Documentary, Warlords Churchill vs Roosevelt

Did I say there were errors? Where?

It obviously made it much easier for the US to conduct operations in the mid and later western Pacfic. As for still loosing them. It was the Philipines that were a dagger at Japan's throat. As long as we held them particlarly when we were buidling up our military there they were a threat that Japan couldn't ignore. If they are going to attack us they aren't going to leave those bases around now are they? And a fleet based on the West Coast isn't going to be able to help them much either.

You are basically talking War Plan Orange and the navy knew it wouldn't work. The logistics just weren't there. What you describe by the way is pretty much what the Japanese hoped we'd do.

Not a chance.

You haven't made any sort of sound argument that there was any "bumbling" at all on FDR's part.

 

The claim that the US had no chance of rescuing military and civilian personnel, on Wake Island is just plan wrong. Even after the PH attack,
an attempt to get to Wake was made.

USN relief attempt (Wake Island)

VMA-211 Insignia.The projected U.S. relief attempt by Admiral Frank Fletcher's Task Force 11 (TF-11) and supported Admiral Wilson Brown’s Task Force 14 (TF-14) consisted of the fleet carrier Saratoga, the fleet oiler USNS Neches, the seaplane tender Tangier, the cruisers Astoria, Minneapolis, and San Francisco, and ten destroyers. The convoy carried the 4th Marine Defense Battalion, the VMF-221 fighter squadron equipped with F2A Brewster Buffalo fighters, along with 9,000 five-inch (127 mm) rounds, 12,000 three-inch (76.2 mm) rounds, and 3,000,000 .50 cal. (12.7 mm) rounds as well as a large amount of ammunition for mortars and other battalion small arms. Task Force 14 (TF-14) with the fleet carrier Lexington, three heavy cruisers, eight destroyers and one oiler was to undertake a raid on the Marshall Islands to divert Japanese attention.
On December 22 at 21:00, after receiving information indicating the presence of two IJN carriers and two fast battleships near Wake Island Vice Admiral William S. Pye, the Acting Commander in Chief of the U.S. Pacific Fleet, ordered TF-14 to return to Pearl Harbor, for fear of losses.

 

　
I don’t doubt your sincerity here "DogFather", however wishful thinking won't make it so, I recommend you goto:

HyperWar: American Military History [Chapter 20]

(World War II, The Defensive Phase - from the Center For Military History)

Where you will find that; "In the Victory Program, drawn up by the Army and Navy at the President's behest during the summer of 1941, the leaders of the two services had set forth in some detail the strategy and the means they considered necessary to win ultimate victory if, as they expected, Soviet Russia succumbed to the Axis onslaught.

"The strategy was the one laid down in the RAINBOW 5 war plan--wear Germany down by bombing, blockade, subversion, and limited offensives, while mobilizing the strength needed to invade the European continent and to defeat Germany on its own ground. Japan meanwhile would be contained by air and sea power, local defense forces, China's inexhaustible manpower, and the Soviet Union's Siberian divisions. With Germany out of the running, Japan's defeat or collapse would soon follow.

"As for the means, the United States would have to provide them in large part, for the British were already weary and their resources limited. The United States would serve not merely, to use the President's catchy phrase, as the "arsenal of democracy," supplying weapons to arm its allies, but also as the main source of the armies without which wars, above all this war, could not be won.

"Army leaders envisaged the eventual mobilization of 215 divisions, 61 of them armored, and 239 combat air groups, requiring a grand total, with supporting forces, of 8.8 million men. Five million of these would be hurled against the European Axis. It was emphasized that victory over the Axis Powers would require a maximum military effort and full mobilization of America's immense industrial resources.

As I have posted in the past, a week after Pearl had already been attacked, and with Rainbow 5 the accepted defense strategy, Eisenhower reported for duty with Gen. Marshall. Ike had graduated first in his class from Command and General Staff School and gone on to assignments that required him to examine world-wide military matters, mobilization of armies, and the issues connected with converting the industrial capacity of the nation to a war footing. Perhaps most importantly for Marshall’s first assignment, he had recently spent four years in the Philippines helping to build their military forces and defenses. He was no stranger to East Asia.

As Ike understood it, the Pacific war situation that mid-December Sunday morning was appalling. The area in peril was over 7,000 miles from America’s West Coast and there was neither the transportation capacity nor the naval escort necessary to carry any meaningful relief to the American and allied troops in the Philippines, the Dutch East Indies, Malaya, or any other vital Pacific posts. There were supply ships and escort vessels being used in the Atlantic convoys to sustain Great Britain, but these were barely enough to do the job. They could not be diverted, and increases in shipping would not appear for a few years yet.

All the desktop calculations Eisenhower could do simply verified the fact that the United States could not rescue the thousands of American soldiers defending the Philippines before the largely unopposed invading Japanese forces would capture the archipelago completely. Support could be dribbled in by submarine and blockade runners, but the garrisons were without doubt doomed.

Consequently Eisenhower advised:

"We can not prevail in the Philippines, but we must send what little aid is available. The allied countries might excuse (our) failure, but would never accept complete abandonment. Our central strategy should be to open and maintain water and aerial supply routes between the U.S. west coast and Australia. We must build up the ground, sea and air forces that will be required to eventually attack north and recapture the Philippines and other points that the Japanese will have invaded and occupied."

Many high level studies would be done in the coming months, many meetings with the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the Commander in Chief; President Roosevelt, would be held in the months to follow. But America’s military strategy to make Australia the base for the U.S. Army and Army Air Force response in the Pacific would remain precisely as Dwight Eisenhower envisioned and recommended in December of 1941. His many years of study and careful preparation had certainly paid off for Eisenhower, for Marshall, and for the United States in the long run.

And:

"The material for the large fleet and amphibious capabilities, as well as logistical challenges and the vast distances to defeat Japan, made her that much more formidable even before the first soldier fired his weapon. And almost every battle in the Pacific was a combined air/sea/land campaign as opposed to a strictly land battle once the Allies were ashore in Normandy. While Hitler's land battle was halted at Moscow in Dec.'41, the Japanese embarassed both the British in Malaysia, and the Americans in the Philippines - by exploiting their air/land/sea capabilities and strategic mobility, while maitaining a large land battle of their own against Nationalist & Maoist forces in China"

Me (Clint) again, with the material on hand and the economic realities of what we could produce, in what time-frame, The Philippines were simply put; "doomed", as were Wake, Guam, the Dutch East Indies, Singapore, Hong Kong, and southeast Asia. The distances were too great, the trained manpower too limited, the transport shipping non-existent, and the convoy protection ability was sitting in the mud in Pearl. A line of "fortress America" was drawn up that extended from the Aleutian Islands to Midway, then looping back south and east to the Panama Canal Zone was drawn up. The Navy and the Army's major task would be to secure the nation's Pacific and Atlantic defenses--along the line Alaska to Hawaii to Ecuador in the Pacific so that the bases in Hawaii and the Panama Canal would be first and foremost protected from attack. There simply wasn’t enough military gear or manpower to re-enforce or re-supply outlying bases beyond those limits.

We (American planners) had underestimated the Japanese abilities before Pearl Harbor was attacked, and perhaps now we "drew back" to consolidate our position with less risk a bit too far. But that said, knowing and admitting our own limitations was the wisest choice.

See:

HyperWar: US Army in WWII: The Framework of Hemisphere Defense [Chapter 7]

 

can you send me the link to this document on youtube?

 

YouTube - Warlords (Churchill v Roosevelt) - 1/5

This part 1 or 5

 

But that was to reinforce Wake and it was launched from PH. I stand by my claim if the fleet isn't at PH there is no way they are going to evacuate Wake before the Japanese get there. Indeed if there is no fleet at PH then the Japanese will probably move up the assualt on Wake.

 

Well put 'lwd", and that is exactly why FDR didn't "blunder" as DogFather would assert and go flailing off in anger in wasteful directions. He listened to his military advisors, and husbanded America's forces for the "long haul", not wasting them in blind revenge mode.

This is NOT a personality flaw, it is an admirable quality in leadership.

 

I never suggested FDR did "go flailing off in anger". After the war started
he listened to his military leaders. After all, he needed to start winning the
war, well before the 1944 election.

I suggest people watch this documentry and decide for themselves.

 

I took your suggestion and watched it. As a professional journalist and a former TV line producer, I think it plays too loosely with established historical facts.
I respectfully suggest you review Opanapointer's excellent posts on Pearl Harbor myths.

 

Actually what you implied was that FDR was a dullard, and didn't listen to his military advisors in pre-war planning. And you did suggest that he should have done "more" to aid or relieve the troops on both the Philippine Islands and other Pacific Islands. Those options had been weighed before Pearl Harbor was attacked, solidified in the Rainbow Plans (section 5 for the PTO), and reenforced by Ike Eisenhower's independent anaylsis a week after Pearl. FDR listened both before and after war started, not just after war started.

He had afterall instituted the first peace-time draft in 1940 (upon the advice of Marshall in 1939), pushed through a bill for a two ocean navy (upon the advice of Leheay), and increased defense spending for weapons research before he even went for his third term in 1940.

There was no illegality in that BTW, as there were at the time no provisions/laws against it, only "tradition" stretching back to George Washington.

 

Good point Brndrt1!

 

Your first sentence is incorrect and your second irrelevant. FDR started listening to his miliatary leaders/advisors well before the war started. He did so because he wanted to win the war he saw coming.

 

I have read OP's Pearl Harbor myths, and gone around and around with him and others. But this doc was about Europe, the PTO was never mentioned. This technique of using a broad generalization, like "it plays
too loosely with established historical facts", is very common on this
forum. It often seems to take place whenever, new ideas come to light.

I did my own research, on some of the key figures in this doc. Such as,
Sec of War Stimson and Sec of Interior Ickes, I could find no errors.
So, if you could be more specific, I would be happy to take that into
account. I posted about this doc, because I feel it's a good overview
of these two leaders and it was entertaining.

If you're a professional journalist, you should have no problem, pointing
out the errors, or exaggerations, you claims are in the doc.