Pearl Harbor. Recently reported: is it correct?

[John Mather]

Recently reported:

"President Roosevelt did not know beforehand about Pearl Harbor because Winston Churchill, who did know because the British broke the code, did not tell President Roosevelt because Mr. Churchill wanted us in the war."

Is there a shred of evidence for this assertion?????

John H. Mather MD

[Anthony Calabrese]

Of course there is no shred of evidence.  In any event, the US had broken some of the Japanese codes, FDR was getting real time decrypts of the messages sent to the Japanese embassy the night before the attack.  In fact, US intelligence was decrypting the messages faster than the Japanese Embassy.  None of the messages indicated any attack was imminent, though it was obvious war was going to break out. 

 

Anthony


 

---

To: Church...@googlegroups.com
Subject: [ChurchillChat] Pearl Harbor. Recently reported: is it correct?
Date: Fri, 3 Sep 2010 00:42:49 -0400
From: johnm...@aol.com

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[Chris Sterling]

NO...not a snip.  This is more of the conspiracy folks running amok. Bletchley Park had made little progress against the Japanese codes--and their understandable focus was on Germany in any case.  While we had broken many Japanese codes, we surely didn't have all of them. There are many books on this topic--and some are wholly misleading. Roberta Wholstetter's PEARL HARBOR: WARNING AND DECISION, though an old book (early 1960s) remains one of the best available studies. The key problem was that none of the decoded Japanese messages--even after the war--represented a clear "smoking gun" that the attack was coming. For much of the raw material--the messages themselves, plus good analysis--see THE "MAGIC" BACKGROUND OF PEARL HARBOR issued by DOD in seven cloth-bound volumes in 1977.

 

Chris Sterling

(Washington Society for Churchill)

 

From: John Mather

Sent: Friday, September 03, 2010 12:42 AM

To: Church...@googlegroups.com

Subject: [ChurchillChat] Pearl Harbor. Recently reported: is it correct?

[Quinn Bastian]

This rumour has been around a long time and is totally unfounded. To begin with, even if WSC did have foreknowledge of the planned attack, he would have had no reason to keep the information from Roosevelt as it would have still been seen as an agressive act that would have resulted in the US declaring war on Japan. Additionally, the US had broken the Japanese code and was aware that an attack was imminent. However, the military was unaware of the specific location since the Japanese never broadcast it because all of the orders had prearranged codes relating to the attack.
WSC's intelligence group would have had no more information than was already known to the US prior to the attack.
Sent on the Sprint® Now Network from my BlackBerry®

[Anthony Calabrese]

One other thing to keep in mind.  Had Churchill known, he would have warned the US.  Why do I so strongly believe this?  Because when Churchill did have warning of an impending attack (the USSR), Churchill warned the country in question (whose leader promptly ignored it as he believed Churchill's message was a capitalist plot to start a war). 

 

 

 

 

---

From: chs...@verizon.net
To: church...@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: [ChurchillChat] Pearl Harbor. Recently reported: is it correct?
Date: Fri, 3 Sep 2010 05:55:22 -0400

[Todd Ronnei]

Of course, our website debunks this nonsense:

http://www.winstonchurchill.org/learn/myths/myths/he-knew-of-pearl-harbour-attack

[Editor/Finest Hour]

Anthony is exactly right. WSC's warnings to Stalin suggest strongly
that he would have warned FDR had he known. What had Britain to gain
by a demolished U.S. fleet and Japan supreme in the Pacific?
Churchill's main concern, that the Americans adopt a Hitler-first
strategy, would have been better served by forestalling or defeating
the Japanese attack rather than being surprised and badly damaged by
it. Either way, the USA was going to war. Either way, Hitler
(stupidly) planned to declare war a few days later.

I was going to cite our website (the article by Ron Helgemo was
published at least ten years ago) but I see that Todd has already
listed it.
http://www.winstonchurchill.org/learn/myths/myths/he-knew-of-pearl-harbour-attack

The Musso story is similarly ancient.

[Carey Stronach]

Excellent point, Anthony!
CES

----- Original Message -----
From: Anthony Calabrese <amcal...@hotmail.com>
To: List Churchill <church...@googlegroups.com>
Sent: Fri, 03 Sep 2010 13:56:57 -0000 (UTC)
Subject: RE: [ChurchillChat] Pearl Harbor. Recently reported: is it correct?

One other thing to keep in mind. Had Churchill known, he would have warned the US. Why do I so strongly believe this? Because when Churchill did have warning of an impending attack (the USSR), Churchill warned the country in question (whose leader promptly ignored it as he believed Churchill's message was a capitalist plot to start a war).

[Christer Löfman]

According to the book in question, one reason why WSC did not inform FDR was because some of the people around him/FDR were not trustworthy.
And what disastrous consequences had followed.
Red this book many years ago and took it seriously. As I did with the book about Göring writen by David Erving!
Not easy to know what is worth reading and not!
Christer

[chateaust...@att.net]

This does not pass the smell test.  Excuse me, but would anyone in anything resembling their right mind acquiese to the serious degredation of their fighting force - just to persuade another person to come in?   This proposition is put forth by complete and utter fools.  I am getting a little too old to suffer fools gladly and would be more than happy to tell anyone espousing it that they are a driveling idiot.   Jonathan Hayes --- On Thu, 9/2/10, John Mather <johnm...@aol.com> wrote:

From: John Mather <johnm...@aol.com> Subject: [ChurchillChat] Pearl Harbor. Recently reported: is it correct?

[Paul Sparling]

Moreover, Churchill warned his non-friend Stalin when he did know about the attack on the Soviet Union. He therefore would have warned his friend about the Pearl Harbour attack  had he known. Further, that wasn’t just an attack on Pearl Harbor it was a large scale attack on Hong Kong,  Singapour , and other British possessions.

 

Paul Sparling

[JMorg...@aol.com]

1) didn't Churchill warn Russia of the impending invasion even though on paper, Russia was an enemy?

 

2) hadn't the US broken the code - but they just couldn't figure out the target?

 

3) if the british knew so much, explain the sinking of the Prince of Wales and the loss of Singapore, the shelling of ceylon and the near invasion of India.

 

4) if you wanted the americans on your team wouldn't you be more likely to share info?

 

5) have you ever looked at the distances involved in an attack from mainland japan to Hawaii?   Reasonable people could believe it was impossible fro japan to reach that far - as opposed to SE Asia.

 

This is the problem with a book like bodyguard of lies - it allows a whole host of pet theories to be born.  It is why I so admire Mr. Gilbert.  Give me real live actual facts any day.

 

J. Morgan

[Editor/Finest Hour]

PLEASE CLEAN OUT PREVIOUS POSTS FROM YOUR MESSAGE BLANK BEFORE YOU
POST ANEW....

Why is this shaggy dog story still an issue? Ron Helgemo disposed of
it a decade or more ago:
http://www.winstonchurchill.org/learn/myths/myths/he-knew-of-pearl-harbour-attack

Let's move on to the much more intriguing myth that Churchill caused
the death, not of a mere 3000 American sailors at Pearl Harbor, but of
six million Indians in the 1943-44 Bengali Famine:

http://www.winstonchurchill.org/learn/in-the-media/churchill-in-the-news/966-without-churchill-indias-famine-would-have-been-worse