Kurt wrote --
Yes, FDR provoked Japan through sanctions and other economic means.
U-boats were sinking cargo ships left and right off the Atlantic coast
taking food and material to England prior to Pearl Harbour. They loved how
the lights were on in cities along the coast which gave them a good
silhouettes of the ships.
These were not generally reported in the news at the time.
And what reports there were listed the sinkings and deaths due to things
like weather, etc.
Yes, they probably thought that the USA would back off, hoping that
isolationist tendancies would prevail.
True.
But after PH Yamamoto said Japan had awakened a sleeping tiger and knew
it would only be a matter of time before Japan lost.
The only way to jar the USA into action would be an attack on the country. Japan arguably played right into that.
The government knew there would be an attack, but not where. We were
looking on the east coast for an attack, not the middle of the Pacific.
knowing that battleships were the instruments that won the last war, and that the next war would be won by carriers?
There's an old saying: The victors re-fight the last war, the loser
fights the next one.
This worked last time, lets do it again,
That didn't work so well last time, let's try something new.
Not to mention the fact that WWII started in 1939. Americans tend to
have a US-centric view of the war.
Because we only got involved in 1941. Before then we were just sitting
on the sidelines.
Joe
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