You can spend months investigating here check out the external links.
Interesting. Its been a while since I’ve read it of course (or the Book of 5 Rings for that matter) but I always thought it said to carry rouge in case you were beheaded…so that your head would be pleasing to the eye or something like that. 
We weren’t really involved in the world war going on (well, ok, there was a covert war going on between the German navy and our own in the Atlantic I admit)…and Japan wasn’t either, though they were nominally allied to the Nazi’s. Japan was pretty much doing their own thing…notice they steared well clear of attacking Russia like the Germans wanted.
There really wasn’t a huge reason at that time to have Pearl Harbor on high alert…at least we didn’t THINK there was at the time. You have to remember that the US Navy really didn’t consider the air craft carrier a serious weapon of war for taking out a major fleet (though the British I think had already proved the concept against the Italians if I’m recalling correctly), so they weren’t particulary worried…hell it probably never crossed the minds of those in charge. They figured (like a lot of the old school admirals of the time) that there would be a major fleet action like Jutland where two huge battle fleets would collide and hammer each other until one retreated or was destroyed. In such a fight we were confident we could eventually beat the Japanese. Our concept of carriers at that time was more as scouts…second stringers in the over all scheme of things.
So, the failure of the US as far as Pearl goes was in our overall tactical doctorine and planning. We simply couldn’t conceive of such an attack…not deep down. It took Pearl Harbor to shake up the Navy and make them see outside the box of their own preconceptions and prejudices. I guess what I’m trying to say is that this wasn’t simply a failure to alert the fleet…it was a failure of doctorine from the highest levels of the Navy, and one the Japanese took full advantage of.
-XT
No, no, no. A simple intelligence vessel could have easily had a strong radio transmitter. And every reason to think an intelligence vessel would have had a strong radio. The only purpose of such a ship is to radio information back home. Plus, it would have been expected that there were Japanese intelligence ships 400 miles west NW of Hawaii at the time. There was a World War on after all at the time, and that ship would have been well out into international waters. Japan would have had every reason to observe US military vessels in international waters. Nor would such an intelligence ship be particularly afraid of the US Navy. If the US were launching an attack fleet at Japan, by attacking a Japanese intelligence ship in international waters a mere 400 miles from Hawaii this would give that ship enough time to radio back to Tokyo “The Americans are bombing us! Heads up guys, and expect them to be attacking Japan soon!” Better for the US to ignore the intelligence ship, and hope they thought the US was just on routine maneuvers.
Just to elaborate on what was a confusing post above, what I was getting at with the battlefleet type action was that you needed to get fairly close to have such an action…within a few miles of to opposing fleet. Had the Japanese brought their fleet all the way up to Pearl we would have had sufficient time to get the fleet out of port to meet them in a traditional hammering match. Not only that, the Japanese would have been vulnerable to our own fighter (and bomber) cover…a lesser threat (from our admirals perspective at the time) but still a threat.
Thats why the powers that be in the Navy didn’t think it that essential to put Pearl on high alert, scramble the fleet (or even fire the boilers), or send out patrol aircraft from the various air bases on the Islands. They didn’t think the Japanese would be crazy enough to expose their fleet and bring it to battle so far from home.
-XT
“Can you hear me now?”
My great grandfather was killed in the fight against Foo.
Among the other obvious flaws with the OP’s story is the fact that if the Lurline was traveling from San Francisco to Honolulu it was east of Hawaii. The Japanese fleet, sailing from Tokyo to Honolulu was west of Hawaii. Any signals the Lurline could have supposedly picked up would have been received more clearly in Pearl Harbor itself. Presumedly some naval doctor would have noticed the sudden onset of blown off ears among the fleet’s radio operators.
The operator in question’s name was Leslie Grogan and a recent article that makes his case as strongly as possible was (Sorry no link)
“Warning at Pearl Harbor: Leslie Grogan and the Tracking of the Kido Butai.”
Villa, Bria, and Timothy Wilford.
The Northern Mainer/Le Marin du nord 11, no. 2 (Apr. 2001): 1-17.
Villa, Bria and Wilford believe that “it is virtually unarguable that Grogan heard the signals” of Japan’s Strike Force and “communicated this information to USN intelligence in Hawaii three days prior to the Pearl Harbor attack.” The Lurine’s log, apparently given to the Navy 12/03/41 is missing from the National Archives
Here is the requested debunker view. From this great Salon Article on the overall “FDR knew” stuff:
http://archive.salon.com/books/feature/2001/06/14/fdr/index4.html
-----------------------------------Quote-----------------------
But the SS Lurline was on a southerly route to Honolulu from Long Beach, Calif., so the radio signals Grogan heard coming from the northwest could have been from Japan’s shore-based radio facilities, not the carrier task force. Grogan claims he took his original log to naval authorities in Hawaii after the Lurline arrived on Dec. 3, but they didn’t seem particularly interested. The Lurline’s radio log was checked out of the National Archives without a date or signature sometime in the '70s, about the time another Pearl Harbor conspiracy theorist, John Toland (“Infamy”), was doing his original research.
But this “mysteriously” missing material could just as easily provide definitive proof that the “FDR knew” gang is full of it. Given that conspiracy theory has become, in the words of Paul Miles, Tomlinson Fellow in the History of War and Society at Princeton, a “cottage industry,” it struck me that some of the documents in question could have been spirited away by people with another agenda entirely. Look at me! I can concoct conspiracies too!
“Anyone who does intelligence history (as I do),” says Robin Winks, “knows it is very difficult, highly technical and open to conspiracy theory, because inevitably some material is missing, and at times some material deliberately lied with a view to disinformation.” For example, and apropos of the SS Lurline material, the Japanese later stated that they attempted to produce bogus radio traffic right before Pearl Harbor in the hope that it would confuse intercept agencies about the location of the silent fleet. It might not have fooled military professionals, but Leslie Grogan was an amateur
Grogan also notes “they (the Japanese) were blasting away.” on the radio. My take: Grogan heard the misdirection signals – probably from Japanese home waters. Probably elucidator and Balle-M’s hilarious takes are close to accurate as to what was being broadcast. In time after 12/07 - Grogan mistakenly but understandably believed he had warned and been ignored. Others jumped at this as “proof” of FDR’s complicity.
We were quite well aware, from decryption of the Japanese codes, that they were very far along in preparations to go to war with us.
And as a result, the military at Pearl Harbor took steps to prepare for an attack – by saboteurs among the large Japanese-immigrant ethnic group in Hawai’i. We expected an attack – on Manila and Clark Field in the Philippines, our holdings that were directly in the way of Japanese expansion, and probably on Guam, which was ours and in the middle of a Japanese League-of-Nations mandate. We did not expect an seaborne-air attack on Pearl Harbor.
Please excuse the hijack. A personal note, December 7 was always remembered in my family.
My father was stationed on the West Virginia, and was ironing his pants in the engine room at the time of the attack, getting ready to take shore leave that morning.
The message sent was not to man battle stations but to come to the top deck and he was not aware of anything amiss until nearing the top.