Why the hell did Japan bomb us @ Pearl Harbor anyway?

[Tominator]

<< American technology was not only supirior >>


Not so in the time being discussed. From the basic Japanese soldier's personal gear, to faster Aircraft, to torpedoes that actually worked! They had us beat technically.

Part of the lack of an adequate defense at Pearl was the erroneous belief that Perl was too shallow for Torpedoes dropped from aircraft. It was almost a year until the US had any torpedo that even came close to what Japan had. Our Subs were leftovers from WW1! Their ships were better armed and the tactics were flawless. Their pilots were fearless and very well trained.



<< The Chinese invented gun poweder, they had weapons. >>


Only the military and it was very small and had only weapons from the turn of the century.

Yes! The Flying Tigers were in China before Pearl.
http://www.flyingtigersavg.com/

 

[jaydee]

Capn,

What are you talking about? What does anything you said in the first part relate to anything I said? I never said we were having trouble thriving in todays economy but since you brought it up: Hows gas prices these days huh? Boy its 'only' up 'bout 80% in 2 years. We are really putting it to those middle east guys eh? How about the national deficit? After all its only $5,648,420,770,746 (as of noon today) and increasing $42 million a day! Man we are thriving. Good thing Bill Gates ain't $5.648 trillion in the hole, he'd be rich! How many thriving people do you know that are losing an average of $42 million every day?

Oh by the way I can play the link game too.

And I think Encyclopedia Britannica might know a little more than Paul Alexander Gusmorino 3rd

http://www.britannica.com/bcom/eb/article/0/0%2C5716%2C38610%2B1%2C00.html

For arguments sake I'll cut and paste the important part.



<< Almost all nations sought to protect their domestic production by imposing tariffs, raising existing ones, and setting quotas on foreign imports. The effect of these restrictive measures was to greatly reduce the volume of international trade: by 1932 the total value of world trade had fallen by more than half as country after country took measures against the importation of foreign goods. >>



Can't wait to see your next post.

----------------------------------------------------------------

Jaydee, idiot and dipstick

 

[Thnderby9]

I believe that the Japanese warned the US about the bombing a few hours earlier..but apparantly, the message did not reach the US until after the bombing...besides...I think the US threatened to stop trading/selling their scrap metal and other 'things' to Japan

 

[Hyper99]

That goes to show you the american didn't need to warn them about
dropping the atomic bomb
well they were asked to surrender refused and bomb was dropped
twice in a row
hehe they didn't know they had it coming did they?
hahahahahahahahahaha
LOFL!!!
Now if they were stubborn of course they no choice but to
be cease to exist from existence.
Today would be no more Japan.
Ah don't feel sorry for them they are evil, killed plenty of Chinese
far more then we killed them with atomic bomb
You see man will only learn when he is hurt enought
at first he thought he was invincible so does what he so pleases
without even thinking twice about the consequences

 

[Hyper99]

The funny thing is Japanese couldn't understand Chinese spoken language
My question is how can the Japanese live on such a puny island
man if they want to become powerful they need to move onto bigger land
I'm glad I'm not living in Japan
Too many people in one place, all got to work many times harder
to make a living it a little crazy

 

[Hyper99]

Is this thread dead already?!?
Jesus Christ!
I been trying so damn hard to get some people to talk
hmm so I guess they rather talk about other crap.

Someone Please say something whatever keep me entertain
I'm bored.............................






































American say something plz....










Plz...

 

[Howard]

Cause the Japanese wanted a quick win.

Pearl Harbour(!) was full of your ships and planes, so bombing that would give you a tough time to retaliate.

 

[Nick Stone]

<<<< Why the hell did Japan bomb us @ Pearl Harbor anyway? >>>>
Obviously the Japanese did not understand the culture of the USA. &quot;Negotiated Settlement&quot; would never be seriously considered by the people or the leaders of the USA. Of course, the USA did not understand the culture of Japan.
When power is centralized with a few leaders (especially military leaders) rational analysis often is ignored. It isn't necessary to convince your followers that you need to fight the war and that you can win if you have such complete control over your subjects that it isn't necessary. Hence many or most wars could be prevented if sufficient power resides outside the leaders to keep them accountable.
One Japan attacked it was just a matter of time before the superior resources of the USA would prevail.
At 1st (until Midway, 6Mo. after Pearl Harbor), the USA had to use it's resources very carfully. the carriers had to be protected at all cost. The early battles were protracted and costly for the USA. Japan started the war with better trained men and more and better warships. They had the superior technology.
However, they didn't have a stable ready source of oil. Only the East Indies (Indonesia) if they could hold it. But the USA attacked this weakness both directly and by separating Japan from it's oil with the successful &quot;island hopping&quot; campaign toward the Philipines.
Once the USA owned the sae lanes and the air between the oil supplies and Japan itself the war would be won since Japan would not have the feul to put up a fight.
Even today our modern armies cannot fight without oil.
Hitler could not sustain his fight without oil, but he did not seem to have a direct strategy for securing a stready oil supply. To me this proves that he was incapable as a war strategist.

 

[Zucchini]

Hyper,

If you are really a chinese, then SHUTUP! The tripe in your posts reaks of ignorance. Also, take some english classes. You are giving your fellow chinese a bad name

 

[Hyper99]

Zucchini<--------- what is this?
Are you still in China?
You must be proud of your Chinese name huh? I don't understand a word
you're saying. Very Sorry Man
You have no ideas what I'm talking about so keep quiet and listen
and maybe you learn something

 

[Hyper99]

well answer my question
why do the japanese hate chinese so much?
you seem to know nothing about them period and have contributed nothing.
you need to take some english classes yourself and lot of american history.

 

[Hyper99]

making my fellow chinese look bad you say?
Funny I thought I was defending for them and maybe you are taking it the wrong way.

 

[wetling]

There is a book that discusses this topic. the other chapters were great too. it is called Military Intelligence Blunders.

 

[JMaster]

in the 1900's Japan and Nazi Germany were the cruelest oppressors. We all know what the Nazi's did to Jew's but Japanese were terrible in what they did to Chinese, Korean and other countries that they &quot;colonized.&quot; The Nazi's treated the American POW's very well compared to the Japanese.
Also, the 2 nuclear bombs weren't only for retaliating for what the Japanese did to Pearl Harbor but 1)it seemed like there was nothing else to do to win the war quickly or at all and 2)after most of the Japanese army was defeated in southern Japan, hundreds of thousands of villagers gathered up primitive weapons to fight the US Marines. When I see those pictures of Japanese villagers dead because of the nuclear bomb, I don't feel as sorry for them as I should because they would have fought and tried to kill as many Americans as they could.

 

[Dogmeat]

I thought they did it to piss America off so we would blast big holes in their country and later go rebuild them so they could sell us cars and electronic stuff.

 

[JMaster]

Oh I almost forgot.
/me slaps NFS4.

 

[H.A.R.M]

There has been some really good point brought up in this thread but I think there is one aspect that has been overlooked. The US overall DID NOT want to be involved in any conflicts. The US was in a state of &quot;Isolationism&quot;. I believe that the US did have advance warning (as pointed out in previous posts) about the attack at Pearl and that is why the carriers were not in the harbor (ever hear of a carrier group, I find it VERY hard to believe that you would send carriers out on the open sea without an ESCORT). I think US did this because they knew they could no longer stay out of the conflict and they needed a &quot;reason&quot; that would draw mass support for a supported war effort. Unfortunate I think the US underestimated the damage that would be caused at Pearl and the loss of life (especially around the 1,400 lost soles in the U.S.S Arizona).

As for the post saying the US not being considered a &quot;super power&quot; during that time I think is not correct. I believe the US was consider a &quot;World Leader&quot; in the early 1900 (by the time Word War I took place).
As for the post saying the ships attacked at Pearl were &quot;old&quot; in not correct either. I don't know the battleship class of the ships but I know that there were more battleships constructed later of the same design. I'm not real familiar with ships during WWI or WWII, aircraft were more my &quot;thing&quot; so can any ship experts verify this.

 

[Thanatopsis]

Red Dawn,


<< they mistook it for a Canadian Naval Base >>

ROTFL

 

[Nick Stone]

Rahvin
The decision makers (not necessarily commanders) at Pearl Harbor, Hickem, and other Hawaiian bases were obviously not expecting an attack, even though one could argue that they should have been.
Personnel were not placed on &quot;Alert&quot;. Personnel had not been recently been drilled to react for an attack. Few ships could load their machine guns in defense or attempt to get underway. Airplanes were caught on the ground lined up in a row -- easy prey. Notice that apparently no aircraft got in the air to defend the islands? It was probably coincidence that the aircraft carriers were not in port.

Also the U.S. battleships that were sunk at Pearl Harbor were old and were no match for the newer battleships that Britain, Germany, and Japan had. The U.S had only 2 modern (Washington class?) Battleships before early 1943.

I agree that the battleships were raised and reused, not because the damage was severe (it was) but it could have been worse if the ships hadn?t been left in a state of complete unreadiness (few water-tight compartments were closed) and they were sunk easily. The bombers could have inflicted more damage if the ships were not already on the bottom. Since they were in shallow water and the U.S. was rather desperate, the ships were salvaged for reuse.

Rahvin is basically correct. It was a war about resources. However, I don?t believe the U.S. infrastructure reacted very quickly. It really took quite awhile for the U.S. to produce any significant war fighting capability. Like 12 to 18 months.

Tominator
I don?t think Steel was nearly as significant as Oil to the Japanese. Steel could be stockpiled and recycled much easier than oil.

?Also, the Japanese attacked the Aleutian islands just before Pearl as a diversion?

What?s this? I seem to remember a diversion at about the time of Midway.
The Japanese would have logistically stretched to the limit if they attached the U.S. mainland. I can?t see that being successful even if defended by unorganized local forces. Attrition would determine the winner.

Trinitron, has the history accurate and I like his Quote which was the absolute truth.

&quot;I fear we have awakened a sleeping giant, and filled him with a horrible resolve&quot;. Japanese Naval Admiral Yamamoto, speaking about the Americans after the Attack on Pearl Harbor.

 

[NFS4]

My God there are sooo many myths, conspiracey theories, and half-truths in here that I don't know what to believe

 

[RM1]

I didn't read all the responses...O.K, call me a lazy bum, but here's what I think:

Stategy.
Knock the US out of the PACIFIC, and there's no stopping them from taking East Asia, Oceania, etc..pretty much like a war with CHEAT CODES ON.

but their gamble failed, as they did not finish the job.

 

[Orbius]

The use of the nuclear bombs in Japan isnt as cut and dry as people are making it out to be. And Hyper you're letting your hatred get the better of you when you take pleasure in the incineration of tens of thousands of ordinary people.

There is in fact strong indications that the Japanese would surrender to certain American military leaders whom they respected in the next 3 months. The Japanese have strong codes of honor, but they're not stupid, they knew they were defeated.

Even if Japan vowed to fight to the last man, did this justify the atomic bomb? I think today the answer would be clear, such a weapon is so terrible that it can only morally be used in defense.

But we certainly paid the price for using that bomb, remember that we're the only country on earth that used that weapon against humans, nothing to be proud of for sure. Having the lingering fear of the Cold War hanging over the entire United States for 50 years can be directly attributed to our actions in Japan.

 

[Tominator]

Orbius
I would disagree on the decision to use the 'A' Bomb. The fire bombing of some German cities was every bit a devastating...

The Documents regarding the decision were made public long ago. No mention was ever made of a possible surrender or any politician or general who thought so.



<< Even if Japan vowed to fight to the last man, did this justify the atomic bomb? >>



Yes! Between the Japanese, Germany and Italy, there were many more innocent civilians killed in just as horrible a way as the atom bomb! In fact, I would much rather have been incinerated than to watch my wife and daughter tortured and repeatedly raped as the Japanese Soldier was famous for doing, or see my family seperated and taken to the gas chamber.

Yes! What a 'Code of Honor!'

 

[Orbius]

No bombing and using the Atom bomb were vastly different things. The US showing that it was willing to use the Atom bomb in aggression helped to create the Cold War of that theres no doubt.

You're correct that civillian targets were bombed in WWII , but often there was advance warning, and shelter was sought. Regardless the Atom bombs effects were incomparable to any weapon of time, the inescapable devastation and radiation after effects are psychologically and materially completely unlike conventional bombing. There is simply no escape, do you see the psychological difference there?

Your main defense of using the bomb is one of revenge, certainly the Japanese were responsible for many cruel and barbarous acts. They treated prisoners with utter contempt. But is using a weapon like the A-Bomb in aggression ever justified. No never.

 

[Tominator]

We can only agree to disagree. You do make some very good points, but the Japs had it coming! The trouble they caused was not worth one more American life!

Imho, the aftermath has made a safer world.

I could argue that it was used in defense...