UK terror threat level raised to 'severe'

Original Quill wrote:

Didge wrote:Sorry Quill but it is nothing short of a load of horseshit because all these revionists who makes these claims ignore countless facts and I read plenty of revisionist works, it does not mean they are right.

I never claimed you made this up because I am well aware of revisionist views on this, so that is a complete lie also.
It is all well and good reading other views, but in many books I am then critical of them, when they ignore basic facts, so try on new clothes, what you have to ensure is those clothes fit, if they do not fit like these revisionist claims, would you buy either?

No

I disagree.  It makes more sense than the whitewashed story put out by the government.  The putative "coincidence" that all the carriers were out of port on that weekend is a bit too much to swallow.  The fact that the government tried on two or three versions of that story at the time, shows that they were fishing.

It reeks of 'flat-earth' thinking.

veya_victaous wrote:The USA cut Japan's oil supply because of Aggressive Japanese action in Asia affecting US and western interests. the US was clearly trying to use embargoes and non military solutions to the problem of Japan conquering the east coast of Asia. It was not particularly expecting a military retaliation.
the USA was unprepared for Pearl Harbour simply because they though the Japanese were out side of effective strike range... Of course you can double the effective strike range of an aircraft IF you gave no intention on a return journey... thus the REAL strategic value of the Kamikaze.

veya_victaous wrote:Agree with Didge  the USA loves it's revisionist History where it didn't sit back to see how thing panned out until it was directly affected  

the USA WW2 is 2 years shorter than everyone else's....
We were already over in north Africa Fucking up Rommels shit
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Rats_of_Tobruk


@Quill
I think it they should have said no one but an American would say that because it is ridiculously laughable to any one else because of the Whole WE WERE ALL ALREADY INVOLVED.  You came late we were already shooting each other for 2 years straight ALL our nations were begging you to join, particularly Australia because we had no chance against Japan Alone and None of our European allies were in a position to help (UK was demanding what little forces we had to defend the UK)...  The notion that the USA needed Pearl Harbour to attack is Silly.. it forced you too... After 2 years of rebuffing Allies that asking for help

The 'Roosevelt manoeuvrings' don't Fit Anything but US revisionist history.... Reality show USA was more concerned about its Fiscal Interests until Forced into Action...  We were literally begging you to join well before Pearl Harbour.

Original Quill wrote:

Irn Bru wrote:

Original Quill wrote:Meh...U-boats.  Within a year of America joining the war, it applied its genius for systems and eliminated the threat.  It developed new technology to deal with problem, and by Black May 1943 (for the Nazis) German U-boat sailors were begging for shore duty.



Japan was only in the war to create a gambit so that Roosevelt could get into the war.  When Germany, Italy and Japan entered into the Tripartite Pact in September 1940, the three promised each other that if any of them went to war, all would.  That agreement could have been worded differently, but it wasn't.  Hitler thought he was scaring the US out of the war, but man was he stupid.  Roosevelt saw his chance and moved the Pacific Fleet from San Diego to Pearl Harbor.  This goaded the Japanese into a preemptive strike, which they carried out on Sunday, December 7, 1941.  Of course, Germany was compelled to declare war on the US on December 11, 1941.

A brilliant play, wasn't it?  Notice none of the Aircraft carriers were in port on that Sunday.  Since the Battle of Taranto in November 1940 the world was on notice that the aircraft carrier was the new capital ship of the era.  America sacrificed it's battleships at Pearl Harbor, but it's aircraft carriers were nowhere to be found.  Pity...as the Japanese were to find out six months later at the Battle of Midway (four Jap carriers sunk--ending Japanese domination of the Pacific).  From there it was just a cake-walk up the island chains until the home islands were threatened.  Then America delivered the most brilliant coup de grâce of all, saving not only American lives, but hundreds of thousands of Japanese lives in the bargain.  

The gnats of the Imperial Japanese Navy swatted off the map, America turned its attention to saving Britain, which was accomplished in 1945

I think you just made that up Quill and I doubt you will find any credible military historian who would back that up.

If you think that leaving the Pearl Harbor naval base undefended and at the mercy of a Japanese attack that sank or put out of action so many ships and also so many aircraft and left over 2000 dead then you really have lost the plot.

They entered the war in Europe to save themselves because they knew what night happen if they didn't.

There's a big difference between what was intended and what turned out to have happened.  No one could foretell that the Americans would defend the base that poorly.  

Adm. H.E. Kimmel was the 4-star Commander of the Pacific Fleet on the date of Pearl Harbor.  As a result of the lack of preparedness at the Pearl Harbor attack, Kimmel was removed from post, and reduced in rank to a 2-star Rear Admiral.  Lt. Gen. Walter C. Short was the commander responsible for the defense of U.S. military installations in Hawaii at the time of the Japanese attack.  He was called back to Washington DC and demoted to Major General (2-star).

The Roberts Commission, headed by U.S. Supreme Court Associate Justice Owen J. Roberts, was formed soon after the attack to assess the lack of preparedness. General Short, along with Admiral Kimmel, was charged with dereliction of duty. The report charged that he and Kimmel did not take seriously enough the war warnings and did not prepare for the attack.

Basically they were guilty as charged, despite the fact that the White House knew the attack was pending.  They, indeed, were not prepared.

As far as others who have offered the same theory about Roosevelt's pre-war political maneuvers:

George Edward Morgenstern. Pearl Harbor: The Story of the Secret War (1947).

Frederic R. Sanborn, Design For War: A Study of Secret Power Politics 1937–1941 (1951).

Charles C. Tansill, Back Door to War: The Roosevelt Foreign Policy, 1933–1941 (1952).

Would that I could claim to be the first to publish the thesis.  Lol.  Nevertheless, I do think it was a brilliant gambit...one that played Congress, Hitler and the entire Japanese Empire for patsies.

Irn Bru wrote:

Original Quill wrote:

There's a big difference between what was intended and what turned out to have happened.  No one could foretell that the Americans would defend the base that poorly.  

Adm. H.E. Kimmel was the 4-star Commander of the Pacific Fleet on the date of Pearl Harbor.  As a result of the lack of preparedness at the Pearl Harbor attack, Kimmel was removed from post, and reduced in rank to a 2-star Rear Admiral.  Lt. Gen. Walter C. Short was the commander responsible for the defense of U.S. military installations in Hawaii at the time of the Japanese attack.  He was called back to Washington DC and demoted to Major General (2-star).

The Roberts Commission, headed by U.S. Supreme Court Associate Justice Owen J. Roberts, was formed soon after the attack to assess the lack of preparedness. General Short, along with Admiral Kimmel, was charged with dereliction of duty. The report charged that he and Kimmel did not take seriously enough the war warnings and did not prepare for the attack.

Basically they were guilty as charged, despite the fact that the White House knew the attack was pending.  They, indeed, were not prepared.

As far as others who have offered the same theory about Roosevelt's pre-war political maneuvers:

George Edward Morgenstern. Pearl Harbor: The Story of the Secret War (1947).

Frederic R. Sanborn, Design For War: A Study of Secret Power Politics 1937–1941 (1951).

Charles C. Tansill, Back Door to War: The Roosevelt Foreign Policy, 1933–1941 (1952).

Would that I could claim to be the first to publish the thesis.  Lol.  Nevertheless, I do think it was a brilliant gambit...one that played Congress, Hitler and the entire Japanese Empire for patsies.

These guys being charged with failing to defend the base shows that DC thought they should have been and that the available carriers should have been in striking distance to take on the attack.

Well that defeats your argument that the base was intentionally left undefended with the carriers deliberately put to sea and out of harms way.

The carriers and their escort ships were doing what they are supposed to do and that is 'work'  and that's what two of them were doing at the time under the orders of Adm. Kimmel, not some bods in Washington. Enterprise was already on her way back to Pearl but late and was only around 10 hours steaming time away at the time of the attack. Indeed she arrived their later that evening. Lexington was around 500 miles away and too far to do anything. Saratoga was back in the USA after a scheduled overhaul and docked in San Diego that day and it's surprising that the Japanese didn't know that.

So the Japanese were only ever going to get two of the carriers and if they had attacked the next day they would have got one of them.

Didge wrote:
From 3 posts you have no answers to Quill:

No it does not make any sense again when you are ignoring blatant facts, if again Roosevelt wanted to get into the war, he would have used the dispositions of U-Boats to ensure many ships were sunk thus being t again support for war, instead he ensured they got out of the way, that is not someone looking to get into war. Germany had every intent to go to war with America way 1941 and thought the Japanese attack would center American efforts in the Pacific, it was a strategic blunder on his part. The story put out is factual by historians, again you ignore transcripts that prove Roosevelt looked to stay out of war, and only went to war, when attacked. He spent an exhaustive amount of time, trying to get Japan get on board and even offered them countless oil as a bargaining chip and Hitler was so afraid they would deal together, he pushed the offensive even harder on Moscow in the Autumn of 1941. These and many other facts prove there was no case for Roosevelt trying to entice war, where as seen he could have easily done so if he had wanted to, but as seen there is no validity to any such claim.

What you are going off is speculation based on one or two points, with then the rest being very much made up, again ignoring all facts. It would be like you saying Stalin enticed Germany to attack Russia, because even though he new of the plans to attack him, but do you suggest Stalin was enticing Germany to attack? No way, in fact Stalin was trying to buy time.


Again there is no evidence for your claims just speculation, which conflicts all know facts, and again if Japan had better commanders, they would have easily wipe out the American fleet whist Japan had the advantage in numbers. If they had used all 8 aircraft carriers at Middway, America would have been on the back foot and it would have taken them far longer to defeat Japan and thus ultimately Germany.

You love quoting Von Clausewitz who would have not advocated enticing such a battle, whilst America did not have the advantage in numbers of a Navy at that time, neither would any American Navy commander. It was only later after 1942 in the war that America built a vast Navy which at one point had 100 Aircraft Carriers. The reality is what you are claiming goes against strategical thinking and against the reality and facts of what actually happened.

Japan was asked to withdraw from French Southern IndoChina, which if they did would have them have all the oil they wished from America, and the only reason they refused was based off the success of the Germans in Russia, where again Japan had no intention of attacking America before 1946, when America was due to withdraw from the Philippines. So they attacked off German promises and success, not anything Roosevelt did, which as seen was trying his hardest to get them on board.



Comparative Fleet Strengths: Dec 1, 1941, US & Japan


   Comparative Fleet strengths:  Dec 1, 1941
  U.S Forces (Pac & Asiatic Fleets)           Japanese

                    Battleships

       9                                         10
                   Carriers

       3                                         10
                   Heavy Cruisers

       13                                       18
                   Light Cruisers

       11                                       17
                   Destroyers

       80                                       111
                   Submarines

       55                                       64

US Navy History and Heritage wrote:Yorktown (CV-5), Ranger (CV-4) and Wasp (CV-7), along with the aircraft escort vessel Long Island (AVG-1), were in the Atlantic Fleet; Hornet (CV-, commissioned in late October 1941, had yet to carry out her shakedown. Yorktown would be the first Atlantic Fleet carrier to be transferred to the Pacific, sailing on 16 December 1941.

Pearl Harbor: Facts and Information wrote:The Japanese dreamed of an Empire in Asia and began their quest in early 1931. They overran Manchuria and established it as a state, which they named Manchukuo. Moving into China, the Japanese were initially successful, but ultimately encountered the resistance of the Chinese, under the government Chiang Kai-shek. A crisis arose in 1937, when Japan launched a major offensive in an effort to reduce China into submission.

When this tactic was unsuccessful, Japan adopted a policy of economic strangulation. By 1939, major coastal ports were seized and the Chinese capital was forced to move from Nanking to the inland area of Hankow.

In 1940, the French allowed the entry of Japanese troops into Indochina. A treaty was made with Thailand (Siam). By the end of
1940 the Japanese were threatening the Burma Road, China’s last supply line from the outside world. By July 194l, they had completed their occupation of French Indochina and turned their sights to Thailand, Burma and the Philippines.

Concerned over Japan’s ambitions, the US, Netherlands and Great Britain froze Japanese assets in their countries and imposed stringent economic restrictions, cutting off 90% of raw materials required by Japan for war production. The US demanded the aggressive actions against China and Indonesia be halted. Japan was forced to choose between abandoning her efforts or seizure of other areas rich in raw materials. Abandonment was unthinkable and Japan chose the latter.

By December, 194l the Japanese Army had a force of 2,400,000 trained ground troops and an air fleet of 7,500 planes. The US had a force of 1,500,000 of which 1,000,000 were not completely trained, 1,157 combat aircraft and 347 war ships. However, America had already committed to a large portion of war production in the European Conflict.

Japan moved forward with war plans. They believed the US Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbor was their only threat and set out to neutralize the fleet by means of a surprise air attack.

Doug Father wrote:At this point, The Battle of Taranto and what U-47 accomplished at Scapa Flow (sinking HMS Royal Oak at anchor and killing 833), suggested capital ships were at great risk, even in a defended harbor.