Misremembering Pearl Harbor

Japan at that time was all in on the “warrior” code. They were ready for war and thought the US would cede the Pacific without a fight. They didn’t think we would relentlessly go from island to island at horrible cost to defeat them. My dad’s unit was being staged to invade Japan when Truman dropped the bomb(s). RIP Harry and thanks again.

Re #1, interesting to read of your dad. My late cousin - my Big Brother - was a crewman on one of the assault landing ships that went "from island to island” from the Philippines onward. They too were headed for mainland Japan when Truman dropped the bombs.

As I recall, my cousin was on an LSM. Landing Ship Medium. This interesting video was shot by a crew member on an LST as it moved from island to island. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cVGan6sYxys

Excellent analysis

Roosevelt cut off part of Japan's oil supply... That's an act of war. The problem was the surprise attack... that's it in a nutshell.

Just think. When we were growing up all our neighbors and all our of our friend's fathers fought in the war. When we moved to the house we are living in now, 43 years ago, all of our neighbors, older gentlemen, fought in the war. Immediately to our south, the neighbor was in the Navy, next to him was a retired Lt. General, to our North, the next two neighbors were in the Navy, one a Captain. And across the street, that neighbor enlisted in the Navy right out of high school in 1944. He was on a battleship that was in Tokyo Bay when the Japanese signed the surrender papers. If these men and women were still alive today, there is no way in hell the governments around the world would be getting away with locking us all down for a GD virus. Resistance is NOT futile.

I agree that this was an excellent article and great reminiscences of their family members from the posters here. Several of my late uncles were sailors and soldiers who served in the Pacific during World War II. I remember them telling me that they expected to be sent to the anticipated bloodbath that an amphibious assault on the Japanese mainland would be. My father was an infantryman, who served in North Africa and Europe with the 36th Division. There was speculation that those men along with other divisions in the E.T.O. would be sent to the Pacific after Germany surrendered in May of 1945. My father’s war was over when he was hit by enemy mortar fire outside of Oberhoffen on the French-German border. As terrible as the two atomic bombs were, they saved hundreds of thousands of both American and Japanese lives. In his excellent biography, “Truman.” author David McCullough wrote that after so many American Marines and sailors were killed and wounded at Okinawa, President Truman knew how bloody a land invasion of Japan would be and so he gave final approval for the US Army Air Force to drop the two bombs on Japan and finally end the war.

Most people only remember the third attack on Pearl on December 7th 1941. Back during Navy war games in February 1932 US Admiral Harry Yarnell proved how vulnerable Pearl Harbor was to an aerial attack using the Navy's two aircraft carriers Lexington and Saratoga during a surprise war game exercise. US naval aviation back then was relegated to reconnaissance duties with battleships favored as the premier vessels of naval conflict. Yarnell's carrier tactics were reprised by Vice-Admiral Ernest King using the Saratogain 1938, with the same results. All this time forward-thinking Japanese (who valued carrier operational air power over battleship tactics) took note of the war game results the US Navy ignored in '32 and '38 - and formed aerial attack plans used ten years later to devastating effect on December 7th 1941.

An excellent summary. I have read many personal accounts and histories, official and unofficial of the Pacific War. My father and one of his cousins were WW2 USN aviators. My wife's father was a US Army Air Corps fighter pilot in England. Having family connections, I developed a deep interest in all of WW2, but especially the war in the Pacific. All that VDH says is very accurate, as you'd expect from a historian of his stature. One important factor that is widely unknown is that when the war started Japanese naval pilots were superbly selected and trained in a harsh, yet effective training environment for about 10 years before becoming operational pilots. And they has been at war, learning to fight in combat for several years. Our pilots, while well trained had zero combat experience and slightly inferior aircraft performance in the first six months of the war. We were at a disadvantage in pilot experience in the early months. One critical factor that was little understood at the time by either side, and often overlooked today is that our choice of a first land battle at Guadalcanal in August of 1942, while a truly desperate fight for both sides, with our forces hanging on by a thread for six months, was perfect, better than we understood when the choice was made. The Japanese had to fly about 675 miles one way to strike at Guadalcanal, right at the limit of their aircraft range. Our fighters were right over and very near their home base. Many of our top pilots were shot down multiple times, but with good pilot armor plate, and being near home base, our pilots often survived and fought again. Japanese aircraft gained somewhat superior performance by being lighter, without armor protecting the pilots or self sealing (fire resistant) fuel tanks. Their fragile, if slightly superior performing, aircraft and the long distance meant that over the six months of the long Guadalcanal campaign the Japanese navy was bled of their best pilots and large numbers of aircraft. Their systems could produce neither high quality replacement pilots or new replacement aircraft rapidly. The pilot losses at Guadalcanal, added to the losses at their terrible defeat (four aircraft carriers sunk) at the battle of Midway meant that by the opening months of 1943, just over a year into the war, much of their literally irreplaceable corps of experienced pilots were dead. We could produce a good pilot in 12 months, although later in the war, we took 18 months. Japanese pilots in the same amount of time were barely competent to take off and land and navigate when thrown into battle. A myriad of factors not understood by Japan meant that they were woefully unable to compete with the US in a long war. But huge pilot losses in the June '42 to Jan '43 period lowered their aerial fighting abilities dramatically over what they were in the first 6 months of the war. By late '43 the poor quality of Japanese pilots was a huge factor, along with fragile, unarmored, easily ignited aircraft. In June of 1944 the Battle of the Philippine Sea was such an aerial disaster that our USN pilots referred to it as "The Great Marianas Turkey Shoot". Sources disagree, but somewhere between 380 and 500 Japanese aircraft were shot down on the first day. The overall battle was a total disaster for Japan in every way. More irreplaceable pilots lost.

A massive invasion and occupation of Hawaii and simultaneous attack and destruction of the Panama canal would have bought the Japanese much needed time. Retaking Hawaii by a San Diego based army would have been next to impossible with supply lines 2k miles of ocean long. In WW2 our enemies were incredibly stupid. But then modern politicians, FJB, Democrats and RINOs look to WW2 Germans and Japanese for inspiration. They find it daily!

Japan started the was with the Zero and ended with the Zero. The US started with the P-40 and F4 Wildcat but ended with the F4U, F6F, P-38 and P-51 to name a few that were at least a generation past the Zero.

Thank you Dr Hanson and poster.

The appearance of weakness invites war. With Biden there will be war.

I still remember while 8 years old in Kalamazoo, Michigan, my father and I Iistening to the reports as the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor. Six weeks later he enlisted in the navy and was soon on PT boats fighting these same Japanese in the Pacific. He returned home in early 1946 after treatment for malaria in Colorado.

Something else to be said. The young man who made the movie/video was only 19 at the end of the War in the Pacific. My cousin could not have been more than that. So many “teenagers”…brave souls. They were patriotic, loved our country (“how dare they attack our country!), they were loyal so service and country. They were indeed the Greatest Generation.

I do not read that much, but this is the first time that our entry into the war has been explained in a way that it should dispel the incorrect theories put forth in the past, such as Roosevelt cutting off oil and scrap metal to the Ja*s. Yes, that's how we referred to them from 1941 to 1946. I lived during that era. I still look back at how united the people were during that time and the propaganda in the movies. Hollywood back then was Republican. At least, that's what they had to be. I had an uncle and cousin who were in the Army Air Force then, and their mothers, my grandmother and her sister, had the flag with the gold star hanging in the windows of their front doors, that signified that a family member was in the service. Happily, both men returned home unscratched. And we all cheered when the A-bombs were dropped on Japan! There was no hand-wringing at that by anyone I knew. I don't think President Truman had any second thoughts either. We had the bomb and we weren't going to use it? Give me a break! A wonderful article by Dr. Hanson.

The attack on Pearl Harbor was the start of the last war the United States engaged in with the outcome being to demand the "unconditional surrender" of our foe. All wars that the United States engaged in since WW II ended with an "exit strategy". September 2, 1945 was the date we truly won our last war.

I have noticed that whenever I read something by Hanson, I seem to hold my breath until the end. Then I exhale. Usually, I listen to his lectures and interviews, but only reading his work makes me nearly breathless. I love the written word, and I fear we will lose it ala the movie Fahrenheit 451.

One might also remember that the successful Japanese bombing was aided by stupid Americans who did not believe that such a brazen act was possible and ignored reports that it was actually in progress until the bombs began falling. We made the same mistake on September 11, 2001, some 56 years later.

Lucianne.com and L.com posters make days worthwhile, especially when following up on articles like you're all doing with this one from VDH. Thank you! Interesting, isn't it? Patriots who loved America led our country through War Two, while just the opposite is true today? "Roosevelt cut off part of Japan's oil supply." Obiden did the same to ours on Day One and has kept making our lives miserable every day since. FJB