Bill Greenwood wrote:
I was also thinking that I know quite a bit about the attacks and the war, have read the books, seen the movies, met some of those involved, flown in the planes: But I really don't know much about what led up to the war, what started the attack. Despite being a native of the U S, educated here through college, I have only a vague idea that Japan accused the U S of cutting off their access to oil. I don't know much more, don't know if that is true,or to what extent, or if so why we did that,or what the alternatives were? This, that is Pearl Harbor and WW II, including the Atomic Bomb was the major event of the 20 th century and don't really know the background in depth.
As others have said, many things are attributed to the US Japanese war. I have read too, that
Perry's visit, but maybe more importantly the revision of the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 to
include the Japanese(as well as other Asians) in the Johnson-Reed Act of 1924 was a major slap
in the face of the Japanese. To include the Japanese with races they considered mongrels was a
deep insult. In the book, "In Peace Japan Breeds War" by Gustav Eckstein, this is mentioned and
I've run across the 2 examples...Perry's visit and the Exclusion Act..in Japanese blogs in description
by the younger describing the "mossbacks" who cling to their reasoning for the war. Eckstein also
quotes Yamamoto, when asked why he joined the Navy, he replied, "To repay Perry's visit." (Dunno
if it's true...but it's in there.)
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Next, I wonder why and how Japan ever decided to attack the U S. Can they have really believed that we were not going to retaliate? And despite their initial military might and successes, could they really have believed that the U S was ever going to settle for some partial peace, or that Japan could conquer a much larger nation, even invade the U S?
The embargoes were more extensive than oil and rubber, they included metals and scrap. As has
been mentioned, the Japanese killing of the of the US fleet was to give them time to consolidate
their position in the Pacific Rim before serious retaliation could be mounted. They were gambling
they could get their industry on track before the US could do so. Consider the other orientals as
a "workforce in waiting" for Japanese use and the idea, tho farfetched, swells the numbers
available to Japan. They really screwed the pooch when they missed the carriers and failed to use
their submarine fleet aggresively as the Germans or later US practices.
Eckstein also addresses Japanese use of brutal atrocities..they were meant to make war so terrible
and costly that we would avoid war with them at any cost. Obviously, it made us madder and
made it easy to demonize and dehumanize the Japanese.
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Admiral Yamamoto had no illusions, he had visited California and was aware of what U S industry could produce.
He also attended Harvard from 1919-1921, and graduated from there. He came back as military
attache' in the mid 20's. He knew attacking the US was a huge mistake and was quite vocal in
in his anti-war stance. So much so, I've read the reason he was sent to sea in 1939, was to
prevent his assasination. However he was brilliant tactician and faithful to the Emporer to a fault.
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He was opposed to the start of the war and said, " I can run wild for 6 months to a year, after that there is no guarantee." After the attack Dec. 7, when he found out the diplomatic warning had not been given in advance, he said " I fear all we have done is awaken a sleeping giant."
The "run wild for 6 months" quote is true, no evidence has been found for the "sleeping giant"
quote beyond Tora, Tora, Tora. His quote from which it was possibly inspired begins, "A military
man can scarcely pride himself on having smitten a sleeping enemy...."
You oughta dig up a copy of Ecksteins book Bill, I've been touting it for years here, it gives some
interesting insight and history of the Japanese prior to the war. Not a long book, 326 pages. I
believe for the Aussie's it may be available online from the Australian National Library...at least
it seemed so when I googled it a few months back. Glad to see you back
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