Sorry, but this is nonsense.
Did FDR want in the war? Probably. Did he want to goad Japan into attacking first? Maybe.
Did he have incentive to allow whatever first attack the Japanese may make to be particularly effective and deadly? No.
WI: Pearl Harbor attack does not commence Pacific War, but comes later?
- Thread starter psteinx
- Start date
Did FDR want in the war? Probably. Did he want to goad Japan into attacking first? Maybe.
Did he have incentive to allow whatever first attack the Japanese may make to be particularly effective and deadly? No.
BlackDragon98
Banned
Yes.
"In late November 1941, both the U.S. Navy and Army sent explicit warnings of war with Japan to all Pacific commands. On November 27 Washington sent a final alert to Pacific American military commanders, such as the message sent to Admiral Kimmel at Pearl Harbor, which read in part: "This dispatch is to be considered a war warning...an aggression move by Japan is expected within the next days."[127]Although these plainly stated the high probability of imminent war with Japan, and instructed recipients to be accordingly on alert for war, they did not mention the likelihood of an attack on Pearl Harbor itself, instead focusing on the Far East. Washington forwarded none of the raw intelligence it had, and little of its intelligence estimates (after analysis), to Hawaiian commanders, Admiral Husband E. Kimmel and General Walter C. Short. Washington did not solicit their views about likelihood of war or Hawaiian special concerns. Washington's war warning messages have also been criticised by some (e.g., the U.S. Army Pearl Harbor Board – "Do/Don't Messages") as containing "conflicting and imprecise" language."
Pearl Harbor advance-knowledge conspiracy theory - Wikipedia
Roosevelt was the real crook. Kimmel was just a dumb scapegoat.
May the bastard burn Hell for the rest of eternity.
The South-West Pacific. Use the entire Kido Butai to take Port Moresby. Instant victory.
I think the simpler and likelier explanation is that even Washington did not expect Pearl to be hit.Yes.
"In late November 1941, both the U.S. Navy and Army sent explicit warnings of war with Japan to all Pacific commands. On November 27 Washington sent a final alert to Pacific American military commanders, such as the message sent to Admiral Kimmel at Pearl Harbor, which read in part: "This dispatch is to be considered a war warning...an aggression move by Japan is expected within the next days."[127]Although these plainly stated the high probability of imminent war with Japan, and instructed recipients to be accordingly on alert for war, they did not mention the likelihood of an attack on Pearl Harbor itself, instead focusing on the Far East. Washington forwarded none of the raw intelligence it had, and little of its intelligence estimates (after analysis), to Hawaiian commanders, Admiral Husband E. Kimmel and General Walter C. Short. Washington did not solicit their views about likelihood of war or Hawaiian special concerns. Washington's war warning messages have also been criticised by some (e.g., the U.S. Army Pearl Harbor Board – "Do/Don't Messages") as containing "conflicting and imprecise" language."
Pearl Harbor advance-knowledge conspiracy theory - Wikipedia
en.wikipedia.org
Roosevelt was the real crook. Kimmel was just a dumb scapegoat.
May the bastard burn Hell for the rest of eternity.
BlackDragon98
Banned
What about the Philippines?
They were just as surprised as Pearl when they got attacked at the same time.
Except the Philippines are literally right next to Japanese controlled Taiwan.
Where's the alibi here?
I think you have provided a good example of the difference between
"You should have known better" (Pearl) and "You lazy, useless so and so!"(Phillipines). Shame the US govt assigned blame as if it had been the other way round.
You can blame MacArthur for that one. He had almost ten hours between hearing about Pearl and having the Japanese plaster Clark Field with bombs, yet did virtually nothing. Brereton wanted to preemptively strike the Japanese base at Taiwan but was refused authorisation for god knows why. How MacArthur continued to hold any sort of command after this debacle is completely beyond me.
The problem with this kind of conspiracy theory, and its cousins the ancient alien conspiracies, 911 controlled demolition etc., is that at the core they are fundamentally racist. I am NOT saying YOU are, I am saying the underlying premises are, and this fallacy may not be apparent to the adherents of these theories.
The premise goes like this: Arabs couldn’t outsmart the US, it must be an inside job. Brown people couldn’t build those pyramids, it must be pale aliens. Asians could not get the drop on the US Navy, it must have been a set up.
In fact, Yamamoto’s too-clever-by-half complex plan worked this time, at Pearl Harbour, and the Japanese rolled boxcars. I think there were also some racist assumptions among US military planners who could not believe that Japan was a real military. They got taught a lesson, and they learned, and they got down to defeating Japan the hard way.
Oh, and AH.com is not a conspiracy website.
BlackDragon98
Banned
Secret orders, secret orders. Both kinds by the way.
I'm of Han Chinese ethnicity myself, so you're whining about racism is rather pointless. Oh and the pyramids were designed by "Neolithic and Bronze Age populations from the Near East, Anatolia and Eastern Mediterranean Europeans". https://www.cnn.com/2017/06/22/health/ancient-egypt-mummy-dna-genome-heritage/index.html
As for the racism, it was the Japanese that were the racists. They thought they were better than all the other Asians and the Whites. Look how they treated every Asian population in WW2 and the White British, Canadian, Dutch, and American POWs and civilians that fell into their hands. Murder, rape, torture was all very commonplace and encouraged by high command, to enforce the ideology that the Japanese were descendants of gods and superior to all others.
Those shitty little murdering rapists boasted they could take Shanghai in a day and China in a month. And then my ancestors gave them a helluva bloody nose at Shanghai and tied down most of the IJA for the rest of the war.
And you clear did not read my evidence in my first post at all. A literal warning of imminent war was sent out to all US Pacific units from Washington itself, but nothing was done.
We also know that Roosevelt wanted to bring USA into WW2 but lacked a solid reason that would justify it to the US populace. He had already authorized the Flying Tigers in early 1941.
Japan provided that reason for him after he goaded them into war. And then not putting US forces in the Pacific on full alert.
It's not a theory, it's the inconvenient truth. A truth that was ruthlessly suppressed during and after WW2 while Kimmel and Co. took the full blame.
It does not make sense to me that Roosevelt would sacrifice more than three thousand servicemen, five battleships, several hundred planes and the dignity of the US Armed Forces just for an excuse to enter the war.
If he knew the Japanese were coming for Pearl, why not just intercept and sink the Kido Butai while it was en route to Hawaii, or have the entire Pacific Fleet ready and waiting for them upon arrival, to catch them in a deadly trap ala Midway and beat them senseless on day one?
That would permit US involvement WITHOUT any of the losses outlined above.
Like I said, not accusing you of racism. I have heard this theory before, and I remain unconvinced.
Well done on the part of your ancestors, I must say.
For the purposes of the conversation I understand that we are talking about the racism of the Japanese military during and leading up to World War 2, not all Japanese people, mods.
If the US has managed to shoot down the Japanese planes, while suffering minimal losses, the attack would still have meant war. America would just start out in a much stronger position.
Absolutely. And, even if Roosevelt was needed a successful Japanese attack for the war start (which I agree he didn't need), why sacrifice both PH and the Philippines when you only need to sacrifice one and both puts you in a much worse position going forward?
I do think there were warnings and notices - some dropped balls can certainly been argued. There were absolutely indications of an attack on PH - there were just also indications that there were other targets and lots of bad information, too. So much about intelligence is about sifting through lots and lots of data and figuring what's relevant v. irrelevant and correct v. false. I also have to admit the wide-scale, multi-target, not-quite-simultaneous-but-certainly-closely-timed attacks were sort almost unbelievable.
BTW, not exactly on-topic, but while I am familiar with this conspiracy theory and what Roosevelt could expect to gain from it, is there an established narrative on whether the British were supposed to know anything in advance?
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