Publish to Newswire
Add an EventFrom the Open-Publishing Calendar
From the Open-Publishing Newswire
Indybay Feature
Roosevelt
Roosevelt was informed ahead of time that the Japanese were going to strike Pearl Harbor, even of the hour, and this all came out years afterward, but he never did a thing and never let the information out to the Armed Services or anything because he knew that was the only thing that would make the American people mad enough to go to war.
So Sunday morning came, Dec. 7, 1941, at Pearl Harbor, and, as usual, the military services all took the day off. They weren’t even manning the anti-aircraft guns or anything. Nearly the whole Navy had gone ashore and there were just a whole bunch of battleships moored like sitting ducks in the harbor. The big army bases were virtually deserted because the GIs had all gone to town. In peacetime everybody would take Sunday off, and the Japanese knew it.
So Roosevelt just let the planes come. This all came out later, although it’s still been kind of hushed up and whitewashed. In a way, of course it was Japan’s fault, but they were provoked to it because they got word that the United States was going to declare war. They decided to strike first at her most vulnerable spot and the place that threatened them the most, which was the Hawaiian Islands, the big American naval base nearest them. So they just decided to sink them before they got started.
Of course then this was played up into big propaganda: “A horrible atrocity, the Japanese sneak attack on Pearl Harbor” and “a terrible slaughter,” “a stab in our back” and all of this stuff, and it did it. It made the Americans mad enough, and the very next day Congress met and declared war — WWII. All their big industries and financed them with American money to begin producing Japanese goods under American brand names, so that now the Americans could make the money instead of the Japanese.
Ted Rudow III,MA
So Roosevelt just let the planes come. This all came out later, although it’s still been kind of hushed up and whitewashed. In a way, of course it was Japan’s fault, but they were provoked to it because they got word that the United States was going to declare war. They decided to strike first at her most vulnerable spot and the place that threatened them the most, which was the Hawaiian Islands, the big American naval base nearest them. So they just decided to sink them before they got started.
Of course then this was played up into big propaganda: “A horrible atrocity, the Japanese sneak attack on Pearl Harbor” and “a terrible slaughter,” “a stab in our back” and all of this stuff, and it did it. It made the Americans mad enough, and the very next day Congress met and declared war — WWII. All their big industries and financed them with American money to begin producing Japanese goods under American brand names, so that now the Americans could make the money instead of the Japanese.
Ted Rudow III,MA
For more information:
http://journals.aol.com/tedr77/TedRudowIIIMA/
We are 100% volunteer and depend on your participation to sustain our efforts!
Donate
$115.00 donated
in the past month
Get Involved
If you'd like to help with maintaining or developing the website, contact us.
Publish
Publish your stories and upcoming events on Indybay.
Topics
More
Search Indybay's Archives
Advanced Search
►
▼
IMC Network
"Sea Power" by Knox --- The subject of this book is really why the "cruiser" class gained size/weight as a result of the "naval Treaty" but near the end of the books he proposes a number of matchups and discusses "best strategy for each side".
One of these is Japan vs US and his analysis concludes that Japan's ONLY possible chance is a first strike at Pearl, that the US cannot afford to risk blocking this attack, that the US should leave in port just the "Nevada: class battleships, which built on the lessons of Jutland, were heavily armored but obsolescently slow and thus useless except in defense -- and interestingly enough proedicts that even given success at Pearl the Japanese offensive would run out of steam in about 6 months in the vicinity where it did. The reason WHY the US could not block (advised not to attempt this) is based upon one of the fundamental "rules" or warfare -- never risk all your fortunes with only some of your forces deployed.
The point is, had the US sortied the forces available in an all out attempt to block Pearl Harbor it was POSSIBLE they would lose that one battle and thus the war. But in a long conflict the ining into battle with the big gun left behind. Kimmel deserved being sacked. If you mean that he wasn't watrned "they are coming today at 7 AM" (or whatever) you don't understand responsibility for preparedness. After the British had shown that a torpedo attack WAS possible in such a shallow harbor (successful attack on a similarly shallow Italian harbor) he should have deployed defenses and he didn't.
You also conveniently forget something when arguing that Roosevelt "allowed" the attack so as to be able to get into the war against Germany. How pray tell, could he have foreseen that Hitler was going to do something so foolish as not to doublecross the Japanese! Yes of course, he had promised that if the Japanese attacked the US he was going to declare war on the US. But once the Japanese had attacked, the US was going to be embroiled in a war in the Pacific and he could (and should) have stood pat. Do you SERIOUSLY propose that Roosevelt could have come up with the votes to voluntarily open a second front against the Germans? Nonsense. But Roosevelt didn't have to because the Germans declared war on us so it was a done deal.