WWII was a mistake

[Guest yod]

Steff.

again that was not a personal attack. It see that remark as truth whether you admit it or not. Relatively no one is listening to you with these wild conspiracy theories...and that is factual. Other One has given you some very good advice.

I'm sorry, ok?

I use sarcasm a lot...that's often misinterpreted as being personal...I sincerely apologize for obviously offending you.

But I have never held a disregard for you...honestly!

I tease you and sometimes it is a little too harshly, I suppose. You are a fine debater and a worthy brother. I disagree with your conclusions (surprised?) but I would fight for your right to say them. In fact, 2 of my sons are fighting for them even now. That probably has a lot to do with why I oppose these things which undermine military morale. If what you are saying is true there is no good reason to ever serve in the military. EVER! We're all doomed!

I won't allow myself to believe that...especially when I see the same facts and merely interpret them differently than you.

But regardless of whether we ever agree on anything, I confess to being less than graceful and sincerely beg your forgiveness. :hug:

[Scudbuddy]

Lets look at the events leading up to the event:

Warnings do no harm and might do inexpressible good

27 January 1941, Dr. Ricardo Shreiber, the Peruvian envoy in Tokyo told Max Bishop, third secretary of the US embassy that he had just learned from his intelligence sources that there was a war plan involving a surprise attack on Pearl Harbor. This information was sent to the State Department and Naval Intelligence and to Admiral Kimmel at Hawaii.

31 March 1941 - A Navy report by Bellinger and Martin predicted that if Japan made war on the US, they would strike Pearl Harbor without warning at dawn with aircraft from a maximum of 6 carriers. For years Navy planners had assumed that Japan, on the outbreak of war, would strike the American fleet wherever it was. The fleet was the only threat to Japan's plans. Logically, Japan couldn't engage in any major operation with the American fleet on its flank. The strategic options for the Japanese were not unlimited.

10 July - US Military Attache Smith-Hutton at Tokyo reported Japanese Navy secretly practicing aircraft torpedo attacks against capital ships in Ariake Bay. The bay closely resembles Pearl Harbor.

July - The US Military Attache in Mexico forwarded a report that the Japanese were constructing special small submarines for attacking the American fleet in Pearl Harbor, and that a training program then under way included towing them from Japan to positions off the Hawaiian Islands, where they practiced surfacing and submerging.

10 August 1941, the top British agent, code named "Tricycle", Dusko Popov, told the FBI of the planned attack on Pearl Harbor and that it would be soon. The FBI told him that his information was "too precise, too complete to be believed. The questionnaire plus the other information you brought spell out in detail exactly where, when, how, and by whom we are to be attacked. If anything, it sounds like a trap." He also reported that a senior Japanese naval person had gone to Taranto to collect all secret data on the attack there and that it was of utmost importance to them. The info was given to Naval IQ.

Early in the Fall, Kilsoo Haan, an agent for the Sino-Korean People's League, told Eric Severeid of CBS that the Korean underground in Korea and Japan had positive proof that the Japanese were going to attack Pearl Harbor before Christmas. Among other things, one Korean had actually seen the plans. In late October, Haan finally convinced US Senator Guy Gillette that the Japanese were planning to attack. Gillette alerted the State Department, Army and Navy Intelligence and FDR personally.

24 September 1941, the "bomb plot" message in J-19 code from Japan Naval Intelligence to Japan' s consul general in Honolulu requesting grid of exact locations of ships pinpointed for the benefit of bombardiers and torpedo pilots was deciphered. There was no reason to know the EXACT location of ships in harbor, unless to attack them - it was a dead giveaway. Chief of War Plans Turner and Chief of Naval Operations Stark repeatedly kept it and warnings based on it prepared by Safford and others from being passed to Hawaii. The chief of Naval Intelligence Captain Kirk was replaced because he insisted on warning HI. It was lack of information like this that lead to the exoneration of the Hawaii commanders and the blaming of Washington for unpreparedness for the attack by the Army Board and Navy Court. At no time did the Japanese ever ask for a similar bomb plot for any other American military installation. Why the Roosevelt administration allowed flagrant Japanese spying on PH has never been explained, but they blocked 2 Congressional investigations in the fall of 1941 to allow it to continue. The bomb plots were addressed to "Chief of 3rd Bureau, Naval General Staff", marked Secret Intelligence message, and given special serial numbers, so their significance couldn't be missed. There were about 95 ships in port. The text was:

"Strictly secret.

"Henceforth, we would like to have you make reports concerning vessels

along the following lines insofar as possible:

"1. The waters (of Pearl Harbor) are to be divided roughly into five

subareas (We have no objections to your abbreviating as much as you

like.)

"Area A. Waters between Ford Island and the Arsenal.

"Area B. Waters adjacent to the Island south and west of Ford Island.

(This area is on the opposite side of the Island from Area A.)

"Area C. East Loch.

"Area D. Middle Loch.

"Area E. West Loch and the communication water routes.

"2. With regard to warships and aircraft carriers, we would like to have

you report on those at anchor (these are not so important) tied up at

wharves, buoys and in docks. (Designate types and classes briefly. If

possible we would like to have you make mention of the fact when

there are two or more vessels along side the same wharf.)"

Simple traffic analysis of the accelerated frequency of messages from various Japanese consuls gave a another identification of war preparations, from Aug-Dec there were 6 messages from Seattle, 18 from Panama, 55 from Manila and 68 from Hawaii.

Oct. - Soviet top spy Richard Sorge, the greatest spy in history, informed Kremlin that Pearl Harbor would be attacked within 60 days. Moscow informed him that this was passed to the US. Interestingly, all references to Pearl Harbor in the War Department's copy of Sorge's 32,000 word confession to the Japanese were deleted. NY Daily News, 17 May 1951.

16 Oct. - FDR grossly humiliated Japan's Ambassador and refused to meet with Premier Konoye to engineer the war party, lead by General Tojo, into power in Japan.

1 Nov. - JN-25 Order to continue drills against anchored capital ships to prepare to "ambush and completely destroy the US enemy." The message included references to armor-piercing bombs and 'near surface torpedoes.'

13 Nov. - The German Ambassador to US, Dr. Thomsen an anti-Nazi, told US IQ that Pearl Harbor would be attacked.

14 Nov. - Japanese Merchant Marine was alerted that wartime recognition signals would be in effect Dec 1.

22 Nov. - Tokyo said to Ambassador Nomura in Washington about extending the deadline for negotiations to November 29: "...this time we mean it, that the deadline absolutely cannot be changed. After that things are automatically going to happen."

CIA Director Allen Dulles told people after the war that US was warned in mid-November 1941 that the Japanese Fleet had sailed east past Tokyo Bay and was going to attack Pearl Harbor. CIA FOIA

23 Nov. - JN25 order - "The first air attack has been set for 0330 hours on X-day." (Tokyo time or 8 A.M. Honolulu time)

25 Nov. - British decrypted the Winds setup message sent Nov. 19. The US decoded it Nov. 28. It was a J-19 Code message that there would be an attack and that the signal would come over Radio Tokyo as a weather report - rain meaning war, east (Higashi) meaning US.

25 Nov. - Secretary of War Stimson noted in his diary "FDR stated that we were likely to be attacked perhaps as soon as next Monday." FDR asked: "the question was how we should maneuver them into the position of firing the first shot without too much danger to ourselves. In spite of the risk involved, however, in letting the Japanese fire the first shot, we realized that in order to have the full support of the American people it was desirable to make sure that the Japanese be the ones to do this so that there should remain no doubt in anyone's mind as to who were the aggressors."

25 Nov. - Navy Department ordered all US trans-Pacific shipping to take the southern route. PHH 12:317 (PHH = 1946 Congressional Report, vol. 12, page 317) ADM Turner testified "We sent the traffic down to the Torres Straight, so that the track of the Japanese task force would be clear of any traffic." PHH 4:1942

25 Nov. - Yamamoto radioed this order in JN-25: " (a) The task force, keeping its movements strictly secret and maintaining close guard against submarines and aircraft, shall advance into Hawaiian waters and upon the very opening of hostilities, shall attack the main force of the United States Fleet in Hawaii and deal it a mortal blow. The raid is planned for dawn on X-day -- exact date to be given by later order. (b) Should the negotiations with the US prove successful, the task force shall hold itself in readiness forthwith to return and reassemble.

[Guest shiloh357]

Conspiracy theorists have been around for a long time evidently....

So...FDR decided we should go ahead and destroy the entire Pacific Fleet too?

It's just ludicrous. C'mon guys...use a brain cell.

Yod, the Navy and times were changing drastically at that time, and it was believed that the aircraft carriers and their support ships were the thing of the future and the older battle ships and such were no match for the mobile air on the sea, so they were pretty much disposable and would not be effective in defense of the oceans as they were in the past.

So he had the aircraft carriers and their support ships moved safely out to sea and the older no longer viable ships put into harbor. They also pretty much put the land based aircraft together out on the ramps to be easily destroyed by the Japanese air strikes.

we only lost the part of our navy that would not have been effective against the air power in the first place.

Yeah... right. That is why they spent, who-knows-how-much on deep-sea welders to put all those useless ships back together

If they were disposable then why re-assemble them? Oh wait... these are conspiracies... they don't HAVE to make sense...

[Kabowd]

In every war in history there have been mistakes. In every war yet to be fought, there will be mistakes. To over-analyze, speculate and devise theories based on human error is nothing short of paranoia and fear..it is what the bible refers to as vain imaginations. They serve no purpose but to stir up anxiety and mistrust.

[Steff]

Apology accepted Yod, sticking two opinionated people in a room there's bound to be a few scuffles .

Tess:

I don't believe I'm over analyzing, the facts all point to the same thing.

However, in another 20 years when a lot of the stuff FDR classified becomes available, we may find out.

[Jon The Jew]

You're right. Maybe in 20 years they'll also release the documentation of Alien experimentation at Area 51.

[Scudbuddy]

Conspiracy theorists have been around for a long time evidently....

So...FDR decided we should go ahead and destroy the entire Pacific Fleet too?

It's just ludicrous. C'mon guys...use a brain cell.

Yod, the Navy and times were changing drastically at that time, and it was believed that the aircraft carriers and their support ships were the thing of the future and the older battle ships and such were no match for the mobile air on the sea, so they were pretty much disposable and would not be effective in defense of the oceans as they were in the past.

So he had the aircraft carriers and their support ships moved safely out to sea and the older no longer viable ships put into harbor. They also pretty much put the land based aircraft together out on the ramps to be easily destroyed by the Japanese air strikes.

we only lost the part of our navy that would not have been effective against the air power in the first place.

Yeah... right. That is why they spent, who-knows-how-much on deep-sea welders to put all those useless ships back together

If they were disposable then why re-assemble them? Oh wait... these are conspiracies... they don't HAVE to make sense...

That's what I said. Ignore the part that contradicts your theory. We needed those ships badly. Yes, aircraft carriers were the dominant factor in WWII, but no one knew that at the time. They were still the ugly "stepchild" to the battleship. And battleships were what pulverized islands and other ships. That was standard theory and useage. FDR and the military would have been out of their mind to orchestrate such happenings. We almost lost the war because of it.

[sachi]

quote: STEFF:

So he had the aircraft carriers and their support ships moved safely out to sea and the older no longer viable ships put into harbor. They also pretty much put the land based aircraft together out on the ramps to be easily destroyed by the Japanese air strikes.

I have been following this discussion with some interest as my friend - how is now out of province -did his postgraduate dissertation on some aspect of the Pacific War - ( that was when I was also doing a post grad degree in another discipline and needed /wanted some info from him re the Japanese Internment camps in Canada and US during WW2 so I contacted him several times ) A lot of the information you gave above Steff is stuff he told us and documention he referred to is very much the same -

He said that Americans were trying for a long time to break the Japanese code and finally they ingeniously made the connection bewteen Japanese and the Navajo language -

As a result Americans broke the Japanese code ( which of course changed once Japanese caught on to it) and were able to pin the planned attack to the specific day -

The 5 star Japanese General Yamamoto , who was one of the generals behind this plan - instructed the head of the "Pearl Harbour Mission" NOT to drop any bombs if air carriers were not in the Pearl Harbour port. However his instructions were superceded by some other General . . .

The surprise - for those who 'knew' in the American echelon of things - was that the attack came from the north . They did not expect that.

But the air carriers had been moved -

Of course because the air carriers had been moved Japanese realized their coding system had been broken and changed it - again and again throughout the war -

But Yamamoto , who apparently died in the Pacific war, was the one who it is attributed as having said , after he learned his men attacked Pearl Harbour and missed the air cariers "We have awakened a sleeping giant."

[sachi]

Jon the Jew: quote:

So what's the catch? Am I suddenly an extremist liberal? No, I'm not. The same criteria liberals present to say Iraq is unprovoked and unjustified, a mistake...is the same criteria I've applied to WWII. However, ask any decent person if WWII was a mistake, and they'll give you a weird look. Thoughts?

P.S. I do not believe anything I've written about WWII being wrong, I only did it for comparison and to make a point. [/QUOTE]

I got your point Jon - and its well taken -

However, as a Canadian ,I see a more likely comparison between the Iraqi war and Viet Nam

My parents are from Europe .

In fact my father's family is from Russia and they hopscotched through many parts of Europe escaping the pograms under the Czarist regiemes -

The anti- semitism in Europe has a long history . . .

So whatever the pretext I applaud the Americans for going in and turning the Facist agression around and bringing an end to such a heinous regieme -

Britain wasn't able to do it on its own - France was taken by Hitler - it was such a terrible time

I think people in the high places in the different governments knew -

I once did a paper on Dietrich Bonhoeffer years ago -

Doing it I learned a little bit about about the conditions @ Germany during that time -

Bonhoeffer as you know was German Lutheran theologian -he joined with Karl Barth and separated from the State Lutheran Church in protest over the church's capitulation to Hitlers policies towards the Jews and formed the Confessing Church, which was relentless also persecuted by the Nazis.

Bonhoeffer later joined the German Resitance against Hitler for which he was imprisoned and later killed by the Fascists. During his time in the Resistance he was send on several occassions to England (on some theological pretext) to meet with Bishop Bell who was the Archbishop of the Church of England at that time.

The German Resistance - which was headed up by the intelligensia and had strong operatives in the military - wanted to make a coup and overthrow Hitler. They knew they didn't have the strength on their own and secretly requested that Britain support the coup. The information provided to the British Gov't also included the facts surrounding Hitler's policies towards the Jews.

So people knew-

Moreover, Bonhoeffer assisted many Jewish people in escaping from Germany and assisted many others in relocating to England. The information was "out there" , but the Americans needed a pretext to get involved.

And I am always thankful to our Lord for the United States for liberating Europe- you see -

that is why I can be here , in freedom, able to share my perspective, as limited as it is -

May God ever Bless America. ~