Was Japan known to be a potential threat to the USA in the 10 year period prior to 1941











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In the years leading up to the Pearl Harbor attack did Americans see Japan as a potential threat. From this perspective in how this would have been seen to the "Average Joe" rather than somebody in the military or related service.










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  • I interviewed of friend of my dad's who was at the attack. From moneybender.com/spike.pdf, "A few days before the historic day of December 7, 1941, Spike and a fellow ensign leaned on the rail of the Blue, reveling in the glory of the collected might of the United States Navy. 'Look at all these ships,' Spike remembered saying, 'Battleships, cruisers, carriers, destroyers. No one would ever dare attack us.'" I don't know about the Average Joe, but it seemed pretty unlikely to these guys.
    – Don Branson
    2 hours ago















up vote
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down vote

favorite
2












In the years leading up to the Pearl Harbor attack did Americans see Japan as a potential threat. From this perspective in how this would have been seen to the "Average Joe" rather than somebody in the military or related service.










share|improve this question
























  • I interviewed of friend of my dad's who was at the attack. From moneybender.com/spike.pdf, "A few days before the historic day of December 7, 1941, Spike and a fellow ensign leaned on the rail of the Blue, reveling in the glory of the collected might of the United States Navy. 'Look at all these ships,' Spike remembered saying, 'Battleships, cruisers, carriers, destroyers. No one would ever dare attack us.'" I don't know about the Average Joe, but it seemed pretty unlikely to these guys.
    – Don Branson
    2 hours ago













up vote
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up vote
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In the years leading up to the Pearl Harbor attack did Americans see Japan as a potential threat. From this perspective in how this would have been seen to the "Average Joe" rather than somebody in the military or related service.










share|improve this question















In the years leading up to the Pearl Harbor attack did Americans see Japan as a potential threat. From this perspective in how this would have been seen to the "Average Joe" rather than somebody in the military or related service.







united-states world-war-two war






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edited 19 hours ago









Mark C. Wallace

23.2k872111




23.2k872111










asked 21 hours ago









user1605665

19115




19115












  • I interviewed of friend of my dad's who was at the attack. From moneybender.com/spike.pdf, "A few days before the historic day of December 7, 1941, Spike and a fellow ensign leaned on the rail of the Blue, reveling in the glory of the collected might of the United States Navy. 'Look at all these ships,' Spike remembered saying, 'Battleships, cruisers, carriers, destroyers. No one would ever dare attack us.'" I don't know about the Average Joe, but it seemed pretty unlikely to these guys.
    – Don Branson
    2 hours ago


















  • I interviewed of friend of my dad's who was at the attack. From moneybender.com/spike.pdf, "A few days before the historic day of December 7, 1941, Spike and a fellow ensign leaned on the rail of the Blue, reveling in the glory of the collected might of the United States Navy. 'Look at all these ships,' Spike remembered saying, 'Battleships, cruisers, carriers, destroyers. No one would ever dare attack us.'" I don't know about the Average Joe, but it seemed pretty unlikely to these guys.
    – Don Branson
    2 hours ago
















I interviewed of friend of my dad's who was at the attack. From moneybender.com/spike.pdf, "A few days before the historic day of December 7, 1941, Spike and a fellow ensign leaned on the rail of the Blue, reveling in the glory of the collected might of the United States Navy. 'Look at all these ships,' Spike remembered saying, 'Battleships, cruisers, carriers, destroyers. No one would ever dare attack us.'" I don't know about the Average Joe, but it seemed pretty unlikely to these guys.
– Don Branson
2 hours ago




I interviewed of friend of my dad's who was at the attack. From moneybender.com/spike.pdf, "A few days before the historic day of December 7, 1941, Spike and a fellow ensign leaned on the rail of the Blue, reveling in the glory of the collected might of the United States Navy. 'Look at all these ships,' Spike remembered saying, 'Battleships, cruisers, carriers, destroyers. No one would ever dare attack us.'" I don't know about the Average Joe, but it seemed pretty unlikely to these guys.
– Don Branson
2 hours ago










3 Answers
3






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up vote
29
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Question:

Was Japan known to be a potential threat to the USA in the 10 year period prior to 1941




Short Answer



Yes some military experts did realize the inevitability of war between the United States and Japan as early as 1912. Most did not up until the late 1930s.



No conventional wisdom in the 1930's would not permit the American public to have viewed agrarian feudalistic Japan 5300 miles from California much of a threat. Aircraft warfare was yet unproven, much less aircraft carrier warfare. The United States Pacific Fleet was conventionally believed to be more than a match for Japans navy right up until Pearl Harbor.



Detailed Answer



Yes



United States General Billy Mitchell, an early visionary of US air power, in March 1912 after touring Russo Japanese War Battle Fields in the Pacific, deemed war between the United States and Japan inevitable. In 1924, General Mitchell delivered a 324-page report, which not only continued to predict war with Japan, but it predicted Japan's surprise attack by air on Pearl Harbor.



No



History remembers Mitchell as a visionary of the use of airpower in the coming decades. But, at the time, Mitchell did not have much support among the US military leadership. His predictions that Japan would threaten the United States were deemed amazingly misguided by the US military leadership.



Mitchell, who reached the rank of Major General and Assistant Chief of the Air Service, was demoted to colonel and court marshaled in 1925 for "accusing senior leaders in the Army and Navy of incompetence" and "almost treasonable administration of the national defense" after a series of avoidable air accidents. Mitchel would be re-advanced to the rank of Major General posthumously and he goes down in history as a visionary and outspoken advocate for airpower decades before war in the Pacific would prove him right.



Beyond Billy Mitchell, what really soured relatively good relations between the United States and Japan was 1937 and the Second Sino-Japanese War. This "caused the United States to impose harsh sanctions against Japan, ultimately leading to the Japanese surprise attack against the US naval base at Pearl Harbor." (as put by Japan-United States relations on Wikipedia)



As for Conventional wisdom



Pearl Harbor the Advanced base for the US Navy was seen as impervious to air attack due to its shallow harbor right up until the Japanese did it on Dec 7th 1941. The United States enjoyed superiority over Japan in Battle ships and other capital ships, believed to be the measure of a navy up until Pearl Harbor and early WWII. Japan was just too far removed from America's shores to be conventionally considered a real threat. Japan was also shacked by treaties like the Washington Naval Treaty of 1922 which kept the Japanese Navy numerically inferior to the US.



Sources




  • Billy Mitchell

  • Russo-Japanese War

  • Japan United States Relations

  • Japan, China, the United States and the Road to Pearl Harbor, 1937–41

  • Washington Naval Treaty of 1922






share|improve this answer



















  • 2




    To be fair, Mitchel was not actually demoted; he lost temporary rank as did many officers in the years after WW1.. But it would also be fair to say that situations under which Mitchel reverted in rank caused the reversion to seem punishment. Also in fairness, Mitchel had used Japan as an example of a power that might threaten. In later minds he seemed to be predicting, but what he was actually doing was articulating the potential of air power, Japan projecting its power by air..Almost all of Mitchel's intellectual and emotional energy was focused on the U S air arsenal vs any threat..
    – J. Taylor
    8 hours ago






  • 4




    "Pearl Harbor ... was seen as impervious to air attack due to its shallow harbor" Could you please expand on this?
    – Juggerbot
    8 hours ago






  • 5




    @Juggerbot Specifically, it was considered impossible for aircraft to launch torpedoes in the shallow waters of Pearl Harbor. An air-launched torpedo is dropped into the water and typically sinks a fair distance before leveling out. There were therefore no torpedo nets in place, because they would have been cumbersome. A study of US Fleet Problems in the pre-WWII period suggests that air strikes at Pearl were expected when the fleet was away, to damage base facilities, but not at the fleet itself.
    – David Thornley
    8 hours ago






  • 1




    Nitpick: The term is "court martial" (or "court-martial", "courtmartial"), the "martial" being an adjective meaning military: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Court-martial
    – jamesqf
    5 hours ago










  • Past participle is "court-martialled" in BrEng, AmEng seems to spell it "court-martialed"
    – Law29
    5 hours ago


















up vote
5
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Some people did, most didn't. Billy Mitchell, among others, warned. But most people didn't see those funny little yellow men with thick glasses and hilarious swords (stereotype of the day) as really dangerous. Not for America, anyway.



Yes, the massacre of Nanking was widely known, but that was somewhere far, far away. In 1937 there had been an incident in which the USS Panay was sunk with loss of life. But the Japanese government apologized and paid for damages.



Look especially at the America First movement. That movement was politically very strong and extreme (certainly by our standards) isolationist. It was their influence that kept America out of the war against Germany. Until the attack on Pearl Harbor.



The America First movement was not aligned with the democrats or the republicans. It was a kind of popular movement, and voiced what the 'Average Joe' thought.



The movement collapsed almost overnight after the attack on Pearl Harbor. They folded (voluntary) on 11 December 1941.






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  • Yes, this was back in the halcyon days of yore, when respectable political parties in the US couldn't be seen as fully embracing bigotry-fueled nativists, so the far-right nationalist populists had to run their own separate movements and political parties
    – T.E.D.
    6 hours ago








  • 1




    @T.E.D I guess the irony of FDR's administration putting Japanese American's in Concentration camps was lost on you, eh? Let's not fall into a rose tinted glasses trap here; there has always been a strong reflexive, nativistic strain in America. "Respectable" political parties have always embraced some degree of nativism in the right context. The modern Democratic party has not been "nativist" for generations, but you don't have to go far back to find Chuck Shumer and Bernie Sanders condemning illegal immigration.
    – VivaLebowski
    59 mins ago




















up vote
3
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A Gallup poll conducted just prior to the Pearl Harbour attack in 1941 found that:




  • 52% of Americans expected war with Japan.

  • 27% did not.

  • 21% had no opinion.


So there's that.






share|improve this answer










New contributor




Nik Kyriakides is a new contributor to this site. Take care in asking for clarification, commenting, and answering.
Check out our Code of Conduct.














  • 1




    Any examples or references to support the first statement ("since the 1920's")?
    – Steve Bird
    14 hours ago










  • The stoppage of oil exports was a response to the Japanese occupation of southern Indochina, which did not further the war against China and was the beginning of the expansion of the war into the Pacific and Indian oceans.
    – David Thornley
    8 hours ago






  • 1




    This is the only answer that directly answers the question, by providing (sourced) evidence of public levels of knowledge, rather than largely being concerned with the beliefs of one individual (Billy Mitchell) or anecdotal interpretations of "conventional wisdom".
    – Michael MacAskill
    2 hours ago










  • Where there any public surveys prior like 1935 or so? It would be interesting to see if there was a change of attitude over that period
    – user1605665
    2 hours ago










  • No idea, that's the only one I could find; Coincidentally I was reading "Attack on Pearl Harbor" Wikipedia page just yesterday and was kinda stunned that it really wasn't such a big surprise after all.
    – Nik Kyriakides
    1 hour ago













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3 Answers
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up vote
29
down vote














Question:

Was Japan known to be a potential threat to the USA in the 10 year period prior to 1941




Short Answer



Yes some military experts did realize the inevitability of war between the United States and Japan as early as 1912. Most did not up until the late 1930s.



No conventional wisdom in the 1930's would not permit the American public to have viewed agrarian feudalistic Japan 5300 miles from California much of a threat. Aircraft warfare was yet unproven, much less aircraft carrier warfare. The United States Pacific Fleet was conventionally believed to be more than a match for Japans navy right up until Pearl Harbor.



Detailed Answer



Yes



United States General Billy Mitchell, an early visionary of US air power, in March 1912 after touring Russo Japanese War Battle Fields in the Pacific, deemed war between the United States and Japan inevitable. In 1924, General Mitchell delivered a 324-page report, which not only continued to predict war with Japan, but it predicted Japan's surprise attack by air on Pearl Harbor.



No



History remembers Mitchell as a visionary of the use of airpower in the coming decades. But, at the time, Mitchell did not have much support among the US military leadership. His predictions that Japan would threaten the United States were deemed amazingly misguided by the US military leadership.



Mitchell, who reached the rank of Major General and Assistant Chief of the Air Service, was demoted to colonel and court marshaled in 1925 for "accusing senior leaders in the Army and Navy of incompetence" and "almost treasonable administration of the national defense" after a series of avoidable air accidents. Mitchel would be re-advanced to the rank of Major General posthumously and he goes down in history as a visionary and outspoken advocate for airpower decades before war in the Pacific would prove him right.



Beyond Billy Mitchell, what really soured relatively good relations between the United States and Japan was 1937 and the Second Sino-Japanese War. This "caused the United States to impose harsh sanctions against Japan, ultimately leading to the Japanese surprise attack against the US naval base at Pearl Harbor." (as put by Japan-United States relations on Wikipedia)



As for Conventional wisdom



Pearl Harbor the Advanced base for the US Navy was seen as impervious to air attack due to its shallow harbor right up until the Japanese did it on Dec 7th 1941. The United States enjoyed superiority over Japan in Battle ships and other capital ships, believed to be the measure of a navy up until Pearl Harbor and early WWII. Japan was just too far removed from America's shores to be conventionally considered a real threat. Japan was also shacked by treaties like the Washington Naval Treaty of 1922 which kept the Japanese Navy numerically inferior to the US.



Sources




  • Billy Mitchell

  • Russo-Japanese War

  • Japan United States Relations

  • Japan, China, the United States and the Road to Pearl Harbor, 1937–41

  • Washington Naval Treaty of 1922






share|improve this answer



















  • 2




    To be fair, Mitchel was not actually demoted; he lost temporary rank as did many officers in the years after WW1.. But it would also be fair to say that situations under which Mitchel reverted in rank caused the reversion to seem punishment. Also in fairness, Mitchel had used Japan as an example of a power that might threaten. In later minds he seemed to be predicting, but what he was actually doing was articulating the potential of air power, Japan projecting its power by air..Almost all of Mitchel's intellectual and emotional energy was focused on the U S air arsenal vs any threat..
    – J. Taylor
    8 hours ago






  • 4




    "Pearl Harbor ... was seen as impervious to air attack due to its shallow harbor" Could you please expand on this?
    – Juggerbot
    8 hours ago






  • 5




    @Juggerbot Specifically, it was considered impossible for aircraft to launch torpedoes in the shallow waters of Pearl Harbor. An air-launched torpedo is dropped into the water and typically sinks a fair distance before leveling out. There were therefore no torpedo nets in place, because they would have been cumbersome. A study of US Fleet Problems in the pre-WWII period suggests that air strikes at Pearl were expected when the fleet was away, to damage base facilities, but not at the fleet itself.
    – David Thornley
    8 hours ago






  • 1




    Nitpick: The term is "court martial" (or "court-martial", "courtmartial"), the "martial" being an adjective meaning military: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Court-martial
    – jamesqf
    5 hours ago










  • Past participle is "court-martialled" in BrEng, AmEng seems to spell it "court-martialed"
    – Law29
    5 hours ago















up vote
29
down vote














Question:

Was Japan known to be a potential threat to the USA in the 10 year period prior to 1941




Short Answer



Yes some military experts did realize the inevitability of war between the United States and Japan as early as 1912. Most did not up until the late 1930s.



No conventional wisdom in the 1930's would not permit the American public to have viewed agrarian feudalistic Japan 5300 miles from California much of a threat. Aircraft warfare was yet unproven, much less aircraft carrier warfare. The United States Pacific Fleet was conventionally believed to be more than a match for Japans navy right up until Pearl Harbor.



Detailed Answer



Yes



United States General Billy Mitchell, an early visionary of US air power, in March 1912 after touring Russo Japanese War Battle Fields in the Pacific, deemed war between the United States and Japan inevitable. In 1924, General Mitchell delivered a 324-page report, which not only continued to predict war with Japan, but it predicted Japan's surprise attack by air on Pearl Harbor.



No



History remembers Mitchell as a visionary of the use of airpower in the coming decades. But, at the time, Mitchell did not have much support among the US military leadership. His predictions that Japan would threaten the United States were deemed amazingly misguided by the US military leadership.



Mitchell, who reached the rank of Major General and Assistant Chief of the Air Service, was demoted to colonel and court marshaled in 1925 for "accusing senior leaders in the Army and Navy of incompetence" and "almost treasonable administration of the national defense" after a series of avoidable air accidents. Mitchel would be re-advanced to the rank of Major General posthumously and he goes down in history as a visionary and outspoken advocate for airpower decades before war in the Pacific would prove him right.



Beyond Billy Mitchell, what really soured relatively good relations between the United States and Japan was 1937 and the Second Sino-Japanese War. This "caused the United States to impose harsh sanctions against Japan, ultimately leading to the Japanese surprise attack against the US naval base at Pearl Harbor." (as put by Japan-United States relations on Wikipedia)



As for Conventional wisdom



Pearl Harbor the Advanced base for the US Navy was seen as impervious to air attack due to its shallow harbor right up until the Japanese did it on Dec 7th 1941. The United States enjoyed superiority over Japan in Battle ships and other capital ships, believed to be the measure of a navy up until Pearl Harbor and early WWII. Japan was just too far removed from America's shores to be conventionally considered a real threat. Japan was also shacked by treaties like the Washington Naval Treaty of 1922 which kept the Japanese Navy numerically inferior to the US.



Sources




  • Billy Mitchell

  • Russo-Japanese War

  • Japan United States Relations

  • Japan, China, the United States and the Road to Pearl Harbor, 1937–41

  • Washington Naval Treaty of 1922






share|improve this answer



















  • 2




    To be fair, Mitchel was not actually demoted; he lost temporary rank as did many officers in the years after WW1.. But it would also be fair to say that situations under which Mitchel reverted in rank caused the reversion to seem punishment. Also in fairness, Mitchel had used Japan as an example of a power that might threaten. In later minds he seemed to be predicting, but what he was actually doing was articulating the potential of air power, Japan projecting its power by air..Almost all of Mitchel's intellectual and emotional energy was focused on the U S air arsenal vs any threat..
    – J. Taylor
    8 hours ago






  • 4




    "Pearl Harbor ... was seen as impervious to air attack due to its shallow harbor" Could you please expand on this?
    – Juggerbot
    8 hours ago






  • 5




    @Juggerbot Specifically, it was considered impossible for aircraft to launch torpedoes in the shallow waters of Pearl Harbor. An air-launched torpedo is dropped into the water and typically sinks a fair distance before leveling out. There were therefore no torpedo nets in place, because they would have been cumbersome. A study of US Fleet Problems in the pre-WWII period suggests that air strikes at Pearl were expected when the fleet was away, to damage base facilities, but not at the fleet itself.
    – David Thornley
    8 hours ago






  • 1




    Nitpick: The term is "court martial" (or "court-martial", "courtmartial"), the "martial" being an adjective meaning military: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Court-martial
    – jamesqf
    5 hours ago










  • Past participle is "court-martialled" in BrEng, AmEng seems to spell it "court-martialed"
    – Law29
    5 hours ago













up vote
29
down vote










up vote
29
down vote










Question:

Was Japan known to be a potential threat to the USA in the 10 year period prior to 1941




Short Answer



Yes some military experts did realize the inevitability of war between the United States and Japan as early as 1912. Most did not up until the late 1930s.



No conventional wisdom in the 1930's would not permit the American public to have viewed agrarian feudalistic Japan 5300 miles from California much of a threat. Aircraft warfare was yet unproven, much less aircraft carrier warfare. The United States Pacific Fleet was conventionally believed to be more than a match for Japans navy right up until Pearl Harbor.



Detailed Answer



Yes



United States General Billy Mitchell, an early visionary of US air power, in March 1912 after touring Russo Japanese War Battle Fields in the Pacific, deemed war between the United States and Japan inevitable. In 1924, General Mitchell delivered a 324-page report, which not only continued to predict war with Japan, but it predicted Japan's surprise attack by air on Pearl Harbor.



No



History remembers Mitchell as a visionary of the use of airpower in the coming decades. But, at the time, Mitchell did not have much support among the US military leadership. His predictions that Japan would threaten the United States were deemed amazingly misguided by the US military leadership.



Mitchell, who reached the rank of Major General and Assistant Chief of the Air Service, was demoted to colonel and court marshaled in 1925 for "accusing senior leaders in the Army and Navy of incompetence" and "almost treasonable administration of the national defense" after a series of avoidable air accidents. Mitchel would be re-advanced to the rank of Major General posthumously and he goes down in history as a visionary and outspoken advocate for airpower decades before war in the Pacific would prove him right.



Beyond Billy Mitchell, what really soured relatively good relations between the United States and Japan was 1937 and the Second Sino-Japanese War. This "caused the United States to impose harsh sanctions against Japan, ultimately leading to the Japanese surprise attack against the US naval base at Pearl Harbor." (as put by Japan-United States relations on Wikipedia)



As for Conventional wisdom



Pearl Harbor the Advanced base for the US Navy was seen as impervious to air attack due to its shallow harbor right up until the Japanese did it on Dec 7th 1941. The United States enjoyed superiority over Japan in Battle ships and other capital ships, believed to be the measure of a navy up until Pearl Harbor and early WWII. Japan was just too far removed from America's shores to be conventionally considered a real threat. Japan was also shacked by treaties like the Washington Naval Treaty of 1922 which kept the Japanese Navy numerically inferior to the US.



Sources




  • Billy Mitchell

  • Russo-Japanese War

  • Japan United States Relations

  • Japan, China, the United States and the Road to Pearl Harbor, 1937–41

  • Washington Naval Treaty of 1922






share|improve this answer















Question:

Was Japan known to be a potential threat to the USA in the 10 year period prior to 1941




Short Answer



Yes some military experts did realize the inevitability of war between the United States and Japan as early as 1912. Most did not up until the late 1930s.



No conventional wisdom in the 1930's would not permit the American public to have viewed agrarian feudalistic Japan 5300 miles from California much of a threat. Aircraft warfare was yet unproven, much less aircraft carrier warfare. The United States Pacific Fleet was conventionally believed to be more than a match for Japans navy right up until Pearl Harbor.



Detailed Answer



Yes



United States General Billy Mitchell, an early visionary of US air power, in March 1912 after touring Russo Japanese War Battle Fields in the Pacific, deemed war between the United States and Japan inevitable. In 1924, General Mitchell delivered a 324-page report, which not only continued to predict war with Japan, but it predicted Japan's surprise attack by air on Pearl Harbor.



No



History remembers Mitchell as a visionary of the use of airpower in the coming decades. But, at the time, Mitchell did not have much support among the US military leadership. His predictions that Japan would threaten the United States were deemed amazingly misguided by the US military leadership.



Mitchell, who reached the rank of Major General and Assistant Chief of the Air Service, was demoted to colonel and court marshaled in 1925 for "accusing senior leaders in the Army and Navy of incompetence" and "almost treasonable administration of the national defense" after a series of avoidable air accidents. Mitchel would be re-advanced to the rank of Major General posthumously and he goes down in history as a visionary and outspoken advocate for airpower decades before war in the Pacific would prove him right.



Beyond Billy Mitchell, what really soured relatively good relations between the United States and Japan was 1937 and the Second Sino-Japanese War. This "caused the United States to impose harsh sanctions against Japan, ultimately leading to the Japanese surprise attack against the US naval base at Pearl Harbor." (as put by Japan-United States relations on Wikipedia)



As for Conventional wisdom



Pearl Harbor the Advanced base for the US Navy was seen as impervious to air attack due to its shallow harbor right up until the Japanese did it on Dec 7th 1941. The United States enjoyed superiority over Japan in Battle ships and other capital ships, believed to be the measure of a navy up until Pearl Harbor and early WWII. Japan was just too far removed from America's shores to be conventionally considered a real threat. Japan was also shacked by treaties like the Washington Naval Treaty of 1922 which kept the Japanese Navy numerically inferior to the US.



Sources




  • Billy Mitchell

  • Russo-Japanese War

  • Japan United States Relations

  • Japan, China, the United States and the Road to Pearl Harbor, 1937–41

  • Washington Naval Treaty of 1922







share|improve this answer














share|improve this answer



share|improve this answer








edited 8 hours ago









Kerry L

3,53011250




3,53011250










answered 18 hours ago









JMS

12k231101




12k231101








  • 2




    To be fair, Mitchel was not actually demoted; he lost temporary rank as did many officers in the years after WW1.. But it would also be fair to say that situations under which Mitchel reverted in rank caused the reversion to seem punishment. Also in fairness, Mitchel had used Japan as an example of a power that might threaten. In later minds he seemed to be predicting, but what he was actually doing was articulating the potential of air power, Japan projecting its power by air..Almost all of Mitchel's intellectual and emotional energy was focused on the U S air arsenal vs any threat..
    – J. Taylor
    8 hours ago






  • 4




    "Pearl Harbor ... was seen as impervious to air attack due to its shallow harbor" Could you please expand on this?
    – Juggerbot
    8 hours ago






  • 5




    @Juggerbot Specifically, it was considered impossible for aircraft to launch torpedoes in the shallow waters of Pearl Harbor. An air-launched torpedo is dropped into the water and typically sinks a fair distance before leveling out. There were therefore no torpedo nets in place, because they would have been cumbersome. A study of US Fleet Problems in the pre-WWII period suggests that air strikes at Pearl were expected when the fleet was away, to damage base facilities, but not at the fleet itself.
    – David Thornley
    8 hours ago






  • 1




    Nitpick: The term is "court martial" (or "court-martial", "courtmartial"), the "martial" being an adjective meaning military: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Court-martial
    – jamesqf
    5 hours ago










  • Past participle is "court-martialled" in BrEng, AmEng seems to spell it "court-martialed"
    – Law29
    5 hours ago














  • 2




    To be fair, Mitchel was not actually demoted; he lost temporary rank as did many officers in the years after WW1.. But it would also be fair to say that situations under which Mitchel reverted in rank caused the reversion to seem punishment. Also in fairness, Mitchel had used Japan as an example of a power that might threaten. In later minds he seemed to be predicting, but what he was actually doing was articulating the potential of air power, Japan projecting its power by air..Almost all of Mitchel's intellectual and emotional energy was focused on the U S air arsenal vs any threat..
    – J. Taylor
    8 hours ago






  • 4




    "Pearl Harbor ... was seen as impervious to air attack due to its shallow harbor" Could you please expand on this?
    – Juggerbot
    8 hours ago






  • 5




    @Juggerbot Specifically, it was considered impossible for aircraft to launch torpedoes in the shallow waters of Pearl Harbor. An air-launched torpedo is dropped into the water and typically sinks a fair distance before leveling out. There were therefore no torpedo nets in place, because they would have been cumbersome. A study of US Fleet Problems in the pre-WWII period suggests that air strikes at Pearl were expected when the fleet was away, to damage base facilities, but not at the fleet itself.
    – David Thornley
    8 hours ago






  • 1




    Nitpick: The term is "court martial" (or "court-martial", "courtmartial"), the "martial" being an adjective meaning military: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Court-martial
    – jamesqf
    5 hours ago










  • Past participle is "court-martialled" in BrEng, AmEng seems to spell it "court-martialed"
    – Law29
    5 hours ago








2




2




To be fair, Mitchel was not actually demoted; he lost temporary rank as did many officers in the years after WW1.. But it would also be fair to say that situations under which Mitchel reverted in rank caused the reversion to seem punishment. Also in fairness, Mitchel had used Japan as an example of a power that might threaten. In later minds he seemed to be predicting, but what he was actually doing was articulating the potential of air power, Japan projecting its power by air..Almost all of Mitchel's intellectual and emotional energy was focused on the U S air arsenal vs any threat..
– J. Taylor
8 hours ago




To be fair, Mitchel was not actually demoted; he lost temporary rank as did many officers in the years after WW1.. But it would also be fair to say that situations under which Mitchel reverted in rank caused the reversion to seem punishment. Also in fairness, Mitchel had used Japan as an example of a power that might threaten. In later minds he seemed to be predicting, but what he was actually doing was articulating the potential of air power, Japan projecting its power by air..Almost all of Mitchel's intellectual and emotional energy was focused on the U S air arsenal vs any threat..
– J. Taylor
8 hours ago




4




4




"Pearl Harbor ... was seen as impervious to air attack due to its shallow harbor" Could you please expand on this?
– Juggerbot
8 hours ago




"Pearl Harbor ... was seen as impervious to air attack due to its shallow harbor" Could you please expand on this?
– Juggerbot
8 hours ago




5




5




@Juggerbot Specifically, it was considered impossible for aircraft to launch torpedoes in the shallow waters of Pearl Harbor. An air-launched torpedo is dropped into the water and typically sinks a fair distance before leveling out. There were therefore no torpedo nets in place, because they would have been cumbersome. A study of US Fleet Problems in the pre-WWII period suggests that air strikes at Pearl were expected when the fleet was away, to damage base facilities, but not at the fleet itself.
– David Thornley
8 hours ago




@Juggerbot Specifically, it was considered impossible for aircraft to launch torpedoes in the shallow waters of Pearl Harbor. An air-launched torpedo is dropped into the water and typically sinks a fair distance before leveling out. There were therefore no torpedo nets in place, because they would have been cumbersome. A study of US Fleet Problems in the pre-WWII period suggests that air strikes at Pearl were expected when the fleet was away, to damage base facilities, but not at the fleet itself.
– David Thornley
8 hours ago




1




1




Nitpick: The term is "court martial" (or "court-martial", "courtmartial"), the "martial" being an adjective meaning military: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Court-martial
– jamesqf
5 hours ago




Nitpick: The term is "court martial" (or "court-martial", "courtmartial"), the "martial" being an adjective meaning military: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Court-martial
– jamesqf
5 hours ago












Past participle is "court-martialled" in BrEng, AmEng seems to spell it "court-martialed"
– Law29
5 hours ago




Past participle is "court-martialled" in BrEng, AmEng seems to spell it "court-martialed"
– Law29
5 hours ago










up vote
5
down vote













Some people did, most didn't. Billy Mitchell, among others, warned. But most people didn't see those funny little yellow men with thick glasses and hilarious swords (stereotype of the day) as really dangerous. Not for America, anyway.



Yes, the massacre of Nanking was widely known, but that was somewhere far, far away. In 1937 there had been an incident in which the USS Panay was sunk with loss of life. But the Japanese government apologized and paid for damages.



Look especially at the America First movement. That movement was politically very strong and extreme (certainly by our standards) isolationist. It was their influence that kept America out of the war against Germany. Until the attack on Pearl Harbor.



The America First movement was not aligned with the democrats or the republicans. It was a kind of popular movement, and voiced what the 'Average Joe' thought.



The movement collapsed almost overnight after the attack on Pearl Harbor. They folded (voluntary) on 11 December 1941.






share|improve this answer























  • Yes, this was back in the halcyon days of yore, when respectable political parties in the US couldn't be seen as fully embracing bigotry-fueled nativists, so the far-right nationalist populists had to run their own separate movements and political parties
    – T.E.D.
    6 hours ago








  • 1




    @T.E.D I guess the irony of FDR's administration putting Japanese American's in Concentration camps was lost on you, eh? Let's not fall into a rose tinted glasses trap here; there has always been a strong reflexive, nativistic strain in America. "Respectable" political parties have always embraced some degree of nativism in the right context. The modern Democratic party has not been "nativist" for generations, but you don't have to go far back to find Chuck Shumer and Bernie Sanders condemning illegal immigration.
    – VivaLebowski
    59 mins ago

















up vote
5
down vote













Some people did, most didn't. Billy Mitchell, among others, warned. But most people didn't see those funny little yellow men with thick glasses and hilarious swords (stereotype of the day) as really dangerous. Not for America, anyway.



Yes, the massacre of Nanking was widely known, but that was somewhere far, far away. In 1937 there had been an incident in which the USS Panay was sunk with loss of life. But the Japanese government apologized and paid for damages.



Look especially at the America First movement. That movement was politically very strong and extreme (certainly by our standards) isolationist. It was their influence that kept America out of the war against Germany. Until the attack on Pearl Harbor.



The America First movement was not aligned with the democrats or the republicans. It was a kind of popular movement, and voiced what the 'Average Joe' thought.



The movement collapsed almost overnight after the attack on Pearl Harbor. They folded (voluntary) on 11 December 1941.






share|improve this answer























  • Yes, this was back in the halcyon days of yore, when respectable political parties in the US couldn't be seen as fully embracing bigotry-fueled nativists, so the far-right nationalist populists had to run their own separate movements and political parties
    – T.E.D.
    6 hours ago








  • 1




    @T.E.D I guess the irony of FDR's administration putting Japanese American's in Concentration camps was lost on you, eh? Let's not fall into a rose tinted glasses trap here; there has always been a strong reflexive, nativistic strain in America. "Respectable" political parties have always embraced some degree of nativism in the right context. The modern Democratic party has not been "nativist" for generations, but you don't have to go far back to find Chuck Shumer and Bernie Sanders condemning illegal immigration.
    – VivaLebowski
    59 mins ago















up vote
5
down vote










up vote
5
down vote









Some people did, most didn't. Billy Mitchell, among others, warned. But most people didn't see those funny little yellow men with thick glasses and hilarious swords (stereotype of the day) as really dangerous. Not for America, anyway.



Yes, the massacre of Nanking was widely known, but that was somewhere far, far away. In 1937 there had been an incident in which the USS Panay was sunk with loss of life. But the Japanese government apologized and paid for damages.



Look especially at the America First movement. That movement was politically very strong and extreme (certainly by our standards) isolationist. It was their influence that kept America out of the war against Germany. Until the attack on Pearl Harbor.



The America First movement was not aligned with the democrats or the republicans. It was a kind of popular movement, and voiced what the 'Average Joe' thought.



The movement collapsed almost overnight after the attack on Pearl Harbor. They folded (voluntary) on 11 December 1941.






share|improve this answer














Some people did, most didn't. Billy Mitchell, among others, warned. But most people didn't see those funny little yellow men with thick glasses and hilarious swords (stereotype of the day) as really dangerous. Not for America, anyway.



Yes, the massacre of Nanking was widely known, but that was somewhere far, far away. In 1937 there had been an incident in which the USS Panay was sunk with loss of life. But the Japanese government apologized and paid for damages.



Look especially at the America First movement. That movement was politically very strong and extreme (certainly by our standards) isolationist. It was their influence that kept America out of the war against Germany. Until the attack on Pearl Harbor.



The America First movement was not aligned with the democrats or the republicans. It was a kind of popular movement, and voiced what the 'Average Joe' thought.



The movement collapsed almost overnight after the attack on Pearl Harbor. They folded (voluntary) on 11 December 1941.







share|improve this answer














share|improve this answer



share|improve this answer








edited 15 hours ago

























answered 17 hours ago









Jos

7,94311842




7,94311842












  • Yes, this was back in the halcyon days of yore, when respectable political parties in the US couldn't be seen as fully embracing bigotry-fueled nativists, so the far-right nationalist populists had to run their own separate movements and political parties
    – T.E.D.
    6 hours ago








  • 1




    @T.E.D I guess the irony of FDR's administration putting Japanese American's in Concentration camps was lost on you, eh? Let's not fall into a rose tinted glasses trap here; there has always been a strong reflexive, nativistic strain in America. "Respectable" political parties have always embraced some degree of nativism in the right context. The modern Democratic party has not been "nativist" for generations, but you don't have to go far back to find Chuck Shumer and Bernie Sanders condemning illegal immigration.
    – VivaLebowski
    59 mins ago




















  • Yes, this was back in the halcyon days of yore, when respectable political parties in the US couldn't be seen as fully embracing bigotry-fueled nativists, so the far-right nationalist populists had to run their own separate movements and political parties
    – T.E.D.
    6 hours ago








  • 1




    @T.E.D I guess the irony of FDR's administration putting Japanese American's in Concentration camps was lost on you, eh? Let's not fall into a rose tinted glasses trap here; there has always been a strong reflexive, nativistic strain in America. "Respectable" political parties have always embraced some degree of nativism in the right context. The modern Democratic party has not been "nativist" for generations, but you don't have to go far back to find Chuck Shumer and Bernie Sanders condemning illegal immigration.
    – VivaLebowski
    59 mins ago


















Yes, this was back in the halcyon days of yore, when respectable political parties in the US couldn't be seen as fully embracing bigotry-fueled nativists, so the far-right nationalist populists had to run their own separate movements and political parties
– T.E.D.
6 hours ago






Yes, this was back in the halcyon days of yore, when respectable political parties in the US couldn't be seen as fully embracing bigotry-fueled nativists, so the far-right nationalist populists had to run their own separate movements and political parties
– T.E.D.
6 hours ago






1




1




@T.E.D I guess the irony of FDR's administration putting Japanese American's in Concentration camps was lost on you, eh? Let's not fall into a rose tinted glasses trap here; there has always been a strong reflexive, nativistic strain in America. "Respectable" political parties have always embraced some degree of nativism in the right context. The modern Democratic party has not been "nativist" for generations, but you don't have to go far back to find Chuck Shumer and Bernie Sanders condemning illegal immigration.
– VivaLebowski
59 mins ago






@T.E.D I guess the irony of FDR's administration putting Japanese American's in Concentration camps was lost on you, eh? Let's not fall into a rose tinted glasses trap here; there has always been a strong reflexive, nativistic strain in America. "Respectable" political parties have always embraced some degree of nativism in the right context. The modern Democratic party has not been "nativist" for generations, but you don't have to go far back to find Chuck Shumer and Bernie Sanders condemning illegal immigration.
– VivaLebowski
59 mins ago












up vote
3
down vote













A Gallup poll conducted just prior to the Pearl Harbour attack in 1941 found that:




  • 52% of Americans expected war with Japan.

  • 27% did not.

  • 21% had no opinion.


So there's that.






share|improve this answer










New contributor




Nik Kyriakides is a new contributor to this site. Take care in asking for clarification, commenting, and answering.
Check out our Code of Conduct.














  • 1




    Any examples or references to support the first statement ("since the 1920's")?
    – Steve Bird
    14 hours ago










  • The stoppage of oil exports was a response to the Japanese occupation of southern Indochina, which did not further the war against China and was the beginning of the expansion of the war into the Pacific and Indian oceans.
    – David Thornley
    8 hours ago






  • 1




    This is the only answer that directly answers the question, by providing (sourced) evidence of public levels of knowledge, rather than largely being concerned with the beliefs of one individual (Billy Mitchell) or anecdotal interpretations of "conventional wisdom".
    – Michael MacAskill
    2 hours ago










  • Where there any public surveys prior like 1935 or so? It would be interesting to see if there was a change of attitude over that period
    – user1605665
    2 hours ago










  • No idea, that's the only one I could find; Coincidentally I was reading "Attack on Pearl Harbor" Wikipedia page just yesterday and was kinda stunned that it really wasn't such a big surprise after all.
    – Nik Kyriakides
    1 hour ago

















up vote
3
down vote













A Gallup poll conducted just prior to the Pearl Harbour attack in 1941 found that:




  • 52% of Americans expected war with Japan.

  • 27% did not.

  • 21% had no opinion.


So there's that.






share|improve this answer










New contributor




Nik Kyriakides is a new contributor to this site. Take care in asking for clarification, commenting, and answering.
Check out our Code of Conduct.














  • 1




    Any examples or references to support the first statement ("since the 1920's")?
    – Steve Bird
    14 hours ago










  • The stoppage of oil exports was a response to the Japanese occupation of southern Indochina, which did not further the war against China and was the beginning of the expansion of the war into the Pacific and Indian oceans.
    – David Thornley
    8 hours ago






  • 1




    This is the only answer that directly answers the question, by providing (sourced) evidence of public levels of knowledge, rather than largely being concerned with the beliefs of one individual (Billy Mitchell) or anecdotal interpretations of "conventional wisdom".
    – Michael MacAskill
    2 hours ago










  • Where there any public surveys prior like 1935 or so? It would be interesting to see if there was a change of attitude over that period
    – user1605665
    2 hours ago










  • No idea, that's the only one I could find; Coincidentally I was reading "Attack on Pearl Harbor" Wikipedia page just yesterday and was kinda stunned that it really wasn't such a big surprise after all.
    – Nik Kyriakides
    1 hour ago















up vote
3
down vote










up vote
3
down vote









A Gallup poll conducted just prior to the Pearl Harbour attack in 1941 found that:




  • 52% of Americans expected war with Japan.

  • 27% did not.

  • 21% had no opinion.


So there's that.






share|improve this answer










New contributor




Nik Kyriakides is a new contributor to this site. Take care in asking for clarification, commenting, and answering.
Check out our Code of Conduct.









A Gallup poll conducted just prior to the Pearl Harbour attack in 1941 found that:




  • 52% of Americans expected war with Japan.

  • 27% did not.

  • 21% had no opinion.


So there's that.







share|improve this answer










New contributor




Nik Kyriakides is a new contributor to this site. Take care in asking for clarification, commenting, and answering.
Check out our Code of Conduct.









share|improve this answer



share|improve this answer








edited 55 mins ago





















New contributor




Nik Kyriakides is a new contributor to this site. Take care in asking for clarification, commenting, and answering.
Check out our Code of Conduct.









answered 14 hours ago









Nik Kyriakides

1313




1313




New contributor




Nik Kyriakides is a new contributor to this site. Take care in asking for clarification, commenting, and answering.
Check out our Code of Conduct.





New contributor





Nik Kyriakides is a new contributor to this site. Take care in asking for clarification, commenting, and answering.
Check out our Code of Conduct.






Nik Kyriakides is a new contributor to this site. Take care in asking for clarification, commenting, and answering.
Check out our Code of Conduct.








  • 1




    Any examples or references to support the first statement ("since the 1920's")?
    – Steve Bird
    14 hours ago










  • The stoppage of oil exports was a response to the Japanese occupation of southern Indochina, which did not further the war against China and was the beginning of the expansion of the war into the Pacific and Indian oceans.
    – David Thornley
    8 hours ago






  • 1




    This is the only answer that directly answers the question, by providing (sourced) evidence of public levels of knowledge, rather than largely being concerned with the beliefs of one individual (Billy Mitchell) or anecdotal interpretations of "conventional wisdom".
    – Michael MacAskill
    2 hours ago










  • Where there any public surveys prior like 1935 or so? It would be interesting to see if there was a change of attitude over that period
    – user1605665
    2 hours ago










  • No idea, that's the only one I could find; Coincidentally I was reading "Attack on Pearl Harbor" Wikipedia page just yesterday and was kinda stunned that it really wasn't such a big surprise after all.
    – Nik Kyriakides
    1 hour ago
















  • 1




    Any examples or references to support the first statement ("since the 1920's")?
    – Steve Bird
    14 hours ago










  • The stoppage of oil exports was a response to the Japanese occupation of southern Indochina, which did not further the war against China and was the beginning of the expansion of the war into the Pacific and Indian oceans.
    – David Thornley
    8 hours ago






  • 1




    This is the only answer that directly answers the question, by providing (sourced) evidence of public levels of knowledge, rather than largely being concerned with the beliefs of one individual (Billy Mitchell) or anecdotal interpretations of "conventional wisdom".
    – Michael MacAskill
    2 hours ago










  • Where there any public surveys prior like 1935 or so? It would be interesting to see if there was a change of attitude over that period
    – user1605665
    2 hours ago










  • No idea, that's the only one I could find; Coincidentally I was reading "Attack on Pearl Harbor" Wikipedia page just yesterday and was kinda stunned that it really wasn't such a big surprise after all.
    – Nik Kyriakides
    1 hour ago










1




1




Any examples or references to support the first statement ("since the 1920's")?
– Steve Bird
14 hours ago




Any examples or references to support the first statement ("since the 1920's")?
– Steve Bird
14 hours ago












The stoppage of oil exports was a response to the Japanese occupation of southern Indochina, which did not further the war against China and was the beginning of the expansion of the war into the Pacific and Indian oceans.
– David Thornley
8 hours ago




The stoppage of oil exports was a response to the Japanese occupation of southern Indochina, which did not further the war against China and was the beginning of the expansion of the war into the Pacific and Indian oceans.
– David Thornley
8 hours ago




1




1




This is the only answer that directly answers the question, by providing (sourced) evidence of public levels of knowledge, rather than largely being concerned with the beliefs of one individual (Billy Mitchell) or anecdotal interpretations of "conventional wisdom".
– Michael MacAskill
2 hours ago




This is the only answer that directly answers the question, by providing (sourced) evidence of public levels of knowledge, rather than largely being concerned with the beliefs of one individual (Billy Mitchell) or anecdotal interpretations of "conventional wisdom".
– Michael MacAskill
2 hours ago












Where there any public surveys prior like 1935 or so? It would be interesting to see if there was a change of attitude over that period
– user1605665
2 hours ago




Where there any public surveys prior like 1935 or so? It would be interesting to see if there was a change of attitude over that period
– user1605665
2 hours ago












No idea, that's the only one I could find; Coincidentally I was reading "Attack on Pearl Harbor" Wikipedia page just yesterday and was kinda stunned that it really wasn't such a big surprise after all.
– Nik Kyriakides
1 hour ago






No idea, that's the only one I could find; Coincidentally I was reading "Attack on Pearl Harbor" Wikipedia page just yesterday and was kinda stunned that it really wasn't such a big surprise after all.
– Nik Kyriakides
1 hour ago




















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