Posted on 12/08/2013 3:25:13 AM PST by Berlin_Freeper
The sinister surprise attack against the naval base at Pearl Harbor by the Japanese Imperial Military is recognized by historians as one of the most successful sneak attacks in military history.
While many Americans initially thought the Empire of Japan intended to attack the United States mainland – Californians along the coastal areas felt especially vulnerable – the real targets were in Southeast Asia: Hong Kong, Siam, Malaya, Thailand, and the Philippines, as the first of many.
The attack upon the naval base at Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, shocked America and the world. While Americans were still reeling, Japanese troops were already en route to their “real targets” specifically marked for attack, destruction, and domination.
Pearl Harbor served as a sucker punch for the Japanese Imperial Military, intended to keep the U.S. out of their business, as they seized absolute control of the small island nations of Southeastern Asia.
Over 2,400 Americans had been killed, and nearly 1,200 military personnel and civilians had been wounded.
(Excerpt) Read more at communities.washingtontimes.com ...
a photo taken by a Japanese pilot of the USS West Virginia under attack at Pearl Harbor
Did Japan really plan a surprise attack on the US?
A declaration of war, as it is referred to, was printed on the front page of Japan's newspapers in the evening edition of December 8, but not delivered to the US.
As Edmund Burke stated, “The only thing necessary for the triumph [of evil] is for good men to do nothing.”
Amen and amen.
I still think that Roosevelt wanted a provocation to draw us into the war. He knew that our trade actions against the Japanese would cause a war. If he didn’t know that, he was a fool.
God bless all those wounded and killed that day.
A solid read, along with the linked article on the fixing of blame for Pearl Harbor that went on for many years. Also, as usual, the comments following the article were interesting.
Sneak attack, my butt! The codes were broken and FDR knew as much of the attack plan as the Japanese did. He opened Pearl up like a flower for them.
If the Japanese could not be troubled to ensure the prompt delivery of a document that in any case was not a declaration of war (no mention of hostilities) and fell short of being a legal technicality, for all intents and purposes it was intended as a surprise attack.
A side issue for sure, but Siam and Thailand are the same country.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attack_on_Pearl_Harbor#Japanese_declaration_of_war
Japanese declaration of war
See also: Japanese declaration of war on the United States and the British Empire
The attack took place before any formal declaration of war was made by Japan, but this was not Admiral Yamamoto’s intention. He originally stipulated that the attack should not commence until thirty minutes after Japan had informed the United States that peace negotiations were at an end.[58][59] The Japanese tried to uphold the 1907 Hague Convention III – The Opening of Hostilities while still achieving surprise, but the attack began before the notice could be delivered. Tokyo transmitted the 5,000-word notification (commonly called the “14-Part Message”) in two blocks to the Japanese Embassy in Washington, but transcribing the message took too long for the Japanese ambassador to deliver it in time. (In fact, U.S. code breakers had already deciphered and translated most of the message hours before he was scheduled to deliver it.)[60] The final part of the “14 Part Message” is sometimes described as a declaration of war. While it neither declared war nor severed diplomatic relations, it was viewed by a number of senior U.S government and military officials as a very strong indicator that negotiations were likely to be terminated [61] and that war might break out at any moment.[62] A declaration of war was printed on the front page of Japan’s newspapers in the evening edition of December 8,[63] but not delivered to the U.S. government until the day after the attack.
For decades, conventional wisdom held that Japan attacked without any official warning of a break in relations only because of accidents and bumbling that delayed the delivery of a document hinting at war to Washington. In 1999, however, Takeo Iguchi, a professor of law and international relations at International Christian University in Tokyo, discovered documents that pointed to a vigorous debate inside the government over how, and indeed whether, to notify Washington of Japan’s intention to break off negotiations and start a war, including a December 7 entry in the war diary saying, “our deceptive diplomacy is steadily proceeding toward success.” Of this, Iguchi said, “The diary shows that the army and navy did not want to give any proper declaration of war, or indeed prior notice even of the termination of negotiations ... and they clearly prevailed.”[64]
Facts like that are so pre-Internet. It’s the 21st century and nobody edits or fact checks in this era!
FDR had to have something big to hide his administration’s incompetence and his growing poor standing with the citizens.
Whether he had intel about the coming Jap attack or was as stupid as nobama is still hidden from us. Let’s hope that this WhiteyHut does not verbatim follow FDR’s history and start a major war just to save his own skin. But we should not be surprised.
If this happened on Dec 7, 2013 you can bet you would have Bill Clinton blaming the United States as he did when he was in europe shortly after 9/11
obama would be supplying weapons to the Japanese.
Same as he is doing with the terrorist today.
You are straying into Truther Territory, there partner. There was no clear, unambiguous signal saying “attack Pearl Harbor”. Navy intelligence had lost track of the ships in the attack force. Their Morse Code operators had been taken off and placed on islands in the South China Sea, and given dummy traffic to send, since US Huff Duff operators would recognize a particular operator by his “fist”. In retrospect, their are indicators that point to an attack, but hindsight is 20/20. If FDR had known about the attack, he could have done a better job of absorbing it, and would have been in a position to inflict great damage on the Japanese early in the War.
I always felt that the Pearl Harbor attack, as serious as it was, was not daring enough. On December 8, 1941 there was more oil in Hawaii than in Japan. Had the Japanese attacked the oil storage facilities, it is likely that they would never have lost Guadalcanal, and some of the subsequent battles, and the war in the Pacific, would have been lengthened by at least a year. Or more. What if the Japanese had invaded the unprotected beaches of Hawaii a few days after Pearl Harbor, supported by aircraft carriers and naval gunfire, possibly taking the Pearl Harbor out of U.S. hands, and possibly even seizing significant oil reserves?
The real scandal was in the Philippines where MacArthur let his air force be destroyed on the ground. He sat locked in his office for hours after the Pearl Harbor attack doing nothing and ignoring his air officers who begged to be allowed to attack the Japanese air bases in Formosa (Taiwan). Eventually the Japs attacked the U.S. airfields in the Philippines and destroyed all those airplanes sitting useless on the ground.
MacArthur made some really bad decisions in his career. He topped what you referenced with his campaign in North Korea. He first slowed the pursuit of the NKPA by transferring the Marine Corps from the Seoul area to the east coast of North Korea, losing weeks of its use. Relied on inadequate port facilities to supply the USMC by doing so. Ignored the possibility of a million man PLA crossing the Yalu. Topped off by having a mountain range with no lateral roads between his forces.
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