Merged Pearl Harbor: "Revisionists" vs. "Traditionalists"

[mikegriffith1]

A few months ago, for the first time in my life, I became interested enough in the Pearl Harbor controversy to start doing some reading about it. Back in 2001, I read Robert Stinnett's book Day of Deceit, but I didn't understand half of what I read and had no interest in doing further reading on the subject.

When I started reading on the subject a couple months ago, I approached the matter with no emotional devotion or hardened commitment to any position. I quickly realized that some gigantic battle lines have been drawn and that the two sides rarely if ever engage in meaningful dialogue with each other--and usually yell at and past each other. Given that we're talking about an event that happened over 70 years ago, this seems rather surprising.

One thing that I find somewhat striking is the number of myths that continue to appear in scholarly writings on the topic. For example:

* "The Japanese fleet maintained radio silence from the time it set sail for Hawaii." We know this is a myth because we have copies of two messages that were sent by ships in the task force en route to Hawaii. What is especially odd is that the editors of one of the collections in which these messages appear repeat the radio-silence myth in their introduction to the collection (Donald M. Goldstein and Katherine V. Dillon, The Pearl Harbor Papers: Inside the Japanese Plans).

* "FDR never saw the bomb plot messages." Lt. Commander Alwin Kramer delivered a copy of the first, and most important, bomb plot message to FDR on October 9, along with a summary of its contents and a notation that read “interesting message” (“Additional Views of Mr. Keefe,” JCC Pearl Harbor Report, p. 266-E). Incidentally, the summary read as follows:

"Tokyo directs special reports on ships in Pearl Harbor which is divided into five areas for the purpose of showing exact locations."​

* "The 14-part Japanese diplomatic cable was not a declaration of war, and did not even break off diplomatic relations. Beyond a recapitulation of Japanese complaints against the U.S., the United Kingdom, and the Netherlands, there doesn't seem to be any real point to the message at all." This one is especially baffling. The 14-part cable said that all hope of peace in the Pacific was lost and that the negotiations were terminated. The first instruction specified that the 14-part message had to be delivered to the American Secretary of State at exactly 1:00 p.m., Eastern time. The second instruction directed the Japanese ambassadors to destroy the remaining cipher machine and all codes and other classified documents at the embassy.

When Admiral Wilkinson read those messages (the morning of December 7), he urged Admiral Stark to call the Hawaiian commanders immediately. Colonel Bratton recognized the implication of the time of delivery immediately, as did General Miles. Secretary of the Navy Frank Knox said these messages "clearly indicated" a "surprise move of some kind." Secretary of War Henry Stimson likewise realized the messages indicated a "blow" would be struck that day. And on and on and on we could go.

As you may have guessed by now, I have come down on the revisionist side. One of the first things that caused me to conclude that the Pearl Harbor attack involved foul play in Washington was the same thing that caught John Toland's eye: the actions of General Marshall and Admiral Stark on the morning of the attack. I find it impossible to believe that Marshall and Stark did not know exactly what they were doing. I find it impossible to believe that their utterly bizarre, incomprehensible actions that morning were merely "mistakes" or "bad judgment."

Of course, many of the books that reject the traditional Pearl Harbor story have some errors in them. But, on balance, I find them much more convincing and logical than traditionalist books.

 

[Border Reiver]

And against is the logical conclusion that, if FDR wanted the US in a war and knew that the Japanese were going to attack, all that would have been necessary was the interception of the Japanese fleet launching the attack ("I think you should conduct an exercise in the region of ...").

Catching the Japanese fleet prior to this would still have angered the American enough to get them into the war, and would not have cost thousands of lives or millions of $ in infrastructure and war materiel. The idea that you would allow someone to attack you, possibly cripple your forward base, maybe even invade and hold said base all in the name of getting involved in a war is not plausible

 

[Corsair 115]

With luck Gawdzilla will find this thread, and he will quickly and completely demolish the 'conspiracy' angle with his extensive knowledge and collection of reference material about the attack.

 

[mikegriffith1]

And against is the logical conclusion that, if FDR wanted the US in a war and knew that the Japanese were going to attack, all that would have been necessary was the interception of the Japanese fleet launching the attack ("I think you should conduct an exercise in the region of ...").

Catching the Japanese fleet prior to this would still have angered the American enough to get them into the war, and would not have cost thousands of lives or millions of $ in infrastructure and war materiel. The idea that you would allow someone to attack you, possibly cripple your forward base, maybe even invade and hold said base all in the name of getting involved in a war is not plausible.

These arguments have been answered in detail. I'd link to some material, but I'm not allowed to link yet. So, a few points:

1. Marshall led FDR to believe that the damage from an air attack on Pearl Harbor would be minimal. So FDR thought he could allow a surprise attack to occur at very little cost. He was stunned when he heard how much damage had been done.

2. FDR could not risk trying to meet the oncoming Japanese task force because Japanese spies on Oahu would have noticed and reported the deployment preparations, which in turn would have led the Japanese to call off the attack. We know that the Japanese were going to call off the attack if they lost the element of surprise. FDR would have logically assumed this to be the case, which provides a logical explanation for the "vacant sea" order that Washington issued for the North Pacific (this cleared a path for the Japanese task force).

3. FDR and a few other high officials certainly seemed to do all they could to prevent Kimmel and Short from accidentally detecting the oncoming Japanese fleet. The vacant sea order was part of this apparent effort. So was the order for Kimmel to pull his ships from doing training north of the island.

4. And of course there's the fact that Kimmel and Short were never told about the bomb plot messages, about the warning of imminent war that Tokyo gave Berlin, about the Japanese military map obtained by Martin Dies' congressional committee, about the warnings from the British that a Japanese fleet was heading toward Hawaii (the former head of England's Joint Intelligence Committee said after the war that British intel knew about the Japanese task force and that the Americans were warned).

 

[uke2se]

2. FDR could not risk trying to meet the oncoming Japanese task force because Japanese spies on Oahu would have noticed and reported the deployment preparations, which in turn would have led the Japanese to call off the attack. We know that the Japanese were going to call off the attack if they lost the element of surprise. FDR would have logically assumed this to be the case, which provides a logical explanation for the "vacant sea" order that Washington issued for the North Pacific (this cleared a path for the Japanese task force).

Strange that these spies didn't report that the carriers were absent. Perhaps the spies weren't as efficient as you think?

 

[Corsair 115]

1. Marshall led FDR to believe that the damage from an air attack on Pearl Harbor would be minimal.

Citations please to the relevant historical documents which record this.

2. FDR could not risk trying to meet the oncoming Japanese task force because Japanese spies on Oahu would have noticed and reported the deployment preparations, which in turn would have led the Japanese to call off the attack. We know that the Japanese were going to call off the attack if they lost the element of surprise.

Citations please to the relevant historical documents which record this.

3. FDR and a few other high officials certainly seemed to do all they could to prevent Kimmel and Short from accidentally detecting the oncoming Japanese fleet. The vacant sea order was part of this apparent effort.

Citations please to the relevant historical documents which record this.

 

[Korren]

The fundamental problem with this kind of "ante bellum morning quarterbacking" is that it ignores that all these obvious, impossible-to-ignore signs and portents of what was about to happen occurred over a backdrop of many other signs and portents that were also obvious and impossible-to-ignore but suggested other outcomes entirely.

Military intelligence yields a lot of false positives -- something you have to bear in mind when considering people's reactions then to the positives we know today to be true.

 

[uke2se]

By the way, I requested this thread to be moved to the proper forum section.

 

[Chris L]

And against is the logical conclusion that, if FDR wanted the US in a war and knew that the Japanese were going to attack, all that would have been necessary was the interception of the Japanese fleet launching the attack ("I think you should conduct an exercise in the region of ...").

Catching the Japanese fleet prior to this would still have angered the American enough to get them into the war, and would not have cost thousands of lives or millions of $ in infrastructure and war materiel. The idea that you would allow someone to attack you, possibly cripple your forward base, maybe even invade and hold said base all in the name of getting involved in a war is not plausible

Yep, you get war with Japan (and eventually Germany too) that way and increase your odds of winning because you still all those ships at Pearl and a good chunk of the Japanese Navy at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean. The war with Japan becomes a lot easier, allowing FDR to focus more resources on the war with Germany.

 

[Corsair 115]

The war with Japan becomes a lot easier, allowing FDR to focus more resources on the war with Germany.

Other than the U.S. Navy, the war with Germany did get most of the resources. I'm not sure how much more really could have been added.

 

[kookbreaker]

A few months ago, for the first time in my life, I became interested enough in the Pearl Harbor controversy to start doing some reading about it. Back in 2001, I read Robert Stinnett's book Day of Deceit, but I didn't understand half of what I read and had no interest in doing further reading on the subject.

Stinnett is a bad start. His writing is horribly deceptive. He makes it look scholarly by using lots of endnotes but when examined you find that the things he is claiming were not happening when they were happening.

When I started reading on the subject a couple months ago, I approached the matter with no emotional devotion or hardened commitment to any position. I quickly realized that some gigantic battle lines have been drawn and that the two sides rarely if ever engage in meaningful dialogue with each other--and usually yell at and past each other. Given that we're talking about an event that happened over 70 years ago, this seems rather surprising.

One thing that I find somewhat striking is the number of myths that continue to appear in scholarly writings on the topic. For example:

* "The Japanese fleet maintained radio silence from the time it set sail for Hawaii." We know this is a myth because we have copies of two messages that were sent by ships in the task force en route to Hawaii. What is especially odd is that the editors of one of the collections in which these messages appear repeat the radio-silence myth in their introduction to the collection (Donald M. Goldstein and Katherine V. Dillon, The Pearl Harbor Papers: Inside the Japanese Plans).

Radio silence is no myth, as several Pearl Harbor historians and several effective cryptographers have well proven beyond a shadow of a doubt.

* "FDR never saw the bomb plot messages." Lt. Commander Alwin Kramer delivered a copy of the first, and most important, bomb plot message to FDR on October 9, along with a summary of its contents and a notation that read “interesting message” (“Additional Views of Mr. Keefe,” JCC Pearl Harbor Report, p. 266-E). Incidentally, the summary read as follows:

"Tokyo directs special reports on ships in Pearl Harbor which is divided into five areas for the purpose of showing exact locations."​

Bomb plot? If you are referring to OP-20-G it hardly matters. There was no mention of military action in it.

* "The 14-part Japanese diplomatic cable was not a declaration of war, and did not even break off diplomatic relations. Beyond a recapitulation of Japanese complaints against the U.S., the United Kingdom, and the Netherlands, there doesn't seem to be any real point to the message at all." This one is especially baffling. The 14-part cable said that all hope of peace in the Pacific was lost and that the negotiations were terminated. The first instruction specified that the 14-part message had to be delivered to the American Secretary of State at exactly 1:00 p.m., Eastern time. The second instruction directed the Japanese ambassadors to destroy the remaining cipher machine and all codes and other classified documents at the embassy.

When Admiral Wilkinson read those messages (the morning of December 7), he urged Admiral Stark to call the Hawaiian commanders immediately. Colonel Bratton recognized the implication of the time of delivery immediately, as did General Miles. Secretary of the Navy Frank Knox said these messages "clearly indicated" a "surprise move of some kind." Secretary of War Henry Stimson likewise realized the messages indicated a "blow" would be struck that day. And on and on and on we could go.

Threat of attack does not equal a surprise attack on Pearl Harbor.

As you may have guessed by now, I have come down on the revisionist side. One of the first things that caused me to conclude that the Pearl Harbor attack involved foul play in Washington was the same thing that caught John Toland's eye: the actions of General Marshall and Admiral Stark on the morning of the attack. I find it impossible to believe that Marshall and Stark did not know exactly what they were doing. I find it impossible to believe that their utterly bizarre, incomprehensible actions that morning were merely "mistakes" or "bad judgment."

Of course, many of the books that reject the traditional Pearl Harbor story have some errors in them. But, on balance, I find them much more convincing and logical than traditionalist books.

I do not, and the evidence, when you do not make assumptions like jumping from 'the Japanese are planning something' to 'the Japanese will attack Pearl Harbor', bears out the traditionalist.

 

[mikegriffith1]

Strange that these spies didn't report that the carriers were absent. Perhaps the spies weren't as efficient as you think?

They did report them absent. I repeat: They did report them absent.

 

[Garrison]

The fundamental problem with this theory is that it was Germany FDR wanted to start a war with, not Japan. Without Hitler's declaration on 11th December that might have been some time coming and there would probably have been a reduction in Lend/Lease as Congress insisted on focusing on the war in the Pacific.

This was all gone over in a thread in the conspiracy section where it was pretty thoroughly demolished.

 

[mikegriffith1]

Yep, you get war with Japan (and eventually Germany too) that way and increase your odds of winning because you still all those ships at Pearl and a good chunk of the Japanese Navy at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean. The war with Japan becomes a lot easier, allowing FDR to focus more resources on the war with Germany.

I already answered this. Again, Marshall told FDR that an attack on Pearl Harbor would do minimal damage, and FDR heard from several other sources as well that the Japanese Navy and Air Force posed little threat. In fact, some high officials around FDR believed the US could defeat Japan in a matter of weeks. So FDR simply did not think that allowing a surprise attack would result in so much damage.

 

[Garrison]

I already answered this. Again, Marshall told FDR that an attack on Pearl Harbor would do minimal damage, and FDR heard from several other sources as well that the Japanese Navy and Air Force posed little threat. In fact, some high officials around FDR believed the US could defeat Japan in a matter of weeks. So FDR simply did not think that allowing a surprise attack would result in so much damage.

And anything that would resemble evidence to back up any of those claims is going to be offered when exactly?

 

[Corsair 115]

Again, Marshall told FDR that an attack on Pearl Harbor would do minimal damage ...

Second request: citations please to the relevant historical documents which record this.

In fact, some high officials around FDR believed the US could defeat Japan in a matter of weeks.

Citations please to the relevant historical documents which record this.

So FDR simply did not think that allowing a surprise attack would result in so much damage.

Citations please to the relevant historical documents which record this.

 

[A'isha]

"Hmm...we really need to engineer a way to get us into the war against Nazi Germany. I know! We'll let the Japanese fleet bomb our primary naval base in the Pacific - it won't do any real harm, and then we can knock over Japan in a couple weeks, a month tops. It's foolproof!"

"Wait...how is that supposed to help us out regarding Nazi Germany?"

"Because SHUT UP, that's why!"

 

[Marras]

Strange that these spies didn't report that the carriers were absent. Perhaps the spies weren't as efficient as you think?

The spies reported that, the day before the attack. That was incidental to the attack as the battleships were the primary targets. Yamamoto's objectives for the attack was to sink at least one battleship and to damage at least three others badly enough to require at least 6 months for repairs. Any damage to other targets would be nice bonus.

If the Japanese had been flexible planners, they could have reallocated the planes that were supposed to attack the carriers to attack cruisers after receiving the spy report. They didn't, apparently because they hoped that the carriers would come back in time.

Without carriers present the dive bombers wasted their bombs on attacking battleships that they couldn't reasonably expect to sink instead of attacking cruisers that they could have knocked out. Every single Japanese pilot who attacked a ship believed at the time that his target was a battleship.

Anyway, the Japanese fleet was under the orders to press on if they were discovered 24 hours before the attack or later.

Not only that, the simple things of canceling the leaves and putting the ships to battle-ready condition on the morning before the attack would have been enough to cut the losses to half and at least double and possibly triple the Japanese losses. That those precautions weren't done is a strong argument against any conspiracy theories. There wouldn't be any danger of spies noticing anything out of order as the leaves had been canceled on the several previous weekends. It would have been business as usual from their viewpoint.

[Edited to add: the reason why dive-bombers were allocated to attack other targets than battleships even when battleships were THE target for the attack was that the Japanese realized that their small bombs would need an improbably lucky hit to achieve anything else than superficial damage against them. This went awry when the Val pilots ignored softer targets after seeing that carriers weren't there and went in for the glory of attacking battleships.]

 

[Border Reiver]

I already answered this. Again, Marshall told FDR that an attack on Pearl Harbor would do minimal damage, and FDR heard from several other sources as well that the Japanese Navy and Air Force posed little threat. In fact, some high officials around FDR believed the US could defeat Japan in a matter of weeks. So FDR simply did not think that allowing a surprise attack would result in so much damage.

The point is "Why allow it at all?".

 

[mikegriffith1]

The fundamental problem with this theory is that it was Germany FDR wanted to start a war with, not Japan. Without Hitler's declaration on 11th December that might have been some time coming and there would probably have been a reduction in Lend/Lease as Congress insisted on focusing on the war in the Pacific.

This was all gone over in a thread in the conspiracy section where it was pretty thoroughly demolished.

Yes, FDR wanted war with Germany, but since Hitler wasn't taking his bait he opted to provoke Japan into attacking us. Furthermore, FDR didn't just want war with Germany, but he was desperate to save the Soviet Union. Dr. Victor covers this in great detail in The Pearl Harbor Myth: Rethinking the Unthinkable. When FDR learned from intercepts that Japan was preparing to invade the Soviet Union, that's when he suddenly reversed his earlier opposition to an oil embargo and not only imposed an oil embargo but froze Japan's assets.

Of course, we now know that FDR had a number of Soviet sympathizers and a few outright Soviet spies in high places in his administration, not to mention the fact that he was enthralled with the Soviet socialist experiment.