Discuss Time Rider
Notes: Some of the photos
Roosevelt is looking at here are featured in
issue 1. So if you don't recognize them you may want to go back
and check that out.
As far as Roosevelt knowing the
attack on Pearl Harbor was coming no one can ever say with 100
percent assurance although it is very unlikely that he did. At least
we would all like to think that anyway. He had motive to want the
attack in order to help bring America into the war, but I don't
really think it would have been necessary to allow the attack to be
successful. Just the knowledge that Japan was on it's way to attack
America one would think in that era would have been enough to goad
the American public into accepting war.
That said I thought it might be
an interesting twist to ask what if Roosevelt did know ahead of time
that Pearl Harbor was going to be attacked, but he got the
information from a source no one would have ever guessed?
Notes from Wikipedia on Pearl
Harbor
Pearl Harbor Investigations
and Blame
USS Utah took a torpedo hit and capsized early in the battle.
The wreck remains at Pearl Harbor.President Roosevelt appointed an
investigating commission, headed by U.S. Supreme Court Justice Owen
Roberts to report facts and findings with respect to the attack on
Pearl Harbor. It was the first of many (nine total) official
investigations. Both the Fleet commander, Rear Admiral Husband E.
Kimmel, and the Army commander, Lieutenant General Walter Short (the
Army had been responsible for air defense of Hawaii, including Pearl
Harbor, and for general defense of the islands against hostile
attack), were relieved of their commands shortly thereafter. They
were accused of "dereliction of duty" by the Roberts Commission for
not making reasonable defensive preparations. The decisions of the
Navy Department and the War Department to relieve both was
controversial at the time and has remained so ever since. However,
neither was court-martialed as would normally have been the result
of dereliction of duty. On May 25, 1999, the US Senate voted to
recommend both officers be exonerated on all charges of dereliction
of duty, citing denial to Hawaii commanders of vital intelligence
available in Washington.
Rumors
During the first days following the attack, various rumors began to
circulate.
One of the most damaging was the claim that Japanese workers had cut
arrows into the cane fields, thus pointing the way to Pearl Harbor
for the Imperial pilots. This rumor's influence was due perhaps to
its implication that the enemy (Japan) was inept and would be easily
defeated. However, there was no truth to the rumor. It was
considered ludicrous by military officers (especially pilots), who
knew that any force which could fly hundreds of miles to find O'ahu
would have no difficulty finding the largest harbor in the Central
Pacific. The rumor also ignored the larger evidence of Japanese
navigational skills.
Another rumor was that Roosevelt (or Marshall or someone) had known
the attack was coming, but had allowed it to proceed for any of
several reasons depending on the purveyor of the rumor. This began
as early as the morning of the 8th, perhaps first by Congressman Guy
Gillette.
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Franklin Roosevelt
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