Reasons of Pearl Harbor?

Hi all!!!
Im new,but you're aware of that...so here is my question!

What do you think...is it posible that the americans left Pearl Harbor
unprepared and unarmed consciously???
I mean...the victims of Pearl Harbor wasn't so tragic so is it possible that the yankees left unprepared their own harbour with reason...the reason is...without attacking first to be involved in the World War???What do you think?

 

Actually, homeport of USN Pacific fleet was San Diego but in order to protect their territories, fleet was sent to PH where it was relatively short distance from philippines etc.

I dont think they left PH unprepared intentionally, it was just bad luck, incompetence and misjudging from some officers.

 

It could be, but IMHO the price is too high. The ships lost cost huge amounts of money and labour to construct. Of course, with the power of hindsight we can say that the loss of the battleships forced the US Navy to switch to carriers and win the war at sea; however, I doubt the USN command was aware of the necessity of this change in 1941 and I most certainly doubt they would be prepared to lose 2500 men to make it happen.

 

not likely

this subject has been discussed both here and on other boards and so far i have seen nothing concrete to support the idea. there are a lot of maybes and could have happeneds but beyond that there's no evidence showing anything more that basic screwups by the americans and a very well planned and executed operation by the japanese.
what went wrong? in a nutshell the following-
kimmel and short were not fully informed of everything that was known

there was some real boneheads in charge that morning. warnings like a SUB sneeking into the harborand being shot and depthcharged and the radar warning were ignored.

in spite of a war warning being issued a few days before there was almost nothing done to prepare. this may have been due in part to a disbelief that the japs could even hit pearl. the biggest concern seemed to be protection from spys and agents.

there was a time lag between the east wind rain intercept and any new warnings being issued. it looks like the japanese never intended to attack before a declaration of war but friction in their system prevented it from being delivered in time. while not conclusive the evidence does suggest it.

the japanese did have a history of shooting first without observing the niceitys but somehow that was also ignored.

the operation was very well thought out and planned down to the last detail and was carried out about as good as anyone could hope for. it was and is a model op in many ways.

so in short there is no need to look for deep dark sneaky plans to explain pearl harbor. there's a rule that states" never ascribe anything to deep planning if it can be explaned by human stupidy" . we screwed the pooch and they didn't.

 

I told that the Japs ruled the sea before the americans dropped the nuclear bombs...is that right?

 

lol...very wrong.
The Japanese fleet was mostly at the bottom of the sea. What remained was ineffective for lack of air cover. After the Battle of Leyte Gulf the Japanese Navy was never a significant sea power and certainly not one that could challenge the US Navy. Were it not for kamikaze attacks from land based aircraft during the early part of 1945 (and a few effective Japanese subs)the US Navy would have been virtually unchallenged.

 

Ummm, how to say this politely, no. No need to stoop to conspiarcy theories to find out why the attack on Pearl Harbor was successful. Just read the earlier posts.

The Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN) ruled the seas between December 7, 1941 (Pearl Harbor) and June 4, 1942 (Midway). The Guadalcanal campaign (August 1942 - February 1943) ended with both sides exhausted, but with US in a clearly better position. The June 1944 Battle of the Philipine Sea (aka The Great Mariannas Turkey Shoot) ended any realistic hopes of Japan regaining sea control. The Battle of Leyete Gulf in October 1944 wiped out most of the surface fleet (the the IJN subs were never effective) as an effective force. The kamikaze voyage to the bottom of the sea by the battleship Yamato on 7 April 1945 was a fitting end to the IJN.

 

Conc. lynn1212: " never ascribe anything to deep planning if it can be explaned by human stupidy"

It might be argued that anything can be explained by human stupidity and with good right. However, conspiracy theorists or, as in this case, folks who believe that the US Establishment (whoever it was those days) was looking for a bloody good tool to make peaceful American people to go wild and see red, may be right, after all.

Why not? Why always stupidity and not good planning and some (tonnes of) cynicism? Why not push Japan to become such a tool? Everybody in the know knew that Japan was doomed even before they started thinking about PH.
Japan was never a danger to the USA.

Such things happened before and after. I mean - USA´s elite needing a reason to go to war (or to cold war).
Who thinks I am certainly wrong, please, identify yourselves and explain why. :-?

 

the nice thing about conspiracy theories is there in no way to prove a negative. the lack of any evidence to support one can be brushed off as proof of a conspiracy that was so profound and deep that there is no sign of it left.
questions- do you really think the US invented the cold war? why? what evidence do you have to support such a theory?
while i think my country is the best in the world and i make no apologies for feeling that way i will admit that we have screwed up by the numbers now and then. i'm sure you are waiting to hit me with the whole tired WMDs issue and pres bush so let me say this. 3 or 4 years ago almost every intelligence gathering unit in the world would have said he had them and a lot did. there is no doubt that he did at one time have them and used them so a belief that he still did was not that hard to accept. besides it was not the whole case for war, never was in spite of what you may hear now.
let me get a little off the wall here. i have a theory that israel was founded as part of a plot to destroy the arab peoples of the world is relatation for their failure to follow the true faith of the jews. prove me wrong.
conspiracy theories are great fun and all but 99.9% of the time the real answer is much simpler and usually involves stupidy by someone. there is a law that states the simplest answer in usually the correct one. another thing anout wild and wacky plots is nobody ever explains how so many people can keep a secret for so long. nothing ever stays secret forever unless everyone that knows it is dead and nobody left anything behind. if you belive it can be done i know of some nice beachfront land about 200 miles east of la. that i'll sell real cheap. interested?

 

Condescension?

Maybe sometimes a conspiracy IS the simplest explanation. And it doesn´t require that many people to perform.

You are (very kind of you) placing me in a conspiracy corner - wrongly. I´m just looking at things from multiple angles, especially if too many details don´t fit "the simple solution".

Answers (some): No, I do not think USA invented Cold War but American citizens were certainly very helpful in inventing and equipping it. Guess why?

No, no comments on WMDs in Iraq. I think most people have a gut feeling why Mr PROFUS targeted the country. Maybe there´ll be a chance to talk about it sometime.

Israel….plot…..for failure to follow the true faith of Jews? Never heard of it. Yours? Who would the plotters be? The Jews?
If you REALLY want a proof, look here: nobody in Israel or enywhere else cares what the Arabs believe in. If you find ONE PERSON who cares/cared – you´ll hear the rest of the answer.

All in all, it would be too simple to believe everything is that simple and all can be explained by stupidity. I don´t think it was stupid (of Germans, tactically) to help fund the Revolution. In the long run it proved to be stupidity: here you have both things: complot and stupidity!

But why the smart guys from Wall Street sent Lenin money – it cannot just be stupidity. Nor was it American Jews helping poor Rusian Jews. By that time…..you know.

 

amercians armed for the cold war because we were scared of the commies. they told us that they would bury us. they promised to rule the world over our dead bodies.

my point about the jewish plot was can you disprove it? not belittle it, not brush it off but disprove it with cold hard facts that show there is no possible way it could be true. you can't and that is the problem with complotters. there's always that tiny doubt that cannot be dispelled.

lenin was always willing to use useful fools and looked for them. people figured that the carz was no prize, maybe lenin would be an improvement. the whole idea of the commie form of government sounds good if you ignore human nature and don't think too hard about it.

 

lynn, please, don´t simplify.
We are not children. Who are complotters, after all? Are they identical, all f them?Would you label anybody who doesn´t believe in a simplest explanation like that?

I can tell you that, where I live, such things are taken seriously, and with good reason.

“Tiny doubts” have often led leading intelligence agencies to huge breakthroughs, so don´t you underestimate such things.
It also happens that some phenomena cannot be reduced to stupid mistakes. Some little detail doesn´t fit. Even if you, initially cannot prove something, you cannot just forget the little detail.
Can or cannot prove or disprove, you must not neglect odd details.
Things are sometimes just more complicated than they seem to be. Remember Whittaker Chambers? Who believed him? A jerk, no more.
That´s all I´m going to say about this. Maybe let´s better stop here.

 

lynn1212 wrote:

Exactly. Ignorance is the soil, illogic and emotion are the seeds and these silly (but impossible to disprove to their satisfaction) conspiracy theories are the fruit.
Notice the thread on 9/11 and how quickly it died when actual facts were brought into the discussion

Someone once said (wish it had been me) " everyone has a right to their own opinion but everyone does not have a right to their own facts "

 

Intelligibly there are no evidance about it...
...i was asking is it possible...i think it is...
I know how it sounds...America that is so proud with its Libarty and Love to the american nation letting man die just to have reason to step on the warpath...sounds really crazy!!

 

Yes it does sound crazy, considering that they already had atleast two reasons/occasions to "step on the warpath".

 

My problem with the Pearl Harbour Conspiracy is that the whole thing doesn't really add up.

Let's imagine for a moment that there was a conscious decision to allow an attack on a US installation in order to give the go ahead for war with Japan, ignoring issues of whether it would be ultimately morally justifiable or acceptable to a US president to do so.

Why, in December 1941 would you allow your Battleships, which everybody thought were the ultimate seagoing weapons (Even the Japanese despite their innovative use of Carriers, they still expended huge amounts of resources on their two Yamato class Super-Battleships) to be sacrificed in this way?

Any excuse could have been used to get at least most of the Battleships away from Pearl Harbour, returned to the US for refits, whatever, then allow the raid to take your lesser vessels and support craft such as the Aircraft Carriers.

The Pearl Harbour Conspiracy to me at least relies on far too much hindsight to work, Battleships were any navy's pre-eminent weapons, why throw them all away like that? Yes, you could argue that they didn't expect the attack to be that devastating, but it still does not make sense on a purely rational materials issue to risk and sacrifice your biggest, most expensive and best ships in that way.

Plus let's face it any attack like this on a US base would be grounds for war, regardless of whether it was successful or not. If you were planning to let this happen, what difference does it make if the defenders were put on alert or not? You still get your attack, you still get to declare war, but instead you have a much greater part of your fleet and facilities intact.

A direct answer from me at least to your question Warcloud "Is it possible?" Yes, it is possible, just like KBO's Nazi flying saucers are possible. A better question might be "Is it likely?" and to me I think no, it isn't likely that the US would invite such an attack, and allow it to go ahead largely without resistance.

The US defences at Pearl Harbour ballsed up, true, but I think that was incompetence on the part of the senior officers, I don't think it was down to any hidden agenda or conspiracy.

 

There is no doubt that Roosevelt and his entourage were vey much interested in containing Japan and in entering war in Europe (the question of reasons is not relevant at this moment).
The policy of blockade of Japan was a conscious provocation.

Americans en masse did not want war, whatever was going on in China or Europe. The only thing to provoke them to back war could only be an attack on USA itself.
The American policy of provoking Japan invited Pearl Harbor (whatever the actual details, they are not that important), just as increasing support of Britain, in many diferent ways) was a conscious provocation against Germany.
Hitler, despite his uneasy temper, tried to avoid provoking USA and let himself get provoked for a long time.

Who denies today that sinking of USS Maine in Havana was (at least, and despite the lack of convincing evidence) used to start war with Spain?
Who doesn´t have serious doubts about the background of the tragedy of Lusitania?

Sometimes elites feel they have to use dirty litle tricks to turn public opinion in the desired direction.

 

Izaak Stern wrote:

If Roosevelt was so interested in entering the war in Europe he would likely not have made a speech just a few months before promising to the American people not to "send your boys off to fight in a foreign war".

Provocation is a loaded term. It was certainly a conscious action so you are at least half right
There is no question American policy was to try and persuade Japan to change their behaviour. Their actions in China and Mongolia were more than enough "provocation" on the part of the Japanese.

True...but incidental to the question of whether or not a conspiracy to provoke that attack was involved.

There was quite a bit of public support for supporting Britain because of the special relationship that existed with our "cousins". Providing support for Britain was provided to help out the Brits, not to provoke Hitler.

Hitler was unstable. To use him as a standard upon which to judge the actions of Roosevelt is silly IMO. He declared war on the US (and sealed his fate) for reasons unknown to anyone except himself.

 

Roosevelt was not the first US President to promise such things to Americans. And forget the promise. Selflessness?

The Japanese have not been harming USA by their actions in China. Why does America like to be a good teacher on how to behave, again and again? Idealism?

No, conspiracy was not necessary, unless we disregard a concerted misleading of the American public by the Government policies. Again and again. You had to be an arduous reader of news on all pages to put together various pieces, and find out where Roosevelt is going, I guess.

“Providing support for Britain was provided to help out the Brits, not to provoke Hitler.” But at the same time the US was becoming actively involved in very many ways, which was bound to provoke. Besides, the “special relationshio” was always (at least in XX century invoked by the British, especially in trouble. Go and ask an average American about some “special relationship”).

WHO compares Hitler with Roosevelt??? G-d forbid.
Unless you couldn´t help using the “silly” word towards me, Grieg. A sort of argument? :lol:

 

Granted. But if one were involved in trying to get the American people into a war that they wished to avoid it seems artless and clumsy to make such a promise in such close proximity to the provocation. Doesn't ring true.

Perhaps. American history has no shortage of idealists. But a detailed examination of the American psyche isn't within the scope of this debate. If the argument is that America was only concerned about what affected them directly there was no good reason to help the Brits nor were there sufficient reasons to get involved in the last great European conflagration
of only 2 decades previous.

It was invoked by the British because they were more likely to need US help than vice versa. I do think that many Americans (of that era especially) felt a strong kinship with the Brits. I'm an "average American", I have many "average" American friends and colleagues and I don't doubt that most do feel more kinship with the UK than with any other European country.

I didn't mean to imply you were making a direct comparison. It's just that I wouldn't use Hitler's thoughts or actions in any way to try and determine what was behind Roosevelts motivations and plans. Hitler was known to rely on "occult " sources as well as his own twisted vision of history and Germany's destiny.

All that being said, I don't doubt that at some point Roosevelt knew that it was unavoidable that the US get involved and that he would have to begin to prepare the country for war. IMO all the evidence points to him having come to that conclusion much later than many people seem to think.