I believe the sanctions in place were to bring political (economic) pressure on the Japanese. That pressure always carries a risk of warfare. I also believe that the imperfect translation of Japanese codes would lead someone to know something was up, but not necessarily where. (Recall, Midway Island had to fake water supply problems to be identified in the Japanese coded traffic in order to intercept Japanese forces there.)
I have little doubt that the diplomatic and trade pressure created a situation where war was a risk, but from New Guinea to the Philippines and east to Hawaii, Americans had naval outposts. The Japanese wave of conquest was moving South toward Australia.
Between normalcy bias on the part of command staff and politicians, and the fairly new concept of attacking someone's fleet half an ocean away with serious effect, to look back on what seems obvious now and say ''they should have know", or, "they had to know" is likely inaccurate.
Maybe in our 20/20 hindsight, walking through the maze backwards sees nothing but what seem to be obvious conclusions, but walking through the maze of history in the direction it happened exposes the myriad logical blind alleys which greeted all but the most prescient and insightful. It is easy to go from a leaf on a tree backwards to find the base of the trunk, not so easy to start at the base and find a specific leaf.
At each junction, not only must the analyst find the correct choice, they must have information which supports that conclusion. They must be capable of presenting that conclusion and the correct data to those higher in the tree, and convincing that person or committee that their analysis is correct.
That goes through multiple steps in the food chain before it gets to the top. At any juncture, the normalcy bias of those in command can scuttle the conclusion and any theory it leads to.
Consider, given what you KNOW about the Dec. 7 attack, if you were there, on November 23, given two weeks to convince the right people in command that there was an attack coming, and given some title or status enough to be able to be even slightly credible and not just some streetcorner guy in a robe with a sandwich board, would you be able to convince either the military, politicians, or both of the impending attack, time, and place?
Would you even get the opportunity to convince the people in Command?
Now, question number two. If you had the wherewithal to know every action to be taken through intelligence intercepts, broken codes, spies on the inside, or even a combination of those, knowing that you would not be looking at a definitive outcome at this point for either side, would you compromise your intel network/code-breaking advantage/HUMINT sources by acting on that intel in a way which would make it a likely conclusion on the part of your enemies that you had those resources, or would you save your high value trump card for later, when the advantage may be more decisive?
Recall, too, Coventry. The British had an enigma machine, they had the books, and knew Coventry was going to be attacked (bombed). Warning the population of that city would let the Germans know that we were reading their mail, and have caused them to change their codes. Codes which were believed to be secure by the Germans, which enabled more vital interceptions later on. Do you show your hand and let them change their codes and place your self at a disadvantage later?
You take the strategic view and make the hard choice.
Coventry was bombed by the Germans. The sacrifice of the civilians there was presented as a moral outrage on the part of the enemy, and became one more rallying point for the British population in their resolve to defeat the Nazis.
We may or may not have had such intel prior to Pearl Harbor, at least in the right hands. I note our carriers were absent from the harbor during the attack. Of the battleships sunk, the newest, the
West Virginia, was 20 years old, and though she survived to fight another day after being re-floated and extensively refit in time for the Battle of Leyte Gulf in 1944. The upgrades from that refit gave her a significant radar and fire control advantage, even over the other vessels in the US contingent, advantages which helped the US Navy to prevail in that battle.
Prior to Pearl Harbor, tensions between the US and Japan were high, and the very real possibility of war was only likely to be averted if the Japanese met with demands they were unlikely to meet. The Japanese had been on their West Pacific blitzkreig longer than the Germans had been in Europe. Given that, however, the anticipated point of conflict was more likely to be somewhere in the vicinity of Wake, Guam, or the Philippines, and not so deep into the envelope of control. Concerns were more with reinforcing air assets at those far-flung bases than defending Pearl Harbor, which partly explains why the Carriers were not in the harbor on 12/7.
It was known that the Harbor was being spied upon by the enemy, just as the English knew there were spies who would relay that Coventry had been warned, had that been the case.
The need for the undetected absence of the carriers is even clearer when we consider that Toshikawa Hideo was making regular reports to Japan regarding the ships in port, and dates of sailings and returns. He made a "ships in port" report on the 6th, indicating no carriers in the harbor. This message was in the PA-K2 code and translated on Dec. 8th by the Army. We could speculate that, given the knowledge that Pearl Harbor was being watched, we could have "baited the trap" with the carriers, and actually hustled them out late on the 6th, rather than risking the enemy's calling the whole thing off because the carriers were gone. This presupposes that someone would have known about the attack in the first place.
Interesting discussion of the absent carriers here:
http://www.ibiblio.org/pha/myths/Missing_Carriers.htmlSo, it wasn't as if the US was skipping down the primrose path to be caught completely unawares, commanders were aware of impending war, and the Japanese were a foe to be anticipated. Again, though sending clear signals to the enemy that you are informed of their orders or actions is a loss of strategic advantage early on, when the battle at hand will not be the end of conflict, but the beginning.
So if the attack was in fact even known about in advance, what would have been done about it? How much could be done without the Japanese suspecting we had broken their codes?
Both events, Coventry's Bombing, Pearl Harbor, were presented to their respective populations as dastardly deeds of demonic and diabolical enemies, enemies to be fought with every fiber of our being. They became rallying points to energize respective populaces. There may have been foreknowledge in both instances, and there definitely was in the instance of Coventry, but the ugly strategic question of whether that knowledge would have been acted upon in any obvious and meaningful way remains.
The events were stages in the development of the war. There was plenty enough evil in the world in those days without it all sitting down together and planning out the conflicts that developed, even though all that evil ultimately comes from the same source.
We can look back, knowing what we know now, and second guess, but it is only in the movies that some relatively obscure person who absolutely knows what adverse event is coming who can warn all the 'right' people in time to avoid it.
Today, even with the internet and social media, it would be difficult to bring something to the serious attention of those in a position to make decisions affecting the outcome, and who in those positions would have the courage to act on such in the face of possibly being wrong?
Poll
