Mailvox: hindsight ahead of time

Ran tries attaching electro-shock paddles to the dead horse:


Vox – Like many armchair generals, you operate with the benefit of hindsight. Planners and leaders in 1942 had to assume worst case against a military that had already overran most Asian colonies, pounded the Royal & US Fleets, & threatened Australia.

Now I’m getting sick of this. Ran, with all due respect, please shut your mouth, turn on your brain, and go read the actual war plans that the planners and leaders you mention had worked out in response to the Japanese military threat. Then get back to me via email. Don’t even think of posting more wildly stupid statements like this until you do so.

Read AWPD-1, AWPD-4, AWPD-42, Rainbow-5, War Plan Orange, and War Plan Red. Then read what Admirals Stark, Nimitz and King had to say AT THE FREAKING TIME!!!!! I’ll be very interested to hear how you argue that they were operating with the benefit of hindsight ahead of time. Were they armchair admirals?

Just to give one of many, many examples:

On 4 February [1942] General Clark of GHQ and Admiral Harold R. Stark, the Chief of Naval Operations, offered testimony on the west coast military outlook at a meeting of the first of these subcommittees. Before they spoke, Senator Holman summed up the situation by saying that the people there were alarmed and horrified as to their persons, their employment, and their homes. General Clark said that he thought the Pacific states were unduly alarmed. While both he and Admiral Stark agreed the west coast defenses were not adequate to prevent the enemy from attacking, they also agreed that the chance of any sustained attack or of an invasion was as General Clark put it-nil. They recognized that sporadic air raids on key installations were a distinct possibility, but they also held that the west coast military defenses were considerable and in fairly good shape; and, as Admiral Stark said, from the military point of view the Pacific coast necessarily had a low priority as compared with Hawaii and the far Pacific. These authoritative Army and Navy views were passed on to the Wallgren subcommittee, but they do not seem to have made much impression.

I’m getting very, very tired of this theoretical idiocy that clearly doesn’t know the first thing about the historical specifics. No admiral or general at all concerned about damaging attacks on the West Coast would have sent all four of their carriers, 160 heavy bombers and 272 fighters to the Dutch East Indies on January 6 and January 11, 1942, and there are a plethora of statements from various generals and admirals that demonstrate this total lack of concern.

If anyone has a specific argument, backed up by historical fact, I’ll be delighted to entertain it and discuss it. Further theoretical objections unsupported by direct citation will be deleted. I don’t want to have to ban anyone, but I won’t hesitate to do so if anyone repeatedly refuses to abide by this very reasonable condition.