What was FDR doing when Pearl Harbor was attacked? (RUSH's question)

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[The Right Stuff]

I have read Stinnett's book, but I also belong to the Battle of Midway Roundtable and I've seen his conclusions pretty effectively denied by the WWII vets that were there.

[shutup_you_idiot]

Rush just gave Snerdly credit for finding that button. Bull. They found it here and followed the source code. LOL!

[shutup_you_idiot]

Great find.

[Tallguy]

Stinnett's book is a piece of garbage. His book suggests that we were "reading" Japanese NAVAL codes prior to the attack on Pearl Harbor, when it has been known for years that the naval codes were only partially cracked by the Battle of Midway -- 6 months later. We WERE reading the Japanese DIPLOMATIC codes prior to Pearl, but there wasn't anything significant intercepted here until it was to late.

Stinnett did have some interesting new information on the Radio Direction Finding stations that were tracking encrypted naval radio traffic. But that's not the same thing as reading the messages themselves.

BTW, even when you 'cracked' a code, the enemy would frequently change the encryption 'key' right before a major operation. This means that you can't read the accumulating 'mail' until the new key is discovered. Sometimes that happens after you've been hit.

We were surprised at Pearl Harbor mostly because we expected the attack to fall in the Phillipines. That was the template. The few individuals that suggested that Pearl was vulnerable were not listened to.

[CWOJackson]

FDR: "Remember Pearl Harbor."

Kerry: "Forget 9/11."

[shutup_you_idiot]

When I was in the 6th grade, one of my geography test questions was, "Why did the Japanese bomb Pearl Harbor?"

I answered, "Because they were stupid."

The next day, I got called out into the hall and was publicly shamed by three of the four 6th grade teachers for writing such a disrespectful answer.

I STILL stand by that answer. :-)

[GailA]

Can some one enlarge this please

[Lonesome in Massachussets]

What year was that?

[GreenLanternCorps]

Tallguy,

You're correct. The ABDA (American, British, Dutch, Australian) countries were expecting some sort of Japanese move on the Dutch East Indies. After all they had already moved troops to French Indo-China to "protect" it.

In fact staff officers from the four countries had been meeting to work out contingency plans in case of Japanese action. Also, the possiblity of war was one reason that Douglas MacArthur was recalled to active duty, and promoted to General to command USAFFE (United States Army Forces Far East)

The point is FDR did not need Pearl Harbor to have a war with Japan. An attack on the Phillipines would have done it.

[OXENinFLA]

[KiaKaha]

Don't you mean, WHO was he doing?

[Voteamerica]

Proponents of the theory are easy enough to come across. Just do an Internet search. The "evidence" is stuff like AG Ashcroft stopped flying commerical airliners because of a threat a month or so before the attack. Dr. Rice said at a briefing after the attacks that they had intelligence that a traditional hijacking was being planned, but nothing was done to stop it. There is a bunch of coincidental information which can be read to find a conspiracy for the sufficiently paranoid.

My point is that there is a group that advocates this position and there is no point in stoking the flame with an FDR comparison.

[nmh]

Perhaps indulging another woman other than dear Eleanor? I hear he was quite the playboy. Dear Eleanor was also rumored to be a lesbian - partially due to neglect ... .


BTW, isn't this attribute (being unfaithful to a wife) a standard attribute for the majority of Demoncrats and liberals?

[ZULU]

I agree with the both of you. Collectively, or at least at the higher levels, they were stupid, but individual Japanese are not stupid.

I also read that the naval vessels damaged at Pearl Harbor were antiquated, and they almost did us a favor by demolishing them. Also, our carriers, which should have been their primary target, were at sea and undamaged.

This doesn't detract from the fact that many Americans were killed or wounded, that Roosevelt had deliberately goaded them into the attack, and that the military forces there were not put in proper readiness. But I NEVER heard a DemocRAT ever do anything but crow about that miserable s.o.b Roosevelt and his cold-blooded policy of sacrifing young Americans to achieve his political goals.

About 40 years earlier, both the Americans and Japanese should have taken better notice of each other at the siege of Peking. The Japanese and Americans performed best during that crisis under the most grueling of conditions, when they were fighting on the same side.

I think many wars started because opponents underestimated each other.

[shutup_you_idiot]

Early, early 70's. I think it may have had more to do with the teacher thinking I was being smart-alek vs. not being politically correct. That was before the days of PC speech. Plus, we're talking about a really small town in the south.

[lawdude]

He was trying desparately to explain again to some dumb little broad named Virginia, that "there was a damned Santa Claus and it was the democrapic party."!!

[Tallguy]

The point is FDR did not need Pearl Harbor to have a war with Japan. An attack on the Phillipines would have done it.

War Plan Orange (the pre-War plan for War with Japan) was basically designed to relieve the Phillipines by sending the US Battlefleet there via Wake Island & Guam, both US bases prior to the war. MacArthur did his part by withdrawing to the fortifications on Bataan, but there was no fleet left after Pearl to come to his relief.

Since all but 2 of the US Battlewagons that were sunk at Pearl were eventually refloated & refurbished, an interesting question is what would have happened if the US & Japanese Fleets had clashed in deep water as everyone -- including the Japanese -- had expected? If those ships had been sunk in deep water, there would have been no rapid recovery of the US Navy and we would have lost a lot more sailors and airmen than we did at Pearl. I think that there is a good possibility that we would have lost such an engagement since the Japanese surface forces proved their tactical superiority over us in the surface engagements around Guadalcanal. The occupation of Henderson Field & the professional competence of the "Cactus Air Force" that operated from there were the decisive factors in that campaign.

[kimmie7]

I think the answer to that might very well be unfit for a family friendly site. ;-)

[jmstein7]

FReeper 9/11 Memoriam Ad: Remember (Download Here)

[Mad_Tom_Rackham]

What was Bill Klintoon doing when the Towers were attacked, when the Cole was attacked, when the embassies were attacked?

Probably something to do with a snort, a sink, or a slut.