"Mike Dargan" wrote in message
news:gaK3d.128016$3l3.43395@attbi_s03...
Cub Driver wrote:
Nobody dreamed Pearl would have been the target.

Nonsense. Ever hear of Billy Mitchell?


Numerous people envisioned an attack on Pearl Harbor. Claire Chennault
was part of war games in the early 1930s that gamed such an attack.

Of course, people also envisioned an attack on the Panama Canal and
New York City. After the attack, whether it's Pearl Harbor or the
World Trade Center, the conspiracy buffs trot out the clear trail of
warning that *any fool* would have noticed.

Your straw man is hopelessly lame. There's no need to allege conspiracy
here, MacArthur, Kimmel and Short were asleep at the switch. They ignored
one warning after another. They should have hanged the lot of them.

It seems very obvious to
us now that the Japanese would attack Hawaii. It didn't seem obvious
in December 1941.

Then why was Pearl surrounded with gun emplacements? Were they figuring
to flock shoot pheasants? Why did they have interceptors based in Hawaii?
What were they going to intercept? How big would a P40's drop tanks have
to be to attack Tokyo and return? Do you think Hawaii was a training
base? Cheaper than Texas? Why base interceptors where you don't expect
an attack? What, if anything, are the Kimmel/Short apologists thinking
of?


(What was obvious was that they would attack Malaya, Indonesia, and
the Philippines.

Don't forget Singapore. That surrender made Churchill pull the covers up
over his head. About 30,000 Japanese on bicycles rolled up a UK garrison
of 88,000. Turns out that the Gibraltar of the east was the Tobruk of
Asia times two.

Nobody there was prepared, either.

It wasn't because of lack of supply or other support from the states. If
they'd had twice the resources the Japanese would have had twice as many
targets. The problem was a lack of leadership. If you'd have swapped
Allied generals and admirals with those of the Japanese, the outcomes
would have been reversed.

And if somebody
was, little good it did him.)

The notion that resistance to the Japanese was hopeless is what made it
hopeless. If the Allied heroes had gathered their wits and acted like
leaders instead of pathetic old geezers, the second week of December 41
could have turned out far differently.

Great post. I still suspect there was more than a hint of racism in the
assumptions that were made about the warmaking abilities of the Japanese.