On Dec. 8, 1941, Franklin Roosevelt took the rostrum before a joint session of Congress to ask for a declaration of war on Japan.
A day earlier, at dawn, carrier-based Japanese aircraft had launched a sneak attack devastating the U.S. battle fleet at Pearl Harbor.
Said ex-President Herbert Hoover, Republican statesman of the day, “We have only one job to do now, and that is to defeat Japan.”
But to friends, “the Chief” sent another message: “You and I know that this continuous putting pins in rattlesnakes finally got this country bit.”
Today, 70 years after Pearl Harbor, a remarkable secret history, written from 1943 to 1963, has come to light. It is Hoover’s explanation of what happened before, during and after the world war that may prove yet the death knell of the West.
Edited by historian George Nash, “Freedom Betrayed: Herbert Hoover’s History of the Second World War and Its Aftermath” is a searing indictment of FDR and the men around him as politicians who lied prodigiously about their desire to keep America out of war, even as they took one deliberate step after another to take us into war.
Yet the book is no polemic. The 50-page run-up to the war in the Pacific uses memoirs and documents from all sides to prove Hoover’s indictment. And perhaps the best way to show the power of this book is the way Hoover does it — chronologically, painstakingly, week by week.
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It must be true, Obama apologized, and bowed down to the Emperor of Japan for causing it.
ReplyDeleteyes
ReplyDeleteWay over my head.The only thing that I ever questioned about the Pearl Harbor attack were the numerous ships and yachts that the Zeros' flew over while en route to Pearl Harbor.Most were of American origin or our allies,but not one single person radioed Hawaii to warn them.When the Zeros' flew over the first ship they were 2 full flying hours away from PH.That is beyond odd.
ReplyDeleteamerica has a war culture
ReplyDelete"The only thing that I ever questioned about the Pearl Harbor attack were the numerous ships and yachts that the Zeros' flew over while en route to Pearl Harbor."
ReplyDeleteShip to shore radio was a novelty back then and few yachts carried any type of radio. The Army operated a radar station on Oahu that picked up the incoming planes but the operators had no idea what they were. We shouldn't try to analyze the past based on current experiences.
Anonymous said...
ReplyDeleteWay over my head.The only thing that I ever questioned about the Pearl Harbor attack were the numerous ships and yachts that the Zeros' flew over while en route to Pearl Harbor.Most were of American origin or our allies,but not one single person radioed Hawaii to warn them.When the Zeros' flew over the first ship they were 2 full flying hours away from PH.That is beyond odd.
December 11, 2014 at 1:28 PM
Where did you get the information that the planes flew over American ships before attacking Pearl Harbor?
Please cite your sources!!
Where did you get the information that the planes flew over American ships before attacking Pearl Harbor?
ReplyDeletePlease cite your sources!!
December 11, 2014 at 5:15 PM
I am not 128 but I simply highlighted your question and did a search. Below is some of what I found from Military.com. I'm sure more can be found but I see no need for the effort since this type of thing has been reported on numerous times over the years. You must be very young, uniformed or both to keep asking for proof on every single thing. But at least we are continuing your education.
At dawn on December 7, the Japanese task force reached a point slightly more than 200 miles north of Oahu. At 6:00 a.m., the six carriers launched a first wave of 181 planes composed of torpedo bombers, dive bombers, horizontal bombers and fighters. Even as they flew south, some elements of U.S. forces on Oahu realized there was something different about this Sunday morning. In the hours before dawn, U.S. Navy vessels spotted an unidentified submarine periscope near the entrance to Pearl Harbor. It was attacked and reported sunk by the destroyer USS Ward (DD-139) and a patrol plane.
At 7:00 a.m., an alert operator of an Army radar station at Opana spotted the approaching first wave of the attack force. The officers to whom those reports were relayed did not consider them significant enough to take action. The report of the submarine sinking was handled routinely, and the radar sighting was passed off as an approaching group of American planes due to arrive that morning.