Did government officials know that the attacks on Pearl Harbor were coming?

[blobfish]

The conspiracy theory (I have heard ones that Churchill knew because the British had broken the German codes and the Japanese invasion was mentioned.......among other thing, the only problem with that is the British only had German navy messages, and they only broke a percentage of them, they never broke the German diplomatic codes). Another theory which has some sprinkling of truth to it was the US had broken the Japanese codes and knew it was coming, problem was as of December, 1941 they hadn't broken any significant codes. Yeah, I have heard the arguments about the carriers being at sea, how that proved they knew, but they easily could have come up with an excuse to move the regular fleet out without tipping the japanese off, likewise they could have had the planes and their crews ready, instead of sitting wingtip to wingtip ready to be destroyed. The coventry argument doesn't hold (where the brits knew coventry was going to be hit with V2's but couldn't do anything), the navy had choices had they really believed an attack was coming.

I think most people knew war was inevitable but the military is not different then any other large organization, there is a lot of disbelief there, a lot of 'the US is not at war we are neutral, there is no reason to attack us", as well as more then a bit of racism, who are a bunch of short, bandy legged guys wearing coke bottle glasses going to take on the US? (and yes, those views were expressed, which is kind of ironic, given that by December, 1941 our military was still very, very weak).

More importantly, if they knew they could have protected the fleet and then had their excuse when the Japanese did attack, to lose a good part of our Pacific fleet when there would have been war anyway doesn't make any sense..and despite a cottage industry of books and such, no one has ever presented evidence that backs this up, it is typical conspiracy theory stuff, great for selling books. It doesn't surprise me this is coming a lot of the time from the nutty right wing, who almost 70 years after the man's death want to beat up on FDR and find any dirt they can levy....it also might be an attempt to divert attention from another fact, that the prime movement to keep the US out of the second world war , the America First movement, was mostly made up of middle america conservatives, like Vandendberg and Taft (and several conservative politicians, even after Pearl Harbor, declared that the US should not get involved in WWII, saying pearl harbor was a mistake or that the administration "baited" the japanese into attacking pearl harbor because he wanted the US in WWII......to their credit, after Pearl harbor the America First mentality was disavowed by most, especially after its pro Nazi underpinnings came to light.

I cannot disagree with any of this, other than the bit about conservatives. It's true that I do not like Roosevelt (I'm libertarian), but I think that allowing the Pearl Harbor attacks to occur would have been a perfectly acceptable action, given the possible alternatives. As much as I hate Roosevelt's domestic policy, most of his wartime policies were very good.

 

[Kruge]

There was concern about an attack on the Philippines, but I don't think anyone in the War Department or anywhere else in Washington believed that the Japanese could pull off a surprise attack on Pearl Harbor.

The notion that people knew it was coming but let it happen as a pretext for going to war makes little sense. Leaving aside the loss of life, Pearl Harbor was an almost complete disaster for the Navy. American interests in the Pacific were defenseless for months.

Of course, part of the reason the Japanese threat was underestimated was the plain fact that attacking the U.S. was slow-motion suicide for them, something Yamamoto understood even as he loyally laid the groundwork for Pearl Harbor. Their wins were few and far between after the spring of 1942.

Absolutely agreed.

Yamamoto knew how critical the Battle of Midway was in 1942. His hope was to destroy the last of our aircraft carriers in the Pacific and push the US to negotiate a peace. When Japan lost that battle, their fate was all but sealed.

 

[njlauren]

There was concern about an attack on the Philippines, but I don't think anyone in the War Department or anywhere else in Washington believed that the Japanese could pull off a surprise attack on Pearl Harbor.

The notion that people knew it was coming but let it happen as a pretext for going to war makes little sense. Leaving aside the loss of life, Pearl Harbor was an almost complete disaster for the Navy. American interests in the Pacific were defenseless for months.

Of course, part of the reason the Japanese threat was underestimated was the plain fact that attacking the U.S. was slow-motion suicide for them, something Yamamoto understood even as he loyally laid the groundwork for Pearl Harbor. Their wins were few and far between after the spring of 1942.

The Japanese had a lot of wins after Pearl Harbor, they continued taking large chunks of the pacific, it wasn't until the battle of Midway that the first chinques in the Japanese armor happened, and most of that was because the US had broken the japanese code and knew they were going to hit Midway and were able to destroy a significant portion of the Japanese carrier fleet....which also gave the US time to finish building the Essex class carriers and newer aircraft that ended up wiping out the Japanese navy and airforce.

I agree that the conspiracy theory makes no sense, if we knew the Japanese were going to attack we could have found an excuse to move the fleet out of pearl and secure the planes and once Japan attacked we would have been in the war anyway. The argument that the battleships were old doesn't hold water, so were the carriers, and you don't allow your whole fleet to be destroyed like that simply to create a casus Belli. Replacement ships were still close to a year away, it wasn't like we had a modern fleet sitting just waiting to come into action, it didn't happen like that. If Midway had gone worse, if we had lost more ships (as it was, I believe we lost 2 carriers there, the original Yorktown sunk and I think the Hornet went down as well), we would not have had a pacific fleet and it is likely the Japanese could have taken Hawaii, so it simply makes no sense. The conspiracy theories come from those looking to show how FDR was evil or often also come from people trying to find a way to absolve Kimmel, the commander of Pearl Harbor, from the blame he took for the disaster (for some reason, in some quarters Kimmel has become a martyr, go figure)

 

[blobfish]

Of course, part of the reason the Japanese threat was underestimated was the plain fact that attacking the U.S. was slow-motion suicide for them, something Yamamoto understood even as he loyally laid the groundwork for Pearl Harbor. Their wins were few and far between after the spring of 1942.

Yeah, that probably was the biggest surprise, but the U.S. should have known that the Japanese would not always rational.

 

[fuckwaffle]

The Japanese had a lot of wins after Pearl Harbor, they continued taking large chunks of the pacific, it wasn't until the battle of Midway that the first chinques in the Japanese armor happened, and most of that was because the US had broken the japanese code and knew they were going to hit Midway and were able to destroy a significant portion of the Japanese carrier fleet....which also gave the US time to finish building the Essex class carriers and newer aircraft that ended up wiping out the Japanese navy and airforce.

I agree that the conspiracy theory makes no sense, if we knew the Japanese were going to attack we could have found an excuse to move the fleet out of pearl and secure the planes and once Japan attacked we would have been in the war anyway. The argument that the battleships were old doesn't hold water, so were the carriers, and you don't allow your whole fleet to be destroyed like that simply to create a casus Belli. Replacement ships were still close to a year away, it wasn't like we had a modern fleet sitting just waiting to come into action, it didn't happen like that. If Midway had gone worse, if we had lost more ships (as it was, I believe we lost 2 carriers there, the original Yorktown sunk and I think the Hornet went down as well), we would not have had a pacific fleet and it is likely the Japanese could have taken Hawaii, so it simply makes no sense. The conspiracy theories come from those looking to show how FDR was evil or often also come from people trying to find a way to absolve Kimmel, the commander of Pearl Harbor, from the blame he took for the disaster (for some reason, in some quarters Kimmel has become a martyr, go figure)

Actually, if you think about it, they did have the most important ships out of Pearl at the time of the attack. I really think the powers that be knew that battleships wouldn't matter much in the war, but their carrier force would be the backbone of the navy.

 

[blobfish]

The Japanese had a lot of wins after Pearl Harbor, they continued taking large chunks of the pacific, it wasn't until the battle of Midway that the first chinques in the Japanese armor happened, and most of that was because the US had broken the japanese code and knew they were going to hit Midway and were able to destroy a significant portion of the Japanese carrier fleet....which also gave the US time to finish building the Essex class carriers and newer aircraft that ended up wiping out the Japanese navy and airforce.

I agree that the conspiracy theory makes no sense, if we knew the Japanese were going to attack we could have found an excuse to move the fleet out of pearl and secure the planes and once Japan attacked we would have been in the war anyway. The argument that the battleships were old doesn't hold water, so were the carriers, and you don't allow your whole fleet to be destroyed like that simply to create a casus Belli. Replacement ships were still close to a year away, it wasn't like we had a modern fleet sitting just waiting to come into action, it didn't happen like that. If Midway had gone worse, if we had lost more ships (as it was, I believe we lost 2 carriers there, the original Yorktown sunk and I think the Hornet went down as well), we would not have had a pacific fleet and it is likely the Japanese could have taken Hawaii, so it simply makes no sense. The conspiracy theories come from those looking to show how FDR was evil or often also come from people trying to find a way to absolve Kimmel, the commander of Pearl Harbor, from the blame he took for the disaster (for some reason, in some quarters Kimmel has become a martyr, go figure)

But the real goal was for the United States to enter war in Europe. That was the true goal of the Roosevelt administration. Japan was just an inconvenience.

 

[Kruge]

Yeah, that probably was the biggest surprise, but the U.S. should have known that the Japanese would not always rational.

The Japanese knew going in that a long war with the US was not to their advantage. As such, the Japanese hoped that destroying the US Fleet at Pearl Harbor would be devestating enough to cause the US government to negotiate a peace, taking the US out of the equation as Japan pursued it's Far East objectives.

Pearl Harbor was a brilliant attack plan. The Japanese were unlucky, though, in the fact that the US Carriers were at see, not in port as hoped.

 

[njlauren]

I cannot disagree with any of this, other than the bit about conservatives. It's true that I do not like Roosevelt (I'm libertarian), but I think that allowing the Pearl Harbor attacks to occur would have been a perfectly acceptable action, given the possible alternatives. As much as I hate Roosevelt's domestic policy, most of his wartime policies were very good.

I don't think allowing the the pearl harbor attacks would have been an acceptable action, in that it literally wiped out most of our navy (the atlantic fleet was much smaller and more obsolete), it makes no sense (I get your point, that anything that would get us into the war is acceptable to you), this isn't a gambit any smart person would do. If they knew the attacks were coming, unlike coventry they had options, they could have found excuses to move the fleet out and protect the planes. The attack on pearl harbor left us with only a relatively few carriers and some support fleet and the planes the ships had, you don't give up almost your entire fleet in a gambit like this (if they had left some token ships that got destroyed and a few aircraft, maybe, but pretty much the whole fleet? No way). Put it this way, we were lucky at Midway, we knew they were attacking there because we had broken the code, which obviously gave the US a decided advantage, but even with that the Japanese may very well have been able to sink the rest of the fleet, it was still a close battle (among other things, the carriers we had were already obsolete and the planes were not a match for what the Japanese had) and it still could have turned against the US, and we didn't have anything in reserve (conspiracy theorists state that the ships that were lost were obsolete, which was true, but they also imply that more modern ships were waiting in the wings, which wasn't true, it took almost a year before the US had ships coming on line to replace the lost ships; fortunately Japan was reeling after Midway and became hesitant).

However, whatever the mechanics, your point is valid, there just is no real basis for a conspiracy theory, it simply makes no sense.

 

[njlauren]

But the real goal was for the United States to enter war in Europe. That was the true goal of the Roosevelt administration. Japan was just an inconvenience.

That obviously has strong elements of truth to it, but by Pearl Harbor the US government knew that Japan's plans were to create a pan Asiatic empire, which would include Hawaii. More importantly, they knew whatever way the war happened, that Japan would be in it on the side of the Germans, they were allies and had mutuality pacts in place. As such, they wouldn't have sacrificed the pacific fleet like that to get into Europe for the reason that once at war with Germany, they would be at war with Japan. We faced a two front war and Japan was a threat to US interests in the pacific, including Hawaii and the phillipines (if the Phillipines were of no interest, why did we hold onto them?).

 

[njlauren]

Actually, if you think about it, they did have the most important ships out of Pearl at the time of the attack. I really think the powers that be knew that battleships wouldn't matter much in the war, but their carrier force would be the backbone of the navy.

That isn't true, battleships and such played a key role on the pacific war. The carriers were the focus, since without air superiority any kind of battles are problematic. Carriers cannot function without their battle groups, among other things, to help protect them from subs, not to mention that battleships and other tubs are used to provide cover for invasions and to pound the crap out of enemy positions before invading. While planes can and do provide much of the same thing, they are too valuable to use for pre invasion 'softening up'. The reality is the whole pacific fleet was obsolete, the carriers were designed when biplanes were common and so forth, but the reality is we couldn't really afford to lose any of them like that. The US war effort in the pacific was crippled after pearl harbor, and it is not coincidence that the main push into the pacific did not start until we were able to replenish the pacific fleet lost at Pearl harbor, that and the more modern Essex class carriers.

 

[fuckwaffle]

That isn't true, battleships and such played a key role on the pacific war. The carriers were the focus, since without air superiority any kind of battles are problematic. Carriers cannot function without their battle groups, among other things, to help protect them from subs, not to mention that battleships and other tubs are used to provide cover for invasions and to pound the crap out of enemy positions before invading. While planes can and do provide much of the same thing, they are too valuable to use for pre invasion 'softening up'. The reality is the whole pacific fleet was obsolete, the carriers were designed when biplanes were common and so forth, but the reality is we couldn't really afford to lose any of them like that. The US war effort in the pacific was crippled after pearl harbor, and it is not coincidence that the main push into the pacific did not start until we were able to replenish the pacific fleet lost at Pearl harbor, that and the more modern Essex class carriers.

I seem to remember the history of the battle of the coral sea. Nimitz had his battleships in the wrong position yet the battle was won by destroyers and cruisers along with carrier aircraft and submarines. Even though the battleships were in the general area they took little to no part in the action.

The same could be said for the battle of Midway. Battleships played no part.

As I recall the only action most battleships saw were during the landing the Marines made on the islands of the Pacific.

In most surface actions the battleships were not a primary factor.

 

[renard_ruse]

Yes, from the history I've read and seen, there were warnings and the people in charge of relaying the warnings and taking action didn't do so.

But it wasn't done out of malice, I think things like that get done out of laziness and not being willing to accept it as a credible threat and therefore not acting on the warning. I don't think you can accuse anyone of letting it happen in a conspiracy sense, just that it happened and in retrospect there was enough information available that if acted on, would have saved lives.

Yes, Rory, there's never any conspiracies. Except for all the white "racist" conspiracies, and the "right wing" conspiracies, and the skinhead conspiracies, and all the other conspiracies YOU happen to believe in.

 

[blobfish]

Yes, Rory, there's never any conspiracies. Except for all the white "racist" conspiracies, and the "right wing" conspiracies, and the skinhead conspiracies, and all the other conspiracies YOU happen to believe in.

What the fuck is wrong with you?

 

[phrodeau]

What the fuck is wrong with you?

Every thread is now a Rory thread. Didn't you see the memo?

 

[warrior queen]

Why is it so hard to believe that the attack on Pearl Harbour was simply a lucky planned decision by the Japanese?
It caught the US completely off-guard.

 

[LillyO]

Thinking when the island of Alaska got attacked before Pearl Harbor might of tipped them off

Go back and read about what was going on inside Japan's military might give you some insight a lot of jealous between there army and navy.

The Japanese didn't attack Dutch harbor and the Aleutian Islands until June of 1942.

I’m baffled how you could be aware of the rivalry between the Army and Navy in Japan but completely wrong on the chronology of events?



Edited cause i wanted to.

 

[about_average]

If I recall correctly, radar was so new at the time that unfamiliarity with the technology caused officials to all but ignore the onslaught of planes headed their way. I don't think it's part of a cover up. They knew it was coming and did very little to try and mitigate the damage. That doesn't strike me as very tactically sound.

Wild to think about it. Humanity finally invents the technology to detect that kind of threat and then refuses to believe when it warns of danger.

It wasn't that they didn't head it, the officer in charge thought it was the scheduled arrival of a flight of B-17's.
The technology was so new that the operators likely couldn't tell the difference between a large number of planes and the few B-17's, though the B-17 being much larger a few would present an image similar to a large number of single engine planes.

The attack wasn't supposed to be a complete surprise. It was only a complete surprise because of decoding and typing delays at the Japanese embassy. The message was supposed to have been delivered to Cordell Hull before the attack. Not that it was an actual declaration of war, but it was to say Japan was ending negotiations, which would have been a huge hint.

There were other US failures, aside from the the radar interpretation. Failure to take seriously the sinking of a mini-sub inside the anti-submarine nets at Pearl.
The FBI's failure to correctly interpret phone conversations they listened in on.
Thinking sabotage was a greater risk than military attack.
Failure of the US to learn from the Battle of Taranto and so thinking ships at Pearl were safe from torpedo attack.

Overall the attack did very little to impede the US war effort. The Japanese almost totally neglected the ship repair facilities which were key the success of the Battle of Midway (if the Yorktown, heavily damaged at Coral Sea, had had to go all the way to the west coast for repairs it likely wouldn't have been present to play it's pivotal role at Midway.

Many of the ships damaged at Midway were back in service, because of the on-site repair facilities, within months, including two battleships. But even without any battleships the course of the war would likely have been the same.

The key combat ships were the carriers, escort carriers, destroyers and destroyer escorts. The Battle off Samar (one of the battles of Leyte Gulf) being a prime example, when the DD's and DE's (most notably the USS Johnston and USS Samuel B. Roberts, both sunk) charged headlong in to an overwhelming Japanese task force (four battleships, six heavy cruisers, two light cruisers, and around ten destroyers) in and effort to give the escort carries time to withdraw.
"In no engagement of its entire history has the United States Navy shown more gallantry, guts and gumption than in those two morning hours between 0730 and 0930 off Samar"
— Samuel Eliot Morison, History of United States Naval Operations in World War II, Volume XII, Leyte

An uncle of mine died at Pearl so it's always held a particular interest for me. When I was a kid and first heard of the Roosevelt conspiracy, his secret meetings, etc., I thought "Wow!", but as I grew up and learned more about what actually happened, I can see there was no need for any conspiracy.
It's easy to look at history through the lens of the present and say, "It was obvious Japan was going to attack!", or "It could never have worked if Roosevelt hadn't aided and abetted." It's proper place is in the bin with the 9-11 conspiracies.

It can be hard to put yourself in 1940/41 and look at it from the perspective of just the pieces of information of which any one person was aware.

 

[Recidiva]

For there to have been some conspiracy, there needs to be some proof of conspiracy, and not just conjecture.

The idea that the Japanese were colluding with Americans and planning this together is the part that is entirely laughable in light of the evidence that it was an audacious attack that bit the Japanese war effort in the ass eventually.

"A lot of people dying" was already happening. Japan wanted to weaken America's ability to counterstrike, and they did this. Americans didn't think it would happen that way so they didn't scramble when warnings came in that could be Japanese or could be a flock of seagulls.

Japan made a huge miscalculation that cost them ultimately, but it was a close thing. America wasn't in the war at the time and although it's possible there was someone stupid enough to think "Yeah, this is what American needs and is in her best interests", that's just random insanity, not a conspiracy involving two nations. American officials were culturally so different from the Japanese idea of honor and fighting that there were no negotiations to be had even when Japan was backed up against a wall, thus the negotiations resulted in Nagasaki and Hiroshima. Even THEN the Japanese war chiefs still wanted to fight but the public was exhausted and wounded in ways that precluded the continuing galvanization of a nation that was broken physicially with the knowledge that every other city center could be leveled to glass if there wasn't a surrender.

The information about radar and not expecting it explains it sufficiently to me, barring random crazy people who want to see a pattern that does not exist except in hindsight. "Well, we won, therefore we wanted it that way" is not seeing things in historical context. Nobody had any idea who was going to win. Anybody wanting America to win wouldn't have sat by and watched a fleet be destroyed and think "Yeah, now we have what we want!"

 

[about_average]

The Japanese didn't attack Dutch harbor and the Aleutian Islands until June of 1942.

The Thousand Mile War is a very good book about the Aleutian campaign.
I had an uncle who served there in the Coast Guard, though I didn't know that until after he had died.
An incredibly brutal theater of operations. Winds alone could cause a bombing mission to take 20 minutes to target and several hours to return.
They joked on the air bases that they used a 500lb bomb as a wind sock and if the fog was light enough that you could see your co-pilot the mission was a go.

 

[1sickbastard]

Which makes the conspiracy theories seem possible. Everyone knew that Japan was sweeping across the Pacific, and that the Philippines was on the top of their list. As they were essentially a U.S. possession at that time, they would naturally want to mitigate the threat that the Navy posed to their invasion plans. Any military strategists would have been insane to disregard that threat.

Actually, the major strategic threat in the Pacific at the time was considered to be the British. The naval war games were all based on that assumption.

But at the time, very few navies realized the real threat that the aircraft carrier represented (In spite of the Britsih raid on Taranto or the role naval aviation played in sinking the Bismark).

Very few within the US military establishment thought they could go toe to toe with a Western power and win (in spite of the Japanese trouncing the Russians in the Battle of Toshima Straits). Also, a majority of Japanese ground forces were tied up in China and Manchuko, the Japanese had made no overt moves against any western power or their colonies, and the Japanese had been allies to both the US and the UK in WW1.

Yes, the gov't had intelligence that could have forwarned of the attack, however, intelligence is a dicey game. One has to A) get the relevant information, and vette the source, then, B) see that information is collated with other relevant information, C) analyse the information and be able to defend the analysis as accurate, finally D) see that said analysis gets to the people who can actually do something about it.

Remeber this was the days way before the internet. Critical information was still hand carried (planes weren't that fast and ships/trains are much slower), everything was paper, which means finding and collating information was far slower as well.

Side note, it was the war in Europe that FDR saw as vital, and even with the attack on Pearl Harbor, the national sentiment about getting involved in another European War would have kept the US out of that theater of combat, until Hitler foolishly decided to declare War on the US first.

 

[trysail]

U.S. behavior up until 0748 (local time) at Pearl Harbor was a comedy of errors featuring, among other things, Western Union telegrams lying untransmitted in in-boxes, disbelief of radar and routine Sunday morning somnolence.

The combination of Japanese militaristic aggression and U.S. response probably made war inevitable. I suspect that certain high U.S. government officeholders knew it and likely welcomed it as a possible way out of the zugzwang presented by a U.S. population that was not interested in "other people's wars" and the real possibility of British neutralization.


Gordon Prange's At Dawn We Slept and Walter Lord's Day of Infamy are good accounts of the Japanese attack.

 

[mark_j]

Replacement ships were still close to a year away, it wasn't like we had a modern fleet sitting just waiting to come into action, it didn't happen like that.

As it turned out, with the exception of the USS Ward and USS Arizona, most of the ships sunk or damaged at Pearl were raised, repaired and saw action during the landings of '42 - '45. Battlewagons, though considered obsolete for sea based actions, still packed a mighty punch in gunnery for amphibious landings. Rocket based artillery (think katoosh rockets) did not have near the accuracy that the big naval rifles did.

If Midway had gone worse, if we had lost more ships (as it was, I believe we lost 2 carriers there, the original Yorktown sunk and I think the Hornet went down as well), we would not have had a pacific fleet and it is likely the Japanese could have taken Hawaii, so it simply makes no sense.

Only the Yorktown was lost at Midway. USS Hornet was lost at the battle of the Santa Cruz islands in Oct. of 1942.

 

[hogjack]

Island, I served with the US Battleship Maine, I knew the US Battleship Maine, Maine was a friend of mine. Pearl Harbor attacked by the Japanese, you're no US Battleship Maine!

 

[njlauren]

I seem to remember the history of the battle of the coral sea. Nimitz had his battleships in the wrong position yet the battle was won by destroyers and cruisers along with carrier aircraft and submarines. Even though the battleships were in the general area they took little to no part in the action.

The same could be said for the battle of Midway. Battleships played no part.

As I recall the only action most battleships saw were during the landing the Marines made on the islands of the Pacific.

In most surface actions the battleships were not a primary factor.

When I said battleships, I was talking non carriers, I used a broad term I shouldn't of..cruisers, destroyers and so forth were big players, and that is what I was referring to. The Battleships themselves, the boats that later on carried 16" guns, did play a major role in MacArthur's island hopping campaign, for example. We didn't just lost battleships at Pearl, we lost a lot of the non carrier fleet there I believe, and that was my point, not specifically about the battleships themselves (bad teminology on my part). Battleships are not that numerous, even after we rebuilt the fleet there weren't all that many of the super ships like the NJ and Missouri. The advantage they had was the long range guns, they could fire a 16" shell many miles, so they could pound a target from way offshore, which was safer then close in firing (they figured that out in Vietnam, they re-activated the NJ and Missouri, and used their guns to pound target in North Vietnam inland. They had been using aircraft and we were losing planes to SAM batteries and such, the guns on the big ships could pound the same targets and not risk planes/crews).

The battleship versus battleship wars of the past, however, were a thing of the past, there were very few if any of those.

 

[njlauren]

Why is it so hard to believe that the attack on Pearl Harbour was simply a lucky planned decision by the Japanese?
It caught the US completely off-guard.

I think part of the answer is people view the US as it came out of WWII, in effect the only victor of the war, strong, and feeling its oats, and they view it through that lens and say "how the hell could the US be defeated like that at pearl harbor, if we were/ are so invincible"..there is a rough analogy to this, with how the Germans took the defeat of WWI, they were told by their generals they were invincible and the Germans believed it, so when defeat happened, they were saying 'what happened" in shock...with the Germans, they came up with the idea they had been betrayed (which the German military actively encouraged, to cover up for their own stupidity and the fact they couldn't deliver what they promised..one of the big mistakes of WWI was not occupying Germany, had we done so it would have made clear to the German people that the military in fact lost, there were no traitors, they simply lost the war..which may have stopped WWII from happening, though we will never know...). In any event, they aren't viewing it from the eyes of where the US was in 1941, we were not prepared militarily really (in 1939, the US army attempted war games at Fort Ord in California, and couldn't put together a full infantry division)....... we were a country divided, with a strong isolationanist sentiment, our industrial structure was still decimated and our military in many cases had obsolete equipment....... plus I suspect some want to propogate the myth that FDR "allowed' The Japanese to attack as a means of demeaning him (stlll big sport in some quarters) and also perhaps to give cover to the America First crowd, who blindly churned to keep the US out of WWII, a move that could have been fatal to Europe and the US....