# An ignorant question about Pearl Harbor **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [August 12, 2012, 4:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/an-ignorant-question-about-pearl-harbor/631247 "2012-08-12T04:55:08Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 9\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Alessan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alessan/32/465_2.png) [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2012, 12:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/an-ignorant-question-about-pearl-harbor/631247/21 "2012-08-14T12:32:05Z")
> [@benbo1](#): > > 1. There was a plan to link up with the Japanese armies in India - there was even a Free Indian (anti-British) army that rebelled with the goal of driving the British out. At the time of Pearl Harbor, the battle of El Alamein was still months away, the Germans were racing thru Libya toward Egypt, and the possibility of Rommel taking all North Africa, going thru Israel then the oilfields of Arabia on the way East, was a very real one. My father once took me to see the remains of the trenches the British had had dug in the Carmel Mountains in preparation for a German invasion. There was a plan that if Egypt fell, the Carmel and Haifa would serve as a “New Masada” and hold out against the enemy for as long as they could. ---
**Author:** ![aldiboronti](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9fc348/32.png) [@aldiboronti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aldiboronti)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2012, 12:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/an-ignorant-question-about-pearl-harbor/631247/22 "2012-08-14T12:44:19Z")
> [@Shakester](#): > > Churchill was a 19th century English aristocrat. He felt that everyone who wasn’t English or of English ancestry was a lesser being. Have you ever read any biogs of Churchill? He was a terrible snob and deeply racist. > > Now, he was a great war leader and the right man for the job, and he did do a great job, but he was also deeply flawed. > > Does this quote sound like Hitler to you? > > It does to me. But it’s Churchill, “Zionism versus Bolshevism”, Illustrated Sunday Herald, February 1920. Google it for proof. > > Just Google “Churchill racist” for plenty more cites. Unfortunately, a lot of them will be from neo-Nazi scum trying to insinuate that Churchill was “worse than Hitler”, but a bit of diligence will amply demonstrate that the Hitler-lovers don’t need to make up any quotes to prove that Churchill was incredibly racist. I have no argument with the fact that Churchill was racist. Most people were in his day. What I do contest is that Churchill considered Russians subhumans, as Hitler did. You have still provided no evidence for that assertion. As for his snobbishness, what on earth has that to do with the matter? ---
**Author:** ![Shakester](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/shakester/32/437_2.png) [@Shakester](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shakester)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2012, 1:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/an-ignorant-question-about-pearl-harbor/631247/23 "2012-08-14T13:37:31Z")
> [@aldiboronti](#): > > I have no argument with the fact that Churchill was racist. Most people were in his day. What I do contest is that Churchill considered Russians subhumans, as Hitler did. You have still provided no evidence for that assertion. As for his snobbishness, what on earth has that to do with the matter? I’m not going to spend hours trying to Google things I read in print books years ago just to shut up some internet naysayer. You go ahead and believe that Churchill believed that Slavs were equal to Englishmen if that satisfies you. I’m off to do the dishes, a far more productive use of my time. ---
**Author:** ![MarcusF](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/67e7ee/32.png) [@MarcusF](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MarcusF)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2012, 2:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/an-ignorant-question-about-pearl-harbor/631247/24 "2012-08-14T14:59:49Z")
> [@Shakester](#): > > I’m not going to spend hours trying to Google things I read in print books years ago just to shut up some internet naysayer. You go ahead and believe that Churchill believed that Slavs were equal to Englishmen if that satisfies you. I’m off to do the dishes, a far more productive use of my time. It’s not a trivial distinction. Hitler’s views on racial superiority profoundly affected his judgement of the strength of the Soviet Union and his policies in the territory taken by the advancing German Army. Churchill was certainly racist in today’s terms but not in the same sense. His loathing of the communism and the Soviet Union did not lead him into underestimating the people - they may not have had the good fortune to be born British but the were not “sub-human” in Churchill’s world view. ---
**Author:** ![Alessan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alessan/32/465_2.png) [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2012, 3:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/an-ignorant-question-about-pearl-harbor/631247/25 "2012-08-14T15:49:10Z")
Also, while Hitler was a semi-literate ignoramus who’d rather invent history than study it, Churchill was an accomplished historian in his own right, and as such, knew better than to think little of the Russian people. ---
**Author:** ![MarcusF](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/67e7ee/32.png) [@MarcusF](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MarcusF)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2012, 4:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/an-ignorant-question-about-pearl-harbor/631247/26 "2012-08-14T16:14:21Z")
> [@benbo1](#): > > Some possibly not-so-well-known tings: > > 1. America was a \*de facto \*ally of the British at the time of the Pearl Harbor attack. American neutrality then was like Russian neutrality in Syria - officially in effect, but everyone knows it’s routinely violated. The previously aforementioned Lend-Lease, as well as Atlantic patrols, aid to Russia, as well as a small but noticeable number of American volunteers to the British side (sometimes going thru Canada) made it clear that the Germans would have to fight us sooner rather than later. Essentially right but US involvement was nothing like Russian neutrality in Syria - the US Navy was actively escorting convoys and hunting U-boats and had taken responsibility for half the Atlantic, including occupying Iceland. Hitler could see the U boat campaign being reduced to impotence if they were excluded from attacking American ships or operating in the Western half of the Atlantic and the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor seem the ideal opportunity. From a home propaganda view point Hitler declaring war was much better than waiting for the Americans to declare war on Germany. Thanks to inaccurate reports from his ambassador in Washington, Hitler underestimated American speed of rearmament and expected the bulk of resources to be committed in the Pacific - particularly as he overestimated Japanese strength. > [@](#): > > 1. The Manhattan Project (building nuxe) was not a secret - details were, but it was well known to the Germans (and I suppose the Japanese) that America was working on a WMD. Of course, both Germany and Japan were also racing to build their versions too. If u were going to have an enemy who could develop a terrible weapon which the Germans thought (wrongly) would be turned over to the Brits, it’d make sense to make war on that enemy as well. The Manhattan Project did not really exist in 1941. There had been theoretical calculations on both sides of the Atlantic which showed a fission bomb might be possible but real Anglo-American work on building a Bomb - the work generally known as the Manhattan Project - did not get underway until mid-1942. Neither Germany nor Japan were “racing to build their versions”. The theory was known across the physics world but neither country made a real attempt to build a bomb and fear of an American bomb had nothing to do with Hitler’s declaration of war. > [@](#): > > 1. American Isolationists naively believed that were we to stay out of it, they’d simply leave us alone. In fact, the Germans had plans for attacking once they completed some long-range weapons (1 plane, called ‘the New York bomber’, would reach sub-orbital height, go 1/2way around the world in sub-space, then drop out of the stratosphere to bomb Manhattan - or Oak Ridge - or Chicago - or other strategic sites). War on America was in the plans, even without Hitler’s 2nd book (the sequel to _Mein Kampf_). The Amerika Bomber was an idea for a conventional bomber able to reach the East Coast - not Chicago or Oak Ridge - talked about in 1941 in the light of the undeclared American war in the Atlantic but no work was done on it until 1942 (and quickly dropped). Again nothing to do with the declaration of war in December '41. The proposal for a sub-orbital bomber was a pipe-dream of 1944. The winged top stage (A modified A4/V2) was tested but the 1st stage A10 never got off the drawing board. > [@](#): > > 1. Notes from the notorious Wannsee Conference had stats on Jewish population everywhere, including the U.S. Naturally, they were to be exterminated as well, once war in Europe was over. The Wannsee Conference was in January 1942 and specifically related to European Jews - as did the lists that Eichmann drew up of Jewish population by country. Hitler believed - or professed to believe - that American policy was driven by Jewish financiers - which he saw as an American weakness - but extermination of Jews in America was not on anyone’s mind in 1941. > [@](#): > > 1. There was a plan to link up with the Japanese armies in India - there was even a Free Indian (anti-British) army that rebelled with the goal of driving the British out. At the time of Pearl Harbor, the battle of El Alamein was still months away, the Germans were racing thru Libya toward Egypt, and the possibility of Rommel taking all North Africa, going thru Israel then the oilfields of Arabia on the way East, was a very real one. Thus, they were _de facto_ fighting America anyway. There was also a plan to bomb the Panama Canal, then undisputably an American possession. There were no real plans for a link up between German and Japanese forces. In 1942 when Japan was at its peak conquering Thailand and Burma and threatening India while Germany was advancing through the Caucasus towards Persia there were vague and optimistic thoughts of a link up but absolutely no joint plans or even cooperation between German and Japanese government or General Staffs. > [@](#): > > In short, not only was the outcome of ww2 much more harrowing & close than we were taught in school, but the die for involvement was cast long before Pearl Harbor. The principle is right - Hitler declared war on the United States because he believed it was inevitable soon or later - but a lot of this is not entirely accurate. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2012, 5:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/an-ignorant-question-about-pearl-harbor/631247/27 "2012-08-14T17:51:05Z")
> [@MarcusF](#): > > The Manhattan Project did not really exist in 1941. There had been theoretical calculations on both sides of the Atlantic which showed a fission bomb might be possible but real Anglo-American work on building a Bomb - the work generally known as the Manhattan Project - did not get underway until mid-1942. Neither Germany nor Japan were “racing to build their versions”. The theory was known across the physics world but neither country made a real attempt to build a bomb and fear of an American bomb had nothing to do with Hitler’s declaration of war. There’s an interesting passage in _The First War of Physics: The Secret History of the Atom Bomb, 1939-1949_ by Jim Baggott. When Germany surrendered, the occupying powers all grabbed whatever German atomic scientists they could find. A group of these scientists were in American captivity when America bombed Hiroshima. Their reaction was astonishment. They all knew that they had still been years away from making a bomb when Germany surrendered. But they had all believed that Germany was in the lead in the atomic race. They figured if Germany was years away from building an atomic bomb, the United States must be at least a decade away. (Ironically, the United States had similar illusions about its lead over the Soviet bomb program.) They were so shocked to find out that America had built a working bomb before Germany, that they discussed the possibility that the reports were faked to fool them. ---
**Author:** ![medicated](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/7ab992/32.png) [@medicated](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/medicated)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2012, 6:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/an-ignorant-question-about-pearl-harbor/631247/28 "2012-08-14T18:11:22Z")
> [@Askance](#): > > No it wasn’t, it was to defeat the Communists, and occupy European Russia and make it into a German colony, emptying by any means. He would love to have not had to go to war with the UK or the US. In the short term, sure. He seemed quite convinced though, [according to the Zweites Buch](http://propagander3.tripod.com/zb08.html) that in the long run, America is a serious threat. He seemed to admire the US in many respects, but it’s hard to take Hitler calling something a threat as anything other than an intention to some day try to crush it. He was sort of a jerk that way. ---
**Author:** ![Blakeyrat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ecd19e/32.png) [@Blakeyrat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blakeyrat)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2012, 7:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/an-ignorant-question-about-pearl-harbor/631247/29 "2012-08-14T19:44:29Z")
> [@MarcusF](#): > > The Amerika Bomber was an idea for a conventional bomber able to reach the East Coast - not Chicago or Oak Ridge - talked about in 1941 in the light of the undeclared American war in the Atlantic but no work was done on it until 1942 (and quickly dropped). Again nothing to do with the declaration of war in December '41. The proposal for a sub-orbital bomber was a pipe-dream of 1944. The winged top stage (A modified A4/V2) was tested but the 1st stage A10 never got off the drawing board. When Hitler was completely delusional a few days before his suicide, he seemed to believe that the bomber existed, and Germany had them supplied and ready to bomb the US at any moment, and were only waiting for his order to launch. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/an-ignorant-question-about-pearl-harbor/631247.md?page=1)