The Short Victorious War

tlb wrote:

cthia wrote:I stand by my statement, it was irresponsible to adopt that foreign policy and not expect an attack.

I am in agreement with this statement with the understanding that the US did expect an attack. As KZT has pointed out at various times, the US did not expect that Japan could or would have the massive successes that they did in the opening months of the expanded war. This was an intelligence failure, not a failure of policy. The authorities in Hawaii only expected sabotage from the local people of Japanese descent, not a full fleet attack. As KZT has also said there was a lot of racist dismissal in the intelligence appraisals.

What I have solely rejected was the statement that Japan was offered "only the choice between war and starvation". The option preferred by Washington was that Japan would end the war in China and the embargoes would be lifted; which does not fit neatly into that binary choice. Instead Japan elected to keep the war in China going and as the pressure increased from Washington, to greatly expand that war.

It was a choice between war and starvation. Without the oil, Japan's industry shuts down. Given the size of Japan's population, we have starvation as a consequence. As it happened, they got war and starvation.

Don

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cthia wrote:And, likewise, blaming Pearl on an intelligence failure is also a crock of shit. Since FDR elected to go full-steam ahead with his foreign policy, those battleships should have been elsewhere instead of sitting like ducks in Pearl.

Whether Nimitz was correct or not on whether they should have been deployed forward is besides the point.

We will simply disagree on whether it is important that the Japanese refused to end their war on China in order to end the US embargo.

There is nothing wrong with having the battleships in Pearl Harbor. As KZT is fond of saying, it may have been a stroke of luck that their weakness was revealed.

But it is silly to try to claim that there were no intelligence failures; such as not knowing the range of the Japanese fighters and bombers, not knowing that in the early stages of the war that the Zero would be a superior fighter, not knowing that the depth of Pearl Harbor was just a technical problem that could be solved and not knowing there were other dangers besides sabotage in Hawaii (which meant that on a Sunday morning when things were expected to happen, people were not at ready stations). People expected the Japanese to act, but no one expected that they were as capable as they were; so that is the biggest intelligence failure of all.

tlb wrote:What I have solely rejected was the statement that Japan was offered "only the choice between war and starvation". The option preferred by Washington was that Japan would end the war in China and the embargoes would be lifted; which does not fit neatly into that binary choice. Instead Japan elected to keep the war in China going and as the pressure increased from Washington, to greatly expand that war.

n7axw wrote:It was a choice between war and starvation. Without the oil, Japan's industry shuts down. Given the size of Japan's population, we have starvation as a consequence. As it happened, they got war and starvation.

Don

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As I said I totally reject that binary choice. The Japanese rejected ending their war in China and so rejected ending the embargo. Instead they chose to expand their war to include the US. But that could not cause trade to resume unless they won, and that was impossible.

The attack on Pearl Harbor ensured that the US would never sue for peace and there is no way that Japan could attack the US industry nor its ship building capacity. Which meant that the US would eventually have a navy too huge to defeat.

“For they sow the wind, and they shall reap the whirlwind.”

cthia wrote:Nope. I fielded that same objection in another thread. Can't remember if it was you. But it doesn't matter whether Roosevelt thought he was giving the Japanese a third alternative. It was whether the Japanese thought they had a third alternative. And they had already informed Roosevelt that they would not have any other alternative but to go to war if the oil was cut off. Part of the preparation for going to war is having reliable intelligence as you said. But intelligence wasn't needed here, because the Japanese command had already informed Roosevelt that they would attack, because they would see no other option.

And, likewise, blaming Pearl on an intelligence failure is also a crock of shit. Since FDR elected to go full-steam ahead with his foreign policy, those battleships should have been elsewhere instead of sitting like ducks in Pearl.

Whether Nimitz was correct or not on whether they should have been deployed forward is besides the point.

And the US was expecting an attack. They were expecting an attack to land on their forces in the Philippines. They were not expecting the attack to land on Pearl Harbor. IIRC Japan had only developed the capability to project an attacking fleet that far within the proceeding year or so -- it was a very new capability for them.

So, the US wasn't expecting an significant attack to land on the West Coast, as it was beyond the effective combat range of the Japanese Navy. But US intelligence, somewhat behind the times given their poor penetration of the fairly closed and secretive nature of the military government of Japan, believed that Pearl Harbor was also (still) beyond the effective combat range of the Japanese Navy.

(And like I said, a year or so earlier they'd have been correct in that assessment -- at that point Japan did not yet have the skill or numbers of oilers and other underway logistics vessels to push an attack force that far West. Not without first seizing and securing a forward base in at least the Philippines.
Don't forget that the technology of underway refueling/resupply was still a pretty nascent one)

Jonathan_S wrote:

cthia wrote:Nope. I fielded that same objection in another thread. Can't remember if it was you. But it doesn't matter whether Roosevelt thought he was giving the Japanese a third alternative. It was whether the Japanese thought they had a third alternative. And they had already informed Roosevelt that they would not have any other alternative but to go to war if the oil was cut off. Part of the preparation for going to war is having reliable intelligence as you said. But intelligence wasn't needed here, because the Japanese command had already informed Roosevelt that they would attack, because they would see no other option.

And, likewise, blaming Pearl on an intelligence failure is also a crock of shit. Since FDR elected to go full-steam ahead with his foreign policy, those battleships should have been elsewhere instead of sitting like ducks in Pearl.

Whether Nimitz was correct or not on whether they should have been deployed forward is besides the point.

And the US was expecting an attack. They were expecting an attack to land on their forces in the Philippines. They were not expecting the attack to land on Pearl Harbor. IIRC Japan had only developed the capability to project an attacking fleet that far within the proceeding year or so -- it was a very new capability for them.

So, the US wasn't expecting an significant attack to land on the West Coast, as it was beyond the effective combat range of the Japanese Navy. But US intelligence, somewhat behind the times given their poor penetration of the fairly closed and secretive nature of the military government of Japan, believed that Pearl Harbor was also (still) beyond the effective combat range of the Japanese Navy.

(And like I said, a year or so earlier they'd have been correct in that assessment -- at that point Japan did not yet have the skill or numbers of oilers and other underway logistics vessels to push an attack force that far West. Not without first seizing and securing a forward base in at least the Philippines.
Don't forget that the technology of underway refueling/resupply was still a pretty nascent one)

Yes, Roosevelt knew it was coming. As Don stated so eloquently and humorously, anyone with an IQ greater than his shoe size should have known. Even if your enemy didn't tell you as much.

But it is interesting that Roosevelt almost chose to lie to the American people to add bite to his Call to Arms. As is evident in his drafting of his famous speech.

Wiki wrote:On draft No. 1, Roosevelt changed "a date which will live in world history" to "a date which will live in infamy," providing the speech its most famous phrase and giving birth to the term, "day of infamy," which December 7, 1941, is often called.

A few words later, he changed his report that the United States of America was "simultaneously and deliberately attacked" to "suddenly and deliberately attacked." At the end of the first sentence, he wrote the words, "without warning," but later crossed them out.

Thus that first historic sentence— the one that is usually quoted from the speech— was born: "Yesterday, December 7, 1941— a date which will live in infamy— the United States of America was suddenly and deliberately attacked by the naval and air forces of the Empire of Japan."

It was still a bit misleading, because it was not at all "suddenly." However, the whole truth and nothing but the truth was not as important as his Call to Arms.

cthia wrote:Yes, Roosevelt knew it was coming. As Don stated so eloquently and humorously, anyone with an IQ greater than his shoe size should have known. Even if your enemy didn't tell you as much.

But it is interesting that Roosevelt almost chose to lie to the American people to add bite to his Call to Arms. As is evident in his drafting of his famous speech.

Wiki wrote:On draft No. 1, Roosevelt changed "a date which will live in world history" to "a date which will live in infamy," providing the speech its most famous phrase and giving birth to the term, "day of infamy," which December 7, 1941, is often called.

A few words later, he changed his report that the United States of America was "simultaneously and deliberately attacked" to "suddenly and deliberately attacked." At the end of the first sentence, he wrote the words, "without warning," but later crossed them out.

Thus that first historic sentence— the one that is usually quoted from the speech— was born: "Yesterday, December 7, 1941— a date which will live in infamy— the United States of America was suddenly and deliberately attacked by the naval and air forces of the Empire of Japan."

It was still a bit misleading, because it was not at all "suddenly." However, the whole truth and nothing but the truth was not as important as his Call to Arms.

One could certainly argue that an attack during continuing diplomatic negotiations, and without a declaration of war, was "sudden" no matter how long a period of increasing tensions preceded it.

And Japan screwed up their own plans on that front. They'd famously intended to deliver the US notice that Japan was breaking off negotiations before the attack happened -- but because of decoding and typing delays it wasn't ready and delivered in time. (Though I tend to doubt that anybody would have given Japan much credit even if they had rule lawyered their way into giving notice with too little time for that news to make it back out to Hawaii before the attack landed)

Jonathan_S wrote:One could certainly argue that an attack during continuing diplomatic negotiations, and without a declaration of war, was "sudden" no matter how long a period of increasing tensions preceded it.

And Japan screwed up their own plans on that front. They'd famously intended to deliver the US notice that Japan was breaking off negotiations before the attack happened -- but because of decoding and typing delays it wasn't ready and delivered in time. (Though I tend to doubt that anybody would have given Japan much credit even if they had rule lawyered their way into giving notice with too little time for that news to make it back out to Hawaii before the attack landed)

Note that the document intended to be handed over was not a declaration of war, just a notice of a break in discussions. The official declaration of war was published later in Japanese newspapers, well after the attack.

cthia wrote:Yes, Roosevelt knew it was coming. As Don stated so eloquently and humorously, anyone with an IQ greater than his shoe size should have known. Even if your enemy didn't tell you as much.

But it is interesting that Roosevelt almost chose to lie to the American people to add bite to his Call to Arms. As is evident in his drafting of his famous speech.

Wiki wrote:On draft No. 1, Roosevelt changed "a date which will live in world history" to "a date which will live in infamy," providing the speech its most famous phrase and giving birth to the term, "day of infamy," which December 7, 1941, is often called.

A few words later, he changed his report that the United States of America was "simultaneously and deliberately attacked" to "suddenly and deliberately attacked." At the end of the first sentence, he wrote the words, "without warning," but later crossed them out.

Thus that first historic sentence— the one that is usually quoted from the speech— was born: "Yesterday, December 7, 1941— a date which will live in infamy— the United States of America was suddenly and deliberately attacked by the naval and air forces of the Empire of Japan."

It was still a bit misleading, because it was not at all "suddenly." However, the whole truth and nothing but the truth was not as important as his Call to Arms.

Jonathan_S wrote:One could certainly argue that an attack during continuing diplomatic negotiations, and without a declaration of war, was "sudden" no matter how long a period of increasing tensions preceded it.

And Japan screwed up their own plans on that front. They'd famously intended to deliver the US notice that Japan was breaking off negotiations before the attack happened -- but because of decoding and typing delays it wasn't ready and delivered in time. (Though I tend to doubt that anybody would have given Japan much credit even if they had rule lawyered their way into giving notice with too little time for that news to make it back out to Hawaii before the attack landed)

I am glad you brought that up. That is the one area where I am undecided. Oh yes, Japan failed to give a formal notice of a declaration of war. But they certainly gave an informal notice in the form of a formal warning.

Japan said in no uncertain terms:

If A then B

A = US cuts off oil
B = We will go to war

I am sorry and they are sorry that the message got lost in the mail. Oh well. Shit happens. "Should we shoot our messenger?"


BTW, The Yawata Strike was a recreation of Pearl Harbor, without that same declaration of war. However, can you really blame a bunch of small fries who are about to attack a sleeping giant, even if they rather not warn him first?

Stop crying, we warned you what your foreign policy would cause.

cthia wrote:I am glad you brought that up. That is the one area where I am undecided. Oh yes, Japan failed to give a formal notice of a declaration of war. But they certainly gave an informal notice in the form of a formal warning.

Japan said in no uncertain terms:

If A then B

A = US cuts off oil
B = We will go to war

I am sorry and they are sorry that the message got lost in the mail. Oh well. Shit happens. "Should we shoot our messenger?"


BTW, The Yawata Strike was a recreation of Pearl Harbor, without that same declaration of war. However, can you really blame a bunch of small fries who are about to attack a sleeping giant, even if they rather not warn him first?

Stop crying, we warned you what your foreign policy would cause.

No one in the US is crying over it; Japan decided that it would rather go to war with a sleeping giant, than to stop being at war with a backward neighbor. In the end they suffered greatly for that mistake.

Yes, we are crying, still crying, over Pearl Harbor.