Close Please enter your Username and Password
Reset Password
If you've forgotten your password, you can enter your email address below. An email will then be sent with a link to set up a new password.
Cancel
Reset Link Sent
Password reset link sent to
Check your email and enter the confirmation code:
Don't see the email?
  • Resend Confirmation Link
  • Start Over
Close
If you have any questions, please contact Customer Service

OnDaFence 36M/44M
44267 posts
12/5/2016 5:37 pm

Last Read:
12/7/2016 5:57 pm

 Foreknowledge (part2)



I covered Leslie Grogan, an experienced radioman on the SS Lurline account in Foreknowledge part1 If you have not read it please do so. In January 1941, nearly a year before the attack, Dr. Ricardo Shreiber, the Peruvian minister in Tokyo, advised Max Bishop, Third Secretary of the U.S. Embassy, that he had learned from multiple sources that the Japanese were discussing a plan to attack Pearl Harbor if relations with America were ruptured.  Bishop relayed this information to his boss, Ambassador Joseph Grew.  Grew regarded Shreiber as a reliable source.  On January 27, Grew sent the following message to the State Department:


Ambassador Joseph Grew

 
The Peruvian minister has informed a member of my staff that he heard from many sources, including a Japanese source, that, in the event of trouble breaking out between the United States and Japan, the Japanese intended to make a surprise attack against Pearl Harbor. . . .


Admiral Harold Stark
 
Admiral Harold Stark, the Chief of Naval Operations, informed Admiral Kimmel of this report, but he presented it to him as nothing but a wild, baseless rumor that he was passing on merely for information purposes.  The message that Stark sent Kimmel about Ambassador Grew’s report included the statement that according to the Office of Naval Intelligence (ON “no move against Pearl Harbor appears imminent or planned for in the foreseeable future.”  Stark's dismissal of Grew's report in his message to Kimmel is troubling because Stark himself, barely two weeks earlier, had endorsed a memo from the chief of the Navy’s War Plans Division to the Secretary of War that stated that if America and Japan went to war “it is believed entirely possible that hostilities would be initiated by a surprise attack upon the Fleet or the Naval Base at Pearl Harbor."   Stark never corrected his dismissal of Ambassador Grew’s report, even when he became aware of a Japanese intercept, known as the “bomb plot message,” that indicated preparation for a bombing attack on Pearl Harbor.
 
The same day that Ambassador Grew advised the State Department of the Peruvian warning, he wrote the following in his journal:
 
There is a lot of talk around town to the effect that the Japanese, in case of a break with the United States, are planning to go all out in a surprise mass attack on Pearl Harbor. Of course I informed our Government



FD Roosevelt

In early 1941, FDR began to wage economic warfare on Japan. He imposed harsh sanctions that severely damaged Japan’s economy.  His excuse for the sanctions was that he was reacting to and/or trying to curb Japanese aggression in China and Indochina.  However, he imposed no such severe sanctions on the Soviets when they launched a brutal invasion of China’s Sinkiang province in 1934.  Nor did he take any such drastic action when the Soviet regime murdered millions of its own citizens in bloody purges from 1934 to 1938.  Nor did he seek to seriously harm the Soviet economy when the Soviets occupied Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania in 1940. 
 
Roosevelt knew that his sanctions were doing enormous damage to the Japanese economy and that Japan could not allow them to continue for very long.  In addition, he had been warned that his sanctions would provoke the Japanese to fight.  Yet, when the Japanese finally responded to his provocations with military action, he pretended to be totally “surprised.”  And, needless to say, FDR was being less than honest when he told the American people that the attack was “unprovoked.”
 
Roosevelt refused to accept reasonable Japanese peace proposals, but he was willing to bend over backwards to appease the Soviets.  Japan was anti-communist and capitalist, and did not want war with America.  Until FDR came along, Japan and America had enjoyed fairly good relations for most of the previous three decades.  In the face of FDR’s hostile diplomacy and crippling sanctions, the Japanese offered major concessions and even let it be known that they would essentially ignore their treaty with Germany in the event America intervened in Europe.  But Roosevelt refused every Japanese offer and replied with unreasonable terms that he knew the Japanese would not accept.


Secretary of War Henry Stimson

 
Internal memos and other documents show that FDR was determined to maneuver the Japanese into “firing the first shot.” For example, Secretary of War Henry Stimson recorded the following in his diary regarding a November 25 meeting with FDR and a handful of other national security officials:
 
He [FDR] brought up the event that we were likely to be attacked perhaps (as soon as) next Monday [December 1], for the Japanese are notorious for making an attack without warning, and the question was what we should do. The question was how we should maneuver them into the position of firing the first shot without allowing too much danger to ourselves. It was a difficult proposition. . . .
 
In spite of the risk involved, however, in letting the Japanese fire the first shot, we realized that in order to have the full support of the American people it was desirable to make sure that the Japanese were the ones to do this so that there should remain no doubt in anyone's mind as to who were the aggressors.
 
It is worth noting that neither FDR nor Stimson, nor anyone else at that meeting, bothered to inform the local commanders in Hawaii—Admiral Husband Kimmel and General Walter Short—that the Japanese were “likely” to attack as early as December 1. 



On October 9, Roosevelt received a copy of a decrypted Japanese intercept commonly known as the “bomb plot message.”  This message and subsequent follow-up messages made it clear that the Japanese were planning an attack on Pearl Harbor.  Yet, Roosevelt said nothing about this information to Kimmel and Short. The minority report of the Joint Committee on the Investigation of the Pearl Harbor Attack (JCC) said the following about the bomb plot message:
 
The probability that the Pacific Fleet would be attacked at Pearl Harbor was clear from the "bomb plot" available in Washington as early as October 9, 1941, and related Japanese messages. . . .
 
In the "bomb plot" message of September 24, 1941, the Japanese Government gave detailed instructions to its consul general in Hawaii as to the character of report it required concerning vessels in Pearl Harbor. Pearl Harbor was to be divided into five subareas. An alphabetical symbol was given each area. . . .



 
On November 15, 18, 20, and 29 the Japanese Government urgently called for information about the location of ships in Pearl Harbor . On November 15 the Japanese consul in Honolulu was directed to make his "ships in harbor report" irregular but at the rate of twice a week . The reports were to give vessel locations in specific areas of the harbor, using the symbols established in September. The greatest secrecy was enjoined because relations between Japan and the United States were described as "most critical." On November 18 the Japanese consul general reported to Tokyo the locations of the ships in the various subareas of Pearl Harbor, giving minute descriptions of the courses, speed, and distances apart of destroyers entering the harbor. On November 29 reports were requested even though there were no movements of ships. These dispatches were intercepted, decoded, and translated in Washington on December 3, 4, 5, and 6, 1941.
 
The "bomb plot" message, and those messages relating to Pearl Harbor which followed it, meant that the ships of the Pacific Fleet in Pearl Harbor were marked for a Japanese attack. No other American harbor was divided into subareas by Japan. And no other American harbor had such a large share of the fleet to protect.
 
In no other area did Japan seek information as to whether two or more vessels were alongside the same wharf. Prior to the "bomb plot" message Japanese espionage in Hawaii was directed to ascertain the general whereabouts of the American Fleet, whether at sea or in port. With the "bomb plot" message Japan inaugurated a new policy directed to Pearl Harbor and to no other place, in which information was no longer sought merely as to the general whereabouts of the fleet, but as to the presence of particular ships in particular areas of the harbor. In the period immediately preceding the attack Japan required such reports even when there was no movement of ships in and out of Pearl Harbor. The reports which Japan thus sought and received had a useful purpose only in planning and executing an attack upon the ships in port. . . .



 
On October 9th, 1941, Lieutenant Commander Kramer of Naval Intelligence in Washington promptly distributed the Pearl Harbor "bomb plot" message to the President, the Secretary of the Navy, the Chief of Naval Operations, Admiral Stark, the Director of Naval Communications, the Director of War Plans, and the Director of Naval Intelligence (Tr., Vol. 59 p. 11209). It bore the notation "interesting message" on a gist or flag (Tr., Vol. 59, p. 11207). It was accompanied by a summary of its contents as follows:
 
"Tokyo directs special reports on ships in Pearl Harbor which is divided into five areas for the purpose of showing exact locations” (Tr., Vol. 69, p. 11207).
 

The new chief of ONI, Captain Alan Kirk, recognized the implications of the bomb plot message and urged that Admiral Kimmel be warned about it.  So did Captain Harold Bode, head of the Foreign Intelligence Branch at ONI.  So did Lieutenant Commander Arthur McCollum, head of ONI’s Far East Section.  So did Commander Laurance Safford, head of the Communications Security Division, Office of Naval Communications.
 
But three admirals blocked all attempts to tell Kimmel anything about the bomb plot message.  Revealingly, the leader in this inexcusable withholding of vital information was Admiral Stark.  Admiral Richmond Turner (Director of War Plans) and Admiral Leigh Noyes (Director of Naval Communications) also opposed informing Kimmel about the message, but Stark was the key player.  When Captains Kirk and Bode teamed up to push for a warning to be sent to Kimmel, Admiral Turner appealed to Admiral Stark, and Stark ruled against the warning, even though the bomb plot message clearly lent credence to the Peruvian warning relayed by Ambassador Grew about a Japanese plan to attack Pearl Harbor.  As a result, Admiral Kimmel never received a copy of the bomb plot intercept and was never even told it existed.
 
In November, the Roosevelt administration declared the North Pacific a “vacant sea” and ordered all American and Allied shipping out of this area.  This was the same area through which the Japanese task force would travel to attack Pearl Harbor.  Two weeks before the attack, Admiral Kimmel deployed a portion of his fleet to the north of Hawaii for surveillance purposes, but he received an order from Washington to pull his ships back.  To this day, no credible innocent explanation for the “vacant sea” order has been offered.


Admiral James O. Richardson
 
  FDR’s bizarre decision to move the Pacific Fleet to Hawaii in June 1940 seems to indicate his intent to use the fleet as bait for an attack.  Moving the fleet to Hawaii made no sense—tactically, strategically, logistically, or financially.  Admiral James O. Richardson, the fleet’s commander, strongly opposed the move.  Roosevelt’s excuse was that basing the fleet in Hawaii would discourage Japanese aggression in the Far East. This was an utterly bogus justification, and FDR’s own subsequent actions proved it was a phony excuse.  When FDR floated this excuse to Admiral Richardson in a face-to-face meeting in October, the admiral couldn’t believe what he was hearing.  As Richardson pointed out the glaring flaws in Roosevelt’s argument, the discussion became rather heated.  FDR unjustly fired Richardson a few months later.  After the attack on Pearl Harbor, many Navy officers, including Admiral William Halsey and Admiral Robert Theobald, came to believe that FDR moved the fleet to Hawaii to serve as bait for a Japanese attack.



and so... it happened....Just before 8 a.m. on December 7, 1941, hundreds of Japanese fighter planes attacked the American naval base at Pearl Harbor near Honolulu, Hawaii. The barrage lasted just two hours, but it was devastating: The Japanese managed to destroy nearly 20 American naval vessels, including eight enormous battleships, and more than 300 airplanes. More than 2,000 Americans soldiers and sailors died in the attack, and another 1,000 were wounded. The day after the assault, President Franklin D. Roosevelt asked Congress to declare war on Japan;
 

OnDaFence 36M/44M

12/5/2016 5:57 pm

abject devastation


OnDaFence 36M/44M

12/5/2016 5:58 pm

horrendous loss of life


OnDaFence 36M/44M

12/5/2016 6:01 pm

it's up to you to decide.......


OnDaFence 36M/44M

12/5/2016 6:03 pm

negligence of the highest order... or criminal intent.....


Hungr4Yungr 75M
5766 posts
12/5/2016 7:01 pm

So now we know the rest of the story. Sounds like negligence on the part of some participants and outright criminal intent on the part of others. I am not pointing any fingers, because I am too afraid of the future administration, come January.

Thank you Bret.


OnDaFence 36M/44M

12/5/2016 7:04 pm

    Quoting Hungr4Yungr:
    So now we know the rest of the story. Sounds like negligence on the part of some participants and outright criminal intent on the part of others. I am not pointing any fingers, because I am too afraid of the future administration, come January.

    Thank you Bret.
Part of the problem lies with every key player in these events have long since passed away... finger pointing would be of little consequence but a clarification of the events leading up to the attack is historically important.


OnDaFence 36M/44M

12/5/2016 8:35 pm

    Quoting  :

There's more to come for the 75th anniversary of the attack on pearl harbor.


OnDaFence 36M/44M

12/6/2016 10:55 am

    Quoting  :

The war time czrtoon probably give more insight into the American view of the Japanese military where thick bespectacled slant eyed apes fly bamboo airplanes that just could never possibly hit the modern American warships through a hail of lead spewing amassed machineguns.


OnDaFence 36M/44M

12/6/2016 11:02 am

    Quoting  :

I concur, however, FDR's enamumeration with Stalin and the Soviet Union's high handed take over of Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia drew not so much as a peep from him as Stalin divided Poland with Hitler. FRDR in my opinion deliberately set up our navy as bait in Pearl Harbor to bring about a conflagration of epic proportions bringing the US into a world wide conflict.


OnDaFence 36M/44M

12/6/2016 3:59 pm

    Quoting  :

It's taken 75 years for us to dig through all the facts and material to get to the truth of the situation.


OnDaFence 36M/44M

12/7/2016 5:57 pm

    Quoting  :

It falls along the same lines as the FBI working with the mob in the Kennedy assassination from the grassy knoll with LBJ just standing in the wings waiting for his chance to play ball.