World War II Conspiracy Thread

You know, I had a thought today, about the way that the US entered World War II, about pre-knowledge of the attack on peal harbor, and all that jazz.

I'm really curious what you all think about it.

Here's what we need to look at, facts, theories, and etc.

1. Did we have pre-knowledge of the attack on pearl harbor?

This is one of the most debated topics about World War II.

What we need to question here is motive. The US desired a war with Germany, but what would prompt them to desire a war in the pacific theater?

The truth is that the US did have limited intelligence regarding the situation. They had exactly two words that warned them.

"Winds Execute"

We now know what operation Winds was: the attack on Pearl Harbor. But...At the time, all intelligence pointed to an attack on the Aleutians, and not Hawaii.

Thoughts?

The second thing that we have to look at is this:

2. Was the dropping of the second atomic bomb necessary?

My opinion is yes. Firstly, all Japanese intelligence pointed to the fact that the US only had the one bomb, and it was dropped on hiroshima on 6 august, 1945 (if I remember correctly)

When the japanese war cabinet did not back down, the US was forced to drop another. Nearly 200,000 lives were lost in the explosions.

However, let's look at what would have happened if the US had chosen conventional warfare.

Moderate estimates place projected US casualties at 1,000,000, and Japanese casualties at 2,000,000, for a conventional land war. Sobering numbers. However, it gets worse. What is usually NOT figured into these numbers is incidental deaths. It's not widely known that the southern Island of Honshu was completely cut off from the rest of the archipelago, as the bridges had been taken out by american forces. Over 90% of Japanese rice production was on that Island, therefore, there was famine expected by novemeber of 1945, and there was going to be another 2,000,000 of casualties projected due to the famine. truly, although Inhumane as it was to level two whole cities, it was in actuality, the most humane thing to do.

Thoughts on this anyone?

... my feelings are ... yes the attack on pearl was known... justlook at how conveniantly the americans moved all of their aircraft carrirors and all of their escorte ships out of pearl harbour a day to 2 days before the attack .. leaving only j unk slow peices of crap left behind ( remember battleship's were already proven obsolite to aircraft ) see BIZMARK for details

second

ya dam right it was now sure the japanese may have surrendered after the first one.. but what abetter way to show the old tride and true tactic of what i like to call " we gonna blow you the faaaaak up sucker's syndrome " ( basically let japan know they could use the bomb anytime anyplace anywhre and they had more then just one ) tobad japan didnet know they only had 3

We had a thread on this a while back... but it was for Memorial Day, no wait... it was to commemorate Pearl Harbor! Anyway...

Seems that the only people who believed that Roosevelt knew about Pearl Harbor was myself and 'Russian". Oh, christ...

Be prepared to catch alot of flak!

The Japanese War Cabinet was not willing to surrender after Hiroshima, and they had even formulated a plan to defend their homeland that we now know about. It was called operation "Ketsu-Go", and they projected that they would be fighting a losing war, but they would make it so expensive to US troops that they would be forced to surrender.

Not to mention the fact that to surrender at that juncture would have violated the traditional values of the Bushido, which is what the Japanese military still followed at that point in history.

Yeah i agree it was nessesery (Nuking Japan)

They were also asked to surrender and warned

Also why sacrifice your own countrys lifes because of some 1 elses ignorance if they are not willing to accept or lisen

Some people say it was wrong but i dont agree with that

Other countrys both allied and enemy were also developing atom bombs such as Germany its ok people saying that it was wrong but if America hadnt been in the war the Allies (UK Russia America ect) might not of made or used nukes while the enemys side did (even tho they were in production)

Its easy to say it was wrong but what would of happened if our allies were beaten to creating nuclear weapons

The entire UK could of now been non existant and half the planet could of been whiped out or surrendered

Basicy if the Americans or another allie hadnt of demonstrated their capability they had the power to do that some one else (pretty soon in the war) would as atom bombs were been developed by both sides (It was also pretty close to compleation with several other countrys both enemys and allied) and if they were mass production a lot of people would of been pretty skrewed as if an enemy had it it could of caused a lot more damage and loss of life and if both enemys and allies had it they would of probly gone attacking and responding to each other by using atom bombs

[Edited on 9-3-2004 by Crash]

[Edited on 9-3-2004 by Crash]

Also, feel free to add anything that you feel we should be talking about here that I'm forgetting.

FACT:

The US sunk several (11 or 14, unknown) japanese submarines short off the coast of Hawaii in the days prior to December 7.

FACT:

ALL of our fighters were lined up, wingtip to wingtip, weapons dismantled, along Wheeler Army Airfield under armed guard to prevent sabotage(?) by Japanese nationals and sympathizers.

FACT:

High Japanese military and government officials were admitted as tourists to the Pearl Harbor area as little as a month prior to December 7.

What do I think? I think Truman wanted to play with his new toys. BAD!

DC

You forgot to add that we knew that most of their fleet had put to sea already a month before the attack.

BTW it was 5 subs that were sunk off of Hawaii the day of the attack, nothing else.

DC, I'm with you on the subs - that should have raised the alarm.

There was an earlier crisis (sept?) where the US thought war would break out but it did'nt. The worry became one of fifth colume sabotuers in the large Japanese population in Hawaii at the time - hence the lineup on the airfield made it easy to guard the aircraft.

There was a spy that had lived in a bungalow overlooking the harbor to see ship movements, once the Japanese fleet sailed and observed radio and operational(shore based fleet intel) silence no further word of American ship movements would have been sent or recieved.

Roosevelt was president when Pearl was attacked and the Manhatten project did not get into operation until 1943, Truman was only told about the toys after Roosevelts death near the wars end.

If a conspiracy existed to get us into the war I would take a hard look at the British and Churchill, they benefited the most with our entry into the war.

Loki~~this is in reference to us getting into WWII. The following appeared after WWI,when it was necessary to manipulate the citizens to want involvement in another war.

"To persuade her (the United States) to take our part will be much more difficult, so difficult as to be unlikely to succeed. It will need a definite threat to America, a threat moreover, which will have to be brought home by propaganda to every citizen, before the Republic will again take arms in an external quarrel..."
"...The position will naturally be considerably be eased if Japan wee involved, and this might and probably would bring America in without further ado. At any rate, it would be a natural and ovvious effect of our propagandists to achieve this, just as in the Great War they succeeded in embroiling the United States against Germany."
"Fortunately, with America, our propaganda is on firm ground. We can be entirely sincere, as the main plank will be the old democratic one. We must sincerely enunciate our belief in the democratic form of government, and our firm resolve to adhere to ...the old goddess of democracy routine."--Congressional Record, 76th Congress, Volume 84, no 82, pp6597-6604
This quote appeared in The Biggest Secretby David Icke.

DTOM, doe's the Ickes book attribute this to any one speaker, the phrasing sounds like someone who does'nt live in the U.S.

"To persuade her (the United States) to take our part will be much more difficult, (what is "our")

"Fortunately, with America, our propaganda is on firm ground,
( who is "our")

Originally posted by DeltaChaos
FACT:

ALL of our fighters were lined up, wingtip to wingtip, weapons dismantled, along Wheeler Army Airfield under armed guard to prevent sabotage(?) by Japanese nationals and sympathizers.

that's how we always had fighters lined up. also, the aircraft always had armed guards not so much to keep away japanese nationals and sympathizers, but from our own mechanics. there was fierce competition among figher pilots, which lead to peopl stealing parts from other planes. basically, cannibalization.

Originally posted by Phoenix
Roosevelt was president when Pearl was attacked and the Manhatten project did not get into operation until 1943, Truman was only told about the toys after Roosevelts death near the wars end.

i thought the manhatten project was before then? maybe i'm wrong. i know the first nuclear piles were created well before then in chicago and other locations, so maybe that's what i'm thinking of. and yeah, truman had no idea of the bombs until at the conference at yalta (or was it potsdamn?).


and we did expect an attack, we just didn't know where. our information i think said the attack would have been in another part of the pacific, not the hawaiin islands. that's why it was a sneak attack...

The US did know about an attack, but they did not know where.
why would you let all that money in ships, planes, etc, be destroyed?
I suggest you read 'The Last Mission'. It is a very interesting book, supposedly factual, about Japan's surrender in WW2 and will be controversial for many of you.

Originally posted by cmdrkeenkid

Originally posted by Phoenix
Roosevelt was president when Pearl was attacked and the Manhatten project did not get into operation until 1943, Truman was only told about the toys after Roosevelts death near the wars end.

i thought the manhatten project was before then? maybe i'm wrong. i know the first nuclear piles were created well before then in chicago and other locations, so maybe that's what i'm thinking of. and yeah, truman had no idea of the bombs until at the conference at yalta (or was it potsdamn?).


and we did expect an attack, we just didn't know where. our information i think said the attack would have been in another part of the pacific, not the hawaiin islands. that's why it was a sneak attack...

Okay...here's the deal.

Truman worked at reforming finance during WWII, and there was always a gap in the budget that he couldn't ever explain to save his life.

After Roosevelt died, truman was president, and in one of the first breifings for him ever, they told him about the manhattan project, so, he figured out where all that errant cash had been going.

So, it wasn't until JUST BEFORE they dropped the bomb that Truman knew about it, or the Manhattan project.

Originally posted by Phoenix
DTOM, doe's the Ickes book attribute this to any one speaker, the phrasing sounds like someone who does'nt live in the U.S.

He merely cites the Congressional Record; it would have to be US cicitzens; and it was pre-1941 so the language could be more stilted.

Apparently, this would require a visit to a govt depository, and dusty stacks.
I did narrow it down to approx 1939 though.

After this quote, Icke goes on to say:

"the attack itself came after a long campaing by the Americans to goad Japan into attacking them. Henry Stimson, Roosevaelt's Secretary of War and a founder of the Council on Foreigan Realtions, had said: 'We face the delicate question of diplomatic fencing to be done so as to be sure Japan is put into the wrong and makes the first bad over move.'"
[That quote is from Casebook of Alternative 3, by Jim Keith, p. 25 ].
HTH

[Edited on 9-3-2004 by DontTreadOnMe]


[Edited on 9-3-2004 by DontTreadOnMe]

pearl was not a conspiracy. the navy acted poorly. thats all and nothing more

As for the US ships that were not at Pearl, most of those were the carriers, who were out on manuevers away from Pearl.

A few japanese miget subs were sank the day of the attack. One was found just a few years ago and it is now known the US navy fired the first shot before the actual air attack.

Did the US know about the attack? I doubt it. But, due to Japan's aggressive posture in the pacific, the US should have perhaps been better prepared.

The A bomb was dropped for two reasons. One was to see how it would work in actual combat conditions. The other reason(the main reason) was because the level of fanaticism seen by the allies on Guam, Iwo Jima, Phillipines was nothing short of incredible. THe Japanese were fighting in most cases to the last man and bullet.

One could not begin to imagine how bloody an actual invasion of the japanese home islands would be. It would be Berlin multiplied 100x. Projected allied casualties for the Japanese mainland invasion on a whole were 500,000 to one million troops. The Allies were not ready to take such losses after such fierce fighting on what were not even Japanese home islands!

To make my point clear, Japanese soldiers were being plucked from the pacific islands for years after the war. In one case, one japanese soldier hid in the jungle and did not come home until 1973!! He actually fought the locals on his island for years after the war had been long over! He was convinced the war was still on.

As for the second bomb, the Japanese did not respond to another surrender proposal after the first bomb. The Allies did not want to take any more chances and it presented a new opportunity to try out the new "toy" in real combat condtions.

My 2cents. Feel free to correct my mistakes.

[Edited on 9-3-2004 by Facefirst]

Originally posted by DeltaChaos
FACT:

The US sunk several (11 or 14, unknown) japanese submarines short off the coast of Hawaii in the days prior to December 7.

FACT:

ALL of our fighters were lined up, wingtip to wingtip, weapons dismantled, along Wheeler Army Airfield under armed guard to prevent sabotage(?) by Japanese nationals and sympathizers.

FACT:

High Japanese military and government officials were admitted as tourists to the Pearl Harbor area as little as a month prior to December 7.

What do I think? I think Truman wanted to play with his new toys. BAD!

DC

Did you go to school to be stupid or were you just born that way?

OK, back to the issue at hand.

I�m going to address the Peal harbor question first.

To begin with to truly evaluate this question you have to look at, consider and evaluate the socio-economics of the time era in question. Lets look at a number of things that can help us define those times. Some of these will be simplified, so don�t jump all over me based on a single point. Consider the points as parts of a whole.

• Economy In the late 1930�s early 1941, America was in the grips of a horrific economic depression. The causes of which are fairly varied and not part of this discussion. But, it is important to consider the effects of this economic climate on the population, especially the military community. Like everywhere else, the military was suffering as a result of the depression. With meager budgets through the 30�s, the services struggled to maintain adequate manpower in skilled positions. Toward the 1940�s, with the onset of war in Europe, and the Lend, Lease acts, the overall position started to improve, but as a whole, the U.S. military as of December 1941 was still inferior to many other countries much smaller in size.
  
  
• Military Intelligence Yes I know, an oxymoron. To begin with, the military intelligence of Early 1941 was not the same as it is today. It was highly compartmentalized, with the various services jealously guarding their secrets. Furthermore, considering the economic conditions of the time, a career in military intelligence was not always the "smart" choice. In addition, as any typical bureaucracy, the various intelligence branches were rife with mediocrity and incompetence. Furthermore, you have to deal with the sear volume of information as it comes in. Hindsight is always 20/20. You can not sit there and cherry pick the information and say, "Well they should have known, look at this message right here," without showing all of the other useless information "noise" as it were, cluttering up the place.
  
  
  
• Military Incompetence Then, much more so than now, the military was often a place of last resort. A place foe the lowest common denominator ruled. Promotions were glacially slow. Often the only way to get ahead was to stay quiet and not to stick your head out. A perfect example of this was in the Submarine fleet. In the peacetime, the men who advanced to command submarines were as a rule conservative, careful, and loath to take any risks that might put their boats or their careers in jeopardy. These men proved to be almost totally useless under the demands of wartime. As a result, there was a very high turnover rate in command over the first year or so of the war until men who were better suited to command in wartime were able to take over.
  
  
• Racism This is one issue that few people care to address honestly but is it a very real factor in why the attack was so successful and also why so many afterward looked to pin blame on a conspiracy theory. Let�s be brutal. Before WWII, Japanese were "Japs," "Nips," "gooks," or worse. Japanese (and Chinese) Americans on the West Coast were treated with contempt and scorn. Consider the attitude toward blacks at the same time. There was a very strong belief among some people after the attack that the Japanese would have been totally incapable of the attack without some complicity by the "White" man. (note that this very same attitude and the very same sort of conspiracy theories had sprung up almost 75 years before, when Custer was wiped out at Little Big Horn because of his own arrogance and stupidity).
  
  
  
• Treason To suggest that someone in the military knew about the attack before hand and did not do anything about it is to suggest that that someone committed treason against the U.S. This is a very serious charge. Would you be prepared to stand up and present this charge in a court of law?
  

If you intend to argue that there was a conspiracy to allow Pearl Harbor to happen, then you have to address these points, especially the last. You will have to prove that your theory is not based on a racist view of the world in the 1930�s. You will have to show that the Japanese were in fact incapable of carrying out the attack in total secrecy before hand.

It is my opinion that racism is the very real and central component of any Pearl Harbor Conspiracy theory. In order to prove your theory to me you will have to justify your belief in it and explain how this belief is not racist. This will be difficult to do because the very core of the conspiracy theory is based on the assumption that the Japanese were incapable of pulling off the attack without our knowing about it.

As for the A-Bomb question, well all I know is that my father who was in the Army Would have probably been shipped from Germany (where he was serving occupation duty) to Japan to participate in the invasion should it have been necessary.

I for one truly believe that I owe my existence to the A-Bomb. (And my dad was able to hang out in peace, drink beer and chase the frauleins )

Originally posted by Loki
What we need to question here is motive. The US desired a war with Germany, but what would prompt them to desire a war in the pacific theater?

The truth is that the US did have limited intelligence regarding the situation. They had exactly two words that warned them.

"Winds Execute"

We now know what operation Winds was: the attack on Pearl Harbor. But...At the time, all intelligence pointed to an attack on the Aleutians, and not Hawaii.

Thoughts?

Originally posted by DeltaChaos
FACT:

The US sunk several (11 or 14, unknown) japanese submarines short off the coast of Hawaii in the days prior to December 7.

FACT:

ALL of our fighters were lined up, wingtip to wingtip, weapons dismantled, along Wheeler Army Airfield under armed guard to prevent sabotage(?) by Japanese nationals and sympathizers.

FACT:

High Japanese military and government officials were admitted as tourists to the Pearl Harbor area as little as a month prior to December 7.

What do I think? I think Truman wanted to play with his new toys. BAD!

DC

Try these guys. Might help to keep things in their proper historical context(s), in relation to historical facts and events:

"The Myths of Pearl Harbor."
www.ibiblio.org...

And:

"The PEARL HARBOR ATTACK HEARINGS"
www.ibiblio.org...



regards
seekerof