Posted on 12/07/2019 12:18:50 PM PST by SeekAndFind
To broker a peace agreement with the US.
Rots of Ruck with that one.
New movie “Midway” is in theaters now. Starts with Pearl Harbor and ends after the victory at Midway. No “name” actors except the relatively small role of Woody Harrelson as Chester Nimitz. The film is visually stunning with no romantic backstories taking attention from the decision-making on both sides. Divine intervention imo caused Japanese intel to miss that the 6 U.S. aircraft carriers weren’t in port that day.
We already had forces in China by December 7.
A few flyers...and a little plant to assemble planes at an airfield near Rangoon...
“Divine intervention imo caused Japanese intel to miss that the 6 U.S. aircraft carriers werent in port that day.”
Not Divine intervention. PacFlt only had three carriers. Saratoga was in San Diego on loading it’s aircraft, after leaving the shipyards.
Enterprise and Lexington were out delivering aircraft to Midway and Wake Island.
The other U.S. carriers were in the Atlantic Fleet.
Thanks for the correction. Still hard for me to believe the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor knowing the carriers weren’t there. The movie portrays Yamamoto as very upset at this after-action news.
The US was so surprised that all the aircraft carriers were east of the island, the obsolite battleships were parked all very close together to allow for easy targets......
FDR knew
On December 8th, 1941 there was more oil in Hawaii than in Japan.
The Japanese knew that they could not win a protracted war with the United States, they were hoping to deal the U.S. a string of defeats and come to a negotiated settlement. Admiral Yamamoto, who had attended Harvard and served as Naval attache in Washington, knew the American temperament and told the Japanese leaders that if they started a war with America, they should be prepared to march into the White House to dictate the surrender terms.
Surely they didn’t start all the way from Japan? I’m pretty sure it wasn’t. Maybe it was west of the International Date Line, or was it?
Would the Japanese telegraph back “December 8” regardless of their starting position (whether East or West of the International Date Line)?
The AVG was not part of the U.S. Military, they were mercenaries. After the war began they were inducted into the Army Air Force, at much lower pay. Claire Chennault warned them that if they went home, their draft board would be waiting for them at the bottom gangplank when they left the ship to draft them into the infantry. Most stayed.
They had been working on this goal since the 1880's.
The US stood in their way because we owned so much territory that Japan coveted including Hawaii, the Philippines, Alaska, California plus a whole bunch of little islands.
They also wanted Peru, Chile, Columbia in fact anything that touched the Pacific they wanted.
They had been sending their people out to start colonies in these area to make their take over easier.
Imperial Japan’s attack was a response to Western imperialism and industrial hegemony.
And Red Communist Pete Seeger sang protest songs against going to war against NAZI Germany saying it would just benefit the wealthy American industrialists.
It did.
The Germans, especially in the Philippines, were horrified at what the Japanese did and they were no shrinking violets.
They launched their aircraft from a point only 200 miles North of Oahu (2). After worrying that the American carriers weren't there and the potential of American submarines, the Japanese carriers went bake to Japan (3).
They were mercenaries on paper, thats why they were paid more than the military. But most of them were military pilots eleased from the American service to go do the job even as the military was building up for our inevitable entry into the war.
They were intended to help blunt the Chinese advances towards British holdings and help preserve British bases for allied forces while Americans built up and were not officially part of the war.
After they were disolved they went back to being military pilots and mechanics, with the medical personnel returning to the medical field stateside.
Greg Boyington broke his contract with the Tigers and went back to the Marine Corps early.
Now write that again and include patriarchy and misogyny.
They should have called it off after their scouts reported no carriers at Pearl, or waited until they were in port. Imagine if the Yorktown classes ships were destroyed in the same attack.
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