Someone more cynical might suggest that Evil FDR wanted to drag the Americans into the war despite promising the opposite
(Exactly like one of the most evil presidents Wilson).
The British were once again going to do anything and everything to get the Americans into the war, despite the Germans actually not wanting to originally go to war with England.
The British are thought to have cracked the Japanese codes WAY earlier than they admit to and probably knew way in advance what was going to happen.
Evil warmongers in both governments would have had reason to arrange to have the carriers just so happen to go out for a sail and leave the old outdated battleships at dock nice and easy and make sure they were fully crewed to "create the incitement"...
Perhaps that's not what happened...
I read years ago that the
Japanese Naval Ciphers were cracked by the US way before the Diplomatic/Purple cypher and CINCUS-PAC Richardson had access to them till he was relieved and that cypher section was then relocated to DC and its product restricted to the SECNAV. There were also three Radar Stations on the three possible IJN approaches to Hawaii that were ordered dis-established when Richardson was cashiered and THAT is why the "mobile" van based radar on Hawaii was the "thing". Kimmel was being set up ahead of time during the transition. It has been alleged that Mountbatten's "Tour" of Pearl Harbor is where the Japanese got their pace counts and more specific targeting information as Hirohito has been a Knight of the Garter and was much more intimately involved in all the aspects of the War then Dugout Doug made part of Post-War History. As to the Carriers there have been "stories" that USS Arizona was moved to its final resting place to replace a carrier that had been there till several days before, and which had left its birthing with a wink and nod. Japanese informants in Pearl sent confirmation that the carriers were in Pearl and this was one of the pre-requisites for the strike. Later "orders and cover stories" were retroactively created to provide cover for what was a CO and Command Structure that didn't agree with orders from on High to sacrifice another ship. This review of "Day of Deception" from Amazon is a great overview, "
FC 5.0 out of 5 stars Pearl Coverup Finally Revealed, Mostly. Reviewed in the United States on September 15, 2013
Verified Purchase Reflecting a tremendous amount of work digging out original communications documents, previously classified and made available under FOIA, although over a half century later many still remain secret, the author shows that FDR and his minions did maneuver to provoke Japan into an attack against the US and also ordered the Pearl Harbor commanders into passivity as bait to amplify the carnage and enrage Americans. The author makes a strong well documented case. To think otherwise is to deny the authenticity of the declassified documents.
The US had been monitoring, decoding, and translating Japanese diplomatic and military communications since the early 1920s and by 1941 had twenty-two listening stations arranged around the Pacific Ocean including RDF as well as several different decrypting centers, one of which, HYPO, was located on Oahu itself. FDR was reading secret Japanese messages daily, almost as rapidly as their intended recipients, for over a year before Pearl Harbor and right up until Dec 7 and beyond!
Japan had been marauding through east Asia for years and had been planning for an eventual war with the USA for decades. Surprise attacks were their forte ever since their defeat of the Russian Navy at Tsushima in 1905, a victory that dominated Japanese naval doctrine and belief in the "decisive battle" ever since. A cynic might say that all FDR did was manipulate them into a first strike on the US in order to unify public opinion.
CDR Arthur McCollum of the ONI, an expert on Japan and its culture, was the author of the eight-point strategy written in 1940 to provoke Japan to war; he conceived and FDR implemented the deception. Cutting off Japan's sources of oil and other raw materials was part of it. Another was relocating the US fleet from the west coast of the US to the exposed Hawaii. ADM Richardson, commander of the Pacific fleet, strongly objected. He was relieved and replaced by the more compliant ADM Kimmel. LTG Short commanded Army and Air units on Oahu.
LCDR Joseph Rochefort, in charge of HYPO, was a longtime colleague and friend of McCollum. His intercepts went directly to FDR and thirty-five others. FDR ordered Rochefort to cut both Kimmel and Short out of the intercept loop starting two weeks prior to Dec 7. Then Kimmel was actually ordered not to patrol Oahu and Short was actually ordered not to go on full alert. FDR, knowing full well that Pearl would be attacked on Dec 7, in an eleventh hour act of gratuitous duplicity, sent a message directly to Hirohito. This was simply to help make a case for plausible deniability, an odious political practice. Adding insult to injury, both Kimmel and Short were made the scapegoats for the disaster.
After the war Rochefort was quoted, "It was a pretty cheap price to pay for unifying the country." Would the 2,500 men killed at Pearl that day, and the 2,000 more killed at Wake and Guam agree?
It is reprehensible that an elected government of a constitutional republic would stealthily betray its own citizens, an act of morally repugnant depravity more typical of a despotic tyranny."
