> ...if ... Japanese first strike of the war against the
> Alies was NOT a Pearl Harbor but rather it was over two
> weeks earlier when they attacked the Sydney.
One of the links above lead to:
"I have omitted my further argument that news of the
Sydney’s loss to a Japanese submarine formed the
content of a top-secret telegram from Churchill to US
President Roosevelt in the early hours of November
26th, which then caused the latter finally to break
off negotiations with the Japanese and so set the
ball for war rolling;"
Finding that ship could re-inflame the debate about
what FDR knew and when he knew it and why the War
Department wasn't warned.
Finding the memo would be more damning than finding holes in the ship. The Ausies would have been the most likely source of this info since by then they had picked up the German Survivors, although Churchill may have been reading the German's mail.
But, most reports seem to imply that the Ausies did not put all the pieces together untill some time later, after Pearl.
Still, its a leap to assume that even certain knowledge, after the fact, of an attack near Austrailia (and any such knowledge was far from certain) would automatically suggest fore-knowledge of another attack thousands of miles further north. Especially since Sydney more or less blundered into the Kormoran which was heavily disguised as a commercial vessel.
An interesting story in any event.