Dear Mr Unz, I have come out of retirement to act as agent and attorney for the inimitable Margot, fiancée of the mysterious late J.Alfred Powell (as she knew this remarkable man), hereinafter referred to as J.A.P . She wishes to commission her brother Ernest to write “The Short Happy Life of J. Alfred Powell” and was quite excited to find that, by trying several search experiments on the Unz Review – Mobile App, she found evidence of a J.Alfred Powell Archive, albeit puzzlingly, with only one item in it. (Easier to locate his work through Google indeed, at least for a Mobile App user). She believes, after looking at your own treatment of J.A.P’s favorite subject, that you may have been mentoring him.

We take particular note of your robust defence of his enthusiasm for the late Robert Stinnett’s work where you blithely comment

“Greer, Judith (June 14, 2001). “Dive-bombing FDRâ€�. Salon. Retrieved 2010-12-09.

*** ***
“Hmmm…so some unknown, random writer in Salon said “nothing to see here!!â€�

My long #291 is a further reply to you.

Correction. Now that I have done the reading Ron’s retarded step brother J.A.P didn’t realise he should have done if he was to go on insisting to us all that Stinnett should be accepted as providing overwhelming proof of, basically, an FDR policy of following McCollum”s 8 point prescription and making sure some such effective provocation was achieved as the attack on Pearl Harbor. The deficiencies of his article and Comments are so many it is hard to know where to start. But start I must and fire off instalments while my using a smartphone with intermittent WiFi on a tropical holiday doesn’t lose me a lot more stuff than has gone already.

So, let’s note that Mr. J.A.P hasn’t bothered to follow up Saggy’s reference to Admiral Richard Young’s truly devastating 16 page review #52. It wasn’t all that difficult to find a .pdf version even if copying and pasting from it isn’t easy. And there is a lot of other stuff that can be linked from the relevant Wikipedia article that needs to be dealt with even if you don’t end up, like Young, saying that Stinnett proved the opposite of what he alleges – as to which I take a grateful Aistralian’s point of view that whatever FDR did was good for us so I can happily enjoy the fight being over the honesty and competence of the historians and fabricators.

No one seems to have mentioned, let me interpolate, the fact that if it wasn’t for an incompetent and inexperienced radar officer Kermit Tyler’s woeful performance there could have been planes in the air and crews at their guns in good time to give the Japanese a seriously damaging response. Kimmel and Short might then have been applauded for their vigilance and effective response without affecting the willingness of Congress to back war. Tyler’s appointment without supervision should have been condemned as one rationally condemns the management that put Chelsea Manning in a position to leak what she did. It hasn’t got much to do with the President for the time being.

I am struggling with Copy and Paste of Young’s take down of Stinnett on McCollum but, before I take the precaution of sending this, I add the following to Saggy’s quote:

I agree that Stinnett could not reasonably be expected to reproduce endless numbers of documents, trying to anticipate what some random critic might consider important. But when critics do identify specific deficits, an informative review can be encouraged to grapple with those criticisms — to address what seemingly knowledgeable readers consider flaws in the book. This is the nature of intelligent discussion: not to appeal to the intuition of the uninformed reader, as if the critics had not spoken, but rather to home in on points of controversy.

And now that we have the Argosy Daily Tweet by Tweet from the White House what may we infer about what the the great Tweeter is hoping for from Iran and what he then aims to do? Actually, amidst the myriad questions which are prompted by UR Comments I note that I have no idea of what war aims wrt Japan FDR may have uttered. (Anything known?). And what would Trump aim to achieve if Iran attacked the US in a way that he might represent as justifying massive retaliation and ???? Invasion so as to find and destroy nuclear facilities? Decapitation of the theocracy? Withdrawal from control of its oil industry only on condition of cessation of support for Hezbollah, Houthis, Hamas – but how to be guaranteed?

it does not state: “Its eight actions call for virtually inciting a Japanese attack on American ground, air, and naval forces in Hawaii, as well as on British and Danish colonial outposts in the Pacific region….�

Danish is Dutch. The Danes are not the Dutch and vice versa.

Your a bold man. I read the linked americanheritage piece by Lukacs and, even without considering comparison with the snarky views of an anonymous commenter, found his arguments compelling, and extending far beyond the trivial detail about the female censor. You may be beyond help but others should be encouraged to read it. It confirms my suspicion that the 26th November call from Churchill simply didn’t take place.

I have just received Stinnett’s book and I am clearer about a few things as a result. (Despite the criticisms of it that I found I am willing to go along with Ron Unz’s poaitive assessment of it). Amongst the now clear points is the fact that cracking of the Japanese naval codes had little relevance. Together with the reading of diplomatic messages it was inferences from radio direction finding that made it pretty clear that a substantial fleet was on its way from the Kuriles to north of Hawaii. There is no support for the “maximal civilian casualties” version of FDR’s political requirement but, rather, for a version which ensures that kido butai was not intercepted on the high seas (I.e. in international waters) and prevented from attacking, indeed worse, attacked so Japan could complain of an unprovoked attack that plenty of FDR’s American enemies would have latched on to.

Oops! The damned artificial stupidity seems to have insisted on substituting Nikita for Nimitz [interesting: it has tried it again] but you would have assumed that I trust.

When you want to push a dubious line the least you could do is to avoid factual howlers. Just to mention one so absurd that one wouldn’t have expected it from a school child who could read: “Germany’s only port city”!! Try looking up Hamburg, Kiel and Bremerhaven.

FDR’s guilt goes much deeper in my opinion.

There was a time I would have scoffed at this:
http://www.ihr.org/jhr/v04/v04p135_Weber.html

But no more. As I learn more about the financial elites who manipulate wars against potential rivals like Napoleon, or a unified Germany under the Kaiser the truth about “the good war” seems clear.

Not so well known is the story of Roosevelt’s enormous responsibility for the outbreak of the Second World War itself. This essay focuses on Roosevelt’s secret campaign to provoke war in Europe prior to the outbreak of hostilities in September 1939. It deals particularly with his efforts to pressure Britain, France and Poland into war against Germany in 1938 and 1939. Franklin Roosevelt not only criminally involved America in a war which had already engulfed Europe. He bears a grave responsibility before history for the outbreak of the most destructive war of all time.

Jewish financial elites declared war on Germany in 1933 as soon as the anti-zionist, anti-communist Hitler came to power. As the debt free German Economic Miracle developed the anti-German propaganda in the US media and Hollywood became deafening, much like the Russian hysteria currently. Churchill is quoted numerous times insisting Hitler would have a war whether he wanted it or not. A line in the sand at the Polish border was drawn and Poland was encouraged to defy any reasonable accommodation with Germany to allow access to Germany’s only port city. England would not have declared war on Germany over Poland without assurances from FDR of US support. Does anyone think England cared about Poland? Russia invaded Poland as well but there was no war against Russia.

To imagine that Germany set out to conquer the world is ridiculous.
Germany just lost a war. They had enjoyed a few years of prosperity. They had the smallest military in Europe and no Navy other than submarines and a couple of battleships. Hitler wanted no part of a war with France or England which he considered natural allies. Germans are Saxons and Franks at one time united under Charlemagne. No one (especially Hitler) could have expected that France and England would be knocked out in 2 months. Stalin became the new best friend of the panicked banker clans that ruled the British Empire since before Napoleon. As the Germans came within a few miles of Moscow FDR was indeed desperate to start a war with Japan. This would and did allow Russian forces guarding against Japan in the East to reposition to the west to face Hitler.

Bombs would have damaged them enough. Actually you don’t have to interpret FDR’s restraints on Kimmel – whatever they were – as designed to do anything more than to ensure that the Japanese weren’t forced to turn back or otherwise to fail to drop bombs on Hawaii. In fact the Japanese kido butai was so powerful (six carriers) that there was probably no danger of that.

“I was addressing this in an earlier post. Nagumo was, in fact, ordered to do a second attack, with all of the objectives you list, but disobeyed, as I said in the earlier post, he thought he had won a great victory like Admiral Togo in the Russo-Japanese war, and couldn’t wait to get back to a home port and party. Fool.’

None of this is correct. The “RAID” on Pearl Harbor was strictly that a “Raid” . The Japanese had planned to send their two waves and withdraw. That was the plan. That was it. The only allowance for any “second strike” was to defend the 1st Airfleet from US Naval forces and aircraft IF they were discovered , located and attacked. There NEVER was a plan to launch a second strike only the allowance to Nagumo to launch attacks based on his own digression in the event that a navl battle developed. The rest , pushed so much by Gordon Prange’s editors and based his interviews of Commander Fuchida many years after the war. Fuchida in so many words , started adding a lot of colorful bullshit as the years past post war, about a second strike /3 rd wave. None of which is found in his interviews immediately after the war 1947/1948.

There never was any talk by Nagumo/Genda/Fuchida after Fuchida returned from the first strike.
The Japanese lost 29 planes , many more “totaled” upon landing(26) , and many planes were shot up as to be incapable of further combat(111). To the tuned of being out about 130+ airplanes . The Japanese were prepared to lose two carriers and 200 planes if they had been forced into a fight and/or lost surprise, which they did not. As it was , the US fleet was considered “hors de combat” and the 1st airfleet had not seen or sunk any of the 4-5 US carriers which they thought were in the Pacific. It was a successful raid , they did not know were the Us CV were so Nagumo withdrew, after running a perfect op with minimal losses.

On top of all this , there were the three simple facts ,1. that the Japanese Aircraft returned too late to re-arm and launch another attack and return before nightfall.
Then there was the real problem that the sea state was worsening even as the aircraft returned which caused many damaged planes when they returned , and would have made arming and launching another strike very hazardous and would have made landings at night in a bad sea state , a disaster, causing the loss of many planes/pilots, not even adjusting for losses /damage from the massive AA fire any second strike would have suffered attacking again against a now fully alerted US forces..

You see the Japanese approached Hawaii hiding in a storm front, then they shot out in front of it to launch the raid, however as the planes returned that afternoon and as it got later the IJN position 200 miles north-northwest of Hi. the storm front they used as cover was catching back up with them . The worsening “sea-state” the evening of the raid, also precluded any opportunity for launching an attack the morning of the next day.
3. Staying another day would have seen the Japanese destroyers running low or out of fuel upon withdrawing at a later date and the Japanese tankers had withdrawn days before. The japanese fueled up before their storm from run, so the destroyers had been running at high/battle speeds
for two days adding another day , would havebeen three , and destroyers didnt carry much more than 3 days of fuel running at full speed. And trying to slow down to refuel them from carriers or other warships while being so close to US forces/bases and the possibility of naval combat would have been of extreme risk.

All these consideration was why Nagumo withdrew, he was a highly experienced admiral who knew his profession and was highly respected by his sailors(a father figure). Only a lying fool like Fuchida , who personally hated Nagumo, started all the bullshit stories of oil tanks and a ‘second strike/third wave” made-up second-guessing 20 years after the fact, who conveniently forgot all the realities of that day, and had no knowledge or experience of naval ship/fleet command is why there are people filled with Fuchida’s self-aggrandizing misinformation about the Pearl harbor raid and the myth of the Second Strike/Third Wave.
It was not going to happen and itwas not talked about after the raid nor was it planned or ordered or thought about beforehand.

Prominent America First members included President Hoover, Ambassador Joseph Kennedy and his son John F. The people who smear them as “nazi-sympathizers” and “anti-semites” defile themselves as slanderers, whether from ignorance, stupidity, programming or partisan malice hardly matters. Two excellent books on this subject are Bill Kauffman, America First (Amherst, New York, Prometheus, 1995) and Justus D. Doenecke, Storm On The Horizon (Lanham, Maryland, Bowman & Littlefield, 2000). Herbert Hoover’s Freedom Betrayed (Hoover Institution Press, Stanford, 2011) is also an important text — so important and so plainspoken that its publication was delayed for FIFTY YEARS by the usual suspects. People who care about America’s America (as distinguished from Wall Street’s Mammon America Inc.) will find it an enlightening read.

Video Link
I just rewatched FDR’s “Infamy speech” and note that the date “December 7, 1941” is repeated two times. Once at the beginning and then at the end of his speech.

Upon reflection, it’s a rather robotic use of a phrase that has no intrinsic literary value. Its repetition seems more to do with Jewish Kabbala than with rhetorical speech writing. 

I wonder who wrote that speech for him? I bet it was a Jew or Mason because no God-fearing goy speechwriter would ever think it necessary to bookend a speech to start WWII with the phrase, December 7, 1941. Indeed, the idea and decision to do so is bizarre, if one really thinks about it.

Was December 7, 1941 an occult Jewish shibboleth and incantation?

In any event, December 7, 1941, is certainly a date that continues to live in infamy, just like September 11, 2001, which most of us know as “9-11” and, I would strongly argue, that it was no accident that we remember that attack and fateful day as “9-11”.

You see, our Jewish controllers ascribe occult meaning and magical powers to numbers and none are more magical and powerful than “9-11” and “7-11”. Viz. September is the 7th month in the old Julian and Hebrew calendars.

By the way, I ain’t no crazy conspiracy theorist: even regular Jews at the Forward Magazine openly admit that:

When you walk into your local 7-Eleven today to get your free Slurpee — this being July 11, or 7/11, or, as it is celebrated everywhere, “7-Eleven Day� — consider for a moment that the convenience the store brings is based upon gematria, or the hidden meanings of numbers in Judaism.

Source: The Secret Jewish History Of 7-Eleven

Mazel Tov!

Many of the America Firsters, before Pearl Harbor, were members of the Eastern establishment, usually young and idealistic ones.

Some people have trouble understanding that military men pledged, and trained, to risk death from enemy fire, might risk death by firing squad, for disobeying orders, in order to save themselves, their ships, and their men, from death due to a storm.

Yes, I know all that. Why do you think I missed the point? Was it perhaps because I didn’t include a Japanese grammar lesson on the slightly oddball verb form?

Kido Butai was supposed to maintain radio silence, even if it couldn’t. But if it didn’t maintain radio silence, you didn’t see anything, you didn’t hear anything, and you won’t say anything, because you are a wise monkey that knows how to avoid trouble.

The meaning or lesson of the “three wise monkeys” is to See No Evil. Hear No Evil. Speak No Evil. The monkeys are called wise because by following those 3 admonitions, they not only avoid trouble, but maintain honor, which is always a good plan, especially for a sailor of the IJN, or for others who may know more than they are willing to say…

Now the grammar, and the kanji…

-(a)zaru is a strange alternate of -(a)nu (apparently a contraction of -(a)zu aru) that caught on in Japan long ago and is still used for its classical flavour.

The Japanese word for monkey is saru (サル,猿), which sounds like the zaru ending. Hence “Don’t see, don’t hear, don’t say,” can be written as mizaru, kikazaru, iwazaru (見ã�–る言ã‚�ã�–ã‚‹è�žã�‹ã�–ã‚‹) or sometimes 見猿言ã‚�猿è�žã�‹çŒ¿ using the kanji for monkey, 猿. This is translated into the “See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil” of the three wise monkeys.

What is the zaru verb ending?

Which is almost there, but the author got his kanji crossed, and it should be like this:

mizaru, kikazaru, iwazaru (見�る���る言��る)

or sometimes 見猿��猿言�猿 &c

Where “speak no evil” always comes last. In English, we often say “don’t tell.” At Nikko, Iwazaru is in the middle, so go figure, or read my subsequent comment with image of Nikko monkeys.

https://www.unz.com/article/pearl-harbor-unmasked/#comment-3281094

Two Hawaiian newspapers ran headlines of an imminent Jap Attack days before the actual attack on December 7, 1941.

The Honolulu Advertiser (dated November 30, 1941)

The Hilo Tribune Herald (dated November 30, 1941)
I’m not a crazy conspiracy theorist, but I couldn’t help to notice that the date December 7, 1941, a date which will live in infamy--FDR started his famous “Infamy speech” with that line and specifically with those numbers–has “9-11” and also “7-11” as integral numbers.

9-11 and 7-11 are highly occult and Kabbalistic numbers. The PTB live and die by their Masonic and Kabbalistic numbers and numerology.

Was Pearl Harbor the first 9-11? The (((neocons))) often refer to the attack on 9-11 as the “Pearl Habor” event of our times.

At the risk of being castigated as an antisemite and conspiracy kook, I’m going to say that not only did FDR know in advance about the attack, but that the attack was planned to happen on that specific date in order to implement an occult Jewish agenda.

I think you miss the point. It is not regular Japamese grammar, but a word play. The zaru part means monkey. I think the English term is ‘the three wise monkeys’.

Thank you. Some interesting points. I like the okd fhlm of Lost Horizon, it is really weird, especially the early scemes.

The book? Not so much. Puerile in parts. Good luck with your source that is not to be revealed.

Yes, this fits my impression also.

Before interacting with this “Wizard of Oz� character, be aware that he/she/they often draw other commenters in with questions and requests that are seldom resolved to his/her/their satisfaction.
The same person also fuzzes up threads by pretending to be more than one commenter, the technique known as “sock puppetry.” See under Mr. Derbyshire’s February 15, 2019, article comment ## 28, 42, 43, 44, 68, 122, where he/she/they got sloppy also posting as “Anon[436].”

Among this website’s oddest, sophisticatedly trollish commenters.

Good to find another willing to ask the questions of the interested intelligent amateur on UR. Of course one can annoy the main contributors when they can claim to have covered the ground already – particularly our host – but it’s OK to have been passing the port when the guru explained the key facts as long as one isn’t in a drunken muddle.

We would both be interested in diaries and letters shedding precise light on FDR’s thinking and judgment from time to time and also who was telling him what and precisely when. That would extend to any apparently callous statements about the human costs which might be worth bearing. After all, there need be little fear that he would match Mao’s expressed willingness (don’t ask me for the 100% reliable source) to see 300 million Chinese killed to achieve his goals.

Let us assume FDR indeed knew all about Pearl Harbor and let it happen anyway for deep, dark reasons.

Nobody has ever given me a logical explanation why he had to allow it to be so effective. To bring America into the war all he had to do was allow the Japs to attack. He didn’t have to let them win the battle.

Not my area, but I would assume even a few hours of warning would have resulted in a rather different loss ratio.

Well, that has been been acknowledged since then , Douglas MacArthur gave thought to and was actually candidate for the Republican nomination for the 1944 ​election. He did not campaign (of course) because he did not resign his commission and stayed out in the Pacific, but that threat to FDR ensured Mac got what he wanted out for his crusade back to PI. Should be some info in American Caesar(the goto Mac bio by Manchester ), but it has been a long time since I read it. .https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1944_Republican_Party_presidential_primaries

FDR could not change the “public view” because both him and Mac were pretty “dirty” as to their pre-war actions and the entire PI command debacle and the info behind it was still secret at the time

What’s the evidence that anyone was pushing the idea of MacArthur for President at relevant times? Wouldn’t the FDR team have been confident that they could change the public view of him from hero to cowardly incompetent the monent he put his hand up for the primaries? The fate of the Bataan death marchers while he was scuttling out to Australia would be upfront though the loss of aircraft on the ground despite warnings might have had to be handled in a way that concealed the source of the warning. Not a problem. It could be widely leaked and asserted that the Japanese engaged in so much radio chatter that direction finding radar had picked up the attacking planes in good time. MacArthur wasn’t going to tell the true story. The Japanese would be left with the impression (if they noticed the radio traffic story was false) that the American were contriving a way to make MacArthur do what any honorable Japanese general would have done if he had been responsible for such a disaster.

Your reasoning tends to disrupt the favored UR narrative which sees many signs of FDR’s active intervention to ensure sufficient impact on the isolationist American public, of which taking steps to save the carriers is an important one. You may be right but it seems also possible that FDR listened to someone who pointed out that the carriers would be vital because they were much faster than the battleships could project power flexibly over a much greater range – and that there were only 3 in the Pacific. Or maybe some admiral knew what FDR was up to and simply took it on himself to save the carriers by selling the President some specious story about the need to ferry planes to Wake Island or whatever the story was.

It certainly makes sense that a cunning FDR would have deliberately removed the aircraft carriers from harms way

Actually, it makes little sense at all. By a little way into WWII it became obvious that carriers were the dominant weapons system in naval warfare, but at the time of Pearl Harbor this was by no means so obvious. Battleships were still thought by many to be the main striking force of a navy.

I’m sure FDR was cunning, but it’s by no means obvious that he was as prescient about the importance of carriers as this implies.

Stinnett does reproduce many dozens of key documents which do suffice to make his case, as an open-minded reader can see by reading his book. He also cites literal thousands of other documents. Writers who criticize him for not reproducing facsimile’s of “129” more of these documents, while ignoring the conclusive evidence he does reproduce, appear to be acting in bad faith, to distract discussion from what Stinnett’s evidence does appear to prove. And of course there is sufficient other evidence that the Japanese fleet did not maintain radio silence, that began with the reports of merchant marine radio operators of their interception of these signals starting days before Pearl Harbor. It appears to me that an open-minded encounter with Stinnett’s evidence and argument is convincing and conclusive, not only as to the facts Stinnett establishes but also as to the bad faith of his attackers.

Basically what I found was a photocopied listing of call signs used either during a us FleetEX naval exercise in the 1930’s or a lsting of call signs for the Pan Am Clipper that had “Shangri- La as the call sign of MIDWAY ISLAND. this was pre-war.

The joke that FDR was asked about at a very public press conference after the Doolittle Raid ” Where did the Doolittle bombers come from?” He said “shangri-La” , which was from his favorite book Lost Horizon and was also the name of Camp David , his presidential rest area.

However , IMO, the Japanese monitored all Us commo pre-war , and especially watched the exercises, so when FDR said Shangri-La they would have made the connection from their old signals intel .

The japanese were interested in “Shuttle bombing” and they original thought the Dollittel bomber s had flown from somewhere to refuel on carriers before attacking a long range target. They had studied this with there own bombers as a means of possibly bombing Hawaii or California.

When he said Shangri-La , Japanese eyes looked at Midway. Boom, the hook was in the water.
And the Desalinization Plant gimmick ensured the Japanese took the bait.

That is the basis of a book I have planned. The Shangri-La call sign reference is in the Naval Institute archives, I wont say exactly where , becuase that little gem I found .

Lots more details , such as about the “top-secret” B-25 used etc, ect. If I ever get around to it should be interesting

Not really. Rochefort worth and memoir and it can be found at Hyperwar IIRC. Layton the only thing left from him his an oral history Q&A of which small bits can be found or have been cited it various other works.

You end up researching Generals such as Kelly Turner and their interactions with others at the War Plans division .

There is though Lt Col. Ellis ,https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earl_Hancock_Ellis, if you REALLY want to know what the “plan” was , though he wrote it in 1921! before there were good long range bombers . It all centered on taking the Marianas Islands(The Central Pacific Thrust). Not intelligence , pure strategy and it is what we did minus the MacArthur sideshow in the south to PI. which was largely to accommodate Doug so he did not run against FDR in 44 IMO

Ellis’s work nothing to do with the intel picture, but he was a visionary and an accurate one https://www.ibiblio.org/hyperwar/USMC/ref/AdvBaseOps/index.html

Your social media and blog use should be monitored carefully. You are obviously not with it on diversity. The internet should not be an unfriendly place for people with IQs under 100.

It’s not up to me to contend anything. I believe you: I’m sure he offers a great deal of evidence. What I’m missing is critical literature that evaluates his evidence in light of opposing views.

For example, the Wikipedia article that I cited didn’t IGNORE Stinnett’s evidence. It cited articles that seem to rebut Stinnett’s claims. For instance, it cited a now-archived Salon article that criticized Stinnett for claiming to discover “129 intercept reports that indicate that the Japanese didn’t maintain radio silence during the approach to Hawaii” and yet failing to reproduce any of those intercepts in his book.

Maybe Salon was right. Maybe it was wrong. I don’t know. And I don’t care enough to devote months to retracing Stinnett’s steps. When I can readily find several seemingly competent sources that allege virtually universal rejection of Stinnett’s thesis on multiple grounds, it’s the turn of Stinnett and/or his defenders to respond cogently to those critical sources — not to keep looking for naive readers willing to accept whatever they’re told.

That is a very interesting question. The answer may be ‘yes’, but I suspect we will never have it.

The small time difference (a few months), to launch medium bombers from a carrier (and never forget that the carriers were hiding during and after the Pearl Harbour attack) was unprecented, I found the article at the link below of interest on a few points I had not known before.

https://www.history.navy.mil/browse-by-topic/wars-conflicts-and-operations/world-war-ii/1942/halsey-doolittle-raid.html

You are wrong on at least one point, it was the late intervention of the Soviet Red Army in Manchuria that gave the CPC a stable base there. Without that, they would have lost.

Lots to digest from people who are obviously knowledgeable.

As to why Japan would attack first? Because Japan was convinced that these uSA was going to attack Japan, no matter what. Now-a-days is called preemptive strike. Hoover covers this issue in Freedom Betrayed. Whatever you think of Hoover, he was one heck of a writer and curator.

Clearly you are blissfully ignorant of the fact that Roosevelt’s maneuvering in European affairs circa 1937-39 contributed heavily to the beginning of the war that killed so many Europeans.

I suppose you like Roosevelt for “saving” Russia from Hitler but in reality, the war may have never reached Russia if not for Roosevelt’s meddling in 1937-39.

Also, your assertion that the America First movement was “Nazi sponsored” is either a disgusting lie or a mark of incomparable ignorance. The America First movement was an organic expression of the American people who had seen one hundred thousand good men die in World War 1 in a European fracas. No wonder over 90% of Americans were, in 1940-41, opposed to entering the war.

You have an awful lot to learn. Start here:

‘President Roosevelt’s Campaign To Incite War in Europe: The Secret Polish Documents’ by Mark Weber

http://www.ihr.org/jhr/v04/v04p135_Weber.html

I hope the book arrives before I get to Sri Lanka for my winter getaway. I am bound to find some sophisticated people there to discuss matters of high level conspiracy and botched intelligence. Interesting that the subcontinent is about the only important part of the world (Australasia being a merely happy Brigadoon) that the Unz Review hasn’t turned scathing attention to. Can you conceive of the Sri Lankan police and defense forces having been warned at high level by Indian intelligence that the Easter suicide bombings by Muslim fanatics were coming and yet doing nothing to stop it? [The sackings and/or resignations appear to validate that account]. It’s hard to believe that Muslims present a big problem in that multiracial multifaith society despite attempts by the Rajapakse family (now out of power) to pick up where the manipulative Bandaranaikes left off in cynically beating/heating up Buddhist (Sinhala) ethnocentrism in much the same way as the Burmese army and the Midi led BJP beat up respectively Buddhism and Hinduism.

The reason to renew discussion of this 19 year old book today is that it presents conclusive evidence resolving the questions about what happened at Pearl Harbor that have been in play since that day, and yet supposedly “informed” discussion continues as if it had never been published, and as if anyone who had read it had failed to grasp that it does PRESENT EVIDENCE which amounts to conclusive PROOF. My own reading of it leads me to the view that I twice voice in the review, that fair-minded readers will find it conclusive. So your proposed course of reading it and examining its evidence appears the sensible one to me. What I wish to emphasize is that Stinnett’s analysis and discussion rest squarely on the EVIDENCE he PRESENTS. To challenge his analysis would require one to falsify his evidence — to demonstrate that it is forged. This is, as it seems to me any reasonable and fair-minded reader will agree, utterly unlikely. So Stinnett’s argument stands. See for yourself. That’s the essence of science: interrogate the evidence.

It seems likely that you got your chance to have Unz Review run your article on a book published about 20 years ago because Mr. Unz had just read the book and been impressed by it. I am not sure that means his considerable intellectual credit should be added to that of an anonymous reviewer of a 20 year old book who does not appear to be a known authority. Maybe you submitted your article and that prompted Mr. Unz to read the book. I haven’t read it but am in the course of ordering it.

It is a little unseemly it might be said for accusations of bad faith to be tossed round by a new anonymous contributor whose main claim, though I am going to reread your article to check this, seems to be that you find Stinnett’s book reliable and persuasive. But you write of critical facsimiles without reproducing them. It would be helpful for readers still waiting for a copy of the book to arrive (it could take a month) if you were to select the most important 10 or 20 and reproduce them in Comments.

While I accept that Ron Unz has articulated a strong case that, somehow, Roosevelt knew enough about the imminent attack on Pearl Harbour to allow him to ensure that it would give him the war he was seeking, I shall read Stinnett’s book as offering a special bonus in the way it can be used to test how those who claim to have read it have actually remembered it accurately, and how their express or implicit analysis based on it stands up.

I forgot to mention that for some odd reason the British Ultra decodes of the Japanese [I thought Ultra was only about German codes] seem to be closed till 2025…. One virtue of that Wikipedia article is that it seems quite open about what is not yet open to FOI.

I haven’t gone to the extent of getting a Kindle version of the book you say contains the Roosevelt-Churchill conversation intercepts but have read a lot of interesting stuff as I have tried to find even mention of the 26th November call on the internet.
E.g.
https://weaponsandwarfare.com/2016/12/29/tapping-the-hot-line/

While the logic of the story stands up, and I am not, at this point disposed to put preservation of the secret of US codebreaking ahead of ensuring maximun political outrage as certain motive for any FDR orders which crippled Hawaii’s defence, I am wary of the Churchill and Roosevelt cooked it up on the 26th version because
1. It seems unlikely that the Brits in Singapore would have been so far ahead in decrypting and translating Japanese Naval messages from , than the relatively large US teams in their three stations, not least when the Brits were rightly concentrating on their part of the Far East
2. I simply can’t find what one would expect on the internet if any significant number of people were giving credence to the reality of that call
3. There is this from just the one Wikipedia account I have read (definitely not on the conspiracy side but quite professionally dispassionate for the most part**)

CMC,

I try to be a responsible poster. Sometimes too tired, drunk, and a bad everyday experience, so a mess or a misguided reply. However, I will stand by more than 95% (really almost all, I have made a few posts that are clearly baiting, but I don’t care, those that I was baiting fully deserved it).

As for the interesting military question that you raise and I have continually been raising, there is so much behind the Pearl Harbour attack.

The point I want to emphasize was that Nagumo acted like the precsice opposite of a mialitary leader,

If you actually bothered to read comments, you would have seen that, well before I had assumed you to be a trollish commentor, I had stated that I have the Stinnett book, have closely read it more than once, and find it, as you do, convincing. OTOH, I don’t try to misrepresent it.

You are seriously wrong on the point of the carriers being on the way to Midway, etc., that was after the attack, and after they had confirmed that Nagumo had been an idiot, and disobeyed orders.

AFAIR from reading, that was precisely the reality.

That the carriers were lurking in the gyre was stated by Stinnett, on the basis of his usual research of documents.

You may try to more closely read an account (which I have also stated I am agseeing with in general, but the account that I agree with is not your careless reading of Stinnett,

At that time, U.S. naval aviation was no match for Japan’s.

You say I am throwing dirt in the wind, that would imply you have some paleolithic connection to Israel, dust in the wind, from the OT.

No doubt there are “discussants” who are, from your point of view, not writing in good faith, but there would be many who do not take all or even many of the UR contributors as balanced, sane, meticulously scholarly, and honest. They nonetheless may hope to learn much of interest from contributors and commenters who have read and checked much relevant material that most people do not have time for. If so it is clearly appropriate to cross-examine the witnesses or at least ask the questions which a lawyer would ask of his own client before he takes his case to court. With that in mind it occurs to me to be a little hesitant about your broadly asserted case, apparently based on Stinnett’s book which few on the thread will have had a chance to read, when you write “the documented order of the 25th ending patrols of the area from which the Japanese attack was launched” because the Japanese fleet didn’t set out till the 26th. It follows that was not the undecoded messages which allowed the fleet to be tracked which caused such anticipation of the attack from the north west. And if not that then what was it? That you think your broad brush is enough and apparently haven’t seen how that order being on the 25th is significant can only make a careful reader reluctant to suppose that the story is as straightforward as you say.

The initial letters of your pseudomynous u-name are constructed to spell ‘JAP’, it is difficult not to notice that, also you are a very new commentor.

The secondary point that I am making, also well-attested, the USN carriers and accompanying craft were lurking in an ocean gyre, until our fleet was on the way home, so the disobient and vain fool Nagumo got to have his victory party, at least.

Yamamoto well understood that after Nagumo’s refusal to follow orders, the victory had little chance of being more than Pyrrhic. It must have made him (Yamamoto) feel terrible at times, also I would guess very angry at Nagumo.

Try to study a little if you want to try trolling your betters who actually have.

I can only surmise that you have read very little, but gain all of your ‘knowledge’ from the dreadful Michael Bay movie.

No bad faith on my part, that Nagumo was ordered to make a second attack, and received and chose to ignore the order is a simple fact.

If anybody is posting in bad faith, it is certainly not moi.

the telegram you cite (sent 6 AM London time, received in DC c. 1 AM local) was Churchill’s initial & carefully mild reaction to the modus vivendi proposal floated on the 25th by Hull and FDR: if Japan agrees to a token troop withdrawal from Indochina, US will begin resuming oil shipments and etc. In fact WC considered that a “Far Eastern Munich” was in the works (Martin Gilbert, ed., The Churchill War Papers, vol. III, pp. 1507-1508) and, as the morning wore on in London, finally decided that he had to take more decisive action: talk directly to FDR via trans-Atlantic RT and tell FDR what his own Far East code-breakers had just told him: IJN strike force headed toward Pearl Harbor so “just let it happen and we’re in the war together”. That’s why, a couple hours later, FDR in turn called Hull and told him to throw out the mv and issue instead an Ultimatum. Which Hull did….an ultimatum already at hand, as submitted on 17 November by Soviet agent (((Harry Dexter White))) @ (((Morgenthau)))’s Treasury Dept. And why, @ 8:30 PM same day, the first warning order re getting the carriers out of harbor via the “air reinforcement” missions to Wake and Midway went out. I don’t think a full transcript of the German intercept and de-scramble of the 8:35 AM (DC time) WC/FDR conversation is anywhere on the net. Which does not surprise me. It (and other German RT intercepts and related documents) are in Gregory Douglas, ed., Gestapo Chief – The 1948 Interrogation of Heinrich Muller, vol. I, pp. 42-55, 246-254; and vol. III, pp. 48 ff. Vol. I is available @ Amazon via Kindle or hard copy, Vol. III hard copy only.

The orders sent Kimmel telling him that FDR prefered that Japan be allowed to strike the first blow answers your question. Stinnett hypothesizes concerning FDR’s reasons. See the article. And try — try really hard, just to see if you can — to think.

None of your three comments addresses the subject of this article in any meaningful way. On the contrary, they amount to throwing dust in the air. This implies bad faith on your part. On this basis there is no reason to pay attention to anything you say.

As the article states, Stinnett prints dozens of photographic facsimiles of his documentary evidence. The only way to disprove or debunk his analysis would be to prove that this evidence is forged. Which is nonsensical. Your efforts to skate around this basic fact betray your bad faith. On the strength of this betrayal of your bad faith, there is no reason to pay any attention to anything you say.

I was addressing this in an earlier post. Nagumo was, in fact, ordered to do a second attack, with all of the objectives you list, but disobeyed, as I said in the earlier post, he thought he had won a great victory like Admiral Togo in the Russo-Japanese war, and couldn’t wait to get back to a home port and party. Fool.

Another point, raiseed in reverse, also by another poster, why did Hitler declare war on the USA when Japan attacked, but lapan demurred on the USSR in a near-equivalent situation?

IMHO, Hitler was in grievous error there. If our govt. was not to help against the USSR, why declare war on the USA in response to an attack by Japan?

It is an interestining counter-factual excercise, to consider if Germany had not declared war.

Then again, the USA had been in de facto naval war against Germany for some time, perhaps it would have made no diference.

Wiz

Of course I have read Day of Deceit closely, and criticallly more than once.

As another comentor has said. Stinnetet’s case is based only on documentary prnof, ergo facto.

As Spruance pointed out, the Japanese “didn’t finish the job� because after the successful attack rendered the U.S. defenseless, it would have been easy to destroy the oil “tank farms,� the sub base, and the machine shops. Most importantly, this would have destroyed all of the U.S. fuel in the Pacific, and changed the course of the Pacific war, and perhaps changed history. If indeed Roosevelt allowed the attack, did he count on the Japanese to not “finish the job�? Or was he willing to risk Japanese initiative, and its devastating consequences. Besides a prolonged war, the consequences might well have included an invasion of Hawaii, attacks on the west coast, and even a peace treaty.

Discussion (argument) focused on the dates when intercepted radio transmissions from the Japanese fleet were de-coded is beside the point as far as the Navy’s ability to track the fleet’s movements, for which interception of undecoded signals sufficed. And discussants pursuing this line of argument above meanwhile ignore the documented order to dispatch the carrier fleet, removing it from Pearl Harbor, the documented order of the 25th ending patrols of the area from which the Japanese attack was launched, the documented order of the 26th clearing its path, and the documented orders of the 27th & 28th informing Kimmel that the government wanted Japan to strike the first blow. Taken together, these orders, coupled with the Navy’s tracking of the fleet (which people disputing the dates of decoding of the intercepts admit), proves Stinnett’s case and the accuracy of his account as summarized above. This obvious and indisputable conclusion also places the good faith of the discussants pursuing this argument in a very poor light and suggests that the discussants do not regard the intelligence of their readers very highly, to expect people to fall for this silly dodge.

Plausible enough but I have tried to find the archived transcript or summary of such a telephone conversation and all I could find was this indirect communication by telegram between WSC and FDR on 26 November:

“711.94/2472: Telegram

The Ambassador in the United Kingdom (Winant) to the Secretary of State 96
London, November 26, 1941—6 a.m.
[Received November 26—12:55 a.m.]
5670. For the President from the Former Naval Person.

“Your message about Japan received tonight. Also full accounts from Lord Halifax of discussions and your counter project to Japan on which Foreign Secretary has sent some comments. Of course, it is for you to handle this business and we certainly do not want an additional war. There is only one point that disquiets us. What about Chiang Kai Shek? Is he not having a very thin diet? Our anxiety is about China. If they collapse, our joint dangers would enormously increase. We are sure that the regard of the United States for the Chinese cause will govern your action. We feel that the Japanese are most unsure of themselves.�

Winant
Sent to President Roosevelt on November 26 at 9:05 a.m.↩
THE FAR EAST”

That was at https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1941v04/d484

So…. can you help with the conversation.

I read all of that and I see that the codebrakers/cryptanalysis were getting excited by their progress in what was obviously a laborious and time consuming task that required their limited resources to abandon still undecrypted messages from months back. Not a word about anything of substance. All about technical matters.

It would be encouraging to think that a President who knew a Japanese attack was likely would have had some smart person looking at what intelligence was providing and could provide and working on the ability to put together multiple clues *even though they couldn’t rely on reading all the Japanese encrypted messages, let alone in real time*. The bulk of decrypted translated messages don’t appear to have given much help in preparing for Pearl Harbor.

Station Cast was at Cavito in the Philippines after moving from Shanghai and, however well it communicated with DC and provided intelligence to critical levels of the Navy or Administration, it is reasonable to suppose that it was concentrated on Western Pacific traffic. Note in the following from Wikipedia that the different stations “shared” tasks – so clearly they didn’t all cover the whole field.

“Stations HYPO and CAST were assigned responsibility for work on Japanese Navy systems, and after the agreement with the United Kingdom and Netherlands to share the effort, worked with crypto groups in Hong Kong then Singapore (Far East Combined Bureau) and Batavia (Kamer 14 or Room 14)”.

Can there really be no up to date account of everything decrypted, translated, analysed and communicated upwards and when that happened in DC?

Here’s another Wikipedia quote that comes from the article on Station CAST (not likely to be the last word but also not likely to assiduously maintained propaganda)

“Prior to the attack on Pearl Harbor, the amount of available traffic was low, and little progress had been made on the most important Japanese Navy system, called by US analysts JN-25. JN-25 was used for high level operations: movement and planning commands, for instance. It was a superencrypted code, eventually a two-book system, and joint cryptanalytic progress was slow. JN-25B was introduced on 1 December 1940, but was broken immediately by FECB as the additives were not changed. Most references cite about 10% of messages partially (or sometimes completely) decrypted prior to 1 December 1941, at which time a new edition of the system went into effect and sent all the cryptanalysts back to the beginning.”

As I noted the change to additive 8 on 1st December was not critical if all the additive 7 messages had been available in real time but I am tending at this point to read our amateurs’ thread as supporting a view that the imminence and weight of attack on Pearl Harbor was not made known to DC from reading whole decrypted, translated Japanese Navy messages but that Kimmel should have been better prepared anyway It doesn’t detract from the conclusion that Roosevelt may have put the effect of a Japanese attack in getting America into the war well ahead of the lives of American servicemen on Hawaii or the preservation of a few old battleships. (It would be interesting to know what FDR had said about aircraft carriers and modern naval warfare. A few minutes search has shown me nothing).

during the c. 8:35AM – 9 AM 26 November 1941 trans-Atlantic RT call between Churchill and FDR, something along those lines was Roosevelt’s initial reaction to news of the oncoming Japanese task force: “good…we’ll give them a hot reception.” But Churchill talked him out of it. First, because any heavy American prep to receive the attack would have been noticed by Jap agents on Oahu and, when learned of in Japan, would likely have resulted in the Jap fleet being recalled: in fact, the final “Climb Mt. Niitaka” go-ahead wasn’t signaled to Nagumo until 4 December. Also, given the reluctance of the US Congress to declare war on anybody and a mass population that supported Lindbergh not Roosevelt, Churchill – correctly – thought that a massacre would be just the ticket. As always, with Churchill.

You wrote:

I read virtually every word of the two links that you provided. … As it is your second last bolding greatly exaggerates the import of what Wilford said

Really? Perhaps you missed Wilford’s remarks beginning on pg. 13 (pdf), where he writes:

Meanwhile, Station Cast successfully decrypted JN-25B throughout 1941. Equipped with IBM machines, Station Cast mechanically processed great volumes of intercepted traffic.

[pg. 14] Yet Station Cast made even greater strides in decrypting JN-25B7 in late 1941. In a letter of 6 October, Lietwiler explained to Densford how Station Cast’s “Jeep IV” mechanical tabulator aided in the decryption of Additive 7. “We … hit the jackpot on the second trial, so the Jeep made a lot of face in a hurry.

In a letter of 16 November 1941, Lietwiler, responding to Parke’s letter of 24 October, explained this process:

Using the 400 high frequency groups we have compiled a table of 24,000 differences. … Two days ago I saw MYERS walk right across the first 20 columns of a sheet using this method almost exclusively. In view of this I do not believe we want a new Jeep IV.’

Lietwiler also furnished definitive evidence of Station Cast’s ability to read JN-25B7.

[pg 15] In the same letter of 16 November, Lietwiler explained to Parke how Station Cast successfully read JN-25B7, requesting that OP-20-GY assist with current traffic decryption:

We have stopped work on the period 1 February to 31 July as we have all we can do to keep up with the current period. We are reading enough current traffic to keep two translators very busy, i.e., with their code recovery efforts, etc. included.

In this connection, I certainly wish you could see your way clear to drop the ancient history side of this cipher and work with us on each current system…

[pg 16] The translators at Station Cast not only read current traffic, but also assisted in the recovery of code values. Lietwiler’s remarks clearly show that JN-25B7 was readable in 1941…

Captain Laurance Safford, head of OP-20-G, discussed JN-25 reading ability in a memorandum of 17 May 1945: [pg. 10]

Com 16 [Station Cast] intercepts were considered most reliable … not only because of better radio reception, but because Com 16 was currently reading messages in the Japanese Fleet Cryptographic System (5-number code or JN-25) and was exchanging technical information and translations with the British at Signapore [FECB]. As regards the JN-25 system the current version (JN-25b) had been in effect since 1 December 1940 [and] remained in effect until 27-31 May 1942, and was partially readable in November 1941

In August, 1970, Safford reaffirmed his views :

“By Dec 1/41, we had the code solved to a readable extent.”

[footnote 78 pg 16]
As previously mentioned, the COM16 report of 29 November 1941 (COM16-291029-TI) demonstrates that Station Cast could read encrypted addresses. Furthermore, an original, uncensored copy of SRH-406 shows that the external address of a message could be compared with its internal encrypted address to compromise the identity of the address list.

https://www.cnrs-scrn.org/northern_mariner/vol12/nm_12_1_17to37.pdf

To sum up, there are enough statements from various personnel doing the work on JN-25 in 1940 and 1941 with enough details to for me to determine that some significant portions of it were being read well before Pearl Harbor.

I maintain my use of bold was justified to emphasize what Timothy Wilford wrote about the USN’s ability to partially read JN-25 by Dec. 1941, which I suggest is a very conservative estimate. At any rate, I can hardly exaggerate the man’s own words merely by putting them in bold, and indeed these are my bolds throughout my comment, which I put there to help virtual readers with points of emphasis, so they’re not missed.

Not quite.
Disclaimer: I, obviously, don’t believe in conspiracy. Just in a failure due to organizational culture at the time. Peaceful military does it all the time. Or, you need certain type of people in military in peace; different in wartime.
Those, especially on top, in peace are, how to put it….good administrators/bureaucrats. Not great forward thinkers and/or warriors.
Of course, the same works the other way around.
As soon as war is over TPTBs change them back. Remove the warriors, that is.

Back to answer:
Emotional/motivational value.

Destroying/damaging IJN strike force and/or preventing the huge loss of LIFE wouldn’t have created the emotional response in US society at the time, necessary for executing the war effort.

Something similar happened, actually, in Falklands
Images of British Marines triggered a certain response in British society. Not that Argentinians wanted it but it did happen.
And, of course, 9/11.

A great politician knows how the game of ruling the plebs is played. You manage emotions of your populace and you are good.

Again, in this case, I don’t think FDR did it.
He (and people behind/around him) of course, used the event to the max.

Let’s say FDR did provoke Japan, and thanks to military intelligence even knew that an attack on Pearl Harbor was imminent. Why not use that intelligence to ambush the Japanese fleet or air squadrons during the attack, and have the base on high alert for a “possible” surprise attack? FDR still has his war, but you don’t sacrifice as many of your servicemen or risk having your naval base destroyed. It would be really pointless to just ‘let it happen’.

As your comment was highlighted I read virtually every word of the two links that you provided. While I found some later stuff from Wilford (2006 I think)

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/02684520600885665

under the heading

Signals intelligence and Pearl Harbor: The state of the question: Intelligence and National Security: Vol 21, No 4

I would be astonished if there hasn’t been, in recent years, disclosures and analysis which would take one well beyond Wilford’s carefully qualified conclusions. As it is your second last bolding greatly exaggerates the import of what Wilford said because it apparently remains quite uncertain how many of the >26,000 JN-25B 1941 messages were decrypted and translated until a few hundred of them were fully decoded after the war. The task was vast and the resources small as indicated by a late 1941 request to stop bothering about pre July messages.

There seems to be no question that the sudden introduction of additive 8 in substitution for the JN-25B additive 7 in early December 1941 was not critical (indeed it occurs to me that it might have been a warning flag for the USN) because, *if they had been decoded and translated in good time” there were many JN-25B7 messages which would clearly have pointed to Pearl Harbor. If they were not then the signals intelligence required lots of hard thinking and shrewd guesses from direction finding data, unencrypted message headings etc. It seems reasonable to suppose that some sharp minds had taken note of kido batai [or butai] meaning, apparently “strike force” coming up in partially decrypted messages from September on.

In addition to hoping that there is later material on just how much was obtained before Pearl Harbor of the detail in JN coded transmissions I note that there was apparently some successful deception by the Japanese. Thus the radio activity ordered by a Vice Admiral of the kido butai appears to have deceived the key radio intelligence station on Corregidor into thinking it was coming from a source which had not left the Kuriles. One can’t help wonder BTW, until some omnivorous searcher and reader can provide an answer just how efficient communications were which regarded American encrypted summaries of the hottest radio intelligence to be sent to DC for evaluation and on to poor Kimmel on Oahu. (No real excuse for Kimmel though. He belonged to a service in the tradition which hanged Admiral Byng pour encourager les autres).

the Jap task force was several times scattered by storms during the North Pacific voyage toward Hawaii. In order to re-assemble and get back on schedule, they HAD TO use low-power Talk-Between-Ships (TBS) to re-group. So they simply put their equipment back together and did so. Normally this type of signal doesn’t carry very far and that would have been the IJN expectation. However, under certain atmospheric conditions, such signals can bounce and carry much longer distances. That’s what the USN intercept stations and other listeners (steamship Lurline) picked up and triangulated, and that’s the source of the approach map that the Dutch naval attache saw at the the Navy Dept. a couple of days before the attack. Another example: during the Battle of Midway, Pearl Harbor picked up low-power TBS calls between Fletcher on carrier Yorktown and Spruance/Enterprise…distance: 1,100 miles.

Well, I am not much onto this topic (Pearl Harbor, Philippines etc). We could add Singapore.And Maginot Line. Whatever.

I would, though, like to read a book about Pearl Harbor, accusing FDR, written by an ex-Naval officer who had at least several years service in higher Headquarters.
Somebody with real life experience in how all that works.
Say, a full Captain (retired of course), working in Operations and/or Intelligence there.
Somebody with EXPERIENCE before the age of digital revolution would be ideal.

Any such book/material around?

It just occurred to me:
Hirohito got lenient treatment by Allies because he allowed IJN to proceed with the plan Sh�-G� 1 and leaked those plans to Americans. On top of it he instructed Kurita to do what he did.

I’ll come with something about Germans shortly.

Can you elaborate on Kimmel (And Short?) being denied enough reconnaissance aircraft?

Turning just the layman’s mind to what Kimmel might have done. He starts with the knowledge that the Japanese *might* launch a surprise attack on Hawaii. Even when it is suggested that the Philippines or Borneo is likely to be the main initial target he can’t have dismissed the possibility that there would be a subsidiary attack or may be a distracting faint on Hawaii.

So he considers submarine defences and that seems to be OK. Sabotage? Some extra guards posted and a few proactive measures. But what about a couple of carriers sneaking up to launch bombing and/or torpedo attacks?

Against that last possibility let’s just suppose he thinks of the possibility of carriers coming from different directions but rightly dismisses it and assumes the attack would be from the north. Above all he must sure that the battleships (And cruisers) are not sunk, aircraft are not caught on the ground and fire services quickly get to anyboil storages that are hit. He must have plans for all that.

He contents himself with the false assurance that torpedoes won’t work in the harbors shallow waters. But he still must ensure that at least some anti aircraft guns on the ships are ready to fire by the time the first bomber makes its run. So he needs to have planes in the air – any planes are better than none – and aim to ensure 15 to 20 minutes warning to, in particular, anyi-aitctaft gunners on ships and on land as well as pilots ready to fly.

In particular he must anticipate attacks in daylight but when many on Hawaii will still be asleep. So he must ensure there are observers with radios who will see incoming aircraft , if not ships, 70 miles offshore…..

At this point I decided to ask Google for the speeds of the Japanese aircraft and came up with an account of six US Navy dive bombers arriving at the same time as the Japanese. From the excerpt below it appears to have taken an hour and 23 minutes to travel 250 miles, so they would be flying at about 185 mph and it would take them 22 minutes to fly the last 70 miles. But the Japanese aircraft had already been detected by radar at 7.02am, 46 minutes before the first attacks though presumably not identified as Japanese (I know there is plenty on that).

Would it have been so difficult to arrange for whatever aircraft were available or some small vessels (cp. Dunkirk) to identify the incoming Japanese aircraft, at least well enough to be alarmed, 20 minutes before they arrived every morning when most servicemen would still be just awake and getting ready for the day? Given the Navy’s traditional high standards is it surprising, and also unjust, that Kimmel – though also let down by Stark and others – was found to have made inadequate preparations?

As to the extent of the failure and/or treachery in DC I note that some commenters have pointed to there being too much information to process in a timely fashion and also to many signals/messages only being decrypted and translated days after they were sent. Maybe all the precise answers are to be found somewhere in the 2000books and 5000 articles I haven’t read. Likewise when I speculate that orders which seem designed to prevent Kimmel discovering the attack which FDR knew was coming may have originated in a fear that action would be taken that would disclose the extent to which [some] Japanese codes had been broken.

** ** **

“Both the Japanese and American forces had launched aircraft at first light. At 0615 on December 7, the Japanese carriers sent their first attack wave aloft 250 miles north-northwest of Oahu. At exactly the same moment, the Enterprise launched what was thought to be a routine patrol directly in front of the ship’s advance. As usual, the patrol would search a hemisphere of 180 degrees directly ahead of the task force. The flight consisted of nine pairs of SBD-2 Dauntless dive-bombers, mostly from Scout Squadron Six, but including a few planes from Bomb Squadron Six. Each pair of aircraft would conduct a zigzag search in an arc 150 miles long and approximately 10 degrees wide. Instead of returning to the ship, they would then continue on to land at Ford Island, thus getting a jump on shore leave.

At 0645, the destroyer USS Ward fired on and sank a Japanese midget submarine operating within the defensive perimeter of Pearl Harbor. Seventeen minutes later, the Army radar station at Opana Point picked up the first wave of Japanese attackers. Thirteen minutes later, the second Japanese wave was launched. At 0748, Kaneohe Airfield was strafed and bombed. At 0752, Lt. Cmdr. Mitsuo Fuchida, tactical commander of the first wave, sent the message, “Tora, Tora, Tora,â€� meaning that surprise had been achieved. At the same time Scouting Six planes began to arrive over Oahu…”

Hi Pete,

I might recommend “Days of Infamy” by John Costello, though you may have it.

My personal opinion of Douglas MacArthur , was he “went native” due to his high position of Generalissimo of the Philippine Armed Forces after retiring from Chief of Staff of the US armed forces. He had “roots” there from his father and maybe his grand father as well being a former commander/overlord of the Philippines for the USA. Been a while since I thought, read seriously about this topic.

Then there is the fact his ” Patron” the president of the Philippines thought the Japanese would not attack if no offensive attacks were conducted from PI. And paid Dugout-Doug several million dollars the day after he evacuated for LOSING.

IDK, I consider old Dougie a spoiled brat who got pampered worse after he retired and he got soft living the life of a king. And then as the war clouds came , he expected FDR’s plan to ship enough B-17’s to cower Japan into submission while he whipped the PI army into shape along with receiving tons of US reinforcements would work.

Did not turn out that way. But he knew enough of FDR’s B-17 bombing plan where FDr could not afford to have him captured or worse evacuate and come home to runaginst FDR in the next election. That was why Dug-out doug got the Medal of Honor while his soldiers ended up in the Bataan Death march. Doug learned ‘politics” from his father and grandfather . FDR being a master politician himself treated him accordingly.

But yea, check out Costello’s book if you have not already.

Correct, both comments.
Well thought out and executed deception and radio silence.

I suggest you read “A Matter of Honor” by Anthony Summers and Robbyn Swan to get an accurate view of Admiral Kimmel.

addenda:for clarification to above post

“they maintained strict radio silence for actually a period of around 20 days- Before Dec 7 1941. ”

Thereabouts ‘mid-November’ they disconnected/dissembled their radio transmitters on ships that were part of the Raid Force and its supporting/supply ships, so there was no chance of RDF possible to those ships

No, they maintained strict radio silence for actually a period of around 20 days. All ships involved disconnected if not disassembled their radio transmitters and key pieces locked up to avoid any accident. Blank pieces of paper or wood were inserted into their Morse code transmitters to avoid even a single dot/dash. It was so serious and long in duration that that some transmitters and Morse contacts had rusted over when they reconnected and cleared them the day of the raid to use. The orders for “unmost’ secrecy which included strict radio silence came down from Nagano, Yamamoto , and Nagumo,three highest IJN officers. there was no-one, certainly no Japanese officer or ship crew that would have dared violate such order, or could have given the dissembled radios transmitters,nor are any recorded doing so.

They also took all their regular radio operators that had done all radio traffic for the 1st airfleet of the carriers and command ships off of those ships in “mid- November and had them stay in Japan faking the normal message traffic those ships did by their regular operators so no-one would notice the difference of location or a change in the “fist” of those ships. Fist being that each morse code operator can be recognized by how they hit the morse code keys , by other experience listeners much as you can recognize someone’s voice.

here is an article on this, The Japanese for the raid did an excellent job in their radio deception, that was why it worked.

https://digital-commons.usnwc.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1983&context=nwc-review

So, you’ve never seen the declassified JN-25 records.

Got it.

We’re talking past each other. Which is probably my fault since I started off a bit snotty and attacked a position Ep didn’t quite forward (straw man).

Let me put it this way: you’re the Japanese planner in chief and you can only destroy one set of things, either the US carriers OR Pearl’s oil tanks and the industrial capacity of the Navy’s dry docks, machine shops, and repair facilities. Pick one.

My argument is that certain probabilities follow from that choice. That’s all.

(What might be really interesting and relevant to the main thread is if the US knew which one the Japanese picked.)

Didn’t the IJN task force break radio silence during its voyage?

Yes, and the Warren Commission proved Lee Harvey Oswald killed Pres. Kennedy, and did it all by his lonesome with a magic bullet.

And the 9/11 Commission proved that a gang of Arab suicide pilots really did destroy the entire WTC with two 767s.

Through it all, we may be entirely certain that the military and government are eager to implicate themselves in monstrous crimes, and therefore we can be sure that such reports about these crimes from the government and military tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth 100% of the time so help them God.

Yeah, right.

Kikazaru, Iwazaru, Mizaru

Photo: Ray in Manila, from Flickr

Again citing Stinnett to prove Stinnett.

You’ve got nothing, in other words.

Have you ever bothered to look at the declassified JN-25 files?

They’ve been in the National Archives for decades.

Your denials — and the Navy’s declassified records — can’t erase the detailed and specific evidence uncovered by Robert B. Stinnett and presented in Day of Deceit, some of which has been patiently presented to you several times over here, including by author J. Alfred Powell, but sure, you’re a sailor and the Navy is innocent, and of course the Navy would have no reason to lie, or destroy evidence.

I’ll use the occasion to present another short excerpt from Stinnett’s Day of Deceit, three worthwhile paragraphs that refute what you say, and give an interesting example of the typical heavy hand of a cover-up:

Why were the RDF reports missing from Admiral Kimmel’s copy? Rochefort’s original Communications Summaries were found by the author stored among Navy records in the National Archives, but all the RDF reports for November and December 1941 were crudely cut from the copy of each report that had been prepared for Kimmel. Every RDF fix had been excised some time after Kisner delivered the complete reports to Station HYPO. No one at the National Archives could explain the deletions. When were they cut? Before they were delivered to the admiral? Did the deletions trigger the “Where are the carriers” question Kimmel directed to Layton?

In 1993, the deletion questions were posed to Richard A. von Doenhoff, a specialist in the Pearl Harbor section of the National Archives. He {p. 208} confirmed that more than sixty-five of Rochefort’s November and December Summaries intended for Kimmel had been mutilated. Von Doenhoff wrote the author that the RDF pages which listed Japanese warship locations had been cut prior to the start of the 1945 Congressional Hearings. “We examined the Fourteenth Naval District Communication Summaries and found that those summaries had indeed been cut off from the bottom of the pages. We have no idea why this was done, but it appears that the documents were entered into evidence during 1945 and 46 in this manner.

Layton’s claim about the carrier commands’ radio silence does not hold up to scrutiny. There were 129 Japanese naval intercepts obtained by US naval monitor stations between November 15 and December 6 that directly contradict Layton’s figures. The intercept rate can be documented from the records of Stations CAST and H. For the 21-day period, it averages 6.3 intercepts per day. All categories of Japanese carriers and carrier commands cited by Layton as on radio silence either originated radio broadcasts or received messages during the three-week period, according to an analysis of the intercepts conducted by the Navy’s 1941 radio traffic experts, Captain Duane Whitlock of Station CAST and Homer Kisner of Station H.l8

Kisner’s reports and intercepts collected in Hawaii have been preserved.

—Day of Deceit: The Truth About FDR and Pearl Harbor, by Robert B. Stinnett

Crudely cut, excised, and mutilated. Occam’s Razor?

In 1941, the USN maintained a whole network of DF intercept sites across the Pacific region.

None of them picked up any Kido Butai comms — for TA or any other purposes.

None = not one.

Don’t say.

As a look at the declassified NAVSECGRU records would show you.

Ah, but, you see, the conspirators managed to erase all those records.
And then to erase all records of erasing the records.
And….anyway.

In 1941, the USN maintained a whole network of DF intercept sites across the Pacific region.

None of them picked up any Kido Butai comms — for TA or any other purposes.

None = not one.

Again, facts.

As a look at the declassified NAVSECGRU records would show you.

Clearly.

For that RDF you mentioned: fake transmitter(s).
For :

..it was entirely impossible for the IJN’s carrier strike force to transit the N. Pacific in stormy weather, arrange rendezvous for refueling many ships, and shape up to launch a precisely timed air attack on Pearl Harbor, all the while maintaining strict radio silence.seaborne operations

low power transmitters/reflectors and simply well trained people used to work well together.

No way anybody into this topic shall change his/her opinion for a milometer; we know it.

What I find interesting is overlooking HUMAN factors here.
Or, simply, expertise, at the time and place of US military. Not so much knowledge and or/skillset, but mindset.
Add to this organizational culture and that’s it.

Yes, of course, had Americans done everything by the book, of course we wouldn’t have had Pearl Harbor as it is.
The relaxed, in essence peace bound military, all the way up to the very top, made a mistake, IMHO.

BTW, a question for resident “real truth” around:
Why so much interest in THIS and so little in MacArthur fuckup in Phylippines?
Same thing. Worse, actually.
Any….hehe…theory as to why?

Mine is simple: obvious mistake by LOCAL commander. Can’t blame any evil conspiracies.
Just from Wiki:

News reached the Philippines that an attack on Pearl Harbor was in progress at 2:20 am local time on 8 December 1941.[32][33] FEAF interceptors had already conducted an air search for incoming aircraft reported shortly after midnight, but these had been Japanese scout planes reporting weather conditions.[34][35] At 3:30 am, Brigadier General Richard Sutherland, chief of staff to General Douglas MacArthur heard about the attack from a commercial radio broadcast.[32]At 5:00 am FEAF commander Gen. Brereton reported to USAFFE headquarters where he attempted to see MacArthur without success. He recommended to MacArthur’s chief of staff, Brig. Gen. Richard Sutherland, that FEAF launch bombing missions against Formosa in accordance with Rainbow 5 war plan directives from which an attack was likely to come. Gen. Breteron was further made aware of an attack against the USS William B. Preston at Davao Bay.[36] Authorization was withheld, but shortly afterward, in response to a telegram from General George C. Marshall instructing MacArthur to implement Rainbow 5, Brereton was ordered to have a strike in readiness for later approval.[35][37]

Through a series of disputed discussions and decisions, authorization for the first raid was not approved until 10:15 am local time

Ah, yes, here is the truth:
Roosevelt earlier instructed MacArthur to fuck everything up. As reward he was later rescued from Corregidor etc…..
Neat, a?

I spent my career in Navy codebreaking …

So you say.

Strange then you seem to have no appreciation at all for Traffic Analysis, but I suspect you’re just being disingenuous, or perhaps as you described it “fundamentally deceptive”about the core of his your argument.”

Despite what you’re claiming here, surely you must know it is not necessarily to read an adversary’s communications in order to gain important intelligence from his radio transmissions, such as his location, for example, which is probably the single most important intelligence point about any military formation, especially if the formation is on the move, all the more so if it is a powerful formation.

Any movements of a active radio transmitter can be detected by a change in the bearing returned by RDF. The more RDF stations you have providing timely especially contemporaneous bearings for any mobile radio transmitter, the greater likelihood you will be able to make a precise plot of the transmitter’s location and movements for any given period where enough timely bearings are available.

But even just a few bearings taken on successive days are adequate to detect movement and general direction of travel of the target transmitter, as was the case with Kido Butai in late November and early December 1941, the passage of the Japanese ships reflected in RDF bearings returned by civilian and military facilities throughout the Pacific region, and plotted by Grogan, Ogg, and others.

Because of the nature of its mission, it was entirely impossible for the IJN’s carrier strike force to transit the N. Pacific in stormy weather, arrange rendezvous for refueling many ships, and shape up to launch a precisely timed air attack on Pearl Harbor, all the while maintaining strict radio silence.

見�る, ���る, 言��る

Mizaru, Kikazaru, Iwazaru
See nothing, Hear nothing, Say nothing

Both WWI & WWII were primarily designed by the “deepies� to be fought with borrowed money
[compound interest generation] and to destroy monarchies where the royal families could not be bribed to create goodies against their interests for the “deepies�.

Stinnett’s case, such as it is, is centered on decrypts of IJN JN-25 messages which were cracked and translated by the USN long after the attack on Pearl Harbor — years later, in many cases.

These are facts. The dates of decryption and reporting are TYPED RIGHT ON the JN-25 message intercepts.

Either Stinnett had no idea what he was looking at or he chose to be fundamentally deceptive about the core of his argument.

I spent my career in Navy codebreaking. There are many people in that secret world who are well aware that the US Government lies. Nobody in that world takes Stinnett seriously. Accept it and move on.

There are millions of books. How do you choose which to read and how many do you choose to spend your no doubt valuable time on reading?

Now you have implicitly claimed to have read Stinnett’s book. You have read it haven’t you? Why else would you suggest I get hold of it? And you can therefore confirm that Stinnett’s persuasiveness depends on evidences of his copious research honestly reported. Which brings us to the footnoted citations and quotes from original sources. How would you stand cross examination in your knowledge of those. I like my witnesses, people I rely on, to be able to stand cross examination.

You are a fool, I am genuinely shocked by the Clown World level of your post.

Droning on with bullshit. Why not find Stinnet’s book through your public library system, if they don’t have it, you may make them order it.

It is always nice when one only suspected of being a paid or voluntary propagandist, this post says that this one sure is.

No, you are missing the point.The reason a second attack was ordered was not on the chance of the sudden return of the carriers,
which remained lurking in the western Pacific gyre, before setting out to Midway etc.

It was, as several astute commentors here understand and have said, to destroy as much of Pearl Harbour’s infrastructure (fuel depots, dry docks, any other essential on–shore facilities) as possible,

That would clearly have made some difference, so Nagumo, it seems a very vain man, and he certainly was a pretty boy as a very young officer, returned to Japan, expecting the tribute he thought he deserved for sinking the decrepit decoys.

Sure, the USA may have re-fitted the not sunken ships, but it was not until the eighties of last century that the battleship found a new role, but it had nothing to with naval battle, only with battleships as missile launchers, acting for gunboat diplomacy, e.g., in the process of dIsmembering Yugoslavia.

Very interesting link. I’ve only skimmed it and would be interested to know what you think it says about the precise knowledge that FDR had at relevant times and what he intended to happen at Pearl Harbor.

BTW, not relevant specifically to your comment but to the broader argument….. I am reminded by some of those citing Stinnett of a crusty old Queens Counsel, renowned for his thoroughness, discovering a serious error in an opinion by a truly distinguished and rightly famous QC and saying wryly ” Oh yes, X caught by the footnotes again”. Footnotes and citations may be impressive but you need to read what they refer to to be sure.

Stinnett has not been “debunked” at all, although a fair number of fake debunkings have appeared — see wikipedia for a number of them. BUT, in order to actually “debunk” Stinnett it would be necessary to discredit his documentary evidence, which is presented at length, in facsimile, in his book. It would be necessary to show that it is forged, whether by Stinnett or by others. Any open minded reader who examines this evidence will realize that this is not credible. The evidence stands. And it also shows that people who make a pretense of “debunking” Stinnett are not credible, and are either incapable of evaluating Stinnett’s documentary evidence, or ignorant of it, or acting in bad faith. And any way you slice it, they are liars.