How much do you know about the raid on Pearl Harbor?

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Take the quiz. It's not for the faint-hearted, so don't be bummed at your score.

[Brian37]

[img=16x16]Take the quiz.[/img]  It's not for the faint-hearted, so don't be bummed at your score.

Um this is weird, I have had problems posting images too. 

But as far as WW2 History, you are talking about thousands of historical events, multiple world leaders, military leaders and countless key battles. I for example didn't really know that Pearl Harbor only got us involved in the Pacific, and we didn't really get involved in Europe until D-Day in 44. It is a boatload of details over basically a 12 year period from the time Hitler took power to the fall of Berlin in 45. 

But the one detail that shocked me is that the guys monitoring the radar that day mistook the zeros for allied bombers.

[Chad32]

If the first question had listed one answer as Hawaii, and the others as different places, I would have gotten it right. It assumes everyone knows it's in Hawaii.

I don't know the date or anything. I know it's kind of weird we got involved in WW2 because Japan attacked us, but almost everything else they teach in history class involved us going to Europe. Aside from dropping two nukes, and the debate over whether or not that was the right thing to do instead of putting boots on the ground.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

[img=16x16]Take the quiz.[/img]  It's not for the faint-hearted, so don't be bummed at your score.

Um this is weird, I have had problems posting images too. 

But as far as WW2 History, you are talking about thousands of historical events, multiple world leaders, military leaders and countless key battles. I for example didn't really know that Pearl Harbor only got us involved in the Pacific, and we didn't really get involved in Europe until D-Day in 44. It is a boatload of details over basically a 12 year period from the time Hitler took power to the fall of Berlin in 45. 

You're fast, but I fixed the link.

But the one detail that shocked me is that the guys monitoring the radar that day mistook the zeros for allied bombers.

Why is that shocking? Two privates training on the SCR-270B set spot a "huge" blip. Biggest they'd ever seen. They report it to Air Information Center, which is closed. The only officer there is a 2nd Lt. fighter pilot doing a "familiarization" visit, not in the chain of command. The AIC closed at 7 AM, but he had been told to be there from 4 am to 8 am, and he was a good boy. The telephone operator passed the buck to Kermit Tyler when Lockard called from the Point. Tyler knew a flight of B-17s was coming in from the US and assumed that's what the men on Opana Point were seeing. This was trivial enough that the Congressional Hearings didn't subpoena him. He ended the war as a major.

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If the first question had listed one answer as Hawaii, and the others as different places, I would have gotten it right. It assumes everyone knows it's in Hawaii.

I don't know the date or anything. I know it's kind of weird we got involved in WW2 because Japan attacked us, but almost everything else they teach in history class involved us going to Europe. Aside from dropping two nukes, and the debate over whether or not that was the right thing to do instead of putting boots on the ground.

Most of the USN and almost all of the Marines fought in the Pacific. But the American-British Conversations earlier in 1941 had established the principle of "Germany First". FDR and Churchill confirmed this at the Atlantic Conference later that year and it was made public at the Casablanca Conference.

As for the nukes, the most humane thing we could have done was to end the war quickly. It worked. (Vastly more complicated than this but boring to most people.)

[Brian37]

Um this is weird, I have had problems posting images too. 

But as far as WW2 History, you are talking about thousands of historical events, multiple world leaders, military leaders and countless key battles. I for example didn't really know that Pearl Harbor only got us involved in the Pacific, and we didn't really get involved in Europe until D-Day in 44. It is a boatload of details over basically a 12 year period from the time Hitler took power to the fall of Berlin in 45. 

You're fast, but I fixed the link.  

But the one detail that shocked me is that the guys monitoring the radar that day mistook the zeros for allied bombers.

Why is that shocking? Two privates training on the SCR-270B set spot a "huge" blip. Biggest they'd ever seen. They report it to Air Information Center, which is closed. The only officer there is a 2nd Lt. fighter pilot doing a "familiarization" visit, not in the chain of command. The AIC closed at 7 AM, but he had been told to be there from 4 am to 8 am, and he was a good boy. The telephone operator passed the buck to Kermit Tyler when Lockard called from the Point. Tyler knew a flight of B-17s was coming in from the US and assumed that's what the men on Opana Point were seeing. This was trivial enough that the Congressional Hearings didn't subpoena him. He ended the war as a major.

---

If the first question had listed one answer as Hawaii, and the others as different places, I would have gotten it right. It assumes everyone knows it's in Hawaii.

I don't know the date or anything. I know it's kind of weird we got involved in WW2 because Japan attacked us, but almost everything else they teach in history class involved us going to Europe. Aside from dropping two nukes, and the debate over whether or not that was the right thing to do instead of putting boots on the ground.

Most of the USN and almost all of the Marines fought in the Pacific. But the American-British Conversations earlier in 1941 had established the principle of "Germany First". FDR and Churchill confirmed this at the Atlantic Conference later that year and it was made public at the Casablanca Conference.

As for the nukes, the most humane thing we could have done was to end the war quickly. It worked. (Vastly more complicated than this but boring to most people.)

Not shocking in the context of knowing the details now as you put them here. But just shocking in that I didn't know until recently. It makes sense now. Kinda like when scientists set out to figure something out, but their findings aren't always what they expected. 

I am not going to argue the use of the nukes. It was still horrifying for the civilians whom survived even if it did shorten the war. I will say this, the scientists who made them, many were horrified at their invention and understood the global implications which humanity is still having to deal with today.

I see the nukes much like that thought experiment with the fat guy on a bridge over a runaway railway car. You can save everyone on the car by shoving him off the bridge, but you are still committing murder to save lives.  I take the position that War is hell and any entry into such should not be treated as a Rambo movie. It is an unfortunate part of human reality that we evolved to be tribal, and while a military is a necessity, I take Ike's speech about being careful with the responsibility of use of the military.

[popeyespappy]

27 out of 43 for me.

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

Didn't take the quiz, as I honestly know next to nothing about Pearl Harbor and didn't want to get a low score and feel bad about myself.

As for the nukes, the most humane thing we could have done was to end the war quickly. It worked. (Vastly more complicated than this but boring to most people.)

I do know that the plan to invade Japan was estimated to involve unconscionably high causalities for the allies (since MacArthur refused to accept estimates of Japanese forces) and Japanese civilians.  I agree with you - although counter intuitive, the two atomic bombings saved vastly more lives than they took.

Boru

[Gawdzilla Sama]

The March 1945 fire bombing of Tokyo killed more people than either nuke. The target cities were both legit targets according to the laws of war. Both were prefect capitals and regional military Has. The Nagasaki bomb went off directly over >5,000 Japanese troops, the most deadly single "shot" in the history of war.

[Brian37]

The March 1945 fire bombing of Tokyo killed more people than either nuke. The target cities were both legit targets according to the laws of war. Both were prefect capitals and regional military Has. The Nagasaki bomb went off directly over >5,000 Japanese troops, the most deadly single "shot" in the history of war.

Well yea, take into account all the allied bombings in the Pacific and Europe collectively, Fat Man and Little Boy are a drop in bucket. It still does not change for me that there is no way to sanitize our species ability to dream up ways to kill each other. I am not trying to make an argument that the Allies shouldn't have fought the war at all. And again, the bombs of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were that "pushing the fat guy off the bridge to save more people in the rail car."  The other thing those two bombs did also, was sent a message to Russia too. It was the start of the age of nukes regardless.


We can all argue leadership and the oppression of authoritarian states, which Japan was at the time. But it still does not change, that my Japanes X's grandparents were alive at the time, gave birth to her parents, and as a result I met her in College and married her. The good that came out of the aftermath is that Japan and America are now strong allies. And while we were enemies at the time, when I look at the images of the vaporized outlines of bodies in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and the burnt survivors with skin bubbled up and or falling off their bodies, it is still none the less horrifying to see. 

I am glad we fought the war and won. But for me, it still does not change that I wish more of our species worldwide didn't feel the need to get to that point in the first place. But as long as you have power hungry people who have the potential to get into power and abuse those around them, it is an impossible goal to stay out of it 100% of the time.

[Chad32]

"Now we are all sons of bitches"

~Kenneth Bainbridge, director of the first nuclear bomb test.