In honor of Pearl Harbor Day here's a link to an American Heritage article on Hector Bywater's The Great Pacific War. And a good site debunking the myths of advanced knowledge about the attack on the part of the United States government.
My own two cents worth is that while the US government should have definitely known hostilities with Japan were eminent, to imagine that the Japanese would have taken such a incredible risk as the extremely long range attack on Pearl at the same time that they were about to attack Hong Kong, Malaya, Singapore , Dutch East Indies, and the Philippines would have seemed incredible. When you combine that with Japan's huge military obligations in China and the need to keep a very large army in Manchuria to face the Russians it is no wonder that American strategic planners did not imagine the knife balancing extremes the Japanese would go to to attain a strategic advantage at the beginning of a Pacific War.
No comments:
Post a Comment