mysteryman wrote:FDR knew there was an attack coming,but he didnt know where.
That is correct--and that is why the war warning message was sent, ten days before the attack.
Quote:He failed to place Pearl Harbor on a war footing.
Had he interferred directly, i'm sure the conservative attack dogs would have criticized him for micro-managing. Kimmel and Short were the resonsible officers on the scene, they were warned that hostilities with the Empire of Japan were expected within a matter of days. Kimmel did virtually nothing to place the fleet on a war footing, and Sunday was just another Sunday to him. Short reacted by ramping up his paranoia about fifth columnists, and putting ammunition under lock and key (a disaster for anti-aircraft gunners on that Sunday), and clustering the fighters in the centers of the airfields, away from the fences, and his imaginary fifth columnists--who never materialized. They were sitting ducks for the fighters sent to suppress air defense.
Look up the Martin-Bellinger Report sometime--more than eight months before the attack, the two staff officers--Army (which controlled the U.S. Army Air Forces in Hawaii) and Navy--who were responsible for air operations warned of the likely consequences of an air attack, and made recommendations for the defense of Hawaii from such an attack. Neither Kimmel nor Short made any effort to act upon that report.
And you say that FDR did nothing to put Hawaii on a war footing--that's the most pathetic charge you could make. Just what did you expect him to do? Travel there himself and follow Kimmel and Short around to make sure they did their jobs. Go breath down the necks of Marshall and King to make sure they did their jobs? Get a grip.
Quote:He made no secret that he wanted into the war,and a case could be made that he had been fighting an "undeclared war" since 1939,with instances like the attack on the USS Greer in the summer of 1941.
Yes, FDR itched to get into the European war--and the
Greer incident took place in the North Atlantic. But FDR had no way of knowing that Yamamoto had planned the attack on Hawaii, and even if he had, he had no way to know that the idiot Hitler would declare war on the United States after the Japanese attack. Even the officers of the fleet--apart from Fuchida and Genda who had planned the attack and trained the crews, and Nagumo, who commaned the First Air Fleet--did not know the target until they were at sea, and under radio silence regime, which they maintained all the way to the target and back to home waters.
Quote:The war warning sent on Dec 7 was sent to late to warn the military at Pearl.
Look at the source i provided above, and read some reputable sources, as opposed to crack-pot, wild-eyed conspiracy screeds. The War Warning message was sent November 27th, ten days before the attack.
Quote:There are many other questionable acts and decisions made by our govt regarding the warnings and actions leading up to Pearl.
That doesn't constitute evidence, it constitutes sour grapes and wild accusations.
Quote:They ignored intelligence provided by both the Brits and the Russians,they ignored their own commanders that had reported a Japanese Fleet leaving Japan.
Got a source for that wild horseshit? No one, absolutely no one knew that the First Air Fleet had been created, much less where it was, and where the six carriers were--and that includes Naval Intelligence, who knew a hell of a lot more about what was going on in the Pacific, and about the Imperial Fleet than did the Brits or the Russians or anyone else. You're just making **** up now.
Quote:I have no personal hatred to or for Roosevelt,I think he was a great president.
But,you cannot ignore the fact that he wanted into the war (albeit against Germany),and he knew his actions against the Japanese would lead to hostilities.
This is almost too naive to merit a response. Read something reliable on the subject some time. In particular, read the Japanese negotiating terms, if they even merit the name--the Japanese were undermining their own ambassador to the United States, Admiral Nomura. The Japanese were rushing headlong to war with the United States, and doing their damnest to spark hostilities. When Yamamoto's plan was accepted, they set up Nomura, and sent him to delay the Americans, to attempt to prolong negotiations until the attack could be launched. Nomura did not learn of the operation until the attack had been launched.
Naval Intelligence lost track of the six largest Japanese carriers, and when the naval codes were changed at the beginning of November, 1941, they were able to fairly quickly identify the bulk of the Imperial Navy, poised for the Southern Operation, but they failed to find Nagumo's First Air Fleet, and did not in fact even know of its existence. But they had broken the diplomatic code, and that, coupled with the evidence which Naval Intelligence
was able to assemble, as well as the ominous character of what we didn't know (the location of the six largest carriers, two very fast battleships--
Hiei and
Kirishima, two very fast and heavily armed cruisers--
Tone and
Chikuma, and a very large squadron of the new and excellent
Kagero class destoyers. It was precisely because of what the government had learned from the diplomatic intercepts, and the complete lack of information for such a large number of important Imperial Navy warships that the war warning message was sent.
So what did you expect Roosevelt to do, MM, fly out to Honolulu and get in everyone's way, while neglecting all of this other duties?
What goes on with the blame FDR conspiracy freaks is that they just can't accept that the Japanese pulled off one of the most brilliant surprise attack operations in the history of warfare. They'd rather accuse the President of casual treason than to admit that a people who we despised in 1941 could kick our asses so thoroughly in a few hours of a Sunday morning.
You're peddling bullshit.
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