Reflection on Pearl Harbor Day

[DogOnPorch]

The type of Moral relativism displayed by people who complain about the allies in WW2 is quite frankly sickening.

There's quite simply no comparison to how the allies treated prisoners/civilians and how the Axis did.

While I was aware that some people think Pearl Harbor was an inside job (lol) I'm shocked to find that there are people who doubt well known events like Nanking, Hong Kong, Singapore, Batavia, Bataan, etc, happened. What's next? Stalingrad was a German victory?

[DogOnPorch]

Not relevant to the issue which is: we committed atrocities too.

Probably not near as many nor as brutal but it certainly happened.

In fact, I just recently finished a book about the Guadalcanal navy battles in August and November of 1942 where some incidents were mentioned.

List five...list one, even.

[Boges]

While I was aware that some people think Pearl Harbor was an inside job (lol) I'm shocked to find that there are people who doubt well known events like Nanking, Hong Kong, Singapore, Batavia, Bataan, etc, happened. What's next? Stalingrad was a German victory?

I'm sure they also think the Holocaust was a hoax and the the Nuremberg laws were a reasonable compromise.

[GostHacked]

I'm sure they also think the Holocaust was a hoax and the the Nuremberg laws were a reasonable compromise.

Interesting you mention atrocities done by the Allies (Dresden) and yet claim that the Allies have done nothing in comparison to what the Axis had done. One cannot take the high road when both sides have done horrible things.

[Boges]

Interesting you mention atrocities done by the Allies (Dresden) and yet claim that the Allies have done nothing in comparison to what the Axis had done. One cannot take the high road when both sides have done horrible things.

Sure they can.

Why didn't the Germany demand the surrender of the Nazi party? Why did the soldiers keep fighting past the Battle of the Bulge? Operation Valkerie was evidence enough to people in Germany thought that the war was lost.

They must have known defeat was only a matter of time. In-order to make invasion of Germany cost as few allied lives as possible all possible threats had to be taken out.

It wasn't like they systematically killed German civilians like the Germans killed Jews.

Dresden was full of refugees at the time of the bombing. Who knew what potential threats lied there if they city had to be taken by ground troops.

Here are three reasonable reasons for bombing Dresden I found after a simple Google search.

http://www.historylearningsite.co.uk/bombing_of_dresden.htm

1) The city was in Nazi Germany and for this reason was a legitimate target for attack as the Allies were at war with Nazi Germany.

2) The city was not simply a cultural centre – there were factories there producing weapons and equipment for the Nazi war effort. Therefore, the city was a legitimate target. It was also a rail base to send troops to the war front with the Russians.

3) Though the Russians were allies, Churchill and Roosevelt had already decided that Stalin would be a major problem after the end of the war. Therefore, as the Red Army advanced against an army that was effectively defeated, it had no idea as to what an equal and possibly superior military force could do. Therefore, Dresden was bombed to show the Russians the awesome power of the Allies and to act as a warning to them not to stray from the agreements they had made at the war conferences.

Edited December 8, 2011 by Boges

[Boges]

List five...list one, even.

I bet some lefties consider mowing down dozens of Banzai a war crime.

Edited December 8, 2011 by Boges

[Wilber]

Manchuria? Russia took care of much of that.

Japan still held much of China, Indo China, Malaysia and Indonesia.

[Black Dog]

How about the fact that they, like many recent immigrants (but unlike past ones) made no effort to integrate into society?

That's simply not true.

Frankly it turned to be a disgrace in many ways, but hindsight is always 20/20. Are you saying we had no business winning that war?

Are you saying internment had any bearing on winning the war?

[jbg]

That's simply not true.

Are you saying that the Japanese in Canada did set themselves apart from the general population?

There is always a tension, especially during wartime, between personal rights and public safety.

We have had similar problems in the past, which culminated in the internment of U.S. citizens of Japanese descent. In one of the Supreme Court cases considering the issue the Court in Hirabayashi v. U.S.stated:

The war power of the national government is ‘the power to wage war successfully’.

Hirabayashi v. U.S.

320 U.S. 81, 93, 63 S.Ct. 1375, 1382 (U.S. 1943)

The Court stated further:

There is support for the view that social, economic and political conditions which have prevailed since the close of the last century, when the Japanese began to come to this country in substantial numbers, have intensified their solidarity and have in large measure prevented their assimilation as an integral part of the white population.FN4 In addition, large numbers of children of Japanese parentage*97 are sent to Japanese language schools outside the regular hours of public schools in the locality. Some of these schools are generally believed to be sources of Japanese nationalistic propaganda, cultivating allegiance to Japan.FN5 Considerable numbers, estimated to be approximately 10,000, of American-born children of Japanese parentage have been sent to Japan for all or a part of their education.

Hirabayashi v. U.S. 320 U.S. 81, 96-97, 63 S.Ct. 1375, 1384 (U.S. 1943)

In the notorious Korematsu decision the Court stated:

It is said that we are dealing here with the case of imprisonment of a citizen in a concentration camp solely because of his ancestry, without evidence or inquiry concerning his loyalty and good disposition towards the United States. Our task would be simple, our duty clear, were this a case involving the imprisonment of a loyal citizen in a concentration camp because of racial prejudice. Regardless of the true nature of the assembly and relocation centers-and we deem it unjustifiable to call them concentration camps with all the ugly connotations that term implies-we are dealing specifically with nothing but an exclusion order. To cast this case into outlines of racial prejudice, without reference to the real military dangers which were presented, merely confuses the issue. Korematsu was not excluded from the Military Area because of hostility to him or his race. He was excluded because we are at war with the Japanese Empire, because the properly constituted military authorities feared an invasion of our West Coast and felt constrained to take proper security measures, because they decided that the military urgency of the situation demanded that all citizens of Japanese ancestry be segregated from the West Coast temporarily, and finally, because Congress, reposing its confidence in this time of war in our military leaders-as inevitably it must-determined that they should have the power to do just this. There was evidence of disloyalty on the part of some, the military authorities considered that the need for action was great, and time was short. We cannot-by availing ourselves of the calm perspective of hindsight-now say that at that time these actions were unjustified.

Toyosaburo Korematsu v. U.S

. 323 U.S. 214, 223-224, 65 S.Ct. 193, 197 (U.S. 1944)

In the Japanese exclusion cases it is true that some of the blame for the enclaving of the Japanese citizens was placed on the amjority population of the United States.

Are you saying internment had any bearing on winning the war?

Yes.

However, I do believe that the people should have been interned briefly and then the vast majority returned promptly to their homes. But it was necessary to ascertain whether in fact a fifth column existed within the U.S. (or Canada for that matter).

[Black Dog]

Are you saying that the Japanese in Canada did set themselves apart from the general population?

I assume you mean "did not" and I doubt that to be the case any more than any other immigrant group of the day.

There is always a tension, especially during wartime, between personal rights and public safety.

Regardless of what the courts decided at the time (decisions that, it must be said, were based on shoddy evidence and were overturned some years later) there was no factual evidence or the claims that Japanese Americans or Canadians presented a security threat. None whatsoever.

Yes.

Okay: how? There was, as authorities of the day were well aware, no evidence of a fifth column among the Japanese-American population. So I'm curious how you believe stopping this non-existent threat helped win the war.

[Jack Weber]

I bet some lefties consider mowing down dozens of Banzai a war crime.

Mowed 'em down at Saipan....

[DogOnPorch]

Interesting you mention atrocities done by the Allies (Dresden) and yet claim that the Allies have done nothing in comparison to what the Axis had done. One cannot take the high road when both sides have done horrible things.

DOP: What about the Luftwaffe?

GH: The Luft-whata???

DOP: The German Air Force.

GH: I don't understand.

DOP: Bomber Command lost aircraft to the...lol...Luftwhata right up to the end of the war. The Germans fought back. How do you explain that??

GH: A US plot.

DOP: A...lol...US plot????

GH: Yes. Alex Jones told me so. Americans flying 'jet aircraft' shot down their own and British bombers in order to boost public support for the war back home.

DOP: O.....K....

GH: FDR was really Hitler in disguise. Barbarossa never happened. Pearl Harbor is actually in Florida and the Battle of Britain was faked on a studio back lot by Rupert Murdoch and Steven Spielberg!

DOP: ~sigh~

Edited December 8, 2011 by DogOnPorch

[Jack Weber]

DOP: What about the Luftwaffe?

GH: The Luft-whata???

DOP: The German Air Force.

GH: I don't understand.

DOP: Bomber Command lost aircraft to the...lol...Luftwhata right up to the end of the war. The Germans fought back. How do you explain that??

GH: A US plot.

DOP: A...lol...US plot????

GH: Yes. Alex Jones told me so. Americans flying 'jet aircraft' shot down their own and British bombers in order to boost public support for the war back home.

DOP: O.....K....

GH: FDR was really Hitler in disguise. Barbarossa never happened. Pear Harbor is actually in Florida and the Battle of Britain was faked on a studio back lot by Rupert Murdoch and Steven Spielberg!

DOP: ~sigh~

But I thought Barbarossa was a movie with Willie Nelson in it???

"BARBAROSSA!!!!!!!!"

[DogOnPorch]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XHkYhcwVWOg

All the Federales say...

[Boges]

I reality I'm sure much of Germany would have loved to have surrendered to the Western Allies. But after the Yalta conference the fate of Germany was already decided.

I'd imagine the Cold War would have turned into a real war had the Western Allies allowed all of Germany to surrender to them, and them only attempting to deny Stalin of East Germany.

[Boges]

DOP: What about the Luftwaffe?

GH: The Luft-whata???

DOP: The German Air Force.

GH: I don't understand.

DOP: Bomber Command lost aircraft to the...lol...Luftwhata right up to the end of the war. The Germans fought back. How do you explain that??

GH: A US plot.

DOP: A...lol...US plot????

GH: Yes. Alex Jones told me so. Americans flying 'jet aircraft' shot down their own and British bombers in order to boost public support for the war back home.

DOP: O.....K....

GH: FDR was really Hitler in disguise. Barbarossa never happened. Pearl Harbor is actually in Florida and the Battle of Britain was faked on a studio back lot by Rupert Murdoch and Steven Spielberg!

DOP: ~sigh~

You could say that the US were actually "limp-wristed" about how they approached bombing Germany. The Eight Air Force did daytime raids on only military targets while the RAF was like "eff the Hun" and bombed entire cities under the cover of night.

Many Americans died because they thought they could be civilized about how they attempted to take Germany out of the war. If the Mustang hadn't been invented the 8th Air Force would have been decimated.

[DogOnPorch]

The US faced the full might of the Luftwhata. The Brits and Canadians somewhat less so. There was nothing limp wristed about flying a B-24 or B-17 over Nazi Germany during the day.

[Boges]

The US faced the full might of the Luftwhata. The Brits and Canadians somewhat less so. There was nothing limp wristed about flying a B-24 or B-17 over Nazi Germany during the day.

The idea of Daytime Precision bombing without fighter escort was, for the most part, folly.

OK I won't call it limp-wristed but it was daft.

Edited December 8, 2011 by Boges

[dre]

However, I do believe that the people should have been interned briefly and then the vast majority returned promptly to their homes.

No we should not round up Canadians by race, sieze their posessions and imprison them, whether we are at war or not. Keep an eye on them... lock up any that are caught doing anything illegal, but the allies would have won the war with or without this embarassing policy.

[DogOnPorch]

The idea of Daytime Precision bombing was, for the most part, folly. OK I won't call it limp-wristed but it was daft.

Meh...the Norden bomb sight worked. The US was keen on not killing civilians if possible. Nobody asked them to bomb during the day. But, they did it anyways and it cost heavy. Hats off.

[Jack Weber]

No we should not round up Canadians by race, sieze their posessions and imprison them, whether we are at war or not. Keep an eye on them... lock up any that are caught doing anything illegal, but the allies would have won the war with or without this embarassing policy.

Embarassing policy aside....

The only thing that saved the Allies was the 6 week delay in the implementation of Operation Barbarossa...

[DogOnPorch]

No we should not round up Canadians by race, sieze their posessions and imprison them, whether we are at war or not. Keep an eye on them... lock up any that are caught doing anything illegal, but the allies would have won the war with or without this embarassing policy.

While Canada's reaction was rather knee-jerk, you must remember that Japanese spies were actually active and plentiful during WW2. It was a Japanese-American civilian/spy that informed the IJN that the US carriers were not in port Dec 7th, 1941. It was a Japanese-American that took the depth readings around Pearl Harbor to aid with the torpedo attacks.

[dre]

While Canada's reaction was rather knee-jerk, you must remember that Japanese spies were actually active and plentiful during WW2. It was a Japanese-American civilian/spy that informed the IJN that the US carriers were not in port Dec 7th, 1941. It was a Japanese-American that took the depth readings around Pearl Harbor to aid with the torpedo attacks.

I agree theres some risk involved when you have a lot of expats from a country you are at war with. We could have used this justification to round up all sorts of people during all sorts of wars though... everyone from Italians, to Iraqis to Koreans.

I still think its something we should draw the line at.

I think it was Franklin (i could be wrong) that said...

Those who would sacrifice liberty for security deserve neither.

I tend to agree.

[Jack Weber]

I agree theres some risk involved when you have a lot of expats from a country you are at war with. We could have used this justification to round up all sorts of people during all sorts of wars though... everyone from Italians, to Iraqis to Koreans.

I still think its something we should draw the line at.

I think it was Franklin (i could be wrong) that said...

I tend to agree.

Uh....

We did round up Italians and Germans during WW1 and WW2...

Edited December 8, 2011 by Jack Weber

[Boges]

Embarassing policy aside....

The only thing that saved the Allies was the 6 week delay in the implementation of Operation Barbarossa...

How so? The Battle of Britain ended in 1940 and Barbarossa didn't start until 1941. Are you implying that's what saved the UK or what doomed the operation?

The delay in Barbarossa meant that the Battle for Moscow had to happen in Winter which gave the USSR the advantage. Stalin used seasoned Winter fighters from Siberia to fend of the Wehrmacht. This coincided with Pearl Harbour and Stalin knew that Japan had it's sights on the US and not on Russia. Otherwise the Siberian troops probably wouldn't have been re-deployed.

Another reason for the delay, I believe, was Hitlter telling Army Group Centre to assist Army Group South in taking Ukraine before taking Moscow. That was a tactical error.

But I'm confused as to what the end-game in defeating the USSR would have been even if they had taken Moscow. Stalin wisely moved his industrial strength to the east so they could built up their might, plus they were receiving tons of aid from the US.

I wonder if he thought he could link up with Japan in the east through Russia.