World War II … something not clear

[hauxwell]

I agree with Harleyman. I do not believe Churchill knew that Pear Harbour was going to be attacked.

 

One thing for sure Joseph Kennedy the American Ambassador for this country was no friend of ours. He campaigned for the Americans to keep out of the war at the beginning. I am sure Churchill asked the American President to have him recalled back to America. Kennedy backed Neville Chamberlain on appeasement and he constantly warned the Americans to keep out of the war, as it was nothing to do with them.

 

I tend to wonder if Pearl Harbour was not attacked would the Americans have joined war?

[Harleyman]

I agree with Harleyman. I do not believe Churchill knew that Pear Harbour was going to be attacked.

 

One thing for sure Joseph Kennedy the American Ambassador for this country was no friend of ours. He campaigned for the Americans to keep out of the war at the beginning. I am sure Churchill asked the American President to have him recalled back to America. Kennedy backed Neville Chamberlain on appeasement and he constantly warned the Americans to keep out of the war, as it was nothing to do with them.

 

I tend to wonder if Pearl Harbour was not attacked would the Americans have joined war?

 

Sooner or later I believe.

Edited July 20, 2015 by nikki-red
fixed quote

[MAC33]

The war was staged.

 

Churchill and Hitler were on the payroll of the same ruling class.

 

http://www.henrymakow.com/000166.html

[buck]

Due to Japan's ongoing war with China, there'd been a trade war between Japan and the US leading up to Japan's attack, with Japan worried that they were going to be starved of resources by the US.

 

Japan judged that if they destroyed the American Navy which was at anchor in Pearl, and then grabbed the resources around them, they'd been able to negotiate a peace with the US and hold on the resources that they'd grabbed.

 

If Japan had destroyed the Aircraft Carriers as well as the rest of America's capital ships in the Pacific it would have be interesting to see how their strategy would have panned out.

America had very few carriers at the time of Pearl Harbor, and were very lucky they weren't sunk then. But the speed they built up the carrier fleet was amazing, as were most production efforts on other war material. FDR had to tread a very careful path up to Pearl. A great deal of isolationism came from large German American and Italian populations, as well as Irish American reluctance in helping Britain in any way. Most certainly the embargo on Japan resulted in the Pearl attack as well as the massive assaults on Malaysia, Hong Kong, and the Dutch East Indies.

[Harleyman]

The war was staged.

 

Churchill and Hitler were on the payroll of the same ruling class.

 

http://www.henrymakow.com/000166.html

 

Henry Makow' s been pulling it too much. My mother warned me the same would happen if I didn't wear boxing gloves to bed

[Justin Smith]

Look at it this way:

Churchill trying everything to get the USA openly and directly involved to help defeat evil … .

But the US, understandably, has its own reasons for doing what serves her interests best … particularly during war time. … so the US kept everything in low profile assisting WC and UK …. hush hush …

……………. so far so goooooooooood!?

Not really!

Japan came in and gave WC and UK a life saving gift by attacking Pearl H.

 

…

My single modest question: were the Japanese that stupid?

 

Arguably what gave Britain a life saving gift* was Hitler stupidly declaring war on the USA. Germany would probably have ended up being at war with the USA at some point anyway, but Hitler would have been better advised to concentrate on just Russia and the Britain** whilst he could. But he was mad anyway.

 

* The most important "gift" was the English Channel and the Royal Navy back in 1940.....

 

** This is incorrect, Britain was never "alone", the British Empire was alone, Britain, Canada, Australia, South Africa, NZ, India etc etc. You get the picture......

[Alan Ladd]

How would it have been easy for him to "cover his tracks"?. Churchill would have demanded concrete evidence and asked how he got hold of very secret and very sensitive intelligence from within the Japanese or Soviet government. Do you think Churchill would have altered his war strategy on some unsubstantiated claim from just one agent when his own military advisers knew nothing of this intelligence? Are you saying Churchill was so stupid as to believe something so nebulous from one person for which there was no evidence from the whole of British military?

 

As for Japan withdrawing from an attack on Pearl Harbour if the US had known in advance, it is not a military tradition in US history to shy away from battle. The Japanese had already decided to go to war with the US and would have known exactly what the response would have been. The US already had sanctions against them, had troops in Asia to protect the Philippines against Japan and were supporting the Chinese against Japan who had already invaded. Roosevelt also warned Japan about attacking other countries in the region.

 

Japan had demanded that the US stop supporting China and that it should resume oil supplies to Japan, curtailed by US sanctions. The US refused. Japan consequently decided to go to war with them as it knew the US had to be defeated in the Pacific so that it could defeat China and Britain in Burma, Hong Kong and elsewhere.

 

You are making things up in order to hide your stupidity on the issue. It isn't working.

 

 

 

You are making things up in order to hide your stupidity on the issue. It isn't working.

 

What a nasty response, I thought we were having a grown up conversation, you keyboard warriors are all the same. Virulent little excrescences.

 

Any PM has to make a judgement on the information his intelligence services gives him, my supposition that a man like Philby could easily have justified his information. Certainly Burgess could who had a direct personal relationship with Churchill before the war. The very nature of information gained through intelligence sources is that it is largely uncorroborated, remember the dodgy dossier?

 

Your utterances on the relationship between the US and Japan are a mere spouting of the known facts.

 

My speculation, and a clear exposition of a possibility rather than knowledge is did Churchill know? If he did, did he do the right thing in not informing the Americans?

 

A prewarned US could have pre empted the attack either militarily or, more likely diplomatically. If diplomatically, then the peace party in Japan would have benefited, talks could re commence. An uneasy peace could have resulted, certainly it would have delayed war for a considerable time.

 

My "stupidity" is shared by several prominent historians, the fact is, we are unlikely to ever know.

 

Go and buy some smarties, suck them hard and try to sweeten up.

[altus]

My speculation, and a clear exposition of a possibility rather than knowledge is did Churchill know? If he did, did he do the right thing in not informing the Americans?

 

A prewarned US could have pre empted the attack either militarily or, more likely diplomatically. If diplomatically, then the peace party in Japan would have benefited, talks could re commence. An uneasy peace could have resulted, certainly it would have delayed war for a considerable time.

 

Why would the Russians have wanted to keep America out of the war? They were struggling against the Germans in their west and the US entering the war would have a) tied up Japan making sure they didn't attack Russia in the east (regardless of what diplomatic assurances Japan might have made) and b) inevitably meant the US joined the UK in fighting Germany in Western Europe - so relieving pressure on Russia's west. There's also the material help the US could give to Russia (Arctic convoys, etc.).

 

Why would they tell Philby about the planned Japanese attack, assuming they knew about it in the first place, when doing so would risk the US finding out and taking action that would have kept them out of the war.

 

You seem to have taken the premise that Churchill knew about the attacks and didn't tell the US and have been trying to explain how it might have happened. You've forgotten to consider the the Russian viewpoint on the matter - it wasn't in their interest to keep the US out of the war. Without a good explanation for why Russia would have not wanted the US involved in the war, speculations about whether Churchill did or did not know and did or did not warn the US are redundant.

[Alan Ladd]

Why would the Russians have wanted to keep America out of the war? They were struggling against the Germans in their west and the US entering the war would have a) tied up Japan making sure they didn't attack Russia in the east (regardless of what diplomatic assurances Japan might have made) and b) inevitably meant the US joined the UK in fighting Germany in Western Europe - so relieving pressure on Russia's west. There's also the material help the US could give to Russia (Arctic convoys, etc.).

 

Why would they tell Philby about the planned Japanese attack, assuming they knew about it in the first place, when doing so would risk the US finding out and taking action that would have kept them out of the war.

 

You seem to have taken the premise that Churchill knew about the attacks and didn't tell the US and have been trying to explain how it might have happened. You've forgotten to consider the the Russian viewpoint on the matter - it wasn't in their interest to keep the US out of the war. Without a good explanation for why Russia would have not wanted the US involved in the war, speculations about whether Churchill did or did not know and did or did not warn the US are redundant.

 

I am really sorry if you have mis interpreted what I have written. Clearly it was completely in Russian interests for the US to enter the war. I am not quite sure where you think I stated it was the contrary.

[altus]

I am really sorry if you have mis interpreted what I have written. Clearly it was completely in Russian interests for the US to enter the war. I am not quite sure where you think I stated it was the contrary.

 

I didn't think you did. I was just pointing out why you and LeMaquis arguing about whether Churchill would have believed a warning about the Pearl Harbour attack from Philby is a bit pointless as it's very unlikely that the Russians would have told Philby even if they had know about it.