Pearl Harbor and the Second Amendment -- is this for real?

[LeeshaJoy]

Hey everybody. Long time lurker, first time poster, looking to verify a possible urban legend.

I first saw the story below posted on a bulletin board at a skating rink (yes, a skating rink) in my hometown, with the title, "Is This Still True Today?" Since it's short and I have yet to see it attributed to an author, I've quoted it in its entirety. In case the Mods decide that's not kosher and cut it out, here's a URL where you can read it:

http://www.joplinglobe.com/archives/...ed/story2.html

In 1960, Robert Menard was a commander aboard the USS Constellation when he was part of a meeting between U.S. Navy personnel and their counterparts in the Japanese Defense Forces.

Fifteen years had passed since VJ day, most of those at the meeting were WWII veterans, and men who had fought each other to the death at sea were now comrades in battle who could confide in one another.

Someone at the table asked a Japanese admiral why, with the Pacific Fleet devastated at Pearl Harbor and the mainland U.S. forces in what Japan had to know was a pathetic state of unreadiness, Japan had not simply invaded the West Coast.

The Japanese commander frankly answered the question. "You are right," he told the Americans. "We did indeed know much about your preparedness. We knew that every second home in your country contained firearms. We knew that your country actually had state championships for private citizens shooting military rifles. We were not fools to set foot in such quicksand."

I suspect that this is a piece of pro-NRA propoganda, or has at least been given a "spin" by anti-gun-control acitivists (like the quote about Hitler banning gun ownership). However, I don't have any hard evidence to back up my suspicion--I just know that it set off my Bullshit Alarm the first time I read it.

Snopes.com doesn't have it listed, and a Google search was inconclusive--the story was repeated over and over, with slight variations and no attribution to be found.

Can anyone provide any solid information to confirm or deny this story? And while we're at it, just what were Japan's reasons for not invading the West Coast? Even if this story is true, I assume their motivations were more complex than "the civvies are gonna shoot us."

[XPav]

Japan couldn't have pulled off an invasion of Hawaii, much less the west coast. They didn't have the men, didn't have the oil, and didn't have the ships to pull it off.

You can find plenty of sources on that, and it negates the entire story.

[furt]

IIRC, the quick answers are
1) They thought it'd take years to rebuild our navy,
2) They didn't realize how much they'd pissed us off. They thought we'd take our lumps and cede them the Western Pacific.

A historian will be along soon.

And I judge your bullshit detector in full working order.

[furt]

To expand: they never wanted to invade the US proper, except perhaps as along-term fantasy. Their immediate goal was the "Greater East Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere." They only wanted us out of the way.

[happyheathen]

For one thing, logistics - it was a tremendous stretch for the Japanese to get to Pearl Harbor - they simply could not extend supply lines across the Pacific - note how long it took the US (which could turn out many more planes and ships than could Japan) to patch together a supply line - Doolittle's raid was as big (and unsustainable) feat as was Pearl Harbor - the real war came later.

[Duck Duck Goose]

Well, FWIW, I found the guy who takes credit for the story, and one attempted debunking.

http://www.backwoodshome.com/articles2/ayoob0109.html

Armed citizens:
the deterrent factor
By Massad Ayoob

Some months ago, in an article in this publication titled The Rationale of the Automatic Rifle, I quoted some oral history from war veteran and career Navy man Bob Menard. I first met him at the NH State Championship of outdoor conventional pistol shooting back in the late Sixties. He won that event and held the title for several years. He had been Virginia State Champion prior to moving to the Granite State. Some years later, Robert Menard was the NRA Counselor who certified my wife and I as a firearms instructor through that organization.

Bob had told us that he’d been aboard the USS Constellation—he remembered the year as 1960—when he had been part of joint maneuvers conducted with what were by then called the Japanese Defense Forces. Over dinner and drinks, with Japanese and American naval officers talking shop, many of the WWII veterans, the question had come up, why didn’t the Japanese invade what they must have recognized as the wide open West Coast of the United States at the beginning of that war?

The officer had replied that his country was well aware that there was a high density of armed citizenry in America, even state championships for private citizens in the use of military rifles, and that the Japanese were not fools to set foot in such quicksand. Menard, even then a man committed to Second Amendment rights, naturally kept a vivid memory of the conversation.

The story has found its way onto the Internet. Now comes one "TSB," who holds forth on the Internet against Menard, with remarks like the following:

< snip >

According to On Target, the journal of the North Central Florida Sportsman’s Association, "TSB is the handle for ‘The Shooting Bench’ radio show host, Bill Walker." TSB’s position is that the reason the Japanese did not invade was that it wasn’t in their interest to do so, and that they lacked the physical wherewithal for such a massive undertaking. Furthermore, he says, the Constellation was in dry-dock for fire damage repair during 1960, implying that Menard therefore must have fabricated the whole thing.

Found all this.

http://www.navsource.org/archives/02/64.htm

USS CONSTELLATION (CVA-64)
(later CV-64)
CLASS - KITTY HAWK
Displacement 60,100 Tons, Dimensions, 1047' 6" (oa) x 129' 4" x 37' (Max)
Armament 4 Terrier-SAM, 100 Aircraft.
Armor, Unknown.
Machinery, 280,000 SHP; G.E. Geared Turbines, 4 screws
Speed, 34 Knots, Crew 4154-4580.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Operational and Building Data

Contract awarded on 1 July 1956 to the New York Naval Shipyard, Brooklyn, N.Y. Laid down 14 September 1957, launched 8 October 1960, commissioned 27 October 1961. Reclassified as a "Multi-Purpose Aircraft Carrier" (CV-64) on 30 June 1975.

The Constellation wasn't even floated until October 8, 1960, and was still in construction in drydock on December 19, where it caught on fire.

http://www.chinfo.navy.mil/navpalib/.../cv-hist5.html

Dec. 22, 1960 - Fire broke out on the hangar deck of Constellation (CVA 64) in the last stages of construction at the New York Naval Shipyard. Fifty civilian workers died in the blaze.

http://www.carriersg.org/130.htm

CONSTELLATION, CVA 64, January 22, 1961, Fire Damage Assessment
Ron Reeves, a charter member on Aircraft Carrier Study Group, has provided additional information of the disastrous fire on Dec. 19, 1960 that took 50 lives.

The monetary damage to CONSTELLATION was put at $47.942 million. Her commissioning was delayed by seven months. A roll of honor is to be placed aboard her to remain there as long as 'Connie' is in service. Tom Armstrong, another charter ACSG member, recently forwarded me a photograph of this plaque listing the event and names of the deceased shipyard workers.

So my guess is gonna be that it's possible that the anecdote may be substantially true--that Menard may have had such a conversation, but that the Japanese person may have been joking, and perhaps Menard either didn't realize it, or chose to interpret it seriously because it reinforced something he already wanted to believe, but that he obviously remembered the date wrong, as it couldn't have been 1960.

But just because an old man reminiscing got the date wrong doesn't necessarily invalidate the whole anecdote, or turn it into an Urban Legend.

[Hari Seldon]

It is not exactly a secret, but also not well known that the Japanese actually bombed a forest on the west coast, in Oregon. The story (which I cannot vouch for) is that they considered forests a strategic resource, not realizing how much there was in the US. There is a small museum in Klamath Falls, OR, that has part of the story. But a full scale invasion was obviously well beyond them.

[DrFidelius]

Hari:

Being as I am a naturally lazy man and disinclined to look anything up myself, was this forest fire started by one of the infamous incendiary balloons launched by the Japanese?

[Scuba_Ben]

Hari and DrFidelius -- you're both right.

I was looking up aviation stuff in my almanac just last night, and I came across that very point. Japan's incendiary balloon attack was the first -- and as of that writing, only -- aviation attack against the US mainland. The almanac's very brief report said that the attack's intent was to terrorize the American population. (It didn't work.)

The cite for this is my 2000 almanac, I don't remember who produced it.

[aahala]

Let's see if I have this right. You want us to provide evidence to
confirm or deny this:

You see an article about 2002, author unknown, claiming the author was told about 1968 that Bob told him of a comment made about 1960 by a Japanese admiral(unnamed) who had been drinking, about the motivation of an event which did not take place about 1942.

Which aspect are we investigating?

I suggest we start with the skating rink. Where was this, when were you there, which bulletin board was the article posted?

[Max Carnage]

I'm sorry, I really don't have anything historical to add, but I just wanted to welcome LeeshaJoy and tell you that this is IMHO the best first post I've ever seen. Lurking has served you well.

[Johnny L.A.]

I was looking up aviation stuff in my almanac just last night, and I came across that very point. Japan's incendiary balloon attack was the first -- and as of that writing, only -- aviation attack against the US mainland.

Of course there was one seaborne attack on the coast of California early in the war. IIRC, the captain of the subamrine that fired on an oil refinery actually visited the refinery before the war. Again IIRC, there was no or minimal damage.

Re: the OP.
As everyone knows, I am a strong supporter of our Bill of Rights -- including the Second Ammendment. As much as I think it would be a nice bit of propaganda if the OP is true, others have noted that the Japanese did not seriously consider invading the U.S. IIRC (I have to put that since this is my first post of the day and I've had no coffee yet) an Japanese officer, possibly Yamamoto, said something to the effect of, "If we invade the United States we will have to fight our way across the company and deliver the terms of surrender on the Capitol steps." Or something like that.

[Rodd Hill]

Actually, in addition to the thousands of FUGO balloons released from the home islands (some 300 accounted for as landing on North American soil, or in coastal waters), a lone plane of the Imperial Japanese Navy bombed Oregon--twice.

Warrant Officer Nobuo Fujita, and an enlisted man observer, flew two missions from I-25 (a submarine), off Cape Blanco, Oregon, in September of 1942. His GLEN E 14Y floatplane carried two small incendiary bombs on both missions, and all four bombs were released about 50 miles inland, one of which started a small fire. His aircraft was reported at least twice by firewatchers. Bomb fragments and incendiary pellets were recovered from at least one of the two bomb sites.

Excellent link: http://www.portorfordlifeboatstation.org/article1.html

IIRC, Fujita died about 4 or 5 years ago.

There were a dozen or so torpedo or deck gun attacks on US and Canadian merchant ships from California to British Columbia, as well as shore shelling from deck guns on at least 3 occasions (including Goleta, CA, Fort Stevens, OR, and Estevan Point Lighthouse, British Columbia). No real damage, as Johnny L.A. says, but it certainly upset civilians along the coast, and tied up planes and men guarding the coast.

[Duck Duck Goose]

What Max said, Leesha. Thank you for doing your homework before writing your report.

[Janx]

Johnny L.A. wrote

Of course there was one seaborne attack on the coast of California early in the war. IIRC, the captain of the subamrine that fired on an oil refinery actually visited the refinery before the war. Again IIRC, there was no or minimal damage.

You are right, growing up in Santa Barbara CA. this story came upp all the time, it's a piece of local folklore. Read about it here

[AHunter3]

Welcome aboard LeeshaJoy.

Consider, if you will, the behavior of Germany, which had not been much opposed when it scooped up various territories in its general vicinity and said "These areas really should have been considered part of Germany anyway. And that's all we wanted, really, move along folks, nothing else to see here." Japan would not have been outrageously stupid and unprecedented to think that the US would simply accept that the Pacific belonged to Japan, a strong Pacific-based empire, and that the US, far to the east, had no legitimate business trying to maintain a presence there. The US was not at risk (aside from Hawaii) and I suspect they figured the Americans, a bunch of isolationists, would have no interest in fighting a long and expensive and bloody war over its tiny handful of Pacific territories.

[dreamlab]

Originally posted by Hari Seldon
It is not exactly a secret, but also not well known that the Japanese actually bombed a forest on the west coast, in Oregon. The story (which I cannot vouch for) is that they considered forests a strategic resource, not realizing how much there was in the US. There is a small museum in Klamath Falls, OR, that has part of the story. But a full scale invasion was obviously well beyond them.

Here's a link regarding the Oregon Bombing, the use of FUGO, or balloon bombs. The museum supposedly has a dud on display, but I have yet to see it. I guess I just haven't been bored enough to go. There's just too much excitement here with a mall crammed with over 18 stores (known as "The Mall") and the finest restaurant in town located in the bowling alley. And I have yet to find any freakin falls. Enough ranting, here it is.

http://www.all-oregon.com/city/klamathfalls/history.htm

[tomndebb]

Regardless whether there was ever a real Bob Menard who ever had a real conversation, it is fairly simple to demonstrate why Japan never considered attacking the U.S.--they were entirely consumed with Asia.

The really serious debates among the Japanese leadership between 1935 and 1941 was whether to extend their war in China south to include the French Indo-China and Malaysia and the Dutch East Indies, (where they could find cultures more similar to their own to govern, as well as rubber and oil for their industry), or whether to attack north into Russia (whom they had already beaten earleir in the century) and take Siberia with its minerals.

After a couple of small and unsuccessful forays into the Soviet Union, the decision was made to head south. The only purpose of attacking the U.S., at all, was to prevent U.S. interference with their expansion (since the U.S. was already placing embargoes on Japan in regards to their war in China).

An attack on the U.S. mainland would have been an extremely expensive and wasteful deviation from their agreed upon strategic plan.

[kanicbird]

- it was a tremendous stretch for the Japanese to get to Pearl Harbor - they simply could not extend supply lines across the Pacific

This is simply not true - the Japanese took and held an island of ours up in Alaska for quite some time. Their supply lines only broke down after we were able to launch an effective counter attact.

[GusNSpot]

Originally posted by k2dave
This is simply not true - the Japanese took and held an island of ours up in Alaska for quite some time. Their supply lines only broke down after we were able to launch an effective counter attact.

I think we should have let them have two islands and that way they would have wasted even more man power.

YMMV

[dqa]

Originally posted by AHunter3
the US would simply accept that the Pacific belonged to Japan, a strong Pacific-based empire, and that the US, far to the east, had no legitimate business trying to maintain a presence there. The US was not at risk (aside from Hawaii)

Let's not forget the Philippines.

[bibliophage]

the Japanese took and held an island of ours up in Alaska for quite some time.

Two islands, actually: Kiska and Attu.

[happyheathen]

Originally posted by k2dave
This is simply not true - the Japanese took and held an island of ours up in Alaska for quite some time. Their supply lines only broke down after we were able to launch an effective counter attact.

We were discussing an invasion of the US mainland - a bit larger of a logistics problem than the 2 islands (which were closer to Japan than they were to L.A.)

[Ranger]

When I saw the title to this thread, I thought "WTF?? Bad Ben Affleck films are constitutionally protected?? Someone's gotta draw a line somewhere!!!" Then I read the posts on the thread. Oops.

From my reading of manny historical novels of the WWII era, my call is that Japan never had any intention of invading the USA (Alaska and Hawaii were not states then, remember?) and just wanted to destroy the US Fleet so they could continue their plans for their "Greater Prosperity Sphere" with little US interference.

[I am Sparticus]

It was not true then and is not true now that half of the households have guns.


Japan launched thousands of ballons into the jet stream designed to drop incendiary bombs over the US and Canada, and a number of them did. Nobody was hurt.

[Daoloth]

"When war comes between Japan and the United States, I shall not be content to merely occupying Guam, the Philippines, Hawaii, and San Francisco. I look forward to dictating the piece of United States in the White House at Washington."
- Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto

Though, to be fair, he said this before his infamous "Sleeping Giant" quote.

[XPav]

Originally posted by k2dave
This is simply not true - the Japanese took and held an island of ours up in Alaska for quite some time. Their supply lines only broke down after we were able to launch an effective counter attact.

Keep in mind that the troops on Kiska and Attu weren't involved in the sort of fighting that would have happened had they invaded even Hawaii.

[Fern Forest]

Originally posted by I am Sparticus
Japan launched thousands of ballons into the jet stream designed to drop incendiary bombs over the US and Canada, and a number of them did. Nobody was hurt.

Actually it did kill some Sunday school children and a minister's wife. Dreamlab's link also mentions this.

[Rodd Hill]

One of the balloons also shorted out the power lines at Hanford, WA, and stopped the production of plutonium for the atomic bomb for three days.

Both the US and Canada had fighter squadrons on standby to shoot down the balloons over water, if possible, and quite a few were intercepted this way. There was concern that the balloons might contain anthrax or chemical agents, as opposed to the relatively harmless incendiaries.

[I am Sparticus]

Oops.

[Susanann]

I have never heard that Japan ever wanted to invade the United States, they bombed Pearl Harbor to end the embargo and to get us out of the way.

Hitler did want to attack the United States,and bomb the United States, but I never heard of any plan to invade the United States.

I read that Krushcev wanted to attack and invade the United States, but his generals told him their army was not big enough to occupy and fight 100 million armed American citizens in a guerilla war.

If Switzerland was bypassed in WW2 because their citizens were armed, why would any country ever consider invading and occupying a land with 100 million armed citizens?

[tomndebb]

"When war comes between Japan and the United States, I shall not be content to merely occupying Guam, the Philippines, Hawaii, and San Francisco. I look forward to dictating the piece of United States in the White House at Washington."

This is not actually what Yamamoto said. I quoted his actual statement in this thread. and noted the torturous route it took to being quoted.

Yamamoto wrote to a pro-military industrialist months before the war warning him that beginning a war with the U.S. was foolish, since the U.S. would never sue for peace.

Should hostilities break out between Japan and the United States it is not enough that we take Guam and the Philipines or even Hawaii and San Francisco. We would have to march into Washington and sign the treaty in the White House. I wonder if our politicians who speak so lightly of a Japanese-American war have confidence as to the outcome and are prepared to make the necessary sacrifices?

The industrialist (who favored the war) let several of the Japanese war leaders read the letter.
They republished the letter, modified to make it look as though Yamamoto was proclaiming ultimate victory (completely reversing his statements).
The U.S. seized on the propaganda piece to use as counter-propaganda.

Japan never intended to invade the U.S. and Yamamoto does not appear to have either favored the war or believed it winnable. The Japanese leadership was focused on Southeast Asia and Oceania and believed that inflicting grievous harm on the U.S. fleet would be sufficient to compel the U.S. to go away and leave Japan alone.

[tomndebb]

If Switzerland was bypassed in WW2 because their citizens were armed, why would any country ever consider invading and occupying a land with 100 million armed citizens?

While Swiss citizens are armed and their mountainous contry makes invasion unpalatable, neither of those facts provided the basic reason why countries respecting Swiss neutrality.

Swiss banking, however, had a lot to do with it. There is much more to banking than simply having gold in the vaults and both the Axis and the Allies knew that war would disrupt the banking system in a way to seriously harm their respective war efforts.

[Daoloth]

Ah, much thanks Tomndebb.

[clairobscur]

Originally posted by Susanann


If Switzerland was bypassed in WW2 because their citizens were armed, why would any country ever consider invading and occupying a land with 100 million armed citizens?

First, the Swiss citizens weren't merely armed. They all (the men at least) were trained soldiers, which makes an *enormous* difference. Second, the geography of Switzerland (essentially mountains) makes an invasion very difficult in any case. Third, there was no particular strategical advantage in invading Switzerland. Last but not least, Germany had an interest in keeping Switzerland out of the war, due to its banking and trading activities, which benefitted Germany a lot.


Switzerland was definitely not "bypassed because their citizens were armed".

[wevets]

This is simply not true - the Japanese took and held an island of ours up in Alaska for quite some time. Their supply lines only broke down after we were able to launch an effective counter attact.

Look at the map on the top of this page.

The Aleutian Islands are much closer to Japan than the west coast of the continental US. The North Pacific not only gets quite narrow up towards the Bering Sea, but the distortions in most flat maps also tend to make the distances towards the poles appear greater than they actually are. The islands in question, Attu and Kiska, are pretty close to Japan.

IIRC, in Gordon Prange's Miracle at Midway, it's mentioned that many Japanese senior commanders opposed the occupation of Midway Island on the grounds that it could not be supported logistically. If they couldn't logistically support the invasion of Midway, how could they possibly support the invasion of the west coast of the continental United States?

[Susanann]

If Switzerland was bypassed in WW2 because their citizens were armed, why would any country ever consider invading and occupying a land with 100 million armed citizens?
--------------------------------------------------------------------------

Originally posted by tomndebb
While Swiss citizens are armed and their mountainous contry makes invasion unpalatable, neither of those facts provided the basic reason why countries respecting Swiss neutrality.

Swiss banking, however, had a lot to do with it. There is much more to banking than simply having gold in the vaults and both the Axis and the Allies knew that war would disrupt the banking system in a way to seriously harm their respective war efforts.

If you want to know the real basic reasons why Switzerland was bypassed, read these books that I own :

"Target Switzerland-Swiss Armed Neutrality in World War 2 " by Stephen P. Halbrook

and

"Total Resistance- Swiss Army Guide to Gurerrilla Warfare and Underground Operations" by Major H. Von Dach

Any time armed citizens resist, it is a handful. When 100 million armed citizens resist, no army is large enough to occupy it.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

Here is a quote from Dr. Stephen P. Halbrook's book:
http://i2i.org/Publications/IP/Other...witzerland.htm

"In World War II, the Swiss had defenses no other country had. Let's begin with the rifle in every home combined with the Alpine terrain. When the German Kaiser asked in 1912 what the quarter of a million Swiss militiamen would do if invaded by a half million German soldiers, a Swiss replied: shoot twice and go home. Switzerland also had a decentralized, direct democracy which could not be surrendered to a foreign enemy by a political elite. Some governments surrendered to Hitler without resistance based on the decision of a king or dictator; this was institutionally impossible in Switzerland. If an ordinary Swiss citizen was told that the Federal President--a relatively powerless official--had surrendered the country, the citizen might not even know the president's name, and would have held any "surrender" order in contempt."

"When Hitler came to power in 1933, the Swiss feared an invasion and began military preparations like no other European nation. On Hitler's 1938 "Anchluss" or annexation of Austria, the Swiss Parliament declared that the Swiss were prepared to defend themselves "to the last drop of their blood."

When the Fuehrer attacked Poland in 1939, Swiss General Guisan ordered the citizen army to resist any attack to the last cartridge. After Denmark and Norway fell in 1940, Guisan and the Federal Council gave the order to the populace: Aggressively attack invaders; act on your own initiative; regard any surrender broadcast or announcement as enemy propaganda; resist to the end. This was published as a message to the Swiss and a warning to the Germans; surrender was impossible, even if ordered by the government, for the prior order mandated that any "surrender" be treated as an enemy lie.

When the Germany army, the Wehrmacht, attacked Belgium and Holland, it feigned preparations for attack through Switzerland. Like actors on a giant movie set, divisions moved toward the Swiss border by day, only to sneak back again by night and repeat the ruse the next day. Both the Swiss and the French were tricked into thinking that concentrations of troops were massing to attack through Switzerland and into France. Swiss border troops nervously awaited an assault each time the clock approached the hour, for the Germans were punctual in lauching attacks on the hour.

When France collapsed, detailed Nazi invasion plans with names like "Case Switzerland" and "Operation Tannenbaum" were prepared for the German General Staff. They only awaited the Fuehrer's nod.

Threatened with attack from German and Italian forces from all sides, General Guisan devised the strategy of a delaying stand at the border, and a concentration of Swiss forces in the rugged and impassable Alps. This chosen place of engagement was called the Réduit national, meaning a national fort within a fort. German tanks and planes, Panzers and Luftwaffe, would be ineffective there.

A fifth of the Swiss people, 850,000 out of the 4.2 million population, was under arms and mobilized. Most men were in the citizens army, and boys and old men with rifles constituted the Home Guard. Many women served in the civil defense and the anti-aircraft defense.

Nazi invasion plans for 1941 were postponed to devote all forces to Operation Barbarossa, the attack on Russia. The Swiss would have their turn in due time. Hitler banned the play William Tell. He called the Swiss "the most despicable and wretched people, mortal enemies of the new Germany"; in the same breath he fumed that all Jews must be expelled from Europe. His plan to annihilate the Jews would have faced a special obstacle in Switzerland, where every Swiss Jew (like every other citizen) had a rifle in his home. In the heroic Warsaw ghetto uprising of 1943, Jews demonstrated how genocide could be resisted with only a few pistols and rifles. Hitler boasted that he would liquidate "the rubbish of small nations" and would be "the Butcher of the Swiss." But the dictator was more comfortable with liquidating unarmed peoples and was dissuaded from invading Switzerland. There was no Holocaust on Swiss soil."

http://i2i.org/Publications/IP/Other...witzerland.htm

[Susanann]

One woman with a 5-shot bolt action rifle rifle, Lyudmila Mikhailovna Pavlichenko, killed 309 invading Germans.

http://soviet-awards.addr.com/digest...vlichenko1.htm

Could, would, any of you men do better than a girl? if America was invaded?