Poking up the ‘Fire a little bit! I have long held the belief that FDR did all he could to drag the US into the war in 1941.
Public opinion held that our entry in WW 1 was a big mistake, and Roosevelt campaigned on the pretext of keeping us out of the war in Europe in 1940.
But he did have a Back Door Theory that would surely change public opinion and greatly enhance our mobilization of the military? This article that a received from a friend definitely thinks so!
I know we have discussed this from time to time before, and going through old bookmarks I ran across this, which I didn’t realize I had!
Did FDR bait the Japanese into attacking the US?
I always enjoy these things because they usually are pretty thought provoking, but lately we’ve beaten the Civil War and Little Bighorn to death.😀
Reon

Our government wanted to go to England's aid but were held back by nonaggression agreements. He managed to put us in the position where Japan would attack. I'm not sure he knew the attack would come at that time but I do think he knew they would at some point declare war and that would bring us to a position where we could openly aid England. FDR was a socialist and extended the depression for at least seven years and made it far harder than it need be on the people all the while convincing them he was helping. That's my story.

The whole thing is a good read. Japan gets mentioned in it.

https://www.ratical.org/ratville/CAH/warisaracket.html

Even if true, Japan didn't have to attack. And they were cutting a brutal and bloody swath through the Pacific.

Japan was hardly an innocent victim or dupe.

Did FDR provoke the Japs in to attacking us at Pearl Harbor??

I do not know, although I've read about it and listened to the many debates about the question for years.

I do know, however, that I was sitting in our living room with my mother, dad, brother, and one of my uncles the following day, listening to FDR on the radio, speaking before Congress, "Yesterday, December Seventh, 1941, a date that will live in infamy, The Japanese empire attacked .... ", etc. etc.

Long, long ago, but I still remember my mother crying. I had four uncles who would be going off to war. (My dad was 42 years old and did not have to go.)

L.W.



I

Did your uncles make it back home?

I'm amazed that this is even in question, but, people are SO emotionally invested in the propaganda, and the thought that the us Government could never do wrong, and the Japanese attacked us out of the blue, for NO reason at all....

FDR (and Churchill) did everything they could to go to war. FDR did his best to goad Germany into doing something so he would have his pretense for war... but the Germans weren't going for the bait. The Japanese, on the other hand, were found to be more easily agitated to retaliate against the us Governments acts of war.

Japan woke up the sleeping giant

Way before my time. The Old Man was 20 years old and working in a steel mill in Johnstown. Mom was barely out of high school and years from meeting Dad after the war.
But everybody that knows me also knows I’m a history nerd, and I love stuff like this!😎
Reon

Always wondered about Germany if we hadn’t entered the war

Look, all he could do to thwart the carnage in China was to cut off the oil, which he did. Japan chose war over giving up their gains in Manchuria. Nobody knows, maybe FDR believed there was noway the Japanese would choose war with the USA, rather than give up the offensive in China.

That is no different than saying America is trying to bait Russia into attacking us by supplying aid the Ukraine.

Better yet, if Hitler had taken a defensive position in the east, and held off attacking Russia until things in the west had been settled.
Could you imagine invading France if Russia had not depleted Germany’s army, tanks and planes?

Don't disagree. Another "democratic socialist" phoney.

FDR was a snake in the grass . He kept the depression going so he could institute his Socialist Communist agenda . WWII was needed to fill the Industrial War Machines pockets full. In his Biography he admitted to hiring Communists to work in The White House . His wife was thick with the Communist Party . The SAS were all his College Cronies . He makes O`Biden look like a Cub Scout .

Like the left is doing now wid Putin?

His advisors were predominately bolsheviks or heavily influenced by them.

My maternal grandmother had 2 brothers in the Navy stationed at Pearl Harbor when it happened. I remember her saying how scared they were for them back here in the states.

Hey Gayghost and Jell-O and psychodawg and Plumdumb and Jetsam and Houston_2, wasn't that no good POS FDR a no good POS Dimocrap?

Nothing happens in a vacuum. Japan did not just wake up one day and decide to start a war with the US.

If you really want to understand the actual history behind the war, I'd suggest two books for starters: The Imperial Cruise and The China Mirage by James Bradley. Add Korea's Place in the Sun by Bruce Cummings.

You might be surprised how much meddling by the US comes back to bite us in the ass.

My wife's great uncle died in the Pearl Harbor attack on the Arizona.

The jues on Wall Street did well and went home safely as did Henry Ford.

He had it right there

Quite a few businesses in the US played both sides and did quite well. The hard part to justify is the amount of airmen that died bombing steel bearing factories while the US continued to supply steel bearings to Germany.

https://libcom.org/article/how-allied-multinationals-supplied-nazi-germany-throughout-world-war-ii

Of course, much of the "old money" in the US comes from the opium trade in China, so it's not like those in control ever had much morals.

My father in law was on a net tender USS CINCAHONA, they closed the torpedo nets behind the Pennsylvania in dry doc. He was right in the thick of it

https://www.history.navy.mil/research/histories/ship-histories/danfs/c/cinchona.html

Japan was expanding their empire. The embargo pushed them over the edge. It was only a matter of time until we ended up in it. Australia was threatened. The pity of it was it didn’t have to happen. Malta gave Germany the Sudetenland. Hitler knew France and England had no stomach for war. He split up land with Stalin then betrayed him. Thank heaven Hitler didn’t listen to his generals.

Methinks FDR was a piece of chitt, that provoked the war with Japan and knew the attack on Pearl Harbor was coming.

My aunt, by marriage, lost her brother at Pearl Harbor. I’m beginning to wonder about FDR’s involvement in this lately

Hard to believe the numbers of young American men who puked their guts out on the tarmac knowing they were loading up on those bombers and flying to their deaths to bomb Germany.

IIRC the US or US and Britain lost 2000 bombers over Germany. Very few airmen survived the required number of missions, and now we have low life POS Dimocommie corksuckers on the Fire who want to bring that death and destruction home to America by voting for the Dimocommie puppets of the NWO GLOBALIST SWAMP CABAL ROTHSCHILD/Illuminous bastard Puppetmasters.

"A third step in this business of smashing the war racket is to make certain that our military
forces are truly forces for defense only.

At each session of Congress the question of further naval appropriations comes up. The
swivel-chair admirals of Washington (and there are always a lot of them) are very adroit
lobbyists. And they are smart. They don't shout that "We need a lot of battleships to war on
this nation or that nation." Oh no. First of all, they let it be known that America is menaced
by a great naval power. Almost any day, these admirals will tell you, the great fleet of this
supposed enemy will strike suddenly and annihilate 125,000,000 people. Just like that. Then
they begin to cry for a larger navy. For what? To fight the enemy? Oh my, no. Oh, no. For
defense purposes only.

Then, incidentally, they announce maneuvers in the Pacific. For defense. Uh, huh.

The Pacific is a great big ocean. We have a tremendous coastline on the Pacific. Will the
maneuvers be off the coast, two or three hundred miles? Oh, no. The maneuvers will be two
thousand, yes, perhaps even thirty-five hundred miles, off the coast.

The Japanese, a proud people, of course will be pleased beyond expression to see the united
States fleet so close to Nippon's shores. Even as pleased as would be the residents of
California were they to dimly discern through the morning mist, the Japanese fleet playing at
war games off Los Angeles. " - Butler 1935

I’m inclined to agree. I don’t know that FDR knew about Pearl, although the first article I posted does figure that way. Truman, before becoming VP was asked about supporting the USSR. His reply was that we should support whoever was losing, and let Hitler and Stalin bleed eachother dry! I think he was dead right!
Dad was drafted in ‘42. He went into France on D-Day + 3 with the 2nd Armored Division. Drove a half track hauling a mortar squad in the 41st Armored Infantry Regiment.
When he got home after they dropped the bomb, he met my mom, whose family was then living next door to my paternal grandmother.
Reon

The writing was on the wall pacific side beforehand how the fuqk we didn’t see that coming 🤷‍♂️

The politicians always want war. It’s what makes them rich.

Interestingly enough, Japan viewed their expansion into Manchuria/China as no different than the US expansion west in the 1800's or the British imperialistic gains of the previous 50-150 years. Big difference is, it was easier for the US (and British) to label the Japanese as naked aggressors, while completely ignoring what the US did to Native Americans. Or what the British did in India, Ireland, or possibly worse yet, The Congo.

Now, I am not saying the Japanese were completely innocent, but they were absolutely backed into a corner by US policy in the late '30s...and they were tired of being treated as a little brother to Britain and the US.

Here's the crazy thing. While a considerable amount of US leadership was busy cozying up to Communism in the 1930's, Japan was viewing it as its biggest regional threat. Hell, even Chiang Kai Shek in China was a staunch opponent of Communism....he said "the Japanese are a disease of the skin, Communism is a disease of the heart". The US could have made huge inroads into stemming the spread of Communism in China, and could have resulted in a significantly different outcome in current politics (and relationships) between the US and China. The US could have focused its efforts solely behind Kai Shek during WWII, and quite possibly would have eliminated Mao Zedong and Communist influence over the country. There's possibly no Korean War in the 50's, and certainly no involvement from China. Can you imagine how much different China could be without the decades of failed policies Mao, not to mention the deaths of 40+ million Chinese?

Three did. My mother's young brother, did not. U.S. Army, 1st Inf. Div. Her other brother did, U.S. Navy Seabee. My dad's two brothers came home but his brother who was in the USMC, Guadalcanal, Cape Glouster New Britton, New Guinea, Guam, suffered severe PTSD for many years, his other brother was a Navy Seabee who was wounded by a Jap sniper on Saipan.

That war, as do all wars, seriously affected millions of families here, and elsewhere.

L.W.

EDIT: Speaking of my USMC uncle, his daughter sent me this picture of him on New Britton. They had shot down a Jap Zero. My uncle is seated with his legs on each side of the "meatball."



L.W.

The US knew they would be going to war with Japan in the 1920s. One could see it beginning as early as 1918 when Japan's participation was barely acknowledged in the granting of German reparations. A big clue was changes in US warship design starting in the 20s, especially destroyers and submarines, but also cruisers. That realization is also what gave rise to US aircraft carrier development and doctrine starting in the early 1930s. Japan's refusal to ratify the second naval treaty on fleet size in the mid-1930s gave rise to the "fast" battleship design and doctrine which saw the first ones put into service in 1941, ahead of the attack on Pearl Harbor. The Iowa class were designed around then and the first keels may have been laid down in 1941 if I remember correctly.

Japan's invasion of Korea and Manchuria further concerned the US. The clincher was Japan's increased hostilities in China during the 30s, their occupation of French Indochina in 1940/41, and Japan's intentions of occupying the Dutch possessions for their natural resources, particularly oil and rubber. Possession of this area by a power hostile to America could not be tolerated as it was a primary source of US rubber badly needed by America's industry. So, America cut off oil and steel to Japan under the guise of "protesting Japan's actions in China" as a warning. Japan received the vast majority of their oil from the US so this pushed them into bringing war on the US.

One can add in the fact that the Japanese ambassador was kept waiting for over an hour when he went to deliver the declaration of war to FDR. This guaranteed the declaration would be received well after the attack commenced. The US knew an attack was immanent but not where. The odds at the time were on the Philippines as that was the nearest major base and naval air doctrine hadn't considered a carrier attack on a large naval base to be effective. This, in spite of the success the British had on the Italian fleet at Taranto. The Japanese sure made good use of that though.

FDR was trying everything possible to enter the war on the European side, more than just supplying munitions and other material to Britain.Among other things, the US Army garrisoned Iceland to free up British soldiers for other purposes; the US claimed territorial waters out to 500 miles; the US Navy began escorting convoys to Iceland; and the US provided additional pressure on Spain to remain neutral. None of it was working as quickly as hoped but Japan was more dependent on outside resources so were easier to goad into action.

As an aside, it would have been interesting if Germany would have declared war on Japan rather than the US. That, as Oliver Hardy would say," Now, there's a fine kettle of fish...".

Name them, already.

Chiken-chitz

I haven’t made any comments on the current political climate, but I will say this here, and that will be my only comment to that effect here.
I’m a believing Christian, and I have always believed that God has used this nation as a tool for good. WW 2 is easily such a case here.
Now evil men in our government and many others are trying to usher in the Prince of Evil, and we are a stone’s throw from the tribulation that Christ and John, among many others warned us was coming.
As a stabilizing nation, the US must be eliminated, one way or another. I think there’s still enough dinosaurs like me who will fight back! I hope you’re half as paranoid as I am, and I hope you’re trying to prepare for the fight ahead.
I hope you’re not afraid lot death as I am not. I will not be here for the final battle one way or another. If Christ takes me home by rapture, that’s fine. But I will not be made a slave of anyone human or evil.
Now back to WW 2. I enjoy hearing thoughts on this, and there have been some books mentioned that I’ll be looking into for my own further reading!
American history is a passion for me, as the son of a veteran and having many more veterans in my family and friends, and a veteran myself.
Reon

Yup, many dont know the actually history. We poked japan hard. They took the bait. Fdr wanted war. When economies crash or are on the verge, what better way to slow it down or 180 it than a massive world war

Spot on

Making the world safe for communism.

Grace of God the Japs missed our carriers AND our oil reserves on 7 December 1941.
Also, both sides and the axis powers were working on the Bomb and other chemical and biological weapons individually. The Japs were every bit as evil as the freaking Nazis. Their record in China and the Philippines points this out pretty easily.
Reon

This. The insane clown posse of tin foil troubadours are raising quite the cacophony of conspiricist crap this evening.

The fact that the US and Britain for all intents and purposes pushed the Japs to the back burner as far as any meaningful offensive, particularly weapons and material, until after the war in Europe was won, should tell you where the chief concern was at.
Hitler was a freaking fool for going after USSR in 1941. That forced the German military to put Operation Sea Lion (invasion of the UK) on hold indefinitely.
It makes me wonder if Hitler had any knowledge of the Japanese plan to bring America into the war.
The Germans figured on a 5 or 6 month campaign to conquer Stalin and USSR , then they could probably sue Churchill into a negotiated peace.
Without US weapons on both European fronts, that was in all probability what would have happened.
FDR was Stalin’s bitch. Even Churchill thought so before VE Day, and for sure after in his giving Stalin Eastern Europe.
And supporting Shek over Moa and the communist set the stage worldwide for the next Century, probably more as far as Asia is concerned. With the Soviet Union gone, China is our biggest threat.
Everybody else knows it, and our enemies are taking advantage of that and our own gullibility.

Our Neonazi infiltrated govt has been destroying the US from within for them for quite some time.

I doubt the US would have "won" in WW2 had those oil reserves 3 miles farther inland been hit.

It could make one wonder if FDR even planned for us to lose the war.

The leftist NWO dimocommies and WEF cabal certainly don't want the US to survive the coming WW3. They have imported the Cabals mercenary army into the country to use guerrilla warfare to ensure we don't.

Nothing is as important to them as keeping the Satanic Illuminati Cabal alive.

I'm hoping China's PRC Nationalist, Xi, takes them and their financial empire and their other internationally illegal Bioweapons Labs out of Taiwan, just as I'm glad Putin took out their homeland strongholds and internationally illegal Bioweapons Labs in Ukraine and Kazakhstan.

Trump can then blame the carnage on the lowlife POS Dimocommies and hang those actions around the US Traitors Dimocommie necks.

Our Govt was working to destroy this country when they passed the 1913 Federal Reserve Act and income tax just as they were when they passed the Corporate Act of 1871 and later switched us to fiat currency or transformed it from a Republic to a slave holding of the Deep State Cabal. We at least became the latter with the world's financial center in London City on d sovereign ground, the world's Bank in the Vatican sovereign territory and the world military power controlled from the 10 Sq miles of Washington DC sovereign ground.

Treaty of 1871 anyone?

Many call that BS. For those who stupidly deny DC is Sovereign Territory then why did Trump say we needed to Federalize DC and take it over and clean it out.

The Japanese didn't attack us out of the blue for no reason at all, they attacked us because we were their primary source for petroleum products prior to 08/01/1941 when we declared an embargo on oil exports to "aggressor countries", including Japan. At that time Japan only had enough petroleum in storage to fuel its military forces for approximately 6 months, so they had to do something. Either bow to U.S. pressure regarding their war in China or attack the Dutch East Indies and take over the oil fields in Brunei. Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto proposed the attack on Pearl Harbor to destroy the U.S. Pacific Fleet, as those ships were the biggest threat to Japanese expansion. Yamamoto told his superiors that destroying the U.S. Pacific Fleet would give the Japanese around 6 months of free rein if the 3 aircraft carriers, Enterprise, Lexington, and Yorktown, were sunk or severely damaged. They would have less time if those aircraft carriers weren't destroyed, but there were no other naval forces in the western Pacific that could stand up to the Japanese Navy at that time.

There is evidence that some people in Naval Intelligence were aware of Japanese interest in the berthing locations of the Pacific Fleet when it was in Pearl Harbor, but that information, the so called "Bomb Plot", was never passed on to Admiral Husband Kimmel, commander of the Pacific Fleet, or General Walter Short, commander of Hawaii. The U.S. Army was responsible for protecting the Pacific Fleet when it was in port, but General Short had very limited resources, particularly reconnaissance aircraft. Admiral Kimmel didn't have any long range reconnaissance aircraft, as the PBYs were owned by the 14th Naval District, not by the Pacific Fleet. Kimmel and his staff felt that the greatest threat from the Japanese was southwest of Hawaii in the mandate island chains that Japanese had taken from the Germans after WW1.

FDR relieved the previous Pacific Fleet commander, Admiral James Richardson, in 02/1941 because Admiral Richardson vigorously protested against the forward deployment of the Pacific Fleet from San Diego to Pearl Harbor. Admiral Richardson felt that the Fleet was much more vulnerable to Japanese attack in Hawaii than it would be in port on the west coast of the U.S. and that the deployment was being used as a threat toward the Japanese by the State Department in their on-going negotiations with Japan.

A lot of different things led to the Navy being attacked at Pearl Harbor on 12/07/1941.

If you're interested in the Pearl Harbor attack, Admiral Richardson wrote a book covering his thoughts and experiences, as did Admiral Edwin Layton. As an O4/O5, Layton was the Pacific Fleet intelligence officers from before 12/07/1941 thru 02/1945, serving under Admirals Richardson, Kimmel, and Nimitz. Admiral Layton's book is particularly interesting, as he was a close friend of Commander Joseph Rochefort, the head of the cryptographic operation at Pearl Harbor that put together the Japanese battle plans prior to the battles of the Coral Sea and Midway. It could be argued that Rochefort, more than any other single person, had the most influence on Admiral Nimitz's battle plan for Midway and the loss of the aircraft carriers Akagi, Hiryu, Kaga, and Soryu had a crippling effect on the Japanese Navy's ability to project its power. Midway was the beginning of the Japanese Navy's downward spiral and the turning point in the Pacific Theatre war, with Japan going to a defensive posture and the U.S. continuing its offensive posture.

How a task force of six fleet carriers and support ships could traverse the northern Pacific and launch an attack NW of Pearl without being detected?

This after months of negotiations with the Japanese and knowing well of possible hostile intent you would think US intel would know immediately the attack force left port....was this the worst itnellegiance blunder in US history or a conspiracy to reverse US public opinion on entering WWII?

Another thing, our aircraft carriers, the decisive weapon in the Pacific war, were conspicuously absent from Pearl at the time of the attack.

MAGA!

According to the Japanese, they only encountered one ship during their voyage to Hawaii, a Soviet freighter that didn't report the sighting.

There was a lot of infighting at Naval HQ in Washington. Admiral Richmond Kelly Turner, the head of war plans, took it upon himself to dictate to Naval Communications and Naval Intelligence what intelligence information would be passed on to Admiral Kimmel and LtCdr Layton in Hawaii. Even conspiracy theory writers like Toland acknowledge the so called "Mutiny on the Second Deck" over the control/dissemination of intelligence information between Admiral Turner and the heads of Naval Communication and Naval Intelligence. It appears that the CNO at that time, Admiral Harold Stark, was a weak leader who allowed Turner to run the senior staff at Naval HQ. When Admiral King replaced Admiral Stark, he reassigned Admiral Turner as the commander of amphibious operations, a job that he excellent at.

FDR directed Admiral Hart, commander of the Asiatic Fleet in the Philippines, to outfit 3 small ships and send them out to shadow the Japanese fleet that was sailing south to invade Malaysia. If the Japanese sank any of those "naval vessels", that would be an act of war. The Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor occurred before the 3 ships could be outfitted, so sending them out to be sacrificed wasn't necessary. FDR wanted to maneuver the Japanese into firing the first shot and he succeeded in that, but I doubt that he ever expected to incur anywhere near the degree of damage that the Japanese inflicted at Pearl Harbor.

Two of my great uncles were drafted during WWII and spent time in the Philippines. They said if your family had money you could avoid the draft.

Short of some negotiated peace, which the American public would have never accepted after Pearl Harbor, there was no way the US was going to lose to Japan....hitting those reserves would have pushed the war in the Pacific back *maybe* 6 months, but even that's doubtful. Once the industrial might of the US kicked in, it was all over for the Japanese.

Thumper is always good for a little humor.

Yep, he cracks me up. He even acts like he believes the bullshìt he posts, he's all in.

https://www.encyclopedia.com/politi...ted-states-breaking-japanese-naval-codes

https://www.britannica.com/topic/Pearl-Harbor-and-the-Back-Door-to-War-Theory-1688287

Yes please. What "treaty of 1871"?


Because their mayor is not doing a good job?

That is and has always been true.

My dad was 18 years old, working in a steel mill in Chicago. S. Dakota farm boy.

America's industrial capability would have allowed us to win even if the Japanese had sent a 3rd attack wave on 12/07/1941. The lack of fuel oil in Hawaii would have been a problem in the short term, but nothing the Japanese did or could do was insurmountable. The shortage of oil tankers was a problem for the the U.S. Navy in 1942, as the old battleship that had been refloated and rebuilt after the Pearl Harbor attack couldn't be deployed forward, so the U.S. Navy fought the Guadalcanal naval battles with light cruisers and old heavy cruisers. Losing the carriers at Pearl Harbor would have been worse, since there weren't enough of them prior to the Independence Class carriers that started showing up in 1943. Most people don't realize how few aircraft carriers the U.S. had on 12/07/1941, just 7 that were combat ready; CV2/Lexington, CV3/Saratoga, CV4/Ranger, CV5/Yorktown, CV6/Enterprise, CV7/Wasp, and CV8/Hornet. The Ranger was only useful as an anti-submarine and transportation platform, so it stayed in the Atlantic where the threat mostly came from submarines. 4 of the 6 combat ready aircraft carriers were sunk by the Japanese in 1942, only the Enterprise and Saratoga survived the war, but they held the line long enough for U.S. industry to convert to war production and produce over 100 aircraft carriers before the war was over.

A question a bit off topic. How many aircraft carriers are presently in the U.S. Navy??

Thanks.

Of course each of those eleven has the combat capability of 20 1942 era carriers. Or more.

Idaho Shooter, thank you for that information. I am a firm believer in personal self defense and national defense of our Country. That is reassuring to know.

L.W.