From those who lived to tell the tale-
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2013612916_pearlharbor07m.html
Re-reading all those fellows memories got me to thinking along a common thread in all of them. No seaplane patrols on the 6th… The sea gate left open that night… All ammunition removed from it’s accustomed storage lockers beside the guns and locked away with the keys missing… The planes all lined up down the middle of the airfield… The refusal to acknowledge the reports of Japanese subs… A German couple in a house overlooking the harbor suddenly arrested in the afternoon after the attack… Just a colossal series of unrelated blunders and missed opportunities? Or were those poor kids set up to be sitting ducks so that Roosevelt could overcome the isolationists in Congress?
Maybe I’m a little paranoid or reading too much into it, but is it really possible for so many smart men to all become stupid at the same time?
Or maybe stupid is the wrong word? Is it treason when the commander in chief betrays his countrymen?
http://whatreallyhappened.com/WRHARTICLES/pearl/www.geocities.com/Pentagon/6315/pearl.html?q=pearl/www.geocities.com/Pentagon/6315/pearl.html
Mik said:
Re-reading all those fellows memories got me to thinking along a common thread in all of them. No seaplane patrols on the 6th.... The sea gate left open that night.... All ammunition removed from it's accustomed storage lockers beside the guns and locked away with the keys missing..... The planes all lined up down the middle of the airfield..... The refusal to acknowledge the reports of Japanese subs.... A German couple in a house overlooking the harbor suddenly arrested in the afternoon after the attack... Just a colossal series of unrelated blunders and missed opportunities? Or were those poor kids set up to be sitting ducks so that Roosevelt could overcome the isolationists in Congress?Maybe I’m a little paranoid or reading too much into it, but is it really possible for so many smart men to all become stupid at the same time?
Or maybe stupid is the wrong word? Is it treason when the commander in chief betrays his countrymen?
http://whatreallyhappened.com/WRHARTICLES/pearl/www.geocities.com/Pentagon/6315/pearl.html?q=pearl/www.geocities.com/Pentagon/6315/pearl.html
Mik, for all of that to have happened by design would have required a conspiracy of a stupendous magnitude, requiring a multitude of people to pull it off. After 69 years, someone would have spilled the beans.
I think that you are just a bit paranoid. The aircraft were lined up to protect them from saboteurs, not attack from the air. It was peace time, the ammo was always in the magazines, not in the ready bins. It was peacetime, who in their right mind is going to believe any report about midget subs? IT was peacetime, a lazy officer who just wanted to go on liberty on a Sunday morning couldn’t wrap his mind around the fact that a flight of B-17’s from the mainland would be approaching from the East, not the Northwest.
While I personally consider Roosevelt to be one of the worst Presidents in history, it is not for this reason that I think so.
Not to mention, that at the same time Japanese officials were in WDC holding peace talks…and that no Japanese naval vessel had ever traveled that far from Japanese home waters…never!
Well at least you all remembered. Later RJD
I mean no disrespect to the sailors who died there, or to those who survived. I read ALL the oral histories twice.
BTW, Here is a list of names:
http://www.usswestvirginia.org/ph/phlist.php
I don’t think it is muckraking to question if a dozen or so men in Washington DC might not have had the best interest of men almost 5000 miles away entirely at heart. Nor does it ‘sully their memory’ to ask if the President and his immediate circle might have thought it the greater good to sacrifice a few ships to ultimately defeat Hitler. And needed to engineer an incident to get the American people to support them. FDR’s reaction to the attack is sort of telling of his mindset. - “The blow was heavier than he had hoped it would necessarily be. … But the risks paid off; even the loss was worth the price. …” -Jonathan Daniels. FDR’s administrative assistant.
Considering how many propagandists on both sides claim to be ‘serious historians’. I think the question of who knew what and when, and whether so many opportunities were missed, and mistakes made or events were guided IS important to discuss… Especially given the current attitude in Washington that they (on both sides of the aisle) know better what is good for us than we do. Rather than diminish the sacrifice of those 2,403 souls, not blindly accepting the official version may instead give their sacrifice even more meaning.
When asked, “Will historians know more later?”, Admiral Kimmel replied, “’ … I’ll tell you what I believe. I think that most of the incriminating records have been destroyed. … I doubt if the truth will ever emerge.’ …”
“I will go to my grave convinced that FDR ordered Pearl Harbor to let happen. He must have known.” Vice Admiral Libby,
Read all the oral histories again. See what THEY said about things not being quite ‘right’ at the time. 20/20 hindsight? Selective memories? Maybe.
I honor the fallen, I give thanks to those who served. I simply ask, like many others, whether so many, many cumulative errors in the months preceding were really all that probable. Even the official story says Admiral Kimmel and General Short weren’t kept up to date by Washington, then kept what they did have from subordinates and each other. Marshall testified at the MacArthur hearings that he considered loyalty to his chief superior more important than loyalty to his country… The idea of the collusion of a dozen folks with a known agenda is simply statistically more likely than the general incompetence of at least ten times that number. 10 separate hearings on this over 50 years, and 69 year old secrets are still classified, then being redacted when grudgingly released says something about it, but what? If there was nothing there, then why go through all the trouble? Those who don’t learn from history are doomed to repeat it. And we did. Several times. And we continue to miss important clues, have folks conducting turf wars at the expense of the country, and/or have government folks bend the truth to fit their agenda…
IMO, Remembering these brave folks’ sacrifices also involves remembering how and why it happened. Supporting the troops and honoring them doesn’t also mean blindly accepting the official story of how they got there in the first place. Maybe it’s just because I grew up during Vietnam and saw good, honorable men spit upon because folks didn’t like the government’s choice to send them there. That was just as wrong and dangerous to the republic as blind patriotism is. Like the gutters on the road, I try to avoid both extremes.
So if not on this date above all others, I ask, WHEN should we think about it? After the next one?
from both sides:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pearl_Harbor_advance-knowledge_debate
http://web.archive.org/web/20040610083827/www.geocities.com/Pentagon/6315/pearl.html
http://web.archive.org/web/20030406152214/home.earthlink.net/~corith/pearl.html
http://home.flash.net/~manniac/pharbor.htm