Less We Ever Forget

[Hansie Bloeckmann]

Today, 7 Dec. 2018 marks the 77th. Anniv. of the "Day of Infamy"- the surprise attack on the US Naval Base at Pearl Harbor. Let us never forget the brave men who perished as a result of the treachery of Imperial Japan in their rabid quest to dominate the entire Pacific rim. The only saving grace was the fact that Adm. Wm. "Bull" Halsey had taken the carrier fleet with its compliment of aircraft out of Pearl Harbor, and were on maneuvers- that and the fact that the Japanese somehow ignored the fuel storage tanks on Ford Island.

Halsey, like Patton, was my kind of C.O.- outspoken, brash, and firmly believing that you keep attacking when you hold the upper hand in combat, whether on land, sea or in the air. Just as Patton's famous remark about going through the Germans "like crap through a goose" endures, so does Halsey's- for the PTO-- "When we finish with those little yellow monkeys, the only place their language will be spoken will be in the depths of Hades". Now, we are trading partners with both Japan and Germany, and also Italy.

I also note the passing of our 41st. President and Commander-in-Chief, George H.W. Bush, and his service to Country as a Naval aviator in the Pacific. Brave man, family man, devout Christian, and a great President- a real "stand-up-guy" in tough times- the Gulf War, and the economy faltering in the 1992-1996 time frame. How gracious of him that he left a personal note to Bill Clinton, very gracious indeed. "Unlimited Ceiling" to you Mr. President No. 41-- somehow I know you are with Barbara and Robin in a better place, for all eternity.

 

[mikewint]

The Day that will live in Infamy
2008 sailors were killed, and 710 others wounded; 218 soldiers and airmen were killed and 364 wounded; 109 marines were killed and 69 wounded; and 68 civilians were killed and 35 wounded. In total, 2,335 American servicemen were killed and 1,143 were wounded. Eighteen ships were sunk or run aground, including five battleships

 

[michael rauls]

 

[Tracker]

CAVU

 

[parsifal]

Responsibility for the war rests with imperial Japan. But to argue that the causes of the war lie entirely at Japans feet is unjustified. in fact in many ways it was the passive aggressive policies of the US that led to the war. Pearl Harbour for example , in a tactical sense arose because of the almost maniacal desire by the Roosevelt administration to place the Pac fleet in an advanced base where it was dangerously exposed, and not retain it at San Diego out of reach of the IJN. this is what the navy had wanted, but they were overruled. Roosevelt knew, moreover that the imposition of the fuel embargo on Japan would force japan either into war, or into a government changing backdown and almost certain revolution. in the prevailing political climate in Japan at the time, this was never going to happen.

Japan was in many ways simply emulating the lessons she had learned from the west since the arrival of Commodore Perry in Tokyo Bay in the 1850s. Grafted onto the feudal preocupations of Japanese society it became a dangerous toxic mix....barbarism fuelled on a western industrialised society with a massive chip on its shoulder.

Halsey was a great commander, but there were better. Halsey was blessed with massive industrial and material advantages and could afford to take risks, which generally paid off, but his execution of those advantages were in no way special or outstanding. Halseys handling at Leyte for example was not optimal when faced with multiple (and luckily for him , or low combat value) threats

To me December 7th is a symbol of failure as much as anything....on both sides, and hopefully the last time we will need to fight such wars again. I fear in the current climate that might not be the case.

 

[mikewint]

Michael, as always very well written. I personally have not the slightest doubts that FDR had an intense desire to enter the European war. At the Atlantic Conference, Churchill noted the "astonishing depth of Roosevelt's intense desire for war." Churchill cabled his cabinet "(FDR) obviously was very determined that they should come in."
FDR however was restrained by his election promises and an anti-war American public. Robert Menzies, the prime minister of Australia, observed that Roosevelt, ". . . trained under Woodrow Wilson in the last war, waits for an incident, which would in one blow get the USA into war and get R. out of his foolish election pledges that 'I will keep you out of war.'"
Back in 1932 in the Grand Joint Army Navy Exercises the attacker, Admiral Yarnell, attacked Pearl Harbor with 152 planes a half-hour before dawn 40 miles NE of Kahuku Point and caught the defenders of completely by surprise. It was a Sunday.
Then in 1938 Admiral Ernst King led a carrier-born airstrike from the USS Saratoga successfully against Pearl Harbor in another exercise.
In spite of this in 1940 FDR ordered the fleet transferred from the West Coast to its exposed position in Hawaii and ordered the fleet remain stationed at Pearl Harbor over complaints by its commander Admiral Richardson that there was inadequate protection from air attack and no protection from torpedo attack. Richardson felt so strongly that he twice disobeyed orders to berth his fleet there and he raised the issue personally with FDR in October and he was soon after replaced. His successor, Admiral Kimmel, also brought up the same issues with FDR in June 1941.
On 11 November 1940 21 aged British planes destroyed the Italian fleet, including 3 battleships, at their homeport in the harbor of Taranto in Southern Italy by using technically innovative shallow-draft torpedoes.
March 1941 - Under the Lend-Lease Act FDR sold munitions and convoyed them to belligerents in Europe. Both were acts of war and both were violations of international law.
31 March 1941 - A Navy report by Bellinger and Martin predicted that if Japan made war on the US, they would strike Pearl Harbor without warning at dawn with aircraft from a maximum of 6 carriers. For years Navy planners had assumed that Japan, on the outbreak of war, would strike the American fleet wherever it was. The fleet was the only threat to Japan's plans. The strategic options for the Japanese were not unlimited.
On 23 Jun 1941 Advisor Harold Ickes wrote FDR a memo the day after Germany invaded the Soviet Union, "There might develop from the embargoing of oil to Japan such a situation as would make it not only possible but easy to get into this war in an effective way. And if we should thus indirectly be brought in, we would avoid the criticism that we had gone in as an ally of communistic Russia."
10 July 1941 - US Military Attache Smith-Hutton at Tokyo reported Japanese Navy secretly practicing aircraft torpedo attacks against capital ships in Ariake Bay. The bay closely resembles Pearl Harbor.
July - The US Military Attache in Mexico forwarded a report that the Japanese were constructing special small submarines for attacking the American fleet in Pearl Harbor, and that a training program then under way included towing them from Japan to positions off the Hawaiian Islands, where they practiced surfacing and submerging.
On 22 July 1941 Admiral Richmond Turner reported to FDR: "It is generally believed that shutting off the American supply of petroleum will lead promptly to the invasion of Netherland East Indies...it seems certain she would also include military action against the Philippine Islands, which would immediately involve us in a Pacific war."
On July 24 FDR told the Volunteer Participation Committee, "If we had cut off the oil off, they probably would have gone down to the Dutch East Indies a year ago, and you would have had war." The next day FDR froze all Japanese assets in US cutting off their main supply of oil effectively forcing them into war with the US. Intelligence information was withheld from Hawaii from this point forward.

 

[Hansie Bloeckmann]

Michael, as always very well written. I personally have not the slightest doubts that FDR had an intense desire to enter the European war. At the Atlantic Conference, Churchill noted the "astonishing depth of Roosevelt's intense desire for war." Churchill cabled his cabinet "(FDR) obviously was very determined that they should come in."
FDR however was restrained by his election promises and an anti-war American public. Robert Menzies, the prime minister of Australia, observed that Roosevelt, ". . . trained under Woodrow Wilson in the last war, waits for an incident, which would in one blow get the USA into war and get R. out of his foolish election pledges that 'I will keep you out of war.'"
Back in 1932 in the Grand Joint Army Navy Exercises the attacker, Admiral Yarnell, attacked Pearl Harbor with 152 planes a half-hour before dawn 40 miles NE of Kahuku Point and caught the defenders of completely by surprise. It was a Sunday.
Then in 1938 Admiral Ernst King led a carrier-born airstrike from the USS Saratoga successfully against Pearl Harbor in another exercise.
In spite of this in 1940 FDR ordered the fleet transferred from the West Coast to its exposed position in Hawaii and ordered the fleet remain stationed at Pearl Harbor over complaints by its commander Admiral Richardson that there was inadequate protection from air attack and no protection from torpedo attack. Richardson felt so strongly that he twice disobeyed orders to berth his fleet there and he raised the issue personally with FDR in October and he was soon after replaced. His successor, Admiral Kimmel, also brought up the same issues with FDR in June 1941.
On 11 November 1940 21 aged British planes destroyed the Italian fleet, including 3 battleships, at their homeport in the harbor of Taranto in Southern Italy by using technically innovative shallow-draft torpedoes.
March 1941 - Under the Lend-Lease Act FDR sold munitions and convoyed them to belligerents in Europe. Both were acts of war and both were violations of international law.
31 March 1941 - A Navy report by Bellinger and Martin predicted that if Japan made war on the US, they would strike Pearl Harbor without warning at dawn with aircraft from a maximum of 6 carriers. For years Navy planners had assumed that Japan, on the outbreak of war, would strike the American fleet wherever it was. The fleet was the only threat to Japan's plans. The strategic options for the Japanese were not unlimited.
On 23 Jun 1941 Advisor Harold Ickes wrote FDR a memo the day after Germany invaded the Soviet Union, "There might develop from the embargoing of oil to Japan such a situation as would make it not only possible but easy to get into this war in an effective way. And if we should thus indirectly be brought in, we would avoid the criticism that we had gone in as an ally of communistic Russia."
10 July 1941 - US Military Attache Smith-Hutton at Tokyo reported Japanese Navy secretly practicing aircraft torpedo attacks against capital ships in Ariake Bay. The bay closely resembles Pearl Harbor.
July - The US Military Attache in Mexico forwarded a report that the Japanese were constructing special small submarines for attacking the American fleet in Pearl Harbor, and that a training program then under way included towing them from Japan to positions off the Hawaiian Islands, where they practiced surfacing and submerging.
On 22 July 1941 Admiral Richmond Turner reported to FDR: "It is generally believed that shutting off the American supply of petroleum will lead promptly to the invasion of Netherland East Indies...it seems certain she would also include military action against the Philippine Islands, which would immediately involve us in a Pacific war."
On July 24 FDR told the Volunteer Participation Committee, "If we had cut off the oil off, they probably would have gone down to the Dutch East Indies a year ago, and you would have had war." The next day FDR froze all Japanese assets in US cutting off their main supply of oil effectively forcing them into war with the US. Intelligence information was withheld from Hawaii from this point forward.

 

[Hansie Bloeckmann]

Of interest to me, as an amateur student of World History- is that Woodrow Wilson was the President of Princeton before he became President-- and had zero military background. FDR was a Harvard graduate, and served as Ass't Secretary of the Navy in WW1`-- Wilson had the sinking of the Lusitania as his rationale, along with the Zimmerman telegram, for getting America into the so-called "War to end all wars", and we all know what a FUBAR that was-- FDR had his phony "Lend-Lease" with his garden hose lent to a neighbor rationale-- Did he really believe Germany would do nothing to stop the supply ships crossing the Atlantic with "Bundles for Britain" cargoes?? I firmly believe that FDR knowingly chose to ignore the "storm warnings" brewing in the Pacific, and used the Pearl Harbor disaster to get America into WW11, and rebuilding the economy from war contracts for materiel.

 

[tyrodtom]

Nobody forced Japan into WW2.
The oil embargo was imposed on them because of their war in China, and other aggression in Asia.

It was their choice to put their whole nation's future at risk so they could continue dominating their Asian brothers.

 

[mikewint]

Nobody forced Japan into WW2.

Basically true but much more complicated. Ever since Commodore Perry's fleet opened Japan in 1853, in an era of great colonial expansion, the Japanese had watched the European powers dominate East Asia and establish colonies and trading privileges. China, Japan's neighbor, was carved up like a melon as Western powers established their spheres of influence on Chinese territory. After an amazingly short time, Japan was able to develop the economic and military strength to join this competition for dominance of the Asian mainland. Japan defeated China in 1895 and Russia in 1905, in battles over who should dominate Korea. Japan joined the allies against Germany in 1914-18 in a struggle to control a portion of China and then conquered Manchuria in 1931 in an effort to secure a land area rich in raw materials. The Japanese nation and its military, which controlled the government by the 1930s, felt that it then could, and should, control all of East Asia by military force.
The great powers not only jealously protected their special economic rights within their colonies and spheres of influence, but sought to bolster their sagging economies through high tariffs, dumping of goods, and other trade manipulation. The Japanese, with few natural resources, sought to copy this pattern. They used cutthroat trade practices to sell textiles and other light industrial goods in the East Asian and U.S. markets, severely undercutting British and European manufacturers. To maintain this parity with the Western Powers required Japan to develop sources of raw materials and heavy industry in the colonies they established in Korea, Taiwan and Manchuria, while using high tariffs to limit imports of American and European industrial products.
The Japanese military faced a particular tactical problem, certain critical raw materials — especially oil and rubber — were not available within the Japanese sphere of influence. Instead, Japan received most of its oil from the United States and rubber from British Malaya, the very two Western nations trying to restrict Japan's expansion.

Japan had a small domestic oil production, a few million barrels, but not nearly enough to meet their peacetime needs let alone war. What they did have is enough oil refineries with a capacity of almost a year's peacetime consumption. If they could get the oil to Japan, they could refine it into fuel. They were also heavily invested in synthetic oil plants to convert coal, tar and shale into oil. Even sugar, rice, nuts and pine were converted to oil.
Before the war started, they imported 90% of their oil, mostly from the US. The US produced the majority of the world's oil in 1941, a lot of it in California. Not having the infrastructure to ship it across the US, it was loaded onto tankers and sold around the Pacific Rim. Months before the war began this supply was cut off by a US embargo, later joined by the Dutch.
Japan also had a stockpile of oil and other strategic resources, billions of barrels. Roughly equal to two years of peacetime imports.
Japan imported most of its oil from conquered territories, primarily the Dutch East Indies (Indonesia) but also smaller amounts came from Formosa (Taiwan), China, and Burma. Many of these plants and fields were damaged by their defenders and it took years to get them back to near full production. Japan also had a concession from the USSR to mine on Sakhalin Island which continued to be honored, though the amount of oil was very small. But it never was enough. Without US oil, their imports were slashed in half.
The Navy was a huge consumer of oil, needing a billion barrels of heavy oil a year. Military and civilians needed half a billion barrels of diesel. Aviation took another half billion barrels.

Japan knew the United States was economically and military powerful, but it was not afraid of any American attack on its islands. Japan did worry however, that the Americans might help the Chinese resist the Japanese invasion of their country. When President Roosevelt stopped U.S. shipments of steel and oil the Japan, he was doing exactly this, for without these imports of steel and oil, the Japanese military could not fight for long. Roosevelt hoped that this economic pressure would force Japan to end its military expansion in East Asia.
The Japanese military saw another solution to the problem: if it could quickly conquer the British and Dutch colonies in Southeast Asia and gain complete control of the oil, rubber, and other raw materials it needed, then it could defend its interests in China and Indochina against those Europeans who were now busy fighting a major war in Europe against the Germans and Italians. The only force that could stop the Japanese was the American Pacific fleet — which was conveniently gathered close to Japan at Pearl Harbor. Knowing that many Americans did not want to fight a war against Japan, the military thought that if it suddenly destroyed the U.S. fleet, America would simply give up and allow Japan to consolidate its grasp on East Asia.
Japan was not militarily or economically powerful enough to fight a long war against the United States, and the Japanese military knew this. Its attack on Pearl Harbor was a tremendous gamble — and though the short-run gamble was successful, the long-run gamble was lost because the Japanese were wrong about the American reaction.

 

[Shinpachi]

A Japanese politician Korekiyo Takahashi (1854-1936) who spent his younger days as a slave in the US told Japanese people a tip how to cope with Americans like this - "If a Yankee stands in your way and doesn't step aside, send a punch on his nose. He will understand what you are and may become a good friend later. You have no other choice."

 

[GrauGeist]

It wasn't so much the Japanese taking China, it was how they were going about it.

Life was already hard in China with constant warring between area warlords and the political upheaval between the Nationalists and the Communists. *IF* Japan had come into China not as ancestral enemies, but as benefactors, then the U.S. probably would not have had much to say on the matter.

This same mistake was made by the Germans when they rolled into Russia and the Ukraine. German troops were celebrated as liberators, welcomed with open arms and showered with flowers. At that point, the people were ready to follow them, Red Army soldiers wanted to join them and the Germans could have damn-near beat Stalin with hardly a struggle.

 

[parsifal]

The war in the pacific was ultimately a war about control of trade in East Asia. both the Japanese and the Americans trumpeted high minded policies that in reality were totally devoid of any genuine conviction The US trumpeted its policies of open door, which in reality were a continuation of the "unequal treaties" and in fact continued a variant of that policy that has led to many of the problems in the far east even in the modern era .

Japans hypocrisy was probably even worse . Its ideas of a "Greater East Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere" sounded much fairer on paper, but in reality was just a vehicle for Japanese exploitation of Asia.

Both policies were incredibly disingenuous and ultimately were driven by incredible greed and insatiable thirst for power.

The other colonial powers, including Britain were well represented in this unseemly act of robbery.

Saying that "all the Japanese had to do was do as we asked "or "all the Europeans had to do was give up their far eastern interests" are about as unrealistic as each other. What had to happen was a step back by all these external powers (including japan), but in the climate of the time that was never a possibility. the conclusion....both sides shared equal blame for the war in the pacific .

 

[Hansie Bloeckmann]

It wasn't so much the Japanese taking China, it was how they were going about it.

Life was already hard in China with constant warring between area warlords and the political upheaval between the Nationalists and the Communists. *IF* Japan had come into China not as ancestral enemies, but as benefactors, then the U.S. probably would not have had much to say on the matter.

This same mistake was made by the Germans when they rolled into Russia and the Ukraine. German troops were celebrated as liberators, welcomed with open arms and showered with flowers. At that point, the people were ready to follow them, Red Army soldiers wanted to join them and the Germans could have damn-near beat Stalin with hardly a struggle.

All salient points of a history now long ago, oh Grey Ghosted leader of the storm battalion herein. But the "benefactors" clause, I am not 100% convinced of that scenario vis a vis the Japanese in China. "When the fox hears the rabbit scream, he comes a runnin', but not in the role of a benefactor"!! Japan needed China, as much as she needed the Dutch East Indies, for raw material and in the case of China, for slave labor. Being a small island(s) nation, Japan relied on imports, and when FDR cut of the oil and scrap metal essential to her wartime economy, Japan decided to cripple the US Naval power in the Pacific, with one well planned "knock-out punch".. We all know what happened.

I agree with your analysis of the Russian campaign- Operation Barbarossa--and if "Der kleinen Scharfuhrer auf Bavaria" Herr Hitler, had left the planning and op. details to his brilliant OKW staff officers- Manstein, Von Rundstedt, Model and Guederian, and had spend his time working with Fritz Todt and Albert Speer on rebuilding the infrastructure of Germany (and at the same time canned Dr. Theodore Morrell and quit the addictive drug habit Morrell provided for him)-- Germany may well have owned the oil fields in the Baku area, and have well expanded their Leibensraum concept further to the East. Of course, all of this is a "pipe dream" for today.

Both Germany under Hitler, and Japan under Hirohito were very racist in their viewpoint of the rest of the world they sought to conquer in WW11- and that approach, along with other factors, lead to their ultimate downfall. Hansie

 

[Shinpachi]

The closer you live to the Pacific, the more you look friendly to the Japanese.
This is a discovery for me.

 

[Zipper730]

Robert Menzies, the prime minister of Australia, observed that Roosevelt, ". . . trained under Woodrow Wilson in the last war, waits for an incident, which would in one blow get the USA into war and get R. out of his foolish election pledges that 'I will keep you out of war.'"

Modern day, this is known as "never let a serious crisis go to waste"...

Back in 1932 in the Grand Joint Army Navy Exercises the attacker, Admiral Yarnell, attacked Pearl Harbor with 152 planes a half-hour before dawn 40 miles NE of Kahuku Point and caught the defenders of completely by surprise. It was a Sunday.
Then in 1938 Admiral Ernst King led a carrier-born airstrike from the USS Saratoga successfully against Pearl Harbor in another exercise.

So these exact scenarios were done, one of which was under Roosevelt's term in office?

 

[special ed]

Having just read this thread, it seems Parsifal and Mikewint have been in my head. I have pointed out these events to friends and model club members and get some despairagement in return. We don't know or learn history, and of course are doomed to repeat it.

 

[michaelmaltby]

".... We don't know or learn history, and of course are doomed to repeat it"

That is often repeated, Ed, but IMO we've got it absolutely wrong.
History be damned ... knowing history or not knowing history just buys you perspective, hindsight, on events. We know that history is written by the 'winners'.

We don't know ourselves. We don't understand all the instincts and motivations that live in our biological past. Or perhaps that picture of us is to dark to bear.

 

[special ed]

Agreed. What I try to do, with varying success, is learn from my and other's mistakes and achievements.

 

[mikewint]

So these exact scenarios were done, one of which was under Roosevelt's term in office?

Franklin D. Roosevelt was in his second term as governor of New York when he was elected as the nation's 32nd president in 1932.

We don't know or learn history, and of course are doomed to repeat it.

History is a wonderful thing if only it were true. That History repeats itself and that History never repeats itself are equally true.
History is the fiction we invent to persuade ourselves that events are knowable and that life has order and direction. That's why events are always reinterpreted when values change. We need new versions of history to allow for our current prejudices."