Question for Gawdzilla

[HansMustermann]

Astonishingly, I have read that this was due to the reluctance of local interest groups to introduce any measure that might hurt tourism.

Well, I don't think it's astonishing at all if you put it into the context that:

A) an attack was not expected, and

B) when attacks did happen, also did the idiotic attempts to keep them secret. E.g., turns out that the whole "loose lips sink ships" campaign wasn't even as much aimed at keeping the Germans in the dark about where the ships are (and German subs were opportunistic hunters along the sea lanes, anyway, rather than tracking a specific individual ship to sink it) but to suppress information about the ships that did get sunk. In as much as even possible. All in the name of not lowering the morale of the population.

So if you don't expect to be attacked, or not much, it makes sense to not make sacrifices to avoid something non-existent or almost non-existent. I mean, they'd ask the local businesses to take a big hit for... what? For nothing, as far as they knew?

Risk assessment and mitigation has much in common with game theory. You balance the cost times probability in case X happens and you weren't prepared, vs cost times probability in case you decided to spend on preparing and nothing happens. It's why you don't spend on earthquake proof buildings or tsunami defenses in Minnesota.

Not preparing for a extremely improbable contingency can be, and often is, actually the rational choice.

I guess the moral of the story is that dumb propaganda decisions bit more countries in the ass than just the Axis countries.

 

[Craig B]

Well, I don't think it's astonishing at all if you put it into the context that:

A) an attack was not expected, and

B) when attacks did happen, also did the idiotic attempts to keep them secret.

I mean, even after the start of the attacks. See http://www.johndclare.net/wwii8_sandiegoWW2Timelineatlantic.html

May 14 (1942) - U.S. finally started convoys and blackouts along East coast.

 

[HansMustermann]

Well, yes, but also pretty soon after the first attacks, the US Government propaganda machine got into gear, creating the impression that (A) not half as many ships are sunk as really were, and (B) that they're sinking those subs before they can go back home.

Just, you know, in the interest of state security, people who had witnessed the sinking of a sub are asked to keep it secret. In effect, they created a conspiracy theory.

It's a one-two punch, since B reassures people that one way or another those subs aren't coming back. Like indeed happened later, when the US actually did start sinking subs, and Germany moved the rest of them somewhere else.