Pearl Harbor

[mrwho]

This will be a really, really long post, just to warn you I first started researching Pearl Harbor in my senior year of high school (2004) for a major english project that would replace our exam and all of our tests. I was looking at various books dealing with the topic, and came across one titled "Day of Deceit: The truth about FDR and Pearl Harbor."

Skeptical, I checked out the author, and his name is Robert Stinnett; he was in the Navy for 4 years, and is a consultant on the Pacific War for the BBC and TV shows in Japan. He spent years going through 200,000 documents and interviews, and has done his research well. He managed to convince me and several others that I have showed the book to that Pearl Harbor was not a surprise attack; the U.S. pressured japan into attacking U.S forces to draw us into WWII to stop Hitler from taking over the rest of Europe and Britain (I think this was a risky move by FDR, but probably saved thousands of lives). I will be presenting the evidence that he and others have found, and I would love to hear your opinions/thoughts, and answer any questions that you have.

The Japanese attack plans were not kept a secret from U.S. Navy intelligence when Japan started planning the attack in the fall of 1940. Naval Minister Admiral Oikawa met with Admiral Yamamoto to discuss current relations with America. When it turned to discussing war, both men agreed that a surprise attack was best to start a war against the U.S. the attack was meant to be a cover attack or diversion, because Japan wanted to establish a Yen monetary block in the East Asian countries to lessen the influence by America and Britain, and would eventually sieze control of the Phillipine Islands. Japan thought it wise to cripple the U.S Naval forces so the U.S. wouldn't be able to protect the Phillipine Islands, and Britain was already busy with Hitler.
Unfortunately for Japan, the attack backfired; the U.S had enough cruisers and battleships left (removed from Pearl Harbor before Japan bombed it) to wage war until FDR's orders for 100 battleships/cruisers was completed by mid-1943. By mid-January 1941, Yamamoto had sketched out his plans for the attack, but the plans were leaked to the U.S. Embassy in Tokyo.
On January 26, 1941, a Third Secretary at the Embassy named Max Bishop was told that Japanese forces were planning a surprise attack on Pearl Harbor if trouble developed with the U.S. Copies of this info were sent to the State Department in Washington D.C, Roosevelt, his aides, and Navy/Army intelligence commanders.
The U.S Navy, along with Great Britain and the Dutch, had been able to crack the two major Japanese codes; the 5-Num Code and Purple Code.
The 5-Num Code was the primary Japanese Naval Code, named b/c all locations or ships were given a five-number sequence (like 20673). It was first cracked in late September 1940, and by October was 99% readable (according to Rear Admiral Royal Ingersall, Assistant Chief of Naval Operations). The code was used to track Japanese warships, tankers, and submarines, and was effective from October 4, 1940 to December 6, 1941. Using this code, there were 884 intercepted and read messages from Admiral Nagumo, one of the Japanese Admirals in the force headed to Hawaii. The second code, the Purple Code, was cracked in October 1940 and was the major diplomatic code used to communicate in the Japanese gov't. and occasionally Admiral Yamamoto (leading the fleet to Pearl Harbor). All messages intercepted were decrypted and read within 24 hours, and were passed along to militray and intelligence officers, as well as FDR.

The US was able to track the Japanese fleet and tankers very accurately. Every day, at 8 AM and 8 PM, the tankers reported their latitude and longitute positions in Morse Code, and were part of 210 movement reports of Japanese warships and tankers between November 2 and December 4, 1941. Also, from November 18 to December 1, 1941 navy Intelligence intercepted a series of messages from Admiral Yamamoto to the carriers, and here's one from November 26, 1941:
THE TASK FORCE, KEEPING ITS MOVEMENTS STRICTLY SECRET AND MAINTAIN CLOSE GUARD AGAINST SUBMARINES AND AIRCRAFT, SHALL ADVANCE INTO HAWAIIN WATERS AND UPON THE VERY OPENING OF HOSTILITIES SHALL ATTACK THE MAIN FORCE OF THE UNITED STATES FLEETIN HAWAII AND DELA IT A MORTAL BLOW. THE FIRST AIR RAID IS PLANNED OFR THE DAWN OF X-DAY. EXACT DATE TO BE GIVEN BY LATER ORDER. UPON COMPLETION OF THE AIR RAID, THE TASK FORCE... SHALL SPEEDILY LEAVE THE ENEMY WATERS AND THEN RETURN TO JAPAN.

On November 18, one message defied all security measures and spelled out H-I-T-O-K-A-P-PU-B-A-Y. Hitokappu Bay was the meeting location for the fleet to attack Pearl Harbor (six carriers, two battleships, two heavy cruisers, one light cruiser, eleven destroyers, and three submarines, plus seven tankers). The message wasn't encoded b/c there was no time to give the Bay a 5-num Code b/c it was added at the last second to the list of locations to be used by the fleet; this was also intercepted by British monitors in Singapore.
But what about the radio silence that was supposedly in effect? That order, dated November 24, 1941 left a provision to allow radio communications:
FROM 26 NOVMEBER, SHIPS OF COMBINED FLEET WILL OBSERVE RADIO COMMUNICATION PROCEDURES AS FOLLOWS. (1) EXCEPT IT EXTREME EMERGENCY, THE MAIN FORCE AND ITS ATTACHED FORCES WILL CEASE CIMMUNICATING (2)OTHER FORCES ARE AT DISCRETION OF THEIR RESPECTIVE COMMANDERS (3) SUPPLY SHIPS, REPAIR SHIPS, HOSPITAL SHIPS, ETC. WILL REPORT DIRECTLY TO PARTIES CONCERNED.

Other countries were aware of the "surprise" attack to be carried out against America. On Novmeber 31, 1941, Colonel Murton Seymour (a Canadian officer) was told British military intelligence had recieved word of a surprise Japanese attack on Pearl harbor scheduled for December 8 (Japan is December 8, U.S. is December 7 because of the time difference). Also, British Prime Minister Lestor Pearson conceded that both the British and Americans had good reason to believe that Japan might launch a surprise attack on Pearl Harbor in the early part of December. Unfortunately, several key members of the Navy were purposely not told of this intelligence, the intercepted documents, or the fact that the Navy had been cracking Japanese codes and reading intercepts at will for the past 18 months.

When Admiral james Richardson, head of Pearl Harbor, was told of Roosevelt's plan to provoke Japan into attacking the Fleet at Pearl Harbor, he refused, saying that the loss of men and ships was not something he would willingly let happen. Roosevelt promptly fired him, and replaced him with someone who would do what FDR wanted, and that someone was Rear Admiral Kishner, the new Fleet Commander at Pearl Harbor. Roosevelt decided it would be best if Kimmel was deliberately left out of the intelligence loop in order to make the attack look like a complete surprise; Kimmel was never told of the Navy's ability to crack Japanese codes, and never saw any of the interecepts. Sensing he was out of the loop, he asked that any and all transcripts be made available to him, but his requests were denied.

President Roosevelt wanted Japan to make the first move against the United States because he knew one very important thing: Europe was losing the war against Hitler and the Axis powers, and if Europe fell, the United States was next. Unfortunately for Roosevelt, 80% of the public was against entering 'Europe's War' so Roosevelt needed to do something that would give him full public and military support, and the answer was a semingly unprovoked attack on American soil by Japan. Japan was picked b/c of its love of surprise attacks (having started wars that way before) and would be easy to manipulate the Japanese because relations with Japan were already not the best to begin with. Since Roosevelt desired that Japan make the first move against the U.S., he and Lt. Commander Arthur McCollum devised an eight-step program to goad Japan into attacking the U.S., and they are as follows:

A. Arrange for the U.S. use of British Pacific Bases
B. Urge the Dutch to cut off Japanese access to Southeast Asia (Phillippine Islands) natural resources
C. Give all possible aid to Chinese gov't. of Chang Kai-shek
D. Send divisions of heavy cruisers to Orient, Phillippines, or Singapore
E. Send two divisions of submarines to the Orient
F. Keep main strength of U.S. Fleet invicinity of Hawaiian islands
G. Insist that the Dutch refuse Japanese demands for economic concessions, such as oil and rubber
H. Completely embargo all trade with Japan, and the British Empire will do the same as well.

This program was written on October 7, 1940, and was out into effect the next day, with Roosevelt personally getting involved, especially step D (he said he "didn't mind losing one or two cruisers, but do not take a chance on losing five or six." Roosevelt and McCollum thought that this was a good way of entering the war with public and military support, and members of the Cabinet thought so too. But before this was written, something happened that made Japan seem like a perfect choice.

In Septmeber of 1940, Germany, Italy, and Japan signed a mutual-assistance alliance, called the Tripartic Act. What this meant was if one of those countries was attacked or attacked another country, the other two would aid the third in any way possible, including going to war. So by pressuring Japan into attacking, the U.S. would be drawn into WWII.

Obviously, once Japan started planning attacks against Pearl Harbor, it needed spies to gather information, and they arrives in March 1941. FDR had passed a secret memorandum saying that all Japanese citizens who meet with japanese officers or ships should be placed on a special list in case of trouble. Because the spies had to meet with Japanese ships or officers in order to radio Tokyo on their progress and information they learned about American forces on the island, they were almost immediately identified. One spy, Takeo Yoshikawa, was to gather fleet operational details, obtain Hawaiin maps including photographs, and assemble them into an intelligence picture for use by Japanese torpedo and bombing pilots. Over the next eight months, he would gradually present Pearl Harbor as the target.

In April-Junem Takepo scouted military installations in Oahu, Hawaii. He and the other spies never entered or took pictures of the military intallations; they bought maps and postcards instead. His spy operations took part in two phases: from March 29 to August 21, 1941 and from August 21 to December 6. In the first phase, dealing with types of aircraft and warships operating from Pearl Harbor and the Army's airfields, he sent 22 messages to Tokyo, and 19 of them were intercepted and read by Navy/Army stations.

Takeo's second phase established grid coordinates for Pearl Harbor so Toky could prepare maps of Pacific Fleet anchorages for the bombing and torpedo pilots of japan's First Air Fleet. By August 27, his first bomb map of Pearl Harbor was in Tokyo, as well as the intercept pile of the Navy. Towards the end of the second period, he disclosed that Pearl Harbor was the intended target of the strike; there were a total of 69 messages sent to Tokyo and 58 were intercepted and read by the Navy/Army.

Finally, there was one very clear thing that happened on the morning of the attack that should have alerted Pearl Harbor that something was up: about two hours before that attack occurred, a Navy Battleship
detected and sunk a Japanese two-man midget submarine carrying two torpedoes.

There are some small irregularities (one being that a online source said that Lestor Pearson was the Prime Minister, which is incorrect. From 1935 to 1941 he served in the office of the High Commissioner for Canada in London; in May, 1941, he was appointed assistant undersecretary of state for External Affairs at Ottawa; in June, 1942, named minister-counselor at the Canadian Legation in Washington.

Wooh, my hands are a little sore. Questions? Thoughts?

[Spikee]

wow that was a thrilling read on a firday night after a night around town, thanks!

[Ben]

Im not even going to think about reading that

[Dale]

Firstly.. well written Heh!

And.. well... yeah i guess it makes sense But i don't know enough about the subject to be honest, there's a great chance that the military did know, well ... if you're correct then they did know. Maybe they just didn't assess the threat, or i don't know...er...yeah?!?!

Was a good read anyways


Also.. would you like me to put this in Clashing Opinions forum?

[carrotderek]

Pretty gud aside from a few grammatical + spelling mistakes I do have a gripe at this:

...British Prime Minister Lestor Pearson...

Ja the source is very dodgy, probably too dodgy to even cite as a source. He was Canadian Prime Minister in the 60s muah. The wartime PM of Canada was William Lyon Mackenzie King.

[mrwho]

yeah, the source was dodgy. My teacher made me use more than 2 sources, so I had to pick the 'least dodgy' of what I had.

Dale (and others) I think that FDR and others pushed Japan into attacking us, they knew when and where, and that it was a good decision needed to enter the war. Hitler had to be stopped, and Britain was arguably close to being defeated by Hitler, but might have been able to hold on for a bit longer.

And this is not straight from my paper, it's a summarry (the paper was 11 pages long). Glad you enjoy, and feel free t oask questions

[carrotderek]

You could've found more accurate sources, not just pick the lesser of two evils.

Or they could've wanted to go into the war to boost the economy out of the depression.

[Relentless]

Im not even going to think about reading that

Gosh darn, you must have a real hard time reading books then.

[mrwho]

Dale, you can put it in clashing opinions, thanks.

Shurai: the due date was in a few days, and then my teacher reminded us that we had to use more than 3 sources, so I had no time to find another source and research it, or I would have found a better source.

[Deadloader]

Gosh darn, you must have a real hard time reading books then.

Ben = no books needed

Ben = Goblet of wisdom

Ben = BUTTSECKS!!