December 7th

[nietzschefan]

Strategic assessments are not plans for or lobbing of a war, and your post show that it was decided to do nothing to shift the balance of power in the Pacific at that time because of our interest in Britain and that at the least they should end the war in a stalemate with Germany and Italy.

Comment by Captain Knox

It is unquestionably to out general interest that Britain be not licked - just now she has a stalemate and probably cant do better. We ought to make it certain that she at least gets a stalemate. For this she will probably need from us substantial further destroyers and air reinforcements to England. We should not precipitate anything in the Orient that should hamper our ability to do this - so long as probability continues.

Finally a good argument out of you. None the less, my position remains. Naval Intelligence was talking about doing things to escalate tension with the Japanese, one year before pearl harbor. It is interesting that point by point they nearly did all the things listed in that memo. No it is not proven as fact that they were attempting to goad the Japs into an attack, however taking in all the things together and as a time line it seems quite clear to me. Embargo on strategic resources, militarizing the Philippines and other Pacific bases(Guam,Midway), lend/leasing and resources to China, freezing Japanese assets in America, beginning strategic bomber production, gearing up war material production, it seems pretty clear the future intentions of the U.S. Then you make a BIG fat juicy target at pearl harbor. You mean to tell me they didn't think having that many battleships in port for that long with increasing "public" tentions running high and they were taken by complete surprise by the attack?

Why were the Carriers all at sea on Dec 7th, 1941, Buffalo? I honestly want any answer you've got to that one.

Frankly even if the exact when/how was not known. Dereliction was not just on Kimmel and Short's shoulders. Intelligence and perhaps even at political levels should have been investigated.

 

[Buffalo Roam]

Finally a good argument out of you. None the less, my position remains. Naval Intelligence was talking about doing things to escalate tension with the Japanese, one year before pearl harbor. It is interesting that point by point they nearly did all the things listed in that memo. No it is not proven as fact that they were attempting to goad the Japs into an attack, however taking in all the things together and as a time line it seems quite clear to me. Embargo on strategic resources, militarizing the Philippines and other Pacific bases(Guam,Midway), lend/leasing and resources to China, freezing Japanese assets in America, beginning strategic bomber production, gearing up war material production, it seems pretty clear the future intentions of the U.S. Then you make a BIG fat juicy target at pearl harbor. You mean to tell me they didn't think having that many battleships in port for that long with increasing "public" tentions running high and they were taken by complete surprise by the attack?

Why were the Carriers all at sea on Dec 7th, 1941, Buffalo? I honestly want any answer you've got to that one.

Frankly even if the exact when/how was not known. Dereliction was not just on Kimmel and Short's shoulders. Intelligence and perhaps even at political levels should have been investigated.

Read the report in full, it was a strategic assessment of the situation, it was not a recommendation for starting a war or a plane to do so.

Finally a good argument out of you.

What? I used your own post to prove you wrong, your the one with out any good points of debate.

You are blind to good debate points.

 

[Buffalo Roam]

Why were the Carriers all at sea on Dec 7th, 1941, Buffalo? I honestly want any answer you've got to that one.

Here is a answer that I know won't satisfy you but at the time of Pearl Harbor attack Aircraft were not considered Capital Ships, that Honor belonged to the Battleship, our tactics at that point in time were based around the Battleship, and the Battleship on line, and the Carrier was seen in a support role to the Battleship, scouting and protectionof the main fleet, it was only after Pearl Harbor, and a few hard lessons at the Coral Sea, and necessity that we moved to the Carriers as our main striking force, six months after Pearl Harbor.

The carrier developed from what was seen as a supporting unit by naval theorists in the 1920s and 1930s (portable air-cover against annoying enemy scouts) to the main striking arm of a bluewater navy. The battleship, in development for more than three centuries to stand in a battleline, the centerpiece for nearly very navy in the world.

Now show where there was any tactical doctrine before Pearl Harbor that used the Carriers as the main striking force of the Fleet, their was none.

The importance of the Carriers was only first realized at the Battle of the Coral Sea, and only then did the U.S. start to move to a Carrier Centered Battle Strategy.

 

[nietzschefan]

Read the report in full, it was a strategic assessment of the situation, it was not a recommendation for starting a war or a plane to do so.



What? I used your own post to prove you wrong, your the one with out any good points of debate.

You are blind to good debate points.

And you pick and choose what to debate. Your position is weak. What have to got to say to the U.S choosing political options they knew would lead to war and then not being prepared for it?

 

[Buffalo Roam]

And you pick and choose what to debate. Your position is weak. What have to got to say to the U.S choosing political options they knew would lead to war and then not being prepared for it?

Monday morning quarterbacks are always right, they weren't there, and they never played in the game.

My position is far from weak, it isn't based on conspiracy theories that pick and choose separate lines and paragraphs out of context to the whole, just as your;

It is unquestionably to out general interest that Britain be not licked - just now she has a stalemate and probably cant do better. We ought to make it certain that she at least gets a stalemate. For this she will probably need from us substantial further destroyers and air reinforcements to England. We should not precipitate anything in the Orient that should hamper our ability to do this - so long as probability continues.

Just as you picked this Paragraph out of context to prove something and yet in the paragraph you picked the proof was stated that;

We should not precipitate anything in the Orient that should hamper our ability to do this

One of the last conspiracy theories I read said the the JN-25 code was a manual code adapted from a cypher, in reality the JN-25 code was a machine generated code that used a machine very similar to Enigma Machine of the Germans, and at the beginning of WWII we weren't reading JN-25, at the time of Midway we were reading only about 8% of any given message.

The other point is that when Japan launched the strike force for Pearl Harbor, the radio communications people were kept ashore sending false radio traffic, the;

There are several problems with this analysis. Surviving officers from Nagumo's ships state there was no radio traffic to have been overheard by anyone; their radio operators had been left in Japan to fake traffic for the benefit of listeners (i.e., military intelligence traffic analysts in other countries), and all radio transmitters aboard Nagumo's ships were physically disabled to prevent inadvertent broadcast and subsequent tracking of the attack force. According to a 1942 Japanese report[13] "In order to keep strict radio silence, through steps such as taking off fuses in the circuit, holding and sealing the keys were taken. During the operation, the stricted radio silence was perfectly carried out.... The Kido Butai used the radio instruments for the first time on the day of the attack since they had been fixed at the base approximately twenty days before and proved they worked well. Paper flaps had been inserted between key points of some transmitters on board Akagi to keep the strictest radio silence..." Commander Genda who helped plan the attack stated "We kept absolute Radio Silence" For about two weeks before the attack 31 ships "used flag and light signals" Former Lieutenant Commander Chuichi Yoshoka who was communications officer on the flagship Akagi, said he did not recall any ship dispatching a radio message before the attack. [14] Furthermore, Captain Kijiro in charge of the three Kido Butai submarines stated that nothing of interest occurred during the transit to Hawaiian waters. [15][/QUOTE

 

[nietzschefan]

"We should not precipitate anything in the Orient that should hamper our ability to do this"

BFD - My whole point was they were discussing strategies, of course not everyone is going to be for instigating a fight with Japan. You don't think I read that when I posted it? Putting it in large bold letters and "Shouting" real loud, does not make you win the arguement.
Again, point by point, it was exactly what the U.S did.

You wanna keep bringing up code? (I DIDN'T)
Ok,

Yes JN-25, was not broken, like completely cracked. However, there are conflicting reports on how many messages they were able to decrypt...and indeed the margin of error is unknown. I have heard that they had 7% of JN-25B code groups in 1941 and that might have been because of lack of manpower. Ok so, I don't give a fuck if they had 100%. Why? Because Japanese maintained complete communications silence for the attack(they even disabled the equipment). OMG Buff, i'm arguing your side again, you better put it in BOLD HUGE LETTERS. In case it wasn't clear, as I might not have blatently stated it, in your case I will make the exception since you don't even read the lines I write, let alone the implied message. I accept that Dec 7 was probably a surprise(carriers and b-17s did not find the Japs like they probably hoped - OPS BACKFIRE), however the inevitability of an immanent Pearl Harbor attack was a certainty that U.S Naval intelligence and probably the General Staff(if not the President!) was aware of.

Now you've got me on the subject of codes....and i've got some time here to blab about them...

The Dutch were freely passing their decrypts to the U.S(unknown content). Again why bring up coded messages we know nothing about. I do wonder why the Dutch would pass messages to the U.S so freely, or why they would think they would be useful to the U.S. I have read speculation they had everything to do with campaigning from Russia, to East Indies, to the Phillipines. The Phillipines, a whole other matter, feel free to open up another topic and I will detail what a dickhead MacArthur was.

They had Magic, they had Purple. Of course nothing, nothing at all was said on them to indicated the Japanese would attack, right Buff?

Wrong:

One PURPLE Message(of many):

Henry Clausen and Bruce Lee's Pearl Harbor: Final Judgement contains some interesting information on the intelligence available to Roosevelt and Churchill prior to the Attack. On page 367 in the Appendix is a PURPLE message, dated 29 November 1941, from the Japanese Ambassador in Berlin to Tokyo. A closing paragraph reads, " ... He (Ribbentrop) also said that if Japan were to go to war with America, Germany would, of course, join in immediately, and Hitler's intention was that there should be absolutely no question of Germany making a separate peace with England. ..." According to David Irving, Churchill (having full access to PURPLE traffic) was well aware of this message, noting it in red ink.

Ok enough about Codes(I will stop if you will).

Neither Admiral Kimmel nor General Short ever faced court martial. It is alleged this was to avoid disclosing information conspirators would not want to see made public. When asked about it(pearl), Kimmel replied, "Will historians know more later? Kimmel's reply to this was: ' ... I'll tell you what I believe. I think that most of the incriminating records have been destroyed. ... I doubt if the truth will ever emerge.' Brownlow, op. cit

There is still a LOT of information available that is still classified. Maybe someday it will come to light.

 

[John99]

Your Canadian. Just deal with it, theres plenty of Moosehead to go around and logs for the fire.

 

[Buffalo Roam]

Nothing here to indicate a attack is being planned, if there is please high light the pertinent section.

Henry Clausen and Bruce Lee's Pearl Harbor: Final Judgement contains some interesting information on the intelligence available to Roosevelt and Churchill prior to the Attack. On page 367 in the Appendix is a PURPLE message, dated 29 November 1941, from the Japanese Ambassador in Berlin to Tokyo. A closing paragraph reads, " ... He (Ribbentrop) also said that if Japan were to go to war with America, Germany would, of course, join in immediately, and Hitler's intention was that there should be absolutely no question of Germany making a separate peace with England. ..." According to David Irving, Churchill (having full access to PURPLE traffic) was well aware of this message, noting it in red ink.

now one of the interesting thing is that this information was available to Churchill who because of security may not have been able to share it with Roosevelt, just as there were Purple messages that we weren't sharing with the British.

The thing that you fail to recognize, is the inter-service rivalry that went on during that time frame, the Army and the Navy were in a constant battle for moneys from congress, they didn't co-operate with each other an any thing, they didn't share information, the same can be said of the political side, there were message intercepts that were kept from Roosevelt for fear of compromising the intelligence that we were reading Japanese code,
but we still weren't reading JN-25, we had a start when we had figured out a way of spotting the 5 figure add on, but that changed in the year before Pearl Harbor when the Japanese changed the system of 5 figure add on.

Now please show any intercepts that specifically name Hawaii, and Pearl Harbor as the point of attack, from all the information that I have ever seen the only mentions of Pearl Harbor were in hard copy messages, delivered by courier, point to point, never transmitted by radio traffic.

 

[S.A.M.]

What is normally done on December 7th?

Is there any common practise? What is the day called?

 

[mikenostic]

What is normally done on December 7th?

Is there any common practise? What is the day called?

http://www.holidayinsights.com/other/pearlharbor.htm

On Pearl Harbor Remembrance Day, U.S. flags are to be flown at half staff.

That should answer both your questions. :thumbsup:

 

[nietzschefan]

now one of the interesting thing is that this information was available to Churchill who because of security may not have been able to share it with Roosevelt, just as there were Purple messages that we weren't sharing with the British.

Now you are are just being lame. Of course Church shared that one,(he circled it in RED - just like you like to do Buff) you know damn well he would have, knowing it would help U.S entry. I think i'm through argueing with you(I've read your other recent debates here and they are all the same - stubborn and pointless).

 

[Orleander]

and since our flag on a pole attached to the porch, and can't be lowered, we tie a black ribbon to it.

 

[Buffalo Roam]

Now you are are just being lame. Of course Church shared that one,(he circled it in RED - just like you like to do Buff) you know damn well he would have, knowing it would help U.S entry. I think i'm through argueing with you(I've read your other recent debates here and they are all the same - stubborn and pointless).

No I am being factual, there was not a free flow of information, to much territorial infighting for power and budget money, for that to happen, all you have to do is look at the fights that took place in Congress at that time, for funding between the Navy and the Army, and the miniscule funding for our intelligence services, plus the attitude of many in the government.

From 1929 to 1933 he served as Secretary of State under President Herbert Hoover. In 1929 he shut down MI-8, the State Department's cryptanalytic office, saying, "Gentlemen don't read each other's mail."

I suggest that you read;

http://www.pokerplayernewspaper.com/viewarticle.php?id=681

in it it is shown that the best code breaker was not among the people invited back to MI-8 when we finally realized that we needed the ability to read foreign codes.

Yes everybody back in those day were very jealous of their little fiefdoms, and were not willing to share because it might mean someone else might get the credit and more funding.

 

[Gawdzilla Sama]

I've spent decades looking into this matter, I was gifted with a full set of the Hearing back in 1965. (I was fourteen at the time.) Some interesting things have come to light since then.

The "MAGIC" Background to Pearl Harbor lists the messages intercept by the Magic team and gives historical context for them. (Eight volumes)

The Congressional Hearings into the Attack on Pearl Harbor. (39 volumes of testimony and evidence, and a Summary volume.)

The Myths of Pearl Harbor. Top ten myths and their explanations, plus one jawdropping message from DC to Tokyo.

"West Wind Clear", a study of the rumor that the "Winds code" activation message had been sent.

The Pearl Harbor Attack Hearings, Additional Documents. Navigating the Hearings can be daunting, so I pulled the most pertinent documents out of the PDFs.

 

[river]

I've spent decades looking into this matter, I was gifted with a full set of the Hearing back in 1965. (I was fourteen at the time.) Some interesting things have come to light since then.

The "MAGIC" Background to Pearl Harbor lists the messages intercept by the Magic team and gives historical context for them. (Eight volumes)

The Congressional Hearings into the Attack on Pearl Harbor. (39 volumes of testimony and evidence, and a Summary volume.)

The Myths of Pearl Harbor. Top ten myths and their explanations, plus one jawdropping message from DC to Tokyo.

"West Wind Clear", a study of the rumor that the "Winds code" activation message had been sent.

The Pearl Harbor Attack Hearings, Additional Documents. Navigating the Hearings can be daunting, so I pulled the most pertinent documents out of the PDFs.

So your conclusion ?

Did the US know in advance that the Japanese would attack Pearl Harbour ?

And did the US intelligence crack the code between the US , and german embassies ?

 

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Picture this: FDR decides to let the Japanese attack Pearl Harbor without warning the troops there. Thousands of men are killed, many warships are immobilized or gone forever. We start the Pacific War with a major handicap in men and ships. (Remember, Enterprise was supposed to be in then, due on Saturday but slowed due to weather.)

If this is discovered FDR will be one of the biggest criminals in US history.

OR

FDR finds out about the impending raid and Hawaii is completely ready. Opana Point radarmen Lockard and Elliot track the Nagumo Kido Butai's first wave in and scores of P-40s are in the air waiting for them. All the ships in the harbor are buttoned up tight and guns ready. Hundreds of guns open fire from the ships and the mobile AAA units place around the harbor. The Japanese lose the cream of their carrier pilots with little to show for it.

If this happens FDR will be a hero for outwitting the dastardly attack.

Which one would you chose?

Why do you ask about the German embassies?