World War 2

The True Cause of World War 2

Part 2

Continued from Part 1.

President Roosevelt wasn't listening either to the charges of Congressman Martin Dies, Chairman of the House Committee on Un-American Activities. By August of 1941, the Dies committee had assembled a large amount of evidence which more than confirmed the suspicions which we had entertained on the basis of surface appearances: It was clear that the Japanese were preparing to invade Pearl Harbor and that they were in possession of vital military information.

This information was made available to the Roosevelt administration by Congressman Dies personally. But this was the second time that Dies had appealed to Roosevelt about his knowledge of Japan's intention to attack Pearl Harbor. Early in 1941 the Dies Committee came into possession of a strategic map which gave clear proof of the intentions of the Japanese to make an assault on Pearl Harbor. The strategic map was prepared by the Japanese Imperial Military Intelligence Department.

Dies telephoned Secretary of State Cordell Hull who talked to President Roosevelt.

Congressman Dies was told not to release the document to the public, and the Roosevelt administration did nothing. (In April, 1964, when Dies told the American public of these revelations, he added this comment: "If anyone questions the veracity and accuracy of these statements, I will be glad to furnish him with conclusive proof.")

It was also in August, 1941, when the new product of the I.G. Farben cartel was tested on humans for the first time. The product was called Zyklon B and it was to be used on the Jews and others at the concentration camps.

In the Pacific Theater, Japan's war messages, being read in Washington, started asking their spy in Pearl Harbor to report ship movements, and, later, the exact nature and location of the ships in the harbor.

Japan's request for more information on what was happening at Pearl Harbor was followed on October 16, 1941, by the resignation of the Prince's cabinet in Japan. These resignations were followed by the military administration of General Tojo and his cabinet. All of this activity was recognized by the American government as a decided step toward war, but still nothing was done to alert Pearl Harbor.

It was on this day that Henry Stimson, Roosevelt's Secretary of War, wrote the following in his diary: "... and so we face the delicate question of the diplomatic fencing to be done so as to be sure that Japan be put into the wrong and to make the first bad move—overt move."

Stimson was to repeat this concern that faced the Roosevelt administration when he testified before one of the Committees investigating Pearl Harbor. There he was quoted as saying: "The question was how we should maneuver them [the Japanese] into the position of firing the first shot without allowing too much danger to ourselves."

The Japanese would still not respond with the incident to provoke the United States into retaliating, but America was convinced that it would happen ultimately. For instance, Secretary of State Cordell Hull told Roosevelt on November 7, 1941, that he foresaw "every possibility of an early war with Japan."

Japan continued its efforts towards staying out of a war with the United States and had its Ambassador in Washington continue his efforts towards securing a no-war treaty with the Secretary of State. On November 22, 1941, they wired their Ambassador: "Do your best, spare no efforts and try to bring about the solution we desire."

But even though Japan was attempting to avoid war with the United States, the Japanese were being encouraged by an unlikely source to strike out at the United States. On May 17, 1951, the New York Daily News featured an article by its Washington correspondent, John O'Donnell, concerning various old Far Eastern intelligence reports which were being closely guarded in Washington. Among those documents were the 32,000 word confession of Soviet spy Richard Sorge.

Mr. Sorge was a Russian spy who had infiltrated the German embassy in Japan and worked hard to convince Japanese officials that Japan should not attack Russia, but move south, at the risk of war with the United States.

When Sorge informed the Kremlin [in Russia] in October, 1941, that the Japanese intended to attack Pearl Harbor within 60 days, he received thanks for his report and the notice that Washington — Roosevelt, Marshall, Admiral Stark, et al. — had been advised of the Japanese intentions.

On November 25,1941, the day that the Japanese fleet sailed for Pearl Harbor, President Roosevelt convened a meeting of the various Cabinet officers: Secretaries Stimson, Knox, Marshall and Admiral Harold R. Stark, Chief of Naval Operations. According to Stimson's testimony: "The President brought up the event that we were likely to be attacked perhaps [as soon as] next Monday, for the Japanese are notorious for making an attack without warning. In spite of the risk involved, however, in letting the Japanese fire the first shot, we realized that in order to have the full support of the American people, it was desirable to make sure that the Japanese be the ones to do this so that there should remain no doubt in anyone's mind as to who were the aggressors."

On November 26, 1941, the Japanese Embassy in Washington sent the following message to Tokyo: "Hull said... I am sorry to tell you that we cannot agree to it [Japan's treaty Proposal]."

The British Intelligence Service, which had men inside the Japanese diplomatic agencies in the United States, took the November 26th telegram to Tokyo as meaning that the "Japanese negotiations off. Services expect action within two weeks."

And Roosevelt and the Department of the Army also knew this, as "... a very important American Army Intelligence officer, in service in the Far East during 1941... had gained knowledge of the Yamamoto plan to send a task force to attack Pearl Harbor and sent three separate messages to Washington revealing this information, and at least two of these reached the Army files well before the attack on Pearl Harbor."

Finally, in desperation, the Japanese government sent a message to their Washington embassy on December 6, 1941, in essence breaking off all negotiations with the American government After the message was intercepted by the American government, de-coded and given to Roosevelt, he is quoted as saying: "This means war."

Roosevelt now knew that Japan planned on attacking the United States, but still he did nothing about warning the American forces at Pearl Harbor.

And on December 7,1941, Japan launched a "surprise attack."

The American forces were not prepared for the attack. And the attacking Japanese forces had orders from Japan to return to Japan should they detect any evidence that the Americans had been alerted.

As their air force attacked Pearl Harbor, they reported that the American planes were having difficulty in getting off the ground.

This was because the American planes had been grouped in circles, with their propellers all facing inward as the result of an order by President Roosevelt. It was reported that Roosevelt had ordered the planes grouped in this fashion because he feared "acts of sabotage" against the planes and he was acting to protect them.

Since airplanes do not have a "reverse gear" the grouping of the planes in this manner made it extremely difficult for them to rapidly get out of the circle and into the air. One critic of the circling of these airplanes, Harry Elmer Barnes, has written: "Bunching the planes in a circle, wing to wing, would [make them] helpless in the event of a surprise air attack."

Another strange circumstance was the make-up of the fleet anchored at Pearl Harbor at the time of the attack. The Pacific Fleet consisted of nine battleships and three aircraft carriers along with a host of smaller ships.

During the attack, the Japanese sank or seriously damaged eight battleships but no aircraft carriers.

The American government had reasoned that the aircraft carriers would have an extremely important role to play in the type of war they felt would be waged in the Pacific theater. So all of the aircraft carriers were moved out of Pearl Harbor and all of the less valuable battleships were left behind. The battleships were expendable because most of them had been constructed prior to or during World War I, which meant that they were old and obsolete.

Along with the aircraft carriers, Roosevelt's government also withdrew the smaller, more mobile ships that they knew could be more efficiently utilized in a sea war. On November 28th, Admiral William F. Halsey was sent to Wake Island with the carrier Enterprise, three heavy destroyers and nine destroyers. On December 5th, Admiral John E. Newton was sent to Midway with the carrier Lexington, three heavy cruisers and five destroyers. The carrier Saratoga had been sent to the Pacific Coast.

Admiral Husband Kimmel, the commander of the naval forces at Pearl Harbor, clearly places the blame for Pearl Harbor's unpreparedness on President Roosevelt. He has written: "We were unready at Pearl Harbor because President Roosevelt's plans required that no word be sent to alert the fleet in Hawaii."

The Rt Hon. Oliver Lyttleton, a member of Churchill's war cabinet, declared in an address to the American Chamber of Commerce in London on June 24, 1944: "America provoked [the Japanese] to such an extent that the Japanese were forced to attack Pearl Harbor. It is a travesty of history to say that America was forced into the war."

The Council on Foreign Relations published an article in its publication called Foreign Affairs in January, 1974, that agreed with Lyttleton. The article stated that "Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor actually thrust the United States into World War II, but the Roosevelt administration decided a year and a half earlier to risk war in order to prevent the totalitarian domination of all Europe."

So on December 8, 1941, President Roosevelt asked the Congress to declare war on Japan, stating that December 7, 1941 would go down in history as a "day of infamy."

So when Roosevelt addressed the nation through his speech in Congress, he lied when he said: "We don't like it — and we didn't want to get in it — but we are in it and we're going to fight it with everything we've got."

So Roosevelt asked for, and received, a Declaration of War against Japan. Germany followed on December 11th with a Declaration of War against the United States. This action was in accordance with the terms of the Tripartite Treaty signed earlier by Germany, Italy and Japan.

Roosevelt's activities in the planning of Pearl Harbor had a costly price. The final toll was 2,341 U.S. servicemen dead and 1,143 wounded; eighteen ships including the eight battleships were sunk or heavily damaged; more than two hundred Army Air Corps and Navy planes were destroyed or unusable; and sixty-eight civilians were killed.

For his supposed unpreparedness at Pearl Harbor, Admiral Kimmel was relieved of his command, and he retired on January 7, 1942.

After the war was over. Congress looked into the reasons for the lack of preparation at Pearl Harbor. Their conclusions are most revealing:

1. The attack was unprovoked by America;
2. There was no evidence that the President, Secretary of State, Secretary of War, Secretary of Navy, provoked the attack;
3. The American government made every effort to avoid the war with Japan;
4. The attack was caused by the Army's and Navy's failure to detect hostile forces; and
5. The errors made were errors of judgment and not derelictions of duty.

The last conclusion was apparently intended to relieve the commanders of the armed forces from responsibility so that they could not be court-martialed. Admiral Kimmel and General Walter C. Short, the commander of the armed forces at Pearl Harbor, continuously pleaded for a court martial to clear their reputations, but they were never granted.

Admiral Robert Theobold, the Commander of all destroyers at Pearl Harbor, wrote a book entitled The Final Secret of Pearl Harbor, in which he detailed his conclusions about the "surprise attack." He wrote:

1. President Roosevelt forced Japan to war and enticed them to initiate hostilities by holding the Pacific fleet in Hawaiian waters as an invitation to that attack;
2. The plans to use Pearl Harbor as the bait started in June, 1940;
3. War with Japan meant war with Germany; and
4. Roosevelt, Marshall and Stark knew about Pearl Harbor 21 hours before the attack.

But in spite of all of this evidence that the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor was known by Roosevelt and his top advisors well in advance of that actual event, there are those who still hold to the position that the government, and Roosevelt specifically, knew nothing about it.

So America now had a two-front war against Japan in the Pacific and against Germany in Europe.

Just as planned!