"A day that will live in infamy."

[trof]

Can't believe this is the first thread on it.
Who said it, when, why?
Discuss.

[Occulus]

1. Pearl Harbor?

Don't know who said it, though...

[trof]

2. Naw...get out?!

F--

[SiobhanClancy]

3. Franklin Delano Roosevelt

I must be showing my age,because I thought this was something everyone knew. He wrote that speech(asking Congress to declare war on Japan)himself,by the way.

[trof]

5. Me too.

I guess another generation and only historians will know.

[oneighty]

11. The money changers

forgot about it the very next day and never looked back!

War=Death=Destruction=Great Profits. WhooooHoooo

180

[YellowRubberDuckie]

12. Uh, no...I knew it!

I'm a history buff.
Duckie

[MrBenchley]

7. He also held a public inquiry

into the event almost immediately. Compare that with the unelected drunk...or with Reagan's actions after the car-bombing in Lebanon that killed 275 Marines...

But then FDR wasn't in business with the Yamamoto family either....and I doubt he would have put a wreath on SS graves at Bitburg.

[Muddleoftheroad]

4. It's not

There are posters here who think us evil not only for ending the war, but I've also seen claims that we helped start it.

[trof]

8. I had two friends,

both recently deceased, who had just finished pilot training a couple of months before we dropped "The" bombs. They were in San Francisco, waiting to ship out for the invasion of Japan. Their assignment was to pilot troop-carrying GLIDERS into Japan.

Given the disastrous performance of many of the gliders during the D-Day invasion in France, they were NOT optimistic about their chances of ever coming back. One of them told me that every morning since the Japanese surrendered he looks in the mirror while he's shaving and says "Thank God for the atomic bomb." I guess it depends on your perspective.

[Muddleoftheroad]

10. No it doesn't

The bombs ended the war. From the perspective of anyone on either side, it should be a good thing.

Japan would have been destroyed down to the level of Afghanistan after the Soviet invasion. Millions would have been killed and Japan and the U.S. would hate each other for all time.

The bombs stopped that.

[enkidu2]

15. yes but

we had also developed an enormous and dreadful capacity to destroy with conventional weapons Vis exeter to hamburg to dresden, by using the weather to intensify the attack. I believe unfortunately we used nuclear technology because scientists were itching to try it, we might have done the same with conventional weapons and not caused a legacy of genetic mutations and leukemia

[Muddleoftheroad]

16. Without getting into a detailed debate

Because I heading out because it is football Sunday, the conventional weapons didn't end the war. The power of the nukes did.

'Nuff said.

[mikehiggins]

18. We had already used our bombing methods on Japan

They weren't working there, anymore than they would later work in VietNam. The Japanese are not like us--they aren't just cute little colored folk who wear makeup and wear kimonos--and it took something almost beyond beleif to shake their determination to fight to the last drop of blood. Many Japanese historians make this point, even while "revisionists" in the West try to argue the A-bombs were unnecessary war crimes.

If we had been at war with Colorado that argument might hold water. The WWII Japanese were a whole different story.

There are lots of people living on both sides today who never would have been born if we had been forced to fight this war to an end.

If your father had been in the Army or Marines during the Pacific campaign, you might well have never existed except for the A-bombs.

Of course, on reflection,

Oh, never mind.

[SiobhanClancy]

9. There's been a conspiracy theory floating around for years...

about FDR having advance knowledge of Pearl Harbor. I've never heard any credible evidence for it,although he believed the US would get into the war at some point,and that we needed to. There seems to be a movement around lately to discredit FDR,but I feel confident that his accomplishments will overshadow this and that his stature will remain undiminshed.

[Township75]

17. I believe the conspiracy theory developed from the following....

Britian, not the US, developed radar which helped them fight off the Germans in the air during the battle of Britian.

Churchill offered this to the US to encourage them to join the Allies during WW2.

The conspiracy theory comes from this..We had radar at Pearl Habor before the attack, and on that day it did show a huge squadron of planes coming to HI. Now, I have heard 2 explanations of why the navy base did not respond:

1. The US military really didn't understand how to use radar and didn't have total confidence in it, because they didn't develop it. So when they saw these massive blips on the radar screen, the thought something was wrong wiht the system.

2. They were expecting an arrival of a large squadron of US planes that same day. The blips showed that the squadron was early and coming from the West not the East, and by the time it was realized that it was not the US, it was too late.

and there is a third, which states that the US needed an excuse it get into the war, but I personally do not believe it.

[JohnKleeb]

20. Clancy I think youre right

FDR is like a big hero of mine. Unlike the clown in the white house right now, he was respectable and I would be proud to consider him my commander in chief.

[BeatleBoot]

6. FDR's speech addressing a joint session of Congress

I believe, after the attacks on PH

Only two more posts to go!

[YellowRubberDuckie]

13. I think that Winston Churchill knew about it in advance...

And let it happen to get us into the war. That I believe. FDR was a good man and I don't think he would have let that happen if he could prevent it.
Duckie

[solinvictus]

14. Winston

Churchill had intelligence from Royal Navy and Australian sources that Japan was planning to retaliate with a an attack on Hawaii for US sanctions imposed because of Manchuria. He was delighted at the attack on Pearl Harbor because it meant the US would bail the UK out of losing WW2.

[JohnKleeb]

19. FDR, today, and the forces of the imperial empire of japan

suddenly and delibartly attacked the United States of America.
FDR why cant our generation get one like you.