This was posted yesterday on a Russian forum.
The photo is from 8 May 2015 at Ekaterinburg showing a celebratory "Victory Train". The locomotive class L was originally known as class P for Pobeda (Victory).
Peter
Flintlock76Anyone notice her ATS uniform cap on the desk while she spoke?
I didn't! But what a great touch, huh? How understated (and British!) to do that.
Not much escapes your notice, Flintlock. Thanks for pointing that out.
NKP guy Flintlock76 I didn't! But what a great touch, huh? How understated (and British!) to do that. Not much escapes your notice, Flintlock. Thanks for pointing that out.
Flintlock76
It seems to slip from the 'current historical minds' : That during WWII, then Princess Elizabeth, Later, Queen Elizabeth; served in uniform in the ATS [actually, as a as a Truck Mechanic.]
"...In 1942, at age 16, Elizabeth registered with the Labour Exchange –the British employment agency at the time – and was extremely keen to join a division of the women’s armed forces. Her father was reluctant to let her do so, but eventually relented. Once in the Auxiliary Territorial Service, Elizabeth learned how to change a wheel, deconstruct and rebuild engines, and drive ambulances and other vehicles..."
linked from: https://mashable.com/2015/04/22/queen-elizabeth-army/
I read a good story about King George's visit to Elizabeth's ATS motor pool. While she was working on an engine and not knowing her father was there he leaned in a bit, then turned to Elizabeth's CO and said:
"Well, I certainly hope this one knows what she's doing!"
Another good story about the king. He'd attended a military briefing with Mr. Churchill held by General Montgomery. Now Monty could be very pompous at times when he gave briefings, and when they left Winston turned to the king and said:
"You know, I think that man's after my job!" To which the king replied "Oh, that's a relief! I thought he was after mine!"
"A Royal Night Out" was never released here in the US as far as I know, too bad, it looked pretty good! Thanks for the link!
Now when the damn lockdowns stop and I can get to a Barnes and Noble I'll have to check the DVD department and see if I can find it.
Overmod Erik_Mag I wonder what the end of WW2 would have been like if UofChi MetLab hadn't screwed up with their heavy water reactor (only running it 8 hours a day), which would have allowed the Pu production reactors at Hanford to start in Sep '44 as opposed to Dec '44. Probably not all that different... for us, at least. There would still have been the recognition and fix of the xenon-poisoning issue at Hanford, and I believe development of the actual implosion device had a separate critical path that would still have resulted in Trinity being close to its actual date. There's much more to the weapon than the fissile pit fabrication. I do think I agree that ramping up extractable plutonium a couple months earlier would have allowed pit fabrication in parallel for a larger number of weapons 'at a time' by mid-August or so.
Erik_Mag I wonder what the end of WW2 would have been like if UofChi MetLab hadn't screwed up with their heavy water reactor (only running it 8 hours a day), which would have allowed the Pu production reactors at Hanford to start in Sep '44 as opposed to Dec '44.
Probably not all that different... for us, at least. There would still have been the recognition and fix of the xenon-poisoning issue at Hanford, and I believe development of the actual implosion device had a separate critical path that would still have resulted in Trinity being close to its actual date. There's much more to the weapon than the fissile pit fabrication. I do think I agree that ramping up extractable plutonium a couple months earlier would have allowed pit fabrication in parallel for a larger number of weapons 'at a time' by mid-August or so.
Had the designers of the Hanford reactors known about the Xenon poisoning problem (which is a -um- critical issue with naval reactors), the reactors could have been built to handle the Xenon poisoning. IIRC, the Pu would have been ready three months earlier (my grandfather was involved with the construction of the reprocessing plants). One of the critical paths was having enough Pu on hand to determine the size of the fissile pit.
My thoughts on having the bombs ready in May vs August is that the first use could have been on purely military targets in Okinawa - though seeing what happened to Hiroshima and Nagasaki may have reduced chances of a nuclear exchange during the cold war. On the gripping hand, ending the war a couple of months earlier might have kept Stalin at bay in the Pacific theater.
The strategy against Japan took a turn in June 1945, Truman ordered a halt to firebomb raids (unlike FDR, Truman had combat experience) and the focus was shifted to disrupting transportation by aerial mining of the Inland Sea and carrier based attacks on rail lines in northern Honshu and Hokkaido.
A related "what-if" is what would the PTO looked like if the USN had a stockpile of decent torpedos in late 1941.
Lizzie Windsor ( this really belongs on Classic but exception in this case)
Princess Elizabeth certainly was not coddled.
I wonder how many queens can look back to a life such as she had before she ascended the throne. Queen Juliana?
Johnny
DeggestyI wonder how many queens can look back to a life such as she had before she ascended the throne. Queen Juliana?
We are now in an age when people are famous for being famous. The royals have not escaped that phenomenon.
Larry Resident Microferroequinologist (at least at my house) Everyone goes home; Safety begins with you My Opinion. Standard Disclaimers Apply. No Expiration Date Come ride the rails with me! There's one thing about humility - the moment you think you've got it, you've lost it...
Erik_MagHad the designers of the Hanford reactors known about the Xenon poisoning problem (which is a -um- critical issue with naval reactors), the reactors could have been built to handle the Xenon poisoning.
Actually, if I recall the story correctly, they were built so that they could handle it ... as it turned out. They were built with excess dimensioning 'just in case' and did that ever turn out to be wise! And I do think, as you noted
... the Pu would have been ready three months earlier ...
One of the critical paths was having enough Pu on hand to determine the size of the fissile pit.
I don't remember the 'history of Pu physics' accurately without a reference, but even some of the basic small-sample physics of plutonium might have been advanced with the earlier date of suitably-accelerated high-neutron-flux production. I don't remember if the Smyth Report contained detailed information on the risk of 'fizzle' from some high-neutron-flux isotopes, but it's certainly there, and likely only imperfectly predictable from 'experimental' sources of regularly-transmuted material.
My thoughts on having the bombs ready in May vs August is that the first use could have been on purely military targets in Okinawa - though seeing what happened to Hiroshima and Nagasaki may have reduced chances of a nuclear exchange during the cold war.
This is actually several points, all important.
"First use" would have been the gun bomb, where the lethal irradiation was inside the killing heat/blast radius, and ground penetration might have been relatively low. We'll ask Wayne or other specialist military historians, but I'd argue that the effects of a 'Little Boy' strike on Okinawa for any legitimate military purpose would be limited, the 'shock and awe' effect minimal at best (would it compare to direct flamethrowers?) and the secondary effects to invading or occupying troops minimal.
We discussed this at Columbia in some detail. I argued at the time that the 'first best target' was, and remained, Kokura Arsenal, and that even with the manifold risks and issues involving maintaining and flying the bomb, one should not have been dropped until there was 'clear enough' air over the target. I would not have dropped a weapon anywhere near Tokyo, even in a sustained version of the invasion campaign, nor would I drop them in reprisal for acceleration of suicide attacks. On the other hand, I would have considered radiological boosting of plutonium weapons for the various islands -- Okinawa showing an example of one as it was taken -- as an adjunct to the Navy's skipping the land conquest, with functional air superiority, and bypassing them in the runup to invasion. Then a warning to evacuate all civilian personnel, coupled with deterrent threat against actually attempting to fly or launch attacks from a bypassed island, would have the best latent effect.
One of the things I do admire was Truman's stopping the fire raids. I do think he was (perhaps temporarily) influenced by the 8th Air Force narrative on how strategic bombing had so tellingly ruined the Axis ability to wage effective war in Europe, and was prepared to execute something similar to keep eventual ground casualties limited, but this leaves his decision to designate areas with large civilian population in the atomic target list somewhat unclear. (I have always thought of it as Truman accepting the total-war rationale for strategic area bombing, which use of atomic and then thermonuclear weapons essentially extends.) In my opinion, had he bombed Kokura first he would have had the best of the possible worlds: an undeniably military priority target whose destruction would send a direct message to the military usurpation regime in Japan; a sign to our foes and allies of the practical effects of the weapons; little 'legacy' complaining about his expedience (for instance, in 'trying to get use of expensive weapons before Stalin brought the war to an end' as Kolko and others have tried to establish).
It would be interesting to look at the interdiction of coastal shipping in light of what the United States experienced in the first few months of unlimited U-boat activity off the East Coast. I don't know the degree to which the Japanese required oil transport to the home islands themselves; I doubt the existing railroad infrastructure could have handled 'oil trains' to the extent the United States was able to use them. I also have a suspicion that, given reasonable air superiority, the effect on Japanese railroads, particularly in mountainous areas, might have been far more dramatic and direct than much of the strategic-initiative terror-initiative targeting of, say, French railroads (and railroaders) earlier.
Now, had we not insisted on an unconditional surrender ("Emperor and all") until comparatively late, a strategy of containment-with-interdiction might have been reasonable to pursue ... for a while. Wrecking internal and coastal transportation would quickly produce more widespread starvation than blockade of the Central Powers could. The niggling problem then remains: did Truman and his advisors actually predicate some of the invasion planning to preclude Russian hegemony claims, probably including no little expedient 'revanchism' for 1905?
On the gripping hand, ending the war a couple of months earlier might have kept Stalin at bay in the Pacific theater.
Would have kept him completely at bay if done before effective V-E day plus the time to mobilize full force to stage in the Far East. I think that even with substantial American priority on revenge, there was little likelihood even early in 1945 of using the atomic weapons in continental Europe, so effective use to shorten the war 'for that purpose' might have been a reasonable thing.
On the other hand, Stalin agreed at one of the conferences to bring his forces squarely into the fight against Japan as soon as the was in Europe was successfully concluded, and Churchill at least had no reason to suspect the USSR of consolidating temporary territorial gains by force in 1945. I was not there, but I'd find any chance of letting the Soviet Union contribute a large share of the predicted million-plus casualties a fair exchange for invasion, hauling factory equipment back to Mother Russia, etc.
A related "what-if" is what would the PTO looked like if the USN had a stockpile of decent torpedoes in late 1941.
Or a proper sub-chasing and torpedo-boat presence by then. It is not only a great national shame that we tolerated the sequential torpedo follies, it is also specifically a Newport shame. Of course, behind the engineering failures were also Navy-bureaucratic failures and financial failures, so the blame isn't to incompetent engineers alone.
I suspect at least one naval historian has gone back and estimated the effect if the 'dud' torpedoes actually fired had had a better effect on the enemy than they did on our own submarines. There is little chance that early effectiveness would have bred complacency of some kind that would lead to losing critical battles in the evolving Pacific war -- on the other hand, a signal factor at Midway was the arrogance inherent in the Japanese rearming en masse on their decks, secure in the assumption that American attack power was hopelessly incompetent; had that not specifically occurred the destruction of all four carriers at a stroke would have been less certain, and the turning point of the war less strongly demarcated.
Honestly, I couldn't see them dropping a "Little Boy" type of nuke on Okinawa, even if one was available. The island was going to be used as a staging area for the planned invasion of Japan, and the damage an atomic bomb would have done probably wouldn't have been worth its use. Add to that the Okinawans were considered second-class citizens by the mainland Japanese, so if a bunch of them were vaporized it wouldn't have made much of a difference to Tokyo.
Interestingly, the Marines and soldiers fighting on Okinawa experienced something they'd never seen before, some Japanese soldiers surrendering. These were Okinawan conscripts who had no desire to die for those stuck-up mainlanders!
We have to remember that the atomic bombs were essentially the "2 X 4's" that were going to be swung to get the attention of the militarists governing Japan. "Surrender, or this is what's waiting for you!"
Kokura's been mentioned. Kokura was actually the primary target of the mission tha dropped the bomb on Nagasaki, Kokura was obscured by cloud cover and the smoke from a B-29 raid on a neighboring city, so the plane diverted to Nagasaki.
I met a Nagasaki survivor in 1977, she was the wife of a warrant officer friend of mine. She was about nine years old at the time and had gone swimming with her brother. She was standing on a dock when the bomb detonated and was blown into the water by the shock wave. They lived far enough away from the city that the only ill-effect she got from the blast was a dunking.
Also, she bore no ill-will toward the Americans for the atomic bombs, obviously since she married one! She directed her blame to the militarists running Japan who were all to willing to fight to the last drop of everyone's blood but their own.
An atomic bomb not being used in Europe? I don't know, we started working on the bomb with the idea that Hitler was working on one to begin with.
This is pure speculation on my part, but I could see one being used as the ultimate end result of a failure of the Normandy landings. If D-Day was a disaster there would have been no further invasion attempt in 1944. Eisenhower (assuming he hadn't been relieved) would have been told to wait, but not why. I could see Berlin being the target in July of 1945, and then an invasion in the West, assuming it was necessary. I'm leaving Stalin out of the question because with no "Second Front" it's pure speculation as to what he would have done. Instead of going all the way to Berlin he might have stopped at the Vistula having chased the Fascists out of Mother Russia, declared victory, and called it a day.
Flintlock76 I met a Nagasaki survivor in 1977, she was the wife of a warrant officer friend of mine. She was about nine years old at the time and had gone swimming with her brother. She was standing on a dock when the bomb detonated and was blown into the water by the shock wave. They lived far enough away from the city that the only ill-effect she got from the blast was a dunking. Also, she bore no ill-will toward the Americans for the atomic bombs, obviously since she married one! She directed her blame to the militarists running Japan who were all to willing to fight to the last drop of everyone's blood but their own.
It is always reassuring to hear stories like this, and there are many others of Japanese or German veterans meeting their Allied counterparts years later, with no ill will between them.
Mochitsura Hashimoto, the submarine Captain who sank the USS Indianapolis, visited Pearl Harbor many years later and met survivors from that ship. They prayed together for those who did not survive.
Flintlock76 An atomic bomb not being used in Europe? I don't know, we started working on the bomb with the idea that Hitler was working on one to begin with.
The Nazis did indeed have a nuclear weapons program. It did not get very far because they failed to make a couple key breakthroughs that the Americans did.
Flintlock76 This is pure speculation on my part, but I could see one being used as the ultimate end result of a failure of the Normandy landings. If D-Day was a disaster there would have been no further invasion attempt in 1944. Eisenhower (assuming he hadn't been relieved) would have been told to wait, but not why. I could see Berlin being the target in July of 1945, and then an invasion in the West, assuming it was necessary. I'm leaving Stalin out of the question because with no "Second Front" it's pure speculation as to what he would have done. Instead of going all the way to Berlin he might have stopped at the Vistula having chased the Fascists out of Mother Russia, declared victory, and called it a day.
After having been betrayed by Hitler in 1941, I can't see Stalin settling for anything less than the total humiliation and destruction of Germany as a hostile power.
The tide would have turned against the Nazis eventually, though a failure at Normandy or on the Eastern Front would have lengthened the war by years. Germany simply did not have the resources and manufacturing capacity of Russia or the U.S, not to mention the (relatively) unlimited manpower.
Greetings from Alberta
-an Articulate Malcontent
Right. The reason I had Stalin stopping at the Vistula was since 1942 he'd been yelling for a "Second Front" in Europe, immediately if not sooner, and dropping hints he'd get out of the war if one wasn't provided.
Maybe he was telling the truth, in which case the Germans out of Russia would have been a "good enough" outcome and he could end Soviet involvement. Or, he just might have gotten the bit between his teeth at that point and really wanted Adolf's scalp on the end of a T-34 main gun, in which case it would have been "On to Berlin!" Only Stalin knew for sure what Stalin wanted or was ready to do, or not do.
Again, it's all speculation. Fun though, huh?
My 3 uncles serving in combat were thrilled when the war in Europe ended, one of whom had recently just rejoined his unit after being wounded in the Battle of the Bulge and another who was in the hard fought "forgotten" war in Italy. All 3 plus my naval officer father who served in the pacific following his Normandy participation did not look forward to the invasion of Japan in which they were all going to participate. My future stepmother served as a Navy hospital ship nurse. Her ship was anchored across from the Missouri. She saw some of the surrender ceremony through a shared binocular. The day after the surrender, she was part of a team that left before daylight to go to a POW camp rather close by that was mainly New Zealanders and Aussies with some Americans. She never got over the sight of how badly they had been treated. Many of them looked like survivors of the Nazi death camps.
Per some historians, the Emperor knew Japan was beaten and was resigned to ending the war. He just couldn't do it without a pivotal event that allowed him to overrule his military and their supporters. The 2 atomic bombs were that event.
For those who still criticize Truman and America for using the atomic bombs to end the war with Japan (and there are professors still doing it), besides the very large projected casualities for both the US and Japan in an invasion, including civilians, there are 2 other events that are not that well known.
First, was that Japan had transferred 10 more divisions to the areas we had picked for the landings and the US intelligence had not discovered that prior to the surrender. Second, Japan might have once again gotten their "divine wind" protection. A major typhoon hit the area shortly before the invasion was scheduled. It caused very significant damage to the navy. It was powerful enough that the planned invasion would have had to be postponed for some time, probably until 1946 whenever the weather was right. Japan would have then have much more time to prepare their defensive positions as well as getting more young manpower to supplement their army.
Millions of intersecting points each affecting one another and the time line outcomes .. you can literally drive yourself batty.
Perhaps if you, Wayne, had made a left turn instead of a right turn in 1973 we wouldn't live in the same world we do now at all.
How close to a facist state did Great Britain and the USA get to in the mid to late 30's. Lindbergh, Ford, all that. They changed their tune pretty quick after Pearl Harbour. ... but!!!.. just how close to succeeding were they and thus no Pearl Harbour, probably allies with Japan.
Don't forget about Oswald Mosley and the B.U.F.
Or this guy (yes, even Canada had a Fascist party):
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adrien_Arcand
There never was any real danger the US would become a facist state. There were visable Hitler supporters but never enough to come anything close to critical mass. There also were just as many or more Stalin supporters but they tend to get overlooked nowadays. There never was any real American support for Japan in the 1930's.
When Hitler and Stalin combined to invade Poland, the US Hitler support started declining but immediately there were many demonstrations organized by the US communists against the US helping the Allies. They went on until Hitler invaded Russia. As soon as that happened, the same demonstrators then demanded the US immediately help Stalin defeat Hitler.
alphasThere never was any real danger the US would become a fascist state.
Not on the Quisling/Mosley model of admiring Hitler's methods, probably. But a very real danger nonetheless. Had Huey Long not died when he did, I suspect we'd have seen some of his remarkable techniques by the time of the election in 1936; what that might have produced by 1940 -- or later -- might have resulted in great changes in what was observed in Europe from the late '30s on. In my opinion, probably not for the 'better'.
I get the impression there was far more "Nazi" support for the likes of George Lincoln Rockwell than there ever was in the bad old Coughlin days. But I was not there. Something perhaps of greater import would have been what would have happened if perennial Henry Wallace had been the one 'a heartbeat away' when FDR's heart stopped -- I suspect the already-great giveaway program that made the USSR into a competent imitation of an industrial superpower starting in those years might have been still more enthusiastically carried out, perhaps with unfortunate results.
This isn't strictly relevant to this topic, but last night the movie "Death of Stalin" was shown on TV. Since Stalin's name has come up in this thread, I thought I should mention it although, of course, it is set years after the war, there are references to the war throughout. This is the funniest movie I think I have ever seen, despite representing fairly accurately (as far as I can tell) what actually happened. The American actor Steve Buscemi has the lead role as Kruschev...
https://www.imdb.com/video/vi4196972825?playlistId=tt4686844&ref_=vp_rv_ap_0
Trains play a critical role in the plot, and there is a scene with a green Su class 2-6-2 that represents the trains bringing mourners to Moscow.
I'd seen it before, but I was able to pick up many points I'd missed on the first viewing.
Miningman How close to a facist state did Great Britain and the USA get to in the mid to late 30's. Lindbergh, Ford, all that. They changed their tune pretty quick after Pearl Harbour. ... but!!!.. just how close to succeeding were they and thus no Pearl Harbour, probably allies with Japan.
FWIW, Lindbergh was not a fan of the Axis powers and did a lot of intelligence work as an Army Air Corps officer in the late 1930's. He was trying to get Congress to increase funding for aircraft development after seeing what was going on in Germany. Lindbergh and Ford were members of Defend America First as they were concerned that the war materials sent overseas would leave the US open to attack. This was a realistic concern as the shortage of PBY's (remember the Bismarck was spotted by a PBY sent to the UK) prevented a 360 degree patrol of the waters around Hawaii (see Eddie Layton's book). The IJN took note attacked from the sectors that were not being patrolled.
Also keep in mind that the American public had a strong aversion to getting involved with another war in Europe and that the US waited for Germany to declare war first.
The Japanese didn't attack Pearl Harbour in support of Germany: Germany wasn't at war with the United States until after Pearl Harbour.
The attacks on Pearl Harbour and Midway were direct reprisals for the economic sanctions the United States had imposed on Japan as a result of the war between Japan and China, which were depriving Japan of strategic supplies.
Although Roosevelt used the words "unprovoked attack" in Congress, in the Japanese view this was definitely not the case, to the extent they were willing to go to war over it.
The Japanese knew that they couldn't win against the uSA in the long term, but hoped to keep the US forces out of the Western Pacific while they occupied South East Asia as far as New Guinea, at which stage they presumably planned a negotiated settlement with the USA recognising their occupation of South East Asia.
Hitler declaring war on the USA after Pearl Harbour might have been discussed, as a means of distracting the USA into a war on two fronts, but I'd doubt that it was a precondition for war with the USA. It is likely that Japan would have waited for Germany to declare war first, at which stage they might have waited for the USA to move assets from the Pacific to the Atlantic Fleet to reduce the capacity for response.
Remember that both Pearl Harbour and Midway were relatively minor aspects of the Japanese plans at that time. They were to dissuade the USA from interfering with the occupation of French Indo-China and Malaya and the Dutch East Indies, which provided minerals, oil and rubber for Japanese industrial expansion.
M636CAlthough Roosevelt used the words "unprovoked attack" in Congress, in the Japanese view this was definitely not the case, to the extent they were willing to go to war over it.
And there are those who feel that, if anything, the US (ie, our leaders) actually did provoke the attack. The idea was apparently to stoke the US economy with wartime manufacturing. The US public would never go along with the US being a protagonist, so the attack was necessary to garner public support.
One might wonder what the outcome would have been if the military had read certain signs correctly and were waiting for the Japanese as they flew over Hawaii...
Right on, Peter. The Japanese knew, before they attacked Pearl Harbor, that if they had not won by the end of 1942 they could not win.
The Japanese plan in a nutshell was to inflict a series of costly humiliating defeats on the United States leaving American power in the Pacific impotent, and then go for a negotiated peace.
Didn't work out that way.
About twenty years ago I read a paper to The Royal Institution of Naval Architects (who conveniently met in the office block I occupied at Defence Headquarters) regarding the fatal engine room fire on the fleet oiler HMAS Westralia..In the paper I described the succession of mistakes and misjudgements that led to the death of four crew members. To me it read like an Agatha Christie novel, with defeat being extracted from the jaws of victory on about four occasions.The really sad thing was that many wrong decisions were taken by people who believed they were doing the right thing at the time. The paper was very well received, to the extent I was congratulated by very senior officers who hadn't heard the paper (it was a small meeting). The head of Mechanical Engineering at the Defence Force Academy asked for a copy of the presentation to show his senior students.
I feel much the same way about Pearl Harbor. The US had decoded the messages about the declaration of war from Tokyo to the Japanese Embassy before the Embassy itself. The approaching Japanese aircraft had been detected but were assumed to be a flight of B-17s from California. Even fifteen minutes warning might have allowed the battleships to close their watertight doors and man their anti-aircraft guns. Ships with steam up might have moved out into the bay and taken evasive action.
There were many such mistakes and missed opportunities leading up to 7 December 1941.
However, all the fleet carriers being at sea during the attack was due to luck rather than planning but that alone was responsible for the later succesion of victories, including the Battle of the Coral Sea.
We celebrated the Battle of the Coral Sea at my primary school every year. The politicians talk about Australia and the USA being allies since 1917 in France. While this is technically true it was in the Coral Sea 78 years ago last week that the USA saved Australia, and we aren't going to forget it (although as far as I know it wasn't celebrated this year). To us who remember it it was much more important than VE Day. My own father was a gunner on a MkIII 40mm Bofors Anti Aircraft gun during WWII. He was initially in the Middle East but returned by ship in 1942 (with his gun set up on the deck of the troopship) and was in the Pacific until VJ Day where he took his own photos of the Japanese formal surrender (I think in Finschafen, New Guinea.)
I spent some time researching the loss of the USS Lexington during the battle. Those who know the ship realise it was designed as a battleship (or perhaps a battlecruiser). It was hit by the largest Japanese torpedo which barely affected it, except that the propulsion switchgear flashed over. That was repaired but leaking aviation gasoline fumes reached a motor generator room and exploded, damaging the ship beyond recovery..
This was important because pretty much by accident I ended up on a group studying electric propulsion for use on the RAN LHDs Adelaide and Canberra. The propulsion system is fine but the Spanish designers of the ship were not as smart as we thought they were and the German manufacturers of the propulsion equipment are too smart for us. But neither ship is likely to explode due to internal design errors.
But everyone my age or older should remember the Battle of the Coral Sea and we are grateful that the carriers survived Pearl Harbour, even if it was just by luck.
The major mistake the US made concerning Pearl Harbor, according to a post-war work by Colonel Robert S. Allen, was in trying to guess Japanese intentions in the weeks leading up to the attack. Colonel Allen said (to summarize) "NEVER try to guess the enemy's intentions! Only he knows what his intentions are, and he's not going to tell you! Look at his CAPABILITIES, then plan accordingly."
Make a tremendous lot of sense. The US knew the Japanese were likely to do something, but we didn't know what and we didn't know where.
Lexington, and Saratoga as well, were indeed intended to be built as battlecruisers, however with the London Naval Treaty limiting the amount of capital ships posessed by the signatories they were converted into carriers, carriers not being limited by the treaty.
Peter mentioned a film called "The Death of Stalin." I don't think it was released here in the US, I've never seen it advertised anywhere, but if anyone's curious there's a 47 minute YouTube video about it on a Y-T channel called "History Buffs." I've watched it and it's a lot of fun, you get most of the salient parts of the film (looks hilarious!) and the host's thoughts on it. The host liked it a lot, although he does point out some historical inaccuracies, nothing really to be overly concerned about it. Here's the link for those interested.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TG-tG-Wo0Do
Flintlock76 The Japanese plan in a nutshell was to inflict a series of costly humiliating defeats on the United States leaving American power in the Pacific impotent, and then go for a negotiated peace. Didn't work out that way.
Would the U.S. have pulled out of the depression if not for the war? There were a lot of "America Firsters" back then who wanted the U.S. to stay out of the war not just Lindbergh, Ford and Joseph P. Kennedy but that group included Congressman Hamilton Fish of Duchess County, New York where Roosevelt's home was located. Not only Father Coughlin, but there were William Dudley Pelly and Gerald L. K. Smith who thought the U.S. should stay out, not to mention thier virulent anti-semitism. My point is, the U.S. was hardly united in stopping Germany and Japan until December 7th.
Is it possible that it was known about the attack? I don't know but I think the battleships at Pearl would have been considered expendable and an attack there would have united the citizenry more than sanctions on oil and steel going to Japan.
54light15Is it possible that it was known about the attack? I don't know but I think the battleships at Pearl would have been considered expendable and an attack there would have united the citizenry more than sanctions on oil and steel going to Japan.
No.
As I said earlier, the US knew the Japanese were likely to do something, but where or when was the question. In fact, a "War Warning" had gone out the week before, on November 30th to be exact. Every military installation on the West Coast, including the Panama Canal Zone, went on full alert and stayed that way. Why the installations at Pearl didn't stay that way is a mystery, unless the attitude was "Well, they might go somewhere but they'll never come here!"
Again, look at the enemy's capabilities and plan accordingly.
The idea that the Pacific Fleet was sacrificed to bring the US into the war is ludicrous. If it was known an attack was coming to Pearl the fleet could have been sortied out of the dange zone, the installations put into a defensive status so they'd be ready to recieve the attack. Besides, FDR considered the fleet HIS fleet! There's no way he would have let it get shot to pieces!
One thing about the "America Firsters." Despite what some revisionists would have you believe "America Firster" membership went right across the political spectrum, both Republicans and Democrats supported it, including other high-profile people like General John J. Pershing. Many Americans felt all we'd done in the First World War was help save the British and French empires, since all we got out of the war was enough ground in Europe to bury our dead.
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