Yes! That IS The Question! "Did" Franklin Delano Roosevelt First DARE The Japanese To Attack Foregoing A Full Defensive Military Stance Preemptive! Glad That You Protect His Name! Fox! Rock's Czar! The World Was On Fire And Noone Could Save Me But You!
@@foxyroxstar The Pearl Harbor Strike Force was so secret even most of the Japanese military high command was in the dark about it. Their carrier force maintained radio silence the whole way and chose a route that avoided shipping lanes too.
@@partygrove5321 this was addressed in this telling! The Einsatzgruppen were the Schutzstaffel guerrillas of Nazi Germany who were guilty of mass murder, especially by shooting, during World War II..the ef'ing Japs were savage as well. The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) has been staging hundreds of semi-trucks filled with unspecified equipment at a closed air base in Michigan..repurposed Walmarts into containment facilities hubbed with mass transportation abilities?..certainly military occupation Makes Neutral (naked the city streets/Paris!) The Estate 'Capital Punishment Ready On The OLYMPIC Level, SAE! Rome Reviving?
The third wave was canceled due to extensive minor damage to planes from SMALL ARMS FIRE! The attack was a marginal failure and they needed luck to do that well…they killed a bunch of people, no significant strategic effect, most battleships were raised and all had marginal value this late in history anyway.
What a coincidence they were told not to go into pearl harbour. I think the usa knew they were coming. They needed it to happen so the public would back the declaration of war. Just my opinion
I agree. The old American battleships were not likely to change the course of the war before Midway, so the US carriers were key. If we somehow saved the battleships from sinking, not much would be different. Japan was doomed from the start because Yorktown and Lexington escaped Pearl Harbor. Ultimately, it was the Nukes that shocked Japan into surrender, and that timetable was fixed by the Manhattan Project.
@@Gen-X-Memories Enterprise was due in to Pearl Harbor from delivering USMC fighters to Wake on Saturday Dec. 6th, but was delayed by bad weather. Lexington was returning from a similar delivery to Midway. Saratoga was loading up aircraft in San Diego. The rest of the carriers were in the Atlantic.
That was answered in an article I read about a year ago. Those carriers were all on missions. Two were delivering fighter planes to other air fields and one was getting repairs, I think at San Diego. To fully prepare a carrier for long journeys requires several weeks of preparation so them leaving Pearl was not a last minute decision. At port, they get food about twice a week but if they are going on mission they have to load up to the max with food and fuel and all the stuff needed to maintain the thousands of sailors. Add up all the food and other things that are needed. Even soap for thousands of guys is a lot. Shower soap, laundry soap, cleaning soap for kitchen, different soap for scrubbing floors, etc. Frozen food takes up a lot of space, canned goods, dry goods. That is a lot of merchandise and requires planning far ahead of departure.
The attack on Pearl Harbor has a close connection to me. Just before the attack began my dad was getting ready to go ashore from his ship USS Raleigh CL-7. Just minutes before 8 AM the ship was rocked when an aerial torpedo struck the port side. The crew worked hard to stop flooding and managed to keep her afloat. About an hour later an armor piercing bomb passed near an ammo magazine, passed through the ship and exploded on the harbor floor. Fortunately, Raleigh survived. The ship went on to serve for the duration of WWII from the Aleutian Islands to the north and as far as Fiji to the south.
Hi. My Dad was also there. They were in the launch ready to go to Arizona. Attack happend. They went back to Ship. Heavy Cruiser New Orleans. They were very lucky!
TECHNICAL ERROR IN THIS VIDEO: Oscilloscopes do not "pick up" signals. They are not radio receivers. O-scopes only DISPLAY WAVEFORMS. They must be fed a signal from a receiver.
The radar sets back then didn't work like you see today. There was no radarscope that plotted positions. The radar sets used back then used oscilloscopes to measure the strength of a radar return signal at a given bearing. Point the antenna in one direction and look for any spikes on the scope.
@@BogeyTheBear He was not incorrect. The oscilloscope did not measure the strength; it displayed the result. That signal was sent to it by the radar antenna.
In 1905, ( correct me if I have the year wrong,) during a war between Russia and Japan, the Japanese fleet totally destroyed the Russian Baltic fleet at the Battle of Tsushima. With the loss of this fleet Russia was forced to negotiate for peace, with unfavorable terms. With the attack on Pearl Harbor Japanese hoped to repeat history.
The Japanese actually started that war by using destroyers torpedoing the Russian fleet at Port Arthur then laying mines to trap the Russian Pacific fleet then landing in Korea to take Port Arthur. The Baltic Fleet was sent to relieve that fleet.
The Japanese were strongly influenced by Hector Bywater's book 'War Plan Orange' which hypothesised in detail how a Japanese/American war in the Pacific could begin and would need to be fought. Yamamoto and many of his colleagues studied this book in great length once it was translated into Japanese and repeatedly war gamed its premise.
You are wrong here. The relevant event was the surprise attack on Port Arthur. Although, I'm sure the Japanese would have loved to repeat the Battle of Tsushima. Alas, Midway was pretty much a reverse Tsushima.
@@mikebronicki8264 I am not sure of your point here. The Battle of Port Arthur and the destruction of the Russian Eastern Fleet occurred in 1904. After which the Russians continued the war. The Battle of Tsushima and the destruction of the Russian Baltic Fleet occurred in 1905 and led to the Russian negotiating for peace. It was this battle, at Tsushima, that led the Japanese to seek a decisive naval battle, the attack at Pearl Harbor, in order to obligated the US to negotiate for peace. The Battle of Midway was another attempt by the Japanese to engage in a decisive naval battle. As you said, it "was pretty much a reverse Tsushima." Except that after their losses at Midway, the Japanese still did not seek peace.
The fact is, is that the US, and probably the UK had broken the Japanese Naval Code months before the attack. I was a grunt Marine in the Vietnam War. I find it beyond bizarre that you couldn't imagine that a US President would lie, and want to be attacked to inflame public opinion for war. They did it in WW I with the sinking of the Lusitania. A cruise ship loaded with weapons. They knew and denied it for decades. The Gulf of Tonkin in 1964. 2003 Weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. There were none. 'In War, truth is the first casualty' Aeschylus.
That FDR conspiracy theory has been debunked thoroughly. The US government knew the Nips were going to attack. But the Pacific is huge and no one expected Pearl Harbor to be attacked. Also no ships were sunk in the Gulf of Tonkin, which was just nervous trigger happy sailors firing at phantom ships.
We had broken the Japanese diplomatic code, not their navy code. Nothing in the intercepts pointed specifically to an attack on Hawaii, though there was quite a bit of intel from other sources (such as our ambassador to Japan, Joseph Grew) that pointed toward Hawaii. I'm not a fan of FDR by any stretch, but I've seen no convincing evidence that he knew an attack against Pearl Harbor was imminent.
@alexanderordinary2110 no, I didn't, but kept it short. And, not one plane hit the towers, or the Pentagon, or the field in Shanksville(?) Pennsylvania They were cruise missiles, or similar. In August 2001, BBC reported that the Pentagon had completed preparations for the invasion of Afghanistan. Final point about Pearl Harbor; it's not a coincidence that all aircraft carriers were sent a good distance from Oahu. Those at the highest levels knew. Just a handful, or more.
@@paulmeuse7774 All total and easily debunked lies about the WTC. And even most of the Japanese naval high command were unaware of the Pearl harbor Strike Force. It was ultra secret
The fleet was originally based on the west coast, Roosevelt moved it to Pearl Harbor against the advice of most of his Generals. Then, he started cutting exports to Japan like steel and oil, triggering Japanese expansion and ironically, it is when they invaded Vietnam that he began threatening them. Later when he froze all their assets in the US, that's when they decided something had to be done, they had no choice. And, when the attack happened, the 3 carriers stationed at Pearl 'happened' to be out on some insignificant mission and to top it up, many newspapers published articles the week before the attack saying: "Japs May Attack This Week-End" THEREFORE: -he moved the fleet -he cut export -he froze their assets -he got warnings from the Australians -he threatened them -he sent the carriers away -he might have told the Red Cross to send more people there -a warning was sent from Washington by Fed-Ex or UPS instead of the direct line, it got there a hour too late -he got Kimmel and Short court-martialed knowing they were perfectly innocent -AND, if the newspapers knew...
"The U.S. knew something was afoot, they just had no idea where." For effective military planning, you can not repeat can not worry about what potential enemies will do. You need to look at all the things they can do, and prepare to stop those things that can hurt you.
@@partygrove5321 the US military were expecting attacks in the Philippines and on Guam. And when these attacks came the day after the Pearl Harbor attack, it was clear the US Military preparations where woefully inadequate.
A that time the kind of attack that Japan launched on Pearl was unheard of. It's hard to predpate forsomething you kever hsve seen or heard of. Also at that time the US navy was not realy prepared for war in that way. It's like when Getmany used paratroopers during the attack on France. France was still planing for a war like in WW1 when Hermany totaly surprised them and faught a war that depended on speed a mmovement.After Pearl the US transformed the way they used the navy.
As a teenager, my best friend's dad told me that he was a gunner's mate aboard USS Arizona. On the night of December 6th, he got drunk and was involved in a bar fight. The result of that fight was that the sailors involved were apprehended by the shore patrol. He and his buddies spent the night sobering up in the shore patrol brig, rather than being aboard USS Arizona.
Japanese doctrine never considered attacking the port facilities or fuel tanks. More to the point, the fuel tanks were not nearly as easy to destroy as people think they were, and destroying the port facilities would have taken time that the Japanese did not have.
Japan blundered by attacking Pearl harbor in the first place, regardless if they attacked the Oil Facilities ,which were never really considered (the Third Strike Myth), Japan was fighting a war with an opponent they could not defeat. Japan could never win a long term war against the United States but their thinking was based on their previous experiences, Tsushima and the attempted Mongol invasion, where a single battle decided the outcome of the war, in their mind logistics was not relevant and even if it was they did not have the logistical capability to pull it off.
There was an interview of an older man who was alive at this time and he said if Japan had continued onward to the US mainland they probably could've taken some territory here.He said the US military wasn't up to strength to repeal invaders at that time.
My uncle was a US Marine stationed at Pearl. He told me that the carriers were normally in port every Sunday. For some reason they were all moved south ! FDR knew the attack was coming.
I think that Short did take defensive measures. He just prepared to defend against sabotage. He was not ready for air attack. It seems that this was a pretty good position to take.
Short and Kimmel DID heed the warnings. They had a week or more of active alert status before the 7th that had the whole facility on edge and exhausted, and decided on a brief stand down to R&R the troops. Understandable, but ill timed.
Short and Kimmel were hung out to dry. MacArthur was similarly negligent in the Philippines in spite of having 9 hrs warning after Pearl Harbor, but he is considered a hero. Also, the video fails to mention the Japanese attack on Malaya, with troop landings at Kota Bharu occurring 90 minutes before the attack on Pearl Harbor. On that side of the date line the date was December 8. The landings were opposed by Indian troops and the RAF. By the evening of December 4, British intelligence had been expecting that attack, but not one on American territory. Lord Halifax, the British ambassador to Washington wrote in his diary, “Everything looks exactly like the Japanese balloon going up in the course of a day or two...cyphers being burnt, secret messages in that sense, etc.”
MacArthur heard about the attack from a commercial radio broadcast, and yet he had a Magic encryption machine, in Manila. Britain got two Magic machines, from the US, to watch Japanese moves, in exchange for two Enigma machines, so the US could monitor German moves There was a fourth machine that was to go to Pearl, but it was still in the factory being built. It would have made more sense, if Kimmel got one, first, and Britain got the one still in the factory, later.
MacArthur was not sacked for a number of reasons. First, the Philippine government would have felt even more deserted by the US if MacArthur was relieved. Second, MacArthur had been Chief of Staff so it would be awkward to bring him back to Washington D.C, with Marshall now as Chief of Staff. Third, most military and political brass expected the attack on the Philippines, but now Hawaii.
Short clearly failed to prepare for an attack. Kimmel was held responsible because that is the navy tradition. Short was responsible for packing the planes in tight groupings and he shut down the combat center so there was no way to get an alert.
Like many my age (I'm in my 60s) I grew up hearing stories from my parents about FDR knowing about Pearl Harbor before the attack, and have largely dismissed them. Then I read 'And I Was There - Pearl Harbor and Midway - Breaking the Secrets ' by the late Rear Admiral Edwin Layton, the US Pacific Fleet Intelligence Officer before and during WWII. It is a long and extremely detailed book, but one which anyone interested in the Second World War should read. There is more than enough documentation to support the probability that FDR knew Pearl Harbor was going to be attacked and allowed it to take place to get us into the war on Britain's side. Chief among the details was the fact that Soviets had an extensive Intelligence network in Japan and was aware of their War plans, and was sharing much of it with us. Also, Admiral Richmond Kelly Turner (AKA 'Terrible' Turner) as the Navy's director of war plans routinely kept vital intel about Japanese diplomatic communications from both Admiral Kimmel and General Short, that would have enabled them to properly defend Hawaii had they known Japanese spies were routinely sending 'ships in Harbor' reports through diplomatic channels back to Tokyo that Turner knew of, but did not share with either Kimmel or Short. I highly recommend this book for anyone with the courage to penetrate the myths and face the probability that many of our country's leaders put their political intentions ahead of the National security. FDR had PLENTY of intel on Japanese intentions...
The only comment with truth in this entire comments section. It's quite ironic that WW2 has more myths and lies than it ever has when the internet was supposedly going to be a library of knowledge. It's just flooded with lies and (Allied) war propaganda instead. Every facet in my decades research concludes that the Allied cause of war in both the Pacific & Destruction of Europe are falsehoods rooted in hypocrisy, deception, and ill-intent.
Japan held up their end of the bargain with the third reich! From many accounts Hitler was sure they would be in control of Russia by that time and the next target was North America. But the blitzkrieg failed and Russia fought back.
The Soviets did not have an extensive intelligence network in Japan, they had Richard Sorge. The Soviets did not share their intelligence with anyone. The US was already in a shooting war with Germany in the Atlantic, and had been since October 1941. Pearl Harbour did not bring Germany into the war with the US, anymore than the German invasion of the USSR in June 1940 brought Japan into war with the USSR. The Automedon incident combined with the idea that US foreign policy makers were stupid/naive enough to believe Japanese aggression could be stopped by economic sanctions. The Japanese were going to seize the British, Dutch and French colonial possessions regardless of what the US did. Cutting off oil and steel to Japan was the immediate catalyst to Pearl Harbour. FDR had ZERO intel on Japanese intentions.
An attack on Pearl Harbor was considered very unlikely because the Japanese Navy ships did not have the range to sail that far without refueling. Trouble was the Japanese Navy came up with clever ways to carry a lot of extra fuel to make the trip.
Concerning the Opana radar site... the two enlisted operators were just training with the unit. There had never been any operational training exercises to acquaint the operators, Army fighter direction or Hawaii command personnel with the capability or employment of the unit. The officer on duty at Hickam Field, Lt Tyler had just been assigned to Hawaii, and that Sunday was his first duty day. Even if he had raised the alarm, the vast majority of the assigned aircraft had been prepared to thwart a subversive "Fifth Column" terrorist attack, defueled and disarmed, per Washington's orders. It is unlikely that the US military in Hawaii could have been lulled into a more passive stance than they were. In fact, intelligence pointed more to attacks in East Asia than anywhere else.
I think Roosevelt and "crew" gave those orders to make it easier for Japan to attack Pearl Harbor with little aerial opposition. Roosevelt reminds me of Biden. Both traitors.
incorrect on several points. There were 6 radars stations on Oahu and they all reported to a command center and collectively known as Aircraft Warning (ACW) Unit. They were trained by the British RAF in the interception techniques they had used to defeat the Luftwaffe a year earlier. At least 9 air raid exercises had been conducted by the ACW so the personnel had been trained however Gen Short ordered a "stand down" on 6th and 7th December. LT Taylor was in fact a new Pursuit Pilot passing through the new ACW on his day off and just happened to be the most senior man the handful of soldiers answering telephones could find, he was never assigned to the ACW. Besides Opana another radar station spotted the incoming Japanese. It was Short himself who ordered the change to defend against a fifth column, not Washington, as fact Short later tried to conceal by destroying official communications between his command and General Marshall. In fact Marshall specifically told short his primary mission was the defence of the fleet and provided him with the highest priority of equipment such as the ACW, the latest P40s and 90 anti aircraft guns that were never deployed. Short himself dismissed the notions he needed these assets when he assumed the Navy would warn him of any enemy fleet that may approach.
@Freedomfred939 My remarks concerned the Opana Point site only. General Short was not at all interested in radar, or it's use. The SCR270 radars had only recently arrived in Hawaii, and were only assembled and usable by November 1941. While Maj Kenneth Bregquist had been trained in the use of the SCR270 radars, there was no appreciable technical transfer between Great Britain and the US until the Tizard mission in 1940. This was a high level transfer of research materials, not military tactics. The first transfer of British GCI tactical doctrine to the US occurred when the Royal Navy lent HMS Victorious to the US Navy in early 1943, and she operated with Saratoga in the South Pacific as "USS Robin." This was well after Pearl Harbor. In the month those radars operated prior to the attack, Gen Short limited their operation to 4 hours per day, with all units shut down by 0700. It is unlikely in that short span that the operators became proficient in their basic operation, let alone skilled in any sort of operational employment. The AWS concept was in development at the time of Pearl Harbor, the Army was in the early stages of converting Pursuit Squadrons into Inteceptor Squadrons, but integration of separate elements into a whole system was still just a concept on Dec. 7th. In fact, the two privates at Opana kept the unit running late on Dec 7th to get extra practice because they had a large target to work with. Opana was remote enough that they had to hitch a ride to a gas station to report anything they observed. As far as the other units on Hawaii, their orientation, terrain masking, and the limited range of the SCR270 sets meant Opana was the only site that was in a position to observe the inbound strike. While Washington may have provided the equipment with the intent to use every advanced device possible (it was Gen "Hap" Arnold who was pushing radar) the device was little understood by operational commanders and field officers in both the Army and Navy, except by scientists and the few military men trained specifically to use the device. On Lt Taylor. Lt Taylor was a fight pilot assigned to Wheeler Field. Lt Tyler was the officer in Schafter... I believe I've been using "Taylor" instead of "Tyler." Yes Gen Short did order the "5th column defensive posture" prior to the Pearl Harbor attack, as I pointed out in another post. However, Short only took this measure because of direction from Washington. In a letter from Secretary of the Navy Frank Knox to Secretary of War Henry Stimson on Jan 24th, 1941, Knox stated the primary threats to the Fleet in Pearl Harbor were: 1) Air bombing attack, 2) Air torpedo plane attack, 3) SABOTAGE, 4) Submarine attack, 5) Mining, and 6) Bombardment by gunfire. Stimson replied to this letter on February 7th, and both letters were provided to both Kimmell and Short. It was agreed that while Short was responsible for defense from aerial attack, the Navy was responsible for defense from the sea. This meant for Short that he could expect any areal attack to be conducted by naval forces. This left defense for sabotage, directed by the civilian authorities in Washington. That German attacks in western Europe were proceeded by "5th column" sabotage attacks (in rumor or fact), was in common discussion at the time of the attack by officers throughout our military. In addition, General Marshall's "war warning" message spoke of miliary action by the Japanese directed at targets in East Asia or the Canal Zone. Taken together with the general suspicion of the Japanese population of Hawaii in those times led Short to defend against sabotage. Note: His command chain gave him an imperative command to take such action when he was assigned to Hawaii, and Short and Kimmell rarely spoke after their assignment to Hawaii.
The US did not “join” in WWII. The US was given Japans' version of a declaration of war, and that was the extent of it, the US was only at war with Japan. The US did not join in the worldwide war until after Germany and Italy declared war on the US. The isolationist declarations kept the US out of the European theater unless the Axis powers there declared war on the US.
@@timapple6586 I don't think they gave much if anything in the way of munitions to the Japanese, but the Japanese were well aware that their enemies in Hong Kong, Malaya, Borneo, Singapore and Australia etc were getting American weapons. Americans think the war started in 1941. British think it started in 1939. The Chinese sometimes think it started in the mid thirties. My cynical side suggests that the Americans wanted the Soviets and Nazis to knock seven shades out of each other, but also for the western European powers to be weakened so they could step in. The British Commonwealth already spoke English so it was an ideal marketplace for them to expand into after the war. The Americans also got to reorient the economies of West Germany, Italy, Japan, Britain, France and Australia etc after the war in their favour.
@@timapple6586 Had written out other stuff, it's gone now thanks to YT. 👎 Short version, I don't think the US was supplying Japan, but it was supplying Australia and Britain (and so Singapore, Borneo, Hong Kong, Malaya etc) with munitions.
The fact that a major Air and Naval base had absolutely no scouting aircraft airborne on that fateful day, speaks volumes about how unprepared the US forces were at that point in our history.
Sunday morning, Fleet is asleep after night before or on relaxed duty, they weren't at war, and if there was an attack they weren't expecting it at Pearl Harbour. I served in West Germany during the cold war, our war scenarios usually started early Sunday morning as that was when we would be most vulnerable, its how to start your war 101.
19th in the world In 1941, during World War II, the United States had a significant number of servicemen, with 38.8% being volunteers and 61.2% being draftees. The average duration of service was 33 months, and 73% of servicemen served overseas for an average of 16 months2. However, before England declared war on Germany, the U.S. Army ranked 19th in the world, smaller than Portugal.
Darwin in north Australia was also caught completely off guard with one of the reasons being the same as Pearl Harbour where the invading aircraft were detected but thought to be an incoming flight of friendly aircraft. Many cities & towns along the northern coast of Australia were subjected to numerous raids. Japanese submarines also shelled Sydney suburbs & torpedoed a ship in Sydney Harbour..
The USN didn't have an information about IJN refueling at sea. We didn't know they could do it. So, to best information available, out of range of the Japanese ships.
There was no "Department of Defense" at that time. The services were independent and rarely cooperated or exchanged plans or objectives. The Navy and the Army looked upon each other as competitors for funding rather than mutually supportive services. Moving the Pacific fleet from the West coast of California to Oahu was a reaction to Japanese aggression and the Navy's War Plan Orange; and a lot of observers at the time recognized that air power, both Naval and Army, was more essential than ever.
@@partygrove5321 The "War" Department spent most of it's energy refereeing the inter-service squabbles of the Army and Navy rather than addressing strategic issues and actually preparing for war.
Japan believed war was necessary to secure vital natural resources like oil and raw materials, which were scarce within its own borders, but which could be gained by expanding its empire in Asia, particularly in areas like Manchuria and Southeast Asia, where these resources were plentiful. This goal seemed to indicate that: 1. expansionistic endeavors by nearby nations would inevitably result in military conflict. 2. any country lacking resources necessary for such conflicts, such as: oil and iron ore, would be at the mercy of countries which had readily access to them. 3. experiencing increasing resistance from Western powers like the U.S., who were imposing economic sanctions upon Japan at that time, suggested that they might be between a rock and a hard place in the near future. In a fight before them, with larger opponents with greater strength and capabilities logically suggested a "first strike" scenario that might incapacitate an adversary long enough to remove their head. So everything hinged on removing the head of a sleeping giant in one fell swoop.
Remember,though, that the reason they were short on these things, and the reason the US cut exports to the Japanese was their unnecessary aggressive war against China. They could have stopped or at least toned the war down (and, of course, omitted the atrocities that inflamed opinion against them). They did not, starting the spiral of events leading to war.
Many of the American ships that were sunk or damaged were later recovered from the shallow waters, repaired, and entered the war. Battleships were becoming obsolete anyway and all the carriers were out at sea. The attack did not really knock out the American fleet. It just delayed the start of the American offensive.
It literally crippled the Pacific Fleet and while the damaged ships were repaired, it took six months and resources to do so, leaving the West Coast of the US open. The Atlantic Fleet consisted of 4 destroyer squadrons and 3 patrol squadrons which is nothing compared to the Pacific Fleet.
@@larryjewell7048 In 1939-40 we added *3* battleships, the South Dakota, Indiana and Massachusetts for a total of 17, 6 of which were at Pearl Harbor while the other 3 were spread out over the Pacific and 8 all over in the Atlantic. Two of those 6 were sunk permanently in 1941.
The film clip starting at 2:38 shows P-51D Mustangs and doesn't depict anything about Pearl Harbor, as the P51D didn't enter service until 1944. Likewise, the planes in the clip at 2:51 have British markings and appear to be a Spitfire and Hurricane in England, which also have nothing to do with Pearl Harbor.
Ironically, Kimmel was quite aware of the dangers of an enemy fleet[read: Japanese]approaching the Hawaiian Islands undetected and launching a surprise raid on the fleet anchorage. RADAR, was just coming in as a security tool, so Kimmel and his staff had to rely on long range aviation for early warnings[read: PBY Catalinas], the Army had B-17's on Oahu[with more scheduled as reinforcements]but there was no coordinated plan for any defense of the airspace over Oahu.
My dad was in the U.S. Navy reserves and he got called to active duty on August 1940 to go for training and was stationed at Floyd Bennet Field to join an ASW squadron. If you were paying attention then it was clear that it was only a matter of time before was in the war.
According to former CIA Director and head of WW2 OSS leader William Casey, Churchill had access to the Japanese JN 25 and informed Roosevelt of the operations.
The Japanese never ever broadcasted any orders about the Pearl Harbor attack on the wireless. It was all done via wired telephones, hand delivered letters and meetings.
I have no doubt that the higher ups knew EXACTLY what Japan was planning BUT, I would not trust William Casey to tell me the sky is blue. Much less anything else
@ we were just lucky enough to have pearl harbor for war morale and also just lucky enough to have the carriers out that weekend. Just bad luck for Japan huh? BULL SH!T! We knew exactly what they were doing. JP Morgan jr was still loaning them money
Watch the film Tora! Tora! Tora! to see how things went so horribly wrong. US Navy intelligence deduced that an attack was coming, but they weren't sure which targets would be struck, and they also pegged the wrong day: Sunday 30 November. Plus, commanders in Washington didn't want to start a Pacific war, knowing they'd be vilified as warhawks by the press.
@@towgod7985 Seriously. It's a docu-drama based largely upon the Congressional hearings that followed, asking why Pearl Harbor was allowed to be so defenseless despite ample forewarning from Naval Intelligence. The actors and the scenes mirror the testimony given during the hearings.
@unofeoconejo You just said it yourself, docuDRAMA! It is a FICTIONALISED presentation of events.....HOLLYWOOD. Not a documentary, and the producers are under NO obligation to present accurate information OR tell the viewer what is fictionalised dramatisation!
@@seang3019 There always is a problem with films like that even if it's close to the truth. One often have to make small changes due to dramatik purposes and then there is the time thing. You have to cram everything into a film witch meens you have to leave things out. Also in 1970 there still was a lot that was clasified that spreads light on the events.
Adm Kimmel was running Pearl Harbor like a country club. It was to the point that his officers' wives would complain to him if their husbands pulled inconvenient duty. Kimmel didn't have to worry about where the attack would happen; he only had to ensure Pearl was ready.
Given the 11/27, "war warning" message from Washington, he sent out two carrier task forces to look for the IJN (and deliver planes to Wake and Midway), the BB's were left behind because they were not as fast as the carriers.
The battleships at Pearl Harbor were all pre-World War I and pretty much obsolete by 1941. The raid probably would have been more successful if the Japanese focused on the numerous cruisers and destroyers spread all over the harbor and bunched closely together. And, the above-ground oil storage tanks, whose loss would have tied up the U.S. Pacific fleet for months.
You left out irrefutable evidence that the US had forewarning. On Nov 6 and7 1941, Japan sent a message to the UUS EMBASSY via the Purple machine imploring US to negotiate the tariffs and oil embargo that had been placed on them by the US. When the US IN LATE NOVEMBER ignored and concluded all conversations, the Japan said they would escalate this matter. US foolishly though that the attack would be on the Philippines due to logistic and not the US
The US knew something was up, but nothing pointed towards Pearl Harbor and everything towards Malaya and the Dutch East Indies. Admiral Hart had already deployed the Asiatic Fleet to wartime locations and had withdrawn the Yangtze River Patrol and the 4th Marine Regiment from China to the Philippines. The last few Marines in China were supposed to be withdrawn on the 10th (the liner SS President Harrison, sent to pick them up, was captured by Japan in Shanghai on the first day of the war, along with the gunboat USS Wake (PR-3) which had been left behind in Shanghai as a radio station) It was MacArthur who got caught flat footed with his forces not ready for war.
One bit of fortuitous misfortune was one where a troublesome ionosphere that previous evening that obliged an important war warning was sent to Pearl by underwater cable instead. The resultant cable was dropped in the delivery bag to go out with the morning telegrams...
There was no underwater cable to Hawaii. Telegrams were often called cables in the pre-Marconi world. The Army's 25 KW radio was fubar due to sun spot activity so the alert message was sent via RCA's 40 KW transmitter, guaranteeing it would punch through the static.
The brief clip of a Pearl Harbor survivor reminded me that the last Pearl Harbor survivor, 102-year-old Lou Cantor, died earlier this year. This means that this year's commemoration of the attack will be the first not to include any veteran of the battle (even vicariously).
There was ample warning that an attack was coming......except that most everyone expected it to occur in SE Asia. No one thought the Japanese could attack Hawaii.
This is an excellent summary documentary, one of the best I've seen. Thank you. Because this work is so good, I want to share a perspective for a different way of understanding WW II as a crucial and transformative part of 20th century world history. A lot of this does make sense and is already understood: 1. Yamamoto designed the Pearl Harbor attack under orders but privately opposed doing it. Loyal to the Emperor and the Japanese nation, he did as he was ordered. A quote attributed to him, that perhaps he never said, shows his actual view. Refering to the US, he said "Do not wake the sleeping giant." Yamamoto's actual views were thoroughly correct. 2. The army-based military junta ruling Japan equated fast battlefield success with victory. The thinking was parralel to the blitzkrieg concept that Hitler successfully used as an air/land war across Europe, but that failed in the Battle of Britain where stukka dive bombers could not be immediately followed on with troops invading and holding captured territory. 3. Prior to the middle of WW II, after Pearl Harbor, the idea of unified land, sea, and air communications and control did not exist in the military. 4. Due to the lack of understanding of the implications of aircraft carriers across the Pacific, Midway Island seemed the most likely target, rather than Hawaii or the West Coast. 5. The unreliability and low power of radar, combined with the lack of experience interpreting radar, combined with the poor command decision to leave decisions about communicating radar readings upwards to low ranking officers (a lieutenant in this case) are a result of any military's slow ability to master new technologies and combine them with effective analysis, communications, and control. 6. The specifics of Fuchida's error in sending the second flair may never be known. But that it happened is no surprise at all. This type of error is deeply understood in military communications theory, and it's implications regarding the consequences of lost messages or messages thought to be lost are deeply worked out in the philosophical puzzle called "the two generals problem." 7. Did FDR know that the Pearl Harbor attack, specifically, was coming? I agree with this video that the answer was "probably not." But they may have been aware and taking covert action. The key point is that the future of the Pacific War would be centered on aircraft carriers, and there we no aircraft carriers waiting in Pearl Harbor to be destroyed. If FDR and his military command team considered the attack on Pearl (as opposed to other locations) likely, they might well have ordered the aircraft carriers to delay their return to Pearl (under a cover story of encountering weather at sea) and let the rest happen. The main reason was to end the 20-year long history of US isolationism and unite the citizens and congress behind full commitment to participation in, and victory for, the Allied side in WW II. Such a politically motivated action would not be unheard of in WW II. Churchill allowing the bombing of Coventry to hide the British cracking of the Enigma code was a similar case. 8. No one could have foreseen how the Pacific war would go forth. Only Yamamoto saw the implications of aircraft carriers, and he did not imagine in concrete ways the implications of "waking the sleeping giant" US economy and technological development power as it would apply to mass production of ever-improving military hardware. 9. In every country, those who understood economics and those who ran the military had different visions of what it takes to win a war. The sea-change in the war triggered by Pearl Harbor was that it led to innovations that could barely be foreseen, and who's consequences could not be predicted: - the joining of US inventiveness from the 2nd Industrial Revolution (think Edison) with the fast productivity of reliable equipment of the modern assembly line (think Colt and Henry Ford). This convergence of trends that began between the Civil War and 1890 completely changed the nature of war. - the joining of command and control across branches of the military, and then across allied governments of independent nations - military communications via radio (and associted code-breaking) allowing strategic planning that spanned continent-sized and ocean-sized war zones brought information science to the forefront of tools for military victory. Note: I am an amateur historian and not even a war buff in particular. I simply read and listen to the best documentaries and analyses with an open mind. It is often the case, from this perspective, that things that are easy to understand with unbiased thinking and a good college-level education are not understood and seem not to make sense. The major reason for these things "not making sense" is people receive outdated thinking frameworks that limit and bias our understanding, and not that these problems have not already been resolved by our best thinkers.
FDR and his staff did not know the location of the strike - what Government could have the moxie to set up such an attack? Being a sportsman FDR did give the Japanese a sort of war time head start.
My grand uncle was the captain of the battleship USS West Virginia moored next to the Tennessee on the bay side. He died early in the attack from a shrapnel wound. In the days prior to 12/7 my grand uncle reported a number of Japanese mini subs and he and others were concerned about returning to Pearl Harbor preferring to remain in the open ocean. However these concerns were ignored. Some commentators have said that there would have been greater deaths if the Japanese attacked the fleet in open water. However, that assumes that the fleet would have remained close to each other and not scattered and that the Japanese would have attacked if the fleet if they were not in the harbor.
1. My father was at Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. What I relate comes only from my research, including a retired Admiral's account of the US Navy running up to December 7, 1941. 2. In the Philippines, there was a defensive plan. The plan was for American bombers to immediately launch and bomb the Japanese military base on Taiwan (Formosa). Such is where the invasion of SE Asia had been launched months before. As you know, we have recently had a former 4 star general and Secretary of Defense disappear without telling the President or the second in command at the Defense Department. On the evening of the fateful day, MacArthur set an example by disappearing and no one could give the order to attack. The next day, the US Army planes were destroyed on the ground. A couple of years earlier, the annual army games had the practice withdrawing down the Bataan Peninsula. The report was not to do it during war as there was no water or supplies. So MacArthur blew up his munitions, declared Manilla an open city and retreated. A few years before 1941, Roosevelt, former Secretary of the Navy, wanted the Pacific Fleet moved from San Diego to Hawaii. The Navy commander objected and was fired. The Navy commander who was in charge on December 7, 1941 also wanted the fleet back in San Diego, but wasn't vocal to the point that he was removed. Every year, the US Navy also did war games. The Japanese attack followed the attack plan used against Hawaii in the 1930s. Yamamoto was not a fool. He saw that the waters of the Hawaiian navy docks were shallow and recovery efforts would be completed within a year . . . and it was actually faster than that. There was no intended sneak attack. The Japanese diplomats were hindered in delivering their message. It did matter . . . it got more kids down to the recruiting station.
Roosevelt had been Assistant Secretary of the Navy during WWI from 1913-1920. I think he knew a few things about all navies at the time, including ours. What he did not know is the Japanese had developed a shallow running air dropped torpedo that would run in Pearl Harbor. If anyone could have known our Pacific Fleet could sustain air raid damage and quickly be repaired with the supplies, equipment, and manpower already stationed on Pearl it would have been FDR. This does not prove he allowed the attack, but it doesn't prove he didn't. The three American suicide yachts story is interesting as well.
A lot of the defensive preparations at Pearl was about stopping sabotage by the inhabitants of Japanese descent. Thus planes were packed close together and had guards ON THE GROUND with them. This made them perfect targets and hard to get in the air. Also, word was sent from Washington to Pearl, but it went by commercial telegram and Western Union messanger was detained by security so word did not reach the commanders until after the attack was over.
There was a report by the Navy Intel that stated if Japan were to attack it would most likely be Pearl and would be on a weekend when the fleet, including the carriers were usually in port and sailors not on duty. One of the days they thought the Japanese were going to attack, they sent the fleet out away from the islands, they didn't attack so, they relaxed a bit. The radar really didn't matter. There were no fighter aircraft sitting fueled up and armed with pilots on standby. It would have taken a good deal of aircraft to stop the attack. With the planes only130 miles out when discovered, they wouldn't have had time to get the planes ready to and pilots to the planes. Being in port was probably a good thing in the long run. The ships sank in shallow water. Many of the ships were refloated, repaired and went to war. If they had been attacked in open ocean and with no carriers to protect them, we most likely would have lost them all together.
The Nagumo Kido Butai sailed from the Kuriles, NORTH of the main Japanese islands, and sailed through "the empty seas", so named because the route went where most ships didn't, it wasn't a great circle route.
I have a Japanese friend and find it interesting how different the history of America's involvement in WW2 was/is taught in Japanese schools from what was taught in our schools.
A few things that this production should have touched on that it studiously ignored, firstly that the United States was already in an undeclared war with Japan due to the oil embargo that was being enforced by American warships! Secondly that although President Roosevelt had wanted to send troops to Europe for many months he had been prevented from entering the war by Congress and was actively looking for a way to assist Britain. We must also acknowledge that if the US had not entered the European conflict when it did Britain would haver fallen to the Germans in mere months! Thirdly, the fact that the Japanese code had been broken by the US and the declaration of war was sent to the Japanese Embassy in the US the previous day is an even more telling piece of evidence proving that they knew there was going to be an attack but just didn't know exactly where but should have put ALL forces on alert but failed to even advise even the most likely targets is strange. It is rumored that Roosevelt was handed an unknown communication prior to the attack on Pearl Harbour which he read and his reply was "Do Nothing", possibly indicating that the need for an excuse to enter the was was more important than the need to put defences on alert. The fact that two of the Aircraft Carriers were on maneuvers and others were on there way from and to Pearl Harbour was unusual. It must be noted that Admiral Yamamoto had instructed his admirals not to attack Pearl Harbour if the carriers were not in port but they ignored this part of the plan, to which Admiral Yamamoto later commented "I believe we have awoken a sleeping giant" ! Lastly the inexplicable fact that the Japanese did not destroy the fuel depo at Pearl Harbour allowing the US to respond more quickly is undoubtedly one of the reasons why Japan's attack could be considered a huge blunder!
The biggest mistake Japan made was not destroying the fuel tanks at Pearl.If they had,the remaing US fleet would not have been able to sail against them at Midway!
The attack on Pearl Harbor did very little to hurt the US Navy. The battleships there were old WW1 era ships. The more modern battleships the North Carolina Class were not stationed there. But what doesn't make sense is why the 3 aircraft carriers stationed there were put to sea days before the attack? What was the reason why they were put to sea? And why all 3?
Many people think the attack by the Japanese was a success for them but actually it a colossal failure. Number 1 there were NO Carriers there at the time and the Carrier not the battleship would be the main weapon in the pacific and the US is totally spared that NONE were there during the attack. The Oil fields for refueling the ships were untouched. There were all these Oil tank fields for refueling all the ships and all could have been blown up but they werent. Finally The repair centers for the ships were not touched too. In the battle of Coral Sea the Carrier USS Yorktown is badly damaged and is able to get back to Pearl to get repaired and fight again at Midway. This shocked and confused the Japanese who thought the Yorktown was gone by the time of Midway. So 3 key things didnt happen. No Carriers there or any damaged, No damage to Oil Fields and no damage to Repair centers. Add in this the fact you attacked a bigger stronger country with more resources than you. This is like Punching a Sleeping Mike Tyson in his prime who will wake up and seek revenge on you. JAPAN was doomed after this attack. but HAD they had the carriers there and all the oil fields blown up and all the repair centers destroyed it Would have taken longer to finish then off. probably add a few more years on WW2 in the pacific.
The tank farms were not a good target because there were about 100 of them and an ordinary bomb wouldn't easily set Bunker B fuel afire. Rupturing the tanks would just spill the oil into the berm around the tank. It would be recovered by being filtered and pumped into an empty tank. The IJN had no way to know which tanks were full and which were empty. Also it would take a max of 90 days for tankers from the West Coast to refill every tank if they had somehow been emptied.
The machine shops were not a good target because the machinery was industrial strength rugged. The Germans tried to take out the tank factory at Stalingrad and never succeeded despite repeated bombing raids.
Technically we were already at war with Japan: 1. We had an oil embargo on Japan. 2. We froze all Japanese assets in US. 3. Japan was forbidden from using the Panama canal.
There were several feasibility studies conducted by the military prior to the disaster and both suggested it could be done with the IJN approaching from the north. Mitchell was farsighted save in WW1 when he claimed that aircraft can not fly combat in the rain - the US did not but the Germans did.
They knew it was coming but did not think it was going to Pearl Harbor. They thought it was more towards the Philippines. Also they never told Kimmel that they had broken the Japanese diplomatic code, they also didn't give him information that they had. The US carriers were on deployment, one dropping off planes to Wake and Midway Islands. The colossal failure was Mcarthur. He even was told that Pearl Harbor was bombed and for hours still didn't do anything and the Japanese ended up destroying every US plane in the Philippines. Also Mcarthur leaves his troops to hang out to dry while he escapes to Australia and gets to write his own Medal of Honor citation. smh.
Had the US battleships been at sea, it might have been worse. Except for Arizona, Oklahoma and Utah(relegated to training ship) all of the battleships were raised and returned to fighting condition. Had they been sunk at sea, their loss would have been permanent.
Also, had the fleet been moored off of Lahaina, Maui (as they occasionally were), sinking them there would have resulted in those ships still being on the bottom.
The problem with the Opana Point contact was they were expecting a flight of B-17s from the West Coast, planes that actually arrived shortly after the attack was over.
Fuchida's lapse was nothing compared to Adm. Nagumo who refused to make the third strike. Had they done so, and destroyed the oil storage tanks and repair yards our war effort would have been severely damaged forcing our forces to operate from US West Coast. A 2500 mile extension!! In Day of Deceit the author shows that FDR was given the last part of the secret message sent to Japan's Embassy hours before the attack. Our codebreakers had broken that code weeks earlier, and the last message stated to declare War at 1300 DC Time. That time difference gave FDR plenty of time to let Pearl Harbor know War was declared, and to take action. But to keep the code breaking a secret, FDR did nothing.
Not really. The oil tanks and repair facilities were not on the target list. They would not have been struck by a third wave. Search Jon Parshall for more.
The message that FDR received was the final part of the Fourteen parts message, which instructed the Japanese diplomats in Washington to sever diplomatic ties with the United States at 1pm Washington time. There was nothing in any of the fourteen parts that pointed to Pearl Harbor as a target. FDR was not the only commander that had to keep code breaking a secret. Winston Churchill made a horribly difficult decision in allowing the city of Coventry to be heavily bombed in order to keep the Germans from knowing the Brits had solved Enigma.
Other sources suggest that the radar operators, upon siting the japanese aircraft on the radar, were told to shut down the site and leave. Also, Admiral Yamamoto followed a plan from a wargame in the early 30's that successful attacked Pearl Harbor from the Northwest, also using torpedoes with wooden fin extensions so they wouldnt impact the shallow harbor's bottom. The naval brass at the time of the wargame insisted that the battleship was not in danger from air attack. However, Admiral Yarnell proved that once again, that the experts of the day were tragically wrong.....Semper Excretum.
The US had intercepted the warning sent to the Japanese ambassador and translated it before they did. The reason they didn't say anything was so the Japanese wouldn't change their codes so the US could maintain their intel advantage going into the war. Also, the US ordered every carrier stationed at Pearl Harbor to sail as a convoy escort only a few days before the attack, the only time in history that's ever happened. If they hadn't the US would not have been able to enter the war as quickly as they did, if at all. My Grandfather worked in Navy Intelligence and was actually listed as KIA on the USS Arizona even though he had transferred to the USS Enterprise right before they sailed. Everything I post on this is what he told my Grandmother after the war ended and I would trust his account over the US governments any day of the week. He had no reason to lie about it, they do.
The carrier groups weren't "convoy escorts." They had been loaded with aircraft on board being transferred to outlying islands, e.g., Midway and Wake. Halsey detached his cruisers from Enterprise, and established a full-up CAP as soon as he got over the horizon from Pearl Harbor.
The USS Enterprise was delayed by a "bad storm" just before returning to port. Your father may have been onboard to pass information onto the captain. Btw the Enterprise was right were it needed to be prevent the 3rd attack wave.
Everyone does not understand the "International Date line" and The Japanese did. The Japos attacked at same time. Hong Kong, Malaya, the Dutch East EI; New Guinea. US possessions, too, came under attack: the Philippines, the major US base in Asia; Guam; and Wake Island, shelled Midway, Singapore, all major enemy bases......
Our government has contrived worse things than even Pearl and 9-11, for power and greed. There are consequences for Americans or any other country that ignored and are ignoreing God's laws.
After Pearl Harbor, congressional investigations and hearings were held that failed to show that FDR's administration knew the attack was forthcoming. Scholars and historians have authored countless papers and books on this event for more than 80 years, but have failed to conclusively demonstrate that FDR ignored the warnings of an imminent attack. The most thorough research on this subject was contained in two books ("Pearl Harbor" and "At Dawn We Slept") written by Gordon Prange. To further dwell on the conspiracy theories surrounding December 7,1941, dishonors the memory, courage and bravery of countless service members who died, went missing or were injured during the war.
@@gordonshayne1711 Yup. Operation Magic, which broke Japan's diplomatic code, gave no hints except a possible break in diplomacy. Observations by local sources and radio intercepts, using signal strengths as a measuring device pointed at an attack at Malaya, and points south. All ships in the Pearl Harbor raid had their radio transmitters disabled on the way out..paper was inserted to block the contacts on the telegraph keys.
I believe, with all I have heard, that Roosevelt knew of the attack. Roosevelt cut off all oil to Japan to stop them from invading China. Roosevelt was going to cut off supplies to the Japanese war machine. Roosevelt and his group knew Japan had to do something to capture the South Pacific islands in order to keep their fleet supplied with fuel, foods and war materials. It had to be Pearl Harbor because that is where the Pacific fleet was stationed and that American fleet would fight the Japanese as soon as Roosevelt was informed Japan was acquiring another source of rubber, fuel and supplies. It was a bold move on the part of Japan to strike and destroy the fleet in Pearl Harbor in order for Japan to safely acquire what they needed. Destroying the American fleet would give Japan a year or more to acquire what they needed before America could to to war. Roosevelt and his "henchmen" trying to stop Japan's expansion into China by cutting off oil actually cause the Pearl Harbor attack. I think it was Roosevelt that started that war.
Intresting video! Was hoping for more, but you missed one crucial factor! What was the disposition of the Aircraft carriers? This is what demonstrates foreknowledge of the attack! When the preparations failed so spectacularly. Steps were taken to protect the careers of ranking officers. One must remember that the Black shoe admirals were firmly in control, before Pearl Harbor. Aircraft carriers were viewed as scouting auxiliaries to the battle fleet. The main battle fleet was ready for rapid deployment. Radar early warning was experimental but USED! US carriers were deployed sending out numerous scouting aircraft LOOKING for an approaching Japanese fleet. Only the Japanese Navy appeared from the one region, no aircraft were sent to search. Three instead of four carriers meant that a significant quadrant of surrounding ocean could not be thoroughly scouted. This was a situation where CLASSIFIED information, worked out with seemingly catastrophic circumstances. With some justification "blackshoe" admirals believed that armed aircraft were a minimal threat to their battleships. Ships with well trained AAA gunners, at high speed. Torpedoes and bombs could be dodged. Attacking bombers would be shot down. So the blackshoe plan was clearly to detect the approach of the hostile fleet. Then when the location of hostile forces were known. The battleships would steam out to engage the hostile battleships. The actual disposition of the Japanese Navy was not known. The views of brownshoe admirals were known, but junior in the chain of command. So mased carrier aircraft could have caught the US battleships at sea, without air cover. Knowledge of Japanese code breaking was classified above TOP SECRET. So, a general warning could not be authorized. The command had to leave most people in the dark. Only the typical blackshoe response could have been far worse. Monday morning quarterbacking is a lot of fun. Only that was eighty years ago.
I often heard my parents discussing just that. They both went to their graves believing FDR and his admin allowed the attack to happen to get the public behind them in the war effort.
What people do not realize like you said. At the SAME time attacks were happening all over the Pacific. What also gets over looked was the rivalry between departments. Each keeping its own information secret and not sharing with other departments that might have another piece of the puzzle. Same thing was pointed out in the 911 Commission Report. FBI, CIA, and INS did not communicate with each other. Each had piece of the puzzle and protected their own interests and people died because of it.
They knew something was a foot? When you look at a map of the Pacific, what pops out at you? A military target that can, possibly, be totally destroyed and take months to be rebuilt with manpower and machinery (read boats). The West coast? Alaska? Some small islands spread around? Or a group of large islands almost halfway between Japan and the US? I don’t think you need to be a military genius to bet on Hawaii.
But air attack was low on the list of ideas for how things would happen, the US navy still had the aircraft carriers supporting their battleships in their doctrine, rather than the other way around, which it soon became.
We were fighting the Japanese in China for years before WWII. We sold the China a bunch of P-40 fighters, offered support and taught them to fight along side our pilots the flying tigers.
Actually no. While it is correct that the AVG was formed before the attack on Pearl Harbor, allthough early in 1941, not "years before WWII", the first combat mission only occurred on the 20st of december, two weeks after Pearl Harbor. Also Dec 07 1941 didn't mark the beginning of WWII, only the entrance of America in the war. Maybe a detail for an American, but a big difference for Europeans who were already for more than a year under Nazi domination...
I don’t doubt that leadership expected something. I don’t believe they expected this attack. Knowing the Pacific would be a Navy war, there is no logical reason why FDR would sacrifice the fleet. The failure was in a sense of complacency in Hawaii believing that they were out of reach.
The attack was a huge failure. Most of the ships were refloated and repaired within a year. Loss of life was much less that had the fleet been out at sea.
@ I get that but if me and you were standing next to each other and witnessed the exact same thing we would tell 2 different stories to the next person that came along
No, the attack was not uncoordinated because two flares were used to signal the attack. It just meant that the torpedo planes would not go in first, since they were the most vulnerable. The attacks were still very well coordinated, and effective.
Wrong, if there was going to be an attack, IN THAT time 1941, it would be in the morning. YOU GET your solers working out and ready each morn, the Island always had a lot of Japanese. 6:30am to 9:00am. wrong.
US military leaders also knew the approximate range of Japanese carriers... NOT ONLY did they need fleet oilers to refuel from , several of the smaller ships carried oil cans aboard to extend their range. In theory, they just couldn't reach Hawaii. They didn't carry the fuel. Akagi was a converted battleship, and Kaga from a battlecruiser..thirsty beasts. Wake Island..maybe they could reach there..one way, the strategists of the day thought.
FDR did think that moving the fleet from California to Hawaii would have a "deterring effect" on the Japanese. He relieved Admiral Richardson, the then- C-in-C of the Pacific Fleet, for disagreeing with him.
@@lancer525 I had to Google it to make sure that I was familiar with that memo. There is no proof that FDR ever saw the memo, and several of the action suggestions were not implemented at all or not until war broke out, at which point provocation was unnecessary.
The British MI6 double agent, a Serbian by the name of Dusko Popov was recruited by the Germans and sent to England where he promptly offered his true services to the British Military Intelligence. He was ordered by his German contacts to discover all the info he could about Pearl Harbour on behalf of the Japanese. These instructions were delivered to him by the revolutionary microdot technique and when Churchill was informed he sent Popov to the US to warn the President. Popov never got to see him however as he was sent to see J Edgar Hoover the head of the FBI who called him a liar to his face and threw him out of his office (but kept the microdot information and announced it to the press later as if he had discovered it himself). Hoover never passed on the Japanese request for information on Pearl to the military chiefs. Kimmel was crucified for Hoover's utter incompetence.
Primary to the conclusion that Roosevelt knew Japan would attack Pearl Harbor are: Immediately prior to the attack ... The entire US Carrier Fleet had been sortied away from Pearl Harbor. Major amounts of ammunition were taken from ships and stored in caves on the island. Major amounts of bombs were taken from the airport and stored in caves on the island. There are many such accounts of unusual events to support the claim. Where did the accounts come from ? A special 10 man Army detachment was quietly ordered by a Congressional Committee to travel to Pearl and assess why the Navy and Air Corp were so poorly prepared. The detachment (unassigned to officers on Pearl) was supposed to spend 30 days in their evaluation. The first-week report generated so much embarrassing detail that the General Staff on Pearl investigated where the reports were coming from and immediately "deported" the ten men off of Hawaii. OK ... here come the rear area pen-swingers to pick apart the data. Try this ... Earnst Jack Aldrige Arn. He was one of the 10 men and later became my Father-In-Law. The 10 man detachment was scattered to the winds, with Jack being reassigned to New Guinea.
An attack on Hong Kong, the Philippines, Malaya / Singapore occurred simultaneously. The battle group of aircraft carriers went to Darwin Australia and continued a heavy attack on that township where more bombs were dropped than on Pearl harbour. Does the fact that no aircraft carriers were in Pearl harbour suggest the USA intelligence knew of an imminent attack and removed them from the area they expected an attack? Some of the capital ships sunk in shallow water were refloated. 1777 crew on the Arizona while docked in port? Are that many crew normally on station when the ship is docked?
Except for the USS Arizona and USS Utah (was only being used as a target/training platform), all ships damaged and sunk were brought back up to serve again. The Oklahoma was righted, later, but was deemed too damaged to save. It was sold as scrap and while en route to the US mainland, it inadvertently sunk again. After the attack, thousands of workers were sent from the US mainland to repair the damage as soon as possible. Not only that these ships were needed, but to boost the morale of the American people.
@@glenn-wk2by Roosevelt was trying to find a way to get the USA directly involved in the war as was Winston Churchill. He had though been re-elected on a platform that no US servicemen would be sent to the European theatre to die as they had during WWI. The Japanese Pearl Harbour attack was the pivot point at which Roosevelt and the American people decided the European and Pacific Wars would have to also involve the USA. The radar was installed picked up a large formation though thought they were US aircraft returning from training. No connection from the radar station to HQ Pearl Harbour. The USA had placed oil embargoes on Japan and other than British Borneo this was their main source of oil before the war. The oil fields in Borneo and across Asia were pressed into service after invasion to serve the Imperial Navy, Airforce and Army. Fortuitous that no Aircraft Carrier was damaged at Pearl? Singapore was left defenceless when the British aircraft carrier hit a reef in unchartered waters in the Caribbean. What was this aircraft carrier doing there in unchartered waters and did it really hit a reef?
@@gryphus64 Sometimes I look at the factors in the beginning of the war, the middle, and the end. So many things our leadership tricks us into believing, yet, the end goal is often looked back on as being just and we needed involvement at some point. I don't often trust our government, but, often later I can see our involvement in questionable things turns out to be good for the American people in one way or another. The B-17s arrived at the same time as the attacking Japanese.....coming in formation and tuning into Hawaiian music playing on the radio as a guiding beacon. Heck, how is that for bad luck? The command point on Fort Shafter was expecting the B-17s and was aware of Hawaiian music playing.....no reason for them to expect a large flight coming in were Japanese. The B-17s did the best they could with no armament....shot down, destroyed on the ground and landing all over the island. The B-17s came from the mainland USA for distribution points throughout the Pacific. One Lt. on one of the B-17s was catching a ride, later, to his station in the Phillippines. He was a doctor. He died on the ground in the attack, and our USAF hospital on the base is named after him. Schick Clinic. I've used this hospital for 30 years. I retired AF here in 2000 and have been working at Pearl Harbor ever since. Amazing historical opportunity. I work in the same building that has the basement below me where they mostly cracked the Japanese codes that allowed us to surprise the Japanese at Midway. Many of the comments in this particular forum are spot on and excellent.....and others, not so much so. All the best to you!
@@glenn-wk2by One of my Best Friends Father still alive, was 10 growing up in Singapore. His Father was a Scottish engineer building runways and fuel facilities for the British in Malaya. Malaya and Singapore were the same country at that time. The British rubber plantations and coconut, cane fields had build the best railway and roads one can imagine all weather bitumen roads. The Japanese landed at the top of Malaysia and went through Thailand and used bicycles to get to the Singapore causeway in 10 days. So Allan Roberts was 10 when the Japanese Zeros began strafing and bombing Singapore. His father arrived back on one of the last trains, they took their car and abandoned it at the wharf, got on the second last ship out, the last one was sunk. Their ship was strafed again but not badly damaged. The invasion of Hong Kong, Malaya and Pearl Harbour were synchronised. Lost a great uncle in Borneo and another was in Singapore 10 days before the British surrender, then Changi and the Burma Railway. It took some while to win in the Soloman's, the coral sea and PNG before the Japanese advance was defeated.
1. No one thought carrier attacks would be as successful in destroying ships as this one did. Carriers were looked upon as an adjunct to the battleline, mostly for scouting and air defense. 2. The USN did not think the Japanese could reach as far as Pearl. Neither did the Japanese at first. In one of their scenarios, they planned to abandon and scuttle the Soryu and Hiryu after the attack because they didn't think they could refuel them. Eventually they were able to equip enough tankers to support the entire task force.
#1- not true. Look at the British attack on the Italian base at Taranto. A handful of obsolete biplanes sank three Italian battleships. The Japanese carefully studied this attack and drew the right lessons from it.
@@chuckw1113 And that racial bias was pervasive despite evidence to the contrary. Claire Chennault, leader of the AVG, had been keeping Washington well-informed as to the capabilities of Japanese pilots and their aircraft- and his warning were dismissed.
One of the things you missed that is important there was a number of ships moved right before the attack the question has to be asked why were they moved right before the attack.
After the failure of the 2nd Washington Naval Treaty, US and Britain started sharing ALL their Naval Intel as they both had concerns over growing hostilities in Europe and Pacific. There, it's out there.
You do realise the British area of responsibility was around Malaya and Indonesia and no where near (by thousands of miles)Hawaii, no of course you don't. Education isn't a big thing in the US anymore.
Admiral Yamamoto's personal writings indicate that he had reservations about the attack on Pearl Harbor from the inception but he planned the attack anyway as ordered. Having been American educated he knew of our industrial capabilities and our national spirit. His entreaties to his own government were that diplomats must tell the U.S. that the embargoes must be lifted or a devastating attack would be launched. He knew that the U.S. would ignore the threat but with the success of the attack the prior warning would enable Japan to attempt negotiating peace terms before the industrial might of the U.S. could be brought into full swing. When the diplomats made no such demands prior to the attack and it became a surprise attack he knew that America would stop at nothing until Japan was defeated. He did not advocate for a surprise devastating attack alone, he is known to have spent the day after the attack in a state of depression.
Anyone ever wonder why there were no flat tops in Pearl? They were all out to sea, out of attack range to the south of Hawaii. Things that make you go hmmm.
They were actually going WEST, toward "Indian Country". This is why Halsey considered Kimmel's instructions in case of contact with the IJN "do what makes sense" as "the best damn orders I've ever had!"
The book is Defenseless, command failure at pearl harbor or something close. I am away from home and can't quote the title exactly but I got it on Amazon. It's very enlightening as it describes a multitude of command failures of which underutilization of radars is just one. Having served a tour in base defense in Iraq the very idea of relying on Washington to tell me there is a threat to my perimeter is inexcusable. And that's exactly what Kimmel and Short do post 7 Dec.
The US, particularly at this time, had a nasty habit of giving commanders a responsibility without giving them the resources to carry it out. Long-range defense against air attacks was an Army responsibility, but Short didn't have the necessary aircraft. Communications were also dreadfully slow at best, so there was no urgent way to communicate between Washington and Hawai'i.
I don't think any US commander anywhere had enough resources, or at least thought they didn't. The US was pretty much resigned by December, 1941 that was with Japan was imminent, but they hoped it could be delayed to at least April, 1942 so the plan to significantly reinforce the Philippines could be completed. I'm not convinced that a forward defense in the Philippines would have deterred Japan anyway.
@@Mustapha1963 Commanders may always have a "wish list," but more bomber/recon planes for Short were on the "needs" list. By doctrine, a 360 degree requires a certain amount of planes, and Short didn't have them. That was especially problematic because the Japanese attack came from an unexpected direction.
@@roberthudson1959 In 1936 (I think), the US Navy conducted a simulated attack on Pearl Harbor. The admiral commanding detached the carriers Lexington and Saratoga from his battle fleet and had them race ahead to launch an air attack- from the Northeast. I've long been of the opinion that General Short was made a scapegoat for the attack, but he did make more than his share of mistakes. The most famous was to guard only against sabotage. But a second is that he decided that, since he could not cover all 360 degrees around Pearl Harbor with air recon than he would cover NONE of it. He had adequate aircraft to cover perhaps a 90 degree or maybe even 120 degree slice of the circle. History had shown that the most likely avenue of attack was from the north-northwest. He could have covered that area had he chosen to do so.
@@Mustapha1963 One of the U.S. carriers was 200 miles Northeast of Pearl at the moment the attack broke out. The U.S. carriers were Northeast of the battle area at the start of the battle of Corral Sea. The U.S. carriers were Northeast of Midway Island at the start of the battle of Midway. If you see coincidences, I see a pattern.
@@TJ-rm5tx This is incorrect. Enterprise was WEST of Oahu, having delivered fighter planes to Wake Island. Lexignton was apx 500 miles SE of Midway, having delivered aircraft to that island, but this position would still be to the SOUTHWEST of Kido Butai. Saratoga was at San Diego.
The main objective of the attack were the aircraft carriers by taking out the carriers the Japanese would have controlled the pacific as the US would have not being able to defend Midway 6 months later a pivitol battle for the pacific. Pearl Harbor was chosen as the main base for the fleet because Pearl was a shallow water port. Tordedoes at the time were not effective in shallow water as they would explode before hitting the target. For this reason the US thought Peral would be relatively safe.What the US and the allies didn't know was that the Japanese had perfected ,and managed to keep secret,a torpedo that would be effective in shallow water. This was not revealed until several years ago and is explained in a History Channel documentary Tora,Tora,Tora The Real Story of Peral Harbor.
Churchill stated, after the war, that the president had been warned that 6 Japanese carriers were heading south toward Pearl Harbor. My friends father was there and he told her that the good fighters were taken away and older fighters in poor condition were put in their place on December 6th. This made no sense to him at the time. No said he knew that our government knew the Japanese would attack the next day. They wanted to get into the war, but the president probably thought the attack would not be as bad as it was. Also the aircraft carriers were not there because our government knew they were the most important to protect.
Churchill never made any such statement at any time ever. If he had done so, then every single book that has been written by some of the most highly respected historians would be completely discredited. No fighter aircraft whether Navy or Army Air Force were 'taken away' from Pearl Harbor in the period before that attack, let alone the day prior. On the contrary throughout 1941, planes at Hawaii were being constantly reinforced by the arrival of new aircraft from the mainland, indeed a flight of brand-new B-17's on a ferry-flight actually arrived at Hickham Field during the attack.
P.S. Regarding Soviet spies in Tokyo: the Russians were confident in their own intel about Japanese war plans in late November 1941 (ie: that the Japanese were NOT going to attack Siberia) that they were comfortable enough to take several hundred thousand Siberian troops and redeploy them to the Moscow front to repel the Germans, who almost took the Soviet Capitol. For the record, 'Terrible' Turner, for all his insightful genius, had believed that, contrary to the opinion of his own staff, the Japanese intentions were focused North (ie: Siberia for its resources) rather than south to grab the Phillipines and much of Southeast Asia, which of course they did. They saw the US Pacific Fleet as the primary obstacle to those plans, hence the attack of December 7th. Regardless, despite having intel on the fact that Tokyo was receiving almost daily ships in the harbor reports from their consulate in Hawaii, a clear prelude to an attack on our Pacific Fleet, Turner withheld that intel from Kimmel and Short, both of whom were scapegoated for their misperceived failures.
Incrediblely true. Roosevelt prior to Pearl Harbor, already had several operations in play. One was fly American bombers and aircrews under the Chinese flag to bomb mainland Japan. Roosevelt needed an event to trigger the American public into supporting a war. U.S. Navel intelligence were maintaining tight surveillance on domestic Japanese interactions. Americans were simply beaten to the punch.
No, the attack was an opportunity for Roosevelt, who promised no US troops would be sent by him to war. The fleet sent from San Diego to Hawaii was a serious provocative act on its own.
@@trekker3468 Japan had invaded China in 1938, including the new capitol city of Nanking where they "ended" 200K Chinese. Japan had already provoked everyone in region.
The Americans were unaware that the Japanese had developed air released torpedos that could work in a shallow water harbour like Hawaii's, They thought all their ships were safe in the Harbour!
There only 3 in the Pacific to begin with, and Enterprise was supposed to be in late Saturday. However she was delayed by weather. If she misses the storm, she is torpedoed like Utah was.
@@anthonywayne2754 It is so difficult to get through to these idiots that things were different then, they seem to think CNN would be doing a story on good morning America, Keep up the good (if difficult)work trying to educate them into the realities of life in the 1940's.
The 3 carriers were out on legitimate missions, carrying fighter aircraft to where the US thought the attacks would come. As there were multiple such places and only 3 carriers to supply them all, the likelihood that they would all be at sea at the same time would have been high.
You mean the two seaplanes that took off from French frigate shoals on a mission to catch carriers in port and bomb them? The two that did arrive over Oahu and one dropped bombs on Tantalus and the other didn't hit anything? It was very cloudy at their arrival.....so their mission was a failure. We did launch fighters, but they couldn't find the Japanese. Bombs did go off around housing on Tantalus.....and it scared the folks to death. They complained and rather than be embarrassed by the Japanese getting through again....the Army took responsibility.....and stated it wouldn't happen again. The truth wasn't known until after the war.
The Americans were well aware of the aircraft based attack that the British had done on Italian ships in harbour, and that torpedoes could be adapted to work in shallow water. But the Americans still considered Pearl Harbor too shallow for anyone to use torpedoes.
What do you think of the attack at Pearl Harbor?
I think you, Sir, need to read “At Dawn We Slept”.
Yes! That IS The Question! "Did" Franklin Delano Roosevelt First DARE The Japanese To Attack Foregoing A Full Defensive Military Stance Preemptive! Glad That You Protect His Name! Fox! Rock's Czar! The World Was On Fire And Noone Could Save Me But You!
@@foxyroxstar The Pearl Harbor Strike Force was so secret even most of the Japanese military high command was in the dark about it. Their carrier force maintained radio silence the whole way and chose a route that avoided shipping lanes too.
@@partygrove5321 this was addressed in this telling! The Einsatzgruppen were the Schutzstaffel guerrillas of Nazi Germany who were guilty of mass murder, especially by shooting, during World War II..the ef'ing Japs were savage as well. The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) has been staging hundreds of semi-trucks filled with unspecified equipment at a closed air base in Michigan..repurposed Walmarts into containment facilities hubbed with mass transportation abilities?..certainly military occupation Makes Neutral (naked the city streets/Paris!) The Estate 'Capital Punishment Ready On The OLYMPIC Level, SAE! Rome Reviving?
The third wave was canceled due to extensive minor damage to planes from SMALL ARMS FIRE! The attack was a marginal failure and they needed luck to do that well…they killed a bunch of people, no significant strategic effect, most battleships were raised and all had marginal value this late in history anyway.
Unless I missed it there was no mention that the US Carriers which were the primary targets were not at Pearl Harbor that day.
What a coincidence they were told not to go into pearl harbour. I think the usa knew they were coming. They needed it to happen so the public would back the declaration of war. Just my opinion
I agree. The old American battleships were not likely to change the course of the war before Midway, so the US carriers were key. If we somehow saved the battleships from sinking, not much would be different. Japan was doomed from the start because Yorktown and Lexington escaped Pearl Harbor. Ultimately, it was the Nukes that shocked Japan into surrender, and that timetable was fixed by the Manhattan Project.
@@Gen-X-Memories Enterprise was due in to Pearl Harbor from delivering USMC fighters to Wake on Saturday Dec. 6th, but was delayed by bad weather. Lexington was returning from a similar delivery to Midway. Saratoga was loading up aircraft in San Diego. The rest of the carriers were in the Atlantic.
The US carriers were not the prime targets.
That was answered in an article I read about a year ago.
Those carriers were all on missions. Two were delivering fighter planes to other air fields and one was getting repairs, I think at San Diego. To fully prepare a carrier for long journeys requires several weeks of preparation so them leaving Pearl was not a last minute decision. At port, they get food about twice a week but if they are going on mission they have to load up to the max with food and fuel and all the stuff needed to maintain the thousands of sailors. Add up all the food and other things that are needed. Even soap for thousands of guys is a lot. Shower soap, laundry soap, cleaning soap for kitchen, different soap for scrubbing floors, etc. Frozen food takes up a lot of space, canned goods, dry goods. That is a lot of merchandise and requires planning far ahead of departure.
The attack on Pearl Harbor has a close connection to me. Just before the attack began my dad was getting ready to go ashore from his ship USS Raleigh CL-7. Just minutes before 8 AM the ship was rocked when an aerial torpedo struck the port side. The crew worked hard to stop flooding and managed to keep her afloat. About an hour later an armor piercing bomb passed near an ammo magazine, passed through the ship and exploded on the harbor floor. Fortunately, Raleigh survived.
The ship went on to serve for the duration of WWII from the Aleutian Islands to the north and as far as Fiji to the south.
Hi. My Dad was also there. They were in the launch ready to go to Arizona. Attack happend. They went back to Ship. Heavy Cruiser New Orleans. They were very lucky!
Church Services were on the Arizona that morning.
My mom was there, newly married navy wife.
This is all wrong general billy Mitchell wrote all about this but it is all written out of history
TECHNICAL ERROR IN THIS VIDEO:
Oscilloscopes do not "pick up" signals. They are not radio receivers. O-scopes only DISPLAY WAVEFORMS. They must be fed a signal from a receiver.
The radar sets back then didn't work like you see today. There was no radarscope that plotted positions. The radar sets used back then used oscilloscopes to measure the strength of a radar return signal at a given bearing. Point the antenna in one direction and look for any spikes on the scope.
Also the 545 is a somewhat newer scope. Was it available in 1941?
@@BogeyTheBear He was not incorrect. The oscilloscope did not measure the strength; it displayed the result. That signal was sent to it by the radar antenna.
@@msimon6808 Well, he also used the image of a P-51 and a Hawker Hurricane.
splitting hair, see the big picture in this and enjoy it
In 1905, ( correct me if I have the year wrong,) during a war between Russia and Japan, the Japanese fleet totally destroyed the Russian Baltic fleet at the Battle of Tsushima. With the loss of this fleet Russia was forced to negotiate for peace, with unfavorable terms. With the attack on Pearl Harbor Japanese hoped to repeat history.
The Japanese actually started that war by using destroyers torpedoing the Russian fleet at Port Arthur then laying mines to trap the Russian Pacific fleet then landing in Korea to take Port Arthur. The Baltic Fleet was sent to relieve that fleet.
The Japanese were strongly influenced by Hector Bywater's book 'War Plan Orange' which hypothesised in detail how a Japanese/American war in the Pacific could begin and would need to be fought. Yamamoto and many of his colleagues studied this book in great length once it was translated into Japanese and repeatedly war gamed its premise.
did you not rather mean the attack on Port Arthur
You are wrong here. The relevant event was the surprise attack on Port Arthur. Although, I'm sure the Japanese would have loved to repeat the Battle of Tsushima. Alas, Midway was pretty much a reverse Tsushima.
@@mikebronicki8264 I am not sure of your point here. The Battle of Port Arthur and the destruction of the Russian Eastern Fleet occurred in 1904. After which the Russians continued the war. The Battle of Tsushima and the destruction of the Russian Baltic Fleet occurred in 1905 and led to the Russian negotiating for peace. It was this battle, at Tsushima, that led the Japanese to seek a decisive naval battle, the attack at Pearl Harbor, in order to obligated the US to negotiate for peace. The Battle of Midway was another attempt by the Japanese to engage in a decisive naval battle. As you said, it "was pretty much a reverse Tsushima." Except that after their losses at Midway, the Japanese still did not seek peace.
The reason why Japan attacked Pearl Harbor was because of one thing Oil and the lack there of for Japan.
And other raw materials and probably food.
its never just one thing lol
Yoda?
@@monsterzero760 The United States cut off oil and steel sales.
Plus they thought they could win with six months. Because they knew that they could never keep up with a mobilization in the US.
The fact is, is that the US, and probably the UK had broken the Japanese Naval Code months before the attack. I was a grunt Marine in the Vietnam War. I find it beyond bizarre that you couldn't imagine that a US President would lie, and want to be attacked to inflame public opinion for war.
They did it in WW I with the sinking of the Lusitania. A cruise ship loaded with weapons. They knew and denied it for decades.
The Gulf of Tonkin in 1964.
2003 Weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. There were none. 'In War, truth is the first casualty' Aeschylus.
That FDR conspiracy theory has been debunked thoroughly. The US government knew the Nips were going to attack. But the Pacific is huge and no one expected Pearl Harbor to be attacked. Also no ships were sunk in the Gulf of Tonkin, which was just nervous trigger happy sailors firing at phantom ships.
you forgot nine11
We had broken the Japanese diplomatic code, not their navy code. Nothing in the intercepts pointed specifically to an attack on Hawaii, though there was quite a bit of intel from other sources (such as our ambassador to Japan, Joseph Grew) that pointed toward Hawaii. I'm not a fan of FDR by any stretch, but I've seen no convincing evidence that he knew an attack against Pearl Harbor was imminent.
@alexanderordinary2110 no, I didn't, but kept it short. And, not one plane hit the towers, or the Pentagon, or the field in Shanksville(?) Pennsylvania
They were cruise missiles, or similar.
In August 2001, BBC reported that the Pentagon had completed preparations for the invasion of Afghanistan. Final point about Pearl Harbor; it's not a coincidence that all aircraft carriers were sent a good distance from Oahu. Those at the highest levels knew. Just a handful, or more.
@@paulmeuse7774 All total and easily debunked lies about the WTC. And even most of the Japanese naval high command were unaware of the Pearl harbor Strike Force. It was ultra secret
The fleet was originally based on the west coast, Roosevelt moved it to Pearl Harbor against the advice of most of his Generals. Then, he started cutting exports to Japan like steel and oil, triggering Japanese expansion and ironically, it is when they invaded Vietnam that he began threatening them. Later when he froze all their assets in the US, that's when they decided something had to be done, they had no choice. And, when the attack happened, the 3 carriers stationed at Pearl 'happened' to be out on some insignificant mission and to top it up, many newspapers published articles the week before the attack saying: "Japs May Attack This Week-End" THEREFORE:
-he moved the fleet
-he cut export
-he froze their assets
-he got warnings from the Australians
-he threatened them
-he sent the carriers away
-he might have told the Red Cross to send more people there
-a warning was sent from Washington by Fed-Ex or UPS instead of the direct line, it got there a hour too late
-he got Kimmel and Short court-martialed knowing they were perfectly innocent
-AND, if the newspapers knew...
done on purpose, to unite the people of the usa
Fed-Ex and UPS were not in existence. Otherwise, you are right. War was coming no matter what.
Churchill could have coached Roosevelt- he was another conniving warmonger. Research the Lusitania
"The U.S. knew something was afoot, they just had no idea where."
For effective military planning, you can not repeat can not worry about what potential enemies will do. You need to look at all the things they can do, and prepare to stop those things that can hurt you.
They were expecting attacks in the Philippines and Guam
@@partygrove5321 the US military were expecting attacks in the Philippines and on Guam. And when these attacks came the day after the Pearl Harbor attack, it was clear the US Military preparations where woefully inadequate.
@@tedr.5978 yup. But the Pearl Harbor attack took everyone by surprise
@@tedr.5978 Well yeah, for the Japanese succeeded EVERYWHERE in their various December 1941 invasions.
A that time the kind of attack that Japan launched on Pearl was unheard of. It's hard to predpate forsomething you kever hsve seen or heard of. Also at that time the US navy was not realy prepared for war in that way. It's like when Getmany used paratroopers during the attack on France. France was still planing for a war like in WW1 when Hermany totaly surprised them and faught a war that depended on speed a mmovement.After Pearl the US transformed the way they used the navy.
Don't let this video do your critical thinking for you.
True, cant say anything as AI blocks it.
@@Phil-m6gLearn to talk around certain subjects if you don't want your comments "Bermuda triangled". I do.
As a teenager, my best friend's dad told me that he was a gunner's mate aboard USS Arizona. On the night of December 6th, he got drunk and was involved in a bar fight. The result of that fight was that the sailors involved were apprehended by the shore patrol. He and his buddies spent the night sobering up in the shore patrol brig, rather than being aboard USS Arizona.
Sounds like a lie you just quoted Pearl Harbor movie with the jail cell
Yes, it could have been worse, The Japanese blundered by neither attacking the dry dock repair facilities or the fuel storage depots .
Fixated on battleships. Not long term thinking. As in oil and dry docks. 👍
Japanese doctrine never considered attacking the port facilities or fuel tanks. More to the point, the fuel tanks were not nearly as easy to destroy as people think they were, and destroying the port facilities would have taken time that the Japanese did not have.
Japan blundered by attacking Pearl harbor in the first place, regardless if they attacked the Oil Facilities ,which were never really considered (the Third Strike Myth), Japan was fighting a war with an opponent they could not defeat. Japan could never win a long term war against the United States but their thinking was based on their previous experiences, Tsushima and the attempted Mongol invasion, where a single battle decided the outcome of the war, in their mind logistics was not relevant and even if it was they did not have the logistical capability to pull it off.
There was an interview of an older man who was alive at this time and he said if Japan had continued onward to the US mainland they probably could've taken some territory here.He said the US military wasn't up to strength to repeal invaders at that time.
@ Pearl Harbor was the extreme range of the IJN. There is no way that Kido Butai would ever be sent anywhere near the US West coast.
Those in charge of communications: "I was never told about a problem with communications!!!"
My uncle was a US Marine stationed at Pearl. He told me that the carriers were normally in port every Sunday. For some reason they were all moved south !
FDR knew the attack was coming.
I think that Short did take defensive measures. He just prepared to defend against sabotage. He was not ready for air attack. It seems that this was a pretty good position to take.
Not in hindsight.
@@WilliamMurphy-b6v Hindsight is 20/20. Foresight....not so much. :B
@@WilliamMurphy-b6v For sure.
Short and Kimmel DID heed the warnings. They had a week or more of active alert status before the 7th that had the whole facility on edge and exhausted, and decided on a brief stand down to R&R the troops. Understandable, but ill timed.
@@vincentantonielli 40,000 troops on Hawaii and everyone needed a standdown on the same day....laughable
Short and Kimmel were hung out to dry. MacArthur was similarly negligent in the Philippines in spite of having 9 hrs warning after Pearl Harbor, but he is considered a hero.
Also, the video fails to mention the Japanese attack on Malaya, with troop landings at Kota Bharu occurring 90 minutes before the attack on Pearl Harbor. On that side of the date line the date was December 8. The landings were opposed by Indian troops and the RAF.
By the evening of December 4, British intelligence had been expecting that attack, but not one on American territory. Lord Halifax, the British ambassador to Washington wrote in his diary, “Everything looks exactly like the Japanese balloon going up in the course of a day or two...cyphers being burnt, secret messages in that sense, etc.”
MacArthur heard about the attack from a commercial radio broadcast, and yet he had a Magic encryption machine, in Manila. Britain got two Magic machines, from the US, to watch Japanese moves, in exchange for two Enigma machines, so the US could monitor German moves There was a fourth machine that was to go to Pearl, but it was still in the factory being built. It would have made more sense, if Kimmel got one, first, and Britain got the one still in the factory, later.
Mac knew where the bodies were buried in DC.
@@rjhydenHe was given an large amount of money by the President of the Philippines
MacArthur was not sacked for a number of reasons. First, the Philippine government would have felt even more deserted by the US if MacArthur was relieved. Second, MacArthur had been Chief of Staff so it would be awkward to bring him back to Washington D.C, with Marshall now as Chief of Staff. Third, most military and political brass expected the attack on the Philippines, but now Hawaii.
Short clearly failed to prepare for an attack. Kimmel was held responsible because that is the navy tradition. Short was responsible for packing the planes in tight groupings and he shut down the combat center so there was no way to get an alert.
Like many my age (I'm in my 60s) I grew up hearing stories from my parents about FDR knowing about Pearl Harbor before the attack, and have largely dismissed them. Then I read 'And I Was There - Pearl Harbor and Midway - Breaking the Secrets ' by the late Rear Admiral Edwin Layton, the US Pacific Fleet Intelligence Officer before and during WWII. It is a long and extremely detailed book, but one which anyone interested in the Second World War should read. There is more than enough documentation to support the probability that FDR knew Pearl Harbor was going to be attacked and allowed it to take place to get us into the war on Britain's side. Chief among the details was the fact that Soviets had an extensive Intelligence network in Japan and was aware of their War plans, and was sharing much of it with us.
Also, Admiral Richmond Kelly Turner (AKA 'Terrible' Turner) as the Navy's director of war plans routinely kept vital intel about Japanese diplomatic communications from both Admiral Kimmel and General Short, that would have enabled them to properly defend Hawaii had they known Japanese spies were routinely sending 'ships in Harbor' reports through diplomatic channels back to Tokyo that Turner knew of, but did not share with either Kimmel or Short.
I highly recommend this book for anyone with the courage to penetrate the myths and face the probability that many of our country's leaders put their political intentions ahead of the National security. FDR had PLENTY of intel on Japanese intentions...
Exactly why Bush arranged 9-11. This is what happens when godless Masons want to be and are presidents.
The only comment with truth in this entire comments section.
It's quite ironic that WW2 has more myths and lies than it ever has when the internet was supposedly going to be a library of knowledge. It's just flooded with lies and (Allied) war propaganda instead.
Every facet in my decades research concludes that the Allied cause of war in both the Pacific & Destruction of Europe are falsehoods rooted in hypocrisy, deception, and ill-intent.
Japan held up their end of the bargain with the third reich! From many accounts Hitler was sure they would be in control of Russia by that time and the next target was North America. But the blitzkrieg failed and Russia fought back.
The Soviets did not have an extensive intelligence network in Japan, they had Richard Sorge. The Soviets did not share their intelligence with anyone. The US was already in a shooting war with Germany in the Atlantic, and had been since October 1941. Pearl Harbour did not bring Germany into the war with the US, anymore than the German invasion of the USSR in June 1940 brought Japan into war with the USSR. The Automedon incident combined with the idea that US foreign policy makers were stupid/naive enough to believe Japanese aggression could be stopped by economic sanctions. The Japanese were going to seize the British, Dutch and French colonial possessions regardless of what the US did. Cutting off oil and steel to Japan was the immediate catalyst to Pearl Harbour. FDR had ZERO intel on Japanese intentions.
@@pauldwyer7359 Read the US navy's pre-war McCollum memo & its eight step plan. FDR followed it to a T. He wanted it to happen.
An attack on Pearl Harbor was considered very unlikely because the Japanese Navy ships did not have the range to sail that far without refueling. Trouble was the Japanese Navy came up with clever ways to carry a lot of extra fuel to make the trip.
Concerning the Opana radar site... the two enlisted operators were just training with the unit. There had never been any operational training exercises to acquaint the operators, Army fighter direction or Hawaii command personnel with the capability or employment of the unit. The officer on duty at Hickam Field, Lt Tyler had just been assigned to Hawaii, and that Sunday was his first duty day. Even if he had raised the alarm, the vast majority of the assigned aircraft had been prepared to thwart a subversive "Fifth Column" terrorist attack, defueled and disarmed, per Washington's orders. It is unlikely that the US military in Hawaii could have been lulled into a more passive stance than they were. In fact, intelligence pointed more to attacks in East Asia than anywhere else.
Not Washington's. General Short's orders.
@jaimeosbourn3616 Washington directed General Short to issue that order via the general directives issued to Short when he was assigned to Hawaii.
I think Roosevelt and "crew" gave those orders to make it easier for Japan to attack Pearl Harbor with little aerial opposition. Roosevelt reminds me of Biden. Both traitors.
incorrect on several points. There were 6 radars stations on Oahu and they all reported to a command center and collectively known as Aircraft Warning (ACW) Unit. They were trained by the British RAF in the interception techniques they had used to defeat the Luftwaffe a year earlier. At least 9 air raid exercises had been conducted by the ACW so the personnel had been trained however Gen Short ordered a "stand down" on 6th and 7th December. LT Taylor was in fact a new Pursuit Pilot passing through the new ACW on his day off and just happened to be the most senior man the handful of soldiers answering telephones could find, he was never assigned to the ACW. Besides Opana another radar station spotted the incoming Japanese. It was Short himself who ordered the change to defend against a fifth column, not Washington, as fact Short later tried to conceal by destroying official communications between his command and General Marshall. In fact Marshall specifically told short his primary mission was the defence of the fleet and provided him with the highest priority of equipment such as the ACW, the latest P40s and 90 anti aircraft guns that were never deployed. Short himself dismissed the notions he needed these assets when he assumed the Navy would warn him of any enemy fleet that may approach.
@Freedomfred939 My remarks concerned the Opana Point site only. General Short was not at all interested in radar, or it's use. The SCR270 radars had only recently arrived in Hawaii, and were only assembled and usable by November 1941. While Maj Kenneth Bregquist had been trained in the use of the SCR270 radars, there was no appreciable technical transfer between Great Britain and the US until the Tizard mission in 1940. This was a high level transfer of research materials, not military tactics. The first transfer of British GCI tactical doctrine to the US occurred when the Royal Navy lent HMS Victorious to the US Navy in early 1943, and she operated with Saratoga in the South Pacific as "USS Robin." This was well after Pearl Harbor. In the month those radars operated prior to the attack, Gen Short limited their operation to 4 hours per day, with all units shut down by 0700. It is unlikely in that short span that the operators became proficient in their basic operation, let alone skilled in any sort of operational employment. The AWS concept was in development at the time of Pearl Harbor, the Army was in the early stages of converting Pursuit Squadrons into Inteceptor Squadrons, but integration of separate elements into a whole system was still just a concept on Dec. 7th. In fact, the two privates at Opana kept the unit running late on Dec 7th to get extra practice because they had a large target to work with. Opana was remote enough that they had to hitch a ride to a gas station to report anything they observed. As far as the other units on Hawaii, their orientation, terrain masking, and the limited range of the SCR270 sets meant Opana was the only site that was in a position to observe the inbound strike. While Washington may have provided the equipment with the intent to use every advanced device possible (it was Gen "Hap" Arnold who was pushing radar) the device was little understood by operational commanders and field officers in both the Army and Navy, except by scientists and the few military men trained specifically to use the device.
On Lt Taylor. Lt Taylor was a fight pilot assigned to Wheeler Field. Lt Tyler was the officer in Schafter... I believe I've been using "Taylor" instead of "Tyler."
Yes Gen Short did order the "5th column defensive posture" prior to the Pearl Harbor attack, as I pointed out in another post. However, Short only took this measure because of direction from Washington. In a letter from Secretary of the Navy Frank Knox to Secretary of War Henry Stimson on Jan 24th, 1941, Knox stated the primary threats to the Fleet in Pearl Harbor were: 1) Air bombing attack, 2) Air torpedo plane attack, 3) SABOTAGE, 4) Submarine attack, 5) Mining, and 6) Bombardment by gunfire. Stimson replied to this letter on February 7th, and both letters were provided to both Kimmell and Short. It was agreed that while Short was responsible for defense from aerial attack, the Navy was responsible for defense from the sea. This meant for Short that he could expect any areal attack to be conducted by naval forces. This left defense for sabotage, directed by the civilian authorities in Washington. That German attacks in western Europe were proceeded by "5th column" sabotage attacks (in rumor or fact), was in common discussion at the time of the attack by officers throughout our military. In addition, General Marshall's "war warning" message spoke of miliary action by the Japanese directed at targets in East Asia or the Canal Zone. Taken together with the general suspicion of the Japanese population of Hawaii in those times led Short to defend against sabotage. Note: His command chain gave him an imperative command to take such action when he was assigned to Hawaii, and Short and Kimmell rarely spoke after their assignment to Hawaii.
The US did not “join” in WWII. The US was given Japans' version of a declaration of war, and that was the extent of it, the US was only at war with Japan. The US did not join in the worldwide war until after Germany and Italy declared war on the US. The isolationist declarations kept the US out of the European theater unless the Axis powers there declared war on the US.
Correct, it was Germany that declared war on the US not the other way around.
@@peterstubbs5934The Americans were supplying the British Empire with weapons. They were already in the wsr.
@@ThursoBerwick Ok. But then again, the US was also supplying B239 fighters to Axis forces at the same time. Bidniss is bidniss.
@@timapple6586 I don't think they gave much if anything in the way of munitions to the Japanese, but the Japanese were well aware that their enemies in Hong Kong, Malaya, Borneo, Singapore and Australia etc were getting American weapons.
Americans think the war started in 1941. British think it started in 1939. The Chinese sometimes think it started in the mid thirties. My cynical side suggests that the Americans wanted the Soviets and Nazis to knock seven shades out of each other, but also for the western European powers to be weakened so they could step in. The British Commonwealth already spoke English so it was an ideal marketplace for them to expand into after the war. The Americans also got to reorient the economies of West Germany, Italy, Japan, Britain, France and Australia etc after the war in their favour.
@@timapple6586 Had written out other stuff, it's gone now thanks to YT. 👎 Short version, I don't think the US was supplying Japan, but it was supplying Australia and Britain (and so Singapore, Borneo, Hong Kong, Malaya etc) with munitions.
The fact that a major Air and Naval base had absolutely no scouting aircraft airborne on that fateful day, speaks volumes about how unprepared the US forces were at that point in our history.
Sunday morning, Fleet is asleep after night before or on relaxed duty, they weren't at war, and if there was an attack they weren't expecting it at Pearl Harbour.
I served in West Germany during the cold war, our war scenarios usually started early Sunday morning as that was when we would be most vulnerable, its how to start your war 101.
19th in the world
In 1941, during World War II, the United States had a significant number of servicemen, with 38.8% being volunteers and 61.2% being draftees. The average duration of service was 33 months, and 73% of servicemen served overseas for an average of 16 months2. However, before England declared war on Germany, the U.S. Army ranked 19th in the world, smaller than Portugal.
Darwin in north Australia was also caught completely off guard with one of the reasons being the same as Pearl Harbour where the invading aircraft were detected but thought to be an incoming flight of friendly aircraft. Many cities & towns along the northern coast of Australia were subjected to numerous raids. Japanese submarines also shelled Sydney suburbs & torpedoed a ship in Sydney Harbour..
@@joannedickie7863 Yes I read about the Japanese strikes and they "piled lumps" on their targets.
The USN didn't have an information about IJN refueling at sea. We didn't know they could do it. So, to best information available, out of range of the Japanese ships.
There was no "Department of Defense" at that time. The services were independent and rarely cooperated or exchanged plans or objectives. The Navy and the Army looked upon each other as competitors for funding rather than mutually supportive services. Moving the Pacific fleet from the West coast of California to Oahu was a reaction to Japanese aggression and the Navy's War Plan Orange; and a lot of observers at the time recognized that air power, both Naval and Army, was more essential than ever.
here was no "Department of Defense" at that time. It was called the Dept. of War.
@@partygrove5321 The "War" Department spent most of it's energy refereeing the inter-service squabbles of the Army and Navy rather than addressing strategic issues and actually preparing for war.
Japan believed war was necessary to secure vital natural resources like oil and raw materials, which were scarce within its own borders, but which could be gained by expanding its empire in Asia, particularly in areas like Manchuria and Southeast Asia, where these resources were plentiful. This goal seemed to indicate that: 1. expansionistic endeavors by nearby nations would inevitably result in military conflict. 2. any country lacking resources necessary for such conflicts, such as: oil and iron ore, would be at the mercy of countries which had readily access to them. 3. experiencing increasing resistance from Western powers like the U.S., who were imposing economic sanctions upon Japan at that time, suggested that they might be between a rock and a hard place in the near future. In a fight before them, with larger opponents with greater strength and capabilities logically suggested a "first strike" scenario that might incapacitate an adversary long enough to remove their head. So everything hinged on removing the head of a sleeping giant in one fell swoop.
Yes a correct assessment of the cause for war and the strike at Pearl Harbor.
Remember,though, that the reason they were short on these things, and the reason the US cut exports to the Japanese was their unnecessary aggressive war against China. They could have stopped or at least toned the war down (and, of course, omitted the atrocities that inflamed opinion against them). They did not, starting the spiral of events leading to war.
@@thomasbeach905so true.....
The irony, the Japanese attacked with short term goals in mind and wound up expanding the war to their fall. Oops.
Short term solutions most often fail in the long run.
Interesting, isn't it?
Many of the American ships that were sunk or damaged were later recovered from the shallow waters, repaired, and entered the war. Battleships were becoming obsolete anyway and all the carriers were out at sea.
The attack did not really knock out the American fleet. It just delayed the start of the American offensive.
We added several battleships just before or during WWII.
It literally crippled the Pacific Fleet and while the damaged ships were repaired, it took six months and resources to do so, leaving the West Coast of the US open. The Atlantic Fleet consisted of 4 destroyer squadrons and 3 patrol squadrons which is nothing compared to the Pacific Fleet.
@@larryjewell7048 In 1939-40 we added *3* battleships, the South Dakota, Indiana and Massachusetts for a total of 17, 6 of which were at Pearl Harbor while the other 3 were spread out over the Pacific and 8 all over in the Atlantic.
Two of those 6 were sunk permanently in 1941.
All the repaired ships from Pearl were part of the largest naval battle not even 3 years later at Leyte Gulf......talk about mind-boggling!!!
The film clip starting at 2:38 shows P-51D Mustangs and doesn't depict anything about Pearl Harbor, as the P51D didn't enter service until 1944. Likewise, the planes in the clip at 2:51 have British markings and appear to be a Spitfire and Hurricane in England, which also have nothing to do with Pearl Harbor.
Ironically, Kimmel was quite aware of the dangers of an enemy fleet[read: Japanese]approaching the Hawaiian Islands undetected and launching a surprise raid on the fleet anchorage. RADAR, was just coming in as a security tool, so Kimmel and his staff had to rely on long range aviation for early warnings[read: PBY Catalinas], the Army had B-17's on Oahu[with more scheduled as reinforcements]but there was no coordinated plan for any defense of the airspace over Oahu.
@@davidmurray5399 it wasn't Kimmel but Bloch who controlled defenses. But they thought the Japanese could not come from the north
My dad was in the U.S. Navy reserves and he got called to active duty on August 1940 to go for training and was stationed at Floyd Bennet Field to join an ASW squadron. If you were paying attention then it was clear that it was only a matter of time before was in the war.
According to former CIA Director and head of WW2 OSS leader William Casey, Churchill had access to the Japanese JN 25 and informed Roosevelt of the operations.
The Japanese never ever broadcasted any orders about the Pearl Harbor attack on the wireless. It was all done via wired telephones, hand delivered letters and meetings.
But didn't do squat about the Japanese Malaysian Invasion & drive to Singapore unleashed at the same time?! Right try another theory.
I have no doubt that the higher ups knew EXACTLY what Japan was planning BUT, I would not trust William Casey to tell me the sky is blue. Much less anything else
Rubbish, JN25 wasn't broken until May 1942.
@ we were just lucky enough to have pearl harbor for war morale and also just lucky enough to have the carriers out that weekend. Just bad luck for Japan huh? BULL SH!T! We knew exactly what they were doing. JP Morgan jr was still loaning them money
Watch the film Tora! Tora! Tora! to see how things went so horribly wrong. US Navy intelligence deduced that an attack was coming, but they weren't sure which targets would be struck, and they also pegged the wrong day: Sunday 30 November. Plus, commanders in Washington didn't want to start a Pacific war, knowing they'd be vilified as warhawks by the press.
@unofeoconejo You are going to base your opinion and post, on what you have seen in a F~(king movie?
SERIOUSLY?
@@towgod7985 Seriously. It's a docu-drama based largely upon the Congressional hearings that followed, asking why Pearl Harbor was allowed to be so defenseless despite ample forewarning from Naval Intelligence. The actors and the scenes mirror the testimony given during the hearings.
@unofeoconejo You just said it yourself, docuDRAMA! It is a FICTIONALISED presentation of events.....HOLLYWOOD. Not a documentary, and the producers are under NO obligation to present accurate information OR tell the viewer what is fictionalised dramatisation!
@@towgod7985 as a graduate of History, particularly this period, I can vouch for the film. The makers were fastidious in their historical accuracy.
@@seang3019 There always is a problem with films like that even if it's close to the truth. One often have to make small changes due to dramatik purposes and then there is the time thing. You have to cram everything into a film witch meens you have to leave things out. Also in 1970 there still was a lot that was clasified that spreads light on the events.
Kinda crazy to have all the Battleships lined up at Pearl Harbor, when they knew a attack was coming .
Adm Kimmel was running Pearl Harbor like a country club. It was to the point that his officers' wives would complain to him if their husbands pulled inconvenient duty. Kimmel didn't have to worry about where the attack would happen; he only had to ensure Pearl was ready.
Given the 11/27, "war warning" message from Washington, he sent out two carrier task forces to look for the IJN (and deliver planes to Wake and Midway), the BB's were left behind because they were not as fast as the carriers.
The battleships at Pearl Harbor were all pre-World War I and pretty much obsolete by 1941. The raid probably would have been more successful if the Japanese focused on the numerous cruisers and destroyers spread all over the harbor and bunched closely together. And, the above-ground oil storage tanks, whose loss would have tied up the U.S. Pacific fleet for months.
You left out irrefutable evidence that the US had forewarning. On Nov 6 and7 1941, Japan sent a message to the UUS EMBASSY via the Purple machine imploring US to negotiate the tariffs and oil embargo that had been placed on them by the US. When the US IN LATE NOVEMBER ignored and concluded all conversations, the Japan said they would escalate this matter. US foolishly though that the attack would be on the Philippines due to logistic and not the US
Hawaii wasn't part of America till the 1960s
It was a territory, but not yet a state.
The US knew something was up, but nothing pointed towards Pearl Harbor and everything towards Malaya and the Dutch East Indies. Admiral Hart had already deployed the Asiatic Fleet to wartime locations and had withdrawn the Yangtze River Patrol and the 4th Marine Regiment from China to the Philippines. The last few Marines in China were supposed to be withdrawn on the 10th (the liner SS President Harrison, sent to pick them up, was captured by Japan in Shanghai on the first day of the war, along with the gunboat USS Wake (PR-3) which had been left behind in Shanghai as a radio station) It was MacArthur who got caught flat footed with his forces not ready for war.
@@kerriemccoy1647 the United States annexed Hawaii in 1898.
What you forget is that was actually December 6 and seventh and did not conclude until 1 PM after the attack
One bit of fortuitous misfortune was one where a troublesome ionosphere that previous evening that obliged an important war warning was sent to Pearl by underwater cable instead. The resultant cable was dropped in the delivery bag to go out with the morning telegrams...
There was no underwater cable to Hawaii. Telegrams were often called cables in the pre-Marconi world. The Army's 25 KW radio was fubar due to sun spot activity so the alert message was sent via RCA's 40 KW transmitter, guaranteeing it would punch through the static.
Thank you!
The brief clip of a Pearl Harbor survivor reminded me that the last Pearl Harbor survivor, 102-year-old Lou Cantor, died earlier this year. This means that this year's commemoration of the attack will be the first not to include any veteran of the battle (even vicariously).
*last known survivor of the USS Airzona not Pearl Harbour
Get your facts straight
@@nj5426 You are right. Infact, according to the Pearl Harbor Survivor List, after the passing of Lou Cantor there are still 12 survivors left.
Good thing I don't need a living veteran to remind me of a battle.
For interesting short stories by veterans, check out the TH-cam channel "Memories of WW2."
The experiences of everyday soldiers and sailors
There was ample warning that an attack was coming......except that most everyone expected it to occur in SE Asia. No one thought the Japanese could attack Hawaii.
This is an excellent summary documentary, one of the best I've seen. Thank you. Because this work is so good, I want to share a perspective for a different way of understanding WW II as a crucial and transformative part of 20th century world history.
A lot of this does make sense and is already understood:
1. Yamamoto designed the Pearl Harbor attack under orders but privately opposed doing it. Loyal to the Emperor and the Japanese nation, he did as he was ordered. A quote attributed to him, that perhaps he never said, shows his actual view. Refering to the US, he said "Do not wake the sleeping giant." Yamamoto's actual views were thoroughly correct.
2. The army-based military junta ruling Japan equated fast battlefield success with victory. The thinking was parralel to the blitzkrieg concept that Hitler successfully used as an air/land war across Europe, but that failed in the Battle of Britain where stukka dive bombers could not be immediately followed on with troops invading and holding captured territory.
3. Prior to the middle of WW II, after Pearl Harbor, the idea of unified land, sea, and air communications and control did not exist in the military.
4. Due to the lack of understanding of the implications of aircraft carriers across the Pacific, Midway Island seemed the most likely target, rather than Hawaii or the West Coast.
5. The unreliability and low power of radar, combined with the lack of experience interpreting radar, combined with the poor command decision to leave decisions about communicating radar readings upwards to low ranking officers (a lieutenant in this case) are a result of any military's slow ability to master new technologies and combine them with effective analysis, communications, and control.
6. The specifics of Fuchida's error in sending the second flair may never be known. But that it happened is no surprise at all. This type of error is deeply understood in military communications theory, and it's implications regarding the consequences of lost messages or messages thought to be lost are deeply worked out in the philosophical puzzle called "the two generals problem."
7. Did FDR know that the Pearl Harbor attack, specifically, was coming? I agree with this video that the answer was "probably not." But they may have been aware and taking covert action. The key point is that the future of the Pacific War would be centered on aircraft carriers, and there we no aircraft carriers waiting in Pearl Harbor to be destroyed. If FDR and his military command team considered the attack on Pearl (as opposed to other locations) likely, they might well have ordered the aircraft carriers to delay their return to Pearl (under a cover story of encountering weather at sea) and let the rest happen. The main reason was to end the 20-year long history of US isolationism and unite the citizens and congress behind full commitment to participation in, and victory for, the Allied side in WW II. Such a politically motivated action would not be unheard of in WW II. Churchill allowing the bombing of Coventry to hide the British cracking of the Enigma code was a similar case.
8. No one could have foreseen how the Pacific war would go forth. Only Yamamoto saw the implications of aircraft carriers, and he did not imagine in concrete ways the implications of "waking the sleeping giant" US economy and technological development power as it would apply to mass production of ever-improving military hardware.
9. In every country, those who understood economics and those who ran the military had different visions of what it takes to win a war. The sea-change in the war triggered by Pearl Harbor was that it led to innovations that could barely be foreseen, and who's consequences could not be predicted:
- the joining of US inventiveness from the 2nd Industrial Revolution (think Edison) with the fast productivity of reliable equipment of the modern assembly line (think Colt and Henry Ford). This convergence of trends that began between the Civil War and 1890 completely changed the nature of war.
- the joining of command and control across branches of the military, and then across allied governments of independent nations
- military communications via radio (and associted code-breaking) allowing strategic planning that spanned continent-sized and ocean-sized war zones brought information science to the forefront of tools for military victory.
Note: I am an amateur historian and not even a war buff in particular. I simply read and listen to the best documentaries and analyses with an open mind. It is often the case, from this perspective, that things that are easy to understand with unbiased thinking and a good college-level education are not understood and seem not to make sense. The major reason for these things "not making sense" is people receive outdated thinking frameworks that limit and bias our understanding, and not that these problems have not already been resolved by our best thinkers.
FDR and his staff did not know the location of the strike - what Government could have the moxie to set up such an attack? Being a sportsman FDR did give the Japanese a sort of war time head start.
My grand uncle was the captain of the battleship USS West Virginia moored next to the Tennessee on the bay side. He died early in the attack from a shrapnel wound. In the days prior to 12/7 my grand uncle reported a number of Japanese mini subs and he and others were concerned about returning to Pearl Harbor preferring to remain in the open ocean. However these concerns were ignored. Some commentators have said that there would have been greater deaths if the Japanese attacked the fleet in open water. However, that assumes that the fleet would have remained close to each other and not scattered and that the Japanese would have attacked if the fleet if they were not in the harbor.
1. My father was at Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. What I relate comes only from my research, including a retired Admiral's account of the US Navy running up to December 7, 1941.
2. In the Philippines, there was a defensive plan. The plan was for American bombers to immediately launch and bomb the Japanese military base on Taiwan (Formosa). Such is where the invasion of SE Asia had been launched months before.
As you know, we have recently had a former 4 star general and Secretary of Defense disappear without telling the President or the second in command at the Defense Department. On the evening of the fateful day, MacArthur set an example by disappearing and no one could give the order to attack. The next day, the US Army planes were destroyed on the ground. A couple of years earlier, the annual army games had the practice withdrawing down the Bataan Peninsula. The report was not to do it during war as there was no water or supplies. So MacArthur blew up his munitions, declared Manilla an open city and retreated.
A few years before 1941, Roosevelt, former Secretary of the Navy, wanted the Pacific Fleet moved from San Diego to Hawaii. The Navy commander objected and was fired. The Navy commander who was in charge on December 7, 1941 also wanted the fleet back in San Diego, but wasn't vocal to the point that he was removed. Every year, the US Navy also did war games. The Japanese attack followed the attack plan used against Hawaii in the 1930s.
Yamamoto was not a fool. He saw that the waters of the Hawaiian navy docks were shallow and recovery efforts would be completed within a year . . . and it was actually faster than that.
There was no intended sneak attack. The Japanese diplomats were hindered in delivering their message. It did matter . . . it got more kids down to the recruiting station.
An excellent synopsis!
The Nagumo Kido Butai did not know about the message being delivered to the State Department. Nor would they have cared if it had not been delivered.
@@larryjewell7048 Yes, and the plan was to deliver the message immediately before the attack.
Roosevelt had been Assistant Secretary of the Navy during WWI from 1913-1920. I think he knew a few things about all navies at the time, including ours. What he did not know is the Japanese had developed a shallow running air dropped torpedo that would run in Pearl Harbor. If anyone could have known our Pacific Fleet could sustain air raid damage and quickly be repaired with the supplies, equipment, and manpower already stationed on Pearl it would have been FDR. This does not prove he allowed the attack, but it doesn't prove he didn't. The three American suicide yachts story is interesting as well.
A lot of the defensive preparations at Pearl was about stopping sabotage by the inhabitants of Japanese descent. Thus planes were packed close together and had guards ON THE GROUND with them. This made them perfect targets and hard to get in the air.
Also, word was sent from Washington to Pearl, but it went by commercial telegram and Western Union messanger was detained by security so word did not reach the commanders until after the attack was over.
There was a report by the Navy Intel that stated if Japan were to attack it would most likely be Pearl and would be on a weekend when the fleet, including the carriers were usually in port and sailors not on duty.
One of the days they thought the Japanese were going to attack, they sent the fleet out away from the islands, they didn't attack so, they relaxed a bit.
The radar really didn't matter. There were no fighter aircraft sitting fueled up and armed with pilots on standby. It would have taken a good deal of aircraft to stop the attack. With the planes only130 miles out when discovered, they wouldn't have had time to get the planes ready to and pilots to the planes.
Being in port was probably a good thing in the long run. The ships sank in shallow water. Many of the ships were refloated, repaired and went to war. If they had been attacked in open ocean and with no carriers to protect them, we most likely would have lost them all together.
You forgot to add that an Australian observer on a lonely island saw the Japanese fleet and told his government about it.
The Nagumo Kido Butai sailed from the Kuriles, NORTH of the main Japanese islands, and sailed through "the empty seas", so named because the route went where most ships didn't, it wasn't a great circle route.
I have a Japanese friend and find it interesting how different the history of America's involvement in WW2 was/is taught in Japanese schools from what was taught in our schools.
A few things that this production should have touched on that it studiously ignored, firstly that the United States was already in an undeclared war with Japan due to the oil embargo that was being enforced by American warships! Secondly that although President Roosevelt had wanted to send troops to Europe for many months he had been prevented from entering the war by Congress and was actively looking for a way to assist Britain. We must also acknowledge that if the US had not entered the European conflict when it did Britain would haver fallen to the Germans in mere months! Thirdly, the fact that the Japanese code had been broken by the US and the declaration of war was sent to the Japanese Embassy in the US the previous day is an even more telling piece of evidence proving that they knew there was going to be an attack but just didn't know exactly where but should have put ALL forces on alert but failed to even advise even the most likely targets is strange. It is rumored that Roosevelt was handed an unknown communication prior to the attack on Pearl Harbour which he read and his reply was "Do Nothing", possibly indicating that the need for an excuse to enter the was was more important than the need to put defences on alert. The fact that two of the Aircraft Carriers were on maneuvers and others were on there way from and to Pearl Harbour was unusual. It must be noted that Admiral Yamamoto had instructed his admirals not to attack Pearl Harbour if the carriers were not in port but they ignored this part of the plan, to which Admiral Yamamoto later commented "I believe we have awoken a sleeping giant" ! Lastly the inexplicable fact that the Japanese did not destroy the fuel depo at Pearl Harbour allowing the US to respond more quickly is undoubtedly one of the reasons why Japan's attack could be considered a huge blunder!
The biggest mistake Japan made was not destroying the fuel tanks at Pearl.If they had,the remaing US fleet would not have been able to sail against them at Midway!
The attack on Pearl Harbor did very little to hurt the US Navy. The battleships there were old WW1 era ships. The more modern battleships the North Carolina Class were not stationed there. But what doesn't make sense is why the 3 aircraft carriers stationed there were put to sea days before the attack? What was the reason why they were put to sea? And why all 3?
Many people think the attack by the Japanese was a success for them but actually it a colossal failure. Number 1 there were NO Carriers there at the time and the Carrier not the battleship would be the main weapon in the pacific and the US is totally spared that NONE were there during the attack. The Oil fields for refueling the ships were untouched. There were all these Oil tank fields for refueling all the ships and all could have been blown up but they werent. Finally The repair centers for the ships were not touched too. In the battle of Coral Sea the Carrier USS Yorktown is badly damaged and is able to get back to Pearl to get repaired and fight again at Midway. This shocked and confused the Japanese who thought the Yorktown was gone by the time of Midway. So 3 key things didnt happen. No Carriers there or any damaged, No damage to Oil Fields and no damage to Repair centers. Add in this the fact you attacked a bigger stronger country with more resources than you. This is like Punching a Sleeping Mike Tyson in his prime who will wake up and seek revenge on you. JAPAN was doomed after this attack. but HAD they had the carriers there and all the oil fields blown up and all the repair centers destroyed it Would have taken longer to finish then off. probably add a few more years on WW2 in the pacific.
The submarines were ignored as well. These did a huge amount of damage to the enemy.
The tank farms were not a good target because there were about 100 of them and an ordinary bomb wouldn't easily set Bunker B fuel afire. Rupturing the tanks would just spill the oil into the berm around the tank. It would be recovered by being filtered and pumped into an empty tank. The IJN had no way to know which tanks were full and which were empty. Also it would take a max of 90 days for tankers from the West Coast to refill every tank if they had somehow been emptied.
The machine shops were not a good target because the machinery was industrial strength rugged. The Germans tried to take out the tank factory at Stalingrad and never succeeded despite repeated bombing raids.
Technically we were already at war with Japan:
1. We had an oil embargo on Japan.
2. We froze all Japanese assets in US.
3. Japan was forbidden from using the Panama canal.
Really, you left out Billy Mitchell who warned in 1925 Pearl Harbor on a Sunday morning
There were several feasibility studies conducted by the military prior to the disaster and both suggested it could be done with the IJN approaching from the north. Mitchell was farsighted save in WW1 when he claimed that aircraft can not fly combat in the rain - the US did not but the Germans did.
They knew it was coming but did not think it was going to Pearl Harbor. They thought it was more towards the Philippines. Also they never told Kimmel that they had broken the Japanese diplomatic code, they also didn't give him information that they had. The US carriers were on deployment, one dropping off planes to Wake and Midway Islands.
The colossal failure was Mcarthur. He even was told that Pearl Harbor was bombed and for hours still didn't do anything and the Japanese ended up destroying every US plane in the Philippines. Also Mcarthur leaves his troops to hang out to dry while he escapes to Australia and gets to write his own Medal of Honor citation. smh.
Had the US battleships been at sea, it might have been worse. Except for Arizona, Oklahoma and Utah(relegated to training ship) all of the battleships were raised and returned to fighting condition. Had they been sunk at sea, their loss would have been permanent.
Also, had the fleet been moored off of Lahaina, Maui (as they occasionally were), sinking them there would have resulted in those ships still being on the bottom.
The problem with the Opana Point contact was they were expecting a flight of B-17s from the West Coast, planes that actually arrived shortly after the attack was over.
Fuchida's lapse was nothing compared to Adm. Nagumo who refused to make the third strike. Had they done so, and destroyed the oil storage tanks and repair yards our war effort would have been severely damaged forcing our forces to operate from US West Coast. A 2500 mile extension!!
In Day of Deceit the author shows that FDR was given the last part of the secret message sent to Japan's Embassy hours before the attack. Our codebreakers had broken that code weeks earlier, and the last message stated to declare War at 1300 DC Time. That time difference gave FDR plenty of time to let Pearl Harbor know War was declared, and to take action.
But to keep the code breaking a secret, FDR did nothing.
And also to be the country (USA) that did not strike the first blow of the Pacific War.
Not really. The oil tanks and repair facilities were not on the target list. They would not have been struck by a third wave. Search Jon Parshall for more.
The message that FDR received was the final part of the Fourteen parts message, which instructed the Japanese diplomats in Washington to sever diplomatic ties with the United States at 1pm Washington time. There was nothing in any of the fourteen parts that pointed to Pearl Harbor as a target.
FDR was not the only commander that had to keep code breaking a secret. Winston Churchill made a horribly difficult decision in allowing the city of Coventry to be heavily bombed in order to keep the Germans from knowing the Brits had solved Enigma.
Japan never declared war, nor intended to. They did however as the final part of the message state (again) that further negotiations were impossible.
You are absolutely right! My mother was at Pearl when it was attacked. Had a 3rd strike been done, we really would have been in trouble.
Other sources suggest that the radar operators, upon siting the japanese aircraft on the radar, were told to shut down the site and leave. Also, Admiral Yamamoto followed a plan from a wargame in the early 30's that successful attacked Pearl Harbor from the Northwest, also using torpedoes with wooden fin extensions so they wouldnt impact the shallow harbor's bottom. The naval brass at the time of the wargame insisted that the battleship was not in danger from air attack. However, Admiral Yarnell proved that once again, that the experts of the day were tragically wrong.....Semper Excretum.
The US had intercepted the warning sent to the Japanese ambassador and translated it before they did. The reason they didn't say anything was so the Japanese wouldn't change their codes so the US could maintain their intel advantage going into the war. Also, the US ordered every carrier stationed at Pearl Harbor to sail as a convoy escort only a few days before the attack, the only time in history that's ever happened. If they hadn't the US would not have been able to enter the war as quickly as they did, if at all. My Grandfather worked in Navy Intelligence and was actually listed as KIA on the USS Arizona even though he had transferred to the USS Enterprise right before they sailed. Everything I post on this is what he told my Grandmother after the war ended and I would trust his account over the US governments any day of the week. He had no reason to lie about it, they do.
I believe the Navy Admiral retired right after Pearl Harbor feeling responsible for the attack
The carrier groups weren't "convoy escorts." They had been loaded with aircraft on board being transferred to outlying islands, e.g., Midway and Wake. Halsey detached his cruisers from Enterprise, and established a full-up CAP as soon as he got over the horizon from Pearl Harbor.
@@LanceManyon-p3x exonerated in the 60s
@ Ok thanks
The USS Enterprise was delayed by a "bad storm" just before returning to port. Your father may have been onboard to pass information onto the captain. Btw the Enterprise was right were it needed to be prevent the 3rd attack wave.
The United States expected an incident in the Western Pacific, and seemed to be trying to provoke one. David Brinkley covered this in his war memoir.
Everyone does not understand the "International Date line" and The Japanese did. The Japos attacked at same time. Hong Kong, Malaya, the Dutch East EI; New Guinea. US possessions, too, came under attack: the Philippines, the major US base in Asia; Guam; and Wake Island, shelled Midway, Singapore, all major enemy bases......
I'm shocked Roosevelt knew it was coming and did nothing. Shocked. You mean, like 9/11..?
No, he didn't.
Our government has contrived worse things than even Pearl and 9-11, for power and greed. There are consequences for Americans or any other country that ignored and are ignoreing God's laws.
Exactly. It was a total surprise. Who knew?
After Pearl Harbor, congressional investigations and hearings were held that failed to show that FDR's administration knew the attack was forthcoming. Scholars and historians have authored countless papers and books on this event for more than 80 years, but have failed to conclusively demonstrate that FDR ignored the warnings of an imminent attack. The most thorough research on this subject was contained in two books ("Pearl Harbor" and "At Dawn We Slept") written by Gordon Prange. To further dwell on the conspiracy theories surrounding December 7,1941, dishonors the memory, courage and bravery of countless service members who died, went missing or were injured during the war.
@@gordonshayne1711 Yup. Operation Magic, which broke Japan's diplomatic code, gave no hints except a possible break in diplomacy. Observations by local sources and radio intercepts, using signal strengths as a measuring device pointed at an attack at Malaya, and points south. All ships in the Pearl Harbor raid had their radio transmitters disabled on the way out..paper was inserted to block the contacts on the telegraph keys.
fascinating. Thank you
I think the movie "Tora Tora Tora" portrayed the known historical military nuances on both sides pretty accurately. ..
It also added the "Sleeping giant" misquote. That line was added to get the US audiences a more upbeat ending.
I believe, with all I have heard, that Roosevelt knew of the attack. Roosevelt cut off all oil to Japan to stop them from invading China. Roosevelt was going to cut off supplies to the Japanese war machine. Roosevelt and his group knew Japan had to do something to capture the South Pacific islands in order to keep their fleet supplied with fuel, foods and war materials.
It had to be Pearl Harbor because that is where the Pacific fleet was stationed and that American fleet would fight the Japanese as soon as Roosevelt was informed Japan was acquiring another source of rubber, fuel and supplies.
It was a bold move on the part of Japan to strike and destroy the fleet in Pearl Harbor in order for Japan to safely acquire what they needed.
Destroying the American fleet would give Japan a year or more to acquire what they needed before America could to to war.
Roosevelt and his "henchmen" trying to stop Japan's expansion into China by cutting off oil actually cause the Pearl Harbor attack. I think it was Roosevelt that started that war.
Intresting video! Was hoping for more, but you missed one crucial factor! What was the disposition of the Aircraft carriers? This is what demonstrates foreknowledge of the attack! When the preparations failed so spectacularly. Steps were taken to protect the careers of ranking officers.
One must remember that the Black shoe admirals were firmly in control, before Pearl Harbor. Aircraft carriers were viewed as scouting auxiliaries to the battle fleet. The main battle fleet was ready for rapid deployment. Radar early warning was experimental but USED!
US carriers were deployed sending out numerous scouting aircraft LOOKING for an approaching Japanese fleet. Only the Japanese Navy appeared from the one region, no aircraft were sent to search. Three instead of four carriers meant that a significant quadrant of surrounding ocean could not be thoroughly scouted.
This was a situation where CLASSIFIED information, worked out with seemingly catastrophic circumstances.
With some justification "blackshoe" admirals believed that armed aircraft were a minimal threat to their battleships. Ships with well trained AAA gunners, at high speed. Torpedoes and bombs could be dodged. Attacking bombers would be shot down. So the blackshoe plan was clearly to detect the approach of the hostile fleet. Then when the location of hostile forces were known. The battleships would steam out to engage the hostile battleships.
The actual disposition of the Japanese Navy was not known. The views of brownshoe admirals were known, but junior in the chain of command. So mased carrier aircraft could have caught the US battleships at sea, without air cover.
Knowledge of Japanese code breaking was classified above TOP SECRET. So, a general warning could not be authorized. The command had to leave most people in the dark. Only the typical blackshoe response could have been far worse.
Monday morning quarterbacking is a lot of fun. Only that was eighty years ago.
I often heard my parents discussing just that. They both went to their graves believing FDR and his admin allowed the attack to happen to get the public behind them in the war effort.
What people do not realize like you said. At the SAME time attacks were happening all over the Pacific. What also gets over looked was the rivalry between departments. Each keeping its own information secret and not sharing with other departments that might have another piece of the puzzle. Same thing was pointed out in the 911 Commission Report. FBI, CIA, and INS did not communicate with each other. Each had piece of the puzzle and protected their own interests and people died because of it.
Two weeks prior to the attack the USN staged a surprise attack on Oahu from the exact same launch point. On a Sunday morning.
They knew something was a foot? When you look at a map of the Pacific, what pops out at you? A military target that can, possibly, be totally destroyed and take months to be rebuilt with manpower and machinery (read boats). The West coast? Alaska? Some small islands spread around? Or a group of large islands almost halfway between Japan and the US? I don’t think you need to be a military genius to bet on Hawaii.
But air attack was low on the list of ideas for how things would happen, the US navy still had the aircraft carriers supporting their battleships in their doctrine, rather than the other way around, which it soon became.
The Panama Canal was another Japanese target. They never did pull off that attack but if they had managed to it would have been a game changer
In war, cruelty wins. Always remember baronet training,”Are you the quick, or are you the dead.”
We were fighting the Japanese in China for years before WWII. We sold the China a bunch of P-40 fighters, offered support and taught them to fight along side our pilots the flying tigers.
Actually no. While it is correct that the AVG was formed before the attack on Pearl Harbor, allthough early in 1941, not "years before WWII", the first combat mission only occurred on the 20st of december, two weeks after Pearl Harbor.
Also Dec 07 1941 didn't mark the beginning of WWII, only the entrance of America in the war. Maybe a detail for an American, but a big difference for Europeans who were already for more than a year under Nazi domination...
Good information,amigo,I didn't know any of this.
I think a lot comes down to the timing of the attack: early on a Sunday morning.
Good thing capabilities and technologies have changed. I invite you to visit Pearl Harbor nowadays, on any given Sunday.
"Japan May strike Over Weekend", cover page of Hilo Tribune (newspaper of the Hawaii big Island) of Sunday 30 november 1941.
There were headlines like that all over Southeast Asia at the time
I don’t doubt that leadership expected something. I don’t believe they expected this attack. Knowing the Pacific would be a Navy war, there is no logical reason why FDR would sacrifice the fleet. The failure was in a sense of complacency in Hawaii believing that they were out of reach.
The victors always blame the other side for warmongering
Say that to all the people Japan murdered
Excuse me? Japan - "Give us oil so we can continue our war!" US - "If you want oil for economy, stop your war." Japan chose poorly.
The attack was a huge failure. Most of the ships were refloated and repaired within a year. Loss of life was much less that had the fleet been out at sea.
The thing about history is those that witnessed it will tell it differently from what actually happened
but not necessarily incorrectly from their point of view
@ I get that but if me and you were standing next to each other and witnessed the exact same thing we would tell 2 different stories to the next person that came along
@@jaredharris1970 That's why eye witnesses to crimes are often giving contradictory information
No, the attack was not uncoordinated because two flares were used to signal the attack. It just meant that the torpedo planes would not go in first, since they were the most vulnerable. The attacks were still very well coordinated, and effective.
Wrong, if there was going to be an attack, IN THAT time 1941, it would be in the morning.
YOU GET your solers working out and ready each morn, the Island always had a lot of Japanese.
6:30am to 9:00am. wrong.
Not sure what you are getting at here.
US military leaders also knew the approximate range of Japanese carriers... NOT ONLY did they need fleet oilers to refuel from , several of the smaller ships carried oil cans aboard to extend their range. In theory, they just couldn't reach Hawaii. They didn't carry the fuel. Akagi was a converted battleship, and Kaga from a battlecruiser..thirsty beasts. Wake Island..maybe they could reach there..one way, the strategists of the day thought.
Interesting... the pacific fleet was moved from California to Pearl Harbor on February 1, 1941????
FDR did think that moving the fleet from California to Hawaii would have a "deterring effect" on the Japanese. He relieved Admiral Richardson, the then- C-in-C of the Pacific Fleet, for disagreeing with him.
@@Mustapha1963 Thank you
Try taking a look at the _McCollum Memo_
@@lancer525 I had to Google it to make sure that I was familiar with that memo. There is no proof that FDR ever saw the memo, and several of the action suggestions were not implemented at all or not until war broke out, at which point provocation was unnecessary.
The fleet was forward deployed from their San Pedro, California, anchorage to Pearl in the vain hopes it would cause the Japanese to be more prudent.
The British MI6 double agent, a Serbian by the name of Dusko Popov was recruited by the Germans and sent to England where he promptly offered his true services to the British Military Intelligence. He was ordered by his German contacts to discover all the info he could about Pearl Harbour on behalf of the Japanese. These instructions were delivered to him by the revolutionary microdot technique and when Churchill was informed he sent Popov to the US to warn the President. Popov never got to see him however as he was sent to see J Edgar Hoover the head of the FBI who called him a liar to his face and threw him out of his office (but kept the microdot information and announced it to the press later as if he had discovered it himself). Hoover never passed on the Japanese request for information on Pearl to the military chiefs. Kimmel was crucified for Hoover's utter incompetence.
*_Fujida was preaching the Bible in the famous photograph at _**_5:08_**_ ..._*
Fujida claimed such after the war. He became an evangelist.
Primary to the conclusion that Roosevelt knew Japan would attack Pearl Harbor are:
Immediately prior to the attack ...
The entire US Carrier Fleet had been sortied away from Pearl Harbor.
Major amounts of ammunition were taken from ships and stored in caves on the island.
Major amounts of bombs were taken from the airport and stored in caves on the island.
There are many such accounts of unusual events to support the claim.
Where did the accounts come from ?
A special 10 man Army detachment was quietly ordered by a Congressional Committee to travel to Pearl and assess why the Navy and Air Corp were so poorly prepared. The detachment (unassigned to officers on Pearl) was supposed to spend 30 days in their evaluation. The first-week report generated so much embarrassing detail that the General Staff on Pearl investigated where the reports were coming from and immediately "deported" the ten men off of Hawaii. OK ... here come the rear area pen-swingers to pick apart the data. Try this ... Earnst Jack Aldrige Arn. He was one of the 10 men and later became my Father-In-Law. The 10 man detachment was scattered to the winds, with Jack being reassigned to New Guinea.
Who ordered the carriers to sea?
they were delivering aircraft to other island bases, bases that were considered more vulnerable to attack.
@@dennisyanan9728 Wake island got a dozed F4F-3a's that round, which would be in action later on Dec. 7.
An attack on Hong Kong, the Philippines, Malaya / Singapore occurred simultaneously. The battle group of aircraft carriers went to Darwin Australia and continued a heavy attack on that township where more bombs were dropped than on Pearl harbour. Does the fact that no aircraft carriers were in Pearl harbour suggest the USA intelligence knew of an imminent attack and removed them from the area they expected an attack? Some of the capital ships sunk in shallow water were refloated. 1777 crew on the Arizona while docked in port? Are that many crew normally on station when the ship is docked?
Except for the USS Arizona and USS Utah (was only being used as a target/training platform), all ships damaged and sunk were brought back up to serve again. The Oklahoma was righted, later, but was deemed too damaged to save. It was sold as scrap and while en route to the US mainland, it inadvertently sunk again. After the attack, thousands of workers were sent from the US mainland to repair the damage as soon as possible. Not only that these ships were needed, but to boost the morale of the American people.
@@glenn-wk2by Roosevelt was trying to find a way to get the USA directly involved in the war as was Winston Churchill. He had though been re-elected on a platform that no US servicemen would be sent to the European theatre to die as they had during WWI. The Japanese Pearl Harbour attack was the pivot point at which Roosevelt and the American people decided the European and Pacific Wars would have to also involve the USA. The radar was installed picked up a large formation though thought they were US aircraft returning from training. No connection from the radar station to HQ Pearl Harbour. The USA had placed oil embargoes on Japan and other than British Borneo this was their main source of oil before the war. The oil fields in Borneo and across Asia were pressed into service after invasion to serve the Imperial Navy, Airforce and Army. Fortuitous that no Aircraft Carrier was damaged at Pearl? Singapore was left defenceless when the British aircraft carrier hit a reef in unchartered waters in the Caribbean. What was this aircraft carrier doing there in unchartered waters and did it really hit a reef?
@@gryphus64 Sometimes I look at the factors in the beginning of the war, the middle, and the end. So many things our leadership tricks us into believing, yet, the end goal is often looked back on as being just and we needed involvement at some point. I don't often trust our government, but, often later I can see our involvement in questionable things turns out to be good for the American people in one way or another. The B-17s arrived at the same time as the attacking Japanese.....coming in formation and tuning into Hawaiian music playing on the radio as a guiding beacon. Heck, how is that for bad luck? The command point on Fort Shafter was expecting the B-17s and was aware of Hawaiian music playing.....no reason for them to expect a large flight coming in were Japanese. The B-17s did the best they could with no armament....shot down, destroyed on the ground and landing all over the island. The B-17s came from the mainland USA for distribution points throughout the Pacific. One Lt. on one of the B-17s was catching a ride, later, to his station in the Phillippines. He was a doctor. He died on the ground in the attack, and our USAF hospital on the base is named after him. Schick Clinic. I've used this hospital for 30 years. I retired AF here in 2000 and have been working at Pearl Harbor ever since. Amazing historical opportunity. I work in the same building that has the basement below me where they mostly cracked the Japanese codes that allowed us to surprise the Japanese at Midway. Many of the comments in this particular forum are spot on and excellent.....and others, not so much so. All the best to you!
@@glenn-wk2by One of my Best Friends Father still alive, was 10 growing up in Singapore. His Father was a Scottish engineer building runways and fuel facilities for the British in Malaya. Malaya and Singapore were the same country at that time. The British rubber plantations and coconut, cane fields had build the best railway and roads one can imagine all weather bitumen roads. The Japanese landed at the top of Malaysia and went through Thailand and used bicycles to get to the Singapore causeway in 10 days. So Allan Roberts was 10 when the Japanese Zeros began strafing and bombing Singapore. His father arrived back on one of the last trains, they took their car and abandoned it at the wharf, got on the second last ship out, the last one was sunk. Their ship was strafed again but not badly damaged. The invasion of Hong Kong, Malaya and Pearl Harbour were synchronised. Lost a great uncle in Borneo and another was in Singapore 10 days before the British surrender, then Changi and the Burma Railway. It took some while to win in the Soloman's, the coral sea and PNG before the Japanese advance was defeated.
1. No one thought carrier attacks would be as successful in destroying ships as this one did. Carriers were looked upon as an adjunct to the battleline, mostly for scouting and air defense.
2. The USN did not think the Japanese could reach as far as Pearl. Neither did the Japanese at first. In one of their scenarios, they planned to abandon and scuttle the Soryu and Hiryu after the attack because they didn't think they could refuel them. Eventually they were able to equip enough tankers to support the entire task force.
#1- not true. Look at the British attack on the Italian base at Taranto. A handful of obsolete biplanes sank three Italian battleships. The Japanese carefully studied this attack and drew the right lessons from it.
The difference was that the USN, in general, did not believe the Japanese were capable of such an attack. It was, pretty much a racial bias.
@@chuckw1113 And that racial bias was pervasive despite evidence to the contrary. Claire Chennault, leader of the AVG, had been keeping Washington well-informed as to the capabilities of Japanese pilots and their aircraft- and his warning were dismissed.
One of the things you missed that is important there was a number of ships moved right before the attack the question has to be asked why were they moved right before the attack.
Did the U.S. know it was coming? Maybe ask the Brits what they knew, if anything, and how much of that was passed on.
Just putting it out there.
After the failure of the 2nd Washington Naval Treaty, US and Britain started sharing ALL their Naval Intel as they both had concerns over growing hostilities in Europe and Pacific.
There, it's out there.
You do realise the British area of responsibility was around Malaya and Indonesia and no where near (by thousands of miles)Hawaii, no of course you don't. Education isn't a big thing in the US anymore.
Admiral Yamamoto's personal writings indicate that he had reservations about the attack on Pearl Harbor from the inception but he planned the attack anyway as ordered. Having been American educated he knew of our industrial capabilities and our national spirit. His entreaties to his own government were that diplomats must tell the U.S. that the embargoes must be lifted or a devastating attack would be launched. He knew that the U.S. would ignore the threat but with the success of the attack the prior warning would enable Japan to attempt negotiating peace terms before the industrial might of the U.S. could be brought into full swing. When the diplomats made no such demands prior to the attack and it became a surprise attack he knew that America would stop at nothing until Japan was defeated. He did not advocate for a surprise devastating attack alone, he is known to have spent the day after the attack in a state of depression.
Anyone ever wonder why there were no flat tops in Pearl? They were all out to sea, out of attack range to the south of Hawaii. Things that make you go hmmm.
Hmmmmmm is right.
They were actually going WEST, toward "Indian Country". This is why Halsey considered Kimmel's instructions in case of contact with the IJN "do what makes sense" as "the best damn orders I've ever had!"
The book is Defenseless, command failure at pearl harbor or something close. I am away from home and can't quote the title exactly but I got it on Amazon. It's very enlightening as it describes a multitude of command failures of which underutilization of radars is just one. Having served a tour in base defense in Iraq the very idea of relying on Washington to tell me there is a threat to my perimeter is inexcusable. And that's exactly what Kimmel and Short do post 7 Dec.
The US, particularly at this time, had a nasty habit of giving commanders a responsibility without giving them the resources to carry it out. Long-range defense against air attacks was an Army responsibility, but Short didn't have the necessary aircraft. Communications were also dreadfully slow at best, so there was no urgent way to communicate between Washington and Hawai'i.
I don't think any US commander anywhere had enough resources, or at least thought they didn't. The US was pretty much resigned by December, 1941 that was with Japan was imminent, but they hoped it could be delayed to at least April, 1942 so the plan to significantly reinforce the Philippines could be completed. I'm not convinced that a forward defense in the Philippines would have deterred Japan anyway.
@@Mustapha1963 Commanders may always have a "wish list," but more bomber/recon planes for Short were on the "needs" list. By doctrine, a 360 degree requires a certain amount of planes, and Short didn't have them. That was especially problematic because the Japanese attack came from an unexpected direction.
@@roberthudson1959 In 1936 (I think), the US Navy conducted a simulated attack on Pearl Harbor. The admiral commanding detached the carriers Lexington and Saratoga from his battle fleet and had them race ahead to launch an air attack- from the Northeast.
I've long been of the opinion that General Short was made a scapegoat for the attack, but he did make more than his share of mistakes. The most famous was to guard only against sabotage. But a second is that he decided that, since he could not cover all 360 degrees around Pearl Harbor with air recon than he would cover NONE of it. He had adequate aircraft to cover perhaps a 90 degree or maybe even 120 degree slice of the circle. History had shown that the most likely avenue of attack was from the north-northwest. He could have covered that area had he chosen to do so.
@@Mustapha1963 One of the U.S. carriers was 200 miles Northeast of Pearl at the moment the attack broke out. The U.S. carriers were Northeast of the battle area at the start of the battle of Corral Sea. The U.S. carriers were Northeast of Midway Island at the start of the battle of Midway. If you see coincidences, I see a pattern.
@@TJ-rm5tx This is incorrect.
Enterprise was WEST of Oahu, having delivered fighter planes to Wake Island. Lexignton was apx 500 miles SE of Midway, having delivered aircraft to that island, but this position would still be to the SOUTHWEST of Kido Butai. Saratoga was at San Diego.
The main objective of the attack were the aircraft carriers by taking out the carriers the Japanese would have controlled the pacific as the US would have not being able to defend Midway 6 months later a pivitol battle for the pacific. Pearl Harbor was chosen as the main base for the fleet because Pearl was a shallow water port. Tordedoes at the time were not effective in shallow water as they would explode before hitting the target. For this reason the US thought Peral would be relatively safe.What the US and the allies didn't know was that the Japanese had perfected ,and managed to keep secret,a torpedo that would be effective in shallow water. This was not revealed until several years ago and is explained in a History Channel documentary Tora,Tora,Tora The Real Story of Peral Harbor.
Churchill stated, after the war, that the president had been warned that 6 Japanese carriers were heading south toward Pearl Harbor. My friends father was there and he told her that the good fighters were taken away and older fighters in poor condition were put in their place on December 6th. This made no sense to him at the time. No said he knew that our government knew the Japanese would attack the next day. They wanted to get into the war, but the president probably thought the attack would not be as bad as it was. Also the aircraft carriers were not there because our government knew they were the most important to protect.
It is my understanding that the carriers became preeminent when the battleships were unavailable. Not before. So Dec 8.
Churchill never made any such statement at any time ever. If he had done so, then every single book that has been written by some of the most highly respected historians would be completely discredited. No fighter aircraft whether Navy or Army Air Force were 'taken away' from Pearl Harbor in the period before that attack, let alone the day prior. On the contrary throughout 1941, planes at Hawaii were being constantly reinforced by the arrival of new aircraft from the mainland, indeed a flight of brand-new B-17's on a ferry-flight actually arrived at Hickham Field during the attack.
P.S. Regarding Soviet spies in Tokyo: the Russians were confident in their own intel about Japanese war plans in late November 1941 (ie: that the Japanese were NOT going to attack Siberia) that they were comfortable enough to take several hundred thousand Siberian troops and redeploy them to the Moscow front to repel the Germans, who almost took the Soviet Capitol.
For the record, 'Terrible' Turner, for all his insightful genius, had believed that, contrary to the opinion of his own staff, the Japanese intentions were focused North (ie: Siberia for its resources) rather than south to grab the Phillipines and much of Southeast Asia, which of course they did. They saw the US Pacific Fleet as the primary obstacle to those plans, hence the attack of December 7th. Regardless, despite having intel on the fact that Tokyo was receiving almost daily ships in the harbor reports from their consulate in Hawaii, a clear prelude to an attack on our Pacific Fleet, Turner withheld that intel from Kimmel and Short, both of whom were scapegoated for their misperceived failures.
ルーズベルトは戦争したかったんだよ
The US always wants war
So the Japanese attacked to support Roosevelt?
Incrediblely true. Roosevelt prior to Pearl Harbor, already had several operations in play. One was fly American bombers and aircrews under the Chinese flag to bomb mainland Japan. Roosevelt needed an event to trigger the American public into supporting a war. U.S. Navel intelligence were maintaining tight surveillance on domestic Japanese interactions. Americans were simply beaten to the punch.
No, the attack was an opportunity for Roosevelt, who promised no US troops would be sent by him to war. The fleet sent from San Diego to Hawaii was a serious provocative act on its own.
@@trekker3468 Japan had invaded China in 1938, including the new capitol city of Nanking where they "ended" 200K Chinese. Japan had already provoked everyone in region.
The Americans were unaware that the Japanese had developed air released torpedos that could work in a shallow water harbour like Hawaii's, They thought all their ships were safe in the Harbour!
but yet out carriers were all out at sea......
There only 3 in the Pacific to begin with, and Enterprise was supposed to be in late Saturday. However she was delayed by weather. If she misses the storm, she is torpedoed like Utah was.
@@anthonywayne2754 It is so difficult to get through to these idiots that things were different then, they seem to think CNN would be doing a story on good morning America, Keep up the good (if difficult)work trying to educate them into the realities of life in the 1940's.
The 3 carriers were out on legitimate missions, carrying fighter aircraft to where the US thought the attacks would come. As there were multiple such places and only 3 carriers to supply them all, the likelihood that they would all be at sea at the same time would have been high.
@@thomasbeach905 but only left just before the attack, japan thought they were in
@@anthonywayne2754 And Saratoga was still on the West Coast.
What about the second attack on Pearl Harbor that nobody remembers?
You mean the two seaplanes that took off from French frigate shoals on a mission to catch carriers in port and bomb them? The two that did arrive over Oahu and one dropped bombs on Tantalus and the other didn't hit anything? It was very cloudy at their arrival.....so their mission was a failure. We did launch fighters, but they couldn't find the Japanese. Bombs did go off around housing on Tantalus.....and it scared the folks to death. They complained and rather than be embarrassed by the Japanese getting through again....the Army took responsibility.....and stated it wouldn't happen again. The truth wasn't known until after the war.
The Americans were well aware of the aircraft based attack that the British had done on Italian ships in harbour, and that torpedoes could be adapted to work in shallow water. But the Americans still considered Pearl Harbor too shallow for anyone to use torpedoes.
The japanese asked the Germans for everything they had on Taranto.
@@patttrick And the Americans showed an interest but then ignored it
The War warning message didn't even include Pearl Harbor! The Bomb plot message was crucial (which Hawaii never received was the more crucial miss.