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Calling it a Conspiracy

The first site does not impress me at all. Calling it a “conspiracy” in red letters, I think is a mistake. Having fore-knowledge or allowing it to happen does not require a “conspiracy.” The [CIA] has done this kind of thing numerous times (e.g. assassination of foreign leaders); consider the Iran Contra affair--was it called a “conspiracy”? and was it not seriously problematic EVEN IF Reagan did not know; we have seen the lies and manipulation of information from the Bush administration; there are numerous cases like this in American (and other countries’) history from Democrats and Republicans alike. It’s business as usual for the government. To me, to call fore-knowledge a conspiracy, is to invite ridicule. However, I still dislike the pejorative name calling of “loons” and other condescending language (and tete-a-tete), which needlessly escalates hostilities, distracting from the issue of the evidence for each position. I much prefer ww’s argumentation style, especially his/her 7/15/08–17:38 entry, which was the most straightforward and least condescending.

Lack of Focus / I can’t see forest for the Trees

What I don’t like is the mounds of writing from both sides that focusses on details. It’s extremely difficult for a person unfamiliar with the details to follow EITHER argument. I read 3 pages of single spaced writing about SRN-116741, and I have no idea why I should be interested in it or your debate about it. The introduction of PHAND is outstanding. The first paragraph on the 10 commissions is fine, but why is there no summary of each Commission’s conclusions somewhere easy to find?

The bulk of the article jumps into a level a detail, especially about codes, that makes me lose interest. What I don’t see and what I would like to see is a summary of the main points in favor and against each position, and THEN the detail that backs up each major point supporting your general argument. I'd like to see BOTH SIDE WORK TOGETHER to create that rather than calling each other names, stupid, unscholarly, etc.

In good writing argumentative writing, IMHO, you assume the reader may stop reading at any point. So make sure you make your key points early before we lose interest. This was not done. I am interested in this subject, but not in 20 pages about the history of the breaking of the Japanese codes.


Outline Requested

I would really like an OUTLINE of the MAJOR arguments for advanced knowledge and an outline of the arguments against. (And probably also a rebuttal responding to each point in each outline, hopefully also in outline form). I don’t see it. It’s not a debate, it’s a cacophony of voices and detail that does not hold my interest. I’m really disappointed that you all the effort both side have not done a better job organizing this topic you seem to care so much about so that lay people can follow your various positions without having to become experts first. Perhaps you can blame Wikipedia for not providing adequate structure and guidance, I don’t know. As adults I think we can do better. If you really want to convince people you are right, start by assuming we have little or no expert knowledge, and explain it top down, not bottom up.

Also, If you can't agree to work together to create each outline, then how about agreeing to not edit the outline of the side you disagree with? But do make sure the side you agree with has the best outline you can make.

Here is an example of what I’d like to see. I DO NOT BELIEVE THESE ARE THE MAIN POINTS (It’s an example FORM). I’m just throwing in some of the stuff I have heard here and there. I’m asking you for guys to create one from scratch & fill it in with good stuff and organize it so lay people like me can follow it. Please!

EXAMPLES:

Those who argue for a surprise use this evidence: (Below is supposed to be indented. Don't know the HTML code for "tab" or indent all, or list. If you can fix, it, feel free.)  Done the_ed17 22:13, 22 July 2008 (UTC) Thanks.--David Tornheim (talk) 23:03, 22 July 2008 (UTC)

a) Radar was underutilized.
b) FDR and Marshall would never let this happen.
c) The navy in Hawaii was too valuable to lose.
d) Witness X, Y, Z testified under penalty of perjury: “I did not know ahead of time.”
e) Commissions 1-10 all found ___________.
f) Japanese Code Y was not broken until ___________.
g) Confusion
h) Inability to assemble the information
i) Inability for army & navy to work together

Counter argument:

a) But the code was broken.
b) FDR and Marshall are not the nice men we thought they were.
c) Speculation.
d) Witness A, B, and C, said the opposite.
e) Commissions 1-5 did not have the evidence later found: _____________

...


Those who argue for a surprise use this evidence:

A) FDR wanted a war and needed an excuse.
B) Witness Z said, “We pushed Japan into a corner. Japan would not stand for

a military build up in Hawaii. The attack was provoked by putting a base in Hawaii.”

C) Key documents continue to be suppressed.
D) Document Q states, “Carrier L was at position P.”


Counter-argument:

a) FDR would NEVER do that.
b) Witness Z is not credible because of ____________.
c) We can not infer anything from documents we have not seen.
d) It was only one piece of the complex puzzle, not sufficient in and of

itself. To tell you the truth, that’s why I came to this site. I wanted to be convinced one way or another. Now I just feel overwhelmed and frustrated with too many insignificant details...

--David Tornheim (talk) 21:41, 22 July 2008 (UTC)

In the hope of aiding anyone else who, like David, is a bit at sea, let me try to address his outline with as little technical junk as I can.
a) Radar was underutilized.
Not. There were few sites & staffing & control arrangements were inadequate. Training was still underway in its use.
b) FDR and Marshall would never let this happen.
Absolutely right. Contrary to FDR's objectives & actions prior to the attack. Absolutely contrary to Marshall's character.
c) The navy in Hawaii was too valuable to lose.
Correct again. Contrary to U.S. interests (loss of BBs, at millions of dollars each, & trained crews; so loss of fleet units expected to be necessary to fight a major war). Unnecessary, besides; warning of attack (given foreknowledge) would work just as well; interception of incoming attack ditto.
d) Witness X, Y, Z testified under penalty of perjury: “I did not know ahead of time.”
Correct again. Safford, Taylor, Layton, Wikinson, et al. all did. IIRC, so did Marshall, & I flat refuse to believe Marshal would lie about that under oath.
e) Commissions 1-10 all found ___________.
...extensive incompetence, underestimation, misapprehension of Japanese capabilities & intentions, excessive secrecy about crypto, lack of manpower...
f) Japanese Code Y was not broken until ___________.
All broken before 7/12/41; not reliably or extensively read. In part due to lack of manpower in crypto/translation staffs (the main reason J-19, in which the notorious "bomb plot" message was sent, wasn't read). Also, the Japanese hid the key messages in lower-grade J-19, while higher-grade (& hence higher attention) Purple was read by U.S.
g) Confusion
Whew. Was there ever. Wohlstetter called it "noise". So many possible targets, so little analysis...
h) Inability to assemble the information
Yes, for lack of manpower. Also, almost no analysis (assembly) actually done, for reasons of extreme secrecy as to the source (broken cyphers). Rufe Taylor's famous map was a start; it should have been replicated in Stark's & Marshall's office & center of a daily briefing every time new intel came in. Nothing like that was done. And intercepts were handled raw by SOs.
i) Inability for army & navy to work together
In Hawaii, certainly. In crypto, there was surprisingly good co-ordination. Except the "work sharing" arrangement meant neither really had a complete picture (viz lack of analysis).
Counter argument:
a) But the code was broken.
"Broken" doesn't equate to "read reliably". Nor does it mean the manpower to read (i.e, break & translate) every example of the thousands of incoming messages was available. It wasn't, even in cyphers that could be read (reliably).
b) FDR and Marshall are not the nice men we thought they were.
Maybe not. This requires them to act contrary to their characters, & contrary to the express objectives they'd set for the U.S., & willingness to believe they'd sacrifice U.S. assets without commensurate gain. Where's the gain to the U.S.?
c) Speculation.
That's all the conspiracy is.
d) Witness A, B, and C, said the opposite.
No credible witness I'm aware of.
e) Commissions 1-5 did not have the evidence later found: _____________
No credible evidence contrary.

..

Those who argue for a surprise use this evidence:
A) FDR wanted a war and needed an excuse.
Wanted to aid Britain. War with Japan does not aid Britain. It directly aids Nazi Germany, however (& Hitler, & McCollum, both saw this. even tho conspiracy theorists can't, despite 50yrs of evidence...)
B) Witness Z said, “We pushed Japan into a corner. Japan would not stand for a military build up in Hawaii. The attack was provoked by putting a base in Hawaii.”
False. Philippines was the bigger threat. Reason for attacking Pearl Harbor had more to do with IJN/IJA internal politics than FDR or U.S. objectives.
C) Key documents continue to be suppressed.
Prove it. Absence of evidence is not evidence.
D) Document Q states, “Carrier L was at position P.”
No U.S./Brit doc exists on location of K.B. between 26 Nov & 7 Dec. All claims to contrary remain conjecture.
Counter-argument:
a) FDR would NEVER do that.
Correct. Contrary to U.S. interests, to his political judgment, & to his express objective, aiding Britain.
b) Witness Z is not credible because of ____________.
No comment, absent name of witness.
c) We can not infer anything from documents we have not seen.
Exactly.
d) It was only one piece of the complex puzzle, not sufficient in and of itself.
That's exactly right. And presuming conspiracy ignores that. "See the whole board." McCollum did. And I can't believe Marshall & Stark wouldn't have warned FDR, if they'd had even a hint he was planning to arrange an attack, of how cosmically stupid it would be. TREKphiler hit me ♠ 02:36, 23 July 2008 (UTC)

Trekphiler, Thanks for taking up my suggestion and filling in the details! Please, keep in mind, I was just guessing and I hope people from both sides contribute the best material to make it the best outline possible. I doubt my original is even close to the best arguments... We'll see... --David Tornheim (talk) 17:44, 23 July 2008 (UTC)

If you're coming at it from the POV of somebody who knows nothing about it but a claim of conspiracy, you've hit the necessaries, I think. Only "Witness Z" needs filling in a name, & without knowing more... That can also lead to dueling lists of witnesses, which I hope we don't see; you think the recitation of facts got long...
To everyone involved, tho, can I suggest this entire discussion be moved to the PHAND page, where (I think) it more reasonably belongs? TREKphiler hit me ♠ 18:50 & TREKphiler hit me ♠ 18:52, 23 July 2008 (UTC) (P.S. Take the quiz at the geocities link if you want a real laugh on conspiracy, tho.)
Thanks again for filling in the outline. I am copying the revised outline to the article Pearl Harbor advance-knowledge debate with some slight reorganization (e.g. thinks like "I trust..." or "I believe..." or comments that are more commentary than facts or assertions). That way you can revise it. I'll let you guys fill in the details with footnotes, etc. I think it could be better organized. Radar is probably NOT the best argument. When you guys revise it, I hope you focus your efforts always on the BEST ARGUMENT and the BEST ARGUMENT FIRST, then the next best argument, etc. I hope those who argue for a position are allowed to put forth their best argument, rather than having those on the other side changing what their best argument is to something that muddies their position. I'd rather see those who oppose clearly mark their opposing views as response or "counter-argument" based on the organization I set up. I hope that makes sense. I hope this helps us get everything together. Thanks again for taking me up on this.

--David Tornheim (talk) 20:00, 23 July 2008 (UTC)

"completely unnecessary" near the end

The US at least intended to hold the Philippines, using it to block further Japanese expansion, and the battleships would have helped to defend the Philippines. Thought the whole war (like most wars) is clearly a mistake in retrospect, the Pearl Harbor attack aided their military expansion as much as anything else they could have done. David R. Ingham (talk) 22:54, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

Wellll that's ("the Pearl Harbor attack aided their military expansion as much as anything else they could have done") debateful....if the U.S. had not had their battleships mauled by the Japanese planes, would battleships still have gone through refits to add additional AA guns? How would carrier doctrine be changed? Would they be at the forefront, like how it really went down, or would they have been in a 'supporting' role with battleships up front getting killed by Japanese planes and the Yamato--which was what Yamamoto wanted, I might add. (a "decisive battle") Would that have even worked (Could the Japansese even win that?)? What if there had been a different attack that killed the U.S.'s carriers?...That is definitely something else they could have done... the_ed17 00:56, 14 August 2008 (UTC)
I suspect the BBs at Pearl would still have ended up in a firesupport role alone, since they remained too slow to operate with CVs; may posit a fleet encounter at Coral Sea where air proves the decider & both sides lose their heavies... "Could the Japansese even win that?" Absolutely; recall, at the war's start, IJN aviators were the finest in the world.
"What if there had been a different attack that killed the U.S.'s carriers?" Ultimately, the result would not have been different, given vastly superior U.S. production & engineering capability. I suggest this could lead to Nimitz calling the Oz subs back to Hawaii, improving their effectiveness; putting somewhat more focus on the subwar, including fixing the atrocious MkXIV & breaking the maru code; & changing targeting priorities, putting tankers higher. This ends the war by the end of 1943 (before Saipan, before the Essexes arrive), mid-1944 at the very latest (depending on how much manpower is put on the maru code; the MkXIV, contrary to 1st impressions, was less important). Add a less-likely, changing his dispositions (so the boats are in the Luzon St, Yellow Sea, & Home Waters, rather than at {heavily-defended} Japanese bases scattered around the PTO), & 1 or 2 extreme-unlikely, use older boats, or increase use of all boats, for minelaying, & rely on crypto & DF to monitor IJN movements...& the war handily ends in '43.
A better question is, could Japan have gotten what she wanted more effectively by not attacking the U.S. at all. I submit the answer's yes, but this demands big changes to IJN/IJA interangency politics, which makes it extraordinarily unlikely (well in excess of what it would take to give Yamamoto victory at Midway, which would be Herculean itself). TREKphiler hit me ♠ 10:45, 14 August 2008 (UTC)

Modus vivendi?

If I reword to "in part because it was understood in Washington cutting them off, given Japanese dependence on them, would be an extreme step,[1][2] likely to be taken as a provocation.", does that bugger the fn ref? I don't have it handy. Can somebody who does check & change? (This is less repetitious of "oil export", which had me saying, "OK, I got it!") TREKphiler hit me ♠ 20:19, 20 August 2008 (UTC)

Advanced Knowledge

If the text of the narrative reference to the advanced knowledge debate continues to be censored, I will make a call for dispute resolution. I have asked repeatedly that this be incorporated on this site and I'm glad someone is finally taking that on and I support that correct edit.--David Tornheim (talk) 22:02, 22 August 2008 (UTC)

DT, It's advance knowledge (not advanced more complete, more full, more inner circle, better, or any such implication). The problem here is that editors cannot make requests for this or that. If there is disagreement, consensus is required. In this case the consensus seems clearly to be that the reference to the conspiracy page is sufficient.
In any case, this was the subject of an extensive debate here, and the consensus decision was to separate out the conspiracy stuff to a separate page. See the archives for the debate on the topic. I was against it, if I recall. ww (talk) 22:41, 22 August 2008 (UTC)
I'm against the recent attempt to bring the link into the article's text only because it immediately casts a pall over FDR who may or may not deserve it, depending on which authority you hold most dear. The link must be introduced in a more neutral manner or remain a "See also". Binksternet (talk) 23:59, 22 August 2008 (UTC)
This has been addressed & addressed & addressed, & it's clear evidence the adherents of the conspiracy theory, having accepted this POV on faith, are not susceptible to reasoned argument any more than religious fundamentalists are to accepting evolution. Faith does not accept reasoning, it rejects on the basis of received wisdom. So here. TREKphiler hit me ♠ 04:47, 23 August 2008 (UTC)
Since BillyTFried seems to have gotten the grammar close, any objection to adding Toland's Infamy & Stinnett, the major advocates (AFAIK), in place of what app to be a minor ref in Calvocoressi? Also, I'm inclined to tweak it to something like, "There has been ongoing controversy due to allegations by conspiracy theorists of advance knowledge by the Roosevelt administration" ignored to bene UK. (I'm too tired to fix it now, I'm sure I'll butcher it. ) TREKphiler hit me ♠ 07:50, 25 August 2008 (UTC)
Good to see there will be a small reference. To me the point is not whether the advance knowledge theorists are right or wrong, but simply that a significant amount of these theorists exist and therefore they should be mentioned in the article. And we really don't have to leave it out because it might harm Roosevelt's ego, the bastard had plans to murder every single German for Christs sake. Calvocoressi writes about the theorists of advance knowledge as an introduction to 2 pages about various signs that the attack may have been expected. For example he mentions the Dutch intelligence passing on information and several cases of American officials ignoring warnings from their Allies. The most striking example for me is that the Dutch had gotten to know the codewords that indicated where the Japanese would attack, when they heard it would be Pearl Harbor they immediately passed it on to Washington where it was subsequently ignored. Now that is only 1 indication in a lot of other information, but any nation really concerned with its safety would have at least taken some precautions to avoid being surprised. Anyway, Calvocoressi probably does not agree with the advance knowledge theorists, but he does mention them and then follows with this kind of information, showing he finds it too important to ignore. So good to see we agree over inclusion.
PS It's simply ridiculous to say the advance knowledge theorists are "religious fundamentalists" just because you do not follow their theory, you don't seem to understand that the opinion there was no advance knowledge is also just a theory. Wiki1609 (talk) 12:00, 25 August 2008 (UTC)
Also religious fundamentalists almost always have very deep personal reasons for why they WANT to believe what they do which causes them to resist any info contrary to that belief no matter what. In fact that's often what most religions tell their adherents to do. Now I don't doubt some conspiracy theorists are the same way, but certainly not as many or to the same degree. (Never heard of a conspiracy theorist suicide bombing) I personally don't trust the government or politicians in general and have also seen verified factual info showing a good deal of US governmental and military misdeeds, however, I was not alive during WWII, I did have two great-uncles killed at Normandy and Manila, but not at Pearl Harbor, and I'm no expert on FDR either, so there's no deep personal reasons driving me towards one belief over another the way there is with religious fundamentalists. BillyTFried (talk) 20:18, 25 August 2008 (UTC)

<--Beyond an evident unwillingness, or inability, to be swayed by argument, I draw no parallel between the conspiracy theorists & religious fanatics; it's the fanaticism that troubles me, not the religion. (As usual, I'm not clear *sigh*).

  1. " the Dutch had gotten to know the codewords that indicated where the Japanese would attack" The "winds code"? Not unknown elsewhere. Also, AFAIK, never sent.
  2. "Dutch intelligence passing on information and several cases of American officials ignoring warnings" Ignoring? Or discrediting, on the basis of other factors? Or not obviously adopting, for fear of compromising the fact U.S. had broken Japanese cyphers herself?
  3. "harm Roosevelt's ego" Not an issue (& it's his reputation at issue, not his ego). What is at issue is, are we being expected to believe senior officials (up to & including FDR) would & did act contrary to their expressed objectives, to their character, & to good sense. (As for "the bastard had plans to murder every single German for Christs sake", I'd be careful saying that without extremely good evidence for it.)
  4. "advance knowledge theorists are right or wrong" On this page, not an issue, just whether it should get more attention in light of unproven & highly dubious claims.
  5. You don't need conspiracy to demonstrate FDR wanted to aid Britain, & took measures which weren't exactly legal at the time. (The Neutrality Patrol & "shoot on sight" order, to name just 2.) These aren't secret. Nor do they involve Japan, since war with Japan was expressly contrary to aiding Britain. The conspiracy theorists are (as far as I can tell) willfully blind to that fact, accepting the "truth" of it on faith (whence my earlier point).

Have i covered it? TREKphiler hit me ♠ 22:24 & 22:25, 25 August 2008 (UTC) (BTW, no disagreement with rewording as proposed, I take it.)

I believe the Advanced Knowledge Debate should be VERY briefly mentioned in this article with a link to its page but include NOTHING which either supports or counters it. That is my firm position. And as far as your references to Toland, Stinnett, and Calvocoressi goes, I am not sure what you are suggesting, but I don't think any more than I have written is required, especially if it will violate the position I have just stated. BillyTFried (talk) 23:20, 25 August 2008 (UTC)
Just a change in the source in the fn & rewording per above; Calvocoressi isn't known as a conspiracist, while Toland & Stinnett both are; since the fn refs the theory, I think it should expressly cite advocates for it, not a casual ref in an otherwise respectable source. And I'm presuming you don't object to the proposed "ongoing controversy" reword, which is for style, not content. TREKphiler hit me ♠ 03:03, 26 August 2008 (UTC)
To respond to your numbered comments:
  1. The winds code was transmitted to Washington, where according to Calvocoressi "no notice was taken".
  2. Ignored: for example the report about the winds code was dismissed by General Marshall, Army Chief of Staff. For the rest many information was simply not used because of incompetence of many individuals, however "there was no shortage of Intelligence information about Japan's intentions." (p.944)
  3. Acting contrary to their expressed objectives is something alot of politicians do, Roosevelt wasn't a saint you know. Why should it go into good sense to let yourself be attacked in order to join the war against an inferior foe and subsequently gaining an enormous amount of influence in Asia?
  4. Please don't quote only part of my sentence, you are now commenting on this part in order to say what I said in the entire sentence. Pointless...
  5. That's right, no conspiracy needed, which is why milder versions of what you might call advance knowledge theory aren't conspiract theories but simply realist theory. Still how was war with Japan contrary to aiding Britain? You are turning things around: Japan was likely to attack British, Dutch and other European possessions in the Pacific in order to expand their Asian Empire and conquer their own oilfields. The only connection with the United States in this situation was that the US were an ally of the British and would therefore likely join the conflict on the European side. AFAIK the Philippines weren't much of a prize, they just laid in the way of the Dutch Indies. So any war in the Pacific would revolve around the conflict between the European powers (mostly Britain) and Japan. The problem was thatthe US would not let the Japanese have a free hand in all this (and logically so), so they had to be attacked as well, preferably in a short war leading to a treaty leaving the Japanese free to attack the European colonies. So stating that war with Japan was contrary to aiding Britain (in the Pacific theatre) is also missing the point as that war was simply coming, and if anything outside the power of the US to initiate/decide. They could "invite" the Japanese to attack the US in order to have a pretext to aid Britain which was already fighting the greatest military in the world. Britain could simply use any help it could get cause war was almost inevitable. According to Calvocoressi both Churchill as Roosevelt thought that "only a policy of Anglo-American firmness could deter Japan from embarking on a Pacific War".
Well that's it, I just wanted to respond. Wiki1609 (talk) 11:52, 26 August 2008 (UTC)
To respond:
  1. "The winds code was transmitted" DC already knew about it, without aid from the Dutch. It was, AFAIK, never sent by Japan (i.e., never used).
  2. "ignored" Same answer.
  3. "let yourself be attacked in order to join the war against an inferior foe and subsequently gaining an enormous amount of influence in Asia?" Because Japan was an inferior power, we can reasonably presume FDR expected her to be overawed by U.S. power (whence the move of the Pacific Fleet to Hawaii & buildup in the Philppines). Britain was fighting for her life, & the need to aid her against Germany would (did) take priority. War with Japan did not do that. It would have aided China, something FDR also wanted to do without getting sucked into the war in China, which is why he & others were so careful to warn against provoking Japan (& why a blockade hadn't been imposed before 12/41: it would've required, or implied, U.S. was a belligerent.)
  4. How? Seriously? You honestly think diversion of destroyers, carriers, B-24s (which were precious to Coastal Command beyond measure), & shipping from the Atlantic to fight Japan aided Britain?
  5. "The problem was thatthe US would not let the Japanese have a free hand in all this" Don't bet on it. Public, & Congressional, opinion on getting into a war to preserve British colonies in Asia was liable to run heavily against, regardless of FDR's promises to Winston.
  6. "so they had to be attacked as well" You're making the same mistake the Japanese did, & ignoring the low likelihood the U.S. would actually be able to come to Britain's aid in the Pacific, absent a Japanese attack on the U.S. Moreover, the justification for attacking Pearl Harbor had more (or as much) to do with IJN/IJA disputes than grand strategy.
  7. "stating that war with Japan was contrary to aiding Britain (in the Pacific theatre)" I never said that. You did. Britain had to survive for her war with Japan to ever be an issue, & aid against Germany thus had to be the #1 priority; a U.S. war with Japan was expressly contrary to that (as both McCollum, & Hitler, understood, but the conspiracy nuts obviously don't).
  8. "They could "invite" the Japanese to attack the US in order to have a pretext to aid Britain" Except, as noted, it didn't, it diverted strength from the crucial theatre (for Britain), the Atlantic, to the less-crucial one, the Pacific. You've again fallen in the same trap as the conspiracy theorists.
  9. "only a policy of Anglo-American firmness could deter Japan from embarking on a Pacific War" You've proven my point for me: "deter Japan", i.e., avoid war in the Pacific. As Winston said, he had quite enough war (with Germany), try & avoid another one (with Japan). Provoking a Japanese attack did not deter Japan, & most certainly did not aid Britain.
For Marshall, Stark, & FDR to all fail to understand this requires enormous stupidity. And for Marshall, Stark, & FDR to carry out a policy contrary to their characters does require a conpsiracy, because Marshall, to name only one, would never have stood for it. TREKphiler hit me ♠ 07:35, 27 August 2008 (UTC)
Wiki1609, many of the points you list are not so fully extablished as you seem to think. Trek has listed some of the problems with some of the points you note, but there is a good bit more. In these matters, the details are important (eg, we broke lots of Japanese ciphers, but the most important from a Pearl Harbor attack view was not broken sufficiently to be useful) and the rest were either minor stuff (consular ciphers) or very important (PURPLE) but without any strategic information due to the way the Japanese government worked internally. The details matter a great deal. It is not, in fact, despite special pleading (careful statement of favorable trends and 'facts', and neglect or dismissal of opposing evidence) like many passionate and convinced positions, clear that there was a conspiracy. By anyone in power in Washington. There is much speculation on the conspiracy side (all of them) and almost none of it is acknowledged by proponents.
But, remember that we are not debating truth here, nor settling a very old dispute; we are instead writing an encyclopedia article. This requires a dispassionate perspective, willing to cover the material fairly, and an appreciation for presentation and organization. For this topic, the decision was long ago made, by WP editors working on this article at the time (see the talk archives), to separate the two subjects, to wit the standard account of the Attack and the conspiratorial account(s) of the Attack. As such, conspiracy stuff has little place in this article. There's a reference to the conspiracy stuff here, as there should be, but that's really all that should be here. It's not a slight of any viewpoint to insist on a particular organization scheme for related topics or to limit coverage of one part in an article on another related part of the topic to a reference. ww (talk) 01:36, 28 August 2008 (UTC)
Not even that simple, Ww. Some of the low-grade stuff was broken & regularly readable, but USG was so undermanned in cryppies, they didn't have the bodies to read it, which is the main reason the "bomb plot" msg (in J-19) slipped thru. And even I can't rule out connivance. That embargo, as proposed by FDR, wasn't enough to push Japan over the edge; guys in Commerce (IIRC) notched it up, contrary to good advice (& good sense). The senior guys never expected Japan to push back. Conspiracy? I doubt it. Stupid? You better believe it. Not really different from the "assurances" given Saddam in '91, tho. Sh*t happens. TREKphiler hit me ♠ 03:02, 28 August 2008 (UTC)
Is this source relevant? here. 69.182.107.94 (talk) 15:24, 11 September 2008 (UTC)
Not really. It's more of the same, covered better & more honestly here. Notice, just for instance, Stinnett never mentions USN crypto was undermanned & had to decide what traffic was worth breaking & reading. TREKphiler hit me ♠ 03:02, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

Result in summary box

I have spent the last hour trying to find another battle entry with a similar "xyz won the battle, but we won the war" reported result. I have not had any success in that, though I must admit I keep getting distracted by actually reading full articles...

In any case, why is there such a gratuitous comment about strategic and grand strategic failures on this page? This page is supposed to be about the battle of Pearl Harbour, and when it comes to the battle of Pearl Harbour the only thing to be debated is if to include the word "decisive" to describe the Japanese victory (probably not, only because the carriers wernt home at the time). The battle itself was by no means a strategic or grand strategic failure.

Id love for someone to explain to me why I am completely wrong, but at the moment it reads to me like we have some US authors using the outcome of the war to wash over the otherwise catastrophic defeat this battle represented (on the basis of losses inflicted). Jaimaster (talk) 02:36, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

Well, to begin with, I'm not a U.S. editor, so no bias that direction.
It was a strategic failure because IJN didn't achieve its planned result, neutralizing the PacFlt. Neutralized fleets don't place significant units in enemy home waters within 3 wks of being "devestated", nor take part in two major fleet actions 6 mo or so later. PacFlt did all 3: Joe Grenfell's Archerfish was in Empire Waters by 25/12, & U.S. CVs fought at Coral Sea in 5/42 & Midway 6/42.
It was a grand strategic failure because it brought the U.S. into war with Japan that led to Japan's complete destruction as an Asian power, the exact opposite of its intent.
"otherwise catastrophic defeat" That's a common fiction. It wasn't anything like "catastrophic", per above, & the really crucial targets, which would have made it a "catastrophic defeat", were completely ignored by IJN, in planning & execution.
Did I miss anything? TREKphiler hit me ♠ 07:09, 29 August 2008 (UTC)
Just these -
  • you disregard entire orthodox military thinking of the time, which followed that the pacific war if fought would be won by battleships
  • you apparently claim that the Japanese, through the attack on Pearl, thought they would stop submarines ("significant units") from reaching Japanese waters (Though, USS Archer-Fish was not even commissioned until 1943)
  • stating that the US would not have entered the pacific war had Japan not attacked Pearl - grossly unlikely given Japanese intentions in SE asia
  • You ignore the point of the discussion raised, asking why mention of strategic or grand strategic defeats is mentioned at all. This strikes me much like its namesake (terrible) movie did - "yes, we got smashed, but!".
Now, you are implying - through "grand strategic failure" - that the attack on Pearl lost Japan WW2. That makes little sense. The war was quite arguably either unwinnable from the start RE US industrial capacity or blown by a combination of Midway and an ineffective response to the US sub campaign. Either way the attack on Pearl was not a failure by any means at all. Disregarding any thought that the US might side with the British and the Dutch, American interests in SE Asia were also a part of the territory Japan planned to annex, so aught to be little question of "if" the war would have happened had the Japanese not hit Pearl - of course it would have.
Pearl at the time could only be considered a grand strategic success - according to the prevailing orthodoxy of battleship warfare, pacflt was decimated. The greater part of the battleship fleet was either sunk or out of action until 1944, and pacflt's ability to wage war down the lines of traditional doctrine was removed. Using the fact that the world was not yet aware that Carriers had already ended the reign of the battleship to paint the Japanese operation as a failure "because they missed the carriers" is absurd.
Finally, you also missed the actual point - "strategic grand failure" or not, it is not really appropriate in the result space of this page. This is page is about the battle of Pearl, not the result of WW2, and this "yes, but we won the war" result is not repeated anywhere else I have seen yet on wiki. Jaimaster (talk) 08:10, 29 August 2008 (UTC)
Just these?
  1. Archerfish. You're right. It was Joe Grenfell's Gudgeon, That's one for you... (Serves me right relying entirely on memory.)
  2. "you disregard entire orthodox military thinking of the time, which followed that the pacific war if fought would be won by battleships" No, I don't. This isn't being written in 1941. It's the perspective of now we use, like every other historiographer. And this issue has been raised, & settled, on this page long since.
  3. "the world was not yet aware that Carriers had already ended the reign of the battleship to paint the Japanese operation as a failure "because they missed the carriers" is absurd." Same answer.
  4. I make no claim for "the Japanese" thinking anything of the kind. You were the one who said there was "catastrophic defeat". And IJN ignored submarines at Pearl altogether, & for the duration proved incompetent to stop them. So did you, or do you mean to suggest 2 yr demo of the success of U-boats in the Atlantic shouldn't have given IJN just a tiny hint of the hazard? IJN managed to ignore it into 1944.... Oh, wait, that's the perspective of...1944. What did the "entire orthodox military thinking of the time" think about stopping U-boats? That it was damned hard work? I'd say RN & RCN, not to mention IJN, would have agreed, if asked...
  5. "stating that the US would not have entered the pacific war had Japan not attacked Pearl - grossly unlikely given Japanese intentions in SE asia" Wanna bet? U.S. public & Congressional opinion was strongly isolationist & indifferent to Japan, & absolutely opposed to becoming entangled in a war in defense of European colonies (read British).
  6. "the attack on Pearl lost Japan WW2" Yep. She started it (well, the PacWar, anyhow). Had she attacked DEI & Malaya without hitting Pearl, there's half a chance she'd have made her barrier strategy work. British subs operating from Oz would have had all the disadvantages U.S. ones did. Balance it against IJN incompetence in ASW... We're well into OR or speculation, now. And there was slim damn chance IJN would have passed on attacking Pearl with IJA moving into DEI.
  7. "blown by a combination of Midway and an ineffective response to the US sub campaign" Leave Midway out of it. The Sub Force was perfectly capable of destroying Japan's merchant marine, turning Japan's island bases into traps & IJN ships into floating barracks, batteries, & a/c parks without reference to the airedales & blackshoes. It's not a popular view, mind you...
  8. "Pearl at the time could only be considered a grand strategic success"? Ridiculous. It was a grand strategic catastrophe. It started a war Japan couldn't win. Funny damn definition of "success". And you yourself offer 2 excellent reasons why it was a catastrophe--for Japan.
  9. "not really appropriate in the result space of this page" Since "decisive" was getting changed & reverted so often; since the definition of "decisive" is subjective; since some description of the result is appropriate; & since no other single battle, AFAIK, had such obvious implications for strategy & grand strategy, I invite you to explain it without mentioning "grand strategic failure".
Absent a better answer, I'd leave it in. TREKphiler hit me ♠ 09:51, 29 August 2008 (UTC)
I'd like to support Jaimaster on this one. I think the Pearl Harbor attack's strategic aim was to scare the US enough so they would agree to a kind of partitioning of spheres of influence. Therefore the military aspect of this strategy versus the US arguably ended when the Pearl Harbor attack was over and diplomacy could start. The fact that the US Pacific fleet would be out of action for a while so other places could be attacked, followed by a prolonged war against the US was AFAIK only a far less satisfactory option B. There wasn't really a grand strategic plan to destroy the entire US military or push for the capital. Therefore the Pearl Harbor attack was mostly a tactical case. In hindsight we can tell the US did not agree to any proposals made by the Japanese after the attack, but Pearl Harbor itself did not lead to the strategic defeat of the Japanese, because the main aim of the attack was political in nature. If we look at Operation Barbarossa it's a whole other story, here strategic military objectives were clearly not reached (which aimed at annihilation of the Red Army and the government in Moscow).
Actually the result part is a mess, isn't it strange to have as result the Japanese declaration of war? Due to circumstances it came later than the attack, but the causes for the declaration of war were clearly different. Additionally, Pearl Harbor did not directly result in the German/Italian declaration of war, there was no treaty or anything that would automatically trigger this. This was the case in the Invasion of Poland, and even in the article there it is not mentioned in the results part. It's all a kind of far-fetched causality. If the attack on Pearl Harbor resulted in the defeat of Japan, so does the Battle of Berlin or the Anti-Komintern pact, as that lead to the destruction of the Japanese army by the Soviets.
I propose: Result : Japanese tactical victory, United States join the Allies. "Clear" Japanese tactical victory is stupid as well (what's so clear about it if they missed the carriers?). Let's just keep it simple. Wiki1609 (talk) 23:06, 30 August 2008 (UTC)
"Japanese tactical victory" Ignoring the complete strategic & grand strategic disaster? That's a bit like calling Barbarossa a tactical victory, & ignoring the implications, & the fact it contributed immeasurably to Germany's defeat.
"I think the Pearl Harbor attack's strategic aim was to scare the US" That wasn't what the stated Japanese objective was: prevent USN interference until the barrier defense could be strengthened. Frightening the U.S. with casualties came later, when it became clear the barrier strategy was failing.
"Therefore the Pearl Harbor attack was mostly a tactical case." Not when it's main objective was strategic, nor when it's worst consequences for Japan were strategic & grand strategic.
"the main aim of the attack was political in nature. " Which was it, tactical or grand strategic? Can't have it both ways. I suggest it was an unquestionable grand strategic disaster for Japan.
"Pearl Harbor itself did not lead to the strategic defeat of the Japanese" Ridiculous. It started an unwinnable war. How didn't it "lead to the strategic defeat of the Japanese"?
"There wasn't really a grand strategic plan to destroy the entire US military or push for the capital." Which is relevant how? And which isn't grand strategy anyhow; grand strategy is the higher political objectives, like retaining control of Manchuria & French IndoChina.
"so does the Battle of Berlin or the Anti-Komintern pact, as that lead to the destruction of the Japanese army by the Soviets." Well, no. Neither led directly to the cited consequences. Absent the attack on Pearl, would the Battle of Berlin have led necessarily to the invasion of Manchuria? Not without a U.S. appeal for aid against Japan, I don't think. (I confess, I don't know if Stalin was planning it regardless.) Nor the Anti-Komintern Pact, absent Japanese aggression against the SU. Without the attack on Pearl, a Japanese attack on the SU was more likely, but by no means certain, & even then, it would probably have more closely resembled Nomonhan than August Storm. Also, you appear to be connecting the defeat of Germany inextricably with the defeat of Japan, which, I submit, is a mistake; they were connected only insofar as the resources to achieve the separate objectives governed. That is, until Germany was defeated, absent changing known events, Japan's defeat had to wait. If we permit (for instance) more concentrated U.S. sub attacks on SLOCs, the 2 are unconnected.
"In hindsight we can tell the US did not agree to any proposals made by the Japanese after the attack"? Since the Japanese proposals differed slightly, if at all, from those made before it, hindsight was scarcely required
"isn't it strange to have as result the Japanese declaration of war? " Agreed. The result should be something akin "a state of war resulted" (which is bad enough).
"Additionally, Pearl Harbor did not directly result in the German/Italian declaration of war, there was no treaty or anything that would automatically trigger this." Also agreed. This would, in addition, lay to rest the conspiracy theorists' contention it was causal, when it clearly wasn't. TREKphiler hit me ♠ 06:51, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

Alright, let's stop arguing for a sec, ok? Think neutrally. Is this article going to go from what the battle was at the time or will it analyze it after-the-fact or in hindsight? If it's the former, then it was a Japanese tactical victory, as the Japanese did what they intended to do (take all of the battleships out with minimal losses). If it's the latter, than it is obviously a "grand strategic disaster", as this is what killed the Japanese Axis in the end (with[out an attack on Pearl], and with Germany at one end of Russia, I think that they would have had a decent shot at taking out Russia...maybe). the_ed17 00:02, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

"the Japanese did what they intended to do" Actually, not. The plan was to take out the carriers, too.
"a decent shot at taking out Russia" Well, no. IJA was incompetent to take on the Red Army; it had nothing like an answer to the T-34. Japan would have been more like Italy, "rushing to the aid of the victorious". (Who said that?)
Having said that, historiography is traditionally from the modern POV, not contemporaneous with events. (And this has been raised, & I thought settled, long before now.) Otherwise, everything not known at the time would have to be deleted (& then we'd argue about who knew about the plans to attack, & when...). TREKphiler hit me ♠ 00:11, 1 September 2008 (UTC)
Lol, I had forgotten that.
But if Russia was rushing units to the west to try to slow Germany (and then (another assumption) they actually take Stalingrad due to the Japanese attacking...and with Russia having to mobilize forces to the west and east...even if the eastern front mauled the Japanese, that would still drain resources from the war effort on the other side...only so many T-34's to go around!) I changed my comment above also--without an attack on Pearl, they would have been able to invade Russia, as they would have had many more troops 'to spare'. and I meant the Axis....=)
I did not know that; I had not seen that previous argument...my apologies.
I agree with Trekphiler then, with Pearl being a "grand strategic disaster" for the Axis. the_ed17 00:27, 1 September 2008 (UTC)
  • No apologies needed. Unless you've been watching the page awhile, you wouldn't necessarily know. And you didn't just go change it without knowing, which I've seen...
  • "if Russia was rushing units to the west" That's a common myth (& 1 I used to believe until, oh, 2-3 days ago... ;D ). It's clarified here. (Scroll down a bit.) SU mobilization was far & away more important. There were also some 20 div held in Siberia, which would've had organic T-34s (or BT-7s, which were still better than anything IJA had, & well able to resist the best IJA AT), which obviates the risk of IJA invasion. See this again. Even given the 3:1 edge, I suspect it would've been a debâcle comparable to Nomonhan. (Ask Paul Siebert here if you want to know more.) TREKphiler hit me ♠ 00:49, 1 September 2008 (UTC)
Just back to the actual point, and the real meat of the argument against including this "strategic and grand strategic failure" - to quote your response Trekphiler
  1. "not really appropriate in the result space of this page" Since "decisive" was getting changed & reverted so often; since the definition of "decisive" is subjective; since some description of the result is appropriate; & since no other single battle, AFAIK, had such obvious implications for strategy & grand strategy, I invite you to explain it without mentioning "grand strategic failure".
I would submit that pandering to the local majority POV is not the correct way to go about building an unbiased encyclopedic history entry, and that such pandering is probably part of what led to this page losing its FA status (according to the discussion log it was delisted partly because of POV issues). Obviously I am not going to keep blasting away at this or make a change if the consensus is set on keeping the status quo, but based on -
  • The battle itself being essentially a one sided massacre
  • not being able to find another instance on wiki that reproduces the "xyz victory, BUT" style of result reporting
I have to say I still dont understand why you would support the current wording as an unbiased editor, especially regarding the second point. If it was a compromise to essentially end an edit war by an army of pro-US pov pushers then that still doesnt make it right, IMO. Jaimaster (talk) 02:32, 2 September 2008 (UTC)
"pro-US pov"? "pandering"? I don't see it, & I certainly don't subscribe to it. As for it being a sole example, I can only say I don't know of another case of a single battle having such wide-ranging impact. Ignoring that is POV, too, IMO. And it's a mistake regardless.
"edit war" As I understand it, it was over whether "decisive" applied or not, given its wider implications. I don't think it does, as noted.
"delisted" I don't think this single change is going to make a huge difference to FA status/not. I imagine there were other issues in the delisting... TREKphiler hit me ♠ 15:16, 2 September 2008 (UTC)
Re wide ranging impact. Battle of Britain. If the royal airforce had been destroyed and the royal navy forced away from the channel thus allowing the invasion of GBR, what then? Battle of Moscow. If the SU had lost and subsequently collapsed as the Germans believed it would, could the allies have ever liberated western europe? I found another page that mentions "strategic failure" btw. Operation Barbarossa. Pearl wasnt even close to the same scale as Barbarossa of course, given one is a single battle and the other a multi million man military offensive.
Re delisted. "Probably part of". Id imagine there were other issues contributed as well, given thats implied by what I said.
Im still not seeing any reason to label the battle of pearl harbour - notice this page is about the battle, not the war - as a strategic or grand strategic failure. The battle of Pearl did not lose the war for the axis. Jaimaster (talk) 03:25, 3 September 2008 (UTC)
"Battle of Britain" Well, no. Britain was already at war, German victory did not bring Britain in nor defeat take Germany out, nor did it have any appreciable effect on Hitler's decision to invade the SU. Nor did it require RAF be destroyed, BTW, just Fighter Command be sufficiently repressed for Seelöwe. Nor did it have any influence on RN, which you presume follows from German victory over FC; it doesn't. Neither does victory in the BoB assure the success of Seelöwe by any means. Compare HUSKY, which might deserve to have a "grand strategic" reference, for its effect on Italy.
"what then? Battle of Moscow" That's so obviously wrong, it scarcely deserves comment. Germany lost the Battle & Barbarossa went ahead regardless. How does victory change that?
"Operation Barbarossa" Your admission it's not a single attack nor a single battle undermines your own argument.
"any reason to label the battle" You can't separate the battle from its larger context, IMO. Doing so is distorting the perspective & functionally deceptive. It isn't quite a lie, but a half-truth by concealment.
"The battle of Pearl did not lose the war for the axis" I never said so. It did lead to the utter defeat of Japan, destruction of Japanese power in Asia, & expansion of Soviet/Communist influence into Korea, Vietnam, & PRC... TREKphiler hit me ♠ 04:57 & 04:59, 3 September 2008 (UTC)
??? Your comments are themselves "so obviously wrong" it makes my head spin. BoB was initiated with the objective of supressing the RN so Sealion could proceed. For the luftwaffe to push the RN away from the channel, air superiority had to be established. Thus the BoB commences. If Moscow had fallen, would the USSR have fallen with it? You claim to know the answer to that question is no based on what, that historically Moscow didnt fall? How exactly does my stating Barbarossa is not a single battle (compared to Pearl, which was) undermining my argument that battles aught not be labelled with "strategic" or "grand strategic" results? Is it because you had no other answer and just thought youd say "haha, undermining youself" and see what happened?
The Battle of Pearl led not only to the utter defeat of Japan, but to Soviet influence over SE asia? Im sorry, but you have long since lost sight of this tree for the forest. The battle of pearl harbour led to the sinking of nearly the entire pacflt surface strike force and brought the USA into the war for the allies, no more, no less. Implying anything else is OR based on conjecture and supposition and is akin to claiming that the allies could not have won WW2 without US military involvement. Jaimaster (talk) 23:59, 3 September 2008 (UTC)
I know this is the Pearl Harbor page, but a point of order: BoB was instigated not to invade Britain but to cause Britain to sue for peace. Sealion was not much more than posturing--there wasn't enough kit in the water nor enough potential boots on barges to make it succeed. Binksternet (talk) 06:56, 4 September 2008 (UTC)
I beg to differ. Battle of Britain states that Sealion would have followed had BoB been successful for Germany, then notes below that the opinion of "some historians" follows what you have said. If that article is correctly written per WP:WEIGHT your statement is regarded a minority opinion. Jaimaster (talk) 22:14, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

<--Bink, as I see it, it makes no difference, since the result was not achieved, & failure did not end the conflict with Germany. Neither did it have any influence on the decision to invade Russia, which was made before the BoB officially ended & would have gone ahead in any event. (I'll leave aside its effects on GAF strength.) Nor is this the place to argue that; we've got quite enough on our plate now.

"BoB was initiated with the objective of supressing the RN" That is ridiculous. It was in no way designed to influence RN, let alone "suppress" it. Read this again, for a start.

Barbarossa? Pearl Harbor is a single operation, a single battle. Barbarossa isn't. Comparing its effects is apples & oranges. QED. I maintain this is a special case needing special treatment. I do not argue against including the same for Barbarossa, but that argument isn't one to have here.

Absent defeat of Japan, & destruction of Japanese power, which are a product of the defeat, there'd have been no Sov invasion of Manchuria, no Korean or Vietnam wars, no ChiCom victory in ROC. You want to talk about effects? Those are some of them, some of the grand strategic products of the battle. Or perhaps geopolitical ones. I'll retract them, if you prefer, but they're far from "OR based on conjecture and supposition". These are widely accepted by historiographers in the area. Where do you think I found them? (No, I'm not going to spend the effort to recall every book I've read on the subject to find which ones mentioned it just so I can demonstrate it to you. For a start, tho, have a look at Lee Chae-Jin's The Korean War: 40-Year Perspectives.) TREKphiler hit me ♠ 22:31, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

Assuming Sealion was real and not a scare ploy, BoB was directly aimed at removing the RN from the channel. Telling me to reread the article that says so is an interesting attempt to prove your point. Ill even quote from it for you -

Even so, there was little the weakened Kriegsmarine could do to stop the Royal Navy intervening against the invasion. The only alternative was to use the Luftwaffe's dive bombers, which required air superiority in order to operate effectively. Although Hitler agreed with Raeder, he nevertheless ordered all services to make preparations for an amphibious assault once air superiority had been achieved.

The BoB was launched with the intention of gaining air supremacy over the RAF in order to allow the Luftwaffe to stop RN interference in Sealion, so it follows that the ultimate goal of the BoB for Germany was to negate the RN. Im not sure what exactly you are basing this idea that my point is "rediculous", given you have not chosen at all to explain it.
RE Barbarossa, you appear to have completely misunderstood why I even mentioned it. I mentioned it because it is the only other page I have found so far on wiki that mentions strategic results, and stated I thought that was appropriate given it refers to an entire (strategic) military campaign, where PH is only a single (tactical) battle. I guess we disagree on PH being a "special case".
RE destruction of Japanese power in SE asia, you assume in this case that absent the attack on PH that Japan would have done what? Nothing, and let both its economy and imperial ambitions disintergrate under trade embargo? Attack SE asia, take the Dutch and Commonwealth holdings there, leave the Phillipeans and hope the US stayed neutral? Perhaps, but how likely was the US to remain isolationist under those circumstances? In any case, with Japan allied to Germany and at war with England, what chance is there that the war merely ends when the USSR has conquered western europe? Would Japan and the UK been able to come to some kind of peace agreement? Would the USSR not have taken its immense mobilised army, backed now by the entire industrial capacity of occupied Germany and its annexed territories, east under some pretext of "supporting its fraternal communist allies" in China? The Japanese and the Russians were not exactly on friendly terms.
Under the scenario that they did, Japanese power could have been completely broken in any case and the statement that "Pearl led to soviet influence over SE asia" becomes "Pearl led to the Soviets not completely occupying western europe and SE asia". That Pearl led to anything other than the US officially entering WW2 and the sinking of most of Pacflt's battleship force is completely based on "whatif", not really an appropriate basis for a statement of fact such as "PH was a grand strategic failure". Jaimaster (talk) 02:26, 5 September 2008 (UTC)
"Assuming Sealion was real" That's completely irrelevant, because BoB doesn't meet the criteria for bringing in, or taking out, major combatants.
"alternative was to use the Luftwaffe's dive bombers, which required air superiority" Yes, & BoB was designed to achieve it. GAF DBs hadn't the capacity to harm RN BBs & CCs in 8-9/40; they didn't have APs able to penetrate the deck armor.
Barbarossa. You're right, I have misunderstood. I stand by including here, even so.
"destruction of Japanese power" Ignore it, if you prefer. The issue isn't the effect after Japan is defeated, but after Japan attacks. There is no question that was a complete & utter grand strategic disaster, & I know of no historiographer who thinks otherwise. Except, perhaps, you.
"absent the attack on PH" Not really an issue, but presume a Japanese attack into DEI. "how likely was the US to remain isolationist"? No way to tell with certainty (that's as much "what if" as speculating over "aid to fraternal allies"), but recall, Britain proper had been under attack since 9/39 with FDR unable to move Congress to active support (i.e., a declaration of war); given the inclination to "avoid foreign entanglements", especially over colonies, I'm willing to bet it would've been a fair bit longer. Also, recall Japan had been actively at war with ROC since, oh, 1931, without Congress, or the U.S. public, much giving a damn...& not a huge amount of movement from general indifference. By over 70% (from the numbers I've seen), polling supported doing "something" to aid China, but not if it meant war (so over 60% of those polled didn't really understand the issue...) You're falling into the same trap Japanese leaders did, presuming U.S. & Britain were inseparable, or the one the conspiracy theorists do, presuming events must go as they did historically. Neither is supportable. IJN, at least, had an excuse: they didn't want to lose out to IJA. What's yours?
"Would the USSR not have taken its immense mobilised army...."? Well, maybe. Or maybe not. It's not like there'd been no aid to the ChiComs before 1949. It strikes me the Sovs were at least a little concerned about world opinion, because they tried to keep it quiet in the '30s. Even if Japan & SU "were not exactly on friendly terms", SU had overawed the Japanese into quietude, which sufficed. Why stir up trouble? Furthermore, a Red Army move into Manchuria or metro ROC might have gotten Congress off the dime. So might the Red Army crossing the Rhine, given the threat to U.S. financial interests if Britain & France actually fell to Communism (which was, don't forget, a major reason, if not the sole one, for U.S. aid to them in both WWs).
"That Pearl led to anything other than the US officially entering WW2" You seem incapable of grasping that's precisely the point. Japan attacked from a mistaken belief & so brought about her own destruction. Whether this was a correct decision, whether there was another option (quite aside a better or more likely one), is irrelevant to the fact it was done & led to the stated consequence.
I'm perfectly prepared to ignore any postwar implications in this debate, because it doesn't bear on the central issue: was Japan's attack on PH a strategic/grand strategic mistake, & does that deserve inclusion? So far, the only argument against it I've seen is, "it's not on any other page" (yet you admit, it is on Barbarossa, so that appears mistaken). I want a better reason, given the ramifications of the attack on the war at large: "led the US officially entering WW2", of itself, bears inclusion beyond "tactical victory", because that is most assuredly not a tactical effect, nor a "victory" for Japan. TREKphiler hit me ♠ 18:57, 5 September 2008 (UTC)
This is becoming very draining. It is my opinion that the article and its sub articles are extremely POV, and that this is one small aspect of the POV push. The *facts* are that no other single battle is listed with "strategic" results and that the battle itself was in no way a failure for the Japanese. Both these should exclude "strategic and grand strategic failure", but if you cant follow this logic after a few thousand words back and forth, whats the point? Im almost tempted to make the edit on a 0RR commitment and ask you to not to be the one to revert it, to see if anyone else will be drawn to weigh in on either side. Jaimaster (talk) 07:31, 18 September 2008 (UTC)
You seem to be the only one who thinks it's POV.
You seem to be the only one who thinks changing the effects to minimize the evident damage (raising BBs, as noted) isn't (pro-Japan) POV. (I'd take out the salvage section as OT, not for POV reasons.)
You seem to be the only one who can't grasp the strategic implications are a direct result of the attack.
You are the only one (AFAIK) who thinks "the battle itself was in no way a failure for the Japanese". That is a preposterous position, contrary to all the historiography I've seen on the subject, quite aside ignoring everything I've said about it on this page.
You seem incapable of articulating an actual reason to change it, beyond "not anywhere else", while (as far as I can tell) dismissing the reasons that support including it as "POV" or (in some fashion I don't see) irrelevant.
I remain confused (if not conflicted) about how an attack that starts a war should have its strategic & grand strategic implications, which are enormous, be completely ignored in favor of reference to a tactical outcome which is, by omission, POV. It strikes me a bit like describing the assassination of Franz Ferdinand as "murder" & entirely omitting mention of Princip or WW1. ("Flash! Franz Ferdinand alive! World War fought by mistake!")
You seem further determined to have included a POV this wasn't a disaster for Japan, so no, I won't let that stand. TREKphiler hit me ♠ 09:22, 18 September 2008 (UTC)
I have no problem with this article's listing of grand strategic failure as a result, even though no other Wikipedia battle article uses this wording in the infobox. Boatloads of historians have concluded that Pearl Harbor was a vast and far-reaching failure at the state level. We are using historians as our references, so the mainstream opinion will be strongly represented here. Binksternet (talk) 16:33, 18 September 2008 (UTC)
Trekphiler, back at you I guess - until today as the only one replying (until Bink, above), thus at the time of writing your last message you were apparently the only one who did not think this is a POV push. You seem to think the sinking of the entire pacific battle line was nothing more than a footnote to the fact that the carriers were missed, despite the Battleships being the primary target, in line with the naval doctrine of the time. You appear to be under the impression that the Axis could not have won the war once the US was militarily involved, and appear to have read exclusively from American military histories that agree with these suppositions. You choose to completely ignore the concept of encyclopedic consistency, dismissing it as "irrelevant". Japanese historians would say the attack on Pearl Harbour did not start a war - and that US trade embargos already had. Anyway, do you suppose WW1 would not have happened had Franz not died? Surely you understand that WW1 was coming regardless and Franz was ultimately little more than the disturbance caused by the wings of a butterfly toppling the first domino?
How is "clear Japanese tactical victory. US declares war on Japan. Germany and Italy delcare war on the US" POV, and where do you supposed this has been "admitted"? It is the simple facts, which is all this article aught to report. The rest is supposition based on very strange assumptions and the idea that the US entry into WW2 was the absolute war-winner for the allies. I am sure Russian historians and the battles of Moscow and Stalingrad might choose to disagree.
If Britain and Russia had fallen (both could have) then the US would have been facing German domination of Europe and Japanese domination of Asia. How then would Pearl have been a "strategic and grand strategic failure"? Your entire argument seems based on taking the concept of history is written by the victor and calling it "NPOV".
Blink, historians or American historians? Jaimaster (talk) 00:47, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

<--"POV push"? I repeat, I don't see it. An objective view acknowledges the failures, too.

"battle line was a footnote" It wasn't the sole target, nor the only important target, & refusing to mention (or ignoring) what was missed by claiming "tactical victory" against "grand strategic disaster" is dishonest. Not to mention confusing for the casual reader.The Japanese were allegedly smart enough to group their CVs & place emphasis on CVTFs, yet BBs were more important? Failing to even target infrastructure was smart, & "clear victory" (& watch somebody change it to "decisive" in a heartbeat)? Failing to follow through on express orders, & thus missing CVs (aside the tank farms & Sub Base), was "clear victory"? And it's not "the naval doctrine of the time" that governs, it's the view of history. We know now the BBs were just a footnote, & writing as if we don't is dishonest (especially for the less-informed). You don't call that POV? I do. Also, if that's the stance you want (which is completely contrary to traditional historiography), we also have to take out everything that wasn't known at the time, & then there's an issue of who know what, & when.

"You appear to be under the impression that the Axis could not have won the war once the US was militarily involved" This has damn all to do with Axis defeat, or victory. It has everything to do with Japanese defeat. And once IJN attacked Pearl, Japan's defeat was a certainty. Leave off Coral Sea, Midway, Guadalcanal, Saipan, Iwo Jima, Okinawa, & don't even mention the Philippines debate. IJN was incompetent to defend Japanese SLOCs. QED.

Leave off connection to German/Italian declaration of war. There's no causal link, leaving it out would discourage conspiracy nuts, I don't believe there was one, & AFAIK, I never suggested different.

"If Britain and Russia had fallen" Slim damn chance Germany could, would, defeat Russia with Hitler in charge, or it would have happened in Summer/Fall '41. Instead, a panzer army marched 800km for nothing & von Paulus got trapped in Stalingrad. And given how bad Luftwaffe intel was, the chances of defeating FC was pretty slim, too. Nor does it make a damn bit of difference here. This is about the attack on Pearl, not Barbarossa or BoB or anything else.

"The rest is supposition based on very strange assumptions and the idea that the US entry into WW2 was the absolute war-winner for the allies." Say what? The strategic/grand strategic impact I'm talking about, as noted, is the effect on Japan. Where did I say anything else? (Except on pure speculation.) You've been the one trying to connect Germany, Italy, Britain, Russia, & whoever else. "Russian historians" have damn all to say about the effect of Pearl Harbor that's relevant. And AFAIK, I never said Russia wouldn't, or couldn't, defeat Germany alone (which is about what actually happened). That's also completely irrelevant to the Pacific theatre. (Unless you really believe the invasion of the Kuriles was absolutely essential to the ultimate defeat of Japan.)

"encyclopedic consistency" Huh? "Japanese historians would say the attack on Pearl Harbour did not start a war" And you claim I'm pushing POV? There was no declaration of war by either party in connection with "US trade embargos". Japanese perception does not control.

"the US would have been facing German domination of Europe and Japanese domination of Asia"? That is based on astonishing speculation bordering on fantasy. The chances of German victory over SU, given Hitler, were miniscule. (And you suggested Russian historiographers might disagree with a position I never raised.) The chances of Japanese victory over the U.S. were near zero, even given U.S. (historical) involvement in Europe; presuming Hitler's not an idiot & doesn't declare war on the U.S. (more speculation), Japan's chances evaporate. And I really doubt the ROCs would simply roll over & die...

"How is 'clear Japanese tactical victory'" POV? Because it's not clear? Because it's not a tactical operation? Because it's not a clear victory? Because it's a strategic bungle? Because it's grand strategic hara kiri? Because you're the only one (or, at least, one of a tiny minority) who thinks it is "clear Japanese tactical victory'? Because you're trying to whitewash what a colossal mistake it was? Who wrote it has damn all to do with whether it's NPOV. Or do you genuinely believe a professional historian is incapable of understanding facts & presenting them honestly? Find me one historiographer who doesn't think it was tantamount to suicide. (Leave off the loons like Stinnett, who I would question if he said the sky was blue; he's so busy pushing his own POV he can't recognize a fact when it bites him.) TREKphiler hit me ♠ 10:36, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

RE "Clear victory" - The "clear victory" is the sinking a large number of important ships, killing of thousands of sailors (who would have been among the best the US had) and destroying a couple hundred planes in exchange for a few bombers, suicide midget subs and 60 of your own dead. I really dont see how it could be reported anything else.
RE "damn all to do with the Axis" - No, it has everything to do with the Axis. When Japan attacked at PH, the US DoW'd Japan. As a result of this the Axis DoW'd the US, even though its treaty obligations were mutual defence, not offense. Had the Axis won in europe the US would have done what, persued the war with Japan and ignored a Hitler-controlled europe? You support the label "grand strategic failure" because "Japan's defeat was certain" after PH - making this a very relevant question, as one that undermines the concept of "certain Japanese defeat". Accordingly, Japanese defeat was not "certain" in 1941, as overall Axis defeat was far from certain, and Japan was a part of the Axis.
RE "encyclopedic consistency" - battles on wiki do not have "strategic" results listed. This one does. This is not consistent, something I pointed out that you dismissed as irrelevant. The rest of your comments in that paragraph are representative of your broader negative argument style to date - construct an unrelated straw man, demolish it, then claim it validates your position - which is quite strange, since there isnt alot to "win" in this "debate".
Do you really believe the possability of German victory in Europe to be "mere fantasy"? Thats as incredible as it is patently wrong. I like how you challange me to find "one historgrapher who disagrees with PH being suicide" then suggest one yourself and immediately call him a looney. Obviously there is no middle ground to be found between the two of us. I am going to do what I proposed above - WP:BOLD and change it to what I think is NPOV - and request that you dont be either the person to revert it or canvass for its reversion. If it is reverted by a third party I will not make the edit again, nor continue discussing it here. Personally I think its the best compromise we are going to find. Jaimaster (talk) 01:21, 22 September 2008 (UTC)
Thanks to The Ed 17, who claims "if they dont attack they dont have A-Bombs dropped on them!". Outstanding analysis there. Now I can leave it be in peace. Jaimaster (talk) 02:04, 22 September 2008 (UTC)
You are welcome. Seriously now, how about I elaborate. The Japanese don't attack Pearl. Suddenly, their economy isn't ruined by '45. No radiation there from the A-bombs. No __ deaths (I don't know the number). Maybe no A-bombs at all (doubtful...)? They don't have their military smashed. They still have cities. You want more reasons? Ask Trekphiler.
What also happens if they don't attack Pearl? They hold on to China...that's all. Cheers, -talk- the_ed17 -contribs- 02:25, 22 September 2008 (UTC)
By using that as a support for including the strategic statements in this article, you draw a direct line from the battle of PH to the nuking of Hiroshima and Nagaski and, by effectively implying "A caused Z", accordingly claim that as soon as PH was bombed nothing could stop the A-bombing of H/N. This is the same "A caused Z, even though Z occurred years later and had many, many other inputs" logic Treph is using, and is exactly what I am arguing against. More important factors, such as a realisticly possible hypothetical where the USSR failed at Moscow 1941 and a reversal of the results of the Battle of Midway, would have made point Z (Japan follows the rest of the Axis and surrenders unconditionally to the allies) less likely to occur. The progress from A to Z was in fact affected by points B, C, D, E... and some of them far more so than A itself.
Are these hypotheticals "impossible" and therefor discountable? Wiki says Stalin evacutated Moscow on October 16, 1941, so we can safely assume he did not think so. What if Yammamoto had not messed up his positions at BoM and instead Japan had lost 1 carrier while sinking 3? Would PH be listed as a "grand strategic failure" then? If your answer is "maybe, depends on" then label does not belong - as it is an absolute statement along the lines of "PH alone caused Japan to lose the war" - where clearly it was just the first step. Jaimaster (talk) 04:16, 22 September 2008 (UTC)
You said "...as soon as PH was bombed nothing could stop the A-bombing of H/N"... That's a little too extreme. Nobody knew if the atomic bomb would be ready by then. However, the position of "nothing could stop the defeat of Japan after Pearl Harbor" has been argued successfully by historians. The US was ten times more powerful economically than Japan was in 1941. It was only a question of how much time it would take to amass the necessary military force to bring about their defeat. Binksternet (talk) 04:35, 22 September 2008 (UTC)
You (and they) are only looking at Japan vs the US, when the wider war was the Allies vs the Axis. At its peak the Axis hit a 1 : 1.5 GDP ratio with the allies, well and truelly winnable had the USSR collapsed and Germany gained its industrial capacity, causcaus oil and a land route to transfer supplies to Japan. The collapse of the USSR alone would have nearly equalised the industrial differences - and can you imagine D-day and the western front succeeding against 4-5 times the historical number of German troops in theater, equipped with a mix of Panzers and Russian-made T-34s? I cant. Could Germany have subsequently met huge production targets of V2 rockets (noting that biowarfare warheads for the V2 were in development in 1945) and forced England to sue for peace? Would the US have refused to agree to terms in such a world? So many what'ifs, and every one of them drives another nail into the position of "nothing could stop the defeat of Japan after Pearl Harbour". Jaimaster (talk) 06:34, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

(outdent) Bink, that's what I was trying to say, I just didn't know how to say it. Thanks! And Pearl Harbor was only between the U.S. and the Japanese! Pearl Harbor had nothing to do with Europe, unless you want to go well and far indepth....saying that Germany would not attack the U.S.S.R. w/o Pearl etc....and by the way, was their even a chance of the U.S.S.R. falling? The winter would have killed many German soldiers regardless of them winning one or two more battles...why? The Russians burned everything as they moved back, so the Germans would have had little or no shelter regardless of how you put it. Anyway, I agree with Bink. -talk- the_ed17 -contribs- 13:28, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

"clear victory" "I really dont see how it could be reported anything else" It can only be reported as only "clear victory" if you limit to the tactical success, which you've failed utterly to persuade me is an appropriate measure, given its explicitly strategic objectives, never mind whether other WP articles mention "strategic" or "grand strategic". And, as noted, this is a special case.
"one historiographer" Yes, one that can be taken seriously. Stinnett doesn't qualify. Do you have one besides him? Someone who's actually worth considering? I don't see one.
"damn all to do with the Axis" Unless & until Germany declares war on the U.S., it makes no difference. And "ignored a Hitler-controlled europe"? Congress had managed to do exactly that for two years, already. What had changed? "You (and they) are only looking at Japan vs the US" Because there is no connection to Germany, absent the one Hitler initiated. As I noted above, you're falling in the same trap as the conspiracy nuts, presuming it had to happen the way it did. This is nothing like certain.
"Do you really believe the possability of German victory in Europe to be "mere fantasy"?" Yes, given Hitler remains in charge. It was Hitler's stupid decisions that led materially, even directly, to German defeat in Europe. (Attacking Russia, for a start, then bungling the job, not to mention declaring war on the U.S. Which wasn't a treaty requirement, despite what you may have heard.
"The Japanese don't attack Pearl. Suddenly, their economy isn't ruined by '45. No radiation there from the A-bombs. Maybe no A-bombs at all (doubtful...)? They don't have their military smashed. They still have cities." Ed, exactly right on all counts. Except the A-bomb, which would've been developed anyhow (it was started with Germany in mind). Absent the use on Japan, it's been postulated (& I think it's likely) they'd have been used in the '50s when Stalin gambled on the West not standing up to him. A fight over Berlin's my guess, given no Sov invasion of Manchuria & occupation of Korea in aid of the U.S. in '45.
"What if Yammamoto had not messed up his positions at BoM and instead Japan had lost 1 carrier while sinking 3? Would PH be listed as a "grand strategic failure" then?" Yes, because it started a war Japan was incapable of winning. Pay attention. IJN ASW was incompetent. I submit (a minority opinion, to be sure, tho I'll bet Blair would agree) the Sub Force could have brought Japan's economy & IJN to a standstill before 1/45 absent any other action. Had Nimitz (or English & Lockwood) not detailed so many boats to close surveillance & those stupid missions to support "MacArthur's guerrillas", & had all the boats in PTO been based at Pearl, it wouldn't even have taken that long.
Stalin evacuated Moscow". Well, he managed to go back soon enough. Prudence isn't evidence of defeat, & at the time, it made sense to get out of the way. Now (& it's the view from now we're talking about), it's pretty clear German defeat was a foregone conclusion, absent the death (or assassination) of Hitler.
"as soon as PH was bombed nothing could stop the A-bombing of H/N" That's purely conjectural, too. How much latitude do I have? With more pressure from Nimitz (or less stupidity prewar), the maru code is recovered sooner (or in hand at war's start), which increases the effectiveness of the Sub Force substantially, bringing Japan's economy to a halt (equal 1/45) sometime around 8/44. With more pressure from Lockwood, the Mk XIV fiasco gets cleared up sooner; is a year too much, out of the 21mo it took historically? That ought to bring war's end close to the end of '43/early '44. Add in moving the Oz boats to Pearl, & changes in dispositons & targeting priorities, I can picture IJN immobilized for lack of fuel before then, say by the time of Saipan (11/43?). The fall of Saipan brings down the Japanese government, the new government puts out peace feelers thru SU, MAGIC picks them up (as historically), Hull argues for terms, Stimson argues for turning Japan into a parking lot, FDR argues for shooting MacArthur & blaming Stalin (or maybe not) & decides to set up His Egoness as quasi-shogun, surrender terms are arranged in 12/43, Germany is defeated (following AVALANCHE & NEPTUNE in May 1943 & the clearing of the Scheldt Estuary in July) around 12/43. The development of the Bomb is quietly dropped, so FDR doesn't have to explain spending over $2 billion on it, & he dies in 1948, after the crushing defeat of Henry Wallace by Thomas Dewey. And Alice Kramden becomes first woman on the Moon. (Or maybe not.)
To deal with the major "what if"
"At its peak the Axis hit a 1 : 1.5 GDP ratio" Not for anything like a substantial period. U.S. GDP exceeded all the Axis powers combined.
"had the USSR collapsed" I call the odds of that slim, given Hitler's meddling.
"and can you imagine D-day and the western front succeeding against 4-5 times the historical number of German troops in theater" Depends on when your mooted SU collapse is, doesn't it? Am I allowed to remove the stupid decisions made in North Africa (in particular the clearing of Tunisia) & eliminate the Italian campaign, if the SU looks like falling, to put D-Day in May 1943?
"Could Germany have subsequently met huge production targets of V2 rockets"? No. That's a fantasy. Production of mass # V-1s, mind you... And the prospect of sub-launched V-1s into NYC, Boston, Halifax... Followed by inevitable retaliation by U.S. A-bombs on Berlin... Oh, BTW, how do you intend to achieve any of this without removing Hitler, first? 'Cause that's the biggie.
None of this, however, bears on Japan.
"the best compromise" That's not a compromise. That's you imposing your own POV because you can't, or won't, find middle ground. TREKphiler hit me ♠ 18:08, 22 September 2008 (UTC) (P.S. FYI, I'm doing all this from memory.)
Hmmm good points on the A-bombs....I'll concede that point, it makes sense that, in Jaimaster's words, A=>Z needs B=>Y.....but regardless of how you look at it, Japan was doomed from the moment the first planes dropped a torpedoes in Pearl, aiming for the BB's...why is this? Maybe because the U.S. had a lot more manufacturing capability than Japan...if I remember right, didn't the U.S. produce more planes in '43 (or was it '44?) than Japan did in the entire war? The only way Japan has a chance is if Britain falls and Germany doesn't invade the U.S.S.R...then shipments to Japan could go around through the Indian Ocean without being harassed....heck, with that neutrality treaty, maybe even through the U.S.S.R. to China (if Hitler had become sane enough to do all of this, of course.) -talk- the_ed17 -contribs- 18:40, 22 September 2008 (UTC)
Doomed? You definitely got that right. Caidin makes a cogent point (Zero, IIRC): it wasn't that Japan was defeated that was the mystery, it was "Why did it take so damn long?" I've mentioned a few reasons. And without figures at hand, I'd take this with caution, but IIRC, U.S. a/c production in 8/44 alone topped all Japan's for the duration, & '44 topped all Germany's. (Bear in mind, '44 was a peak year, tho, & production by 9-10/44 was already beginning to ramp down.) Also, bear in mind (a perennial caveat for me) raw # don't tell the whole story. U.S. prod around 20K B-24s; by weight of material (the usual std in a/c ind), that's about equal to 50K G4Ms.
"The only way Japan has a chance". That's the best argument I've seen yet. It gets to the heart of it. Then we have to address U.S. misjudgments over the oil embargo & whether that would've pushed Japan to attack the U.S. regardless. I've a suspicion there were people at State who really didn't get it, when they bumped the embargo to one as hard as it was. Deliberate? I don't know. Stupid? You better believe it. We'd also have to address IJA/IJN interagency politics, which were a major factor, IMO.
As noted, the chance of Hitler deciding not to invade SU are up there with winning the lottery & getting hit by lightning.
My fave what if is one where Chiang makes a deal with the Japanese & they get together & crush Mao's CCP, while the Germans turn Russians against Stalin & LeMay nukes Kuibishev to start the 3d Rus Revolution. Of course, I'm a Cold War kid.... TREKphiler hit me ♠ 19:34, 22 September 2008 (UTC)
It took so long because the U.S. concentrated on Hitler, poring a great many resources into the Atlantic side.
Yeah, Hitler did want to be the Napoleon who succeeded....though at least Napoleon is/was loved. and didn't send people of a certain race/religion/ethnic group to prison/concentration/death/[insert politically correct word(s) here] camps to die...
Why would Chiang make a deal with people who were murdering his people (the Niaking Massacre (sp.), for one...) -talk- the_ed17 -contribs- 19:47, 22 September 2008 (UTC)
"concentrated on Hitler" That's the common view. (I held it once, too.) Around the time of Shoestring, there were more U.S. troops in PTO than E/MTO. When you look at the gaffes in the U.S. subwar (which I'm convinced was the decider) & around MacArthur, plus the screwup of the P-38 program, I think it's much more that (or things like it) Caidin had in mind.
Chiang considered Mao a greater threat to ROC than the Japanese; I'd bet he didn't take the same view to the general ROC population we do (in a Confucian system, it's the nation that comes first, not the people), so this is less an issue; & considering the (1963?) famine under the CCP & the havoc of the Great Leap Forward, I'm inclined to think Chiang was right. TREKphiler hit me ♠ 20:06, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

AEB

(Another Edit Break). From the top.

  • "tactical victory" and "strategic" success - the strategic aim of the attack was to prevent US interference in Japanese expansion into SE Asia. Historically the US navy did not interfere with Japanese expansion into SE Asia - implying strategic success. In any case the argument to date for strategic failure is not that Japan failed in its goals in the battle, but that the battle started a war that it could not win.
  • "serious histographer" - does this mean histographer who agrees with my opinion? I am wondering what exactly qualifies one professional histographer as "serious" and the other as not. Sounds to me like the sort of ad hominem pillory attack youd expect at talk:Global_Warming.
  • "damn all to do with the Axis" - the defeat of Japan was tied in to the defeat of Germany within four days of Pearl Harbour, when Germany and Italy declared war on the USA. If Germany won europe, the US could certainly have still eliminated Japan from the war - at the cost of exposing Britain to a revisited Sealion.
  • "Your falling into the same trap as the conspiracy nuts - presuming it had to happen the way it did" NO! I am accusing you of exactly this - presuming Japan would be defeated because it was, presuming the USSR would survive because it did, presuming that Hitler would forever ignore his general staff because he did.
  • declaring war on the US wasnt a treaty requirement, despite what you may have heard - Ill quote myself from yesterday for you - As a result of this the Axis DoW'd the US, even though its treaty obligations were mutual defence, not offense.
  • Exactly Ed. Right on all counts - "A caused Z" is amazingly shallow analysis for someone otherwise so invested in the topic. I like your hypothosised A-Bomb scenario here though, it is my opinion that the nuking of Japan was more directed as a demonstration of the weapon to the USSR than anything to do with forcing a Japanese surrender. Indeed it is the opinion of many that the A-Bombs did not significantly influence the decision to surrender anyway.
  • It started a war Japan was incapable of winning. Pay attention. IJN ASW was incompetent - initially so was US sub warfare. You mention yourself the problem with the mark 14 torpedo proximity exploders, and that the US was very slow to realise that it could strangle Japan with submarines alone. For the record I agree with your minority opinion - the sub force could have strangled Japan by itself - but only with Pearl intact, and only with BoM destroying the bulk of the IJN's carrier fleet. Remember, I have hypothetically reversed the tactical results of Midway. The US has Saratoga in drydock in San Franciso as the only Pacflt carrier left, while the Japanese sport five fleet units instead of one. The entire US surface battle line is still years from redeployment. Japan holds Midway Island. Next step - neutralising Pearl Harbour and isolating Australia, quite possible with 5 active carriers to none. The result - nearest US submarine base options become Ceylon or the east coast. Good luck with that.
  • It's pretty clear German defeat was a forgone conclusion, absent the death (or assasination) of Hitler. This colours your entire perception of the war. You said in a page you linked a couple of weeks ago here that "you dont know much about the eastern front" or words to that effect. It shows. The USSR was inches from catastrophic defeat more than once, hanging on by its teeth. As much as is made of the eventual Russian encirclement and destruction of a massive German army at Stalingrad, none of it would have been possible without one of the single most spectacular and important defences the world has ever seen. On that same page you compared Alamein to Stalingrad! An allied loss at Alamein would have caused problems, to be sure. A clear Russian defeat at Stalingrad would have meant the survival of the German army group B and it threatening the Caucasus oil fields and Urals industrial basin, where a huge portion of Soviet war industry had been was located to in 41. Comprehensive defeat at Stalingrad and a subsequent push could have put the USSR in an untenable situation. Africa was a street sideshow, comparatively.
  • Your alternate history hyopthetical puts noticably far too much weight on US actions in a war that was won and lost on the eastern front. Avalanch had little real effect on the outcome of the war, while Neptune landed all of a million allied soldiers. Comparatively, there were 1.35 million casualties in the Battle of Kursk in the summer of 1943, while the battles of Dneiper and Smolensk in the same year involved some six million men on both sides. Had the USSR collapsed at Moscow (remembering German troops were within spitting distance when winter took hold, and that after avoidable multi-month delays to the campaign) Germany might easily have been able to field a multi million man defence of France, equipped with T-34s and Panther IV's, both of which were easily worth 2-1 of any equivilent allied design. You want a hypothetical that ends the war early with an allied victory that is not a side-effect of Soviet victory? You need France to redeploy from AL, cover the ardenne woods and stop the German advance head on. Otherwise a 1943 or earlier end date only realistically comes from the Soviets mostly stopping the initial German advances (excessively unlikely, even more unlikely than France not surrendering) and counterattacking back across Poland in 1942. Neither scenario that ends the european war by 1943 involves the US in a military role.
  • US GDP exceeded that of all the axis powers combined - yes, so? If the USSR had fallen the US would have been almost alone against all of the axis powers combined, while with part of the GDP of the USSR added to the axis, the balance shifts to equal, or even in favour of the axis.
  • Im afraid you have confused the V1 and V2. The V2 was the weapon that had a submarine launching platform tested - [[1]]. It was also the weapon that could have been equipped with biological warheads for expanded effect.
  • "The best compromise" - it was an attempt at a compromise, given all you seem interested in is considering Japan alone vs the US, touting A caused Z analysis, claiming Germany could not win the war with Hitler in charge and over emphasising the effect of otherwise irrelevant US actions on the European war. "Middle ground" does not include "my side only", straw man arguments, ignoring valid points made that poke holes in your assessment or claiming consensus against in a one to one discussion. Further you have yet to suggest any solution yourself. My move effectively drew outsiders into an otherwise two-person debate, which was the intention.
  • Your contributions in the links behind perennial caveat show a clear pro-western allies POV. Consider, for a moment - from the moment Barbarossa started, the fate of Europe hung on the USSR. Had it collapsed and the Nazi's occupied european Russia, the Ukraine and Causcus with a puppet Fascist goverment beyond the Urals, the western allies could never have landed at Normandy successfully, as 3 million German troops would have been available for its defence. Some of those could have been redeployed to Naf, seeing complete Axis domination from nationalist spain to the pacific ocean. As an Aussie I am naturally sympathetic with the idea that the greater commonwealth had some effect on WW2, but as a realist I recognise that the countribution of every western nation to WW2 was ultimately very much secondary to the outcome of The Great Patriotic War. You appear to have the same rabid interest in this area of history that I do - I suggest you take the time to learn as much about the eastern front as you know about subpac.

I wonder if Silent Service II works on XP platforms?

In any case we are so far off topic that im a little embarassed. Jaimaster (talk) 01:33, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

"straw man"?
Strategic success? I find it a curious definition of "success" when it led to major sea battles at Coral Sea & Midway, & failed utterly to even attack the main weapons used to defeat Japan. (Don't try & sell me on how "USN and IJN considered the battle line essential". We're not in 1941 anymore.)
"serious histographer" Say, somebody of the caliber of Prange or Willmott? I'm perfectly prepared to consider opposing views; it's you who wants to revert & prevent anybody who disagrees with from you changing it.
"As a result of this"? There is no causal link. Hitler was under no obligation. You've fallen into post hoc, ergo propter hoc, just like the conspiracy nuts.
"presuming the USSR would survive because it did" Not at all. Presuming the USSR would survive because German war production was inadequate, because Sov manpower was (seemingly) inexhaustible, & because Hitler was an idiot. Yes, I do presume "Hitler would forever ignore his general staff because he did" You seem to believe he was able to become somebody else. I don't. "absent the death (or assasination) of Hitler" SU teetering or not, I'm prepared to believe Zhukov was capable of keeping Stalin from making the kinds of stupid decisions Hitler made. "Had the USSR collapsed at Moscow" You're asking for Hitler to be somebody else, again... "after avoidable multi-month delays" All the product of Hitler's meddling, AFAIK. And Stalingrad? When did Hitler ever consider letting von Paulus break out? (Forget von Paulus was so blindly obedient he didn't save his army off his own bat.) So, where's the "not absent" result? Oh, wait, we have that. It's called VE-Day.
"presuming Japan would be defeated because it was"? Sorry to say, but holding Pearl wasn't ever an issue. Japan holding Midway was at the limit of her capacity, & IJA had neither the manpower nor the shipping to mount an invasion of Hawaii (no mater what Stephan thinks in Hawaii under the Rising Sun, nor what Yamamoto dreamed of). Loss of Midway, I suggest (assuming it happens, which I count unlikely), leads Nimitz to mount a prompt counterattack to retake it, with forces that would shortly be detailed to Watchtower. And the need for the Sub Force to be located in Pearl isn't a given; operations from San Francisco (or, arguably, out of Dutch Harbor or Oz) were perfectly possible. I think loss of Midway would prod Nimitz to rely on the best striking force he had (subs), just as the losses at Pearl did, & my short war scenario comes in play: Japan defeated between 12/43 & (allowing for time to retake Midway) 7/44. Or BuShips introduces the SS-551s sooner, & we ignore the loss of Midway entire, & the war still ends in 12/43.
"the US could certainly have still eliminated Japan from the war - at the cost of exposing Britain to a revisited Sealion." Don't be absurd. Once Hitler invaded SU, Seelowe was off forever. And I seriously doubt it was possible to carry it off successfully (even given victory in BoB, which is a German pipedream) anyhow, given the utter lack of German LCs.
"the balance shifts to equal, or even in favour of the axis" Don't be ridiculous. Sov GDP wasn't that high in 1944. (It wasn't that high in 1964.) U.S. GDP was something like double all the other powers combined, Axis & Allied.
"claiming Germany could not win" That has damn all to do with this page. What Hitler did, or Germany did, after the attack makes no damn difference to what Japan did, or what happened to Japan as a consequence of the attack. They are not connected. Not here, they're not. On the PacWar or WW2 pages, yes. Not here.
"Im afraid you have confused the V1 and V2" I'm afraid you've ignored Loon & Regulus. And I've seen proposals for sublaunched V-1s. Not to mention I know it would have been damn near impossible to launch a V-2 from a submarine; a V-1, at least, is a credible option. Also, that was purely hypothetical, in keeping with your own "what if".
"On that same page you compared Alamein to Stalingrad!" Read it again. It's not comparative. It's an issue of relative importance to forces engaged. An end to the African campaign would have freed forces to other ops; so long as the Brits were tied up there, they weren't crossing the Channel, so Alamein was important.
"Your alternate history hyopthetical puts noticably far too much weight on US actions" As I recall, there were quite a few Brits involved in Africa, Sicily, & Normandy. And you seem to have missed the point. Landings in France drew German forces away from EF, as well as denying Germany a safe rest & reconstruction area, which took a lot of pressure off the Red Army--which was precisely my point: if SU is truly about to collapse, it was possible to accelerate things. And if Japan's attack brought the U.S. in, how is it I don't get to have AUS in NAfr or Europe, but you get to have Germany conquering Europe to balance Japan's annihilation?
"from the moment Barbarossa started" We're in complete agreement there. (I think that's a miracle. ;D)
Honestly, I don't see how what Germany did, or might have done, in Europe bears on Japan. Japan started a war which led to her destruction & failed to achieve the strategic & grand strategic objectives for which the attack was mooted. What Germany might have done does not bear on what she did, & AFAI can tell, your arguments depend on speculation. TREKphiler hit me ♠ 20:06, 23 September 2008 (UTC)
Strategic success, in that the strategic aim was to stop US intervention in the annexation of SE asia. Until the Coral Sea one could say that it was successful... the USN did not intervene. We know that they wouldnt have in any case (per the dropping of warplan Orange), making it stragetically unneccessary, but not really a strategic failure.
I havnt reverted anything or prevented anyone from changing it :) I made a change and invited people to revert it...
Perhaps my position on the likelyhood of Hitler DoW'ing the US after the US DoW's Japan is a little too solid, but to Hitler the+ in its support of GBR. I think he considered war with the US to be inevitable. At the time it seemed the defeat of the USSR was close at hand. Still there was nothing to be gained from the DoW for Germany on the US, ill concede to that without a doubt. As you say, Hitler did some things that look stupid in 20/20.
While im on Hitler, I dont think you give the man due credit. He might be the villain of the 20th century, he might have been responsible for 20 million deaths, but in words stolen from a recent famous fiction book - He did great things. Terrible things, yes - but great. Hitler took a nation that had been humiliated and demilitarised, transformed it into a nationalist powerhouse and inside of 9 years very nearly conquered Europe. I think calling him an idiot because he thought he knew more than his generals... well, in some ways it is justifiable, in others it is just plain silly. Psychopath or not, you cant achieve what Hitler did if you are an idiot.
Anyway, re Hitler never listening to his generals and Stalin listening to his - Battle_of_Moscow#Aftermath describes how Hitler did not take personal control until after that battle, outraged that the city had not fallen. Again we are back to my hyopthetical - what if it had fallen? With Hitler's meddling reduced and the USSR possibly collapsing politically, what might have become of europe, and what effect would that have had on the pacific war?
Re subs based at SanFran, no - the operational range was already stretched to the limits reaching the Formosa straights from Pearl. Youll note that the damage caused by subs ramped up severly in 43/44 - do not forget to credit some of this to the forward bases first at Midway then Saipan. Saipan vs Pearl allowed a tripling of time on station. I could be wrong, but I dont think the Gato class could have made it to the Formosa straights or Sea of Japan from San Franciso and back again without modification. Ironically the US is very, very lucky here - the Gato class was not designed as a commerce raider, it was a fleet boat intended to operate with surface forces. The lucky accident is the designed long range of the boats accordingly. Had the US built subs in a U-boat like style with intent to base them from the Phillipeans, the sub war that decimated Japan would never have happened. Scary thought. But yes, the invasion of PH was unlikely. I was thinking more of a second air attack causing substantial damage to the infrastructure missed in 41, and perhaps an attempt to interdict supply.
They had a successful test launch of the V2 from a sub platform.
LC's can be built;
If the US had a GDP 2x "the axis and the allies combined", how did the Axis achieve a 1.5:1 parity for a short time? I dont think that one is true :) id love to see it sourced. I found the 1.5:1 somewhere on wiki.
See, the Axis winning in europe affects this page in the assertion that PH was a grand strategic failure, the argument for which has repeatedly been "it started a war Japan could not win". However, it was just 4 days later a war that the Axis could win, and Japan was a part of that axis.
This is one of my three main arguments against the inclusion of "grand strategic failure" on this page, which I will summarise now -
  • It was a war the Axis could win, and Japan was a part of that Axis
  • The fact that the Axis lost was affected more by other events (BoMoscow, BoStalingrad, BoMidway) than by the battle of Pearl Harbour
  • No other "battle" page lists "grand strategic" as a result. Pages describing entire operations do (such as Barbarossa). This is inconsistent and I do not agree Pearl is "special" in this regard
Further, I dispute the inclusion of "strategic failure" -
  • The strategic goal was to prevent USN inteference in the annexation of the southern resource zone. There was no interference in this historically. Coral Sea I is consider out of the scope of the southern resource zone.
  • "Stategically unneccessary" would be valid, as it was. the US had already dropped Plan Orange, the plan of charging across the Pacific.
I am completely willing to concede my argument here depends on speculation. The point I am making is so is the labelling of the Attack on Pearl Harbour as a "grand strategic failure". This label depends on the assumption that Pearl bought about the loss of WW2 for Japan, something that I again will describe as "A caused Z!" logic, ignoring points B-Y. Hell, had the US been stupid and the Japanese lucky Japan might have fought the US to a standstill in the pacific, 10-1 industry or no. That it didnt happen or was unlikely to happen is great, but that it is a possability, even a remote one, discounts the "A caused Z" finality of "grand strategic failure".
In any case the consensus is keep, so it stays, even if I would argue I am right until we could publish the back and forth as a large book. What do you think of removing the ", who enters WW2 on behalf of the allies" crap at the end of the DoW back and forth? Change it to "United States declares war on the Empire of Japan. Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy declare war on the United States." The rest is a bit excessive. PH did not result in Japan DoW'ing England or the US, it was the method of delivering the DoW. Jaimaster (talk) 06:42, 24 September 2008 (UTC)
  • "prevented anyone from changing" Noted. My apologies.
  • U.S. GDP. Me, too. ;D I recall reading it on paper somewhere; maybe I'm overstating it. And maybe it was a peacetime/Depression figure (which is tickling at memory).
  • "Strategic success" I take your point, but (no surprise now) I disagree. Given no attack on Pearl, the same result would have been achieved; likelihood of U.S. intervention was slim. So the attack wasn't a success. I guess I'm taking a different view of strategy, or success. Same answer to "strategic failure". It was a self-inflicted problem.
  • "US was already overt" Oh, sure, but notice Hitler also expressly said "avoid attacking destroyers", even if they're attacking, because they might be USN. He might have been willing to fight U.S., but not eager. It's extremely likely he'd still make this boob, but we can't take it as given at the time of the attack, I don't think.
  • Gato. I should know that... I'd offer several potential options: bases in Kiska/Dutch Harbor, Fiji/Samoa, or (if they're not blanketed) Oz; or make a deal with a friendly power to base in Kamloops, or a deal with Britain to base in Colombo; or early intro the SS-551s (which would've been bigger & longer-legged); or turn fleet boats over to mining in the areas accessible to them (lo chance); or (also lo chance, IMO) steal a page from the Germans, & use Narwhal & Nautilus (for instance) as tankers (per the postwar idea). "Youll note that the damage caused by subs ramped up severly in 43/44" Agreed, a part of that was forward basing in Guam. A big part was also, first, the solving of the maru code in 1/43 (worth a 22-23% boost) & second, in 9/43 (finally!), fixing the MkXIV's problems (which bumped scores about 75%). As noted, given higher demand, we can speculate on whether either, or both, would happen sooner. As to whether unmod Gato boats could do it, yes, just (range was 12Knm @10kt); time on station would be short, tho. More important, it would have demanded more boats in the force to achieve the sustained strength on station, which might have forced Nimitz to change his deployments: no close surveillance, no boats in Oz (hence freeing the Formosa Strait), priority on tankers, likely (IMO) no boats to Europe, & early retirement of the Sugar boats (which just didn't have the legs), all of which raise SubForce effectiveness. Whether it would also lead to increased sub construction at Manitowoc or an early appearance of the 551 is a guess, but I'd say the chances for both are good (551s by the time of Tench I'd bet on). None of this matters, however, since the chance of losing control of Pearl was zero. (Nor did IJN CVs matter in re subs' ability to reach Japanese waters, absent continuous air patrol.)
  • "'Terrible things, yes - but great.'" Poor choice of words on my part. I won't disagree with your assessment. His judgment militarily was atrocious, & it's on this I say "idiot". Tyro? And he may not have taken personal control til after Moscow, but he was still "CinC"; read Stolfi's Hitler's Panzers East & (somebody else's) Devil's Virtuosos & see why I blame him for the EF debâcle.
  • "grand strategic failure" Take as given U.S. is stupid for a minute, & Japan extraordinarily lucky. To get a standstill requires so much to go in Japan's favor, it almost beggars imagination. I think, to some degree, it demands Nimitz & the Japanese act contrary to their natures, in the same way as it would've for Hitler to not bungle Barbarossa. Still, for argument's sake, give IJN victory at Coral Sea. Does Yamamoto not order MI anyhow? Presuming Doolittle goes off, yes. Does Yamamoto change his dispositions? I see no reason he would; Fletcher still wins. (I'll give IJN Yorktown & Hornet; I'll even given them Sara thanks to I-6. I see no reason for Spruance to react differently to Murphy than he did.) Does King not order Watchtower anyhow? Given the evident increased urgency after Coral Sea, I think he'd have to, even to accelerate it, & likely give it extra weight; this might have been drawn from MacArthur, by a more-worried FDR or JCS. It's also possible Nimitz, in reaction, puts the MC Raiders into Tulagi immediately after Coral Sea to do in effect what IJN started doing: bld a base for PBYs (& subs, if Pearl was threatened). Yamamoto might have been drawn into a 2d major CV bat (=Midway) around it. Or he might have resigned when NGS refused to budge on the southern option (in which case he might survive the war, even be an anti-IJA PM in '44 strong enough to broker a peace with the U.S. after Saipan fell...) Does Japan then feed manpower into Guad piecemeal & bleed IJAAF dry? I see no reason to think not. You see what I mean? It's not just about the big battles (it never is), it's about all the small decisions that have to go in Japan's favor, a great many of which are a product of Japanese doctrine & experience, & which aren't really susceptible to EZ change. And it's about (for want of a better word) the character of the main players: Hitler, FDR, Yamamoto, Nimitz all were going to be the men they were (a good reason I disbelieve the conspiracy theorists, BTW), & faced with these circumstances, were going to make the same decisions. Absent some indication it was close-run (& it may've been, in several cases), I see no reason to conclude the outcome would be different. Different in detail, perhaps, but not in the main. You're asking for an enormous amount of change in the Axis favor, IMO.
  • "It was a war the Axis could win, and Japan was a part of that Axis" Actually, it's fair to treat them as separate, since the degree of actual military co-operation was close to nil (cf Reluctant Allies in particular), & the amount of influence the Axis ETO/PTO had on each other was tiny. (I'd say nil, but it was just above that.) Take as given a German defeat of Britain, before Barbarossa; would Canada & Oz stop fighting Germany? (Would Winston?) Doubtful. After Hong Kong & Singapore, would Canada & Oz stop fighting Japan? Doubtful. Could the SU defeat Germany alone? Probable. If not, could the U.S. bring to bear the force to attack Occupied Europe without Britain as a springboard? Doubtful. Could the U.S. persuade France's government in exhile to provide a base to launch an invasion of WEur? Maybe. Would the U.S. have accelerated building B-29s to bomb Europe from Iceland or the Azores? Very likely. Would this also have been accompanied by the Bomb? Probably. Would this have meant turning Europe into a nuclear wasteland? Maybe. (We can debate whether the A-10, sublaunched V-2, or B-36 get operational first. I still think a sublaunched V-1 is more sensible for attacking the U.S....) Would the SU end up controlling all Europe? Very likely (presuming Stalin & Hitler both take their historical course). Could the U.S. defeat Japan alone? Beyond question. Once the war in Europe was over, could XXI Air Force have turned Japan into a radioactive parking lot? Very likely. Or, if main fleet & air units were diverted to E/ATO (due to greater need), so a major counteroffensive against Japan (begun with Watchtower) was impossible before 1943 at the earliest (or about a year late), it's possible (even likely) the SubForce (concentrated at Pearl) could have successfully strangled Japan almost before it began. Also, if we accept the resources for a 2-road strategy didn't exist (for commitments in ATO fighting Germans), we may postulate a CPac 1-thrust, starting at Tarawa in around 11/43 (over a yr after Watchtower), but small changes in other major battles, whence Saipan falls 7/44, Japan's government falls, Yamamoto becomes PM & cuts a deal, & Japan is preserved, as a U.S. ally. Without a SU invasion of Manchuria (needless, or impossible, in this model), would ROC be under Chiang & a U.S. ally? Very likely. Could Japan have been built up into an ally at need? Certainly. (Would karaoke still be a plague? Probably, dammit. :[ )
  • "who enters WW2" Take it out. TREKphiler hit me ♠ 07:44, 29 September & 00:08, 30 September 2008 (UTC)
A good read as always with most points taken. Still disagree on V1 vs V2 as an attack plantform on the US - V1's could be shot down, V2s not so. Something tickles at the back of my mind about a German nuclear program involving using heavy water instead of yellow cake, though that could just as likely be a good fiction i read once, the tickle is so faint. Nuclear tipped u-boat launched V2s vs B29s out of Iceland... nasty. Though a program existing a nuclear weapon does not make, and the fat man would have been ready first, turning nazi europe into a smoking pyre... assuming both sides dont agree to terms and the 45-90 cold war isnt fought Democratic vs Nazi instead of vs Communism. Hell, if MAD could stop a paranoid "scientific" marxist from pushing the big red button, I dont doubt it could give Hitler pause too. Jaimaster (talk) 02:32, 30 September 2008 (UTC)
  • TYVM. I argue for V-1s for simplicity's sake; a V-2 aboard a Type 7 (or even a Balao) is a daunting prospect, one reason USN rejected Jupiter aboard even George Washingtons. And a sublaunched V-1 as I forsee it is a snap-shot from close, with slim chance of intercept.
  • I think you overestimate the chance of a German Bomb. Whether you accept the conventional wisdom, Heisenberg was sabotaging the program, or more recent research, the Germans didn't understand the physics well enough to succeed, there's the insurmountable, namely the massive bureaucratic infighting. Some writers propose a German Bomb by early 1947; it would have been early never, IMO.
  • MAD? Don't forget, when Hitler realized the war was lost, he ordered "scorched earth". I have a suspicion he'd have been willing to pull things down around him, & could've used LeMay & Groves to do it. And if the U.S. had been subjected to CBW, I have very little doubt FDR (or Truman) would have emptied the arsenals on Germany.
  • "heavy water" Does "Heroes of Telemark" ring a bell? Unlike most Hollyweird films, this one's more/less true.
  • It's the Pax Americana afterward that intrigues me, given SU collapse. 3d Rus Rev? A Rus "ciminiocracy" (run by ex-KGB & aparatchiki), not unlike now? An American global empire? A civil rocket program of Robert A.'s dreams? (Mine, too.) TREKphiler hit me ♠ 05:52, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

Pearl Habor Ships Log account

Please stop using the ethnic slur Jap on this talk page

Thanks. BillyTFried (talk) 03:53, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

Sorry, not really considered offensive in the part of the world I come from, and was not used in anything remotely describable as an offensive manner. Hyperlinking it throughout the page was patently unneccessary... I have removed the references for you. Jaimaster (talk) 04:38, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

Started a copy edit cleanup

Made a deliberate point of avoiding making content changes, just cleaned up the format. Too many commas!

Some notes -

  • Added BB repair years to the lead para on losses, to reduce what I perceived was a bit of a weasel words loss mitigation
  • If someone has the month in 1940 when the US invoked the ECA (lead Paragraph 4) the article will flow better with it included
  • The "advanced knowlege" paragraph under #Background to conflict really does not belong there. As it has its own article, perhaps it should be its own 1 paragraph section at the bottom of the article with a "see main" link.
  • What is "the Kido Butai"? #Tactical Concept para 3. There is no context or reference provided to ascertain what this is.

Completed up to the fourth paragraph of the first wave description. Will continue monday (using to fill slow hours @ work). Jaimaster (talk) 08:28, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

By now it's no surprise, I'm sure, but I disagree with dating the refloating. It's unnecessary detail in the lead; the fact they were raised is the important datum. (The more important one is that they had no appreciable effect on the war, so if there's "weaselling", it's in favor of Japan, by overemphasizing their success.) TREKphiler hit me ♠ 19:03, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

....how many people died?

Is this a 'good' edit? Which number is the right one...? The one from the infobox, or the ones he replaced? Thanks, -talk- the_ed17 -contribs- 15:57, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

Anyone? -talk- the_ed17 -contribs- 19:28, 7 September 2008 (UTC)
Annnnnyone? -talk- the_ed17 -contribs- 02:26, 22 September 2008 (UTC)
It isn't Wikipedia's place to make an assertion that any particular figure is the right figure—see Wikipedia#Verifiability. It is Wikipedia's place to report what reliable sources have to say about that, citing those sources where appropriate (e.g., when reporting differing figures from several sources). I see that the pearlharbor.org History page reports that 3,500 Americans were killed or wounded in the attack. The U.S. National Park service says here, "On the first day of that war, more than 2,400 Americans died; their average age was 23." The US National park Service USS Arizona memorial site says here that 2,388 Americans were killed and 1,178 wounded. There are casualty lists which claim to list of all of all those who perished as a result of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941 at http://www.usswestvirginia.org/ph/phlist.php, at http://www.vetshome.com/pearl_harbor_casualties.htm, at http://www.usmemorialday.org/pearllst.txt (citing info from the US Dept. of Interior), at http://www.pearlharbor.org/history/casualties/pearl-harbor-casualties/ (itemized by ship and location and totaling 2,385), at http://www.sos.state.or.us/archives/exhibits/pearl/pearl.htm (Oregon State Archives, saying "The United States sustained 3,435 casualties". There are lots of other lists and figures out there. -- Boracay Bill (talk) 03:51, 22 September 2008 (UTC)
Alright! I just wanted to draw attention to the edit, just in case it was faulty. Thanks and cheers! -talk- the_ed17 -contribs- 03:56, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

Rotten to the Corps?

I recall USAAC becoming USAAF in '41, but I can't recall the date, & the article uses both. Since one is evidently wrong, can somebody check & correct? Thanx. TREKphiler hit me ♠ 19:26, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

The USAAF article says June 1941. Regards, DMorpheus (talk) 19:33, 5 September 2008 (UTC)
Thanx. TREKphiler hit me ♠ 15:55, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

Midget Submarines

I deleted this

"The type A midget submarines were 80 ft (24 m) long with a displacement of 46 tons [3] and carried two 18-in (46 cm) torpedoes in bow tubes.[3] The midgets were driven by a single shaft 600-horsepower electric motor with a top speed of 19 knots submerged and a maximum range of 100 miles at a speed of 2 knots.[3] Each midget was conned by a junior officer while a petty officer controlled valves and ballast for diving and trim.[3]"

& this

"This captured midget was later transported to the United States and has been preserved at Key West, Florida.[4] A fourth midget was discovered by Navy divers near the harbor entrance at Keehi Lagoon on 13 June 1960.[5] It had been damaged by depth charges and abandoned by its crew before launching torpedoes.[5] This midget was raised by USS Current (ARS-22) and returned to Japan for display at Eta Jima on 15 March 1962.[5]"

as not really essential to the attack. A page on the midgets, maybe. TREKphiler hit me ♠ 15:55 & 16:04, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

There are two categories of information within your deletions. The first is technical information about the submarines involved in the attack. As you may be aware, the term encompasses a wide range of craft from fully functional submarines of limited range (as was the case here) to a man astride a large torpedo. The large potential benefit for relatively low cost led several countries to invest in a wide variety. The Japanese had at least four types in the former category and four in the latter. I acknowledge this subject might be better handled with a link to a separate article.
The second category involves information about the attack. The apparent lack of submarine success encourages American focus on the air attack, while Japan has recognized the bravery of the individual midget submarine crewmen with honors not bestowed on the successful airmen. Ensign Kazuo Sakamaki has provided the only first hand knowledge of the experience of the midgets after launch, and only three of the five have been located. Another is assumed to have been sunk by Ward and the fifth has been alleged to have contributed to the damage to West Virginia. Aside from the significance of these midgets to Japan, the timing of their movements with respect to the aerial attacks and declaration of war remain mysterious puzzles of unique interest to this article. I would argue for inclusion of the latter category of information.
Your edits reflect erroneous conclusions regarding the capture of Kazuo Sakamaki. I propose to revise the article to correct those errors and restore information on the 4th midget. Thewellman (talk) 18:53, 7 September 2008 (UTC)
I claim no expertise re Sakamaki. My objection here has nothing to do with their use or usefulness, just with the degree of detail not evidently related to the attack. That being so, whether one was sent to Key West, or put on display at Eta Jima, is completely irrelevant; so, too, the technical details. I offer no objection to the "9 Young Gods" or the actual operational use. And the header? We're dealing with midget submarines.... Too cute? TREKphiler hit me ♠ 20:01, 7 September 2008 (UTC)
Since you've evidently got a good source, is that "ten miles" =16km, or =18.5km? TREKphiler hit me ♠ 21:58, 7 September 2008 (UTC)
The reference did not specify statute or nautical miles. The reference includes a chart delineating operating sectors for the I-boats carrying the midgets. The operating sectors are defined by two arcs swung from the mouth of Pearl Harbor. The innermost arc touches Barbers Point and Waikiki while the outermost arc touches Koko Head and continues to the intersection with an extension of a straight line along the coast from the mouth of Pearl Harbor to Barbers Point. I-16's operating sector was the western half of the area within the inner arc while I-20's sector was the eastern half of the area within the inner arc. The area between the two arcs is divided into three equal segments assigned from west to east to I-24,I-22 and I-18, respectively. The ten mile figure from the reference appears to approximate the inner arc forming the boundary between the inner and outer operating sectors. Thewellman (talk) 02:17, 8 September 2008 (UTC)
Let me get at it another way, then. Given the writer is USN, I'd presume he uses nm=mi, like sailors routinely do. Does he mention any measured distances? If you've got one to/from anywhere we know a nm/sm/km figure, we can (I think) safely conclude he's using the same units throughout, & convert 10mi accordingly. TREKphiler hit me ♠ 02:55, 8 September 2008 (UTC0
This would probably be clumsy to cite on WP, but I looked at 21.317 N, 157.967 W with Google Earth and used the Ruler tool to swing an arc from the mouth of Pearl Harbor. Barbers Point and Waikiki Beach appear to be between 9.5 and 10 statute miles away. For other maps where similar measurements can be made, see this and this. -- Boracay Bill (talk) 04:44, 8 September 2008 (UTC)
As TREKphiler surmised, the reference norm is nautical miles. Thewellman (talk) 05:09, 8 September 2008 (UTC)
Then we can avoid getting complicated & convert x1.85, which I shall (assuming somebody hasn't beaten me to it) TREKphiler hit me ♠ 05:18, 8 September 2008 (UTC)
Wait a minute. As I understand it, the situation is this:
  • The article cites a source (Stewart, "Those Mysterious Midgets", p.57) which says "ten miles" without specifying whether that is nautical or statute miles.
  • The cited source gives details involving construction of "ten mile" arcs from the the mouth of Pearl Harbor.
  • Construction of such arcs seems to indicate that the cited supporting source was speaking of statute miles. This may WP:OR, or it may not be -- that question has not been explored.
  • Thewellman said above that TREKphiler surmised, the reference norm is nautical miles.
  • TREKphiler had said above, "Given the writer is USN, I'd presume he uses nm=mi, like sailors routinely do." Making that presumption probably is WP:OR, IMHO ("... and any unpublished analysis or synthesis of published material that serves to advance a position.").
  • TREKphiler edited the article here to change "ten miles" to read, "10 nm (19 km)".
  • The article still cites Stewart, "Those Mysterious Midgets", p.57 as the supporting source.
  • As I understand it, Stewart, "Those Mysterious Midgets", p.57 does not support this.
I suggest a reversion to "ten miles", with or without a clarifying footnote. Further citeable sources supporting some clarification would be useful. Perhaps the constructions on maps mentioned above are not WP:OR and not WP:SYNTH, I'm unsure. -- Boracay Bill (talk) 11:22, 8 September 2008 (UTC)
(further) A bit of googling turned up Goldstein, Donald M.; Dillon, Katherine V. (2000), The Pearl Harbor Papers, Brassey's, ISBN 1574882228. Goldstein & Dillon 2000, p. 274 says, "The mother submarines were to approach within 10 nautical miles of the mouth of the harbor secretly and launch the midget submarine after locating the harbor entrance." Perhaps the assertion in the article could be changed to echo that quote, and the Goldstein & Dillon 2000, p. 274 could be added to the Stewart cite. Incidentally, I don't see the Stewart source listed in the Bibliography section. -- Boracay Bill (talk) 22:40, 8 September 2008 (UTC)
Don't forget the pre-attack recce birds; one of 'em might've gotten a pic. TREKphiler hit me ♠ 02:55, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

I believe Japanese aircraft took the photos from which United States Naval Institute deduced a midget submarine might have been in position to torpedo West Virginia. It seems unlikely that the submarine's torpedo would have been the first shot, if Japanese aircraft were in position to photograph it. I propose to remove the "first shot" conjecture unless a supporting reference is provided. Thewellman (talk) 02:47, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

Possible, but the plan was to attack between the first and second waves of the air strike. To preserve the element of surprise, the midget submarines were forbidden to attack before the air strike. The first wave torpedo strike began at 0757, and the first wave horizontal bomber strike commenced 8 minutes later. The midget submarine attack on Curtiss commenced after 0827. Thewellman (talk) 05:13, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

later .... becoming militarily involved in World War II

If a state bombs a another stat's main fleet, those states are at war one of them does not join it later! A state may declare war later the state is already in a war.

If the Japanese had only attacked Pearl Harbour then there might be a case for saying that the attack was not part of World War II but neat simultaneously the British were also attacked by the Japanese, making this attack part of the World War. This article used to carry Local and Japanese times, and a mention of the timing of the attacks on the British. I think that information should be re-added to the article to show how this was just one of several planned attacks which happened within the same few hours. --Philip Baird Shearer (talk) 07:46, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

I'd agree, except for 2 things. There's been reversion (& confusion) over dating based on the Intl Date Line (here, IIRC, in re the attack on the PH), which would also be in play if it gets added. 2d, the page is on Pearl Harbor, not the broader war, & do we want to include events not directly related to it? IMO, adding the salvage section was bad enough; this sort of thing more properly belongs at here. TREKphiler hit me ♠ 02:18, 11 September 2008 (UTC)
Even though reversion has resulted in the past, I imagine that a much clearer and not-as-confusing account can be written that will prevent most drive-by editors from jumping in and reverting. Binksternet (talk) 01:13, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

trash salvage section!

The salvage section should be removed. It is a POV push to mitigate US losses in the battle. Jaimaster (talk) 07:33, 18 September 2008 (UTC) ... updated ... not so much, was confusing it and the "aftermath" subpage, which is written as though by an admiral reporting failure to Stalin and fearing being shot. Jaimaster (talk)

The salvage section includes the conclusion that the Pearl Harbor attack caused months of delays for the British in East Africa. Their Alexandria harbor facilities were too limited to handle all the ship repair and maintenance duties required for effective war operations in the Med and Red Sea. They badly needed Massawa in order to bring their few fighting ships back into fighting trim. Pearl Harbor reshuffled the assignments of the two most efficient salvage masters in the world and caused delays in the floating of the scuttled Italian and German hulks that were bottling up Massawa. This conclusion is worth keeping, as it shows the expanded collateral damage of the attack. Binksternet (talk) 16:21, 18 September 2008 (UTC)
Agree with Bink on this issue. ww (talk) 16:59, 18 September 2008 (UTC)
Odd, the comments I was replying to were removed... I did not start this section Jaimaster (talk) 00:20, 19 September 2008 (UTC)
I started it to better match the comment content. No comments were changed or deleted. ww (talk) 17:28, 19 September 2008 (UTC)
I disagree, and would argue that the section should be expanded, or a new article be created on the topic. The USN's efforts to salvage capital ships sunk at Pearl Harbor were resource intensive and led to most of the ships sunk in the attack being restored to service. These battleships went on to play important roles in battles around the world. Nick Dowling (talk) 11:09, 19 September 2008 (UTC)
"It is a POV push to mitigate US losses" If anything, it shows how much damage Japan did, how insignificant the Battle Line was to the outcome (contrary to Jaimaster's evident belief it was essential), & is POV in favor of Japan. I'd agree it should be moved, then expanded, with a strong recommend to copy to Pacific War & World War Two. Also, with a view to expand & move, I wonder (given the "resource intensive" effort) if other projects (beyond Massawa) didn't get any/enough attention, such as harbor clearance after Torch. And didn't this also tie up shipyard space to some extent, yards that could've been building (say) LC, which were in tight supply? TREKphiler hit me ♠ 12:08 & 14:08, 19 September 2008 (UTC) (P.S. If there've been comments removed, they don't seem to show in the page history, tho I'd have sworn I said something on this before now.)
Id love to know how a salvage section - stating that ships otherwise reportable as "sunk" were raised, repaired and returned to the war - is pro-Japan pov. That is approaching nonsensical, as is your continued (deliberate?) mis-stating of things I have said above. Jaimaster (talk) 00:08, 22 September 2008 (UTC)
Ummm guys, the salvage section should be kept! It is a part of the aftermath of the attack on Pearl Harbor! Why would we remove it? Who cares if the salvage efforts weren't essential to the war effort and could have been used on LC's? The point is that it happened in real life, and therefore needs to be included. We can debate about what they should have done, but the article is about what actually happened.
At the least, a sub-article should be started, and a short summary should appear in this article with a {{main}} at the top of the section. Cheers, -talk- the_ed17 -contribs- 00:29, 22 September 2008 (UTC)
POV? Because it implies they were more important, the damage was more severe or significant to the outcome, than it was in fact?
"part of the aftermath"? So is Nimitz's appointment, the transfer of carriers to PacFleet, & a host of other subsequent things. Where's the line for what gets left out?
"(deliberate?) mis-stating"? I'm quoting you. How is that misrepresenting you? Or is saying what I think you mean out of bounds? TREKphiler hit me ♠ 19:49, 22 September 2008 (UTC)
Sorry Trek, shoulda been more clear. I meant that people are gonna want to know what happened to those sunken battleships, which is why I argue for a new article with a short summary here, instead of simply removing the entire section... -talk- the_ed17 -contribs- 19:57, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

<--Oh, I'm all in favor of a more detailed daughter article. I'd personally like to know much more about the salvage ops, the tech involved, who the people were, the works. I just don't think it belongs here. I say "remove" meaning "put in a sandbox" where the daughter article can start, 'til it's ready to post it. TREKphiler hit me ♠ 22:59, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

Mis-statements such as "contray to Jaimaster's evident belief it was essential", which I never said or implied over the course of how ever many pages of back and forth. I have pointed out many times that the USN and IJN considered the battle line essential. Perhaps you were merely confusing this with my personal view, but deliberate or mistaken either way you imply above that I must be a complete moron (supporting the Munroe doctrine nearly 70 years after it was proven obsolete would be the act of a moron), something I am obviously going to take issue with.
Including the salvage comments in the manner presented by "results of the attack on Pearl Harbour" sub page which is full of "but", "despite" and other such terminology, is pro-US loss-mitigation. Claiming that (as this article does) counting sunk ships as damaged then further stating "but was raised, rebuilt and returned to fleet operations" is pro-Japan pov because it somehow emphasises the damage done to a ship that should be described as sunk is bizzare.
I agree that there should be a short paragraph with a pointer to a sub-page here, with a large detailed section about the salvage and how it interacted with other repair jobs worldwide (that sounds very interesting to learn more about). I am going to take a swing at the results of the attack page sometime soon, ill let you know when you do so you can critique it. Jaimaster (talk) 02:33, 23 September 2008 (UTC)
"USN and IJN considered the battle line essential" If this was being written in 1940, or even 1942, I might credit that. It's not, so the view at the time is of little moment. They were wrong. We know they were wrong. Emphasizing the "success" of an attack based on a mistaken POV is POV in favor of the Japanese. And since you're defending that view, contrary to the usual standard for historiography (written with 20/20 hindsight) and to what's been established in the decades since the attack, yes, I'm taking it to be one you share. If you prefer otherwise, you might disclaim it, hmmm?
"pro-US loss-mitigation"? Unless you're prepared to demonstrate the BBs sunk/crip @Pearl had any measurable effect on the outcome (which I defy you to do, absent detailed OR; not, in this context, out of bounds), giving the loss/dam undue weight is POV in favor of Japan (again), by overstating the effect/damage. That IJN, despite complete strategic surprise & total control of the sky on the day, still failed to inflict total destruction on 8 moored targets, is evident in the ability of USN to raise them. Saying otherwise is POV.
"raised, rebuilt" Statement of fact. Also statement of effort expended in keeping with the view at the time, the same one you suggest is a defense: "USN and IJN considered the battle line essential". So which is it? Essential? Or POV for U.S.?
If I didn't think I'd get nailed for POV, I'd call it a colossal waste of manpower; if I had better sources at hand, I'd mention the fates of the salvaged BBs & note they never operated with CVs (nor could they have in any event), so their contribution to victory was tiny compared to the effort expended on salvage. TREKphiler hit me ♠ 16:41, 23 September 2008 (UTC)
I never defended the 1940 view of the Munroe doctrine; I was merely pointing it out, which appears to be the source of your confusion. At the time of PH this would have been considered a catastrophic defeat by the USN itself. It might even have added a year to the war - while the Japanese BBs did not have a significant role, is it fair to say a functional US battle line might not have emboldened US ops in the pacific? I dont think it is. Even though we know carriers ruled the seas, in 1942 I doubt the US had yet written off her battleships quite as readily as we would now. With only 1 fleet carrier remaining after Midway the Japanese would have been extremely vulnerable to surface action groups, and perhaps Spraunce would not have had to have pulled back had he had his own 8 heavies, resulting in a likely second American victory at Midway of devastating proportions in a night gun action on the 4-5th of June. Of course, perhaps if those 8 heavies were still available to the Americans the Japanese would never have been so bold as to move to Midway in the first place.
Anyway, I think I understand where you are coming from now - you oppose the salvage because it you think it implies that the US Battleship losses were important or affected the outcome of the war. I can see the point, though I dont really agree with it. In terms of lost manpower and tonnage this battle was still a one sided slaughter of fairly epic proportions. You are effectively arguing that the losses were obsolete, which is probably a fair point to make somewhere in the article.
Its a bit rough to attack the Japanese for not totally destroying 8 moored targets, as the US thought those moored targets were immune to torpedo based attacks, believing that torpedos could not run in the shallow depth of the harbour. In any case the salvage was only possible because the ships were moored targets... had the ships that were later raised been caught in deeper water they would be still sitting on the ocean floor.
I wonder what difference the lack of the salvaged BBs would have made in terms of their artillery support to the Pacific island campaign? Ultimately none to the result of course, but in terms of time?
For want of not taking this further OT I propose a simple compromise that suits both of us for different reasons - remove the long salvage area from this and simply add a one section - "Some of the US battleships sunk in this battle were later salvaged - see main article Salvage of US Battleships sunk at Pearl Harbour". Jaimaster (talk) 08:34, 25 September 2008 (UTC)
"I never defended the 1940 view of the Munroe doctrine" I never mentioned the Munroe Doctrine. (You mean Mahan?) Moreover, as noted, the page isn't written from the POV of 1941.
"is it fair to say a functional US battle line might not have emboldened US ops in the pacific?" Not the ones at Pearl. They were too slow to operate with CVs regardless, which is one main reason I say the attack accomplished nothing for Japan.
"perhaps Spraunce would not have had to have pulled back had he had his own 8 heavies" Wrong, for the above reason. Also, Yamato, in company with Yamamoto's existing heavies at Midway, would have hammered Fletcher (who was SOPA, not Spruance, tho Ray tends to get the credit) in any night action; recall, IJN night training was far & away better than U.S. at the time, & remained so into 1944. Moreover, Spruance didn't pull back fearing night action as much as from Murphy's message, suggesting an amphib landing in train, so Spruance moved to block.
"Its a bit rough" I don't think it is. I think it's a fair criticism of inadequate technique, given the enormous effort expended. This was the entire IJN CV & CV air strength, yet they failed to achieve a major objective. Compare JUDGEMENT. You're right about salvage (& that's why Nimitz & Rochefort both say it could've been worse, which the conspiracy loons take as {flimsy!} evidence of conspiracy). I don't see how U.S. disbelief torpedoes would run makes a difference; if anything, it shows how badly IJN did: there weren't even adequate net defences, AA was un/undermanned, ships didn't have their WT doors shut or (AFAIK, offhand) steam up for maneuvering.
"obsolete" You got dead me right on obsolete & no effect. We had a wrangle here already over describing the BBs as obsolete (& let's not start another!), & there is some mention of it in the article now; might need more emphasis. Also, I agree with Nimitz on "worse", & let's note it's only 4 obsolete BBs & 2400 men, out of a strength of 8 BBs, 3 CVs, about 24 CCs, 40 or so DDs, & at least 12 fleet subs, and a total manpower over 20000; the losses are (mean as it may sound) are pretty trivial.
"artillery support" I doubt it made any material difference to PTO, esp given the heavy use of CV air. Might have had an interesting effect at Salerno, Anzio, or Normandy, tho. In Italy, USN 5" effectively saved the landings, Salerno IIRC, from being thrown off, by interdicting German tanks. Picture some 16" even further inland... Or better shore bombardment 6/6/44; some of it missed entirely, on the day.
"oppose the salvage" More as OT than that. I think it gives a faulty picture, too, as you note.
"later salvaged" That works for me. TREKphiler hit me ♠ 21:50, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

Export Control Act

I noticed the redlink to the ECA in the article, so I created an article yesterday for it. Please feel free to help expand it. :) - Arcayne (cast a spell) 19:10, 28 October 2008 (UTC)

Objectified

Since Yamamoto's thinking isn't encapsulated anywhere, & since he hoped to achieve several things, I added the "Objectives" section to put it in one place. It may render other parts redundant, in particular some of the "aftermath" section, so if anybody wants to (judiciously, please) cut some... TREKphiler hit me ♠ 15:15, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

Subsequent Attack

Information was included on the subsequent attack on Pearl Harbor on March 4, 1942. While this was relatively minor, it is still relavent to the initial attack. An editor removed it, suggesting that it belong on the article on the Battle of Midway, June 4-7, 1942. Please explain. Rlsheehan (talk) 14:44, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

Simple. It has nothing to do with the 7/12 attack & everything to do with recon prior to the Japanese attack on Midway, being a major reason Yamamoto & Nagumo were ignorant of Fletcher having sailed. TREKphiler hit me ♠ 22:45, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

Some years ago whilst on a visit to the USA I got into a conversation with a navy veteran who served in the United States Navy at Pearl Harbour when the Japs bombed it. The veteran said that after the first wave of Bombers had passed over he saw that some one had fixed a badly torn and partly burnt American Flag on to the superstructure of a listing and badly damaged war ship. At that moment he said that he felt a deep feeling of pride in his country and he knew what the out come of the coming war would be. Many thousands of brave men & women would give their lives in the defeat of evil and support the ideals contained in President Lincoln’s Gettysburg address. As a Briton who was born after the end of the Second World War, the War Time British took a deep pride in seeing St. Paul’s Cathedral still standing in the midst of the London blitz. We salute the good and brave of every age and race. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.8.184.1 (talk) 15:20, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

Pearl Harbor Day

Pearl Harbor Day has now become an institution in the United States, being celebrated in many locations. It is often accompanied by significant ceremony, which have been located from Pearl Harbor itself to many cemeteries across the country.

In 1991, the 50th anniversary of the day was celebrated from Pearl Harbor. The ceremony was held about the USS Arizona, and was broadcast on national television that morning. The following prayer offered by Rear Admiral David White typifies many of the elegant and beautiful things written in honor of the event, and stands apart as particularly beautiful.

Invocation, Pearl Harbor Ceremony Dec. 7, 1991 Rear Admiral David E. White Chief of Chaplains, USN USS Arizona Memorial

Almighty God, author of life and liberty, we ask your blessing as in this hallowed place we honor all those who fifty years ago today stood fast in the defense of freedom.

We pray particularly, O God, that as the mystic chords of memory stretch forth from sunken decks beneath the sea, they may touch our hearts with that sense of national sacrifice symbolized and remembered on this day in history.

On this special occasion, we lift up all those men and women past and present who have accepted the obligations of their forbearer’s heritage, and we offer our profound gratitude for heroes proved in liberating strife, who more than self their country loved and mercy more than life.

Therefore endow us, O God, with that spirit which prizes liberty as the heritage of all humanity, that we may resolve to sustain that pride which belongs to those who lay so costly a sacrifice up on the altar of freedom. Amen.

--SCAar (talk) 15:48, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

Conspicuous Absences of "Conspiracy Section"

Nice to see this little tidbit of history has been tucked away in a small paragraph at the end of the "Background to conflict" section. From my US History AP textbook this issue had much more prominence in being part of the larger issue of history about FDR's desire to enter WWII and his search for a reason do to so despite lack of popular support in the US. For god sakes even the wiki on FDR points this out FDR#Pearl_Harbor.

On December 6, 1941, President Roosevelt read an intercepted Japanese message and told his assistant Harry Hopkins, "This means war."[87] He never warned Admiral Husband Kimmel or Lt. Gen. Walter Short after reception of the message before the Pearl Harbor attack.

But no, because the bad word "conspiracy" was thrown around, the wiki editors' inferiority complex was triggered into blotting out this important piece of history in their effort to feel more legitimate as a source of knowledge. Thanks for white washing history yet again Wikipedia.--Waxsin (talk) 18:06, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

Looks like the FDR page needs updatin'... ;^) Binksternet (talk) 18:14, 7 December 2008 (UTC)
And if you'd read the rest of the page, you'd have noticed the interception of Purple & JN-25 is well covered, & there was not one but two messages warning of possible attacks. Nothing in the Japanese messages indicated Pearl Harbor was ever a target. And the U.S. didn't have the manpower to translate every message (Kramer had only 3 fully qualified translators out of a grand total of 6 {Prange et al, Dawn, p.84}), so the ones in J-19 that might've given it away were never translated. Your evident belief FDR knew it was coming notwithstanding, nobody in DC expected an attack at Pearl that morning, & IIRC, Stimson Knox (always getting that wrong ;D), when word came in, said, "This must mean the Philippines." TREKphiler hit me ♠ 20:19, 7 December, 12:55, 15 December, & 23:23, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

"Strategic failure" ref

Take a look here (last para). It passes RS, I think, becuase the guy who wrote it is a professor. —Ed 17 (Talk / Contribs) 03:34, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

I'd be happier if he wasn't a prof at the school of law...but his analysis broadly agrees with Willmott & (IIRC) Blair (I think Miller's War Plan Orange, too). Morison is positively scathing.... TREKphiler hit me ♠ 03:49, 8 December 2008 (UTC)
Just trying to help. :) "Scathing"? —Ed 17 (Talk / Contribs) 03:54, 8 December 2008 (UTC)
It do. ;) He calls it something like "strategic imbecility". And he's right, but I've never seen a historiographer hit it so hard. TREKphiler hit me ♠ 04:36, 8 December 2008 (UTC)
It was strategic imbecility. It would be like you weighing 20 pounds cutting a toe off of a guy weighing 200 lbs. I've seen several accounts that say that, in 1941, the US had ten times the industrial capacity and ten times the overall economic strength of Japan. Binksternet (talk) 15:51, 8 December 2008 (UTC)
I don't disagree, I just never saw it said til I read him. TREKphiler hit me ♠ 00:34, 9 December 2008 (UTC)

This means war?

"Unintentionally occurring before a formal declaration of war (which had been scheduled to be delivered shortly prior to the attack beginning)" Not having Calvocoressi in front of me, I presume this is a ref to the notorious 14-Part msg, which (reading the 1st 13) led FDR to remark, "This means war.", which has since led revisionists & the ignorant to think he knew the attack was coming. Reading Prange At Dawn We Slept, however, suggests otherwise; Prange says FDR, reading Part 14, which actually only ended the (deliberately futile) negotiations, had an even milder reaction, which leads me to suspect he expected a declaration of war in Part 14, but there wasn't one in fact. That being so, the 14-Part msg, which was "scheduled to be delivered shortly prior to the attack", but wasn't an actual declaration of war or even a breach of diplomatic relations (p.485, for instance) makes the above quote untrue. Can somebody with Calvocoressi check & see if that's what he meant? (I'll try & get to it in a few days, if not.) TREKphiler hit me ♠ 10:25, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

Not having Calvocoressi at hand (his book on Bletchley Park is much better in almost all respects, save spelling of cypher, than Winterbotham's; Winterbotham has more pre-War derring do to recount, but that doesn't fully compensate for his inadequacy about BP and how it and Engima and the cryptanalysis worked; perhaps his general history is equally good?), I can't comment directly. However, I remember reading somewhere that the Japanese declaration wasn't even prepared at the time of the attack and so certainly hadn't been part of the prior 14 part message. It was delivered to Grew (in Tokyo) some hours after the attack (more or less noon Pearl time is what my memory reports, probably unreliably).
As for Roosevelt remarking that war was coming or inevitable, or some such, this was a widely held expectation in London, the Far East, and Hawaii as well. Newspapers in Hawaii had accounts which quite accurately forecast the end game for Japan's ambitions. Just when or how the wheels would come off was less clearly foreseen, but The informed in Washington also widely expected war in the Pacific to come eventually, given japan's increasingly ambitious and aggressive behavior (eg, China since various fake incidents in the 30s, in IndoChina during 41, etc. Roosevelt was hardly alone in or our of the US governemnt. ww (talk) 18:30, 15 December 2008 (UTC)
Oh, I don't suggest war wasn't widely expected in almost all quarters. I meant, more specifically, an expectation the 14h Part would be the real deal, whence his reaction to reading the 13 shortly previous. (And the resultant fodder for conspiracy nuts.) Also, IIRC, you're right, the actual declaration wasn't ready, but I couldn't source it; to that, I just meant, does Calvocoressi (wrongly) suggest the 14h Part =declaration, or does he say it was later & the editor is wrong to cite him in support (not surprising, seeing the 14hP is usually treated as a declaration), or what?
I have to say I'm a bit biased re Winterbotham. He was my first exposure to Ultra way back when (it had just recently come out in PB then; how old am I? ;D). Calvocoressi is the best one-volume work on the PW I've seen, & I'd say if you read nothing else on it, you're covered. (I wouldn't warn you off Blair & Willmott, by any means, & I especially enjoyed B&J, but they're a bit more specialized). TREKphiler hit me ♠ 19:32 & 19:34, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

The Result of This Attack

I fear that there is confusion over the 'result' of this attack on Pearl Harbor. Look - this article is not about the Pacific Theatre in general, or the US-Japanese War in particular, it is actually about a very specific event - the operation the Japanese launched on Pearl Harbor. There is no need to go into the vagaries and diplomacies that followed, they have no impact on the decision at Pearl Harbor. Therefore, we have to, in keeping with the general Wikipedia military history policy of giving simple, short-sentenced "results" of operations and battles, decide that this was a Japanese victory. Maybe not decisive, maybe not crushing, but a victory nonetheless. It cannot be other.

The same problem of circuitous and over-wordy explanations of results of operations pervaded other articles like 'Operation Barbarossa', which is now simply described as an "Axis failure." We should reach consensus on this,have a few words as to what the result was, and let the article speak to the consequences. OperationOverlord (talk) 22:00, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

This is an actively edited article with a very long history, much of which is reflected in the talk archives. This, and much else, has been hashed out at length. Editors differ on this point, and have for some time, and the existing article is an approach ot a compromise (consensus?) and so we already, somewhat, reached the goal you suggest. I too am dissatisfied with a good bit of hte article, though not for quite the reasons you suggest. I think there is insufficient context for many Readers coming to the article. So, I disagree with your proposed program. ww (talk) 05:44, 18 December 2008 (UTC)
I really agree with OO. Infobox verdicts should be short and to the point. Furthermore, it continues to strike me as bizarre that we still conflate the subject of this article - the results of the battle - with the whole rest of the war. Japan's victory at Pearl Harbour, followed by four years of war, many battles and two atom bombs, eventually resulted in Japanese defeat. that doesn't mean that the attack on Pearl Harbour was a Japanese defeat on any level. The Land (talk) 12:21, 30 December 2008 (UTC)
  1. ^ GPO 1943, p. 94.
  2. ^ Toland, Japan's War.
  3. ^ a b c d Cite error: The named reference proceedings was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  4. ^ Cite error: The named reference p60 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  5. ^ a b c Stewart, "Those Mysterious Midgets", pp.61-63
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