BS: Pearl Harbor

Subject: Pearl Harbor
From: toadfrog
Date: 26 May 01 - 03:53 PM

Has any one seen this film? Is it as truly yucky as it is said to be? It sounds like the rip-off of the millenium! As of now, I have no plans to see it!

Subject: RE: BS: Pearl Harbor
From: Amergin
Date: 26 May 01 - 03:57 PM

is it even out yet?

Subject: RE: BS: Pearl Harbor
From: InOBU
Date: 26 May 01 - 04:01 PM

One of the best bad reviews of it said, "it has been 60 years since the event, it now is six years and three hours!" Too bad, I was looking forward to it. Larry

Subject: RE: BS: Pearl Harbor
From: Lepus Rex
Date: 26 May 01 - 04:10 PM

The first preview I saw really impressed me, at first... Late last year, I suppose it was. I think it started with kids playing ball in a field, a woman hanging laundry to dry, etc. in this really odd-looking land, when airplanes appear, flying really low through the valleys and above the suburban-looking people. About that time I realised that this odd-looking land was Hawaii, that the planes were Japanese, and that this was about Pearl Harbour. I then lost interest. But the first 30 seconds were pretty cool...

---Lepus Rex

Subject: RE: BS: Pearl Harbor
From: DonMeixner
Date: 26 May 01 - 04:36 PM

My son Geof tells me its a must see. Its long but well paced and the secondary love story is pretty good too. Geof is very hard on films and for him to be excoited about a movie is enough for me to see it.

Don

Subject: RE: BS: Pearl Harbor
From: MarkS
Date: 26 May 01 - 05:27 PM

Last review I saw said "Three hours of dreck." This could be Ishtar but with bombs.

Subject: RE: BS: Pearl Harbor
From: DougR
Date: 26 May 01 - 05:40 PM

Larry, I have been too. I'll see it for the special effects, if nothing else.

Subject: RE: BS: Pearl Harbor
From: Amergin
Date: 26 May 01 - 06:05 PM

I agree with Doug and Larry....I want to see it also.....and not very many movies that I can say that about...

Subject: RE: BS: Pearl Harbor
From: GUEST,John Gray / Australia
Date: 26 May 01 - 06:07 PM

Because they thought no-one would believe a kid was playing baseball at 7.55am and ditto with the woman hanging out the washing, the directors have changed the time of the attack! Cynical historical manipulation. Veterans groups should be up in arms over this, no pun intended. Those damn Japanese watches never were much good.

Here in Oz wee have a satirical football show on the radio. It opens with; Just because it didn't happen doesn't mean it isn't true.

JG / F.M.E.

Subject: RE: BS: Pearl Harbor
From: catspaw49
Date: 26 May 01 - 06:55 PM

I think once again the problem is learning history from Hollywood. If it spurs an interest to learn more and it has some semblance of accuracy, that;s fine. All too often though, the movie is way far off and the people who see it take it as gospel. I haven't seen this one, only the previews which seem very long on special effects.....never a good sign if you're looking for historical accuracy.

Yesterday morning, the local news interviewed a group of Pearl Harbor survivors after they had previewed this movie and their opinions were something less that stellar.....a lot less. Of course even though they were there, it doesn't mean they were everywhere there and in many cases their views can be as skewed as Hollywood's.

I did read a write up by one of the WWII historians (can't remember who now....CRS) and he was high on some parts and down on others. He made reference to some of the small details being right (ala "Private Ryan") while some of the stuff was "completely without any basis in fact."

Spaw

Subject: RE: BS: Pearl Harbor
From: Sorcha
Date: 26 May 01 - 10:36 PM

No opinion yet as I haven't seen it,but I did read that it is very anti Jpanese, and not currently "Politically Correct".......whatever the hell that means.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, my bathroom is torn all to hell--we can pee and bathe, but not shower. Used to be, the tub would hold water but not drain-----now it drains but won't hold water. This is a problem because we can only bathe, not shower. Stuff wash cloths in the plug hole.....

Subject: RE: BS: Pearl Harbor
From: catspaw49
Date: 26 May 01 - 11:31 PM

Well hey Sorch.....Over there on the "Aine" thread, when her bathroom was all messed up with back-ups and the like, she says she got stronger, lost weight, learned barre chords, and got some "Perky Boobs." Maybe there's a plus side to all of this...........Check your hooters!

Spaw

Subject: RE: BS: Pearl Harbor
From: GUEST,Guest..MR
Date: 27 May 01 - 12:35 AM

My sister loved the movie..but she also loved..Titantic..and Armageddon..

Subject: RE: BS: Pearl Harbor
From: toadfrog
Date: 27 May 01 - 12:36 AM

I guess we don't have eyewitnesses yet. What I heard was

1. An item on the editorial page of the Wall Street Journal, which was scathing. Especially on the ground that the portrayal of Franklin Roosevelt was really and truly wimpy. Now, without further information, the fact that the WSJ editorial page pans a movie is a pretty good reason to go see the movie. On the other hand, I don't suspect them of excessive fondness for Roosevelt.

2. Comment on the op ed page of today's New York Times entitled "World War II for Fun and Profit," generally to the effect that the film is shot full of anachronisms, and that from watching the film, one could not tell what the war is about. This because a film which accurately gave the background would offend potential audiences in Japan. So to that extent, it apparently is not anti-Japanese, at least not to the extent of suggesting that Japan was wrong to bomb Pearl Harbor.

3. But for me, a much more serious problem than offending all those Japanese in Japan, is that according to NPR accounts, it is stirring up anti-Japanese,and generally anti-Asian sentiment in the United States. As if Asian-Americans weren't getting enough shit already.

And apart from all this, I know that films about historical periods I don't know about influence my attitudes toward history. So that I make a point of not seeing films like "Hoffa," "Nixon," and that one about the Kennedy assassination. Films that lie are damaging.

So I, for one am not going to go reward Disney at the box office. Unless someone points out where I'm wrong.

Subject: RE: BS: Pearl Harbor
From: GUEST
Date: 27 May 01 - 12:48 AM

Hmm..I doubt that the kids...and yes..they were kids..were concerened about fossil fuels....

Subject: RE: BS: Pearl Harbor
From: SeanM
Date: 27 May 01 - 01:21 AM

Actually, I have second hand reviews from friends that went to see it...

It's not good. Best that I got was "Titanic with more ships being sunk". Personally, my experience watching "Titanic" was spent sincerely wishing I could temporarily remove my eyeballs until the horror on the screen was done, so I'll be avoiding it.

Everything else backs up the reviews cited above. One point brought up by Roger Ebert (and echoed by two personal reviews) was that for a movie about the Japanese raid on Pearl Harbour, the Japanese are barely in it. And when they ARE in it, rather than exulting in one hell of an effective sneak attack, they mope around saying things about how they've 'awoken the sleeping giant'.

The one good thing I can say is the advertising campaign. Out here in CA, it takes the form of reworked WWII Allied propaganda posters. Clever use of less than 'correct' materials for advertising.

The moment I heard Michael Bay (somewhere in the directing staff) say that they were proud of the comparisons to 'Titanic', they lost me though. I've got much better things to spend money on than a special effects rehash.

M

Subject: RE: BS: Pearl Harbor
From: Ditchdweller
Date: 27 May 01 - 06:04 AM

I do not know about the Western shores of the Big Pond, but on this side it appears that Tora Tora Tora!!! is being issued on DVD the same time as Disney's effort is being put on release!

Subject: RE: BS: Pearl Harbor
From: paddymac
Date: 27 May 01 - 08:47 AM

I saw it yesterday and found it to be an entertaining and enjoyable film which I would recommend. It's basically a love story, with a big fight in the middle. I suspect that the title was chosen more for marketing reasons than anything else. There some historical "factoids" scattered thru the film, but I don't think any reasonable person would consider that it was ever intended as a history lesson.

Subject: RE: BS: Pearl Harbor
From: WKG
Date: 27 May 01 - 09:20 AM

I liked the opening line of Roger Ebert's 1.5 star review, to the effect that it was a two hour movie crammed into three hours!

Subject: RE: BS: Pearl Harbor
From: Little Hawk
Date: 27 May 01 - 10:55 AM

I have always been fascinated by both the Titanic and the Pearl Harbour raid. Accordingly, I went to see "Titanic", and enjoyed it reasonably well, although I most definitely was NOT there to see a love story. However, the love story was presented in a reasonably okay fashion...I'd give it a 6 out of 10, I guess. The girl was actually a rather interesting character.

I am not sure I can stomach going to see "Pearl Harbour". It sounds like the most godawful piece of flag-waving tripe since the Reagan era and Rambo.

I hate seeing Hollywood screw around with history. I hate seeing people from other historical eras talking like the smart-mouthed *ssholes in present TV sitcoms, and behaving in ways utterly uncharacteristic of the time.

I wonder if anyone advises anyone else to "get a life" during the course of this film?

If you watch actual films from the 40's, the 50's, or even the 60's you will see that American culture at that time still had a certain sense of dignity...a certain amount of class...a measure of maturity.

Not like the garbage-mentality behaviour that you see routinely in popular entertainment now.

American civilization, like latter day Rome, has lost its soul, and that is nowhere more evident than in big budget Hollywood films.

This is not a civilization that deserves to endure, let alone to dominate the world, and the world will not mourn when its time has passed.

- LH

Subject: RE: BS: Pearl Harbor
From: Rick Fielding
Date: 27 May 01 - 10:57 AM

Bugger! I'm just too damn cynical to sit through "Pop History revisionism", consequently "Nixon, JFK, Titanic, Gladiator", and certainly "Pearl Harbour" will go unwatched. Made the mistake of seeing "Bound For Glory" and "Leadbelly" though....ughhh! Nah, much more fun to read books about stuff I care about.

On the other hand.... Go out and rent "Don't Look Back", "Waiting For Guffman" and "Best in Show"....hilarious and REAL LIFE!

Rick

Subject: RE: BS: Pearl Harbor
From: Amos
Date: 27 May 01 - 11:02 AM

Beg to differ, Little Hawk. This civillization, like most adolescents, is stinky, awkward, self indulgent, noisy, crass, and full of infinite promise. It deserves to mature, blossom and discover how right its Fathers were. I for one know many people who would say they have found their soul, rather than lost it, in contrast with (for example) the '20s or the '50s.

Even if we do cram two hours of drck into a three hour flick.

Subject: RE: BS: Pearl Harbor
From: Mrs.Duck
Date: 27 May 01 - 11:16 AM

I f Hollywood can put Kracatoa EAST of Java then I'm sure a little time change won't worry them. The film isn't out here yet so I'll wait and see.

Subject: RE: BS: Pearl Harbor
From: DougR
Date: 27 May 01 - 12:20 PM

L.H., I'm a bit surprised to see you touting films of the 40's, 50's, 60's if you are so turned off to "flag waving." Ever seen: "Sands of Iwo Jima," "Battle Cry," "Battle Ground," "Midway," "Tora, Tora, Tora?" And many more "war" movies made during those years ...particularly the 40's while the war was going on.

Subject: RE: BS: Pearl Harbor
From: paddymac
Date: 27 May 01 - 12:48 PM

Thanks, Amos, for your proper response to LittleHawk. I am in complete concurrence with you.

Subject: RE: BS: Pearl Harbor
From: Peter T.
Date: 27 May 01 - 01:32 PM

Well, if you are going to grow up, get on with it. 200 years is a bit long. America seems to be arrested in a permanent state of narcissistic juvenilism, if not going even further into pre-adolescence -- just what we need, more propaganda about preparing for sneak attacks from the enemies of freedom. I hear the Americans win the Battle of Britain again too. (I thought Robert Taylor did that a long time ago. It does get really tiresome).
yours, Peter

Subject: RE: BS: Pearl Harbor
From: Clinton Hammond
Date: 27 May 01 - 02:00 PM

Rick... yer missing out on a lot of the genre called "Historical FICTION"!!

It can be fun, but one must realise that the operative word is 'fiction'... ya want history, watch documentaries

;-)

Subject: RE: BS: Pearl Harbor
From: toadfrog
Date: 27 May 01 - 02:19 PM

Gee, Little Hawk, I was agreeing with you so heartily, until you got to the last 4 paragraphs denouncing This Modern Youth. Everything it is necessary to say about Modern Youth was alteady said by Brandt in "Ship of Fools," in or about 1450. Civilization has been going to the doggs for at least 550 years; clearly hopeless by now to buck the trend.

But you know, it is really nice to see a film that tries to portray the past accurately. "Malcom X" does that. But Disney seems bent on becoming a synonym for falsehood.

Subject: RE: BS: Pearl Harbor
From: The Walrus
Date: 27 May 01 - 02:30 PM

What has me worried is that I can only think of two British actors who might (and then only just) pass for Japanese, So where did Disney get the villans for this film?

Regards

(A puzzled) Walrus

Subject: RE: BS: Pearl Harbor
From: Dicho (Frank Staplin)
Date: 27 May 01 - 03:38 PM

This film will be disapointing (walk-out fare) to those who were living then or were involved in the conflict. It will have more appeal to younger generations who don't care about history and need a love story to hold their interest. It IS showing in most major centers across the USA and Canada. Tora etc. also plays hell with history.

Subject: RE: BS: Pearl Harbor
From: DougR
Date: 27 May 01 - 03:44 PM

Peter T, I can understand your frustration with screenwriters and producers bending history. The true story is usually more interesting than anything those folks can conjure up.

I assume you register your protest by not going to movies that are advertised to be based on history. Is that so?

DougR

Subject: RE: BS: Pearl Harbor
From: Peter T.
Date: 27 May 01 - 03:51 PM

I register my protest by reading a history book, or talking to people who actually fought in the war. Any movie said to be based on a "true story" is inevitably full of lies. It is not the big overt lies that poison, it is the cumulative effect of all the small ones.

yours, Peter T.

Subject: RE: BS: Pearl Harbor
From: wildlone
Date: 27 May 01 - 05:57 PM

"Never let the facts get in the way of a good story"
I have seen quite a few hysterical [sorry historical] films and you can always find inacurate parts, ie the using of exploding cannonballs in Cromwell.
Sharpe would never have even got to a chosen man let alone Sgt
I now just read the books that were written about the events by the people that took part in them, you might find that the accounts may differ but at least the events happened.
I have to admit that the attack on Pearl Harbour and the speed of the Japanese advance was great planning.
dave

Subject: RE: BS: Pearl Harbor
From: Lepus Rex
Date: 27 May 01 - 07:13 PM

Roger Ebert's twice-mentioned review. For anyone who cares:)

---Lepus Rex

Subject: RE: BS: Pearl Harbor
From: GUEST,Berque
Date: 27 May 01 - 07:51 PM

I'll end up going to see it 'cuz I like seeing special effects, big explosions ... that sort of thing. However, I have no illusions about "historical accuracy". There is more and more information coming out of the declassified record (thru the freedom of information act) that FDR knew of the coming attack. He in fact may have provoked it thru a series of foreign policy initiatives designed specifically to draw a military response (oil embargoes, that sort of thing). I'll not go into too much detail, as it would take up too much time and space. For more info, see a recently released book called "Deadly Deceit", or websites like antiwar.com.

Subject: RE: BS: Pearl Harbor
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 27 May 01 - 09:36 PM

Regardless of whether the facts are correct or not, all war films distort the reality of war totally, by pretending that it is possible to be a detached observer of this kind of stuff. The shrapnel is flying around and the bombs are going off, and you're watching like God from some invulerable place with impossible camera angles that show you a coherant story going along.

It's all fantasy, whether it's Star Trek or Pearl Harbour.

Subject: RE: BS: Pearl Harbor
From: Rick Fielding
Date: 27 May 01 - 10:00 PM

Hi Clinton. 'Fraid you hit the nail on the head with your hammer of Thor. Other than dark sarcastic comedies, the only films I watch with real anticipation ARE documentaries. On the other hand I AM improving...when I was 16 I started watching Bergman films....and they ain't a BIT funny!

oops (IMO)

Rick

Subject: RE: BS: Pearl Harbor
From: DougR
Date: 28 May 01 - 12:26 AM

For anyone remotely interested in accurate history of the Pearl Harbor attack, I think the one on NBC tonight with Tom Brokow hit it on the mark.

I was 11 years old when the attack was made. The major question on the minds of most of those I knew in that small Texas town was, where is Pearl Harbor? I do remember the day well, however.

DougR

Subject: RE: BS: Pearl Harbor
From: okthen
Date: 28 May 01 - 06:15 AM

From the UK Sunday Times.

A Shropshire woman is not looking forward to this summer's Disney blockbuster-because she is called Pearl Harber.She has been teased since changing her name from Pearl Hussey in 1984 when she married her husband ,Paul.Pearl, from church stretton,said:"Being a Hussey gave me problems but being Pearl Harber has made me the butt of endless jokes"

cheers

bill

Subject: RE: BS: Pearl Harbor
From: Fiolar
Date: 28 May 01 - 06:29 AM

A very good article in today's British paper The Guardian on the film. The writer makes the point that the films of the 40's and the 50's usually contained people who had actually fought in the war and knew what it was about. "Pearl" has apparently great special effects but the actors are cardboard. Am I wrong?

Subject: RE: BS: Pearl Harbor
From: Peter T.
Date: 28 May 01 - 11:07 AM

Yes, and that made them liars in "a good cause". There is some strange impulse to hide the nature of war from civilians, to protect them from the truth as if one were protecting them from flying debris -- one of the reasons why Vietnam was so powerful was that there was a temporary lifting of the veil that led to the more open depiction of war with which we are blessed nowadays (yes, it is a blessing). I believe it was only in late 1944 that Life magazine started showing dead Americans in its war coverage. And the rest of it was ridiculously airbrushed and cheaply heroic in the "cause". We seem to have entered a new era of cheap heroism plus violence, however: so perhaps the blessing is a mixed one.

yours, Peter T.

Subject: RE: BS: Pearl Harbor
From: Little Hawk
Date: 28 May 01 - 11:11 AM

Amos - You may well be right in what you say. I was in a rather jaundiced mood when I posted above. I agree that many individual people have found their souls in the past few decades, so it wasn't individuals I was focusing on, but rather the marketing culture itself. Anyway, I'm not totally cynical...just cynical about the entertainment media for the most part. They usually fall so horribly short of what they could accomplish, and produce the same old empty, high-tech, beautifully photographed dreck.

Doug R - You're right that the old movies were full of extreme flag-waving. No argument there. What's in the newer movies that I don't like is the very unreal behaviour of the actors (especially the younger male characters...). They mouth dialogue that is totally unlike the way people behaved at the time. They act like they're in a music video. If you watch an old film like "From Here To Eternity", then you get a feel for the way people actually carried themselves back then.

I guess it's the combination of flag-waving along with total unreality that bugs me. After all, some fool like Rambo goes around slaughtering hundreds and hundreds of Vietnamese, Russians, Arabs or whomever, when you know darned well that in real life he would be dead in the first five minutes, killed by some ordinary citizen soldier. That's real war.

John Wayne in "Sands of Iwo Jima" at least gave the impression of the actual reality of war in a pretty accurate way.

Now it all looks like some spectacular video game in which young hunks like Ben Affleck or Keanu Reeves or Tom Cruise perform extremely unlikely (if not impossible) feats of derring-do at bizarre camera angles....just like a rock video or a nintendo game.

toadfrog - Point taken. Yup, civilization has been going to the dogs for the last 15,000 years or so. :-) I do think that specific societies go through cycles of maturity/immaturity...complacency...rise and fall. The problem with the present North American society is that it is glutted on consumer goods, greed, convenience, and luxury...and that seems like a sliding into decadence to me. (*** "Give me Convenience or give me Death" ***) It cannot go on indefinitely, and it's going to lead to some pretty uncomfortable adjustments eventually....for the whole world.

Tora Tora Tora (1970) was an accurate, if slow-paced film about Pearl Harbour, and it made a genuine effort to show both sides of the story.

- LH

Subject: RE: BS: Pearl Harbor
From: Jeep man
Date: 28 May 01 - 11:37 AM

I was just a young pup when it happened, but I well remember it. It was not something to celebrate in a movie with special effects and love interests. It was awful and we were scared. We did not know what to expect and few ways to get news. Even news in the daily paper and the radio news was very slow getting to the public.

When it is said that old movies were full of flag waving and patriotism, probably so, but that is the way people felt. AMERICA GOT MAD, and it was "Praise the Lord and pass the Ammunition".

I have not seen that in America since, but I sincerely believe that it is still there, and will surface again if the need arises. Jeep

Subject: RE: BS: Pearl Harbor
From: campfire
Date: 28 May 01 - 12:21 PM

Sorry everybody, but I saw the film yesterday and I enjoyed it, as much as one can enjoy seeing mass destruction, anyway. I did leave with a sense of awe over the devastation.

The attack WAS early in the morning in the film. Most of the sailors were in their bunks in the ships; the Cuba Gooding character was serving breakfast. The main characters were just waking up.

The Japanese Admiral(?) wasn't really keen on the idea of war with the US, but saw it as the only way. I honestly don't know what was going through the minds of the Japanese as they planned the real attack - who does? So no, they Japanese were not portrayed as bloodthirsty menaces just out to kill Americans for no reason - does that make it unrealistically PC?

I'll agree that FDR was "wimpy". I didn't care for that portrayal.

The love story was overly predictable, but they usually are - It's a MOVIE.

And of course, the Ben Affleck character runs around amid the bullets and doesn't get shot. Kinda like John Wayne. The hero (star) doesn't die. ITS A MOVIE.

I didn't go see it to get historical accuracy. I guess I had read enough about the movie to know that it was a love story set during Pearl Harbor, NOT a movie "about" Pearl Harbor, so I wasn't expecting anything more.

campfire

Subject: RE: BS: Pearl Harbor
From: Amos
Date: 28 May 01 - 01:06 PM

I saw this flick yesterday and found it terribly moving, and successful at representing facets of the time. The love thread was particularly tortuous and to my mind represented very well the kind of bizarre ricochets that get thrown at people in time of war even at the personal level, because of the wide-scale disruption. Sure some of the melodrama was over done -- FDR standing down his wussy cabinet by standing up. The Doolittle raid was well done and if I recall "30 Seconds Over Tokyo" was pretty accurate. All in all it was a fairly balanced movie, for a blockbuster, better released than not. Not historical, but convincing in a representative way.

Finally, no effort was made to hide the grim faces of war from the story. The drowning of the Arizona survivors after the raid by well-intended rescuers who opened a small hole in the hull which let their airbubble escape was a heart-wrencher. The duplicity of some bureaucrats and the stupidity of certain Admirals was well done. The precision of the raid planning was remarkable. I recommend it as good entertainment and think it is even informative in a rudimentary way.

Peter T., I submit that nations and empires cannot be judged on the time scale of your impatience. If you can find the records of the Proceeds of the Congeess of the United States, on the occasion of the 200th anniversary of Independence (4 July 1996) there is an essay there by one John Knox Jessup which ends "After two hundred years, it's too soon to quit!". This is a sentiment with which I concur, despite the temptations both internal and external not to bother. And if you really want to judge our culture by our mass media, I would be really careful about trusting you with a credit card.

Warm regards,

Amos

Subject: RE: BS: Pearl Harbor
From: Charley Noble
Date: 28 May 01 - 01:21 PM

My parents were always impressed with how little they were told at the time, that almost the entire Pacific Fleet had either been sunk or damaged (except for the aircraft carriers and their escourts).

There does seem to be an emerging historians' consensus that the FDR Administration were aware that the sneak attack was about to happen, and let it happen assuming the damage would not be so devestating.

Finally, I'm not aware of a single song that commemorates the event, unlike the Titanic or the Reuban James. Of course, the Almanac Singers were all in shock, having done their best to sing us out of the emerging world war.

Subject: RE: BS: Pearl Harbor
From: Little Hawk
Date: 28 May 01 - 01:42 PM

Hmmm...well, maybe I will go and see it.

I believe the FDR administration was entirely aware that war with Japan was coming imminently, but I do not think they ever dreamed Japan could mount a major attack on Pearl Harbour, nor were they aware of the very high expertise of the Japanese naval air squadrons (which were the most highly trained units of their kind in the world at that time).

They were expecting the Japanese to attack the Phillipines, Hong Kong, and Southeast Asia, but not Pearl. The only thing they were seriously worried about at Pearl was sabotage by local Japanese agents in Hawaii, and sniping by Japanese submarines. Thus, they moved all the airplanes into tight groups on the fields that could be well guarded from saboteurs, and they stepped up the anti-submarine patrols (which did bag at least one Japanese minisub prior to the air attack).

Admiral Yamamoto was indeed very reluctant to go to war with the USA, and he resisted the notion...until given the actual order to proceed by his superiors in the Army cabinet. Typical Japanese honour system. Once given the order, even if you have the gravest doubts, you carry it out with absolute devotion to duty, regardless of consequence.

This was seen again and again during the Pacific war, and it led to the tragic and unnecessary deaths of a great many good men on both sides of the conflict.

It's true that the ordinary public was given very scanty information. My mother said that a lot of people were afraid the Japanese might invade the West coast of the USA and Canada. To think such a thing was to totally fail to understand the strategic realities of the situation.

- LH

Subject: RE: BS: Pearl Harbor
From: Little Hawk
Date: 28 May 01 - 03:02 PM

Campfire - I think what was in the minds of...

1. the Japnnese Army Cabinet (which was the ruling entity in Japan at the time) was this:

FDR has cut off all our supplies of oil and steel (early in 1941).

Without the oil and steel our military machine will become virtually helpless within 1 to 2 years.

This will mean the abandonment of our military position in mainland Asia and China, to which we have devoted our whole national effort.

This will mean defeat and total humiliation for Japan, without firing a shot. It will also mean humiliation for the Army Cabinet, and its rapid fall from political power in Japan.

We cannot accept that. We will fight the Americans unless they restore our trade access to oil and steel (and FDR had no intention of doing that).

It's very risky, but we have no choice. To do otherwise means total defeat in any case, and loss of honour, and loss of power.

2. And the Navy? They thought...

All of the above...tempered by the knowledge that Japan had absolutely no chance of winning a long naval war, because America had much greater resources of production.

Therefore, if given the order to fight, they had to somehow make it a short war.

The only way to do that would be to inflict so disastrous a series of early defeats on the Allied forces as to dissuade them from the costs of waging a long term counterattack.

It was a VERY long shot, but it was better than simply lying down and dying (from the Japanese point of view).

The Pearl Harbour attack was intended to make it possible for Japan to do such massive early damage to the American fleet.

Psychologically, however, it had the exact opposite effect the Japanese had intended. It made Americans determined to fight, and go on fighting, until total victory. The Japanese would probably have been better off to have never attached Pearl Harbour at all.

Had they not done so, but restricted their activities to Asian waters, I suspect the American fleet would have sailed to the Phillipines in the early spring of 1942 to fight the Japanese in an old style battleship duel, without benefit of being very aware of the true capabilities of the Japanese carrier forces.

And there they would probably have suffered a pretty catastrophic defeat at the hands of Admiral Ozawa's crack aircraft carrier squadrons (backed up by land-based planes on Phillipine airfields), with far worse results than Pearl Harbour. Besides their battleships, they might very well have lost the American carriers too (Enterprise, Hornet, Wasp, Lexington, and Saratoga). And without those carriers they would have been blind and almost helpless at sea.

Even that, though, would probably have not saved the Japanese from in the end losing that war. They simply didn't have the material resources to fight the USA, although they certainly had the expertise and the will.

Japan in 1941 was between a rock and a hard place. Damned if they did and damned if they didn't.

Of course, had they not embarked on a lengthy national policy of military aggression and expansion in China and elsewhere, they would not have been in that situation...but then you'd have to roll back pretty well everything that had occurred since Admiral Togo's defeat of the Russian navy in 1905 (Tsushima).

As it says in the Taoist teachings: to attack an "enemy" gives him strength. The wise nation attacks no one, but simply defends itself resolutely if attacked. Japan's Army Cabinet was proud, but they were not very wise, and in the end they paid the price for it.

- LH

Subject: RE: BS: Pearl Harbor
From: Peter T.
Date: 28 May 01 - 03:09 PM

I doubt seriously if nations will tremble at my judgement and my time scale of impatience. However, I am happy to appraise America by its mass media. How else are we to judge a nation and its culture in the 21st century? America is a nation saturated in mass media, much of the character of which it created, and it is now part of a machine of global myth making being spread around the world by demand and intense pressure from Jack Valenti and other moguls. My country wrestles daily with the anaconda of American mass media.
Certainly, whenever I go to America I am stunned by the hypnotic effect that the mass media has on everyone: televisions on all the time, every day, everywhere. This is bad enough in many countries I have visited, but it seems to be particularly virulent in America -- I assume it is because it is the only way to hold 300 million people together. I go to dinners among the elite classes, scientists, academics, artists, and virtually all discussions revolve around the previous night's television.

The core of a culture is its memory and its storytelling. America handed over its storytelling to its corporate mass media a long time ago, presumably as part of the shift from a producer culture to a consumer culture. Every other country is struggling now with the same prospect -- it happened first in the land that created breakfast television.
Of course America can be appraised by its mass media. Look at American politics: completely dominated by televison, and the money that makes it work. Your President has never read a book -- where does he get his world view from? Shakespeare? Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire? Mass media. His only real job ever was running a major league baseball team -- the epitome of corporate mass media. Where do I get my credit card?

yours, Peter T.

Subject: RE: BS: Pearl Harbor
From: Little Hawk
Date: 28 May 01 - 03:26 PM

Ha! Ha! Beautifully said, Peter. I agree entirely.

Now do your duty, get that credit card, and buy, buy, buy! Shop till you drop. Be sure to get one of those new giant TV screens that's as big as half a picnic table, tune in and check out. Orwell had no idea what corporate consumer culture can do when it comse to regimenting thought and awareness...it makes communism look positively feeble in comparison.

- LH