The "East Wind Rain" Message and FDR's Foreknowledge of Pearl Harbor

[Rincewind]

Of course, if you need an intermission on a DVD, then perhaps you need to get a DVD player with a pause button?

Or turn up the volume so that you can hear it from the bathroom?

 

[sackett]

Of course, if you need an intermission on a DVD, then perhaps you need to get a DVD player with a pause button?

Or turn up the volume so that you can hear it from the bathroom?

Oh c'mon. Haven't you ever heard of the chamber pot?

 

[Rincewind]

Oh c'mon. Haven't you ever heard of the chamber pot?

Or even adult diapers?

 

[mikegriffith1]

Cmdr. Safford learned about the Winds code later on, and thought he had see "West Wind Rain" in an old message. He looked through the records for that time and couldn't find it. He did notice that form 7001 was missing, and decided that was the one that had the vaguely remembered Winds Activate Code on it. Nowhere else was the code recorded, and for good reason, the system wasn't activated. The Japanese stated this quite clearly after the war.

As for the Japanese embassies, the Washington embassy was allowed to keep one set of codes and a machine to send the reply to Teikoku Seifu no Taibei Tsucho Oboegaki ("Final Communication to the United States from the Empire of Japan"). The ambassador and Special Envoy Kurusu didn't know that any reply would be irrelevant, but Gaimushō indulged their entreaties and made that allowance.

That's not what Safford said. So you must assume that Safford lied, and lied egregiously, or that his memory was catastrophically faulty.

Ditto for the two embassy staffers, who repeatedly insisted that the execute message was received.

You keep ducking the receipt document that Costello and Pineau found and the amazing "coincidence" that the message number matched the number that Safford identified. Wow, just figure the odds of matching by coincidence a four-digit number, years apart. Wow. Just wow.

And then there are the FBI memos, in which Hoover and Ladd were clearly discussing the execute message. Once again, we must assume some staggering degree of fabrication by Hoover or Ladd in order to believe your tale about Pearl Harbor. Hoover and Ladd matter of factly said, in memos never intended to see the light of day, that senior officials knew the attack was coming. But, according to you, it was all just a fantastic lie.

 

[No Other]

Good to see that traditions are being maintained - Bob makes a new thread, there is a rapid debunk and a shift to more interesting but related topic (Tora Tora Tora in this case, whiskey in others).

Keep it up.

SOP... Derailing is a perfected art on this site. It is a joke.

 

[Border Reiver]

That's not what Safford said. So you must assume that Safford lied, and lied egregiously, or that his memory was catastrophically faulty.

Ditto for the two embassy staffers, who repeatedly insisted that the execute message was received.

You keep ducking the receipt document that Costello and Pineau found and the amazing "coincidence" that the message number matched the number that Safford identified. Wow, just figure the odds of matching by coincidence a four-digit number, years apart. Wow. Just wow.

And then there are the FBI memos, in which Hoover and Ladd were clearly discussing the execute message. Once again, we must assume some staggering degree of fabrication by Hoover or Ladd in order to believe your tale about Pearl Harbor. Hoover and Ladd matter of factly said, in memos never intended to see the light of day, that senior officials knew the attack was coming. But, according to you, it was all just a fantastic lie.

And you can produce the documents that clearly prove what you're saying (copies of the FBI memos, receipt document, etc)?




Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[Border Reiver]

SOP... Derailing is a perfected art on this site. It is a joke.

If the original topic gets debunked fast, expect a rapid shift.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[mikegriffith1]

Yes, the FBI memos are available online, here:

http://www.pearlharbor911attacks.com/reviews-commentary

And, to be clear, Safford reported that he personally assisted with the distribution of the "East Wind Rain" execute message and that he personally ensured that it was delivered to Admiral Noyes.

 

[Border Reiver]

None of those memos indicate that an attack was happening. The first indicates that Dr. Mori was giving Intel on weather conditions and very limited info on the fleet (ie. What he could get from a newspaper). None of it says that an attack is going to happen, and with what we know of the Japanese plans from their files, his info wasn't going to affect the attack.

So what in those memos tells you that an attack was going to happen?

 

[mikegriffith1]

Let's look at two of the FBI memos, and keep in mind that these memos were never intended to see the light of day and that the information conveyed by Colonel Bissell, the head of the Army Counter Intelligence Branch at the time, was given in "the strictest of confidence." This is from Assistant Director Ladd's memo to Hoover, dated 12/11/41:

Colonel John T. Bissell today informed [FBI Special Agent George C. Burton] G. C. Burton, in the strictest of confidence (and with the statement that if it ever got out that he had disclosed this information he would be fired) that about ten days before the attack on Pearl Harbor a number of Japanese radio intercepts had been obtained in Hawaii. When they were unable to break the code in these intercepts in Hawaii they sent them in to Washington where G2 [Army Intelligence Section] broke them. It was found that these radio messages contained substantially the complete plans for the attack on Pearl Harbor, as it was actually carried out. The messages also contained a code Japanese word which would be sent out by radio to the Japanese fleet as the signal for the attack, when this word was repeated three times in succession. (Ladd to Hoover, 12/11/41)

After getting Ladd's memo, Hoover wrote the following in a "most confidential" memo to FDR's press secretary, Steven Early:

About ten days prior to the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor a number of Japanese radio messages were intercepted by Military authorities in the Hawaiian Islands. Being unable to break the code in these intercepts, the messages were sent to Washington where Military Intelligence broke the code, discovered that the messages contained substantially the complete plans for the attack on Pearl Harbor as it was subsequently carried out. The messages contained a code Japanese word which would be sent by radio to the Japanese fleet as the signal for the attack when the word was repeated three times in succession. (Hoover to Early, 12/12/41)

Needless to say, these two memos agree with and corroborate all kinds of other foreknowledge reports.

To dismiss these memos, one would have to believe that either Bissell fabricated the whole thing, that Burton did, or that Ladd did--in memos that were supposed to stay hidden for eternity. And it's a bit hard to fathom how one could explain this evidence as a "mistake."

Bissell was clearly bothered by the info that he possessed, and he seemed to be hoping that the FBI would investigate why the Pearl Harbor attack caught the Hawaiian commanders off-guard when G2 had nearly "the complete plans" of the Japanese attack at least two days before the bombing occurred. It's also clear that Bissell was worried about the Army finding out that he had relayed this information to the FBI; he made it a point to note that he would be fired if it ever got out that he had passed along this info.

These memos also confirm the reports that American intelligence assets were able to read a lot more JN-25 messages than the U.S. Government later claimed they could.

So here we have the chief of Army counter intelligence telling an FBI agent, just 5 days after Pearl Harbor, that Army G2 knew "substantially the complete plans" of the attack at least 2 days before it occurred, and we see
this entirely credible source clearly worried about the Army finding out that he had relayed this info to the FBI--and we see these things in FBI memos that were never supposed to be made public.

 

[Border Reiver]

Where are the corresponding Japanese transmissions? The FBI memos refer to a Japanese transmission made about Nov 25 that, once translated contained the plans for the attack on PH. The problems with this are:

A. The plans for the attacks on PH, the Phillipines and Hong Kong were not transmitted by radio due to their length (the orders for PH and the Kido Butai went to over 80 pages);
B. The plans were sent out by the Japanese at the beginning of November, not just as the fleet was sailing. The logistics of these operations are not something where they could be made up on the fly;
C. Where are the records of these intercepts that the G2 allegedly translated?

And finally, when governments don't want something made public, they don't make records with relatively low levels of classification. They do it all by word of mouth.

 

[A'isha]

The 12/11/41 Ladd memo also has some interesting details that bobtaftfan seems to have left out of his quote. Right after the part he reproduced, Ladd tells Hoover:

A message was sent by Army radio to the Hawaiian islands, setting forth this entire plan for the information of the authorities in Hawaii.

On Friday morning, December 5th, the code words referred to in the previous messages as the signal for the attack were intercepted, which should have indicated that the attack was to be on either Saturday or Sunday, and this information was sent by military radio to the Hawaiian islands.

If these messages existed, they definitely aren't evidence for Washington's foreknowledge of the Pearl Harbor attack that was withheld from Short and Kimmel, since the very FBI memos he's citing say explicitly that the contents of those messages were passed on to the military authorities in Hawaii (ie, Short and Kimmel!). The memo even talks about an inquiry being directed towards "whether the message...was not acted upon by the military authorities [in Hawaii]."

Funny how bobtaftfan left those parts out.

 

[Andy_Ross]

Where is the Zilla when you need him?

 

[mikegriffith1]

John Toland suggested an interesting theory: He theorized that FDR decided to allow the attack on Pearl Harbor because he was told by Navy Intelligence that only two Japanese carriers were headed to Pearl Harbor, not six carriers, and because he accepted the then-common belief that Pearl Harbor was nearly an impregnable fortress and that Japanese military capabilities were substandard. In other words, FDR believed that the Pearl Harbor attack would result in limited damage and loss of life and that this would be a small price to pay to awaken the American people to support entering the war.

This agrees with what Admiral Ranneft said. He said Navy Intelligence was tracking a Japanese fleet that included two Japanese carriers heading toward Pearl Harbor. By the way, Admiral Ranneft's son confirmed that his father told him about American Navy Intelligence showing him a map a few days before the attack that showed a Japanese fleet with two carriers headed toward Pearl Harbor (http://www.upi.com/Archives/1982/03...efore-it-attacked-Pearl-Harbor/5562384066000/).

We know from Secretary of War Stimson's diary that FDR was looking for a way to provoke the Japanese into firing the first shot without suffering too much damage. After a 25 November White House meeting, Stimson wrote in his diary that "“The question was how we should maneuver them [the Japanese] into firing the first shot without allowing too much danger to ourselves.” So we know for a fact that as of 25 November, FDR and his cabinet were talking about way to provoke the Japanese to attack but to attack in such a way that would not do enormous damage.

Speaking of provocation, Stimson's diary entry helps us to more clearly see FDR's motive in his 1 December "three ships" order in which he ordered Admiral Stark to order Admiral Hart to send out three small ships into the path of Japanese naval task forces heading south. As many scholars have shown, the cover story that these three small vessels were to conduct reconnaissance is ludicrous. One of the vessels didn't even have adequate communications gear on board and could not have relayed recon information even if the entire Japanese fleet had stopped in front of it. FDR was hoping the Japanese would fire on one of these small ships and give him his desired excuse to declare war on Japan and thus drag America into the war and save Stalin from Hitler.

Ranneft's account raises an interesting question: Did only two of the six carriers in the Hawaii Operation break radio silence?

 

[mikegriffith1]

Ranneft's diary entry for 2 December reads,

"Conference at Navy Department. ONI (Office of Naval Intelligence). They show me on map the position of two Japanese carriers. They left Japan on easterly course."

When Ranneft returned to ONI on 6 December, he was told the Japanese carriers were about 200 miles from Hawaii.

 

[thedopefishlives]

Everyone who knows that a war is about to start wants the other side to fire the first shot. Why, exactly, do you think the Germans staged the Gleiwitz incident on the eve of war with Poland? That the Americans wanted the Japanese to become the aggressors is hardly surprising, but that does not equate to foreknowledge of the Pearl Harbor attack.

 

[MicahJava]

Thank you for posting this.

 

[LSSBB]

John Toland suggested an interesting theory: He theorized that FDR decided to allow the attack on Pearl Harbor because he was told by Navy Intelligence that only two Japanese carriers were headed to Pearl Harbor, not six carriers, and because he accepted the then-common belief that Pearl Harbor was nearly an impregnable fortress and that Japanese military capabilities were substandard. In other words, FDR believed that the Pearl Harbor attack would result in limited damage and loss of life and that this would be a small price to pay to awaken the American people to support entering the war.

This agrees with what Admiral Ranneft said. He said Navy Intelligence was tracking a Japanese fleet that included two Japanese carriers heading toward Pearl Harbor. By the way, Admiral Ranneft's son confirmed that his father told him about American Navy Intelligence showing him a map a few days before the attack that showed a Japanese fleet with two carriers headed toward Pearl Harbor (http://www.upi.com/Archives/1982/03...efore-it-attacked-Pearl-Harbor/5562384066000/).

We know from Secretary of War Stimson's diary that FDR was looking for a way to provoke the Japanese into firing the first shot without suffering too much damage. After a 25 November White House meeting, Stimson wrote in his diary that "“The question was how we should maneuver them [the Japanese] into firing the first shot without allowing too much danger to ourselves.” So we know for a fact that as of 25 November, FDR and his cabinet were talking about way to provoke the Japanese to attack but to attack in such a way that would not do enormous damage.

Speaking of provocation, Stimson's diary entry helps us to more clearly see FDR's motive in his 1 December "three ships" order in which he ordered Admiral Stark to order Admiral Hart to send out three small ships into the path of Japanese naval task forces heading south. As many scholars have shown, the cover story that these three small vessels were to conduct reconnaissance is ludicrous. One of the vessels didn't even have adequate communications gear on board and could not have relayed recon information even if the entire Japanese fleet had stopped in front of it. FDR was hoping the Japanese would fire on one of these small ships and give him his desired excuse to declare war on Japan and thus drag America into the war and save Stalin from Hitler.

Ranneft's account raises an interesting question: Did only two of the six carriers in the Hawaii Operation break radio silence?

So does he have a document saying Roosevelt was informed of the two carriers, and what his response was in being informed?

 

[Hans]

So does he have a document saying Roosevelt was informed of the two carriers, and what his response was in being informed?

However given the quote is here say and talks about 2 carriers only it is suspect.

No link to the three ships? Why no link to the source?

 

[Border Reiver]

However given the quote is here say and talks about 2 carriers only it is suspect.



No link to the three ships? Why no link to the source?

Ranneft's recollection is somewhat suspect here for a number of reasons:

A. The lack of corroborating documentation from the US office of Naval Intelligence;
B. The lack of corroborating documentation of Japanese transmissions from the Japanese;
C. The lack of any witness to this but Ranneft.

Essentially Ranneft claims, as a military officer of a non-Allied power, that he just happened to walk in on an int shop where the the US was doing nothing about an attack on its forces and territory. And of course that none of the dozens of people who would also be privy to the goings on in that office, with the knowledge that 1000s of their fellow servicemen died, never had an attack of conscience and blabbed until the day they died, while several Congressional hearings never uncovered this.