caf (04/27/83)
"Infamy" (C) 1982 John Toland. Paperback edition Feb 1983 with added information. Infamy is a fascinating investigation into the events that caused the Peral Harbor disaster. If Watergate had any effect on you, "Pearlgate" (to coin a word) will bring tears. This intricately reasearched book will change your concept of how the war with Japan started. As "Murphy's Law" would predict, I read this book a few months after buying a Laserdisc of "Tora Tora Tora" ... which will now have to be re-edited ... (Actually, the book makes fine background reading for the movie.) The following points were the most interesting to me: 1. War with Japan was in part a result of ill advised American actions. 2. The Navy was tracking the Japanese task force approaching Pearl Harbor. 3. FDR suppressed wanings to Admiral Kimmel because FDR wished Japan to attack first (for political reasons) and feared that the Japnese attack might be called off if Hawaii had been alerted. After reading this and other books on WW2 I am increasingly convinced that the U.S. was not nearly so unprepared for WW2 as my History classes had led me to believe. Much of that preparation consisted of our code breaking ability, without which the outcome of the war could have been in doubt. Chuck Forsberg cdi!caf
swatt (04/30/83)
I haven't read "Infamy" (which promotes the FDR conspiracy theory), nor "At Dawn We Slept" (which denies it), however: 1) The warning to all U.S. bases about "state of preparedness" went out some months earlier (I've loaned out the volume that talks about it [1]). Various base commanders should have been dusting off and practicing contingency plans. 2) The U.S. Navy had been playing war games for over 20 years on the assumption of a U.S. - Japan war, started by a Japanese surprise attack. There were plenty of contingency plans to dust off. 3) There is NO excuse for a commander to be "surprised" by a known or assumed hostile power. The truth is that Americans didn't want to believe the war was coming; when faced with the facts they dithered. Even professional military officers who should have known what to do fumbled. Nine full hours AFTER the Pearl Harbor attack, the Japanese attacked Clark Field in the Phillipines. They achieved total surprise and found the planes parked neatly on the runways. [2] The destruction of the air force doomed MacArthur's forces there; the U.S. didn't return until 1944. This was almost as big a defeat as Pearl Harbor, and (if possible) a bigger disgrace; it has never been explained. FDR had just barely managed to pass the selective service act in September of 1940 (after the Nazis had taken Denmark and Norway [April], the Netherlands [May], France [June], and threatened an invasion of Great Briton). [3] In February of 1940, General Marshall had submitted an Army budget of $853 million, and it got cut by 10% in the House (although considerably expanded after the events of April-June, 1940). [3] Isolationist sentiment was STRONG right up to the Pearl Harbor attack; Americans just plain didn't want to be involved in "that European war". Military leaders knew better, but even they were to some extent captive to the public's will NOT to believe war was coming. It is always fashonable to blame disasters on incompetence, or a conspiracy of evil men, but Pearl Harbor was neither. Perhaps FDR did know something and failed to send an explicit warning to Admiral Kimmel, but this does not absolve Kimmel, or the rest of the officers down to the captains of all those battleships that got sunk; it was their job to be prepared. Various military officers, including General Marshall and Admiral King in Washington were on the distribution for "Purple" intelligence (the Japanese naval and diplomatic codes); they knew as much as FDR did about Japanese intentions and actions, and had much more immediate responsibility to use that information to protect U.S. bases. The U.S. Navy was directly responsible for failure to protect Pearl Harbor, no matter what FDR did or did not tell them. The American public was indirectly responsible by maintaining an atmosphere in which military preparedness was politically dangerous. FDR didn't "want" the Japanese to attack first -- he had no choice in the matter. He could not have ordered any more agressive approach with any possiblity of public support. However in these days when "the people" can do no wrong, and "evil" or incompetant leaders are to blame for all disasters, you can't sell books that say that I suppose. - Alan S. Watt References: 1] "Marshall - A Hero For Our Times", Lenard Moseby 2] "American Caesar; Douglas MacArthur", William Manchester 3] "A General's Life", Omar N. Bradley