I recently read a good book about the failures of intelligence (“MILITARY INTELLIGENCE BLUNDERS”-by Col. John Hughes-Wilson). He recounts a story about Pearl Harborm that I can find no corroboration for. He says that on Dec. 2, 1941, the radio operator on board the Matson Liner S.S. LURLINE (en route to Honolulu from San Francisco) picked up signals from a source in the N. Pacific. These were in code, but so strong that he could triangulate them, and their source was from 400 miles west NW of Hawaii. The SS LURLINE docked on Dec. 4, and the radio man and the mate brought the log and plotted position in the US Navy headquarters in Pearl Harbor. The log was signed for by the OOD, but after the Dec. 7 attck , NO mention of this was made in the official US Navy court of inquiry!
Could the Navy have actually ignored this? As far as I know, there were no ships in this position at that time (according to US Navy records). Would the Navy actually destroy this evidence?
Again, no reference was given in Col. Hughes-Wilson’s book…anyone know more about this?
Another one…years ago, I read that a retired US Admiral, (Vice Adm. Kemp Toll;ey) had reported on Japanese naval preparations for war, as early as Nov. 1941-anyone know more about this?
Oh, Lordy, not again! Not the Pearl Harbor conspiracy again! Debunked, crushed, and rendered, many times over. But just one point, and only from memory: the Japanese fleet maintained strict radio silence, for obvious reasons. They recieved transmissions from Japan, but did not answer. There would have been no purpose urgent enough to break security.
We got caught by surprise because we didn’t believe they could do it. By all rights, they shouldn’t have been able to, but they did, and that’s that. They were bold, audacious, and very, very lucky. We were the opposite, in every respect.
Of course by now you know that Roosevelt’s real name was Rosenfeld, and he was part of a Zionist plot to…
Not suprising, as we fully expected to go to war with Japan at some point. Of course, we thought it would be a more traditional affair, with diplomatic exchanges and escalation and all that, but those ever-efficient Japanese did a bit of process engineering and dispensed with the niceties.
From my understanding, the only ‘warnings’ that can be proven to have existed were the radar plot of the incoming aircraft (mistaken for B-17s or something), and a Jap mini-sub was sunk just before the attack. Hindsight and all that, but we just got suckered good.
[url=http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0140157344/qid=1103821875/sr=8-1/ref=pd_csp_1/103-0308543-2188620?v=glance&s=books&n=507846]At Dawn We Slept covers this and many other myths and misunderstandings about Pearl Harbor. It’s also a pretty damn fascinating look into the planning and execution of the raid as well as some of its aftermath. Great read and I highly recommend it if you’re interested in the subject.
I have a problem with this statement. You need two listening posts in order to establish the coordinates of a position. Two separate receivers on one ship are not far enough apart to triangulate beyond the horizon.
And if someone wants to go into conspiracy theories, given that is was expected (or at minimum consider quite possible) the US would go to war with Japan, then WHY wasn’t the one, obvious naval base Japan might attack not on high alert? This seems a lot more questionable than the possibility the Navy ignored a report by the radio operator of the S.S. LURLINE of a coded radio signal. That signal could have been by just a single, insignificant Japanese ship on routine patrol of the Pacific. Particularly given it would be expected if a large, Japanese attack fleet were headed towards Pearl Harbor they’d maintain strict radio silence. The Navy could have interpreted that coded radio signal as being from a Japanese intelligence vessel radioing home “no sign of any US fleet headed toward Japan”.
Correct about triangulation would be impossible. However, the radio operator could have got a single bearing, and concluded based on the strength of the signal that it could be no more than 400 miles from Hawaii.
Message decoded. “OK, last chance. You guys really really sure you want to do this?”
(Japanese italics rendered approximately)
Because we didn’t think their target was Pearl Harbor at all…we thought they were going to hit us in the Phillipines because that made more strategic sense based on what we thought (correctly) their goals were. Pearl was a very difficult target to hit from Japan logistically speaking, and the main thrust of the Japanese expansion was the pacific rim islands and resources…so it would have made more sense (to our thinking at the time) for them to hit our bases in THAT area. We didn’t figure on them wanting to take out our fleet right off the bat…hindsight is 20/20.
In addition, we didn’t think that the diplomatic situation had deteriorated quite so far, since the Japanese hadn’t issued an ultimatum at that time…as far as we were concerned we were still negotiating, though we suspected that in the end it would be war. The situation deteriorated rather rapidly however (i.e. their 14 part message that we were intercepting and decoding indicated things were coming to a head), but it did so over a weekend (Dec. 7th was a sunday recall), and communications weren’t what they are today. Afaik, alert messages were given to our bases in the Phillipines and some of the other islands (which didn’t do that much good as several of them got hammered anyway AFTER the Pearl Harbor attack).
I seriously doubt the Japanese fleet broke radio silence so I think this story is just that…a story. The Japanese fleet at that point was incredibly disiplined and focused. They had trained hard for months for this exact mission and these exact conditions. I certainly think there was an element of luck involved in their raid, but a lot of it was the Japanese making their own luck. They did something we didn’t expect and caught us cold with our pants down. They hit us on a sunday early morning when our guard was even lower, and they hit us just before the Christmas season.
You have to give the devil his due, and I think the Japanese deserve a lot of credit for pulling this off…as I said, they made their own luck for the most part. Of course, they were incredibly stupid for doing it in the first place…and Yamamoto knew it. He knew that if they couldn’t deliver a knock out blow to the US we eat their souls and destroy their nation…and we did. There is nothing as freightening as an American transported in a rage of rightous wrath IMO. And attacking us in such a way is guarenteed to ignite such a wrath.
-XT
should have added: the radio signal (recieved by the SS Lurline) was SO STRONG that it nearly blew the radio operator’s ears off! He was able to triangulate the source by having the signal monitored as the SS LURLINE steered on a constant bearing. The radioman concluded that , because of the strength of the signal, the source must have been a large japanese warship (carrier or battleship). Clearly, there wer’nt supposed to be such ships so close to Hawaii in 1941!
Have we stepped into the realm of Nazi UFOs and foo fighters?
So the radio signal was so strong, he must have been very, very close. And they kept up the signal for so long he was able to triangulate from a boat going, what, maybe 10 knots? Whiskey Tango Foxtrot were they radioing that took so long? They had nothing to report! Nothing had happened. How long does it take to say, “Yep, still on our way. Nothing has happened yet. Just thought we’d break absolute radio silence to tell you nothing of any importance. How’s the weather in Kyoto? What are you wearing?..”
Ridiculous.
Note I don’t believe in any Pearl Harbor conspiracy theories. This being a US screw-up explains things adequately. And, it WAS a screw-up. Sure, US installations in the Phillipines should also have been on alert. However, there WAS a World War going on. No reason to be sloppy at Pearl Harbor. Particularly as good military strategy is often NOT to start out by hitting the obvious targets. Unfortunately for the US, the Japanese were better at strategy than the US was.
I’ve often wondered myself about the logic of attacking Pearl Harbor. I’d have thought that Japan would have been better off to gamble that if they never attacked the US, the US when getting dragged into WWII would have focused on the Germans and Italians. The US (both government and the people) saw Europe as more important. By destroying Pearl Harbor, they enraged the US to totally destroy Japan.
Because everyone knows that the size of the ship is what makes the radio signal stronger!
No, we made a number of mistakes at Pearl, but this wasn’t one of them.
We all know that the Japanese of WW2 were big into bushido. So obviously, the radio operators were sending each other their favorite passages from some works on bushido, such as:
From Bushido: The Way of the Samurai.
You mean it was so strong that it somehow formed a rudimentary intelligence, reached out and, using only electromagnetic energy, turned up the VOLUME knob on his wireless set?
Wow, that’s pretty strong!
Sure, Frenchy.
Friend Brutus has neglected to clarify some minor points of Japanese linguistics. Bushido is, as he has correctly stated, the “way” or “path” of the “warrior” (or, perhaps more correctly, the “retainer”). Busharu is the act of vomiting violently upon a Prime Minister. The subtle distinctions are important to the student of Oriental culture.
If the signal was THAT strong, no need to triangulate. The radio operator could have noted his current position, and know the Japs were very close by. And BTW, at 400 miles the signal wouldn’t have been THAT strong, even over open water. It should have been clearly readable, but not “nearly blew the radio operator’s ears off”.