Firebombing: Are war crimes decided by the victors?

World War II General WWII Discussion
#41

There’s nothing new in any of that. It’s an interpretation which commends itself to conspiracy theorists with a superficial knowledge and blinkered view of history, but not to anyone with a fuller knowledge dispassionately interpreted.

There is also the difficulty that some of the assertions are completely contradicted by the facts, such as:

  1. The Allies expected a Japanese attack but expected it to be in South East Asia, not Pearl Harbor, so there is no basis for the assertion that Roosevelt or anyone else ‘knew’ Pearl Harbor was a target for anything. The basis for that expectation included Japanese naval and troop movements in South East Asia in the weeks preceding 7 December and the knowledge that Japan coveted the resources in that region.
  2. The movement of the Japanese Pearl Harbor fleet was not detected, or even detectable, by any Allied radio direction finding network. It could not have been detected because (a) the IJN fleet maintained radio silence and (b) the callsigns of the fleet were assigned to other ships which remained in the vicinity of Japan and those are the signals which, as intended by the Japanese, would have been picked up by the Allies creating the impression that no ships were heading towards Pearl Harbor.
  3. Magic was the Japanese diplomatic code. The IJN did not give the Foreign Office details of its operations so they could not have been transmitted in Magic messages even if the Foreign Office had wanted to transmit them. Any relevant material would have been transmitted in the IJN’s codes, which the Allies could not read in 1941. There is no way Roosevelt or anyone else could have learned of the attack on Pearl Harbor from Magic decrypts. There is also the problem that the attack on Pearl was conceived months earlier and the planning was not conducted by radio transmissions.

There is plenty of other factual material to debunk in your quote, but the three points above are enough to demonstrate that it is an unfounded interpretation of history.

#42

Leccy
Makes sense now. Thanks for clarifying.

Your doubts prompted me to re-examine some of the claims made.
In my internet search I came across multiple sites which offer the same info that I presented, some that include the actual documentation. http://rationalrevolution.net/war/fdr_provoked_the_japanese_attack.htm
http://militaryhistory.about.com/od/worldwarii/a/wwiipaccauses_2.htm
But from what you say there may be inaccuracies. Don’t know quite what to think,
I guess I am not going to rule out any possibilities until I do some deeper digging, and more in-depth research.
Thanks for your thoughts on the matter.

#43

Just saw your post Rising Sun.
I think it’s a shame you categorize me or my view ect as conspiracy theorist or originating from conspiracy theory.
After all, I am just looking for answers, and wiling to consider a variety of possibilities.
If I was a stubborn block head who did not care about history I would absolutely refuse to listen to any one else’s input.
That’s not the case of course.
I have read over everything you and everyone else has said and will give it some serious thought.
I challenge you to do the same: go to the websites I listed, and sincerely consider those arguments.

#44

I didn’t categorise you as anything.

I couldn’t find the 9/11reviews.com source you listed. All I could find was 911review.com http://911review.com/precedent/century/pearlharbor.html , which strikes me as a conspiracy theory site.

I have considered the views expressed there. They are nonsense.

The authors do the usual conspiracy theory thing of taking a few pieces of information; filling in the gaps with their preferred ‘facts’ and distortions; and reaching the desired conclusion in defiance of the facts.

The linked article starts with a paragraph which proves nothing about what Knox or Roosevelt knew about the IJN fleet approaching Pearl Harbor, but the conspiracists will read into it that they knew exactly where the fleet was. If the authors had real evidence that Knox and Roosevelt knew the exact location of the fleet, they would have presented it. They haven’t, because there isn’t any.

The article goes on to state “On the evening of December 6, 1941, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, the president of the United States, received a message intercepted by the U.S. Navy. Sent from Tokyo to the Japanese embassy in Washington, the message was encrypted in the top-level Japanese “purple code.” But that was no problem. The Americans had cracked the code long before that. It was imperative that the president see the message right away because it revealed that the Japanese, under the heavy pressure of Western economic sanctions, were terminating relations with the United States. Roosevelt read the thirteen-part transmission, looked up and announced, “This means war.”

This paragraph reveals the authors’ lack of knowledge or, worse, intentional distortion on some critical points.

First, it gives the impression that the Americans had immediately cracked the whole message, which the authors think was in thirteen parts. In fact, it was in fourteen parts and the fourteenth part was not available until around 8 a.m. on 7 December.

Second, it states that message ‘revealed that the Japanese … were terminating relations with the United States’. The message said nothing of the kind. It merely terminated negotiations, which is a vastly less significant diplomatic step than terminating relations.

The authors then go on to refer to the message as ‘a secret declaration of war’. Nobody who actually bothers to inform themselves by reading the message could possibly come to such a conclusion. As the 1946 Congressional Investigation into the Pearl Harbor Attack noted: “Nowhere in the memorandum was there any indication or intimation of an intention to attack the United States nor, indeed, that formal diplomatic relations were to be broken - merely that it was impossible to reach an agreement through the then current negotiations. P.43 http://www.ibiblio.org/pha/pha/congress/part_1.html

The authors then assert: “The Japanese secret declaration of war never reached the people who needed to hear it the most - Admiral Husband E. Kimmel, commander in chief of the United States Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, and the unit’s commanding general, Walter Short.” If Kimmel and Short had received the message all they would have known was that Japan was breaking off negotiations. There was nothing in the message to indicate to them that Japan was about to attack America, let alone Pearl Harbor.

I could go on, but what I’ve written should be sufficient to demonstrate that the article was written by people who either don’t understand their subject or purposely misrepresent facts to support their desired conclusions.

#45

Stop looking for the “truth” on the internet. There are too many morons that can post whatever unsubstantiated, opined bullshit as fact without the slightest hint of self-doubt or basic journalistic/scholarly integrity…

#46

I had never read the article you ended up reading, but it seems somewhat shallow.
The ones I really wanted you to see are in the post for leccy.
Oh well, thanks for checking it out.
It’s been frustrating but educational.
Best regards.

#47

Is there anything online that is valid?
I think I have found good reliable sources that deal with the facts and details and even then it’s not satisfactory.
I would like to ask where you get your information from.
Since I am going to start all over again and re-educate my self about Pearl Harbor, both the “conspiracy theory version” and the official story, can you recommend any reading material or any other format of source that is trustworthy?

#48

Nick, stop forbid the people to search the true…:wink:
You know how in the USSR the peoples-dissidents whose political views didn’t folow the official line were called? Exactly “morons” and they were forcedly put into Lunatic asylumns. Are you going to reincarnate the sort of USSR here? :mrgreen:

Well , i may recommend you the interview with Admiral Kimmel
for the start. This man, former commander of Pacific fleet , can’t be called moron so easy;)

#49

Anecdote;
I remember 9/11 as well. It was a time were Europeans, certainly journalists that were in the US, were seen as terrorists themselves in a short period after the attacks.
My dad was there at that moment, in function as telecom engineer. Meetings were canceled or suspended and got a political colour.
First call went like:
“Dad, are you ok? were you on a plane?”
reaction: “planes? I don’t understand, what I can say is that I am not being lynched!”

The US are still at war, and it is a critical climate to talk about war issues, even if it is about other wars.
Hysterical reactions can become very subtle and unconscious. Some Americans still feel they are the only ones that die, the only ones that got hurt and the only ones that care.
The fact is, americans were not used to war “in the face” and still react in an over-compensating way europeans learned to overcome. Again, there wasn’t a world war where the most dead were American and certainly when talking civilians.
Talking about “Old World/Europe” in a very negative way, is like stabbing your grandparents in the back because they want to give you advise.

#50

Do you really think that Americans were so stupid as to blame Europeans for an extremist Muslim attack?

Do you have evidence of any instances of any Europeans being lynched, or threatened with being lynched, in the aftermath of 9/11 for being Europeans?

Your recollection of 9/11 and its aftermath, which I also remember well, does not agree with mine.

The US has been at war, or sponsoring a war, with at least one other nation for most of its existence. It is probably the most consistently belligerent nation during the past couple of centuries, although America likes to think of itself as a peaceful nation.

So far as the comparison you have chosen to make between modern Americans and Europeans is concerned, Americans still have some justification for feeling that they are the ones [albeit not the only ones] who die as they have lost rather more troops in wars since WWII than most, probably any, European nations unless, perhaps, one includes the USSR / Russia as a European nation.

Whether those American lives were lost in wars of any benefit to America or anyone else is a different issue but, for example, while Germany’s contribution to the Vietnam War era was for a few politically misguided lunatics to play around with the Baader-Meinhof Gang and Italy’s was the Red Brigades which together counted casualties in double digits at worst, America lost about 60,000 dead in Vietnam (which is about the same number it lost from a much smaller population in WWI). Americans in that era, who are now in their fifties and sixties, have a very good understanding of the consequences of war and a rather better one than most of their European counterparts of the same age who rely upon their parents’ experiences of WWII.

You should read up on the American Civil War. From memory, more
Americans were killed in that war alone than total American deaths in WWI and WWII. The war was on American soil between Americans who often laid waste to their own people and soil, and the victor imposed a harsh occupation upon the loser.

I don’t know what you mean by Europeans learning to overcome war ‘in the face’. My recollection is that the European victors in WWI imposed harsh terms on the loser and after WWII the European victors brought the losers to ‘justice’ by trying them for crimes which were largely unknown to law at the time they were committed. Which is what this thread is about.

And, given that Russia / USSR lost the greatest number in both world wars, your point is what?

That France and Germany don’t count because, like America, they didn’t top your league table of who lost the most?

Or should you be looking at percentages of the population?

But, even then, what does that prove?

You can argue about the impact of America’s entry to WWI if you wish, but it is certainly the case that America’s contribution to WWII was decisive in giving victory to the Allies against all the Axis powers, which was a victory which the other Allies could not have managed on their own.

Talking about America in a very negative and uninformed way is equally undesirable. There is plenty to criticise about America, as there is with every other country, but denigrating it on a body count of war deaths is meaningless and insulting, and especially when America has borne the main burden of defending the rest of the world from despotic regimes since WWII (while also managing to support some of those regimes when it suited America, as it suited other nations in their own interests).

Note: Figures are rough and from memory. I’m happy to be corrected if I’m seriously out.

#51

No, they did not and I didn’t say that.
But they blame Europe every day for being “wise nose” and “weak” in our thoughts.
I simply say Americans were shocked and kicked around in the dark.
Intelligence is futile in the first 24 hours. In every situation of hazard, whether it is Port-au-Prince or New York. Bush doctrine “with us or against us” is a definition of what was in many heads at the moment.
The fact the terrorists lived and were trained within the US borders, definitely came as an extra shock and loosened tight attitudes towards Europeans.

Do you have evidence of any instances of any Europeans being lynched, or threatened with being lynched, in the aftermath of 9/11 for being Europeans?

:mrgreen:
please, don’t go over the edge.
My dad simply made an impression pointing out what happened in the first hours.
Hard words fell and many felt suspicious. Europeans simply didn’t walk around with signs saying “I’m with you”.
And this is reinforced with other stories of people there. Like I said, most journalists.

Do you really need a recorded tape or some video shoot to overcome the thought it never happened? I’m not judging. If so, no discussion has any sense anymore.

Your recollection of 9/11 and its aftermath, which I also remember well, does not agree with mine.

You don’t know my recollection, which is far more complex than one anecdote.

The US has been at war, or sponsoring a war, with at least one other nation for most of its existence. It is probably the most consistently belligerent nation during the past couple of centuries, although America likes to think of itself as a peaceful nation.

well far away of its territory …

So far as the comparison you have chosen to make between modern Americans and Europeans is concerned, Americans still have some justification for feeling that they are the ones [albeit not the only ones] who die as they have lost rather more troops in wars since WWII than most, probably any, European nations unless, perhaps, one includes the USSR / Russia as a European nation.

Whether those American lives were lost in wars of any benefit to America or anyone else is a different issue but, for example, while Germany’s contribution to the Vietnam War era was for a few politically misguided lunatics to play around with the Baader-Meinhof Gang and Italy’s was the Red Brigades which together counted casualties in double digits at worst, America lost about 60,000 dead in Vietnam (which is about the same number it lost from a much smaller population in WWI). Americans in that era, who are now in their fifties and sixties, have a very good understanding of the consequences of war and a rather better one than most of their European counterparts of the same age who rely upon their parents’ experiences of WWII.

The “experience in terror of war” I refer to is not a simple issue of having troops somewhere. It’s about having troops at your door. Repression, food rations,…
My greatgrandmother often talked about comparison between 4 years WWI and 4 years WWII, explaining why the First War was worse for common people. etc…
these stories are way off having troops in Nicaragua or Vietnam in the live of a Kentucky farmer.

You should read up on the American Civil War. From memory, more
Americans were killed in that war alone than total American deaths in WWI and WWII. The war was on American soil between Americans who often laid waste to their own people and soil, and the victor imposed a harsh occupation upon the loser.

wow, and whoosh many decades back you go … :mrgreen:
I’m sure, really sure Americans would think differently if the Civil War happened yesterday, of course they would. I would.
Europeans youth has different views on things than the elderly have. But the ones having faced years of occupation, in this case a nazi one, are still found alive.
Almost every week there is a WWII related documentary on the screen.

I don’t know what you mean by Europeans learning to overcome war ‘in the face’. My recollection is that the European victors in WWI imposed harsh terms on the loser and after WWII the European victors brought the losers to ‘justice’ by trying them for crimes which were largely unknown to law at the time they were committed. Which is what this thread is about.

I was talking about “overcoming” tendency towards aggression and quick judgement by civilians.
It is much more harsh by people that are recently shocked and experienced war in specific way before.
A soldier fights everywhere, a cilivian however exeriences war much more differently if the war is at his door.

And, given that Russia / USSR lost the greatest number in both world wars, your point is what?

That France and Germany don’t count because, like America, they didn’t top your league table of who lost the most?

Or should you be looking at percentages of the population?

But, even then, what does that prove?

It proves simply that the death, horror and attrition of occupation and war realities happened everywhere across civilians.
For every soldier, a cilivian died. In the US, no civilian was killed in war. Or try to imagine: No american was killed by a collateral Belgian bullet or bomb rightfully aiming for a German, did it? Or by famine being looted by the occupators?
No American ever had to struggle with the situation of cheering for a “liberating” bombing raid that maybe killed two of his cousins or so but at least twenty Germans…
If you are saying, that’s not what it is about, we are elaborating on different things.

You can argue about the impact of America’s entry to WWI if you wish, but it is certainly the case that America’s contribution to WWII was decisive in giving victory to the Allies against all the Axis powers, which was a victory which the other Allies could not have managed on their own.

The argumentation for the role of the US is irrelevant. It is not because the US did a fair job or not, the civilians had a better live under occupation. Every train or track they bombed was rebuild afterwards, no one argues that. But again, it’s about the fact there was no factory bombed in the US. Everyday that was…

Talking about America in a very negative and uninformed way is equally undesirable. There is plenty to criticise about America, as there is with every other country, but denigrating it on a body count of war deaths is meaningless and insulting, and especially when America has borne the main burden of defending the rest of the world from despotic regimes since WWII (while also managing to support some of those regimes when it suited America, as it suited other nations in their own interests).

I repeat: It is not because the US did a fair job or not, the civilians had a better live under occupation
I guess you discussed a lot with boneheads trying to bash america no matter what, but you are mistaking considering my point.
It’s all about collective socio-cultural behaviour, which is different in a region that was the frontline through years in two world wars and a regions that waged those wars.
It is on the other hand very insulting to wave goodbye the effort of nations that fought battles only a week and a half but went through two times 4 years of harsh occupation.
It’s like only soldiers matter… which is, as I said, a very easy way out considering the “suffering” in WWII of the US, which is the vast amount of regretful soldier lives … but no civilian lives.
The number of Belgian soldiers killed in action is a laugh compared to civilian casualties in the years to follow. But if you really think of the battle effort as a laugh, those civilians are even more a laugh, since they are “irrelevant”. Which is a shame.

#52

I appreciate the interview Chevan, it’s quite interesting and something I had not seen before.
Thanks much. :wink:

#53

I confess to now being a tad curious about how old Mr. Steben is. I have no recollection of anyone whomsoever being suspicious of Europeans in the aftermath of 9/11. I agree with Rising Sun’s citing of the American Civil War as a counter to the statement that the US has not experience war “in its face”. Most people, including Europeans, don’t know that this was the largest land war that had been fought up to that time and in terms of space, spanned half a continent. Many of the features of this war presaged WWI: heavy use of railroads; siege (trench) warfare in front of Richmond; economic warfare on a grand scale - capture of New Orleans to close off the Mississippi, capture of Brownsville, Texas, by Michigan marines to interdict the cotton trade; use of the Union Navy to blockade a tremendously long coastline; technological advances especially in the form of naval ironclads and movable turrets (Monitor); use of balloons for military observation; use of “instant” communications via telegraph and so on.

#54

And submarines.

The Civil War is widely regarded by military historians as the first ‘modern war’ in the sense of what became the world wars, for all the reasons you mention as well as the type of weapons and tactics used.

Although it was a long time ago, the fact remains that America was the first to experience a modern war and upon a huge scale, with the added bitterness of being a civil war rather than the wars between nations more usually fought in Europe in the same and subsequent periods.

#55

I’m now 30, my dad is 60.
Simple question; were there Europeans in your proximity at the time?

agree with Rising Sun’s citing of the American Civil War as a counter to the statement that the US has not experience war “in its face”. Most people, including Europeans, don’t know that this was the largest land war that had been fought up to that time and in terms of space, spanned half a continent. Many of the features of this war presaged WWI: heavy use of railroads; siege (trench) warfare in front of Richmond; economic warfare on a grand scale - capture of New Orleans to close off the Mississippi, capture of Brownsville, Texas, by Michigan marines to interdict the cotton trade; use of the Union Navy to blockade a tremendously long coastline; technological advances especially in the form of naval ironclads and movable turrets (Monitor); use of balloons for military observation; use of “instant” communications via telegraph and so on.

The fact remains it’s about people, not the specific technology. US citizens never experienced modern/industrial occupation of a foreign power stretched over war years at the doorstep. and never had to live up to ambiguent empathy (I refer to the bombing example).
And yes, today Europeans survivors exist, where US don’t.

#56

Neither have the vast majority of Western Europeans…

And yes, today Europeans survivors exist, where US don’t.

Survivors whose views’ are largely ignored by the younger generations. What is common ground is that most of the world, West or East, shared the menace of the Cold War and the prospect of nuclear annihilation…

#57

oh dear what’s the point of this… :frowning: quite the evasive maneuvre …
I meant never in history of course!

Survivors whose views’ are largely ignored by the younger generations. What is common ground is that most of the world, West or East, shared the menace of the Cold War and the prospect of nuclear annihilation…

Yes common ground.
But Europeans share more than that.
Again, no American today has heard (grand)parent’s stories about bombing on their own civil houses, along with a mixed feeling of gratitude AND rage. And actually no American ever did witness it, given the specific cultural/ethnic situation of the Civil War. No friendly fire on your own house ever was cheered at. Did Americans ever witnessed or experienced antisemitic razzia’s on own territory?
You all like talking about guns and railroads etc … but that is not the point is it?

#58

Steben, neither you, nor anyone here was alive during the Revolutionary War, the War of 1812, or the U.S. Civil War. That being true, how do you intend to support your quoted assertion?
“And actually no American ever did witness it, given the specific cultural/ethnic situation of the Civil War. No friendly fire on your own house ever was cheered at.”
I see that you enjoy arguing more than discussing a point, to a proper conclusion. It may profit you to read the biographies of the signatories of the Declaration of Independence. The more part of them lost everything in the struggle, they didnt wail about it, they got on with it. Arguement for its own sake is not the point of these boards, do try to remember that.

#59

It’s not evasive. It’s the truth! A truth I’ve been told by former U.S. Army comrades that served in Europe–saying that there was a massive disconnect in the opinions of the older and younger generations.

You weren’t alive during or for the extended aftermath of WWII, and I wasn’t alive during the American Civil War…

Yes common ground.
But Europeans share more than that.
Again, no American today has heard (grand)parent’s stories about bombing on their own civil houses, along with a mixed feeling of gratitude AND rage.

I know several New Yorkers who would strongly contest that!

And actually no American ever did witness it, given the specific cultural/ethnic situation of the Civil War. No friendly fire on your own house ever was cheered at.

Again, most younger Europeans also have not witnessed this!

Did Americans ever witnessed or experienced antisemitic razzia’s on own territory?

Into WWII, newspaper want ad’s often included “Jews need not apply.” And we had our very own special instances of racial and ethnic discord in case you weren’t aware of this. No current Americans ever saw the tragedy of the Civil War. But certainly many saw it’s impact–and that of “Reconstruction”–that caused civil strife and domestic terrorism in the United States well into the 1960’s if not 1970’s.

You all like talking about guns and railroads etc … but that is not the point is it?

I don’t recall mentioning either. But I think the point made by others was the sheer scale of the conflict was one of “total war.”

#60
  • Uh, say what? New Yorkers? :shock: are you talking about “cheering” at 9/11?
  • I don’t understand why the views of the elderly in Europe are to be rejected … as if they are dead indeed…
  • I don’t understand why you refer to US domestic racial struggles when talking about antisemitic (amongst others of course, gypsies, gays,…) razzia’s in occupied territories… when at the same time no one else is allowed to compare nazi Germany and the US on this matter…

Arguement for its own sake is not the point of these boards, do try to remember that.

You mean: if no one listens to arguements, do not waste time. Ok i’ll try to remember.
All I know now is that most of you guys discussing this mather don’t live in Europe, OR most of you simply are connected to all the “other” Europeans, th eones that seem to be outside my world. :lol:
The things I’m telling don’t need arguements over here.