66 years

[Statalyzer]

http://www.ibiblio.org/hyperwar/USMC/img/USMC-C-Pearl-2.gif
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/c/c3/Japanese_aircraft_carrier_Hiryu.jpg/300px-Japanese_aircraft_carrier_Hiryu.jpg
http://genealogytrails.com/ww2/PearlHarborPhoto02.jpg
http://www.pearl-harbor.com/arizona/images/arizona_memorial_pearl_harbor.jpg

[nilloC]

Indeed, I was wondering if a thread would be made here.

Still in awe when I look at pictures taken from that day.

[Alpha and Omega]

This is generally regarded as the worst mistake ever.

[nilloC]

This is generally regarded as the worst mistake ever.

Hahah, but America was bound to get into the war at some point anyways.

From the Japanese perspective its too bad they didn't invade Russia through Manchuria instead (What the Army wanted to do) but instead went with the greater, yet not as immediate threat of the US.

Good thing we knew about this in advance and got our Aircraft Carriers out of there. :p

[Derek]

From the Japanese perspective its too bad they didn't invade Manchuria and Russia instead (What the Army wanted to do) but instead went with the greater, yet not as immediate threat of the US.
Good thing we knew about this in advance and got our Aircraft Carriers out of there. :p
I'm not sure if this is a joke or not, you've got the ":p" smily by it doesn't really seem like a joke. Just in case you weren't (and I do hope you were), we didn't really know about it before hand. There was a message going through diplomatic channels, but it didn't reach the desk of anyone who could do anything until it was too late. The carriers being out of Pearl Harbor was just a coincidence, although they weren't the primary targets anyways.

[nilloC]

I'm not sure if this is a joke or not, you've got the ":p" smily by it doesn't really seem like a joke. Just in case you weren't (and I do hope you were), we didn't really know about it before hand. There was a message going through diplomatic channels, but it didn't reach the desk of anyone who could do anything until it was too late. The carriers being out of Pearl Harbor was just a coincidence, although they weren't the primary targets anyways.

And what are your sources for this?

Maybe saying "We got the Aircraft Carriers out of there in advance" is a little too crass on my part, so I understand that. The US was aware that there was going to be a Japanese attack on an American naval or air base; the USSR had known of it for quite some time. There was a massive increase in communications on the Japanese side; and I forgot how but I'll look it up in one of my books in a few if you'd like, but we had the date narrowed down to December 7th. We had figured that they would attack either in the Philippines or Pearl Harbor; we thought it much more likely to attack the Philippines. Unfortunately, we were wrong. Also unfortunate, we didn't really take precautions in either location to defend against an attack, outside of the standard "Sneak attack oh noes try to defend!" strategy. This could be due to the quickness of the escalation of the events unfolding.

Either way, the United States didn't mind if the attack occurred. At the time we wanted to just fight a one front war and already had plans drawn up to deploy forces to Europe. All Pearl Harbor did was give us a completely valid reason to attack Japan. Then [stupidly] Germany declared war on America after we declared war on Japan, so we had the advantage of a stupid move on Hitler's part, then having a completely valid reason to attack Germany as well.

[Alpha and Omega]

I love how the message was "going through diplomatic channels".
Like, the Japanese are going to attack, make a phone call, ffs.
Don't put it on your bosses desk and have him send it to his boss who sends it to some secretary somewhere. Send a telegram, a telegraph, smoke signals...ANYTHING>!>!<@#!111.

[Statalyzer]

Maybe saying "We got the Aircraft Carriers out of there in advance" is a little too crass on my part, so I understand that.

Especially since Enterprise would have been in Pearl Harbor before the attack if not for stormy weather.

Plus, remember this was 1941, aircraft carriers were important as raiders and scoutships, but battleships were the backbone of the fkeet. If we had wanted to get our best ships out of port we would have sent the battleships away as well.

[Derek]

Maybe saying "We got the Aircraft Carriers out of there in advance" is a little too crass on my part, so I understand that. The US was aware that there was going to be a Japanese attack on an American naval or air base; the USSR had known of it for quite some time. There was a massive increase in communications on the Japanese side; and I forgot how but I'll look it up in one of my books in a few if you'd like, but we had the date narrowed down to December 7th. We had figured that they would attack either in the Philippines or Pearl Harbor; we thought it much more likely to attack the Philippines. Unfortunately, we were wrong. Also unfortunate, we didn't really take precautions in either location to defend against an attack, outside of the standard "Sneak attack oh noes try to defend!" strategy. This could be due to the quickness of the escalation of the events unfolding.
The US new of Japanese activity, and more specifically they had lost track of the southern Japanese fleet (which turned out to be the one launching the attack). The problem is, the activity was everywhere. What people often forget is that this was not limited to Pearl Harbor. On the very next day Japan acted Malaya, Hong Kong, Wake Island, Guam, Thailand, and the Phillipines. With all the preparation for these going on, whos going to worry about one missing fleet? It was most likely going to take part in one of these attacks.

Either way, the United States didn't mind if the attack occurred. At the time we wanted to just fight a one front war and already had plans drawn up to deploy forces to Europe. All Pearl Harbor did was give us a completely valid reason to attack Japan. Then [stupidly] Germany declared war on America after we declared war on Japan, so we had the advantage of a stupid move on Hitler's part, then having a completely valid reason to attack Germany as well.
Well, assuming you mean the US government, you're right there. They just needed an excuse for the American public to enter the war, Pearl Harbor happened to be conveniant (though the invasions the next day would probably have also been suffecient, though less useful for propaganda). As for Germany, once we were in the war we would have declared war on them by association anyways, after all it was Germany that FDR wanted to go to war with most.

I love how the message was "going through diplomatic channels".
Like, the Japanese are going to attack, make a phone call, ffs.
Don't put it on your bosses desk and have him send it to his boss who sends it to some secretary somewhere. Send a telegram, a telegraph, smoke signals...ANYTHING>!>!<@#!111.
Which is most likely what the Japanese intended. They didn't want their message to give the US time to prepare.

Part of the Japanese plan for the attack included breaking off negotiations with the United States 30 minutes before the attack began. Diplomats from the Japanese Embassy in Washington, including the Japanese Ambassador, Admiral Kichisaburo Nomura, and special representative Saburo Kurusu, had been conducting extended talks with the State Department regarding the U.S. reactions to the Japanese move into Việt Nam in the summer (see above).

In the days before the attack, a long 14-part message was sent to the Embassy from the Foreign Office in Tokyo (encrypted with the Type 97 cryptographic machine, in a cipher named PURPLE by U.S. cryptanalysts), with instructions to deliver it to Secretary of State Cordell Hull at 1 p.m. Washington time. The last part arrived late Saturday night (Washington time) but due to decryption and typing delays, and to Tokyo's failure to stress the crucial necessity of the timing, her Embassy personnel did not deliver the message breaking off negotiations to Secretary Hull until several hours after the attack.
So it was a breakoff of negotiations, not a warning of war, but it was still intended to be delivered just before the attack, leaving the US no time to prepare.

By 1941, U.S. signals intelligence, through the Army's Signal Intelligence Service and the Office of Naval Intelligence's OP-20-G, had intercepted and decrypted considerable Japanese diplomatic and naval cipher traffic, though nothing actually carrying significant information about Japanese military plans in 1940-41. Decryption and distribution of this intelligence, including such decrypts as were available, was capricious and sporadic, some of which can be accounted for by lack of resources and manpower. At best, the information available to decision makers in Washington was fragmentary, contradictory, or poorly distributed, and was almost entirely raw, without supporting analysis. It was thus, incompletely understood. Nothing in it pointed directly to an attack at Pearl Harbor, and a lack of awareness of Imperial Navy capabilities led to a widespread underlying belief Pearl Harbor was not a possible attack target. Only one message from the Hawaiian Japanese consulate (sent on 6 December), in a low level consular cipher, included mention of an attack at Pearl; it was not decrypted until 8 December.[26]
...
The United States had decrypted the 14th part well before the Japanese Embassy managed to, and long before the Embassy managed a fair typed copy. The final part, with its instruction for the time of delivery, prompted General George Marshall, Army Chief of Staff, to send that morning's warning message to Hawaii.[29] There were delays because General Marshall couldn't be found (he was out for a morning horseback ride), trouble with the Army's long distance communication system, a decision not to use the Navy's parallel facilities despite an offer to permit it, and various troubles during its travels over commercial cable facilities (somehow its "urgent" marking was misplaced, adding additional hours to its travel time). It was actually delivered to General Walter Short, by a young Japanese-American cycle messenger, several hours after the attack had ended.
And the decrypted copy was stuck in beaurocratic channels, rather than diplomatic ones. Still with the same result though: The information arrive too late.

And like Stalyzer said, had we really known about the attack, we would have moved out our battleships to either save them or (more likely) engage the Japanese. At the start of the war both navies shared the same philosophy of fleets built around Battleships intended for use in one decisive engagement. Ironically, it was the Japanese aircraft carrier attack that force the US fleet to change its focus to carriers (due to a lack of battleships), while the Japanese Navy continued to focus on battleships.

[nilloC]

I understand the war was waged on numerous fronts and not just on Pearl Harbor. True true.

The only problem I have with your entire post Derek is that you cited Wikipedia and a site (Dark stories) that then cites Wikipedia...

I don't mean to sound like a crude jackass, but Wikipedia offers great information as a general overview; however the same reason I can't accept your argument is the same reason my history professors wouldn't accept a term paper where I cited Wikipedia or works from Wiki. For instance, read some memoirs from Secretary of State Cordell Hull. They were an eye opener for me, and I'm sure you would agree. You can never know for sure certain motives or what what going on "behind closed doors", but sometimes letters and memoirs give you an amazing look on the inside of doings, as I'm sure you do. Hull's memoirs blew me away, to be honest.

Don't get me wrong though, I thoroughly enjoy having discussions with you. Opens up new venues of thought. Sometimes however I like to step out of the box with history topics... Or any topic. Unfortunately I tend to do that in most threads I post on here, just because I enjoy taking sides that are often thought of as "WTF wrong".

[Chuckie]

Halsey was supposed to make port on the morning of the 7th with the Enterprise Task Group but was delayed one day due to Un Rep ie refueling, as it was he made port and the fires were still burning and upon making port that am is when he made his famous statement "When were through with the japs it'll only be spoken in Hell" or something to that effect.

[Derek]

The only problem I have with your entire post Derek is that you cited Wikipedia and a site (Dark stories) that then cites Wikipedia...
Actually I only cited Wikipedia. I have no idea what that other site is.

I don't mean to sound like a crude jackass, but Wikipedia offers great information as a general overview; however the same reason I can't accept your argument is the same reason my history professors wouldn't accept a term paper where I cited Wikipedia or works from Wiki. For instance, read some memoirs from Secretary of State Cordell Hull. They were an eye opener for me, and I'm sure you would agree. You can never know for sure certain motives or what what going on "behind closed doors", but sometimes letters and memoirs give you an amazing look on the inside of doings, as I'm sure you do. Hull's memoirs blew me away, to be honest.
Yeah, I knew you would bring up "But but but, t3h wikip3diaz!" I don't care. I don't care that your history teachers don't accept it, neither do mine. But the fact of the matter remains that my source (Wikipedia) is reliable and its your problem if you don't accept it. I'm not going to go to the Wake Forest library to dig up some books from "more reliable" sources when I have exactly what I need within a few clicks.

[SgtRicko]

You know it's actually becoming less and less unreliable and more acceptable these days to extensively use the wiki in research, because there are actually some reports out there that say the wiki is sometimes a superior source of info or facts. Sure, the vandalism and idiot posters usually make it look iffy and shaky at times, but when done right it sometimes becomes better than the source material itself.

[nilloC]

Yeah, I knew you would bring up "But but but, t3h wikip3diaz!" I don't care. I don't care that your history teachers don't accept it, neither do mine. But the fact of the matter remains that my source (Wikipedia) is reliable and its your problem if you don't accept it. I'm not going to go to the Wake Forest library to dig up some books from "more reliable" sources when I have exactly what I need within a few clicks.

Assuming you take more interest in history maybe you'll look back and realize how ridiculous it is to cite wikipedia. Just throwing it out there. I didn't really bring it up as a "Oh you're the devil for using Wikipedia!" but more of a "If you're really into history you should try to read some first hand documents. There are several you can even find online, if you look. Or hell, even your local library!" But if you knew I'd bring it up, obviously you've heard criticism about Wiki before. SHOCK!

Take it how you will. Wikipedia is great (as I said) for an overall source of a generalized knowledge. But anyone who bases nearly every argument they have from reading Wikipedia articles needs to be grounded out a little. Frankly, one would need to get their head out of their ass.


Sure, the vandalism and idiot posters usually make it look iffy and shaky at times, but when done right it sometimes becomes better than the source material itself.

All Wiki is is drawing paragraphs out of source material anyways. It is way abbreviated, and the portrayal of the event is entirely in the hand of the poster. Sure, the poster could have a PhD in the field. But the poster could also be some moron who has a grudge against JFK and posts completely random ****ty things about the incident in Dallas (about 2 years ago this happened). If you want to do it right, and actually gain knowledge, read the books or articles that are cited on the bottom of the page. That's the most useful thing Wiki does.

[SgtRicko]

If you want to do it right, and actually gain knowledge, read the books or articles that are cited on the bottom of the page. That's the most useful thing Wiki does.

No arguement there, bud - hell, even one of my professors mentions using that tactic if you are searching for data on a subject!

[Statalyzer]

A lot of the US problem was plain, simple, arrogance and overconfidence and a bit of racism as well. The Japanese were guilty of the same thing as they started to build up victories and became convinced they were Divinely ordained to united East Asia and punish those white western materialists. The USA seemed to think that Japan was a bunch of little yellow men who tried to imitate the US and European ways but never could do things as well. As David Downing put it (paraphrasing) "They forgot that those little yellow men were riding around in some big gray warships"

Part of the preparation for responses to possible Japanese attacks included Douglas McArthur planning on launching an immediate B-17 counterattack against the Home Islands. He talked about "setting the paper cities of Japan ablaze" even though his air group had like 10 bombers available.