Day of Infamy

[pomsa]

Originally posted by Sarevok
that is the traditional Japanese way: attack without a declaration of war.

Actually, they declared war prior to Pearl Harbor, the Japanese just delivered it to Hull after Pearl Harbor was attacked because they didn't decode the message fast enough.

 

[joespaniel]

Originally posted by pomsa
The US knew that theyw ere going to be attacked during December 1941.

No, they didn't.

They had, in 1931, created a simulation battle plan that they thought the Japanese would use. They even tested the plan, and won easily. The only thing that happened different was that the Japanese attacked 2 and 1/2 hours later.

Billy Mitchell was the man who predicted Pearl Harbor and the attack on the Philippines. It was chillingly close to what actually happened.

Traditional naval thinkers never believed that Pearl Harbor could be attacked from the air. They were worried about submarines and sabotage.

 

[privatehudson]

Talking about naval predictions, when I was reading a book on Naval Wargaming by Donald Featherstone which described the 1920s and 1930s wargames by a guy called Fletcher Pratt. Pratt used to play in a large scale in ballrooms and used a kind of "guess the range and that's where you're shells hit" principle. Anyway, using his rules (which are quite good I might add, but not for the faint-hearted) he fought out an action like the battle of the river plate, only the Graff Spee was sunk in action, not limped into harbour. Most back then denounced his rules as being unrealistic as they figured no 3 cruisers could ever sink or even engage a pocket battleship....

 

[CIVPhilzilla]

The attack was attrocious from a moral viewpoint. But the strategy behind it was emense. Able to pull such a surprise attack on the newest and fastest growing world power.

Pearl Harbor- A stategic attack against a military target, though sneaky, very effective.

Bombing of Hiroshima and Nagisaki- Horrible, the use of nuclear weapons against civilian targets is just barbaric.

 

[CIVPhilzilla]

Of course there are consperiouses and rumors that the US knew about the attack, and was waiting for someone to attack to join the war. They did have a lot of boats on pointless reconsance missions. Not sure wheter I buy into it or not, but something to consider none the less.

 

[joespaniel]

Originally posted by CIVPhilzilla
Bombing of Hiroshima and Nagisaki- Horrible, the use of nuclear weapons against civilian targets is just barbaric.

The Japanese were real sweethearts in China.

 

[Sarevok]

thats right, 30 milion deaths and only around 5M (not sure on their military losses) were soldiers.

 

[CIVPhilzilla]

Originally posted by joespaniel


The Japanese were real sweethearts in China.

Did I ever say they were. We considered ourselves more civilizied yet we killed 30 + million people the vast majority being civilians.

 

[joespaniel]

I didn't say we were more civilized, just better at building long range bombers.

 

[rilnator]

Originally posted by CIVPhilzilla

Did I ever say they were. We considered ourselves more civilizied yet we killed 30 + million people the vast majority being civilians.

Strange, I didn't think the Japanese acknowledged their war guilt, or even knew about it. My brothers living over there at the moment and he says hes taken a new view point of ww2. A much more Japanese friendly one.

 

[Mrogreturns]

It is entirely reasonable to encourage the Japanese to reflect more openly on their role in the war and to do more to educate their society about it. However, it is not reasonable to expect them to simply adopt in total the western perspective on the war.

 

[joespaniel]

I think the 'Western Perspective' is that bombing civilians is not OK anymore, as evidenced by the change in military practice.

The Japanese perspective is to ignore what really happened. They don't teach schoolchildren about what the Japanese army did in China.

 

[Mrogreturns]

I know they don't Joe, and clearly they should. For one thing it is as much in their interest as in that of anyone else. (Just as an aside, it might be of interest to note that the Hiroshima A-bomb museum is active in trying to encourage that change).