We only ever talk about the third attack on Pearl Harbor • Hacker News Board

Re: We only ever talk about the third attack on Pearl Harbor

#11

Post by monoideism » Mon, May 31, 2021, 5:39 PM UTC

duckfang wrote: post #6

Lets remind us our dates. July 4, 1898, the Newlands Resolution was a joint resolution by the United States Congress to annex the independent Republic of Hawaii. In 1900, Congress occupied the Territory of Hawaii, despite the opposition of most native Hawaiians. Dec 7, 1941 is when Japan attacked Pearl Harbor, Honolulu, Hawai'i, an occupied territory. August 21, 1959 is when they were forcibly turned into a state, af…

> Dec 7, 1941 is when Japan attacked Pearl Harbor, Honolulu, Hawai'i, an occupied territory.

With the end objective of occupying themselves, like they occupied so many countries during WWII.

> Note that Japan did not bomb native settlements and cities where civilians and natives lived - only the occupying force.

Yes, because those settlements had no military value, so they focused on targets of military importance. When able, the Japanese had no hesitation about killing or raping local inhabitants of the places they occupied during and before WWII - see Nanking and Korean "Comfort Women".

I'm OK with someone criticizing US conduct in Hawaii in the years leading up to WWII, but let's not pretend that imperial Japan was some kind of benign force for good in the world during the same time period.

Re: We only ever talk about the third attack on Pearl Harbor

#12

Post by mcguire » Mon, May 31, 2021, 5:40 PM UTC

Marazan wrote: post #7

jvanderbot wrote: post #4

This sounds very familiar. You should look up the millennium challenge to see this play out again in modern times. https://warontherocks.com/2015/11/millennium-challenge-the-r... https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Millennium_Challenge_2002

The Millennium Challenge was a farce but _the Millennium Challenge was completely right_. The point of the millenium challenge was to see if modern advances in C3 could allow a numerically inferior force to the one used in Desert Storm could invade Iraq successfully. What they discovered was against a tenacious and unconventional enemy willing to use elite troops in daring and near suicidal ways then America would ta…

That's a well-known failure mode of modern professional wargames: they analyze the heck out of the first three days and then hand-wave the rest of the campaign.

Re: We only ever talk about the third attack on Pearl Harbor

#13

Post by umvi » Mon, May 31, 2021, 5:42 PM UTC

duckfang wrote: post #6

Lets remind us our dates. July 4, 1898, the Newlands Resolution was a joint resolution by the United States Congress to annex the independent Republic of Hawaii. In 1900, Congress occupied the Territory of Hawaii, despite the opposition of most native Hawaiians. Dec 7, 1941 is when Japan attacked Pearl Harbor, Honolulu, Hawai'i, an occupied territory. August 21, 1959 is when they were forcibly turned into a state, af…

Japan didn't bomb native settlements because doing so would have been a waste of resources that offered no strategic advantage. It would be like during the revolutionary war if Britain had focused on destroying the (largely neutral) Native Americans settlements instead of the "occupiers".

Re: We only ever talk about the third attack on Pearl Harbor

#14

Post by nostrademons » Mon, May 31, 2021, 5:42 PM UTC

jacksonkmarley wrote: post #8

This is a good article, and the story is certainly emotionally appealing, with the maverick who goes against the prevailing wisdom being proven correct in the end. I wonder how this sort of story would look when put into the context of a large scale investigation into military strategy and dissenting voices. When these contrarians pop up are they usually right? Maybe there are heaps of them and 9 out of 10 times conv…

Taken from the universe of all ideas, a random contrarian idea is usually wrong. Taken from the universe of contrarian ideas pushed by domain experts and backed up by successful experiments, they're usually right. Paul Graham recently wrote an essay on this:

http://paulgraham.com/newideas.html

Ernest King (the red team commander in the second wargame) wasn't a random newbie: he eventually served as Chief of Naval Operations in WW2. And a successful wargame is about as strong evidence as you can get. Amazingly, real-world experience is still often discounted by people in charge, which shows the power that existing paradigms and status-quo bias have on people.

Re: We only ever talk about the third attack on Pearl Harbor

#15

Post by pmontra » Mon, May 31, 2021, 5:42 PM UTC

In other wargames:

You might remember that the Ronald Reagan was sunk by a Swedish stealth submarine in 2005 [1] and that there is little hope to save the Baltic and Taiwan if Russia and China decide to occupy them [2].

[1] https://nationalinterest.org/blog/buzz/war-games-swedish-ste...

[2] https://breakingdefense.com/2019/03/us-gets-its-ass-handed-t...

Re: We only ever talk about the third attack on Pearl Harbor

#16

Post by travisjungroth » Mon, May 31, 2021, 5:44 PM UTC

duckfang wrote: post #6

Lets remind us our dates. July 4, 1898, the Newlands Resolution was a joint resolution by the United States Congress to annex the independent Republic of Hawaii. In 1900, Congress occupied the Territory of Hawaii, despite the opposition of most native Hawaiians. Dec 7, 1941 is when Japan attacked Pearl Harbor, Honolulu, Hawai'i, an occupied territory. August 21, 1959 is when they were forcibly turned into a state, af…

The history of US colonization of Hawaii is legitimate and relevant. The hint that WWII Japan was gracious towards island natives is absolutely wild.

Re: We only ever talk about the third attack on Pearl Harbor

#17

Post by JustFinishedBSG » Mon, May 31, 2021, 5:54 PM UTC

duckfang wrote: post #6

Lets remind us our dates. July 4, 1898, the Newlands Resolution was a joint resolution by the United States Congress to annex the independent Republic of Hawaii. In 1900, Congress occupied the Territory of Hawaii, despite the opposition of most native Hawaiians. Dec 7, 1941 is when Japan attacked Pearl Harbor, Honolulu, Hawai'i, an occupied territory. August 21, 1959 is when they were forcibly turned into a state, af…

> Note that Japan did not bomb native settlements and cities where civilians and natives lived - only the occupying force.

Ah yes, Imperial Japan, known for it's incredible humanity toward civilians.

Re: We only ever talk about the third attack on Pearl Harbor

#18

Post by TwoNineA » Mon, May 31, 2021, 5:56 PM UTC

enkid wrote: post #10

jabl wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the recent(ish) movie Midway there is a scene where the IJN is wargaming the upcoming attack, and they get their asses kicked since some cheeky junior officer playing the Americans doesn't keep the carriers waiting in Pearl Harbor but rather NE of Midway (which is what later happened in reality). So they reprimand that officer and restart the game with the clause that the US carriers must stay at Pearl until the a…

I mean, if you know the adversaries plan, it's pretty easy to come up with something that wrecks it, which is what it sounds like that officer did. What the Japanese didn't know was that the Americans also knew the plan.

Americans also got lucky that George Best and Wade McClusky were able to hit the carriers knowning that most attempts in the battle so far have utterly failed.

Re: We only ever talk about the third attack on Pearl Harbor

#19

Post by duckfang » Mon, May 31, 2021, 6:01 PM UTC

monoideism wrote: post #11

duckfang wrote: post #6

Lets remind us our dates. July 4, 1898, the Newlands Resolution was a joint resolution by the United States Congress to annex the independent Republic of Hawaii. In 1900, Congress occupied the Territory of Hawaii, despite the opposition of most native Hawaiians. Dec 7, 1941 is when Japan attacked Pearl Harbor, Honolulu, Hawai'i, an occupied territory. August 21, 1959 is when they were forcibly turned into a state, af…

> Dec 7, 1941 is when Japan attacked Pearl Harbor, Honolulu, Hawai'i, an occupied territory. With the end objective of occupying themselves, like they occupied so many countries during WWII. > Note that Japan did not bomb native settlements and cities where civilians and natives lived - only the occupying force. Yes, because those settlements had no military value, so they focused on targets of military importance. W…

I suggest you look up some reading on the subject, and try to shy away from the US propaganda.

No Choice but War: The United States Embargo Against Japan and the Eruption of War in the Pacific

https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctvqmp3br Beyond Pearl Harbor: A Pacific History

And you'll find out that there was continual and worsening relations with Japan due to US imperialism. Hawai'i was only one such territory colonized and conquered.

And there were economic sanctions from 1931 to 1941 for various products.

But this is also out of the US playbook to surround an enemy or proposed enemy, pull out economic sanctions, and then pull out the single bad thing. For example, here's the AFB's around Iran https://qph.fs.quoracdn.net/main-qimg-4d67205db3b8a9d820ca77... , but we're supposed to only look at Natanz nuclear refining.

Now, I'm not saying that Japan was honorable in combat. They death-marched Chinese. The "comfort women" were rape and murder victims. But really, all nations have similar horrific stories. Japan, alike the US, was no different in that regard.

Re: We only ever talk about the third attack on Pearl Harbor

#20

Post by pdonis » Mon, May 31, 2021, 6:08 PM UTC

monoideism wrote: post #11

duckfang wrote: post #6

Lets remind us our dates. July 4, 1898, the Newlands Resolution was a joint resolution by the United States Congress to annex the independent Republic of Hawaii. In 1900, Congress occupied the Territory of Hawaii, despite the opposition of most native Hawaiians. Dec 7, 1941 is when Japan attacked Pearl Harbor, Honolulu, Hawai'i, an occupied territory. August 21, 1959 is when they were forcibly turned into a state, af…

> Dec 7, 1941 is when Japan attacked Pearl Harbor, Honolulu, Hawai'i, an occupied territory. With the end objective of occupying themselves, like they occupied so many countries during WWII. > Note that Japan did not bomb native settlements and cities where civilians and natives lived - only the occupying force. Yes, because those settlements had no military value, so they focused on targets of military importance. W…

> With the end objective of occupying themselves

The Japanese had no intention of occupying Hawaii. They simply wanted to incapacitate the US Pacific Fleet. Had the US Pacific Fleet's carriers been in port at Pearl Harbor at the time, they would have succeeded.