A few people had figured out that it was going to happen but not exactly where.
They ran into all kinds of snafus trying to get the message to the commanders at Pearl Harbor. It did finally arrive but after the attack.
I don’t admire FDR but I don’t think he knew.
He didn’t know.
Everyone suspected they would attack but they thought Wake Island, Philippines etc.
That would have been enough to get us into the war. FDR would never have known the extent of an attack on Pearl Harbor and the result of such an attack could have rendered PH useless.
If the Japanese had bombed destroyed the oil depots, the submarine pens and repair yards PH is a waste land. We’d be trying to fight in the Pacific using San Francisco as our forward base.
All the aircraft carriers were east of the island....the obsolite battleships were tightly packed together...
Sorry, but he knew....
I believe FDR did know.
We had broke Jap code, I believe.
“At Dawn We Slept,” is a good book describing the pre-attack knowledge that Marshall and FDR were aware of.
They blamed it all on Kimmel and Short, the Navy and Army Commanders at Pearl.