BS: Pearl Harbor

Subject: RE: BS: Pearl Harbor
From: Little Hawk
Date: 01 Jun 01 - 01:02 PM

Amen, Norton1. War is organized mass murder, and the real reasons behind it are usually hidden from the participants.

- LH

Subject: RE: BS: Pearl Harbor
From: Steve in Idaho
Date: 01 Jun 01 - 12:43 PM

"The Sands of Iwo Jima" was close to the reality of war? You are joking right? The Marine Corps used to show that movie every weekend during Infantry Training and we all whooped it up. After Viet Nam we didn't whoop it up so much. Pure unadulterated BS. All movies are for entertainment and should be taken as such. Factual recreations are best left to the History channel.

As far as sneak attacks go - try sitting in an ambush position for four or five hours waiting for the "enemy" to come by. Kill all of those that come into the damn thing and you'll understand what sneak attack really is. It's a method to kill those who would kill you - only to do it first.

In Viet Nam a common saying was, "Some days you count the meat and some days the meat counts you."

I'm with Little Hawk, to hell with war. I do my best to not support it in any form that I can. I've only seen one movie based on it in the past 35+ years. That is my quiet little rebellion.

Subject: RE: BS: Pearl Harbor
From: Les from Hull
Date: 01 Jun 01 - 07:21 AM

It's only fair to mention that the Japanese got the idea for the Pearl Harbour attack from the destruction of the Italian Fleet at Taranto by a handful of obsolete Fleet Air Arm biplanes. In 1941 they had the premier naval air arm in the world, which was largely destroyed by poor decisions and bad luck at Midway, combined of course with the skill and bravery of the US Naval airmen. And if they had developed anti-submarine warfare and radar to the extent that the Royal Navy and later the US Navy did, they would have been much more difficult to defeat in the Pacific.

I don't think that I'll bother with the film. It might be interesting to know if anyone here has seen a historically accurate Hollywood film. But that is not the function of Hollywood. The function of Hollywood is to make money by providing entertainment, and they seem to be pretty good at it. It's just a pity that a lot of people base their historical knowledge on what they have seen at the cinema. Perhaps if we passed laws to say that they had to employ people with big sticks to go round poking the audience and telling them 'It didn't really happen like that you know!'

Les from Hull(ywood)

Subject: RE: BS: Pearl Harbor
From: DougR
Date: 31 May 01 - 06:35 PM

Gervase, that's a pretty fair review, I think. At least you don't have to wonder whether or not the critic liked it, do you?

DougR

Subject: RE: BS: Pearl Harbor
From: Little Hawk
Date: 31 May 01 - 01:53 PM

You're quite right, Rebel135. It's ironical that by 1941 the Japanese had surpassed their trainers, the British Navy, by leaps and bounds in aircraft carrier capability and various other areas of expertise, and that the British sent the hapless Prince of Wales and Repulse within range of hundreds of Japanese land-based bombers, and lost both ships accordingly. Like the Americans they seem to have underestimated their opponent.

As for sneak attacks...yes, very common...it was George Custer's standard tactic against Indian villages. At Little Big Horn he screwed up by attacking around noon instead of his usual crack of dawn assault.

He also divided his forces unnecessarily, like the Japanese at Midway. Bad move. Fatal, in fact.

Hoka Hey!

- Little Hawk

Subject: RE: BS: Pearl Harbor
From: Gervase
Date: 31 May 01 - 11:11 AM

General reaction of UK critics seems to be pretty hostile at the moment - certainly if this is anything to go by.

Subject: RE: BS: Pearl Harbor
From: Rebel135
Date: 31 May 01 - 03:34 AM

Little Hawk, Let me clue you in, The German Army Trained the Japanese Army. Likewise, it was the British Navy that trained the Japanese Navy.

When at Tsushima the Japanese Navy Flawlessly "Crossed the T" of The Russian Fleet just 50 years or so after the opening of Japan it was Astonishing. But the British Navy, one of the three Premier Navies of the World Trained that fleet and had a Naval Tradition second virtually none!..

US,GB and Germany being the Big Three.

The Japanese Navy was an awesome instrument of War.

At Pearl Harbor, Like At Port Arthur and Mudken? In Machuria. Sneak attacks were nothing new.

Wes Prichard

Subject: RE: BS: Pearl Harbor
From: DougR
Date: 31 May 01 - 02:42 AM

Wes, I agree with your post. One shouldn't expect to get a history lesson when one goes to a movie. Don't give up, my friend, there probably, at some point will be a re-make of both of the movies you mentioned. First, of course, Hollywood has to digest how many dollars were generated by "Pearl Harbor." If they are satified that enough profit was made, we may see remakes of, "Sands of Iwo Jima," "Wake Island," "From Here to Eternity," "Battle Ground," and God knows what else. We probably will be immursed in WWII movies!

About five years ago, I wrote a WWII based screenplay and submitted it to a production company. They wrote back and said, "No one is interested in WWII anymore." Jaysus, maybe I'll brush the dust off that screenplay and resubmit!

Subject: RE: BS: Pearl Harbor
From: Rebel135
Date: 31 May 01 - 01:04 AM

Hi there,

I saw Pearl Harbor and I have a more than fair knowledge of history. Overeducated at the University,plus exhaustive reading.

When I go to see movies that are based on history I find it nearly impossible to stop myself from being too critical.

Pearl Harbor the Movie is a very good movie, It has the feel of good history at times. The recreation about the events of Pearl Harbor leave the viewer with the impression that he had seen something real.

But it is not history. Its a movie. There were no pilots who flew with the Eagle Squadron, Flew against the Japanese and downded planes at Pearl Harbor and the flew with Doolittle on the Tokyo raid. (80 Men)

As a plot it work. The bombing of Pearl Harbor is as real as it gets from a purely entertainment point of view.

From the historical view, while it give a great overall viewpoint, it constantly misses the mark on history and invents characters and situations.

It tones down the feeling of the age, the virulent feeling that most American felt was no where present. (The Only Good Jap Is A Dead Jap)

But the attack itself, it does not focus on all the events but rather on following the characters.

My favorite historical scene is when a Torpedo hits one of the ships.

As an old military type (for three years) I could feel the realism of some of the sccens.

But this was my "movie of the summer, Its a Mans Movie and fits in well with other war movies. Sure there is a mushy love story but that is overpowered by the rest.

I sure would have liked to see a revamp of the Battle of Britan/ A Yank In The RAF.

Don't be too critical. There are No Wind Warnings. The Japanese Come Off To Clean The focus is on a pagent of history not the details.

Its sad that we get our history from movies. (Books take a long time.)

But this is entertainment and a great movie.

Wes Prichard

From The Shadow of Mt. Rainier

Subject: RE: BS: Pearl Harbor
From: DougR
Date: 30 May 01 - 02:52 PM

I heard, Walrus, that some dialogue was changed for the Japanese and European audiences. I don't know that for a fact.

L.H. I'm not sure I agree with you about what was known, and what was not. It would seem to me, that since our fleet was stationed at Pearl, the Administration should have shown more interest in ensuring that it was on full alert, rather than concern itself about the other locations you suggest might have been hit.

I did considerable research on the subject twenty years ago, thinking that I might wish to develop a treatment for a possible movie. I don't have total recall of all I read, but I believe that the U. S. had cracked the Japanese code long before Pearl Harbor was attacked. If Roosevelt and company did not know the raid was coming, they certainly had enough information to available to put the place on full alert.

Also, it is a matter record that vital information Washington knew was not shared with Admiral Kimmel and General Short, Commanders of the Navy and the Army at Pearl Harbor and it should have been.

DougR

Subject: RE: BS: Pearl Harbor
From: The Walrus
Date: 30 May 01 - 02:31 PM

Is there any truth in the story that some of the dialogue has been changed for the European Release version of the film?

Regards

Walrus

Subject: RE: BS: Pearl Harbor
From: wdyat12
Date: 30 May 01 - 01:31 PM

I was born after the event, but I'm just amazed that Pearl Harbor really happened and curious for a glimpse of what might have happened. I will suspend judgement of the film until I see it in spite of such bad reviews.

wdyat12

Subject: RE: BS: Pearl Harbor
From: Little Hawk
Date: 30 May 01 - 01:16 PM

Charley - You posted "I still find it hard to believe that key players in FDR's administration were aware that the raid was about to happen, and then let it happen (hoping that it would not be too devestating) to manipulate public opinion into supporting war against Germany and its allies."

They did not know the Pearl Harbour raid was about to happen.

What they did know was that a war was about to happen, and that Japan would attack somewhere. The places that Japan might most reasonably have been expected to attack were: the Phillipines, Hong Kong, Malaya, and other portions of Southeast Asia, and the Dutch possessions (now called Indonesia).

I seriously doubt that anyone in the US government believed the Japanese had the skill and organizational ability to hit not only ALL of those places, but ALSO Pearl Harbour! No one had ever conducted a comparable aircraft carrier operation over such a vast distance of ocean.

That the Japanese managed to do it (flawlessly) was, by the standards of the time, absolutely remarkable.

Therefore, I think FDR's people were nothing short of astounded by the massive air raid on Pearl Harbour, although they were certainly expecting Japan to strike in a number of other places closer to Japanese waters.

The Americans had a rather low opinion of the expertise and quality of the Japanese forces prior to the opening of hostilities...God knows why! Claire Chennault (of the American Volunteer Group/Flying Tigers in China) had been telling them for some time that the Japanese had extremely modern and formidable aircraft squadrons, but no one seemed to be listening. Call it complacency...or the arrogance of a white race just not taking a yellow race seriously...which was pretty typical back then.

- LH

Subject: RE: BS: Pearl Harbor
From: Peter T.
Date: 30 May 01 - 09:55 AM

Ah well, Amos, you are such a representative, so you are counter-evidence in person, to which I bow, confuted but not repentant. I am second to none in my admiration for American culture in many of its manifestations, from Governor Winthrop (a relative) to Willie Nelson. I spent my formative years in American schools being indoctrinated into Yankee mythology, the Constitution, the freeing of the West from those pesky Mexicans and Indians, and so on: I have even been known on occasion to recite the Gettysburg Address (especially at Gettysburg). Neverthless, I stick to my guns (and where better to stick to guns than back in the U.S.A., as Chuck Berry would say?)

I was making a point about the wellsprings of a nation's mythology and its storytelling. In traditional cultures these are the absolute most important things: the place of elders, storytellers, is central. What stories do we tell, and how do we tell them? These seem to me to have been captured in our time by very important forces which are now warping (or LEJ may be right, simply reinforcing) threads in the basic fabric of modern culture, and most immediately in the U.S. (though certainly not excluding elsewhere). These include: the definition of the human, the role and place of autonomy, the nature of the social and the community, political choice, the sources of and the roots of historical reference, how one sees, interprets meaning. In spite of the best efforts of the marginal poets, historians, writers, artists, etc., and the near-magical wonders of science, technology, and medicine (America is well ahead of everybody else in the world), the fact remains that even educated people watch on average 2-3 hours of television a day (and these are adults). Give me 2-3 hours of anyone's time every day for 30 years, and you can keep the opera. Especially when there is no strong counterculture the rest of the time. What there is of deep culture (whatever that is) seems to me to be on the whole reactive to this immense power, fluttering its little wings against the hurricane.
Still, what makes America so interesting (and my little country as well, the country of McLuhan) is that it is all so "in your face" that it also has the most interesting critics and interpreters of mass culture. Yet overall, I fear you are whistling in the brightness.

yours, Peter T.

Subject: RE: BS: Pearl Harbor
From: Kim C
Date: 30 May 01 - 09:52 AM

I heard a radio interviewer this morning say they should have called it Two Guys, A Girl, and a Japanese Attack. :-)

Subject: RE: BS: Pearl Harbor
From: Charley Noble
Date: 30 May 01 - 08:44 AM

Having just seen the movie, it does provide a graphic overview of the violence and confusion of the surprise raid. I still find it hard to believe that key players in FDR's administration were aware that the raid was about to happen, and then let it happen (hoping that it would not be too devestating) to manipulate public opinion into supporting war against Germany and its allies.

The love story probably will carry some people through the movie, but it is a long three hours, (so was the attack!). They might have done better following more individuals, and from both sides (making it a six-hour movie). I thought there were supposed to be some interviews with surviving veterans?

Subject: RE: BS: Pearl Harbor
From: DougR
Date: 30 May 01 - 02:20 AM

Well, they took a lot of liberties with the action scenes too. Airplanes did not fly between buildings like the airships in Star Wars, I'm sure, but they did in the movie.

The dress of the actors, and hair styles, etc., were, I thought very true to the time.

Subject: RE: BS: Pearl Harbor
From: Little Hawk
Date: 30 May 01 - 01:59 AM

Well, sounds pretty similar to "Titanic" then...only you get to see all those pretty Japanese airplanes. Too bad the wings don't look right on the Zeros, but it would have cost an unbelievable amount of money to mock up fully realistic Zeros at this point in history, and most people don't know the difference. Model airplane buffs like me do.

They did a pretty darn good job on the Kates (torpedo bombers) and the Vals (dive bombers).

- LH

Subject: RE: BS: Pearl Harbor
From: DougR
Date: 30 May 01 - 01:53 AM

I saw "Pearl Harbor" tonight and I enjoyed it. It didn't bend history as much as I expected, based on reviews I have read, and it held my attention. I don't go to movies for history lessons anyway. It was too long, in my opinion, and would have made a much better two hour movie, rather than three hours. The special effects were very good, and certainly compared favorably with the ship sinking scenes in "Titanic." I thought the love story theme was just so-so.

DougR

Subject: RE: BS: Pearl Harbor
From: Little Hawk
Date: 30 May 01 - 01:38 AM

Hmmm...well, I guess we'll have to see a copy of the log to settle this one.

- LH

Subject: RE: BS: Pearl Harbor
From: Amos
Date: 30 May 01 - 01:29 AM

Once they started using wheels, which was long before the damn Titanic, they stopped saying "a-starboard" for a tiller motion to the right to turn the bow to the left. Helm commands are always given in terms of desired change of direction of the bow!! Hard-a-port means "turn left" by throwing the wheel hard to port. Jerry's right that if they had thrown the engines astern they would have gotten some torque. I don't recall the engine commands, but it sure looked fishy to me at the moment.

Cheers,

A

Subject: RE: BS: Pearl Harbor
From: GUEST,Jerry Todd
Date: 29 May 01 - 09:32 PM

I'd love to see the documentation on the "Hard a-starboard" theory as I'm not buying. Full right rudder, with way on, and engines reversed would cause the ship to appear to slowly turn left which would increase as the ship slowed until it was backing to the right.

Subject: RE: BS: Pearl Harbor
From: Little Hawk
Date: 29 May 01 - 07:47 PM

Well put, LEJ.

Well put also, Amos.

But that "Hard a-starboard" thing...I think it was correct, because it actually meant "turn left" in the jargon of the British merchant marine at that time. Why? Because on the old sailing ships when you wanted the ship to turn left, you pushed the tiller to the right (which would cause the rudder to go left, turning the ship left). I think the movie had it right after all, and those would have been the actual words used to indicate a left turn at that time, even on a steamship like Titanic. It was an archaic expression, still in use.

Why else would they have shown a ship clearly about to collide with a berg on its starboard bow, and still have the guy say "Hard A-starboard"? Cos that is what he said, no doubt recorded in the log at the time.

- LH

Subject: RE: BS: Pearl Harbor
From: Lonesome EJ
Date: 29 May 01 - 07:24 PM

LHawk, I certainly have no desire to defend the rampant consumerism and thing-worship which has become the ultimate aspiration for many people in the world. I just don't buy it (no pun intended) as the essence of American Culture. I believe all technological democracies in the modern world are driven by the same consumerism. Even Third World developing nations seem to aspire to the same philosophies, and it's understandable : in a world where physical manifestation is the be-all and end-all, enhancement of the physical experience is the ultimate good. We want to go faster, look prettier, smell better, be free from all the nagging little mortal urges as expeditiously as possible. This is human nature, not learned behavior.

In past, artists, priests, musicians, poets, philosophers, architects and others pointed the way to transcendance of physical being, and perception of the individual as an integral part of nature and God. These people were given a platform by the Church or the King to present their views. Their descendants may be with us in some form today, but unless they can turn a buck for somebody, or for themselves, you probably won't hear from them.

Well, MAYBE on Mudcat :>}

Subject: RE: BS: Pearl Harbor
From: Amos
Date: 29 May 01 - 07:22 PM

Well, the Titanic was just a tad off technically, actually, in that they had it throwing the wheel hard over to starboard to avoid an iceberg threatening the starboard bow, if I remember correctly -- whichever side it was they did something screwy with thewir turns. And Pearl harbor is riddled with similar minor technical defects, which is why I was careful to say "represent", in a composite way.

Peter, I will go to my death bed admiring your wit, style and incredible powers of prose. But I assure you there are depths and breadths to the American culturew, as there are as well to the Canadian, that Disney will never find out about and that no advertiser will ever touch. I learned last year the amazing fact that if yuou took all the life forms from the peak of Everest down to about 30 feet below the surface of the ocean -- rain forests, microbes, and all -- you would be viewing less than ten percent of the number of life forms from -30 down to the depths of the submarine trenches. I think of it somewhat like that -- a shallow minority clusters where the easy energy is, blossoms and swells, and can be mistaken all too easily for the whole.

Regards,

Amos

Subject: RE: BS: Pearl Harbor
From: Little Hawk
Date: 29 May 01 - 05:47 PM

LEJ - Interesting point. It could have happened somewhere else, I suppose, but it happened here in North America, and most of us Mudcatters grew up in the midst of it. As such, we are perhaps the perfect people to comment on the situation...and criticize its excesses...and hopefully do something about them.

I would say about the corporate consumer culture, however, that it creates false needs on a regular basis, as a matter of course, without the least sense of either shame or responsibility. The chicken came first, and it is one huge, ugly, f**king bird, drunk on a bellyfull of money, while the 3rd World starves to keep it fed.

GUEST,rambam99 - They left out the Nevada??? Hard to believe. As for the Doolittle raid, it was almost negligible in a military sense, but hugely significant in a psychological sense. It led directly to the Japanese assault on Midway, and it was indeed at Midway that the Americans exacted material revenge for Pearl Harbor.

- LH

Subject: RE: BS: Pearl Harbor
From: Kim C
Date: 29 May 01 - 05:46 PM

Mister said the same thing about Tora Tora Tora.

I haven't seen Titanic either because I really don't want to see those frozen people in the water. I am a huge crybaby and it just gets worse the older I get.

Subject: RE: BS: Pearl Harbor
From: Lonesome EJ
Date: 29 May 01 - 04:41 PM

It strikes me that faulting America for exhibiting the first bloom of mass production and corporate consumerism is a bit like faulting the Pasque flower for being the first to bloom in spring. It seems to me to be a logical outgrowth of a World Culture which answers a need in people to possess their dreams in tangible, consumable form. Does it create or answer a need? Which came first, the chicken or egg?

Subject: RE: BS: Pearl Harbor
From: GUEST,rambam99
Date: 29 May 01 - 03:45 PM

it is truly awful, glorying in CGI wizardry and explosions for the sake of it. As a history teacher, I am left to wonder why so much of import was left out (like the damned USS Nevada!!!) or why so much was made of the doolittle raid and not the battle of Midway, where we sunk four carriers. Anyone wanting to understand what was relevant at this time would be better off to watch Tora! Tora! Tora!

Subject: RE: BS: Pearl Harbor
From: Little Hawk
Date: 29 May 01 - 01:48 PM

Yeah, Titanic was a superb recreation of the ship in every respect, and the most realistic depiction yet of the incident in that sense. The love story could've been a lot worse...

- LH

Subject: RE: BS: Pearl Harbor
From: GUEST,Melani
Date: 29 May 01 - 01:41 PM

I have heard some pretty bad reviews of "Pearl Harbor" and may or may not see it. But whether or not it's a good movie, it has certainly created some interesting dialogue here. People get different things from movies. I have carefully avoided seeing "Titanic" so far because it sounds to me like a too-sugary love story grafted onto a disaster. The other day I was talking to a seemingly intelligent, down-to-earth guy who said he loved the movie, which seemed out of character. It turns out he's a ship enthusiast and model maker who was charmed by the sets--Titanic's interior brought to life before his eyes. The plot was strictly secondary to him--it was the full-sized models that turned him on.

Subject: RE: BS: Pearl Harbor
From: Little Hawk
Date: 29 May 01 - 12:20 PM

The next logical step would be to put a moratorium on wars. Many of those of us who protested against the war in Vietnam had just that in mind.

- LH

Subject: RE: BS: Pearl Harbor
From: Kim C
Date: 29 May 01 - 10:39 AM

I heard that the version released to Japanese audiences was somewhat watered-down so as not to offend them.

They bombed us, we had a war, it ended, we should all be friends now. Why all this dancing around the issue?

Since The Patriot I have put a moratorium on soldier movies. I just can't watch 'em. Too emotional.

Subject: RE: BS: Pearl Harbor
From: Little Hawk
Date: 28 May 01 - 03:50 PM

Ah. Well, that's good to hear that they got that across. FDR knew he was pushing the Japanese into a war, but his real long range gameplan was to get into the European war and defeat the Nazis (whom he regarded...correctly...as FAR more dangerous than the Japanese). Fighting Japan was an indirect means toward that objective, but the Japanese had to attack America first, because the American congress would not have voted for war otherwise. Geopolitics is a ruthless business.

- LH

Subject: RE: BS: Pearl Harbor
From: campfire
Date: 28 May 01 - 03:35 PM

Little Hawk, that's pretty much what the MOVIE said about why the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor. Someone in a previous post (too lazy too scroll up and find it) complained that the Japanese view was skewed or simplistic in the movie. You've elaborated more than the movie did, but I got that "jist" from the film.

campfire

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

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 - 03:02 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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.