FDR Pearl Harbor conspiracy theory

[PainRack]

Here's a question. I seen some stuff recently that states that newly declassified stuff from the US shows that the US and FDR reasonably knew that Pearl or the Phillipines was to be attacked but nothing apart from a sabotage alert was released. Then the traditional FDR/Churchill allowed the attack so the US would join in the war stuff.


Anyone knows what this new "stuff" actually is and how to answer/rebut such a charge? Or is this charge even true in the first place?

[Simon_Jester]

This has been investigated exhaustively, and debunked exhaustively, by both congressional committees and some of the best and most dedicated historians ever to research the subject. Off the top of my head I don't know who's the best source to go to in order to rebut this, but it's definitely bullshit.

[K. A. Pital]

Yeah. It's the same as many other revisionist myths - yes, there are memos which discuss how to provoke Japan into war, but nothing suggest they were accepted as official policy guidelines. Every military everywhere prepares for the worst. Yes, the idea that the USA was totally like, "neutral" before Japan attacked it is bullshit, and the confrontation was brewing beforehand clearly with the US casting themselves as supporters of Britain.

Even the Wikipedia article is enough to see the core problem with that idea: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pearl_Harb ... dge_debate

Namely, the fact that precise attack dates "knowledge" is decidedly a fake and claims of it are fraudlent; whereas general US hostility to Japan and a desire to provoke it into war are merely the position of some officials but not of others, and since government policy is a very complex thing, nothing suggest Roosevelt accepted their ideas and "engineered" Pearl Harbour.

[Simon_Jester]

Pearl Harbor specifically was a huge gamble taken by the Japanese that required them to develop some very serious new military hardware (shallow-running torpedoes that could be dropped in the harbor and begin their attack run before hitting the bottom). Preparations started many months before December 7, 1941.

It also required the Japanese to take some significant risks, like committing practically their entire carrier strength to that one raid for the opening several weeks of the war, like committing destroyers that didn't have the range to escort the fleet and had to be refueled in mid-ocean under conditions the Japanese hadn't quite figured out all the debugging for... you get the idea. It was a very daring, ballsy, carefully planned operation with many failure points, that required the collaboration of many Japanese officers in order to work.

So for the US to 'maneuver' the Japanese into attacking Pearl Harbor would be impossible. If the US had been capable of that absurd level of manipulation and infiltration ability of Japan, it would have been trivially easy to beat Japan- since we would need to be able to predict the reactions of all major Japanese authorities, read Japanese codes like an open book, and so on.

One obvious question to ask someone who thinks we knew about Pearl Harbor ahead of time: if so, why didn't we just set a trap? Why not conspire to position a good sized chunk of the US fleet somewhere they could easily launch a preemptive strike against Japan's First Air Fleet, while they were busy bombing the shit out of Pearl? Why not use the ability to easily break Japanese codes to set other traps for them later in the war?


For the US to deliberately court a Japanese attack somewhere would at least be within the realm of physical possibility, but the evidence for it is so ridiculously slim and so profoundly ambiguous that we might as well believe the King Arthur myths while we're at it.

[PainRack]

So essentially, the rebuttal is its a memo talking about how the US could or should fight against the Japanese?

[Simon_Jester]

Without seeing the specific document in question, it's hard to rebut the document since I don't know what it is. But I suspect it's a document that qualifies as "urging X to fight if necessary," not "X and Y plan to fight."

Frankly, it would have been very much in the US and Britain's interests not to have to fight Japan. That would have left a lot more naval and amphibious warfare assets available to fight Germany, and things like a more comprehensive Mediterranean campaign or a 1943 Normandy landing might well have been possible.

Assuming Britain and the US were specifically planning to get the US into the war (which you can make a case for), they would not have wanted to begin that war by provoking a secondary fight on the other side of the world against Japan. They would have been (were) concentrating on how to counter the much greater threat and resources of Germany.

The only supposed advantage these conspiracy theorists ever cite, when it comes to the reason why the Allies would provoke war with Japan, is greater dedication to the conflict on the US civilian population. Which makes little sense, as the US civilian population was already starting to favor war with Germany. As early as 1940, the internal divide between isolationists and interventionists in the Republican Party, which was trying to pick a presidential candidate to run against FDR, wound up resolved in favor of the interventionist candidate Willkie.

Interventionist sentiment wavered quite a bit during that period, but it was never absent, and by late 1941 I can't imagine the Allies agreeing to such a deliberate act of strategic folly as starting a whole new theater of war just to ensure that when the US entered the war, it would enter with a civilian population 100% behind the war rather than 75%.

(To pull numbers out of the air for purposes of illustration; don't use these in a citation)

[Steve]

More like 30-40% if that, honestly. Frankly Pearl Harbor was a godsend for the "intervention" forces, since before then the anti-war side (both outright isolationists who opposed Lend-Lease and the soft interventionists who didn't want the US to fight but only produce the war material that Britain and Russia needed to do so) was much stronger. The attack on Pearl Harbor demonstrated an apparent ability to threaten America directly on the part of the Axis powers, and that it came with no declaration of war was extra grist for the mill of public outrage.

On the very day of Pearl Harbor Madison Square Garden (I think it was MSG) was the site of a major isolationist rally by America First and such, with Lindbergh speaking and such; a man who rose to inform the audience and attendees of the attack was booed out of the room, and the Senator in attendance would later grumble that the timing was "suspicious".

That said, all the other points on how ridiculous the charge is still stand, as well as this: Pearl Harbor certainly diminished the anti-war sentiment in the US, but the resulting public outcry was in direct contravention to the strategy Roosevelt wanted to follow. The American public wanted to pummel Japan into the dirt; they didn't care so much about fighting Germany, and there was public displeasure over the Germany First strategy.

[Simon_Jester]

I accept that I'm likely wrong about public support for the war, but two caveats:

1) Was the issue of the war unimportant enough in June 1940 to permit Willkie to defeat his isolationist opponents so handily on other issues having nothing to do with the war?

2) I would not take the existence of the strong America First movement as conclusive evidence. A highly motivated political movement on one side of the aisle does not automatically mean that a majority of America favors that movement's goals, after all.

The really critical question is how views on war with Germany evolved over time- joining the war may have been very unpopular in April 1940 (when the Phony War was in full swing and it looked like the war would degenerate into a repeat of the stalemate on the Western Front), but considerably more popular in July 1941 (when the conquest of France, the invasion of Russia, and the lone stand of Britain against German air and sea power for a year had all roused more sympathy for the Allies and more hostility toward the Axis).

And I concede that I simply don't know where to begin on that.

[K. A. Pital]

The McCallum memo is available on the net. Just read it and think for yourself, what does this mean - that the US knew Japan was going to attack Pearl Harbor, or that the US was generally hostile to Japan and discussing possible options to make war with the latter? I think it's obvious that those are not equal statements.

[Zinegata]

This issue, over the years, has been massively clouded by conspiracy theorists exaggerating what the United States knew about Japan's designs on the Pacific.

By 1941, the Americans knew that Japan was diplomatically hostile and war was a distinct possibility. And the Americans also knew that the Philippines and Pearl Harbor were the most likely targets in case of a Japanese attack - not because of any brillant intelligence, but because of common fucking sense. Pearl Harbor and the Philippines contained the largest concentration of US military force that was closest to Japan. Of course FDR would think they might be attacked!

Moreover, it should be noted that the reason why they issued an anti-sabotage alert (as well as an anti-submarine alert in Pearl) is because American military planners didn't greatly consider the possibility of an air attack. It should be noted that despite a few spectacular successes (i.e. Taranto), the use of air power against ships was widely discounted by many naval officers, who were still largely obsessed with battleships. Hell, as late as June 1942, even Yamamoto himself still believed in the battleship's primacy. That's why he brought his battleships along for Midway - believing they'd be the one to strike the decisive blow against the American fleet!

Finally, it's also worth noting that the Americans severely under-estimated the power of Japanese naval aviation. I think it was Overy who cited Jane's circa 1940 as depicting the Japanese Air force as nothing more than a collection of obsolete foreign planes that looked more like the Polish Air Force. That Japanese naval aviation was able to pull off the raid at all with modern air force was quite a shock for most naval officers as well as the American government.

[Simon_Jester]

Also, Kimmel and especially Short did things that Washington would not expect. Short responded to the sabotage warning by clustering his planes and ammunition in ways that destroyed his forces' ability to fight back against a surprise attack; Kimmel took routine security precautions but didn't make any serious preparations for a surprise attack.

This is partly because they underestimated carrier raiders as a threat, but there's more to it than that- what if a Japanese force of battleships and cruisers had started several hundred miles from Hawaii and steamed towards them during the night, covering most of the distance by dawn and being detected only after daybreak, within a few hours' sailing of the base? Lack of ability to react quickly to an imminent attack didn't just affect Pearl Harbor's ability to react to air attack.

This wasn't the only time during the war that decision-makers in the capital were shocked to learn that some critical precaution was missing from the defenses of a remote point. Recall the lack of landward defenses for the 'fortress' of Singapore; Churchill and other decision-makers in London had simply assumed that there were sufficient fortifications to make the place defensible as long as an adequate force of troops could be sustained there. Churchill was quoted as saying that it surprised him as much to learn that Singapore had no landward defenses to speak of as it would to learn that a battleship had been built with no bottom.

[Steve]

I accept that I'm likely wrong about public support for the war, but two caveats:

1) Was the issue of the war unimportant enough in June 1940 to permit Willkie to defeat his isolationist opponents so handily on other issues having nothing to do with the war?

Willkie prevailed in the convention thanks to the help of a dedicated core of liberal Republicans - including, I'll add, an anti-isolationist element - who managed to outmaneuver the Old Guard of the Party and their handpicked candidates. The Republican establishment didn't forget 1940, and years later in 1964 they were quick to prevent a repeat and ensured the nomination of their man, Barry Goldwater. Which, of course,, destroyed what was then the Old Guard when Johnson pasted Goldwater.

2) I would not take the existence of the strong America First movement as conclusive evidence. A highly motivated political movement on one side of the aisle does not automatically mean that a majority of America favors that movement's goals, after all.

Oh, no, the America First movement wasn't a majority, and it represented a more strongly neutralist stance in the war instead of pro-Allied However, there was also a current of sentiment that it still wasn't America's "fight", that we should do everything short of war to help defeat Germany.

Over time a pro-war sentiment might yet have developed, and that was arguably what FDR was waiting patiently for. But it took Pearl Harbor to jolt the populace hard enough to bring the soft isolationists over and to undermine the hard isolationists (some continued to oppose the war and be anti-Allies even during the war; famed novelist Roald Dahl was actually one of the British officers used as agents to monitor these people). A more gradual entry into the war as a response to German sub attacks would likely leave a substantial anti-war undsrcurrent that would manifest with significant setbacks.

The really critical question is how views on war with Germany evolved over time- joining the war may have been very unpopular in April 1940 (when the Phony War was in full swing and it looked like the war would degenerate into a repeat of the stalemate on the Western Front), but considerably more popular in July 1941 (when the conquest of France, the invasion of Russia, and the lone stand of Britain against German air and sea power for a year had all roused more sympathy for the Allies and more hostility toward the Axis).

And I concede that I simply don't know where to begin on that.

Sympathy for the Allies doesn't mean being ready to go fight and die for them, or to send one's sons to do so.

[Simon_Jester]

Recognized.

What I'd love to see would be a chart of poll results on questions like "should America be involved in the war in Europe?" and "should America send material aid to the Allies," and "should America send material aid to the Allies even if Germany threatens to declare war," and "should America risk war with Japan to halt their invasion of China" and things like that, from September 1939 up to mid-1942. But I have no idea where to go looking for that.

[Zinegata]

Also, Kimmel and especially Short did things that Washington would not expect. Short responded to the sabotage warning by clustering his planes and ammunition in ways that destroyed his forces' ability to fight back against a surprise attack; Kimmel took routine security precautions but didn't make any serious preparations for a surprise attack.

This is partly because they underestimated carrier raiders as a threat, but there's more to it than that- what if a Japanese force of battleships and cruisers had started several hundred miles from Hawaii and steamed towards them during the night, covering most of the distance by dawn and being detected only after daybreak, within a few hours' sailing of the base? Lack of ability to react quickly to an imminent attack didn't just affect Pearl Harbor's ability to react to air attack.

I would say that the Americans, as a whole, displayed a large amount of hubris towards the Japanese in the lead up to Pearl Harbor - and indeed for much of the Pacific War.

While I don't have a source like Jane's 1940 being massively incorrect about the fighting power of Japanese naval aviation (despite the fact Chennault's Flying Tigers already knew that the Japanese Naval Aviation was no Polish Air Force), there are numerous instances where the Americans were shocked by the fighting capabilities of the Japanese Navy.

For instance, they were consistently surprised by the nightfighting prowess of Japanese tin cans and the devastating power of the "Long Lance" torpedoes. The speed of Japanse infantry advances - often undertaken without the support of trucks and other transports - also played havoc with the Allied forces in Malaysia, Singapore, and the Philippines.

On the other hand, some credit also has to be given to the Japanese for maintaining a fair level of secrecy surrounding their military capabilities. Aside from brillant American code-breaking efforts, the Americans often knew surprisingly little about Japan's capabilities. The Americans very often got troop estimates wrong (leading to bloodbaths like Pelelieu). They had no idea they wiped out Japanese carrier aviation during the Battle of Philippine Sea, or how desperate Japanese pilot training had become. Heck, they even had no idea what happened to the Mutsu until after the end of the war.

[Sea Skimmer]

On the other hand, some credit also has to be given to the Japanese for maintaining a fair level of secrecy surrounding their military capabilities. Aside from brillant American code-breaking efforts, the Americans often knew surprisingly little about Japan's capabilities. The Americans very often got troop estimates wrong (leading to bloodbaths like Pelelieu). They had no idea they wiped out Japanese carrier aviation during the Battle of Philippine Sea, or how desperate Japanese pilot training had become. Heck, they even had no idea what happened to the Mutsu until after the end of the war.

It was even worse then that really. The US did not even know how many carriers Japan really had at any point in the war. When Pearl Harbor happened as far as I can tell US thought they had at least two totally mythical ships created by intentionally false radio traffic and Japan using multiple code names for a real ships (we could not break IJN naval codes, but we could figure out code names for specific ships by traffic analysis), and a whole class of big gun cruiser that and didn't exist, leading in part to the Alaska class as a counter. These mythical carriers plus more false radio traffic generated to show several of the real ones still in Inland Sea made any prediction of a major Japanese attack difficult at best, and near impossible in terms of predicting a carrier attack on Hawaii.

But while the IJN was pretty unclear, everyone could plainly see Japan was deeply involved in China Army wise, and indeed she was left with only10 divisions to overrun all of South Asia. No one would have or reasonably could have expected that; everyone expected some kind of thrust at the Philippines or at Malay or Thailand, but not all three at once, let alone all three at once plus numerous other operations. We know now that indeed, many of those operations were launched on an utter shoe string and simply had no reserves or in some cases even additional ammunition available if anything went wrong. We also know, and people could pretty well see at the time, it was completely hopeless for Japan to have defended even a fraction of what it captured in the long term; another reason that nobody was expecting such an incredibly vast, foolish pointless war.

The FDR knew bullshit will never make any remote sense. Japan sending its fleet east of the international dateline alone would have been ample proof of hostility and once a major battle was fought the US population was dragged into the war if it liked it or not. If FDR knew the US fleet would have sortied and offered battle and that would be that. The US most certainly thought it could come under direct attack. We went completely nuts after France fell and the kind of money we threw around in 1940-1941 is similar in scale to if Bush had gotten 1 trillion dollars spent on the military on defense within three months after September 11th 2001. Its just, none of that money could be turned into weapons quickly enough; mass production of most weapons only began in late 1941 and warships took longer.

The US amazingly fully did expect a Japanese attack on the US in early 1942, we went so far as to put General Patton to work hiding tanks and other equipment in the deserts of southern Arizona and Nevada as our secret stockpile for a counter attack of an invasion! Some of that stuff can still be seen in the sand dunes in one national park; it got so dry rotted it was abandon in place. But this was all only after Japan had seemingly accomplished the impossible creating one of the largest empires in history three months.

[PainRack]

This wasn't the only time during the war that decision-makers in the capital were shocked to learn that some critical precaution was missing from the defenses of a remote point. Recall the lack of landward defenses for the 'fortress' of Singapore; Churchill and other decision-makers in London had simply assumed that there were sufficient fortifications to make the place defensible as long as an adequate force of troops could be sustained there. Churchill was quoted as saying that it surprised him as much to learn that Singapore had no landward defenses to speak of as it would to learn that a battleship had been built with no bottom.

Actually, the landward defences bit was nothing more than historical ass covering by Churchill

From Perceival to Popham, Dill and upwards, everyone has been demanding more reinforcement for Malaya so that they could actually hold the whole of malaya. Churchill response was that said reinforcements wasn't needed and sentences suggest that he didn't view the need to actually hold the whole of northern malaya, but rather, a close in defence centred around fortress Singapore.

Churchill failure to understand that Singapore had no northwards defences was inexcusable, because by 1940, the strategic situation had changed so much that the 1925 strategic defences was obsolete. And even HERE, given Churchill position as Chancellor of the exchequer, he should had been aware that no monies was allocated to the defence of Johore apart from a desired gun battery at perranguan.


As for singapore failing to have northern defences, one must take into context what Churchill most probably meant. That Singapore had no defences facing Johore, or no large defensive works in Johore itself. Part of this was due to mistaken legal authority, regarding whether the British Empire had the consitutional authority to build defences in Johore. Their lawyers eventually decided that they did. Don't ask. The whole Unfederated Malay states, Federated Malay States, Sultan of Johore, Straits Settlement is a pain in the ass to understand.
More importantly, one needs to consider the ACTUAL defence policy for Singapore. Between 1937 to 1941, the actual defence strategy for Singapore changed significantly.
The ultimate strategy rested in the Fleet to Singapore strategy. Note that even in 1941, this wasn't formally abandoned. What occured was that Churchill believed, and the British strategic position was that they need to send the Americans to Singapore as opposed to a nonexistant British fleet.

However, the fleet needed a base that was still operational. The entirity of Singapore defences before 1935 was orientated around keeping a base that could be used by the British. Once the Japanese lost naval superority, any land campaign in Malaya or Singapore would ultimately be defeated. So, British defences were built around preventing a large Japanese force from being able to disable the base, so that a fleet would rescue Singapore.
The needs however continously expanded due to various reasons.
1. An expanded period before relief.
2. The development of Johore and Malaya due to the booming rubber/tin economy.
3. Encroaching Japanese acquisitions.
4. Increased Japanese capabilities

Initial landward defences were based around preventing either a diversionary attack or land raiders from disabling the base, after all, it would only be 30 odd days before a Fleet arrived to beat back the Japs. This would change, by 1940/1941, the extened relief period was forcing the British to consider Operation Matador, a pre-emptive attack in the Kra Isthmus and to exert pressure against the Thais. This is so as to present a smaller frontage against the enemy, deny certain landing areas, and PRESERVE vital rice stocks that could be used to feed the populace. A longer period before relief meant that the Japanese could make a more deliberate attack northwards and advanced into Singapore.

So,from mobile columns despatched from Singapore, in 1937-1940, the defence evolved to having land forces outside Singapore that would withdraw to Singapore as needed, to standing armies that would defend Johore and then upwards. They ran into a problem though, it was argued that there was no available manpower to station a permament standing force in Malaya to actually defend Mersing or northern Malaya. So, in came the RAF. Back during the guns vs airpower debate of the 20s to thirties, the RAF had argued that bombers could replace 15 inch guns. In this era, the RAF argued that due to the lack of infantry units, the airforce could be stationed to destroy invading transports, bomb ground forces and thus protect the base/Malaya. To this end, airbases were built further north, in Kota Bahru in particular, close to the coast so as to extend flight time over water. The army was then supposed to help defend these bases and allocated a secondary role in the defence of Malaya(to the extent that Brooke Popham was RAF, not army or navy.)


So... it should be clear that the argument that there wasn't landward defences is false. There WAS one. It was meant to be the shield of the RAF, with a relatively small army of 23 infantry battalionsin Malaya,who wanted tanks/armoured cars and more artillery. Johore was only intended to be defended north of Mersing and etc, which the Australians historically did defend during the invasion.
There was no "fixed" defences because the lack of resources and etc meant that it was intended to be a delaying action, while reinforcements from India and Australia came in. In particular, air squadrons were supposed to be shuffling in, and this dictated the holding of various sites such as Alor Star. Northern Malaya had to be held, due to the need to provide air cover for various convoys and this dictated Heath/Perceival actions during the actual campaign itself.

There was no "defence" only in the sense that the Malayan theatre was starved of the forces that she demanded/wanted to make it work. No 500 plus aircraft, no 330 aircraft, having to "beg" 2 squadrons of seaplanes just to work. No "perks" such as tanks/armoured cars, she was even understrength in terms of infantry battalions.

[Simon_Jester]

This wasn't the only time during the war that decision-makers in the capital were shocked to learn that some critical precaution was missing from the defenses of a remote point. Recall the lack of landward defenses for the 'fortress' of Singapore; Churchill and other decision-makers in London had simply assumed that there were sufficient fortifications to make the place defensible as long as an adequate force of troops could be sustained there. Churchill was quoted as saying that it surprised him as much to learn that Singapore had no landward defenses to speak of as it would to learn that a battleship had been built with no bottom.

Actually, the landward defences bit was nothing more than historical ass covering by Churchill

From Perceival to Popham, Dill and upwards, everyone has been demanding more reinforcement for Malaya so that they could actually hold the whole of malaya. Churchill response was that said reinforcements wasn't needed and sentences suggest that he didn't view the need to actually hold the whole of northern malaya, but rather, a close in defence centred around fortress Singapore.

Churchill failure to understand that Singapore had no northwards defences was inexcusable, because by 1940, the strategic situation had changed so much that the 1925 strategic defences was obsolete. And even HERE, given Churchill position as Chancellor of the exchequer, he should had been aware that no monies was allocated to the defence of Johore apart from a desired gun battery at perranguan.

Yes. He fucked up in terms of his lack of grasp of the situation. Badly.

My point is not that Churchill did not fuck up, did not fail to adequately provide for the defenses of Singapore. Or that he did not fail to understand the situation which required those defenses. On the contrary, he did fail in these respects. I am not citing Churchill's policies on the matter of Singapore as being objectively correct. I am citing them as an example of a government failing to fully understand the strategic situation in a remote outpost, and assuming that certain measures would be (or could be) taken when in fact they weren't (or couldn't) be taken.

Thus, Churchill probably was surprised to learn that it would be impossible to defend Singapore island by digging in troops on the north shore of the island. That doesn't mean he should have been surprised, only that he was- that his knowledge of a remote military outpost was insufficient, and that he filled in the gaps in his knowledge with his own preconceptions.

I apologize for the implication that Percival and others were at fault in this. I do not believe they were.

So,from mobile columns despatched from Singapore, in 1937-1940, the defence evolved to having land forces outside Singapore that would withdraw to Singapore as needed, to standing armies that would defend Johore and then upwards. They ran into a problem though, it was argued that there was no available manpower to station a permament standing force in Malaya to actually defend Mersing or northern Malaya. So, in came the RAF. Back during the guns vs airpower debate of the 20s to thirties, the RAF had argued that bombers could replace 15 inch guns. In this era, the RAF argued that due to the lack of infantry units, the airforce could be stationed to destroy invading transports, bomb ground forces and thus protect the base/Malaya. To this end, airbases were built further north, in Kota Bahru in particular, close to the coast so as to extend flight time over water. The army was then supposed to help defend these bases and allocated a secondary role in the defence of Malaya(to the extent that Brooke Popham was RAF, not army or navy.)

So... it should be clear that the argument that there wasn't landward defences is false. There WAS one. It was meant to be the shield of the RAF, with a relatively small army of 23 infantry battalions in Malaya,who wanted tanks/armoured cars and more artillery. Johore was only intended to be defended north of Mersing and etc, which the Australians historically did defend during the invasion.

Historically, this led to an awkward situation when the war in Europe demanded every available aircraft in the British Empire, creating a strong motive to strip Singapore of first-line RAF units and to not dispatch any such units to Singapore.

Which, come to think of it, was basically the same problem the British faced trying to provide army or naval forces to secure the island- they simply didn't have enough assets to spare to defend Singapore while fighting Germany, no matter what kind of assets they used.

[Not a disagreement with anything you just said]


There was no "fixed" defences because the lack of resources and etc meant that it was intended to be a delaying action, while reinforcements from India and Australia came in. In particular, air squadrons were supposed to be shuffling in, and this dictated the holding of various sites such as Alor Star. Northern Malaya had to be held, due to the need to provide air cover for various convoys and this dictated Heath/Perceival actions during the actual campaign itself.

There was no "defence" only in the sense that the Malayan theatre was starved of the forces that she demanded/wanted to make it work. No 500 plus aircraft, no 330 aircraft, having to "beg" 2 squadrons of seaplanes just to work. No "perks" such as tanks/armoured cars, she was even understrength in terms of infantry battalions.[/quote]

[Jade Falcon]

I've heard myself all the conspiracy theories that FDR knew of the attack, and one theory I've heard is that FDR was informed, perhaps by Churchill that there was a chance, only a chance, that the Japanese would attack, and even then there was no precise location given or date which doesn't really help.

Regarding the Japanese 'wonder torpedoes', didn't they just modify existing torps with wooden fins, and no, I'm not using the Pearl Harbor movie as a source for this.

[Isolder74]

I've heard myself all the conspiracy theories that FDR knew of the attack, and one theory I've heard is that FDR was informed, perhaps by Churchill that there was a chance, only a chance, that the Japanese would attack, and even then there was no precise location given or date which doesn't really help.

Regarding the Japanese 'wonder torpedoes', didn't they just modify existing torps with wooden fins, and no, I'm not using the Pearl Harbor movie as a source for this.

That is pretty much what they did. Everything about the entire Pearl Harbor attack was the definition of a perfect covert operation. The Japanese pulled it off without even needing to increase their production orders of their aerial torpedoes. They managed much the preparations with field modifications of existing equipment. They even made use of a bay on one of their islands for training that had water depth close to what was at Pearl Harbor.

Don't reference Pearl Harbor, Tora Tora Tora is a much better movie to use to illustrate the preparations of the Japanese Navy for the attack. It does a very good job of showing what they had been doing in the lead up to the attack.

Considering that every US War Plan Including War Plan Orange included an expected attack by the Japanese on the Philippines, Wake and Guam rather then any expected attack on Pearl any idea that an attack on Pearl was expected is silly. They even considered it more likely for there to be an attack made on Dutch Harbor in Alaska then one on Pearl. All of that considered any idea that FDR knew that the Japanese Fleet was going to specifically attack Pearl Harbor is ludicrous. The entire idea was absolutely the furthest from their minds. Even moving the Fleet Assets to Pearl in the first place was done so as to make a relief of an expected attack on the Philippines, Wake, and Guam more strategically possible.

The events following the Attack on Pearl actually make for an argument against the leadership and preparation skills of MacArthur rather then any one in charge of Pearl Harbor itself. There was no reason for the state of unpreparedness of the troops stationed on the Philippine Islands as it was always to have been the place of expected first engagement. Wake Island is actually a good example of this, as the forces there were prepared and did manage to hold off the initial attack on the Island. In fact that attack shows just how shoestring many of the Japanese operations actually were. The forces on the island might still have been eventually overrun like Wake was but the marines on Wake still were able to get their planes into the air to engage Japanese fighters something the forces on the Philippines didn't really manage to be able to do. Him promising, "I shall return" might have ended up still being required but they should have lasted longer then they did.

So even if FDR had known about the possibility of an attack there was no reason for any high planers in the US Military to suspect that it was going to take place at Pearl Harbor. In fact the fleet was there for the very reason that they expected the base to be safe from any type of military attack hence why all preparations were made with the assumption that if the assets were to be attack it would be Japanese sabotage agents not military units making the losses happen.

[Jade Falcon]

That's what I mean, that if, and I mean if, FDR was told of the possibility of an attack, there were no specifics given, especially not that it was Pearl Harbor itself, you had Wake, Guam, the Phillipines, Midway, not to mention all the non-US targets that could (and were) attacked.

[PainRack]

Yes. He fucked up in terms of his lack of grasp of the situation. Badly.

My point is not that Churchill did not fuck up, did not fail to adequately provide for the defenses of Singapore. Or that he did not fail to understand the situation which required those defenses. On the contrary, he did fail in these respects. I am not citing Churchill's policies on the matter of Singapore as being objectively correct. I am citing them as an example of a government failing to fully understand the strategic situation in a remote outpost, and assuming that certain measures would be (or could be) taken when in fact they weren't (or couldn't) be taken.

Thus, Churchill probably was surprised to learn that it would be impossible to defend Singapore island by digging in troops on the north shore of the island. That doesn't mean he should have been surprised, only that he was- that his knowledge of a remote military outpost was insufficient, and that he filled in the gaps in his knowledge with his own preconceptions.

I apologize for the implication that Percival and others were at fault in this. I do not believe they were.

I think you misunderstood. I'm of the opinion that the reason why Churchill delayed and fought against creating an inquiry to discover why Singapore fell was due to the fact that he knew he was responsible for the state of Singapore and Johore defences.

Claiming that he was surprised that Singapore had no landward defences was simply another attempt to deflect his role in the matter. He shouldn't have been surprised. He was the one who had been claiming for 2 years, from 1940 to 1941, rebutting Dill and any other responsible authorities that no reinforcements was neccessary to create the landward defences of Malaya. Dill memo to Churchill for example pointed out that even if Egypt fell, the British would still be in the war and that in the grand matter of strategy, Egypt was supposed to be behind Malaya.

The most charitable outlook of his statement was that he was opinining the surprise that there wasn't a defence line built in Johore or further upstate. Its STILL inexcusable because all the evidence suggest that he should had known the responsible authorities wasn't attempting to create a close defence of Johore at all, but rather, to fight a delaying action in Malaya itself and it was Churchill who denied the need for any reinforcements to arrive.

This is a seperate issue from whether sufficient reinforcements "COULD" arrive. There has been historians, who I need to dig up the names of who argued that the British simply couldn't arrange sufficient shipping to ship in the relevent formations. Not without massively disrupting the Middle East reinforcement schedule and that not supplying the Russians with aircraft/tanks would still not have benefited the Malayan theatre due to the inability to ship formations equipped with said aircraft to Malaya. As it was, they pointed out that Britain loaned American transports during 1940-1941 just to meet their requirements.

Which leads us to the final question. Was Churchill wrong? Not really. One could argue that the damage did during the Japanese occupation fatally damaged British prestige in SEA, but there isn't any real evidence to show that preventing this would had prevented dismantling the Empire. The signs were already there, what the occupation did was to revitalise nationalistic sentiments that eventually bridged across racial and cultural lines. Churchill was not blindsided into anything. What he did was to make the strategic gamble that the British could win, even at the risk of losing her Asiatic colonies. And he wasn't wrong. He lost the gamble,the gamble that the Japanese could be dettered from invading or that the American fleet would be sufficient to cripple the IJN if they did attack but he wasn't wrong.

Historically, this led to an awkward situation when the war in Europe demanded every available aircraft in the British Empire, creating a strong motive to strip Singapore of first-line RAF units and to not dispatch any such units to Singapore.

Which, come to think of it, was basically the same problem the British faced trying to provide army or naval forces to secure the island- they simply didn't have enough assets to spare to defend Singapore while fighting Germany, no matter what kind of assets they used.

It wasn't a new problem. Such defence issues had been made clear in the Boer war, that any British attempt to defend their colonies essentially relied on a wait and hold. Local forces would hold the line until reinforcements from the mainland or other Commonwealth/colonies came in.

World War 1 made it even more clear. A mere Sepoy mutiny relied on Australian, Indian and more importantly, JAPANESE soldiers being rushed into the Straits Settlement to restore order and defend the colonists.

That's why the post WW1 review, when Britain had to officially decide how to defend her overseas Empire with a one naval power standard that was in danger of being eclipsed came about. The Fleet to Singapore strategy essentially evolved from such strategic considerations and policies that was already evident from the Boer War.

World War 1 just made it clear that the British would had problems actually commiting forces to her colonies if the situation in Europe turned bad.

[Zinegata]

Actually, the landward defences bit was nothing more than historical ass covering by Churchill

The assertion that Singapore didn't have landward defenses isn't true in the first place. Singapore's guns can fire inland. The problem is that they were stocked primarily with AP ammunition for anti-ship use, not HE for a land battle.

Moreover, it must be remembered: The British defense force outnumbered the attacking Japanese by a significant margin, and even assuming they didn't have the naval guns they still have the Johore as a defensive barrier. An attack by a numerically inferior army over a significant water barrier should have resulted in a massacre of the attackers, especially given Yamashita's own significant artillery and air power shortages.

The problem really was that the British high command in Singapore lost their nerve. They allowed command & control to breakdown and apparently made little effort to restore it, which resulted in the Japanese being able to score victories piecemeal against outnumbered defenders. In Malaya, they had the excuse of having poor communications... but there was no excuse for the continuing chaos once the British were fighting for Singapore itself. Add to that is their timid response to the Japanese attacks, and one can make an argument that the British generals in Singapore did not think they could win, and acted in a manner that only hastened the defeat. It could arguably be considered criminally negligent.

Note: By contrast, the undersupplied but numerically superior Filipino/American defenders in Bataan faced similar circumstances with an even worse supply situation, yet held out much longer than the Brits. Only when the Japanese shipped in enough reinforcements to significantly outnumber the USAFFE - which by then had been stripped of much of its manpower by starvation and disease - did Bataan finally capitulate.

[Simon_Jester]

Sigh.

OK, look. Am I wrong in thinking that Churchill sincerely thought Singapore could/would hold out longer against a Japanese landward attack than it actually did? Because I regret bringing this issue up at all now, but that really was all I was trying to say: to illustrate the idea that the defensibility of a remote outpost can appear very different at home than it does on the spot. There are so many variables simply not known from thousands of miles away- the psychological state of the commander, the detailed readiness condition of the defenses, and so on. It simply cannot be managed from that far away.

So regardless of what Churchill knew or did not know about the state of the defenses- whether he expected there to be pillboxes and entrenchments at least along the lines of what Britain itself had dug along its own coasts in 1940, or... fuck, something- is immaterial. The point is, he saw Singapore and thought "fortress packed with troops and liberally supplied with ammunition," while the reality on the ground was more like "island full of civilians and a mob of routed soldiers, under leadership that hadn't fully risen to the occasion as one might hope."

The same thing happened at Tobruk in 1942- some in London, at least, expected it to hold as it had the previous year, and it didn't happen. This is not necessarily something Churchill should be blamed for, or that Auchinleck should be blamed for, or any other particular person- maybe it is, but I'm not asserting that it is.

It's the strategic perception gap that's important, and that impacts the planning of the people in the capital. At the capital everyone expects to hear that within the limits of their resources, the field commanders are always well prepared to fight it out, that defensible locations are well held and there are good plans for holding them, that the commanders are rallying the troops as best they can, that the threats the defenders are planning to face are realistic so that resources are not wasted, and so on.

At the front, this often simply isn't so. And so it was at Pearl Harbor.

[Zinegata]

Not at all. In both instances - the fall of Singapore and Tobruk in 1942 - the responsibility for the defeat falls more on the British field commander. Based on the correlation of forces high command had every reason to expect they could have held out longer than they actually did. In the case of Singapore - even if the defenses were built, what could they have accomplished when their leadership was timid and disorganized? It's telling that when Singapore's water reservoirs were overrun, the British generals unanimously opposed attempting to retake them even though their troops had yet to begin suffering from thirst or water deprivation. They simply gave up.

[Zinegata]

Some added evidence:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_ ... e_landings

The initial Japanese landings were opposed largely by a single Australian brigade, which fought until it was virtually wiped out. They received virtually no reinforcements until they were wiped out, as Percival remained neurotically afraid that the Japanese would land elsewhere.

By contrast...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_ ... he_Pockets

The Bataan defenders counter-attacked as soon as they realized the Japanese were infiltrating their positions, crushing the penetrations and restoring the defense line. Even more remarkable was this:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_ ... the_Points

Wherein the Bataan defenders - without the benefit of large-calibre naval guns - defeated an amphibious assault of over 2,000 Japanese troops by mere dint of aggressive active defense.