I think there are historical inaccuracies in just about any text one reads if one gets nit-picky enough. The question is intention and magnitude and whether it’s incompetence or sophism. I don’t think Ross had any egregious errors here, although I think he does take an overly partisan track not meant for the consumption of amateur historians.
I tend to be right wing and despise Leftists who are correct for the wrong reasons. If you read neither, why did you post a Left-wing article?
I tend to be moderately left and despise ANYONE who are knowingly incorrect for the wrong reasons. In any case, it’s hard to gauge this as merely a left wing article, and the reason I Googled it was I think I ran across it for the last series of Pearl Harbor “Conspiracy” posts as it was a nice (if imperfect) summarization that debunks many of the assertions presented by the typical “Let-it-Happen-on-Purpose” conspiracists who vary widely in their motivations–some just because they hate FDR and the “New Deal” legislation. Other’s because they’re paranoids who believe that everything happens for a reason and that a few in power can somehow control everything (the latter is called “omnipotent competence”, something any rational or sane person would ever accuse a gov’t of being). However, I don’t think the article anymore particularly “left wing” than some of the great stuff Popular Mechanics did to debunk the idiotic “Bush-Inside Job” conspiracy theories regarding 9/11. I’m no fan of Bush, but found myself defending him on many forums on that issue (if one could call that an “issue” for lack of a better term)…
Yes. I suspect many of the conspiracy theorists have profit rather than historical accuracy as their major motivation. Sensationalism definitely sells books, as the general public is ignorant of the actual history of the Pearl Harbor attack, and tends to accept whatever oddball theories are advanced, as long as they sound half-way plausible. And yes, Roosevelt takes honors among his contemporaries as a leader who generally left the conduct of military operations to the professionals during WW II. But he was not perfect in that regard; for example, Roosevelt insisted on the production of small escort vessels that were practically useless against the U-boat menace, and this left the US Eastern coast virtually defenseless in early 1942. The resulting massacre of US and British merchant ships has been blamed on Admiral King, when it should be laid at Roosevelt’s feet.
Agreed, for the most part.
Actually, this was mere speculation as no intelligence was available to indicate where the invasion convoys were bound. But it made sense to think that the Philippines would be included in the Japanese plans as the Philippine archipelago sat astride the sea routes necessary to the Japanese plans for expansion of their empire. The US had always assumed that the Japanese coveted the Philippines and that a war would start with a seizure of the US possession. In any case, the Japanese had always assumed that a US presence in the Philippines would be used to frustrate Japanese plans for seizing what they called the Southern Resources Area.
Yeah. I think there also tended to be a strain that severally underestimated the IJN’s aviation capability and believed that the Japanese would be incapable of launching strikes on Midway or Wake, much less Hawaii, in the initial phases of the War. I think the question was more like “should the U.S. go to war to assist the British or the Dutch?” as opposed to “are we going to be bombed here?”…
I’m not arguing that Mac didn’t drop the ball in the Philippines. In fact, I think Mac’s performance in the Philippines deserved a court martial at the very least. It would have been better for Roosevelt to leave Mac in command in the Philippines, and let him be captured by the Japanese. That would have enabled a unified command in the Pacific and saved many American lives over the course of the war. But Roosevelt was cognizant of Mac’s political ramifications and failed to treat him as he should have; that was Roosevelt’s failing.
I mostly agree here. But Mac was painted as a heroic figure, and perhaps he was. He may have been incompetent (or acted so despite possessing considerable talent). Whether one can court martial a senior general of Mac’s standing just for sucking is debatable however. And I’m sure you’re aware that it was pretty much the U.S. military’s policy in WWII to basically quietly relieve failed commanders and assign them to stateside training duties (something that contributed to the maddening continuation of outmoded dogmatic tactics in TRADOC). An example would be Gen. Fredendall, generally recognized as one of the worst Western Allied commanders to ever hold a post above division commander and who badly mangled the command at the Battle of the Kasserine Pass (although, to be fair, he wasn’t the only one and British Gen. Anderson also made critical errors). Even though one of Ike’s aids reported he was drunk and far to the rear in his legendary command post and was a “cowardly” “son-of-a-bitch!”. He was only quietly fired and sent back to the states with a hero’s accolades to train soldiers on how not to fight. I suspect, a similar fate would have befell MacArthur had his hubris in the Philippines been better understood and hindsight removed from the “fog-of-war”…
As for the B-17, the USAAF knew very well that it was not an effective anti-shipping bomber, at least in the numbers available, or projected to become available, in the Philippines. Hap Arnold knowingly oversold the capabilities of the B-17 in an attempt to promote strategic bombing and an independent Air Force. Certainly, the US Navy was not convinced and quite correctly withdrew it’s major forces from the Philippines promptly upon the outbreak of war.
I agree that the B-17 was limited in its effectiveness and was disingenuously oversold firstly as a maritime patrol aircraft for political purposes–mainly because the idea of strategic bombing was an anathema to the American public and regarded as tantamount to nuclear warfare today–then as a miracle strat bomber. I would take issue with the fact that the USAAF DID believe that strategic bombing could be effective against enemy fleets for quite sometime before they adopted tactical skip-bombing tactics using medium bombers later in the War. The U.S. Navy pulled back because they had already been savaged at Pearl Harbor and could not afford to take anymore losses and everyone involved knew that no relief force would come to the beleaguered Americans’ aid for quite sometime…
No, in the early 1930’s the US Navy was governed by Congress, primarily through the Vinson Act, which limited the authorized tonnage of every class of warship the Navy was allowed to build. The Vinson Act did not even allow the Navy to build up to Washington and London Naval treaty limits until 1938. In fact, the designed tonnage of US navy vessels was typically held under treaty limits and resulted in unsatisfactory carriers such as the Ranger (on which my father served in the late 1930’s). It was not until mid-1940, and the Fall of France, that the US Navy was authorized to build the Essex-class carriers which began to become available in 1943. Contrary to what most people think, the US Navy was NOT battleship-oriented after1939; absolute top priority was given to the construction of carriers in 1940, and resulted in construction times of Essex-class carriers averaging an astonishing 18 months.
Yet the hulls of the venerable Enterprise and Yorktown were laid down by early 1934 as the result of the Vinson-Trammell Expansion Program which sought to both ‘stimulate the economy’ and aid national defense. I agree that the Fall of France was a watershed moment for the U.S. Armed Forces, but there were attempts to gradually upgrade the U.S. fleets in the early 1930s. I do also concur that the U.S. Navy was beginning to transcend the ‘battleship-first’ mentality and had been on the cutting edge of dive-bombing for sometime. Something the Luftwaffe was well aware of when they procured USN dive-bombers for their own experimentation–ultimately leading to the tactics and the weapons systems such as the Stuka…
For me conspirators were the people who actually were part of this plot in 1941, (internet is kind of a ouija, as you noted with horror we had admiral Kimmel summoned by Chevan in this thread)