Did the United States know about Pearl Harbor before it happened?

The US government wanted to get into the war to boost the armaments industry and consequently all the other industries ! Remember, the USA was still reeling from the Great Depression of 1929.

But they needed an excuse, because people are not going to want to go to war to make the big guys richer.

They had been deciphering the Japanese codes and were aware that an attack was imminent, but they did nothing to warn their troops!

Why? Because that provided the perfect excuse for the USA to get in the War.

USA capitalism thrives on war, sorry to say. It was the same reason why they got into the Iraq War! And Vietnam and etc!

It seems that History keeps repeating itself....

It would appear that you need a new teacher. Unless you are taking a class in premonitions.

The 'theory' that the US knew that Japan was going to strike Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7th is one on many "See, the government knows everything in advance" conspiracy logic's.

There was evidence that Japan was going to attack the US in some region of the Pacific but exactly where and when was too great a riddle to solve.

Too many people give King Roosevelt too much credit. The guy wasted billions of dollars on 'Dig a hole and fill it up again' projects. IF WWII had not begun when it did King Roosevelt would have totally bankrupted this country and probably drug a whole lot of our neighbors down with us. And ya'll think THIS guy figured out the attack in advance...PLEASE....

And from the same mouths that claim GWB is an idiot you turn around and decry the guy for KNOWING in advance about the 9/11 attacks...People...Try to keep your thoughts on the same track...GWB cannot creat Hurricanes, he cannot control the weather, or the gas prices from the fat arab schylocks, he cannot control the banking industry. See, all ya'll say he's an idiot then give him superhuman attributes...

And to any loony toon who thinks they or any one else in government 'knew' about 9/11 prior to the actual event...Would have to be a member of the Terrorist Al Qadildo group.

In both cases it seems the government underestimated the abilities of the Japanese and al-Qaeda. You could spend days leafing through conspiracy theories about the attacks, but this is a general guide to the attacks, courtesy of FactsOnFile History.

PEARL HARBOR

As early as January 1941, reports suggested that Japan might attack Pearl Harbor; but civilian and military officials in Washington and Hawaii largely discounted these reports, considering an assault on the Philippines or European colonial possessions more likely, and underestimating Japan's ability to conceal preparations for such an operation. By summer 1941 American leaders knew, thanks to the success of the magic cryptanalysis operation in breaking Japanese military operational codes, that in the relatively near future Japan was likely to take military action of some kind, but they underestimated Japanese capabilities, particularly the capability of the fleet to maintain radio silence while covertly moving close to Pearl Harbor.

9/11

"The 9/11 attacks were a shock, but they should not have come as a surprise." Osama bin Laden and the al-Qaeda network demonstrated the capability to attack high-profile targets in numerous incidents, including the bombing of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998 and the attack on the USS Cole at a Yemeni port in October 2000. Yet according to the commission, administrations under Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush suffered from a "failure of imagination" which prevented them from connecting these attacks to a potential large-scale attack on American soil. Neither did the government connect the activities of the 9/11 hijackers once they entered the United States to any sort of terrorist plot. The summary cites a lack of cooperation between agencies, along with a simple denial that such an attack could occur, as reasons for these deficiencies. The document also describes a government woefully unprepared to deal with the events of September 11. Committee members found miscommunication and confusion at all levels and in all departments, from the Federal Aviation Administration and FBI to the New York City Fire Department.

Pearl Harbor Conspiracy Theory

Brigadier General "Billy" Mitchell had a theory that Japan would want to spread it's imperlialism all over the Pacific with Subic Bay in the Phillipines and Pearl Harbor as it's two prime targets back in 1921.

He went to the press with it and ended up causing an international incident and was court-martialed for it.

No, FDR was not a traitor. Your teacher should work more on correcting your spelling and less on spreading nonsensical lies.

The "United States" is a nation not an individual and so cannot know anything. Did individuals in the U.S. government have foreknowledge of the Pearl Harbor attack? No. Low-level codebreakers, spies, and strategists may have had inklings, but nobody at a powerful level knew the attack was coming in that form at that time.

Even assuming FDR and/or the US Navy were willing to allow the sneak attack (which they would not, not being traitors!), why wouldn't they have moved valuable battleships out of the way? That way, they could have let the attack proceed, enraging the American people into war, yet preserving war equipment to use.

Check out The Mother of All Conspiracies on the WWW for some really detailed info on the Pearl Harbor attack and the guilt of FDR for his provocation of Japan!

The people who say that the US 'knew' about Pearl Harbor generally point to a few things.

1. The codes were broken.

We had broken the diplomatic code, or Purple, by this time, but the military code, wasn't complete broken until after Dec. 7. intelligence had been working on it, and was starting to break it, but they were not reading it fully until after. Even Midway, where the US intelligence had broken the code, were cautious about the information. It wasn't until after Midway where the intelligence gathered from code breaking was taken seriously.

2. By allowing Pearl Harbor, it would get the US into the European War against Hitler because of the Tripartite Pact.

In fact, the treaty between Japan, Germany and Italy states that one would come to the others aide if one member was attacked by a country not already engaged in war with the others. In this case, Japan attacked the US, not the US attacking Japan. So Germany had no cause to declare war. In fact many high ranking Japanese officials, in talking with Germany, didn't think Germany would declare war. Instead Germany pushed for Japan to be at war with the US, taking the US focus off Europe and place it somewhere else.

3. Warning and information were not given to the commanders at Pearl Harbor.

The warning on Dec. 7, was delayed because of atmospheric disruptions between DC and Hawaii, not because someone didn't want to send it. Also because an attack was thought to occur in the Philippines, information was given to those who needed it. They thought there would be time to inform Pearl Harbor during/shortly after the attack on the Philippines to mobilize the fleet to action.

4. The carriers were not at Pearl, allowing for our powerful carriers to strike back.

Carriers were seen during 1941 as equals to the battleship, and supporting the battle-line, not superior to it. Also people who claim this need to realize only two carriers were assigned to Pearl. Two out of seven US fleet carriers on Dec. 7, 1941 that the US fleet had. In fact the Enterprise was scheduled to return on the 6th, but bad weather delayed the ship as she had to refuel her destroy escorts. The other ship, Lexington was on a mission to ferry a squad of fighters to Midway. Also realize after the attack both carriers were assigned to hunt for the enemy fleet. Two carriers against six, if the Japanese had spotted either carrier that day they stood a good chance to sink it reducing the US carrier fleet.

These are but a few ‘reasons’ why some believe the US knew. But in reality, a bit of truth is overlooked and ignored. I fear your teacher has done exactly this. It’s also good to remember that while the US had eight battleships damaged or sunk in the battle, on Dec. 7 the US navy had 15 battleships, not eight. The Japanese navy had ten battleships (neither Yamato or Musashi had been finished yet).

Hope this helps.

That they "knew" was the interpretation of the intellegence report by a reporter who know nothing about intellegence or information gathering.

What they knew was that the japanese had a plan on the table to attack the pacific fleet.

understand that, in the military they are always drawing up plans to attack something. That is part of the training and readyness of any military in any country.

So they knew there was a plan on the table.

But the plan was to bomb them in the philipines and hawai and at least one west coast base.

There was no mention of "when" to the plan.

The navy was concerned enough about the plan that they had all aircraft carriers at sea.

Now if they had actually "known" the plan, They would have been a lot more likely to have those carriers stationed to attack the japanese carriers after their plans had taken off for Pearl.

Dont you think?

Its sad that your history teacher just believes some idle speculation of some journalist instead of actually thinking about it and learning a little about how the military gathers information and the kind of information they gather.

All the stuff that they "know" after the fact, was a lucky guess at the time.

Well, sort of.

while the Americans knew (by cracking certain diplomatic codes) that Japanese diplomats had been instructed to deliver a certain message to the U.S. government at 1 p.m. on December 7 and then destroy their cipher machine and secret documents, and from this deduced that something big was about to happen, they did not know where to expect the initial attack. The Pacific Ocean's a big place, and there were lots of targets available to the Japanese--the Philippines, Dutch East Indies, Singapore, etc.

More info:

http://www.straightdope.com/mailbag/mpearlharbor.h...

Re 9/11, it's kind of the same thing. The government knew that bin Laden was planning to attack the US, just not where or when.