I remember reading a book some years ago, don't remember what it was called or who the author was. The book made reference to Ian Fleming who was with British Naval Intelligence.
The story goes somewhat like this.
The British had installed the communications systems in Burma and surrounding areas (I think, my memory of this is quite bad). The British were eavesdropping on the Japanese for some time and were the first to break the Japanese naval codes. America's involvement in the war was limited to lend lease and were reluctant to get more involved in the war.
The British, having broken the Japanese Naval Codes, knew that the Japanese fleet were on the way to attack Pearl Harbour.
They did not pass this information on to America as they knew that once the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbour, America would enter the war boots and all.
They felt that 7000 lives was a small price to pay.
Just another CT, methinks.
7,000 lives? This might be interesting, if not bunk. I'll look into it, it may be a book I'm planning to buy next round. There is a thread where we talk about the British-naval code angle (still near the top - Pearl Harbor and JN-25B) if you want to check that out. I'm considering it as a possibility for the moment.
Wow, good thread so far, as good as I can hope for. I can see I'm not getting far convincing anyone of this case on its own merits. Roadblocks all over. How about we take a look at the coincidence theory then? See what's so attractive on the other side?
The bomb plot messagaes. What does everyone think about this intelligence not being passed to Pearl? It was received in Washington, was not seen in Hawaii. As to why, here are some views from Washington:
One Army officer testified that these were just another series of messages among thousands, but did confess it was the only such conversation among those so specific “in the sense of dividing any particular waters.”
Theodore Wilkinson, a brief interim director of the Office of Naval Intelligence, did recall what seems to be the bomb plot “information system.” Wilkinson told the Joint Congressional Committee he felt this material didn’t warrant being sent to Pearl Harbor as it showed nothing more that “the nicety of detail of intelligence” they were gathering – about how to attack Pearl Harbor, as it turns out.
Chief of Naval Operations Stark, and his self-appointed intel distributor Turner both professed to not recalling the messages at all, and dismissing the significance if they had seen or heard of them as showing the Japanese "attention to detail".
The coincidence theorist view is, what? that everyone just failed to realize that, in a period later said to be only marked by clues pointing elsewhere than Pearl Harbor, that Pearl Harbor being sectioned into a grid, with ships at rest locaions noted and regularly updated, sent back to Japan, was them just being randomly detailed and not a clue. No one in Washington had it occur to them what this might indicate, or mentioned by someone else in the two months-plus the info was being transmitted, entirly invisible to the on-site defenders.
Alright, you know, that is comforting. People are just so dumb sometimes, especially in mass, bureaucratic and such, just like 9/11. That's okay, we try, we learn, we fail again, but that's okay. People weren't sacrificed, that's all that matters, mother fate/ God/whatever was just helping us out, like always. What else can you expect?
