The Second World War.

[palo5]

Originally Posted by smallblock

I have a particluar interest in the Battle of Britain and what it meant to us all, as can be seen by my signature.

This is off-topic, but I can't hold myself back. After the bank bailout, there is a new version of your signature:

"Never has so much been owed by so few to so many"

[knobby109]

One excellent source re the Japanese theatre is Nemesis by Max Hastings.
One thread is concerned with who was actually in charge of Japan, unlike in the West and the USSR the Army wasn't under political control and even the Emperor was reluctant to intervene.

[rlg118]

FDR desperately wanted to go to war against Hitler.

In May 1941, the US Navy became a British ally in the struggle in the Atlantic. By taking over convoy escort duties in the western Atlantic, we became involved in a shooting war with Germany, and on Halloween, 1941 (more than five weeks before the Pearl Harbor attack), the inevitable happened. While escorting a British convoy, an American warship, the destroyer Reuben James, was torpedoed and sunk by the submarine U-562. This happened at a time when Roosevelt still faced fierce opposition from isolationists, and escort duties in the Battle of the Atlantic, combined with Lend-Lease, had so far been the most that the President could do to bring the USA into the war on the British side.

However, old Adolf was shrewd - he knew what FDR's game was, but he also remembered what had happened during WWI after the US became involved. The introduction of fresh troops, combined with new tactics (we got the Germans out of their trenches), had eventually sealed Germany's doom.

Once the Tripartite Pact was signed in September, 1940, FDR knew how to get it done. He would get to Hitler through Tokyo. He proclaimed an embargo on steel, iron, and oil shipments to Japan. Then the Dutch colonial government in Indonesia renounced its oil contract with Japan - a serious problem for a country whose navy used some 400 tons of oil per hour. The US then demanded that Japan withdraw from China and Indochina, which we knew she wasn't about to do. FDR had moved our battleship fleet to Pearl Harbor, over the objections of Admiral Richardson (who was subsequently sacked), and, later, Admiral Kimmel. If Japan wanted Indonesian oil, she would have to neutralize our fleet. Our aircraft carriers were away; the battleships and cruisers became the sacrificial lambs.

On November 29th, the Signal Corps picked up a message in which an official at the Japanese Embassy in Washington asked, "Tell me what zero hour is?" The reply from Tokyo: "Zero hour is December 8 (the 7th, in the US) at Pearl Harbor." So now we knew when, and where.

Unfortunately, the commanders in Hawaii (Kimmel and Short), having been kept out of the intelligence loop, decided that this war warning meant sabotage by the locals. They lined up all the planes in the middle of their airstrips so that they could be more easily guarded - thus giving the Japanese flyers easier targets. Almost all of the anti-aircraft batteries lacked ammunition. It had been returned to storage so that it wouldn't get dusty.

On top of all this, we showed the Japanese how to do it! Japanese officials took a lot of notes while they were observing our war games in the '30s, in which we staged mock attacks on the base, thereby proving that it could be done, using the same route (the Kolekole Pass) which the Japanese pilots later used.

Once we declared war on Japan, Hitler was bound by the Tripartite Pact to get involved. Hitler now thought we were weak, and declared war on the US on December 11th.

FDR got his wish.

[scoundrel]

The conspiracy theory of Pearl Harbour seems to me to have a critical flaw. It pre-supposes that FDR and his administration correctly predicted a long time ahead what the Imperial Japanese Navy were going to do. I rarely know what I myself personally am going to do more than a week in advance. Though superficially attractive, the idea that FDR could manipulate the IJN into attacking Pearl Harbour by imposing an oil embargo is hindsight. The Japanese had other options, including an invasion of Siberia. They have oil in Siberia as well and the Japanese army knew large areas of Siberia rather well, from the days of the foreign intervention during the Bolsevik revolution. A successful invasion of eastern Siberia would have been a huge own goal if FDR was indeed trying to stir Japan into action. He would have manipulated Japan into the war while the USA was still out of it. We know now that the Japanese army got its' bottom kicked in the border war with the Soviet Union but exactly how well was this known in Washington in 1941? Neither side was noted for truthful reportage.

Another very real possibility which Churchill especially feared was that Japan might strike at Malaya and the Dutch East Indies, attractive and resource-rich targets, and leave American territories unmolested. FDR needed a vote in Congress to declare war on Japan and, though it didn't happen so we will never know, I myself do not believe that Congress or the ordinary people of America would have wanted to go to war with Japan. I think they would have said (once again) that it was nothing to do withe them and merely marked up the prices of all the munitions they were selling under Lend Lease.

It is a fact that the battleships became sacrificial lambs when they were relocated to Pearl Harbour. I honestly doubt whether this was anyone's plan. It seems more likely to me that the move was intended as sabre-rattling, a show of force to indicate that the USA was serious in her oil embargo and Japan had better leave China. The US military authorities were fatally complacent. They simply did not expect that Japan would fight them, and did not realise how potent a threat Japan was.

[tygrkhat40]

As I mentioned in a earlier post, Hitler hoped that Japan would reciprocate his declaration of war on the US with a similar declaration against the USSR. But the drubbing the Japanese Army took in the border war meant that Japan wasn't going to renounce its neutrality pact with the Soviet Union. In fact, Stalin knew that the Japanese were no threat in Siberia due to the reports from Richard Sorge, Stalin's master spy in Tokyo, that said the Japanese were getting ready to deal with the Americans. This intel allowed Stalin to reinforce the troops around Moscow and bolstered with the tough and highly winter trained Siberians, the Red Army counterattacked the German troops at the capital on December 6, 1941.

[DTravel]

Originally Posted by tygrkhat40

Due to Operation: Magic, the US had broken the majority of the Japanese Naval, Army and diplomatic codes, one of the most highly guarded secrets of the war.

Not quite. US Signal Intelligence had broken Japan's primary diplomatic code and at various times broke some of the military codes but at no point had the US broken the majority of Japan's military codes.

Also keep in mind that Signal Intelligence was (and still is) a constant arms race. The Japanese, like all other countries, was changing and updating their codes continuously throughout the war and the US was always playing catch up with those changes.

[smallblock]

Originally Posted by palo5

This is off-topic,

Opps! My mistake I thought it was a general WWII thread, don't know to much about Pearl Harbour, other than it was a very sad day in American history.

[DTravel]

Originally Posted by smallblock

Opps! My mistake I thought it was a general WWII thread, don't know to much about Pearl Harbour, other than it was a very sad day in American history.

I think discussion of The Battle of Britain is fine. Palo was just commenting on your sig's comment on banking. His "this is off-topic" comment was in regard to his own post I believe, not yours.

[squigg58]

Originally Posted by smallblock

Opps! My mistake I thought it was a general WWII thread, don't know to much about Pearl Harbour, other than it was a very sad day in American history.

I think palo was referring to his own comment about the banks!

I believe it is a general WWII thread (I posted about "smart bombs") but we just happened to have a whole host of postings about Pearl Harbor.

(Sorry DTravel ... didn't see your reply before I posted!)

[smallblock]

Thanks Guys for clearing that up for me, I'll post away!