, and the Unsent Warning to Pearl Harbor: A Research Note Burtness, Paul, S. (Northern Illinois University) and Ober, Warren U. (University of Waterloo, Ontario), Australian Journal of Politics and History, Volume 57, Number 4, 2011, pp. 580-588.
Or a bit later, also by Burtness and Ober:
Provocation and Angst: FDR, Japan, Pearl Harbor, and the Entry into War in the Pacific The Hawaiian Journal of History, Vol. 51, 2017, pp. 91-114.
Often confusion reigns - there were two (2) messages. The first is the so-called "Midnight" message, the second is the "Marshall" message.
The Marshall message is the one delivered by the RCA messenger some time after the Pearl Harbor attack had ended. The "Midnight" message (by these lights the extremely important message) has never been found.
From the Proceeding of the Roberts Commission (24PHA1755), in the section SUMMARY and RECOMMENDATIONS, paragraph (2) is found:
"(2) The Army and Naval Commands had received a general war warning on November 27th, but a special war warning sent out by the War Department at midnight December 7th to the Army was not received until some hours after the attack on that date. ..."
As perhaps another insight from Knox, on 24PHA1753 is found:
"Of course, the best means of defense against air attack consists of fighter planes. Lack of an adequate number of this type of aircraft available to the Army for defense of the Island is due to the diversion of this type before the outbreak of the war, to British, the Chinese, the Dutch and the Russians. ..."
Or ... Pearl is screaming for P-40s, PBYs, ... Washington (Stark, Marshall, Arnold, ... Knox and Stimson) all approved the diversions of these front-line types.
Seems others first ... America whenever.
And, lest we forget, that Undeclared War in the Atlantic started when?
RE: Not the “government”... the FDR perpetual machine politics, and all of his pals. He had to force the Rockefellers/Standard Oil to stop selling crucial additives to the Nazis- one small hugely important detail.
And what’s wrong with that?
Sanctions against the Nazis? Heck, we’re doing the same thing today under Trump with North Korea and Iran.
I hope you’re not saying that we should have CONTINUED to allow Standard Oil to sell crucial additives to the Nazis.
RE: Because the a@@hole FDR with his buddies in Rockefeller and the other “sisters” of Oil, put an embargo on the growing Japan’s oil
Of course. But the article says that we did it for a REASON. It was because of Japan’s expansionism. It was because of Japan’s invasion of China ( an ally then ) and the subsequent Nanjing Rape and Massacre among others.
I hope you’re not saying that in light of these, we should not be sanctioning Imperial Japan.
If so, then let’s be consistent, we should stops our sanctions against North Korea and Iran right now and Obama was right to do so.
RE: Some historian thinks they have come up with a new explanation whereas it has been out there for the last 78 years or so.
If you read the other posts in this thread, you will see some FR “historians” ( note the quotes ) mention that in a sense, Japan HAD to attack Pearl Harbor because of what FDR and his business pals did. In other words, we were just BEGGING for a fight and we got it. In other words, America FORCED its hand, otherwise, there would have been peace and the war was unnecessary.
THAT is why I posted this thread. There are too many people who disagree with the most well known historical reasons.
Yes, I have also heard that explanation many times.
It’s an excellent film.
Admiral Yaamamoto had been posted as a naval attaché to the US. He knew there was a lot more to the US then the Japanese decision makers realized. That was true in general for many of the naval officers, their service gave them a better understanding of what Japan would be up against. The Army officers for the most part had hardly been out of the area. If they had been out of Japan, their foreign experience had been China & Manchuria, they looked at possible opponents through that lens. (The Soviet-Japan border clashes in the 1930s were a huge shock to the Japanese Army. Apparently the lesson didn’t stick.)
You miss the point entirely. FDR was a german socialist in intent and direction. He had to be FORCED to stop his supporters, Standard/Mobil and a whole lot else from doing business with the Nazis. HE had to be forced. Get it?
There was nothing wrong with stopping the Rockefellers enabling the Nazis, as well as stopping FORD, and many others doing the same. The information on FORD alone is appalling (and WE paid for it, the a@@hole was building trucks for the nazis, his plants were bombed, and he got millions for the damage out of the US). The point is the FDR had to be forced.
You want to see some other inside damning evidence-read: “In the Garden of the Beasts”.. Erik Larson. re: FDR’s first appointed ambassador to Germany. The state dept filled with button down nazi loving anti-semites with “impressive” names, from the financial US elite. Glad to profit off war. To be sure they were not in favor of jews profiting off war. People like Soros of today.
Were it not for Churchill, the Royal German Battenburgs would have been glad to have given over to Hitler, and they like the Theissens, Krupps and the Ruhr valley war machine thought Hitler could be managed/appeased—to the point they would have made a deal (and it was Edward maneuvered to being a Reich’s Chancellor of the UK).
It took Churchill to massage FDR into doing what his elite socialist/german pacifying supporters would not do- go to war against germany. Japan was easy way to do it (”those little yellow deceitful”..etc). The AntiFA come to mind as they falsely claim anti-fascism when they are, in fact, the brownshirts of the DNC Leftist fascists (there being such a thing)- street apparat of Brennan imho.
Well researched on Ford: https://www.bibliotecapleyades.net/sociopolitica/wall_street/chapter_06.htm
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.