A date that will live in infamy

[Ag with kids 581]

15 minutes ago, cactusflinthead said:

Yeah, that's fucking hilarious

Context,  my friend...

 

Context.

[HouTex 1887]

For the first time in my life I worry that the current generation would not be able to respond to a similar call. I hope that I am wrong.
Bob Dole's passing was another great reminder of the sacrifices our forefathers made for our country.

We and most of the western world are pussies compared to the way we were in the late 30’s and 40’s. Check out the recent book The Splendid and the Vile. The Brits, including Churchill’s daughter, were still going to debutante parties during the blitz. A bomb destroyed the venue of an after party, killing many, so they just went to another bar.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[atomheartbevo 89738]

17 minutes ago, HouTex said:

We and most of the western world are pussies compared to the way we were in the late 30’s and 40’s.

We just went through a nearly 20 year war, that saw countless young men and women see far more combat than the WWII or Vietnam vets did.  We have Afghanistan (and Iraq) vets who were deployed over multiple tours that add up to more years than the US spent fighting WWII.

And they were 100% volunteers.

Edited December 8, 2021 by atomheartbevo

[WhatTheBuck 28791]

RIP John Lennon.

[El Diablo 4232]

Oh no.

[BabaYaga 15302]

12 hours ago, AUS-97HORN said:

What a load of total rubbish.   

Even if that fantasy defense lineup came to being, it wouldnt have been able to do anything after 1943 anyway.  by that time the US submarines were finally loaded with revised Mark 14 torpedoes,  and they were sinking hundreds of tons of ships every month. 

Having an impenetrable air defense doesnt mean shit if you cant ship the Av Gas to the airfield to fly the planes. 

After Guadalcanal was finally secured, It took us another year (and the carnage on Tarawa) to finally realize that we didnt need to fucking attack every god damned island in the pacific.   We would have starved the "island defense strategy" that guy talks about in less than 2 years. 

 

Possibly.  Regarding the subs, remember reading that something around 95% of all Jap boats sunk were attributed to US subs.  They were a force to be reckoned with.  

[InkaUtexas 26008]

I just received this from my father. It is from my Great Uncle's journal about sailing into Pearl on the Northampton on the 8th. My father has the original, but damn hard to read. He retyped it up and has had it in his files. Thought I would share. It is pretty interesting overall. 

At about six A.M. in the morning of the eighth, the Northampton steamed into Pearl
Harbor. I don’t have to tell you what it looked like or how it smelled of death. Some
men and some ships still burned. You’ve probable seen or read about it millions of times.
I do want to tell of a man, the old boatswain of the division, Paul was his name, as I said
before. There were tears in his eyes, as we all looked wide-eyed at the sight before us.
He had served on a lot of those old battleships that now lay on the bottom, with there
masts still high out of the water and the flags still flying at the top of the mast. Yes, there
were tears in his eyes as we looked at the ships on our way to the mooring point. Tear
that I cannot explain to you, but any guy that has been in the Navy as long as the
boatswain would know. I was still a boot then but it didn’t take long to make me s salty
as the next guy in this mans Navy. Even if I have only five years, I think I have a lot of
these second class shore base salties, beat by a mile.

[hayden_horn 11362]

13 hours ago, cactusflinthead said:

Yeah, that's fucking hilarious

it's really not, if you've been to hiroshima.

i think it was the right decision, and really the only way to end the war and avoid an invasion of japan.

but when you see the wreckage, and you see the stones with the shadows...fuck, man. war is hell, i get it, and europe got its share. but what i saw at hiroshima humbled me in a way i never thought possible. little children with flesh hanging off their bones. yay. we won.

i dunno. still think it was the right decision. but shit. pretty rough. 

[hayden_horn 11362]

also, on the topic of pearl harbor, the japanese had no choice really. we were strangling them. they had built this big modern military based on our oil. we shut them off. so they could get strangled or try something bold.

really, and i've said this before, pearl harbor, viewed as a third party, i guess, is one of the boldest sneak attacks in the world. they had no right. we had the superior military. nevertheless, here they came. i think tora tora tora is the best movie about it. i recommend it to everyone. 

but think about their position and their goals. they were trying to conquer asia. they were total shitheads in asia, i get that. but think about the mentality of the military leaders. they thought they could put us out of the war and after they could get asia oil to further their goals. 

it was a resource/war decision, and it makes total sense in that context.

and it was bold as hell. 

and i think we knew it was coming and made the sacrifice. our carriers were out to sea. i think intelligence knew it was coming.

i've been to the arizona. i saw the vets when i was there in 2004. i saw the oil on the water, and i know that there are bodies in that ship. 

goddamn.

war is hell.

[HouTex 1887]

We just went through a nearly 20 year war, that saw countless young men and women see far more combat than the WWII or Vietnam vets did.  We have Afghanistan (and Iraq) vets who were deployed over multiple tours that add up to more years than the US spent fighting WWII.
And they were 100% volunteers.

I agree as to our vets. My comment was directed at the general civilian population when confronted by a crisis or extreme adversity. Unlike 1940-41 London, if bombs were falling around Houston on an extended basis there would not be any debutant parties. Among the death and destruction of the blitz (around 20k killed in London) the Brits . . . carried on.

[OneOfTheOutOfFocusGuys 2078]

super easy avatar checks out layup

[cactusflinthead 27601]

2 hours ago, hayden_horn said:

it's really not, if you've been to hiroshima.

i think it was the right decision, and really the only way to end the war and avoid an invasion of japan.

but when you see the wreckage, and you see the stones with the shadows...fuck, man. war is hell, i get it, and europe got its share. but what i saw at hiroshima humbled me in a way i never thought possible. little children with flesh hanging off their bones. yay. we won.

i dunno. still think it was the right decision. but shit. pretty rough. 

Sarcasm is lost in text sometimes. I did not in fact find it humorous.

[sheeeit 129]

On 12/7/2021 at 10:15 AM, Harrison Bergeron said:

For the first time in my life I worry that the current generation would not be able to respond to a similar call. I hope that I am wrong.

Bob Dole's passing was another great reminder of the sacrifices our forefathers made for our country.

I hear this a lot but just completely disagree.  On 12/6/41 and before, there was deep disagreement about the war.  Even after Pearl there was still opposition to the war.  The opposition post Pearl was much smaller but it existed.  There were near constant marches and protests in DC at the time, but no one really heard about them nationally.  The difference is that in 1941 the crazies did not have a voice.  The media, as it existed at the time, would rarely, if ever, give anti american voices a platform.  But there were just as many extremists on each side of the political spectrum then as there are now. 

Perspective is really hard at times.  We all saw mass protests and looting/burning etc in Portland.  Seemed like the whole city was taken over.  At its absolute peak there were about 1000 people involved.  That represented .15% of the population of Portland.  Crazies like Antifa, Proud Boys etc garner an oversized and undeserved percentage of news coverage in today's world but represent an almost statistically insignificant number of people.  Obviously small groups can do great damage but they do not represent the actual morals and values of 99% of the country.

If the US was directly attacked in some fashion where the actual fate of the country was at stake I firmly believe there would be millions of citizens lining up to fight.  

 

[Harrison Bergeron 1798]

11 minutes ago, sheeeit said:

I hear this a lot but just completely disagree.  On 12/6/41 and before, there was deep disagreement about the war.  Even after Pearl there was still opposition to the war.  The opposition post Pearl was much smaller but it existed.  There were near constant marches and protests in DC at the time, but no one really heard about them nationally.  The difference is that in 1941 the crazies did not have a voice.  The media, as it existed at the time, would rarely, if ever, give anti american voices a platform.  But there were just as many extremists on each side of the political spectrum then as there are now. 

Perspective is really hard at times.  We all saw mass protests and looting/burning etc in Portland.  Seemed like the whole city was taken over.  At its absolute peak there were about 1000 people involved.  That represented .15% of the population of Portland.  Crazies like Antifa, Proud Boys etc garner an oversized and undeserved percentage of news coverage in today's world but represent an almost statistically insignificant number of people.  Obviously small groups can do great damage but they do not represent the actual morals and values of 99% of the country.

If the US was directly attacked in some fashion where the actual fate of the country was at stake I firmly believe there would be millions of citizens lining up to fight.  

I pray you are correct.

[atomheartbevo 89738]

3 hours ago, hayden_horn said:

it's really not, if you've been to hiroshima.

i think it was the right decision, and really the only way to end the war and avoid an invasion of japan.

but when you see the wreckage, and you see the stones with the shadows...fuck, man. war is hell, i get it, and europe got its share. but what i saw at hiroshima humbled me in a way i never thought possible. little children with flesh hanging off their bones. yay. we won.

i dunno. still think it was the right decision. but shit. pretty rough. 

I think it was the right decision.  The amount of Japanese civilians that would have died had we invaded would easily dwarf Hiroshima and Nagasaki, not to mention Japanese soldiers fighting to the death, and let's be blunt, our troops.  We caught glimpses of it with Japanese civilians committing suicide on some of the islands, as well as Japanese soldiers staying behind and attacking from the rear.

[atomheartbevo 89738]

3 hours ago, hayden_horn said:

also, on the topic of pearl harbor, the japanese had no choice really. we were strangling them. they had built this big modern military based on our oil. we shut them off. so they could get strangled or try something bold.

really, and i've said this before, pearl harbor, viewed as a third party, i guess, is one of the boldest sneak attacks in the world. they had no right. we had the superior military. nevertheless, here they came. i think tora tora tora is the best movie about it. i recommend it to everyone. 

but think about their position and their goals. they were trying to conquer asia. they were total shitheads in asia, i get that. but think about the mentality of the military leaders. they thought they could put us out of the war and after they could get asia oil to further their goals. 

it was a resource/war decision, and it makes total sense in that context.

and it was bold as hell. 

That video I posted up thread showed that they were hyper-focused on the immediate 6 months or so.  Get that oil flowing to Japan.  They could have really damaged us far more if they hit the fuel depots and some of the other areas, which were all just as easy, if not easier targets than the battleships.

They had the right idea - take out our fleet, take out the Philippines, and we are out of the war for quite a while. If they had gotten Midway and we were all the way back to Hawaii, that's a massive drain on our resources, to try and project the remnants of our fleet out of Hawaii,  an area covering Australia up to the Philippines.  We couldn't have done it for a long time - we would be shipping fuel from California, and we would have to guard all of our fuel and supply convoys.  Australia and Midway are island aircraft carriers for all intents and purposes, and Australia had the ability to provide oil/fuel.

It was a great strategy, except they fucked up on not hitting our fuel depots, our carriers, and Midway (not realizing their communications were being intercepted/read)

 

[atomheartbevo 89738]

4 hours ago, hayden_horn said:

and i think we knew it was coming and made the sacrifice. our carriers were out to sea. i think intelligence knew it was coming.

Our military had war games revolving around a war with Japan in the 1920s and 1930s, and everybody knew that they A) needed our oil and B) would have to conquer somebody else if we cut them off, leading to them removing us as a threat.

I think we knew it was coming, but I think we believed it would be the Philippines or some of our other possessions - Kimmel, etc. had our forces prepared to head out to sea and respond to an attack elsewhere in the Pacific.  Pearl Harbor was incredibly audacious and had never been done before. I think our planners didn't believe the Japanese were capable of doing it - we had everything oriented on things like Japanese submarine attacks (hence the safety of Pearl Harbor) and reinforcing our outlying islands.

The Enterprise was reinforcing Wake Island with fighters (dropping off a fighter wing or two), and had left Wake Island for Pearl Harbor on the 4th.  They were only a few hundred miles out.

The Lexington was reinforcing Midway with fighters (also a fighter wing or two I believe).

The Saratoga was in California after a refit, getting read to load aircraft to take to Pearl Harbor.

The Yorktown was in the Atlantic fleet.

The Hornet had not even had her shakedown cruise and was still getting things worked out.

I look at those carrier deployments and nothing jumps out at me other than they believed the Japanese would attack Wake Island and Midway.

It is possible the US Navy ginned up some retroactive orders for the Enterprise and Lexington at the last minute (or rather last week) but plenty of sailors would have been talking about it.  And the Navy did do some surprise attack training on Pearl Harbor with our carriers, but nothing on the scale of what the Japanese did (and some of that training reinforced the mindset that the Japanese wouldn't be able to pull it off without first taking Midway).

Edited December 8, 2021 by atomheartbevo

[NeverMarryAStripper 21909]

It's not like the Japanese hadn't done it before, just ask the Rooskies

[hayden_horn 11362]

7 minutes ago, atomheartbevo said:

Our military had war games revolving around a war with Japan in the 1920s and 1930s, and everybody knew that they A) needed our oil and B) would have to conquer somebody else if we cut them off, leading to them removing us as a threat.

I think we knew it was coming, but I think we believed it would be the Philippines or some of our other possessions - Kimmel, etc. had our forces prepared to head out to sea and respond to an attack elsewhere in the Pacific.  Pearl Harbor was incredibly audacious and had never been done before. I think our planners didn't believe the Japanese were capable of doing it - we had everything oriented on things like Japanese submarine attacks (hence the safety of Pearl Harbor) and reinforcing our outlying islands.

The Enterprise was reinforcing Wake Island with fighters (dropping off a fighter wing or two), and had left Wake Island for Pearl Harbor on the 4th.  They were only a few hundred miles out.

The Lexington was reinforcing Midway with fighters (also a fighter wing or two I believe).

The Saratoga was in California after a refit, getting read to load aircraft to take to Pearl Harbor.

The Yorktown was in the Atlantic fleet.

The Hornet had not even had her shakedown cruise and was still getting things worked out.

I look at those carrier deployments and nothing jumps out at me other than they believed the Japanese would attack Wake Island and Midway.

It is possible the US Navy ginned up some retroactive orders for the Enterprise and Lexington at the last minute (or rather last week) but plenty of sailors would have been talking about it.  And the Navy did do some surprise attack training on Pearl Harbor with our carriers, but nothing on the scale of what the Japanese did (and some of that training reinforced the mindset that the Japanese wouldn't be able to pull it off without first taking Midway).

i'm responding to both of your posts, so i apologize if this gets a bit jumbled.

japan wanted our carriers. i think they thought our carriers would be at pearl. i think we led them to believe that.

i get a bit tin foil hat conspiracy-ish after that, if not even before.

japan would have been smart to wait a little while longer. we were destined to go to war with germany, and i guess, italy. but they wanted to take the world by the balls. and again, when you look at it in that context, it's bold as fuck and very much in their national character. there's nothing wrong with sneak attacks if you get it right. just look at overlord. 

[RDCanecutter 26454]

23 hours ago, atomheartbevo said:

Reposting this from another thread - if you have any kids who are into Pearl Harbor, or you just want to see it fully diagrammed out, this guy did an amazing map laying out everything and showing you just how small/shallow Pearl Harbor actually is.  You'll see why some Battleships were completely screwed, and why the Japanese were so-short sighted in their thinking and ignoring incredibly strategic targets in favor of tactical targets.

 

As you may know, this same Youtuber has some videos done in similar style on Mexican War battles at Monterrey and Buena Vista. I was surprised that the creek they'd remade into a sort of Monterrey Riverwalk was once a bloody ditch during some of the hardest fighting.

[BabaYaga 15302]

48 minutes ago, atomheartbevo said:

I think it was the right decision.  The amount of Japanese civilians that would have died had we invaded would easily dwarf Hiroshima and Nagasaki, not to mention Japanese soldiers fighting to the death, and let's be blunt, our troops.  We caught glimpses of it with Japanese civilians committing suicide on some of the islands, as well as Japanese soldiers staying behind and attacking from the rear.

Agreed.  An invasion of Japan would have made Normandy look like a middle school dress rehearsal.  No adjacent areas to easily stage.  No beaches to land upon.  One casualty estimation I read was upwards of a million US soldiers.  Okinawa was a real eye opener on the ferocity of the Japanese military defending sovereign territory.  

Edited December 8, 2021 by BabaYaga

[BabaYaga 15302]

4 minutes ago, RDCanecutter said:

As you may know, this same Youtuber has some videos done in similar style on Mexican War battles at Monterrey and Buena Vista. I was surprised that the creek they'd remade into a sort of Monterrey Riverwalk was once a bloody ditch during some of the hardest fighting.

Empire of the Summer Moon outlines how bloody Texas was - being at the heart of Comancheria.  How North and Central Texas were once one of the most dangerous places to be on the planet.  How Mexico giving large tracts of land was to create a buffer of settlers for the Comanches to prey upon and leave Mexico alone.  

[hayden_horn 11362]

6 minutes ago, BabaYaga said:

Agreed.  An invasion of Japan would have made Normandy look like a middle school dress rehearsal.  No adjacent areas to easily stage.  No beaches to land upon.  One casualty estimation I read was upwards of a million US soldiers.  Okinawa was a real eye opener on the ferocity of the Japanese military defending sovereign territory.  

i like to think we would have conquered japan.

but the devastation and aftermath would have been more horrifying than the bombs. 

 

[BabaYaga 15302]

3 minutes ago, hayden_horn said:

i like to think we would have conquered japan.

but the devastation and aftermath would have been more horrifying than the bombs. 

 

Yep.  We saw at the end of BOB, Winters gearing up for the assumed invasion.  It was going to be a biblical meat grinder that could have stretched on for years.  Then you factor in a war-weary nation eager to move on.  Good excerpt from one of the commanders:

Quote

Victory was never in doubt. Its cost was. . . . What was in doubt, in all our minds, was whether there would be any of us left to dedicate our cemetery at the end, or whether the last Marine would die knocking out the last Japanese gun and gunner. — Maj. Gen. Graves B. Erskine, commanding general, 3d Marine Division

 

[Zepol87 9188]

32 minutes ago, RDCanecutter said:

As you may know, this same Youtuber has some videos done in similar style on Mexican War battles at Monterrey and Buena Vista. I was surprised that the creek they'd remade into a sort of Monterrey Riverwalk was once a bloody ditch during some of the hardest fighting.

Paseo de Santa Lucia? I had no idea I need to check out this videos

[InkaUtexas 26008]

There are some interesting What If books out there about the US invasion of Japan. Scary shit. 

 

 

[tbone_ 14132]

I hear this a lot but just completely disagree.  On 12/6/41 and before, there was deep disagreement about the war.  Even after Pearl there was still opposition to the war.  The opposition post Pearl was much smaller but it existed.  There were near constant marches and protests in DC at the time, but no one really heard about them nationally.  The difference is that in 1941 the crazies did not have a voice.  The media, as it existed at the time, would rarely, if ever, give anti american voices a platform.  But there were just as many extremists on each side of the political spectrum then as there are now. 
Perspective is really hard at times.  We all saw mass protests and looting/burning etc in Portland.  Seemed like the whole city was taken over.  At its absolute peak there were about 1000 people involved.  That represented .15% of the population of Portland.  Crazies like Antifa, Proud Boys etc garner an oversized and undeserved percentage of news coverage in today's world but represent an almost statistically insignificant number of people.  Obviously small groups can do great damage but they do not represent the actual morals and values of 99% of the country.
If the US was directly attacked in some fashion where the actual fate of the country was at stake I firmly believe there would be millions of citizens lining up to fight.  
 

Pretty well stated sir. And an interesting juxtaposition to your username.

[sheeeit 129]

3 hours ago, hayden_horn said:

i'm responding to both of your posts, so i apologize if this gets a bit jumbled.

japan wanted our carriers. i think they thought our carriers would be at pearl. i think we led them to believe that.

i get a bit tin foil hat conspiracy-ish after that, if not even before.

japan would have been smart to wait a little while longer. we were destined to go to war with germany, and i guess, italy. but they wanted to take the world by the balls. and again, when you look at it in that context, it's bold as fuck and very much in their national character. there's nothing wrong with sneak attacks if you get it right. just look at overlord. 

I can certainly see the perspective of your posts.  Especially in hindsight.  But, IMO, the "FDR knew the attack was coming and let it happen to galvanize the country" withers under scrutiny.  We could debate this for 100 pages as historians have done for years but the following points are what seal it for me:

1) Carriers- At the time of the invasion, carriers were considered secondary to battleships for naval warfare.  They were used much more for transport than active warring at the time.  Obviously in hindsight, they were critical.  Most of the conspiracy ideas come down to the carriers and radio intercepts (next point).  As mentioned above, the carriers were not coincidentally missing from Pearl.  They were all out on missions that had been in planning for a while and one (there were only 3 in the Pacific at the time) was in repairs and had been for months.

Also, as recent intel has shown, Japan had a spy at Pearl giving them regular updates.  Yamamoto knew on 12/5 that there were no carriers at Pearl.  The spy gave them direct intel.  He decided to attack anyway because they still figured that they could cripple the US fleet long enough to get strongholds around their supply lines.

2) Radio Intercepts- Contrary to current thinking, we really did not have word for word ability on Jap codes.  But, most importantly, the Japs (just like us and every other military) would routinely send out  false messages to try and fool us.  The attack on Pearl could  very easily have been an elaborate ruse designed to get us to pull back our defenses so that the Japs could take over the fuel routes that they desperately needed.  We sort of knew where their ships were but not really and they could move around without detection.  One of the reasons that our carriers were not at Pearl was because they were reinforcing bases that we thought were more likely to be attacked.

3) Audacity- Using carriers as attackers was relatively new in 1941 (interestingly neither Germany or Italy had a single carrier at the beginning of the war).  Attacks from carriers were mostly short ranged and involved 6-10 aircraft.  When the Japs used 6 carriers in a combined long range strike it was the first time in the history of war that it had been done.  Trying to convince FDR and the military that Japan was going to do something so bold that had never even been contemplated before was a tough, tough sell and rightfully so.  Japan used something like 350 aircraft in the strikes on pearl.  No one in the world had ever seen anything like that before so it is not surprising that we did not plan for it.  

At the end of the day, we knew there were Jap ships near us and that an attack somewhere was likely and that war was likely inevitable.  We also had the foolish (certainly foolish in hindsight) belief that Japan would make a declaration of war (as was customary at the time) and give us some time to prepare.  FDR made mistakes and we got very, very lucky.  But I will never ever believe that a US President would knowingly allow an attack on our troops and fleet.  Ultimately the overwhelming industrial might of the US and our spirit were going to win any war but it probably should have been a lot harder and taken a lot longer to beat back the Japanese. 

[Deej 76849]

This thread made me go back and begin a re-listen to Dan Carlin's "Supernova in the East" series. 

So good. 

[atomheartbevo 89738]

5 hours ago, hayden_horn said:

i'm responding to both of your posts, so i apologize if this gets a bit jumbled.

japan wanted our carriers. i think they thought our carriers would be at pearl. i think we led them to believe that.

i get a bit tin foil hat conspiracy-ish after that, if not even before.

1 hour ago, sheeeit said:

Also, as recent intel has shown, Japan had a spy at Pearl giving them regular updates.  Yamamoto knew on 12/5 that there were no carriers at Pearl.  The spy gave them direct intel.  He decided to attack anyway because they still figured that they could cripple the US fleet long enough to get strongholds around their supply lines.

2) Radio Intercepts- Contrary to current thinking, we really did not have word for word ability on Jap codes.  But, most importantly, the Japs (just like us and every other military) would routinely send out  false messages to try and fool us.  The attack on Pearl could  very easily have been an elaborate ruse designed to get us to pull back our defenses so that the Japs could take over the fuel routes that they desperately needed.  We sort of knew where their ships were but not really and they could move around without detection.  One of the reasons that our carriers were not at Pearl was because they were reinforcing bases that we thought were more likely to be attacked.

Takeo? Yoshikawa was the spy at Pearl Harbor, and a helluva spy - he rented airplanes and flew around counting ships and ship types, he swam in the harbor, poking around, he worked with German spies.  He was competent enough that the FBI had very little evidence on him when they finally arrested him (I think he destroyed his equipment or was able to completely get rid of it or something).

And he was not the only spy there - Germans had spies there as well, and there were a few other Japanese spies.  I believe that Yamamoto knew what was at Pearl Harbor. 

I read somewhere that because he was attached to the consulate and was sending his reports through there, a bunch of his traffic was given low priority over Japanese naval communications and was therefore missed by the Americans (or processed too late to be of any use).

We had cracked Japanese codes, but not the most ultra-secret or whatever.  But even so, there was enough stuff lost in all of the radio traffic, to have given us a hint.  It's just that because of the limitations of the time (physically filing information in file cabinets, etc.), there was just too much to sort through.  The Brits had a better organization in terms of plucking out the stuff that was placed against a larger backdrop, but then again, they also had actual events happening and unit/troop movements under observation that they could compare those against.

And I don't think Kimmel even had access to what FDR and Co. were seeing, and what FDR and Co. were seeing was just a piece of the puzzle and limited to specific traffic.

[atomheartbevo 89738]

1 hour ago, sheeeit said:

We could debate this for 100 pages as historians have done for years but the following points are what seal it for me:

What seals it for me:

1. Kimmel (and Short) had been told that the attack wouldn't be Pearl Harbor, but was going to be the Philippines, Thailand, or Malaya, and they planned accordingly.  They felt that the biggest threat to the battleships/etc. would be submarines and Pearl Harbor was safe.  Short was concerned about Japanese sabotage, hence the aircraft being placed in positions to better defend against saboteurs.

2. The Philippines was the important target, and Kimmel using his only two active carriers to drop off fighters at Wake and Midway makes perfect sense.  Midway for obvious reasons in terms of securing Hawaii, but Wake Island was crucial to keeping an air bridge of bombers/cargo planes going from Hawaii to the Philippines and the Japanese proved this when they attacked Wake Island on December 11, and they didn't give up until they captured it.  They could not have B-17s, DC-10s, etc. flying into the Philippines from Hawaii through Wake Island.  Arguably Wake Island would have fallen quicker if the Marines and fighters that the Enterprise dropped off weren't available (and that's even with a bunch of the fighters being caught in the first wave).

3. A war in the Pacific was not what Roosevelt wanted at that point. That's why there were only two active carriers in the Pacific (the third was being refitted at the time).

4. Most importantly: Japan attacking the US was not guaranteed to bring Germany into a formal war with the US.  When Germany attacked Russia in mid-1941, Japan sat that one out, even though Japan had just fought the Russians a few decades earlier.  You could make a good case that Hitler would have been happy staying out of things, with Japan sucking up military resources from the US that would have been given to the Brits and/or the Americans being preoccupied with Japan rather than joining in on the British side.

[Bernard 879]

Times sure have changed…

1941 - Japanese attack Pearl Harbor. Uncle Sam goes to war with Japan. 
2001 -  Saudi Arabians attack NYC and DC. Uncle Sam goes to war with Afghanistan and Iraq.

Bernard

Edited December 9, 2021 by Bernard

[Guest Lobo]

1 hour ago, Bernard said:

Times sure have changed…

1941 - Japanese attack Pearl Harbor. Uncle Sam goes to war with Japan. 
2001 -  Saudi Arabians attack NYC and DC. Uncle Sam goes to war with Afghanistan and Iraq.

Bernard

To be fair, we didn't have the kind of accurate maps in 2001 that we had 60 years earlier.  Lotta stuff got lost in the move.

[BabaYaga 15302]

14 hours ago, sheeeit said:

2) Radio Intercepts- Contrary to current thinking, we really did not have word for word ability on Jap codes.  But, most importantly, the Japs (just like us and every other military) would routinely send out  false messages to try and fool us.

This.

This was how we "broke" the codes prior to the victory @ Midway.  We deciphered among all the background gibberish and false trails that the designation for Midway needed water. 

14 hours ago, sheeeit said:

At the end of the day, we knew there were Jap ships near us and that an attack somewhere was likely and that war was likely inevitable.  We also had the foolish (certainly foolish in hindsight) belief that Japan would make a declaration of war (as was customary at the time) and give us some time to prepare. 

Yep.  Much of it was spit & polish and leg work.  Radar was in it's infancy and the ability to track and locate enemy groups was a monumental task.  Much of the Pacific campaign was about playing cat & mouse and catching the enemy unawares (Midway, Marianas, Guadalcanal, etc.).  I think many modern historians discount this or try and overlay their own hindsight biases.  

[BabaYaga 15302]

12 hours ago, atomheartbevo said:

Japan attacking the US was not guaranteed to bring Germany into a formal war with the US.  When Germany attacked Russia in mid-1941, Japan sat that one out, even though Japan had just fought the Russians a few decades earlier.  You could make a good case that Hitler would have been happy staying out of things, with Japan sucking up military resources from the US that would have been given to the Brits and/or the Americans being preoccupied with Japan rather than joining in on the British side.

A "what if" for the Germans would take an equal amount of time and debate (probably much more).  I think it was inevitable with the critical Liberty Ships and their supplies to both the UK and the much more treacherous routes to Russia.  

[Johnny Sack 8397]

15 hours ago, Deej said:

This thread made me go back and begin a re-listen to Dan Carlin's "Supernova in the East" series. 

So good. 

Still working on that now.  I hunt most weekends in the fall.  It has been a great podcast to listen to while driving 4 hours each way.  Started this summer on the drive to and from Colorado with the WW 1 Carlin podcast.  He is a great storyteller and podcaster.

Edited December 9, 2021 by Johnny Sack

[BabaYaga 15302]

1 minute ago, Johnny Sack said:

WW 1 Carlin podcast

That one was wild.  Obviously Wrath of the Khans is his best, but this was close.  

[High Plains Drifter 11050]

 

pretty interesting article written in The Atlantic in 1946

Basically supports the views expressed above that the invasion of the Jap homeland would have been far worse than two atomic bombs.

 

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1946/12/if-the-atomic-bomb-had-not-been-used/376238/

 

 

[Harrison Bergeron 1798]

24 minutes ago, High Plains Drifter said:

pretty interesting article written in The Atlantic in 1946

Basically supports the views expressed above that the invasion of the Jap homeland would have been far worse than two atomic bombs.

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1946/12/if-the-atomic-bomb-had-not-been-used/376238/

Generally, I think it is a fool's errand trying to apply today's ethical standards on the past.

And I shake out where most people do. Dropping the bombs were horrible and an unconscionable civilian tragedy. However, given option B the best decision. In the Japanese cultural-psychological context of the time, a Japanese invasion would have been worse for both parties. Likely ends in tens of thousands of Allied casualties and millions of Japanese civilian deaths by bombs, starvation, etc. The bombs were as a psychological weapon more than a military one. 

[BabaYaga 15302]

Listening to Carlin again - he's talking about Hiro Inoto (sp?), the guy found in the Philippines in the 70's that still thought the war was going on.  Interesting thing said were the newspapers left for him in the jungle detailing local and national news hardened him even further, as the idea of a Japanese surrender was anathema to what he was taught.  Slogans of "a hundred million dead" in defense of the homeland, etc.  Women and children prepared to fight back the Americans with sticks.  Wild stuff.

He still had the dagger his mom gave him as he went off to fight.  To kill himself if/when the time arose instead of getting captured or caught.  

Edited December 9, 2021 by BabaYaga

[msucolt45 4063]

Thanks for the heads-up on the Carlin podcasts. Those will be great during the holidays. I’ve already listened to a couple.