The Americans DID expect the attack to take place, Teribus. Everyone in the top American naval command circles and in the government knew perfectly well in late '41 that war was coming, and it was only a question of which week or which day it would commence on. They knew that the Japanese were sending seaborne forces south toward Malaya and the Phillipines. They knew that the Japanese carriers were out in force...location unknown...most likely readying a major attack. It was totally 100% bloody obvious that they were on the brink of a major war with Japan. When the carrier Enterprise steamed out of Pearl Harbour the day prior to the attack, its commander speculated that if he sighted any Japanese warships he would attack them on sight.

They knew war was immediately imminent at the high command level. That, of course, doesn't mean the ordinary soldier or sailor knew anything about it. They don't bother to inform those guys about such matters. ;-)


"The norm for launching any sort of attack upon a fully alerted enemy (In this case the Iraqi Army) is that local superiority in numbers has to be established in the ration of 3:1. In short Little Hawk, if you are going to attack someone and you want that attack to go through you will ALWAYS outgun the enemy severely."

Absolutely correct, Teribus. I agree entirely. That is the principle to use when attacking a defensive position in any war situation (as I well know from my years of playing historical wargames). It has no bearing, however, on my comments about a superpower attacking a 3rd World Country that hasn't got any chance at all in a conventional battle...as opposed to the Japanese attacking a nation in '41 that had enormously greater industrial resources than their own. I say that what they did took guts, but America attacking Iraq was the act of a bullying superpower which knew it couldn't lose (the conventional battle). It can, however, lose the ensuing occupation, as we are seeing...

Patton, my hero? He isn't my hero...I just recognize that he was a very effective general when it came to winning battles. Personally speaking, I don't find him very likable...but he was a good fighting general, I'll give him that. I would not have wanted to have to put up with him on a daily basis, that's for sure. He was a war-lover. I think such people are a bit mentally disturbed, to put it mildly.

I agree that the Japanese would have fared much better had they launched an amphibious invasion of Pearl Harbour in '41. I think, though, with what they already had to deal with in assaulting the Phillipines, Malaya, and Dutch East Asia, plus some other places...that mounting an additional amphibious assault on the Hawaiian Islands at that point was probably just a bit more than they could manage.

I think that Roosevelt deliberately provoked the Japanese into going to war in '41...matter of fact, I'm sure of it. He pushed them into a corner where he knew they would lash out. He did not, of course, inform the American electorate of that! ;-) Nor did he inform the Congress. No, for propaganda purposes he had to present it as a complete shock out of left field, an unprovoked, unexpected, and despicable surprise attack, a "day that will live in infamy"...blah, blah, blah...the usual melodramatic BS, in other words...all designed to infuriate ordinary Americans with the kind of righteous wrath that would send them off to war. 911 was used the same way against Afghanistan and Iraq, and some other similar outrageous thing will probably be used eventually against Iran if the USA goes to war with Iran. If so, it will be carefully arranged and presented by people in the US government, well ahead of time, and it will not be a surprise to them, but it sure as hell will be to the American public.

Was war between the USA and Japan inevitable anyway, even without Roosevelt's arranging to push Japan into it in '41? Yes. The Americans and Japanese had been sliding inexorably into a war in the Central Pacific ever since the 1920's, and they both knew it. Was Roosevelt, therefore, wise to provoke the Japanese by cutting off their steel and oil imports and jumpstart the whole thing in '41 and get it going? Perhaps. It's debatable. He wanted very much to go to war against Germany, but he had an isolationist public and congress to contend with who wanted peace. That's a problem. In such a situation one needs a major provocation by some foreign power to get the public and congress in a war mood. I believe Roosevelt decided to push the Japanese into providing such a major provocation, and they responded splendidly. His expectation was that once at war with Japan, war with Germany would not be delayed long, but he must have been astounded at his good luck when Hitler declared war on the USA!!! What a gift! It saved Roosevelt the difficulty of declaring war on Germany first, which still would have taken awhile to arrange with the American congress, no doubt...because strongly persuasive excuses would have had to be found. Hitler saved Roosevelt from needing to find any.

I don't know why, Teribus, you are so perturbed about the Japanese hitting the American fleet by surprise at Pearl Harbour. That's standard in warfare. You ALWAYS hit the enemy by surprise if you possibly can, it's the smart thing to do. You'd have to be a complete idiot to politely inform them a day or a week ahead, "Hey, we're going to attack you, okay? Be ready for us when we get there. Give us your best shot."

Yeah, right.... (grin)

And anyway, as I said above, the American high command should not have been surprise at all. They knew the Japanese were about to attack in numerous places in the Pacific. The only thing they didn't know was exactly where, and at exactly what time, and with exactly how many forces in each case. But they sure as hell knew it was coming. They just didn't bother to tell the public or most of the sailors and soldiers who would soon bear the brunt of it.