Posted on 12/08/2018 2:26:02 PM PST by rktman
On Dec. 7, 1941, the Empire of Japan bombed the U.S. Pacific Fleet which was stationed in Pearl Harbor on the Hawaiian island of Oahu. In addressing Congress the next day, President Roosevelt called it “a date which will live in infamy.”
But Roosevelt’s reputation should live in infamy too. The line that Roosevelt enthusiasts and left-wing historians have peddled for so many years is that the attack was a complete surprise.
Here’s a sample from The American Pageant, a typical left-wing American history textbook widely used in American high schools:
Officials in Washington, having “cracked” the top-secret code of the Japanese, knew that Tokyo’s decision was for war … Roosevelt, misled by Japanese ship movements in the Far East, evidently expected the blow to fall on British Malaya or on the Philippines. No one in high authority in Washington seems to have believed that the Japanese were either strong enough or foolhardy enough to strike Hawaii.
That’s the left’s version, and it’s in line with the rest of the “fake history” they want American high school students to learn. The Education and Research Institute (ERI — of which I am chairman) has written a critique of The American Pageant, which tells a more accurate story about Pearl Harbor and scores of other events in American history.
(Excerpt) Read more at dailycaller.com ...
A useful "primary source" suggested can by found at www.archive.org. Generally given as the "Congressional Report on the Pearl Harbor Attack" - these are PDF files (often quite large).
From Volume 37, pages 1062-1063, at times noted as 37PHA1062-1063, are "Naval Message - Navy Department" copies. Note the dates, as these might be of importance.
A. If the IJN was operating under "strict" radio silence, where did these messages come from? B. On page 1063, note message beginning "Recent developments from RI X" ... and ending with "Following from CI translation today ..."
N.B., Within these Congressional Reports are several "Exhibits" that might be of help. Specifically, Exhibit No. 151. There questions might be raised as to the meaning of "translations" and "exchange" of technical information.
To close, a recent paper by Burtness and Ober might be of interest:
"Provocation and Angst: FDR, Japan, Pearl Harbor, and the Entry into War in the Pacific" The Hawaiian Journal of History, Volume 51, (2017), pages 91-114.
Also, regarding radio silence:
The IJN, at the time of Pearl Harbor, operating standard was:
(1) Very Strict Radio Silence (TE-SE-KA), (2) Strict Radio Silence (TE-KE-KA), and (3) Radio Silence (TE-TSU-KA).
N.B., Various translations of "Strict" exist in Japanese, and true copy of SRN-116866 (from 25Nov1941). The true copy of SRN-116866 has three paragraphs - all allow radio transmission.
Just a question - Who won WWII?
Roosevelt wanted us in the war. He did everything he could to provoke the Japanese into attacking while tying the hands of our forces. The big error of judgment of our senior people was that they not realize how capable the Japanese were.
Wrong. The week before 12/7 Kimmel had the fleet at sea and was in position to meet the Japanese fleet. He was ordered back to Pearl Harbor.
He and Short were denied everything that could have allowed them to get ready particularly information.
At that time, we had zero, zilch, nada atomic bombs.
The first successful *test* of an atomic bomb was on July 16, 1945, three months after Roosevelt died.
I am not a fan of Roosevelt, but to claim he should have acted differently with Stalin at Yalta, because we had overwhelming atomic superiority, when we had not even successfully tested an atomic bomb, is rather a stretch.
Truman considered "dropping a bomb" on Stalin, quite a bit later.
Would the U.S. population have stood for it?
Highly unlikely.
The full perfidy of Stalin and the Soviets was not understood until well after WWII was over.
Looking from the view of the Russians/Soviets, where they had just lost 12 million people in a war with the Germans, for the second time in 30 years...Their takeover of eastern Europe as a buffer zone is more understandable.
Everyone in the West was tired of war. No one was willing to start another war to fight for Poland, the Balkans, the Czechs, Hungary, Lithuanian, Estonia, Latvia. Some of these had fought with the Germans.
It was not the easy, go/no go decision you describe.
are you telling me your sentences are a defense of fdr ? I don’t understand
Good for your M-I-L. Is.amazing the majority of public schools teach students to hate America What is more amazing is we Americans allow public schools to get away with teaching students to hate America
Interesting read. I’ve read several conspiracy books on PH but the fact still remains intercepts showed four possible targets. What really po’d FDR was they were attacking PH while FDR was reading their fourteen page reason for breaking off diplomatic relations.
While the Russians certainly did defeat the German attack on Russia, it cost them dearly. It also prompted Russia to join forces with the Allies in June of 1941. That allied group still did not include the US, but the alliance with Russia did include the US. (That fact alone should make people ask, why would the U.S. have an agreement with Russia if they were neutral and planned to stay as such?). There is no doubt that the Allied forces were far more potent with Russia, then without Russia. But don't undersell the U.S. or over credit Russia.
The U.S. entry into WWII helped the Russians indirectly. It required Hitler to pretty much abandon his troops in Russia, and not send in reinforcements. This allowed Russia to surround the German troops in Stalingrad and cut off supplies for them. Hunger and cold finally ensured Russian victory over the Germans. Stalin was pissed though that the US had promised reinforcements being deployed but had kept delaying sending those reinforcements in. Most likely this was because their hands were full with the Germans in France,and Africa, and Italians in Italy, and Japanese in the Philippines, China, and elsewhere.
The Germans knew & respected the U.S. military from WWI. Here is what the Germans said about American troops after WWI
Yet Hitler thought the Americans were a mongrel force made up of all sorts of different nations. He would soon learn better himself.
Ever heard of Yalta? Operation Keelhaul?
Maybe, but highly unlikely. I have read, and it seemed plausible and authoritative, that Stalin intended to attack Germany when the time was right. He was building up military capacity as fast as he could.
Hitler beat him to the punch.
Yes.
However, the U.S. still maintaining a neutral position during WWI, they enter into the agreement with Russia and the Allied nations in June 1941, seems rather perplexing. Why would a neutral nation join in an agreement with Russia and the other Allied nations? This could be construed that the U.S. had intentions of joining them. Yet they didn't join them until Pearl Harbor was attacked by the Japanese. Leading up to that FDR and his administration certainly provoked Japan diplomatically & economically. Was the purpose to get them to attack? If so it assuredly had the impact they were seeking, that being garnering support of the citizens to join in the war.
David Kahn’s “The Codebreakers: The Comprehensive History of Secret Communication from Ancient Times to the Internet” exhaustive and detailed opening chapter puts to rest any notion that FDR had detailed knowledge on the date and time of a Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. They knew something was up, of course, but their possession of Japanese diplomatic and navy codes did not pinpoint when or where.
The big question is what sort of hunch might have led to our two aircraft carriers being out on maneuvers and if Halsey, Nimitz & Co., by not sharing that hunch, had no problem with a demonstration that air power could defeat any battleship fleet and put out of commission obsolete Navy policies built around battleship tactics. We had no direct knowledge of the composition, rallying point, route or destination of Yamamoto’s attack fleet. The picture was very incomplete in the weeks leading to Pearl Harbor and all we had was guess work hampered by delays in getting decoded messages to their proper channels and inattentive chain of command bottlenecks. Had Pearl Harbor not occurred, the US would have eventually entered WWII far less effectively as a divided nation much like the US today.
What the left can never admit is that fascism in Japan, Germany, Spain, Argentina, the Balkans and in pockets of aristocracy and industry in every country in the world was a reaction to communist agitation around the world. Once it is understood that communism created fascism, history begins to make sense.
I offered that up sardonically. 8>)
There may be some truth to that theory put forth by Vladimir Rezun, who was a former officer of the Soviet military intelligence. He defected to the UK in 1978, and in his 1987 book titled: Icebreaker: Who Started the Second World War made the claim that Stalin had amassed well-organized and mobile forces along the German/Russian border with plans to attack to attack on July 6th, 1941.
That was less than 1 month after joining the Allied forces in agreement that included the U.S. who was supposedly neutral. So who was Russia really setting up to attack? They had not 1 but 2 different pacts with Germany. The Treaty of Berlin (German-Soviet Neutrality and Nonaggression Pact) 1926, and the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact of 1939.
Was this what caused Hitler to attack Russia? Could very well be. War often is a web of intrigue and misdirection constantly being invoked as a part of the strategy being employed.
In terms of Pearl Harbor, our carrier admirals could have seen the base as a target, but only by a raid of a couple carriers attacking from the Southeast where they could quickly retreat under the cover of the islands the Japanese picked up from the Germans after WWI. When our Navy pursued it could then be overwhelmed by attacks of land-based aircraft.
My bibliography includes two questions the admiral should have answered. “Admiral, provide an explanation of how you traveled undetected to position north of the Hawaiian Islands to launch the attack beginning from the Japanese Home Islands or Mandates to the south and east? Also, why would you launch an attack from a position where it was impossible to retreat under the protection of land-based aircraft”
I read the 14th part and saw no declaration of war. At least Hitler clearly declared war on Poland.
Baron Hiranuma was part of a faction that had fiercely disapproved the Pearl Harbor attack, believing the United States could not be provoked into war by Japanese conquests of British, French, and Dutch colonies. He pointed to the fact there was no treaty requiring the U.S. to respond militarily. He was probably right, because FDR told his advisors that as a Democracy, the country could not be perceived as an aggressor.
Yeah, it was just a bunch of complaints but the Japanese diplomats knew that PH would be attacked because after they received the last page they started to bust up their coding machines. We were reading their document before their own code people decoded it; FDR pretty much knew beforehand what was in in it. Hitler OTOH promulgated the war with Poland with that phony attack on the radio station at Gleiwitz which really wasn’t a formal declaration of war.
I would put it a bit differently. Communism and Fascism were competing Leftist ideologies.
Leftism was on the rise all over the world, even in the United States. It took WWII and the Cold war to educate people about the limitations and evils of Leftism, both national and international.
FDR worked for Joseph Stalin. Criticizing him is not anti-American. His supporters call this criticism anti-American.
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