BS: Pearl Harbor Day / December 7

Subject: RE: BS: Pearl Harbor Day / December 7
From: Little Hawk
Date: 10 Dec 12 - 04:26 PM

Oh, yes, DO try to get it right, Don! ;-)

Both the Americans and the Japanese had been trying to turn the Pacific into their own "pond" ever since Admiral Togo won at Tsushima and the USA took the Phillipines in 1898. They were 2 great naval empires, both trying to dominate one ocean. Old story.

And we all know the Japanese acted brutally in China and did unspeakable things there. This is no news to anyone.

And there's no frickin' way the Japanese could have successfully invaded the USA West Coast, and they never realistically contemplated doing so. If they had done so...by some miracle of misguided hubris...it would not have gone well for them.

And they knew exactly how much damage they had inflicted on the US fleet at Pearl...right down to every last ship they sank or damaged. How much? Not enough, that's how much. Plenty of damage, yes...pretty spectacular...but still not enough. They missed the carriers that day and they didn't damage the oil tank farm or the essential repair facilities (drydocks). They did one heck of a job on the battleships and the airfields...but that still wasn't enough.

As for the old "sucker punch" thing...that is the whole principle of war. If you're going to attack at all, you try to do it unexpectedly. You take the target by surprise if at all possible. To do otherwise would be foolish in the extreme. Just ask the Israelis about that. Surprise is THE most essential factor in a successful attack on a well-defended military base such as Pearl.

Now, let's waste the rest of our day arguing with each other about all this stuff, Don... ;-) Oh, boy. Fun. It's too bad one can't get paid for doing this.

Subject: RE: BS: Pearl Harbor Day / December 7
From: GUEST,Bob Ryszkiewicz
Date: 10 Dec 12 - 05:47 PM

Wow Henry...Ah yes, Dec 7, the Christmas lights are going up, and there is a little NIP in the air...

Pearl Harbor, Then Atom bombs, then this...http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_companies_of_Japan

Whatchagonna do? Count how many Japanese products&services you use & subtract from that the memories of Pearl Harbor, and you come up with the TOTAL = Insanity of war...

There is a real nice guy that runs a depanneur(corner store), who always calls me Sir. About as respectful a man as you'll meet... He is Vietnamese. Don't want to tell him I'm American...

Life can be surreal at times...

Subject: RE: BS: Pearl Harbor Day / December 7
From: Don Firth
Date: 10 Dec 12 - 05:49 PM

As I said, I get pretty damned sick and tired of hearing Right-Wing revisionist history. A lot of that got hatched up after WW II by the Republican Party, which was smarting under the regulatory policies put in place by FDR and hated his guts. The idea was to blame anything and everything on the Democrats, particularly FDR!!

They were especially smarting when Truman got re-elected, when they were so sure that Thomas Dewey would win by a landslide, even going so far as to print the newspapers up before the election was over.

Famous photo of Truman the day after the election:    CLICKY.

I didn't get this out of somebody's Monday morning quarterbacking book about the war. Like I said, I REMEMBER it!!

Vas you dere, Sharlie!??

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: Pearl Harbor Day / December 7
From: Don Firth
Date: 10 Dec 12 - 05:58 PM

As to the endorsement of the "sucker punch," International Law at the time demanded that a state of war be officially declared at least 24 hours before any hostile action

On the basis of this, Japan was guilty of war crimes--violating International Law with the Pearl Harbor attack.

The Japanese "peace delegation" that was sent to Washington, D.C. just prior to the attack was essentially a "kamikazi" mission for the delegates, and a "watch the birdie" move on the part of Japan.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: Pearl Harbor Day / December 7
From: Little Hawk
Date: 10 Dec 12 - 08:05 PM

Yeah, that's right, Don. As far as I'm concerned, all pre-planned wars or "wars of choice" are war crimes, regardless of the legal technicalities one way or the other. War itself is a gigantic crime against humanity. There's no doubt that the Japanese were long guilty of aggression war by 1941...they started off that whole Asian war when they attacked China in 1937.

(The ordinary Japanese citizen, however, was under the impression that the Chinese had started that war...the usual thing that is achieved by domestic propaganda. Everybody always thinks the other guy is to blame. Germans were also usually under the impression that others were to blame for the wars in which the Germans got involved.)

My suggestion that FDR helped maneuver the Japanese into attacking the USA has nothing to do with rightwing politics, however. Everything in the world doesn't boil down to squabbling between Democrats and Republicans, you know...and I've always pretty much approved of FDR, all things considered. The Japanese were themselves to blame for having invaded China, and starting off the whole mess. FDR was just dealing with the usual political problems that arise between great powers in a time like that, and I think he handled it rather well.

Subject: RE: BS: Pearl Harbor Day / December 7
From: GUEST,DDT
Date: 10 Dec 12 - 08:14 PM

>>>But why did the USA impose those embargoes? Was it because Japan was run by a bunch of militaristic shits who had decided that they had a divine right to run East Asia<<<

Yes. According the US and Britain (as the Opium Wars will amply testify) that was THEIR job not some upstart like Japan whom they had never been able to take over. It was a matter of pride, after all.

>>>THAT was why the U.S. stopped selling scrap metal to Japan (they were turning it into weapons) and the reason for the oil embargo.<<<

Right, everybody knows only the United States and those countries that suck up to it are allowed to make weapons. Any other country who does so or that the US even thinks is doing so (ahem Iraq) is what they now euphemistically label "Terrorist."

As for Japan's depredations, no one denies they weren't committing them but, come on, the US LOVES to back countries that commit depredations on innocent people (the aforementioned Opium Wars would be a good example) just so long as the US gets a cut of the pie. The US installed some of the worst dictators the world has ever seen in Central and South America and toppled democratically elected leaders in order to install those dictators. So I'm completely unmoved by Firth's phony crocodile tears.

As for Pearl Harbor being a surprise attack, let's face it--Pearl Harbor was ripe to be attacked by someone. Those planes were detected long before they got to Hawaii and the US did nothing. A mysterious U-boat was seen off the Hawaiian coast and no one bothered to investigate it. Now, I am a proud veteran of the United States Navy and they taught me how to stand watch and it wasn't like that. Those guys should have been put on report, court-martialed, stripped of their rank and some should have been sent to Leavenworth.

The purpose of a military is protect the country against attack (which are usually not announced beforehand) and the US failed. Too bad. But then I don't really believe the govt wanted Pearl Harbor to be vigilant because if they did, Pearl Harbor wouldn't have happened. So either the people in charge of Pearl Harbor were incredibly and criminally negligent or they were simply doing what someone high up in the govt told them to do. That's all the choices you get.

Subject: RE: BS: Pearl Harbor Day / December 7
From: GUEST,Lighter
Date: 10 Dec 12 - 08:15 PM

Reportedly the Japanese had prepared a declaration of war, to be sent at literally the last moment, but a technical screw-up prevented it from being sent until after the attack.

The "negotiators" were apparently kept in the dark.

Tokyo hadn't bothered with a declaration of war on Russia in 1904.

Part (but only part) of the FDR fantasy came from refusal to believe that "near-sighted little Japs" could have pulled off so daring an attack without plenty of help from somebody white.

Subject: RE: BS: Pearl Harbor Day / December 7
From: Little Hawk
Date: 10 Dec 12 - 10:01 PM

I think practically no one in the USA at the time had any idea how effective the Japanese were until after Pearl Harbour. The general idea was that their planes were outdated designs, inferior copies of American aircraft at best. Nothing could have been farther from the truth.

Subject: RE: BS: Pearl Harbor Day / December 7
From: Don Firth
Date: 10 Dec 12 - 11:41 PM

"Everything in the world doesn't boil down to squabbling between Democrats and Republicans, you know."

I am not so simple-minded, Little Hawk.

What I know about WWII comes from a) being old enought to know what was going on, and b) some fairly extensive reading later on about things I heard about on the radio and read in the newspapers before, during, and after the war. And from several books in my library by eminent and well-respected historians.

Most comments I hear lately are from people who weren't even born when the war happened. And many of them are into the "Whatever happened was the fault of the United States" mindset. And generaally the folks operating on this premise are into rewriting history to make it fit their prejudices.

Now, I'm no flag-waver and have been accused on occasion of being "unpatriotic" for some of my views on things, both recent and historical, so don't make that mistake.

Don Firth

P. S. By the way, I've had long conversations with a man, the father of a young woman I sang several concerts with in the early Sixties, who was a retired Rear Admiral in the navy, and was AT Pearl Harbor when the attack occurred.

Subject: RE: BS: Pearl Harbor Day / December 7
From: Les from Hull
Date: 11 Dec 12 - 10:24 AM

With all due respect, history is not necessarily best written by those who were there. Certainly they can make an important contribution, but they will only see one aspect and that will be coloured by their experiences. No, history is best written by historians with access to a full range of sources, both personal and documentary, and with no particular axe to grind.

Subject: RE: BS: Pearl Harbor Day / December 7
From: Little Hawk
Date: 11 Dec 12 - 12:36 PM

I'm not saying it was the USA's fault, Don. Not by any means. It was primarily Japan's fault, because they should not have gone on a militaristic kick and invaded China in 1937. Everything they did after that derived from their invasion of China and their commitment to seeking a final (and highly unlikely) victory there.

I am saying, however, that the USA and Japan were getting ready to fight a naval war with each other all through the 20s and 30s, and it finally happened in the 40s. It was probably as inevitable as Britain's confrontation with Germany in WWI or Napoleon's confrontation with England. You build all that expensive stuff and you finally get around to using it sometime. It's what happens when competing empires get in each other's way.

I do think FDR deliberately put the Japanese in a position in '41 where they would go to war, and I think he had good reasons for doing so. That doesn't mean the war was his "fault" in a condemnatory sense...it just means he was a shrewd calculator. I think the one way he probably slipped up was that he most likely underestimated Japanese military capabilities...and I don't think he was expecting his battleship fleet to get sunk in Pearl Harbour! (though I do think he was expecting the Japanese to go to war very soon...he most likely anticipated a Japanese invasion of the Phillipines rather than the Pearl Harbour strike. The American expectation would have been that "McArthur can hold out for several months in the Phillipines. We'll send the fleet to Phillipine waters and destroy the Japanese Navy in a big battle...cut their supply lines...their invasion force will be defeated...and we'll have won the war.")

Just speculation on my part, mind you. I have no way of being sure about it.

It's interesting that you knew an officer who was at Pearl Harbour. I'd love to have had a chance to talk to him about it. My father was in the other war, over in Europe. I did once know a Marine officer who served in the Pacific, but no one who was at Pearl Harbour.

Subject: RE: BS: Pearl Harbor Day / December 7
From: Little Hawk
Date: 11 Dec 12 - 12:47 PM

Les - Good point. I found with my father that he knew a great deal about the specifics of the on-the-ground situations he'd been in...naturally...but he often lacked knowledge about the bigger picture or events that happened in other locations than his own....knowledge which can easily be acquired after the fact by reading a great many factual books about the war.

Because I was such a voracious reader of WWII history, I knew a lot of stuff about that war that he didn't...as he was repeatedly surprised to discover...even though I had no firsthand experience of it. I'd show him the book, and he'd say, "Well, I'll be darned! They never told us about that..." There was a lot of false propaganda flying around, after all. They had to keep people's spirits up, so they didn't necessarily keep them all that well-informed about everything that was going on. The old newspaper clippings he kept are fascinating to read...50% real stuff...50% total BS, calculated to make things look as good as possible from the Allied point of view. I bet the German and Japanese papers were even worse. ;-)

Subject: RE: BS: Pearl Harbor Day / December 7
From: Don Firth
Date: 11 Dec 12 - 05:32 PM

That is a pretty good analysis of what was happening, Little Hawk. FDR knew we were going to have to get into the war sooner or later, but he had to deal with the hordes of isolationists in this country. I think he put it off as long as he dared, but even he got caught with the Pearl Harbor attack.

In addition to conversations with the Admiral, I had an uncle in the Merchant Marine who went about everywhere and had some pretty interesting takes on what was going on and who was doing what to whom.

And I had a cousin who was in the Philippines (he was a Marine) when the whole thing hit the fan. He wound up on the "Bataan Death March," survived it unlike many, and spent the war in a Japanese prison camp. Not nice!!

Here in Seattle, we were particularly interested in the possibilities of invasion, and especially bombing attacks, because the Boeing Airplane Company was located here, and they built the B-17 "Flying Fortresses" that darkened the skies over Germany, then the B-29 "Superfortress." Even though the B-17 wasn't used all that much in the Pacific, Japan and Germany were allies, and I'm pretty sure they would have liked to put Boeing out of commission. I remember the blackouts. . . .

I read up a lot on the war at the time and later on. As a kid, I was fully aware, as were most people, that the news and such was not giving us the whole story. People did know the word "propaganda" back in those days, and "keeping the morale of the people up" seemed to be considered more important than detailed news, which might not be so encouraging.

But much of what we were not told or were misinformed about did come out once the war was over.

Don Firth

P. S. I remember exactly where I was and what I was doing when I heard the first radio bulletin about the Pearl Harbor bombing. And when Hiroshima was bombed. And not too many days after, when peace was declared.

I may be an officially ordained Geezer, but I have a very tenacious memory.

Subject: RE: BS: Pearl Harbor Day / December 7
From: Little Hawk
Date: 11 Dec 12 - 07:56 PM

Good stuff, Don. It gives me a shiver to think of hearing those huge events announced on live radio! I didn't arrive in the world until 1948, being one of those "baby boom" kids.

You bet the Germans and Japanese would have loved to put Boeing out of business! The B-17 made considerable impact in the Pacific early on, but the B-24 proved more useful in that theatre...I think due to its longer range? Then later the B-29s came, again from Boeing. As for the Germans, they saw more B-17s than you can shake a stick at, as the saying goes. That was one hell of a tough airplane...and a pretty good looking one too, as bombers go.

Even the top Japanese aces found the B-17 a tough plane to knock down. Like the Germans, they eventually discovered that head-on attacks against it worked best...but this required damn good timing and a lot of nerve. Saburo Sakai has some interesting comments about that in his well-known book "Samurai". He flew the Zero for most of the war, and had a number of encounters with the B-17, managing to shoot down a couple of them.

Western Canada was worried about possible Japanese attacks too, but I think there was very little actual risk of the war coming that far east, other than through occasional submarine raids. It was too long a tactical reach for the Japanese, and too great a risk of serious losses if they had ever tried it. Still, I'm not surprised that people were concerned about it at the time.