Revealed After 63 Years: the Truth Behind Pearl Harbor

The Scotsman ^ | December 9, 2004 | Julian Ryall

[PowerPro]

bttt

[investigateworld]

ping

[COEXERJ145]

And had the Japanese Embassy in Washington been allowed to use their typists (who where Americans), they could have delivered the message earlier. Instead, they were ordered not to allow anyone other than the Japanese diplomats and their aids to read the message and none of them could type. This caused an even further delay in delivering their message.

Without a Declaration of War, Japan attacked the United States' Pacific Fleet on Sunday morning, December 7th, 1941. No matter what their intentions may have been, it was sneak attack (in classic Japanese fashion) but in the end was a strategic disaster for them. Pearl Harbor insured that the war in the Pacific would be a war to the death and they learned that the hard way on August 6th and 9th, 1945.

[oyez]

Maybe its time we laid the blame for the attack on Pearl Harbor on the Japanese.The Army didn't do it. The Navy didn't do it. FDR and the federal government didn't do it.

[Howlin]

I'll say it again: you post the best articles.

[konaice]

And we should believe this WHY??

Clearly this guy is on a mission to clear his Father's name
in the eyes of the US, (for God knows, the Japanese couldn't give a ratsass about this issue, and never have).

[mysto]

Maybe its time we laid the blame for the attack on Pearl Harbor on the Japanese.The Army didn't do it. The Navy didn't do it. FDR and the federal government didn't do it.
Most people don't blame FDR for Pearl Harbor, so I never really understood why liberal DemocRATS thought they could get away with blaming Bush for 9/11... (that really worked out well as a campaign issue for them, didn't it?)

[Peach]

Doesn't the movie Tora Bora make it clear that the message was withheld?

[endthematrix]

The War Dept knew something was coming early December. Henry L Stimson's Diary, November 25, 1941 notes that they expected an attack, "for the Japanese are notorious for making an attack without warning."

I'm gonna sniff to try to fined some MAGIC diplomatic cables to try to find something on this. The whole situation was at its brink.

[Billthedrill]

This isn't entirely news. The idea was, all along, to present the declaration of war such that there would be insufficient time to warn Pearl Harbor, but that would only be possible if everything in the communications chain went perfectly. To allow more time than that (from the Japanese military perspective) would be to risk everything going perfectly and actually allowing time for a warning. Hence they made sure their diplomats couldn't do that.

This, of course, put those poor guys on a seat so hot I wouldn't care to contemplate it. You can't get an uglier job than that as a diplomat. The presentation of that declaration prior to any bombs falling was their only real protection under international law, and it is a tribute to Roosevelt's restraint that he didn't have them shot when the bombs fell first.

It is laudable for the son to try to clear his father's name, but I don't think that name was really in question, at least in the United States. Whether the declaration was delayed by his incompetence is entirely irrelevant - he was set up from the beginning, and the bombs would have fallen anyway.

[Jaysun]

Whether the declaration was delayed by his incompetence is entirely irrelevant - he was set up from the beginning, and the bombs would have fallen anyway.

Well said. I agree.

[quidnunc]

We had crackes that particular diplomatic code, so we knew what was in the last message.

What is new in this article is that the military attachés in the Japanese embassy were responsible for delaying the transmission.

If this information is true then the Japanese ambassadors Nomura and Kurusu have gotten a bum rap.

[supercat]

The War Dept knew something was coming early December. Henry L Stimson's Diary, November 25, 1941 notes that they expected an attack, "for the Japanese are notorious for making an attack without warning."

Yes, but did they have any idea what? My recollection is that the planes were arranged in rows for the purpose of preventing anyone from being able to sneak among them unobserved. Had the Japanese been intending to have bombs hand-planted by saboteurs, this might have been a good defense. Unfortunately, it was ineffective against the threat that actually materialized.

[CaptIsaacDavis]

Quaint isn't it. The notion that our government would get riled up by a country not declaring war first. That norm lasted for a few centuries to protect nations from such "sneek attacks." It's long gone now -- along with the rest of codified "international law," which is being plowed under by the terrorists of the International Criminal Court.

[onyx]

BUMP.
Marking place for tomorrow's read.

[JLS]

And we should believe this WHY??

Clearly this guy is on a mission to clear his Father's name
in the eyes of the US, (for God knows, the Japanese couldn't give a ratsass about this issue, and never have).
________________________________________________________

Actually you have it backwards. This guy certainly has a bias, but he is trying to clear his father and lay the blame on the Japanese Army. And as the article points out, another historian was murdered for a controversial WWII opinion recently.

So I would say at least some in Japan "give a ratsass" about this.

[calex59]

This has been common knowledge for years. I can remember being told this story when I was in high school. I graduated in 1959...Japan deliberately withheld the last paragraph. End of story.

[konaice]

And as the article points out, another historian was murdered for a controversial WWII opinion recently.

So He says.

Why would it matter in the end if it was the Military, the Diplomats, or the Emperor himself?

It matters to him, but not to us. I suspect the message was delivered exactly when it was intended to be.

[konaice]

Very Observant.

Had the message been delivered ahead of time, the impact would have been the same.

These days, we considder ourselves luck if anyone takes responsibility after the fact.