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

[Hans]

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.

Not just a non-Allied power but one occupied by Germany which was certainly not a friend of the US at that time. I wonder where his own family and extended family was at that time too? Would the US have allowed a man in his position who might be compromised to just walk into a place like that?

 

[LSSBB]

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

Kinda what I was getting at.

 

[Hans]

Kinda what I was getting at.

You need to evoke the Bob T rule. If a statement can be taken out of context, be considered hear say, has no support, isn't plausible or borders on delusion - it just might be....

 

[A'isha]

Another fringe reset from bobtaftfan, I see.

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.

Which Ranneft didn't record at the time it purportedly happened, but much much later.

And no explanation for why your hyped FBI memos that you claim prove that the US intercepted both the plan for the Japanese attack and the execute message for that attack before they happened also state quite clearly that the military authorities in Pearl Harbor were given copies of those messages?

 

[sackett]

bobtaftfan repeats the old, old canard that Roosevelt wanted to “drag the U.S. into the war.”

There’s something particularly offensive about that. FDR could only hope to coax Americans into providing more aid for the British, such was the bullet-headed isolationist mood in the country at that time – in spite of the widespread knowledge of just how appalling world fascism, and especially Nazism, really was.

FDR should have pushed, hustled, bullied, and shamed the U.S. into declaring war on those scum. If he engineered PH as a way of getting the country into the fight, then good for him.*

But I wonder if bobtaftfan really feels the same way about fascism as I do. A guy who’d dedicate his screen name to the likes of Robert Alphonso Taft really ought to clarify that point.

I didn’t make up the Alphonso part.

*No, I don't for one instant think or believe that. I've given my opinion of right-wing taradiddle.

 

[dudalb]

BTW what the hell happened to Gawdzilla?

 

[BaaBaa]

Seconded. I always enjoyed his posts.

 

[Tolls]

There’s something particularly offensive about that. FDR could only hope to coax Americans into providing more aid for the British, such was the bullet-headed isolationist mood in the country at that time – in spite of the widespread knowledge of just how appalling world fascism, and especially Nazism, really was.

The Gallup polls through 1941 don't entirely hold that up.
They're fairly clear that people didn't want to go into the war, but that appears to be down to the view that the UK would win (with US material support) in the early part of the year. When asked if the US should go in if there was no way for Germany to be beaten then the response flips (even in April) to 2/3rds for going to war.

By May the support for using US naval ships to guard freighters carrying war materials to the UK had flipped so that a majority started to support the idea.

By September people seemed happy with the US navy shooting up German subs. As well as significant majority feeling it was more important for Germany to be beaten than the US to remain out of the war.

 

[sackett]

Thanks, Tolls, for the correction. I may depend too much on pop.notions passed to me by the elders; I was born in 1942, and grew up on common knowledge, always a poor source to rely on.

So FDR had even less reason to "drag the country into the war." Events did that, as was of course inevitable.

 

[Tolls]

It's a common misconception.
I was surprised by the polling data when I first saw it.

 

[catsmate]

BTW what the hell happened to Gawdzilla?

Seconded. I always enjoyed his posts.

He hasn't been here since June, I have a bad feeling.

 

[Border Reiver]

He hasn't been here since June, I have a bad feeling.

I have the same feeling given some of his posts from earlier in the year.

 

[Elagabalus]

He hasn't been here since June, I have a bad feeling.

Fear no more!

http://www.skepticforum.com/viewforum.php?f=7



I think he got fed up with this place.

 

[Hans]

Fear no more!

http://www.skepticforum.com/viewforum.php?f=7



I think he got fed up with this place.

Glad to see he is still kicking

What with intellectual stalwarts like @*&^%, *&^%, @#$% and of course @!#@$#@#$# and *(&^% why wouldn't someone want to stay here!

 

[SpitfireIX]

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.

The US military knew that the Japanese were going to attack the Philippines; how would that not have had an identical effect? Answer: It would have had an identical effect. So what, exactly, would have been the point of allowing this purported expected small attack to go forward without alerting Hawaii to the specific danger?

 

[dudalb]

The US military knew that the Japanese were going to attack the Philippines; how would that not have had an identical effect? Answer: It would have had an identical effect. So what, exactly, would have been the point of allowing this purported expected small attack to go forward without alerting Hawaii to the specific danger?

This is a point not made often enough:if the Japanese had just attacked the Philippines and Guam without a formal declaration of war,it would have been just as much a act of war, and has the same impact on the American Public as the Pearl Harbor attack.

 

[A'isha]

This is a point not made often enough:if the Japanese had just attacked the Philippines and Guam without a formal declaration of war,it would have been just as much a act of war, and has the same impact on the American Public as the Pearl Harbor attack.

Especially after Bataan.

 

[mikegriffith1]

Key, indisputable evidence of the Pearl Harbor cover-up is the Merle-Smith message and the related and confirmatory Creighton message. The Merle-Smith message proves that FDR knew by 5 December, at the latest, that we were at war with Japan because the ABCD agreement had been invoked by the Dutch (and FDR confirmed that America would honor its commitment under the agreement). That's why the message had to doctored, and that's why the Democrats did all they could to bury the Creighton message. Harry Barnes:

When [Lt. Robert] O'Dell [who coded the Merle-Smith message] was called to testify before the Army Pearl Harbor Board, the government only presented a paraphrase of the original Merle-Smith message which arbitrarily changed some of the dates and modified the content in other places. For instance, it represented the defensive action of the Dutch and Australian planes as starting at 8:00 A.M. on the 7th when this actually took place on December 5th, Australian time, or December 4th, Washington time. Even the original copy of the Merle-Smith message in the Clarke Inquiry exhibits bears a phony date for the transmission of the message from Melbourne, giving it as December 6th when it should have been the 5th, Australian time, or the 4th Washington time. (Pearl Harbor After a Quarter of a Century, p. 114)

The Creighton message, a copy of which surfaced during the JCC hearings, confirms that FDR knew we were at war by no later than 5 December:

The first definite information given to an American representative in the Far East that Roosevelt had confirmed the participation of the United States in the war that was now under way after having been initiated by the Dutch implementation of ABCD and Rainbow 5 (A-2) on Wednesday, December 3rd. Washington time, came in the precise and conclusive statement of Air Marshal Brooke-Popham to Captain Creighton at Singapore to which reference has already been made. It contained London's confirmation that Roosevelt had approved the Dutch and British implementation of Rainbow 5. Captain Creighton sent this information to Admiral Hart from Singapore on December 6th, at which time Hart was being visited by Vice-Admiral Sir Tom Phillips, who had just been placed in command of all British naval forces in China. Hart showed the Creighton message to Phillips, who immediately departed to return to Singapore. As he left Hart's office, the latter told him that he would send the American destroyers then based on Borneo to aid Phillips and the British naval forces, thus confirming the agreement that the United States was at war in the Far East. (p. 117)

Of course, traditionalist scholars expect us to believe that the Merle-Smith message somehow, someway did not surface in Washington until seven hours after the bombing on 7 December. As Commander Hiles, the most well-informed student of the Merle-Smith message, puts it, "Encoded messages from military attaches in time of crisis such as this one do not lie around neglected unless for ulterior purposes of no honest portent or through gross negligence" (Barnes, "Pearl Harbor: Antecedents, Background, and Consequences," in James Martin, editor, The Saga of Hog Island, p. 122).

 

[Border Reiver]

Key, indisputable evidence of the Pearl Harbor cover-up is the Merle-Smith message and the related and confirmatory Creighton message. The Merle-Smith message proves that FDR knew by 5 December, at the latest, that we were at war with Japan because the ABCD agreement had been invoked by the Dutch (and FDR confirmed that America would honor its commitment under the agreement). That's why the message had to doctored, and that's why the Democrats did all they could to bury the Creighton message. Harry Barnes:



The Creighton message, a copy of which surfaced during the JCC hearings, confirms that FDR knew we were at war by no later than 5 December:



Of course, traditionalist scholars expect us to believe that the Merle-Smith message somehow, someway did not surface in Washington until seven hours after the bombing on 7 December. As Commander Hiles, the most well-informed student of the Merle-Smith message, puts it, "Encoded messages from military attaches in time of crisis such as this one do not lie around neglected unless for ulterior purposes of no honest portent or through gross negligence" (Barnes, "Pearl Harbor: Antecedents, Background, and Consequences," in James Martin, editor, The Saga of Hog Island, p. 122).

Couple of points:

1. Colonel Merle-Smith was still an investment banker on Dec 4/5, 1941. He did not return to military service until after Pearl Harbour. Unless there's another, how do you account for the time travel?

2. The Creighton Message deals with a Dutch submarine allegedly stumbling across the Kido Butai. Given that the Dutch colonial possessions were all in South East Asia, how did they stumble across ships in the North Pacific? Captain couldn't read his charts and ended up way out of his AO?

 

[Hans]

Couple of points:

2. The Creighton Message deals with a Dutch submarine allegedly stumbling across the Kido Butai. Given that the Dutch colonial possessions were all in South East Asia, how did they stumble across ships in the North Pacific? Captain couldn't read his charts and ended up way out of his AO?

I believe that was a report of the movement of a Japanese force towards Ambon in the Dutch East Indies that would carry it over the Davao-Waigeo line.