A TIMELINE OF EVENTS IN EAST ASIA:
July 7, 1937--Japan and China go to war in the Second Sino-Japanese War, which Japan steadfastly refers to as an "incident."
August, 1937--Claire Chennault, an officer of the United States Army Air Force, resigns his commission and becomes an adviser to Chiang Kai-shek on aviation matters. Both the Soviet Union and Germany provide material and advisory support to the Nationalist government. (Another nail in the coffin of the allegation of a close alliance between Japan and Germany.)
December 12, 1937--USS Pannay, anchored in the Yangtze River outside Nanking (now called Nanjing), is bombed by the Japanese, despite a large American flag painted on the deck. The Japanese apologize for the incident and pay an indemnity.
Mid-1938--The Japanese Imperial General Staff begins discussion of a plan to invade British, French and Dutch colonies in southeast Asia, which are rich in petroleum and mineral resources. Although it is usually referred to as the Southern Operation by historians, there was never a single operational plan. Each attack or invasion was separately planned. No firm date can be given for the beginning of these discussions. The plans, however, are crucial to providing Japan the material resources to continue the war in China. Japanese planning was based on the First Sino-Japanese War and the Russo-Japanese War, in both of which the Japanese were able to successfully negotiate an end to those wars, having achieved limited military objectives. This is crucial because the IGS believed that although war with the United States would be disastrous, a negotiated settlement with the United States could be reached recognizing Japanese hegemony in the far east, based on their experiences in their earlier wars with China and Russia. Actual, specific operational planning, although based on general plans begun in 1939, does not begin until mid-1941.
October, 1938--In Munich, Chamberlain and Daladier cave in to Hitler's demands, and German troops occupy western and northwestern portions of Czechoslovakia. To give an idea of the state of international relations in Europe at the time, Poland also annexes portions of Czechoslovakia. Hitler is widely applauded in Japan.
Early 1939--The formation of the Japanese Southern Expeditionary Army Group. This irrevocable step was necessary if the southern operations plans were to go forward, as Japan had already committed nearly two million troops to China. Initially simply the assembly of cadre for the units to be involved, troops provided by conscription were trained for this Army group, or sent to replace garrison troops in China, with the troops freed there to join the Southern Expeditionary Army Group.
In the Spring of 1939, Japanese troops in Manchuria begin skirmishing with Mongolians who have crossed the border claimed by Japan in order to find grazing for their horses. This leads to a series of incidents to which the Soviets respond by sending a new corps to the First Army Group, commanded by Georgy Zhukov, who will become famous fighting the Germans. In the battle of Khalkhin Gol, in August, the Japanese are soundly defeated by the Soviets with heavy casualties on both sides.
September 1, 1939--War in Europe begins with the invasion of Poland by Germany. Japan shows the value of the alleged alliance with Germany by refusing to declare war on Britain and France.
September 15, 1939--Japan and the Soviet Union sign an armistice, and two days later, Germany and the Soviet Union sign a pact, and Soviet troops invade Poland. Both Germany and the Soviet Union withdraw their support for he Chinese Nationalist government.
Early 1940--With their defeat at the hands of the Soviets, and their war in China bogged down, the IGS now faces the problem of their dwindling material resources, and begins to prepare in earnest for their southern operations. The handful of Imperial Navy officers on the IGS convince their army counterparts that no operation to the south can ignore USAAF units in the Philippines and that therefore an operation against the Philippines must be planned. After consultation with Admiral Yamamoto, they go back to the IGS and convince them that Guam and Wake Island must also be seized. Holy slippery slope, Batman ! ! ! The operational plans for dealing with the Americans and the Pacific Fleet are now known as the eastern operations.
October, 140--Lt. Commander McCollum, responsible for the southeast Asia desk at ONI (Office of Naval Intelligence) writes his now infamous memorandum, and forwards it to his superiors. See above for a review of the (non-) effect of this document, which the conspiracy theorists just love (the document, not the fact of the failure to implement McCollum's plan).
May, 1940--Germany launches its offensive in the west, invading Holland, Belgium and France. The collapse of France, and the establishment of the puppet government in Vichy leads the Japanese to lean on France, and Pétain's government. France concedes use of the naval base at Cam Rahn Bay and the airfields in Hanoi and Saigon. This will considerably simplify Operation FU, the invasion of French Indo-China.
November 11-12, 1940--The Royal Navy launches an attack on the Italian naval base at Taranto. It is a poorly planned operation, which is no criticism of the Royal Navy, as they were dealing with a rapidly changing situation. Considering their scant resources and how little time they had to take action, they do spectacularly well, severely damaging two Italian battleships, one of which sinks while the other is run aground by the officer of the watch to prevent its sinking. A third battleship is less heavily damaged and the commander lays along the quays to save his ship. This ship, Littorio, is the only capital ship which will sail again--the other two have not been put back into a serviceable state before Italy drops out of the war in 1943. This attack completely changes the naval balance of power in the Mediterranean.
November, 1940. A few days after the Taranto attack, Yamamoto orders his chief of staff to begin planning for an attack on the U. S. Pacific Fleet should it sortie, and to study an attack on Hawaii. Imperial Navy exercises in late 1939 and early 1940 had focused on attacking an enemy fleet from the air, and particularly attacking ships in harbor.
Early February, 1941--Lt. Commander Genda returns to Japan, and Yamamoto makes him his operations and planning officer, and orders him to begin immediately to plan for an attack on Hawaii. Genda recommends his friend and academy classmate, Lt. Commander Fuchida to organize training. Fuchida will also command the attack on Hawaii from the air.
Spring, 1941--Imperial Navy Staff officers are horrified to learn of Yamamoto's plan to attack Hawaii, and only slightly less horrified than IGS officers, who really don't understand naval affairs. The Imperial Navy staff flatly orders Yamamoto to abandon his plans, an order which he ignores. Fuchida has begun to train his air crew, and security is first rate--no one outside Yamamoto's staff and the upper echelons of the Imperial Navy staff and the IGS have any idea of what Yamamoto is up to. Hundreds of accounts by Japanese naval officers after the war confirm that the members of the Navy had no clue at this time. One of the problems of the Royal Navy's Taranto attack was that air-launched torpedoes need at least 30 meters of water. Many of the RN's torpedoes either stuck in the mud at the bottom of the harbor, or detonated by striking rocky surfaces at the bottom. Genda begins working with Imperial Navy artificers to solve this problem (they do) and to provide "cradles" for 16" shells used in naval rifles. The American battleships have heavily armored decks and their magazines are completely armored. The "cradles" allow the Japanese horizontal bombers to pierce the decks of the American battleships, but nevertheless, no magazine of an American battleship is pierced. Dive bombers are only effective at attacking the superstructures of the ships.
Spring, 1941--Imperial Navy staff cave in to Yamamoto. Now the only problem they face (and avoid until the last moment) is telling the Emperor. In the event, Hirohito refuses to consent during the imperial conference in early September. The IGS and Imperial Navy staff officers are horrified, because although the emperor's consent is seen as merely a formality, there is no precedent for them to deal with the emperor's refusal. Admiral Nagano, the chief of the Imperial Navy staff told a friend that he had never seen the Emperor reprimand them in such terms, saying the Emperor's face turned red and that he began shouting at them. Hirohito told the army chief of staff that nothing he had been told about the invasion of China had been true, and asked him outright if he was lying. The Prime minister resigned, and the military officers recommended the Emperor's uncle for the position, but Hirohito said that the only point of that was to shift blame for the war onto the imperial family. Then, quixotically, Hirohito chose General Hideki Tōjō, a militarist hard-liner. He ordered a review, and the review staff, a dozen generals and admirals, responding to detailed questions, told the Emperor that there was no way to avoid the war. Finally, on November 3, 1941, Hirohito consented, just slightly more than a month before the attack on Hawaii.
August, 1941--the United States, Britain and Holland implement an embargo on oil, steel and scarp metal to Japan. The Japanese would later claim that this was an act of war, and that therefore the United States, Britain and Holland had started the war. Of course, specific detailed operational plans for the southern operations were already being prepared before the embargo was implemented.
November 1941--Since the change in the Imperial Navy's codes at the beginning of July, 1941, ONI has been unable to locate the Japanese heavy carriers, or even to identify their new code names. At that time, they are in the Inland Sea where Fuchida's training program is being intensely implemented. The encoding system had been broken by ONI, which meant that when new codes were put in place, ONI was able to break them in the first few weeks. This was the case when a new code was implemented in October, 1941. (Like most military organization, the Imperial Navy issued new codes every three months--it was then believed that the codes could not be broken within that period of time. Although the Allies did not know it, the Germans had given the Japanese an enigma machine. ONI was stumped for a long time, until one of the cryptanalysts suggested that the code was mechanically generated. They then "back-engineered" an enigma-like device which allowed them to break new codes in a matter of weeks.) In November, 1941, the Imperial Navy changed their codes again. That fact, coupled with the "disappearance" of the Japanese heavy carriers more than six months before lead ONI to advise the Secretary of the Navy that they believed war was immanent.
November, 1941--convinced by ONI, Roosevelt and Stimson authorize the Chief of Naval Operations to send out a war alert and then two war warning messages to all flag and general officers in the Pacific.
@Setanta,
Setanta wrote:
He's says, while throwing out insults.
The cut and paste was not the hysterical response, the allegation that i was only posting information which "fit in with [my] narrative" was the hysterical response.
When you insult people, expect to get insulted back, and you always initiate it. Foofie is not my favourite poster by any means, but his pertinent contribution was just dismissed with an insult. You always are very selective with your choice of information, pointing that out is not hysterical, but your reaction to being challenged was.
Setanta wrote:You alleged that the United States was involved in the war in China in 1937. That was not true.
From the original Wikepedia article
Quote:Since the U.S. was not at war, the "Special Air Unit" could not be organized overtly, but the request was approved by President Franklin D. Roosevelt himself.
America was involved covertly, if they were just a group of volunteers, they would not have needed the approval of Roosevelt
Quote:I have posted information from Wikipedia which shows that the American Volunteer Group (the only plausible basis for a claim of "covert" backing) did not go into combat until after December 7, 1941. I guess you'll ignore that because it doesn't fit in with your narrative
You assume a lot, are you honestly suggesting that the American Voluteer Group (AVG) would not have flown any missions if Japan had not bombed Pearl Harbor? If so, it's preposterous. The only reason Pearl Harbor was bombed first was timing, Japan got in first. The fact that the AVG was able to mount an attack just twelve days after Pearl Harbor shows how advanced their preparation was.
@izzythepush,
No--you really can't view yourself objectively. You started it. You began your post by saying: "There was American involvement in the Sino/Japanese conflict prior to Pearl Harbor. Don't just tell the facts that support your side of the story." That is a rather obvious accusation of dishonestly on my part. Do you really not understand that?
You miss the point (not surprising) that the AVG was not created until after ONI had convinced FDR that a Japanese attack was immanent and that it did not take part in the war until after the Pearl Harbor attack. Are your reading comprehension skills really that poor? The Japanese began planning the southern operations and the attack on Hawaii months before that event. To attempt to allege that the AVG provoked war with Japan is either incredibly stupid or incredibly dishonest.
Timing? Are you really so poorly-informed that you don't realize that events were inevitable at that point? Do you really not understand that Japan was embarked on their course many months before.
You, as usual, don't know what the hell you're talking about.
Unless you can come up with a credible allegation that FDR provoked the war, with reliable sources, i'm not going to waste any more time on you.
Have a nice day, Bubba.
@Setanta,
You deliberately omitted the existence of the AVG in your original posting. I wouldn't say that meant you were dishonest, but you were economical with the truth. Any subsequent points you make about reasons/dates of the formation of the AVG aren't really relevant.
@Setanta,
It's relevant to the argument you are making in regard to a right to insist on trade under the threat of war, which in turn, you are using in discussing your conspiracy theory allegations.
@InfraBlue,
InfraBlue wrote:It's relevant to the argument you are making in regard to a right to insist on trade under the threat of war, which in turn, you are using in discussing your conspiracy theory allegations.
This makes absolutely no sense to me. This is what i wrote:
Setanta wrote:Which has what to do with the allegation of a conspiracy on the part of FDR to provoke Japan into war so that he could go to war with Germany?
So are you saying that FDR (and it was Congress which passed the legislation) provoked a war by restricting contracts for military materials, which affected China and Japan equally? Or are you saying that that legislation constituted an act of war (as Japanese officers insist upon in their defense briefs) and that therefore a state of war already existed?
People here don't seem to understand that the questions implicit in the Pearl Harbor conspiracy theory are whether or not FDR "provoked" the Japanese attack (allegedly so he could go to war with Germany), whether or not he conspired with others to do so, and, finally, whether or not he conspired to keep that provocation a secret. I don't see that your remarks address those questions at all.
By the way, i would appreciate it if you presented evidence that Perry shelled the Japanese coast. All that i have been able to find is a threat he made at the time that he demanded that the Japanese boats remove themselves from the path of his squadron. I find no evidence that he shelled the coast.
This is the most detailed account of Commodore Perry's actions in Japan which i could quickly find. I suggest to Infrablue that he read it.
Quote:The following spring, Perry returned with an even larger squadron to receive Japan’s answer. The Japanese grudgingly agreed to Perry’s demands, and the two sides signed the Treaty of Kanagawa on March 31, 1854. According to the terms of the treaty, Japan would protect stranded seamen and open two ports for refueling and provisioning American ships: Shimoda and Hakodate. Japan also gave the United States the right to appoint consuls to live in these port cities, a privilege not previously granted to foreign nations. This treaty was not a commercial treaty, and it did not guarantee the right to trade with Japan. Still, in addition to providing for distressed American ships in Japanese waters, it contained a most-favored-nation clause, so that all future concessions Japan granted to other foreign powers would also be granted to the United States. As a result, Perry’s treaty provided an opening that would allow future American contact and trade with Japan. (emphasis added)
@Setanta,
I wasn't responding to anything other than that paragraph that you wrote about rights to insist on trade under the threat of war. Going by the US' actions in 1853 the realpolitik idea of "might makes right" certainly held in regard to its coercion of Japan to accommodate its interests which eventually lead to trading rights and favored nation status for the US. If not explicitly stated, it certainly is recognized as de facto law.
In regard to Perry's bombardment of the Edo Bay coast,
I read it in Wikipedia.
It's the first time I've read of any bombardment perpetrated by Perry during his expedition.
@InfraBlue,
When i click on what is, ostensibly, your link to Wikipedia, i get a reply window. That's not helpful. I did look into Wikipedia and saw no mention of any such bombardment. Whether or not such a bombardment took place, however, is not germane to this topic, nor is it germane to my remarks. My remark was that no U.S. President could truckle to such a threat. The Japanese were not happy with the event (the "opening" of Japan) either. From the beginning of the 17th century, Japan had been ruled by the Tokugawa shogunate. In 1864, certainly, French, British, Dutch and American warships bombarded Japan, forcing the Bakufu (the government of the Shogun) to open more ports. Four years later, the Shogun resigned, and rebelling Daimyo compelled the end of thogunal governments. So the Japanese were not going to tolerate such compulsion from the mouth of a cannon, either.
None of which is relevant to an allegation that FDR "provoked" war with Japan.
@Setanta,
Here's a more direct link to the passage--which you would have come across had you read further in the reply window I provided--in Wikipedia asserting his bombardment of Edo Bay:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opening_of_Japan#Commodore_Perry_.281853.E2.80.9354.29
The references for the lines about the bombardment lead to links to Google Books, and its page about the book
Black Ships Off Japan: The Story of Commodore Perry's Expedition by Arthur Walworth, but the exact passages aren't available therein.
@InfraBlue,
But so what? Do you really not see two things i've already mentioned? The first is that the Japanese were no more willing to accept being dictated to out of the barrel of cannon than any American president would be; the second is that this is a supremely unimportant side bar discussion which has absolutely nothing to do with allegations that FDR "provoked" a war with Japan, and conspired to cover up that alleged "fact."
Really, i'm not going to waste any more time on silly BS which is not related to the substance of the conspiracy theorists' claims.
The claim i am deriding is that FDR conspired to "provike" Japan into attacking the United States in order to go to war with Germany. Events in 1853 are hardly germane. No American president could survive politically if they were seen to truckle to a threat of war by another nation unless they adopted a certain trade policy. In 1937, the United States, Britain and France restricted trade in war materials, and restricted them for Japan and China. The Japanese did not formally object, and even if they had, it can hardly be called a conspiracy when 535 members of congress and their staffs as well as all of the newspapers in the United States are aware of what is going on. No complete embargo was passed until August, 1941--once again, with the prior knowledge and consent of the Congress and all that that implies. By August 1941, the plans of the Empire of Japan to attack Hawaii, to invade Hong Kong, to invade the Philippine Islands, to invade French Indochina, to invade the Malay peninsula, to invade Singapore, to invade Borneo and to invade the Netherlands East Indies had the inevitability of an avalanche which has already begun and is poised above the village at the bottom of the mountain (keep in mind that that's a metaphor). So it is an absurdity both to call that a provocation for a war Japan was already planning and for which the planning had proceeded past the point of no return, and to call it a conspiracy. Do you not see that conspiracies need an aspect of being hidden from the general public?
What Commodore Perry did or did not do in Japan in 1853 simply has no bearing on the idiot claim about FDR and Pearl Harbor.
@Setanta,
Setanta wrote:"But so what? Do you really not see two things i've already mentioned? The first is that the Japanese were no more willing to accept being dictated to out of the barrel of cannon than any American president would be. . ."
Well, the Japanese did kowtow to US gunboat diplomacy in 1853. It seems they were expecting the US to do the same after the former’s military offensive.
Quote:. . . the second is that this is a supremely unimportant side bar discussion which has absolutely nothing to do with allegations that FDR "provoked" a war with Japan, and conspired to cover up that alleged "fact."
Really, i'm not going to waste any more time on silly BS which is not related to the substance of the conspiracy theorists' claims.
You began this sidebar discussion by writing that paragraph that I've responded to. If you have issues with its irrelevancy to your thread then take them up with yourself.
bookmark
(but I'm not quite sure why)
@Lustig Andrei,
Quote:(but I'm not quite sure why)
Me either, Merry. For a newspaper guy you have precious little to offer except, it seems, the propaganda that US newspapers guys are prone to dishing up.
@InfraBlue,
No, you introduced the issue of Commodore Perry's behavior in 1853. It would be up to you to show the relevance to the period 1937-1941, and you have not done so.
Perhaps you are attempting to advance some bizarre kind of
tu quoque argument.
