FDR:December 7, 1941, "A Date Which Will Live in Infamy" (Video)

You Tube ^ | December 7, 1941 | Staff

[lbryce]

And, the Brits bombed the Germans cities first.

These are the facts about Brits Bombing German cities.
Bombs were first dropped by German aircraft on London but was, as I've read, the result of a navigational error as it seems was an isolated incident.

The Brits took the bombing incident as an extreme provocation but had no way of knowing it was unintentional and began retaliating on German cities which of course had Hitler respond in exponential fury.

[combat_boots]

Oh. OK. To italicize, you put a < immediately followed by an i and then a >

To end an html phrase/entry you put the < / and > around the i.

B is for bold.
U for underline
P for paragraphs.

It’s not hard. You can do it. There are whole threads on here about this. There’s also HTML goodies, or other sites that help you out.

[Talisker]

...they still feature that in the lobby at the UN Building... You feel so insecure... your stupid opinion... a puerile, punk comment... Shove it

I'm so sorry, I forgot that little problem you have with reading. Here, lemme help. The following is from

"...everything that the Japanese were planning to do was known to the United States..." ARMY BOARD, 1944:

• Tokyo had to send the daily bomb-plots, cabled from its Honolulu consulate, to the attack fleet by JN-25 radio messages. The pilots had to get their target information. "The news of the position of enemy ships in Pearl Harbor comes again and again." - Lt. Cmdr. Chigusa, executive officer of the attack fleet's Akigumo in his diary, December 4, 1941 (At Dawn We Slept, G. Prange, NY 1981, page 453). So FDR got it, too. FDR knew the Japanese pilots' targets as well as they did, because he got their bomb-plots when they did. He had their specific targets, ship by ship, in his hands at the Whitehouse.

• 6 December - This 18 November J19 message was translated by the Army:
"1. The warships at anchor in the Harbor on the 15th were as I told you in my No.219 on that day. Area A -- A battleship of the Oklahoma class entered and one tanker left port. Area C -- 3 warships of the heavy cruiser class were at anchor.
2. On the 17th the Saratoga was not in harbor. The carrier Enterprise, or some other vessel was in Area C. Two heavy cruisers of the Chicago class, one of the Pensacola class were tied up at docks 'KS'. 4 merchant vessels were at anchor in area D.

• 6 Dec. - at 9:30 P.M FDR read the first 13 parts of the decoded Japanese diplomatic declaration of war and said "This means war." When he returned to his 34 dinner guests he said, "The war starts tomorrow."

• 7 December - A message from the Japanese Consul in Budapest to Tokyo: "On the 6th, the American Minister presented to the Government of this country a British Government communique to the effect that a state of war would break out on the 7th." The communique was the Dec 5th war alert from the British Admiralty. It has been called "premature" and has disappeared. This triple priority alert was delivered to FDR personally. The Mid-East British Air Marshall told Col. Bonner Fellers on Saturday that he had received a secret signal that America was coming into the war in 24 hours. Churchill summarized the message in GRAND ALLIANCE page 601 as listing the two fleets attacking British targets and "Other Japanese fleets...also at sea on other tasks."

• 7 December 1941 very early Washington time, there were two Marines, an emergency special detail, stationed outside the Japanese Naval Attache's door. 9:30 AM Aides begged Stark to send a warning to Hawaii. He did not. 10 AM FDR read the 14th part, 11 A.M. FDR read the 15th part setting the time for the declaration of war to be delivered to the State Department at 1 PM, about dawn Pearl Harbor time, and did nothing. Navy Secretary Knox was given the 15th part at 11:15 A.M. with this note from the Office of Naval IQ: "This means a sunrise attack on Pearl Harbor today."

• Naval IQ also transmitted this prediction to Hull and about 8 others, including the White House (PHH pt 36 p.532). At 10:30 AM Bratton informed Marshall that he had a most important message (the 15th part) and would bring it to Marshall's quarters but Marshall said he would take it at his office. At 11:25 Marshall reached his office according to Bratton. Marshall testified that he had been riding horses that morning but he was contradicted by Harrison, McCollum, and Deane. Marshall who had read the first 13 parts by 10 PM the prior night, perjured himself by denying that he had even received them.

• Marshall, in the face of his aides' urgent supplications that he warn Hawaii, made strange delays including reading and re-reading all of the 14 Part Message (and some parts several times) which took an hour and refused to use the scrambler phone on his desk, refused to send a warning by the fast, more secure Navy system but when informed it would take 30 or 40 minutes by Army radio to send his watered-down warning, he was satisfied (that meant the warning wouldn't reach Pearl Harbor until after the 1 PM Washington time deadline). The warning was in fact sent commercial without priority identification and arrived 6 hours late.

• 7 December - 7:55 A.M. Hawaii time AIR RAID PEARL HARBOR. THIS IS NOT DRILL.

So in conclusion, EyeGuy, and in response to your posturing and demand that I "shove it" because you can't read coherently enough to respond with anything but jackass thuggery - and also while remembering my family members who died fighting in WWII - I say to you, shove this:

[EyeGuy]

“It’s not hard. You can do it. There are whole threads on here about this. There’s also HTML goodies, or other sites that help you out.”

###

I’m well aware of all of that. Thanks.

It is just not that big of a deal; to me or to the vast majority of those I post to. If the FR mods, for some odd reason have a problem with it, I’ll consider changing my routine. That might include what most do here, which is not even including quotes from the targeted post in the first place.

[jamaksin]

From Churchill's War

" ... On July the 20th he sends for Sir Charles Portal, the Chief of Bomber Command, and he says to Sir Charles Portal, as we know from records from Command to the Air Ministry, "When is the earliest that you could launch a vicious air attack on Berlin?" Sir Charles Portal replies to Winston, "I'm afraid we can't do it now, not until September because the nights aren't long enough to fly from England to Berlin and back in the hours of darkness. September, perhaps, and in September we will have the first hundred of the new Sterling bombers ..." But he also says, "I warn you, if you do that, the Germans will retaliate. At present they're not bombing English targets, they're not bombing civilian targets at all and you know why. And if you bomb Berlin, then Hitler will retaliate against English civilian targets." And Churchill just twinkles when he gets this reply, because he knows what he wants.

We know what he wants because he's told Joe Kennedy, the American Ambassador - Joseph P. Kennedy, father of the late President - "I want the Germans to start bombing London as early as possible because this will bring the Americans into the war when they see the Nazis' frightfulness, and above all it will put an end to this awkward and inconvenient peace movement that's afoot in my own Cabinet and among the British population." I've opened Kennedy's diary. I've also read Kennedy's telegrams back to the State Department in Washington. They're buried among the files. You can't find them easily, but they are worth reading, and you see in detail what Churchill was telling him. What cynicism. Churchill deliberately provoking the bombing of his own capital in order to kill the peace movement. He's been warned this would be the consequence, but he needs it. And still Hitler doesn't do him the favor."

So it goes.

[EyeGuy]

“I’m so sorry, I forgot that little problem you have with reading.”

####

More acne-faced, Junior High poseur crap.

You post as if we have a history. I don’t recall having the displeasure of exchanges with your immature ass, in the past.

[combat_boots]

OK. I had thought you just didn’t know how, which isn’t a big deal anyway, as most folks can figure stuff out if they just read. Well, most folks.

But some folks are language police. I used to be one. It doesn’t pay well. ;>

[skeeter]

The fleet at sea was supposed to have been on a war footing because we knew a Japanese attack in the Pacific was imminent, we didn't know where.

I used to believe in the revisionist version of Dec 7, 1941 until I realized just how incompetent an inefficient a government can be. 9/11 convinced me of that.

[lbryce]

Basic HTML Code

[EyeGuy]

Yeah, I did the HTML thing for a period, when I was posting more frequently, and even posted some images. Easy stuff, sure.

However, I don’t frequent this site often enough to learn or more acurately, retain through repetition, really even the basics of html.

[Talisker]

More acne-faced, Junior High poseur crap. You post as if we have a history. I don’t recall having the displeasure of exchanges with your immature ass, in the past.

Shill Tactic #2 (because they can't count past three): "When you have no argument, start a flame war to destroy the thread."

In response, I encourage all readers of this thread, once again, to read this link: "...everything that the Japanese were planning to do was known to the United States..." ARMY BOARD, 1944 - and then pursue further searches on your own.

It may be that at the top executive level, the only way to limit Hitler's global mayhem was to go to war with him as soon as possible - and the only way to go to war was to be attacked by the Japanese, because only then did Hitler declare war on the US. So ultimately, perhaps Roosevelt was pursuing a plan that limited overall American deaths. But to determine that, the question would have to be explored in the first place, and it's not. Instead we're supposed to believe that Pearl Harbot was a surprise to him, and massive evidence shows that that simply could not be true.

[skeeter]

I have research the question, and have found nothing that cannot be plausibly explained except the existence of Capt Safford's 'winds execute' message.

The man had great credibility in his field, so its difficult to blow off his claim.

[jboot]

"I still don’t understand how the Japs could not visualize the ultimate endpoint of their actions at Pearl."

As others have noted, the Japanese strategy was one of calculated risk. For a short period of time Japan had a chance of both making territorial gains and obtaining a quick peace with the US and the UK. Several events caused the strategy to fall apart: the initial attack on Pearl Harbor failed to cripple the US navy; the Japanese army failed to secure New Guinea; and finally the destruction of the Japanese carriers at Midway. Any one of these disasters was enough to seal Japan's doom. By the time we invaded Guadalcanal, the Japanese were already mortally wounded. They just didn't know it yet. But for a few brief months in 1941, victory was tantalizingly possible.

[EyeGuy]

“When you have no argument, start a flame war to destroy the thread.”

LOL. Said the punk who FIRST opened with the gratuitous ““Take the sucker out of your mouth...”

You have timeline issues, junior.

[EyeGuy]

Do you really think the America of 1941, which was not by any means the post-Vietnam, pussified metrosexual Obama America of today, would have sued for a quick peace, after the utter outrage of Pearl?

Yes, I will include in my question, a scenario under which the Japs did indeed send most of our carriers to the bottom.

I would assume, and I certainly could be wrong, that we would still have retained enough defense assets to secure the homeland, to rearm and strike back, albeit much later than actual events allowed us.

What do you think?

[dfwgator]

I remember on Band of Brothers when they interviewed the real-life members of the 101st, they mentioned that guys actually committed suicide because they were rejected by the Army when they tried to sign up.

[skeeter]

Given US public opinion regarding overseas wars pre 12/7/41, the Japanese very much thought they could make any offensive in the Pacific so cost-prohibitive that we would've chose not to undertake one.

Much the same as the Vietnamese & Taliban who, never hoping to defeat us, thought/think they could bleed us white.

Sure there are differences between these situations, but the basic idea is the same.

[EyeGuy]

“Given US public opinion regarding overseas wars pre 12/7/41”

####

Which I think, gets at the crucial fulcrum on which my question is based.

My point was that the very NATURE of the attack changed that equation, (Yes, even IF the Japanese diplomatic Corps had arrived an hour earlier to deliver their declaration).

I think America was changed fundamentally, regardless of material losses and was in no mood for acquiescence, a gross miscalculation of the American mind on the part of the Japanese.

Did they really expect us to roll over. I mean really?

[Uncle Hal]

I was 6 and a half at the time of Pearl Harbor. I was in CA. and we heard about the attack when we came out of church and a women came up and told us about it. My dad was in a state of shock.

[skeeter]

the Japanese very much thought they could make any offensive in the Pacific so cost-prohibitive that we would've chose not to undertake one.

Lastly I'd add that the horrific tactics the Japanese adapted starting with Peleliu and continuing through Okinawa had by '45 begun to turn US public opinion towards the war - the slaughter was such that groups back home were beginning to question Pacific war policy.

The really interesting question is what would have been the ultimate US response if Japan had left the US Pacific Fleet & Philippines out of their plans for conquest in 1941-42.