75Th Anniversary Of Pearl Harbour Attack

[mikey4444]

On the morning of December 7th ( tomorrow in Honolulu )
the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbour, a fateful decision on their part, as it resulted in their certain defeat 4 years later.

What do people think.....would the States have entered the WW2 if Pearl Harbour had never happened ?

For my part I think they might, but not until it as too late to help Britain.

[Old_Geezer]

Not unless they saw it as a potential threat to the USoA. They would likely have stopped with behind the scenes aid, avoiding military action. How else would they sway public opinion ? That said, is PH had not occurred who is to say some other incident wouldn't have have the same affect ?

[Old_Geezer]

IF PH....
as I typed !!!

[Ninefingers]

Unlikely, Europe was spoiling for war, the US wasn't and even beyond Pearl Harbour there was limited enthusiasm to involve itself beyond reprisals against Japan. More relevant were Hitlers escapades in the North Atlantic, they nmore than anything else showed Rooseveklt that he had to protect the Atlantic coast as well and that meant defeating Germany, when the Japanese and Germans struck the Axis deal it chnaged matters significantly

[mikey4444]

It seems to me that the Japanese were very ill advised to attack PH. A very short-sighted move on their part.

They should have known that America wouldn't have just rolled over and not done anything in return. All it resulted in, was that America came into the war and were instrumental in the defeat of both Germany and Japan.

[Ninefingers]

Imperial aspirations, they wanted a big empire, that simple. The US trade embargos gave them the simple excuse they needed

[mikey4444]

Ninefingers....As I understand it, America declared war on Germany, just a few hours after it did the same to Japan, on the 11th December.

To make my point again, Japan must have realised that. If Germany also knew of Japans intent at PH, then they would have seen the PH attack as ill-advised as well.

There has been a consistent rumour for many years, that Churchill was aware of PH hours before the attack, as we had broken the German Naval codes at that point.

The story goes that he didn't inform Roosevelt, as he wanted America to enter the war, and without PH, that may not have happened.

I am not sure of the veracity of that story,......it would seem plausible at least. But I am more than happy to be informed that its not true !

[Sqad]

Problem was that Japanese intelligence had reported that the American Pacific Fleet were in Pearl Harbour on the 7th December, but they were NOT.
Three aircraft carriers were in the Pacific for various reasons and so were saved this savage attack. Now, if those three carriers had been in Pearl and destroyed, then the decision to bomb the harbour may well have been a good one.
Bad intelligence.........where were those three carriers?

[mikey4444]

Morning Sqad !

The Japs also attacked other American interests, in the hours following PH.....
Philippines, Guam and Wake Island, as well as our territory in Malaya, Singapore and Hong Kong.

The attack on PH was audacious, to say the least, although, as you say, not really as damaging as the Japs had thought or intended it be. But it did considerable harm to the Pacific Fleet, and certainly delayed any effectiveness that America entering the war would have had, at least for a few months.

Its worth reminding ourselves of Churchill words, after our ships were destroyed in the aftermath of PH ::::

"In all the war I never received a more direct shock. As I turned and twisted in bed the full horror of the news sank in upon me. There were no British or American capital ships in the Indian Ocean or the Pacific except the American survivors of Pearl Harbour who were hastening back to California. Over this vast expanse of waters Japan was supreme and we everywhere were weak and naked"

Difficult to argue with the old man there !

[mikey4444]

Just seen this in Wiki ::::

"Admiral Hara Tadaichi summed up the Japanese result by saying, "We won a great tactical victory at Pearl Harbour and thereby lost the war"

[jomifl]

Japan was hoping for a blitzkrieg type of attack across the Pacific. They knew they would have to win a swift victory as they couldn't sustain a long campaign. All PH did in fact was 'wake the dragon'. The US had been working successfully to reduce Japans territorial ambitions and influence in the Pacific so in a way PH was a form of self defence from a Japanese viewpoint.

[Ninefingers]

Blimey, Mikey quoting and agreeing with a Tory!

The politics of the eastern sphere at that time meant that Japan had to launch a pre-emptive strike to protect its imperial aims, politically it was sound for Hitler to push the Axis agreement with Japan to help take focus off what he was doing in Russia. The main point is that it cemented the fact that the rest of the war would be fought on a global scale, the Allied Powers against The Axis Powers. Dates and semantics are less importand what is inportnat was that it showed very bluntly that if we didnt fight them then we'd have had Germany occupying Europe and Russia, the Japanese everything south and east of Russia.

Had Japan not attacked Pearl there's no way the Americans would have joined in they had no compunction for war in 1941

[mikey4444]

Ninefingers....You are probably correct in that last sentence !

[jno]

I think Japan really wanted the Philippines as a transit point for oil from Indonesia but the Philippines was run by the USA at the time (it didn't become independent till after the war). So they had to attack the USA. Risky, sure, but the USA had stopped selling oil to Japan, and without oil they were stuffed.

[Bazile]

Naval Marshal - Isoroku Yamamoto

''I fear all we have done is to awaken a sleeping giant and fill him with a terrible resolve ''


No proof that he made the statement or wrote it down , however it may well have encapsulated many of his real feelings about the attack,

[mikey4444]

Very true Bazile, but whether he said it or not, the sentiments are very clear....PH was always going to result in the defeat of Japan.

[mushroom25]

//....PH was always going to result in the defeat of Japan. //

umm, no it wasn't - at least not on its own. the USA would never have countenanced the level of fighting that would have been required by a ground invasion of Japan; without "manhattan" and the Quebec Agreement of 1943 to which it led, nuclear bombs would not have been available as soon as they were and without them, defeat of Japan was anything but a certainty.

[mikey4444]

Mush....I simply can't see that America could or would have stood by and let Europe be conquered by Fascism, and the Pacific Rim to be completely dominated by Japan.

America has gone to war with a lot less justification that that !

In my opinion, PH resulted in America entering the War a little earlier than it would have done so anyway.

[Bazile]

Would the USA have entered the War if not for PH ?

Who knows - however Franklin D. Roosevelt , i suspect thought that he may well be compelled to go down that road

[mushroom25]

I don't disagree PH brought the US into the war earlier than may otherwise have been, but US involvement was inevitable, given Japan's need to neutralize the phillipines. what I'm saying is the entry of the US into the war did not of itself make defeat of japan a certainty. at IwoJima and Okinawa the Japanese fought to the death with a fanaticism that astounded the americans; had a land invasion of japan been necessary equal fanaticism could have been expected, leading to months of fighting and deaths on a scale not seen to that point, even given the destructive scale of WW2 as a whole. there may have come a point when American public opinion would not acquiesce to the continuing scale of loss.