Pearl Harbor - Memorial to Stupidity

[Shadowmancer]

This thread may offend people but hopefully it will make them think. I am going to be brutal with people that can't give me any proper reasons why this isn't so. So come in here prepared.

Pearl Harbor is a Memorial to Stupidity!​

That is what I have said, while December 7th 1941 may be a day that will live on in Infamy it is also a day that shows an unprecedented level of stupidity as well. There are many reasons for this many revolve around decisions taken by the top brass on Oahu in the lead up to December 7.

1) Parking all of the Battleships right next to each other in a line, Think about this, why would you do this, you can clearly see all of the places for the ships when you go to Pearl Harbor, they are all at a stupidly close distance from each other in a harbour because of the belief that there was saboteurs on the Island that were working for the Japanese. Parking them all within spitting distance of each other should in theory make it easier for saboteurs to get on board and cause havoc. Good illustration of the stupidity of the placing of the ships is in that shit movie "Pearl Harbor" where Cuba Gooding Jr's character uses a machine gun to attack a plane that is flying by hitting the broadside of the ship right next to it.

2) Putting all of the Battleships main weaponry into the middle of an airfield - again the idea was to prevent saboteurs from causing havoc, don't get that, all in one place therefore easier to get to and do damage, also this therefore strips the capabilities of the Battleships beyond that of the role they played as giant targets that move slowly for the Japanese bombers.

3) The radar set up wasn't put in the best place to get to everywhere - you put it on top of the volcano then that should cover a fairly big range, instead it was limited range. combine in the fact that communications between the stations and the main central hub of the military communications was absolutely pathetic, and should have been dealt with first.

4) Ignoring of intelligence reports saying that there was a strong possibility for a Japanese Attack on Pearl Harbor. They did nothing, not even stepping up sea patrols by the fighters just to catch anything out of the ordinary. Again stupid move.

 

[Shocky]

It's our own American Naivety that we can blame for it. America, we have a bad reputation in believing that we are protected from the rest of the world and it's affairs because we have oceans on both sides of us. That's essentially what it boils down to. Pearl Harbor and 9/11 were pretty much identical as far as the government knowing something was going to happen, yet simply either to choose not to follow threw on it, or simple over confidence that we would be able to handle whatever happened.

Now, I tend to go along with the conspiracy theory that is floating around out there that Roosevelt knew that this was going to happen, and needed a reason to go to war. The American Public was very much against joining the war in Europe and in Asia, and this was Roosevelts way of getting the Axis to declare war on the United States, and make the Americans look like victims, and then pull us out of a depression along the way.

 

[Little Jerry Lawler]

I agree completely. I love America but sometimes we get a little too overconfident in thinking we can stop everything. The Japanese told us what was going to happen and yet we refused to listen. I don't know if this is an accurate analogy but I would compare the parking of the battleships to the President and Vice-President. You never see those two together in fear that both may get assassinated at the same time. It was stupid to put the battleships in a line because it made it easier to attack.

I agree that they should have dealt with their communicatioon problems first. I did like the fact that the U.S. staged a mock attack on Pearl Harbor and it was deemed a success and that was in 1933. You would have thought they would have done more in the next eight years to prepare themselves.

 

[wolvdog316]

Not stupidity, just cocky. "Nobody would DARE attack us, for we are America" Well that day forever changed our thinking. We really thought terrorist, thugs, foreign Armys would just see the line in the sky that says "Don't cross this bitch" and turn right back around. Didn't happen.

Or maybe USA was dilusional enough to think War was over, and we would never ever be in another war ever again, so why prepare for nothing. Id hope it would be over confidence