Perhaps a Stupid Question Regarding Jap Sneak Attacks

I am not really a student of history. While I find most of it to be fascinating and I know a fair amount, I am no expert by a longshot.

My question is this, in reference to Redguard's post in HELL's thread.

I have heard a lot about how we entered World War II because the Japs attacked Pearl Harbor, how Churchill said it was the best day of his life because he knew then the war would be won, yadda yadda yadda.

What I don't know in my ignorance is why the hell Japan bombed us in the first place.

Is it simply because we were already giving some aid to the allies and they thought we would become involved anyway, and thus they didn't want all those airplanes that close to them? Is it that simple? Or is there some other motivation I have completely missed.

Revel in my delicious naivity.

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Movie is coming out this summer.

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SETI@Home: join us!

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on an unrelated note, i used to live about 3 miles away from the wreckage and the memorial

looking down and into the wreckage of the USS arizona? (so much for my memory) is ingrained in my memory (but not that well) but the thing that stands out is the list of names of the soldiers in the next room of the memorial. coupled with looking at the wreckage really makes a connection with you

very interesting if any of you go to Oahu

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"An intelligent man is sometimes forced to be drunk to spend time with his fools."
-Ernest Hemingway

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on an unrelated note, i used to live on the west side of pearl harbor, and use to throw rocks at all the tourist boats (the east side was military housing, well some of it)

fun, but i pretty much could see that memorial everyday (from a distance) cause that place was cool as fuck to hang out

(its a long story on how cool it was)

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"An intelligent man is sometimes forced to be drunk to spend time with his fools."
-Ernest Hemingway

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http://odur.let.rug.nl/~usa/H/1994/ch10_p8.htm


General Hideki Tojo became prime minister of Japan in October 1941. In mid-November, he sent a special envoy to the United States to meet with Secretary of State Cordell Hull. Among other things, Japan demanded that the U.S. release Japanese assets and stop U.S. naval expansion in the Pacific. Hull countered with a proposal for Japanese withdrawal from China and Indochina in exchange for the freeing of the frozen assets. The Japanese asked for two weeks to study the proposal, but on December 1 rejected it. On December 6, Franklin Roosevelt appealed directly to the Japanese emperor, Hirohito. On the morning of December 7, however, Japanese carrier-based planes attacked the U.S. Pacific fleet at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, in a devastating, surprise attack. Nineteen ships, including five battleships, and about 150 U.S. planes were destroyed; more than 2,300 soldiers, sailors and civilians were killed. Only one fact favored the Americans that day: the U.S. aircraft carriers that would play such a critical role in the ensuing naval war in the Pacific were at sea and not anchored at Pearl Harbor.
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SETI@Home: join us!

[This message has been edited by MstrG (edited 04-11-2001).]

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well mr paintchips, i beleive it had to do something with some secret telegram or something like that.

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also, in addition to G's extremely good summary, is a fun fact on how they actually managed to pull the whole thing off. after observing american fighters leaving for morning flight drills the japanese established the standard time they returned and planned the attack for then. when the fleet was spotted by u.s. radar operators they dismissed it as their own air forces returning a little early. the man responsible for giving the order to ignore the planes was flogged and hanged.

as to your secret telegram RED, i think you're reffering to the Zimmerman Notes, which was a major factor drawing the u.s. into the first world war. it was a coded message intercepted and broken by england on it's way to mexico. the gist of the piece was that if mexico was to attack the u.s., keeping them from effectively joining the war untill at the very least france could be held, germany would give them aid in the fight mexicans were already itching for. some still speculate that the Notes were formulated by britain to encourage the u.s. to join the war. other factors included the russian revolution and the continued attacks on u.s. merchant ships after the issuing of the Sussex Pledge.

ta-dah.

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you've been drinking my blood, well i've been licking your wounds

[This message has been edited by ItsJustLogan (edited 04-11-2001).]

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Thanks MstrG and Logan.

I figured it was more complicated then my very sophomoric notion of it.

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WTF?

Logan, how was it that we supposedly spotted the Nips with radar when the invention of the device didn't come about until 3 years later, and by the Brits no less?

Flogged and hanged? On 28 September 1850, President Millard Filmore signed the 1851 naval appropriations bill, officaially outlawing flogging as a form of punishment in the US. Navy. Thats a good 90 years before Pearl Harbor.

What timeline are you from?

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"Never underestimate the power of human stupidity." -Robert Heinlein

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I am just reading a book on it called 'embracing defeat'
the japanese had essentially taken it upon themselves to take over all of the eastern world, china, korea, taiwan, some parts of russia etc and subjecting them to serious torture, murder, rape etc on a scale as big as the germans. Several millions of chinese were killed (see the book 'the rape of nanking' (i think thats how you spell it))
Unfourntunately japan was running into a bit of finacncial crisis i believe prepearing its citizens for an all out kamikazzee attack. And i guess they wanted hawaii (they still do) and they needed money and the emporer was mad and considered to be a deity by the japanese people so what he said was gospel mate.
And japanese were a madly patriotic proud race and believed what they were told when the emporer said they were a superoir race and the war was for the good of the world.

the sad thing is most of the younger japanese generation have no idea what they did, no concept of the atrocoties that japan did in asia, and the government even started to change the history books recently to play down what japan had done (pissing of the chineese and koreans no end) and japan is still kinda at war with russia (no real peace treaty was signed).

im only at the begining of the book, its all about what the USA did to japan after they surrendered(essentialy a forced democracy and destruction of most of japans old culture)


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oh for fucks sake

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That's exactly right Mr. mori-man! And that's one of a million reasons why America needs to be militarily superior. People are living in a dreamland if they think that things can't change around here!

[This message has been edited by GoFuckYourselves! (edited 04-12-2001).]

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I still think the most suprising thing about Perl Harbor is that we knew it was coming. We had a source inside the japanese government code named "magic" that warned of the impending attack, but was deemed to important a source to release the information, so basically we let it happen to ourselves worrying too much about "need to know"

Graves

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quote:

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Originally posted by GoFuckYourselves!:
That's exactly right Mr. mori-man! And that's one of a million reasons why America needs to be militarily superior. People are living in a dreamland if they think that things can't change around here!

[This message has been edited by GoFuckYourselves! (edited 04-12-2001).]

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Personally, I think that theory is inaccurate. Totally.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Generic Failure:
MAD Theory.
Basically, that if the United States and any other country each had the ability, if attacked, to counter-attack and destroy the other, then neither side would ever attack.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Paint CHiPs:
Didn't Einstein at one time claim to belive this in regards to nuclear weapons?

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quote:

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Originally posted by GoFuckYourselves!:
Even if he did, would that make it right?

Try to convince yourself that if some madman developed an atomic bomb, that he wouldn't use it at some time, even if it meant his whole country was destroyed.

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yeh, look at korea and china, what would it take?

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oh for fucks sake

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quote:

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Originally posted by Timeenoughforlove:
WTF?

Logan, how was it that we supposedly spotted the Nips with radar when the invention of the device didn't come about until 3 years later, and by the Brits no less?

Flogged and hanged? On 28 September 1850, President Millard Filmore signed the 1851 naval appropriations bill, officaially outlawing flogging as a form of punishment in the US. Navy. Thats a good 90 years before Pearl Harbor.

What timeline are you from?

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quote:

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Originally posted by melesse:

Also, the Japanese planes flew over Oahu, I don't understand why someone didn't call that in or something...

Melesse

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will someone give him a map?

pssstt, pearl harbor IS on Oahu; unless you were thinking of Kauai?


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"An intelligent man is sometimes forced to be drunk to spend time with his fools."
-Ernest Hemingway

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All the responses here are right, but the answer to PaintCHiPs's question still seems to be missing. As far as I can tell, the Japanese had planned to take over the Pacific and the US was telling them to knock it off, as G said. I think the primary motivation behind the Pearl Harbor attack was that the Japanese recognized that since the US would eventually start fighting with them as the took over the Pacific, the Japanese might as well launch a pre-emptive strike aimed at destroying or disabling the Pacific Fleet. Had they been able to get at aircraft carriers, the shape of the war probably would have been quite different.

As far as theories about the US knowing the attack was coming but let it happen to give the US an excuse, I really have doubts about this. If this was the case, I just can't imagine that we would have still left our ships and planes lined up literally like ducks. If we only let the Japanese nick the paint on one jeep, that would have been enough provocation to enter the war against them. No need to hand over so many military assets.

In case no one likes this idea, I have also included what The Boomer Bible has to say about it all, not including the intercolumn reference. This should clear pretty much everything up. It's kind of long, so I will add the Nip perspective of it later.

From the book of Yanks:

Chapter 104:23 Which is why the Yanks absolutely positively were not going to get involved again (WWII),
24 No matter how great Churchill was,
25 Period,
26 And weren't going to hlep out at all,
27 Unless you count lending them (Brits) a whole bunch of ships and weapons and food,
28 And making sure they got across the North Atlantic to Great Britain,
29 Even if that wasn't going to save them anyway.

105:1 And so the Yanks stayed firm,
2 Through the fall of France,
3 And the narrow escape at Dunkirk,
4 And the fall of Norway,
5 And the Battle of Britain,
6 And through Hitler's invasion of Russia,
7 And even through a lot of wierd stuff with the Japanese,
8 Who no Yank had ever given any thought to before,
9 Until they started acting like they owned the Pacific or something,
10 Which couldn't be true,
11 Because the Yank government seemed to be getting pretty cross with Japan
12 And they wouldn't do that unless the Japanese were in the wrong,
13 And wanted something in the South Pacific that didn't belong to them,
14 Which would have to be out somehow,
15 If the Yanks could only figure out what it was in the South Pacific that anybody would want,
16 Which would be easier to do if you could figure out where the South Pacific was in the first place,
17 Except that's the government's job anyway,
18 And they'll work it all out at the peace talk,
19 Because nobody was going to trick the Yanks into another big foreign war,
19 This time,
21 And besides, those little monkeys in Japan know better than to mess with the Yanks, don't they?
22 Sure they do.

106:1 But then came the day that will live in infamy,
2 Forever,
3 Never to be forgotten by the Yanks,
4 Ever,
5 As long as there is still a single Yank alive to remember th exact moment when Japan and Germany lost the war,
6 Which happened at seven o' clock A.M., Pacific time,
7 On December 7th,
8 1940- something,
9 When about a million Nip planes and ships came out of nowhere,
10 And attacked Pearl Harbor,
11 Without warning,
12 Completely by surprise,
13 And killed about two thousand Yanks
14 For no reason.

107:1 The Yanks were mad about Pearl Harbor, of course,
2 But maybe not quite as mad as they were surprised,
3 And offended,
4 Because how did the Nips ever get the idea that a sneak atatck on the Yanks was a good idea?
5 After all, it hasn't ever been a good idea to make the Yanks mad,
6 Like with the Alamo,
7 And the Maine,
8 And the Lusitania,
9 Which should have tipped off the Nips that if they did something to the Yanks,
10 Something unspeakable like Pearl Harbor, for example,
11 The Yanks would remember it,
12 Forever,
13 And find a way to get even,
14 No matter how much it cost,
15 And now that you mention it,
16 Remember the Lusitania?
17 Which explains why the Yanks declared war on Japan and Germany within a few hours of the attack on Pearl Harbor,
18 Because they were all going to get it now,
19 As soon as the Yanks remembered where they'd put their army and their weapons and other stuff like that.

108:1 By December 8th, about three million Yanks had enlisted,
2 Which made it all the more important to remember where the army was,
3 Which took about another eight or nine months,
4 Because the truth was, in all the excitement of the depression and everything,
5 The Yanks had scrapped most of their military,
6 Or lent it to the Brits,
7 Except for the Pacific Fleet, of course,
8 Which was mostly sitting at the bottom of Pearl Harbor
9 Thanks to those nodding, smiling little barbarians in Japan,
10 Who were going to get a big lesson,
11 If there was any place left in the South Pacific to fight over by the time the Yanks had built some more war stuff,
12 Which they were doing
13 In a big way.

109:1 And so the Yanks had to put up with about a year of bad news.

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The Law of Fives is never wrong.

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From the book of Nips:

Chapter 12:1 As it happened,
2 The Nips eventually had to deal with a whole bunch of barbarians,
3 Who came from Europe and American
4 The waythey always seem to,
5 And started trying to tell the Nips how to run things in Japan.
6 For example, there was a Yank named Commodore Perry who made the Nips open up their ports to the barbarians,
7 So that the barbarians could sell a whole bunch of paper umbrellss and samurai swords and kimonos and things back home.
8 Unfortuately, the Nips hadn't quite got around to inventing some of the weapons the barbarians had,
9 Like artillery,
10 And had ot make a note to themselves to invent better weapons later on,
11 Which they did.

13: 1 In fact, after the European barbarians arrived, the Nips suddenly got very inventive,
2 And though up a whole bunch of new technologies,
3 Including industry,
4 And weapons,
5 And warships,
6 And other great innovations,
7 Until they discovered that it was time to go over and humiliate the Russians in a war,
8 And so they did,
9 With great success,
10 Which got them started thinking,
11 Not out loud, of course,
12 But kind of mysteriously and inscrutably,
13 About getting out and about more in the world,
14 And showing everybody that in spite of what everybody thought, Japan was definitely one of the Chosen Nations.

14:1 Their first chance to get a little more recognition from the barbarians in the world at large came during World War I,
2 When they fought on the side of the Allies,
3 That is, the British and the French and Italians,
4 Against somebody or other,
5 Although nobody but the Nips remembers what they did exactly,
6 Anyway,
7 They enjoyed World War I so much that they started looking forward to World War II right away,
8 And got so excited about how much recognition they'd get next time that they just couldn't wait,
9 And decided to help start it.

15:1 It was at about this time that the Krauts started grabbing up all the spare countries in Europe,
2 And pretty soon, all the European nations were concentrating pretty intently on the gigantic war that Neville Chamberlain couldn't quite stop,
3 Then, right after Hitler stomped everybody flat with blitzkrieg attacks and started boasting about Fortress Europe, the Nips had another great and original idea.

16:1 The way the Nips looked at it, what the world needed was something called the Greater Japanese Co-Prosperity Sphere,
2 Since they were far too polit and civilized to use the word "empire,"
3 Although the basic plan called for them to conquer the entire South Pacific, including the Philippines, Singapore, New Zealand, New Guinea, Australia, parts of China, and all the islands in between,
4 When nobody was looking.
5 Of course, the emperor Hirohito didn't know anything about this plan,
6 Because he was only the emperor,
7 And didn't have any power anymore,
8 Since the Nip military and industrial leaders had it all,
9 But were too polite to tell Hirohito what they had in mind,
10 Which explains why Hirohito wasn't responsible for what happened next,
11 Somehow.

17:1 What happened hext was that the Nips thought a little more seriously about a key part of their plan,
2 Namely, the part about grabbing the whole South Pacific when nobody was looking,
3 And decided that no matter how mysteriously and inscrutably they invaded dozens of countries,
4 Somebody might notice,
5 Like the Americans
6 Who, for a bunch of degenerate mongrel barbarians that didn't have the guts to fight Hitler, had a pretty big military,
7 Including an army in the Philippines,
8 And a good-sized navy in the Hawaiian Islands.
9 Eventually, the Nips figured out that if they could destroy the American navy in the Hawaiian Islands,
10 The Yanks would get discourage,
11 And think it was too much trouble to stop Japan from grabbing the entire South Pacific.

18:1 And so the Nips devised this great plan to attack Pearl Harbor in Hawaii,
2 By surprise,
3 and then take everything they wanted,
4 Right away,
5 Something like Hitler was doing in Europe,
6 In fact, a lot like Hitler was doing in Europe,
7 Except that the Nips didn'T get the idea from Hitler, of course,
8 But thought it up all by themselves,
9 With their own great imagination.
10 Banzai!

19:1 The way it worked out, there were two surprises the day the Nips attacked Pearl Harbor.
2 The Americans were surprised as hell about being attacked by a bunch of smiling, nodding , two-faced little barbarians,
3 Which made the Nips smile and nod at each other,
4 Since everything had gone almost completely according to plan,
5 although not absolutely everything,
6 Because the other surprise was that the Americans didn't react exactly like a bunch of degenerate mongrel barbarians that didn't have the guts to fight a major war.
7 In fact, the Americans were extremely, thoroughly, and comletely mad at Japan,
8 And declared war on both Germany and Japan right away,
9 And then every able-bodied man in America immediately enlisted in the army, the navy, or the air force.

20: 1 Of course, with their typical foresight, the Americans were(n't) very well prepared to fight a war against Germany and Japan,
2 Having scrapped a lot of their weapons years ago,
3 And not having quite gotten around to building any new ones,
4 In spite of the fact that World War II had been going on for almost 2 years now,
5 And so, the Nips had pretty clear sailing in the South Pacific for quite a while.

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The Law of Fives is never wrong.

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hmm, and they still dont know what happened, ask your average yankee girl (japanese term) or biker boy (bozoko, forget) even ask a salaryman drinking asahi in his local train station and not one will know what happend (but most will know the war songs) then ask the americans about comfert houses set up, you know where the japanese government enlisted publicly, women to please the american army once it had landed on the surrenderd land (so the americans wouldnt spoil the purity of the japanese race y'know)

and hence the start of the love of western culture and french handbags.

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oh for fucks sake

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I am topping this just because I spent a long time typing that Boomer Bible stuff in and I want people to read it. I would have masked this top with a response to mori-man, but I don't understand what he said. at all.

btw, mm, you gonna re-register next week when they switch up the PM?

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The Law of Fives is never wrong.

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OK, I'll admit this Boomer Bible thing is pretty good.

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A closed mouth gathers no feet.

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