[Grovenet] Peace in Iraq/WWII plans

Fri Oct 6 23:44:35 PDT 2006

Yes. Gen'l Eisenhower, as a young officer, had been on a military convoy
that was to cross the USA back in (I believe it was)the 1920's, and he was
aghast at the length of time it took! I think it was several weeks during
which they slogged their way along what was, at times, little better than
rough tracks across the land. 

Anyway, after the huge scare of the outbreak of WWII when all the military
we had was on the east coast, and  with that experience he had, building a
road system that could handle military traffic was a priority. 

That's why the interstates are built to handle 100-ton tanks on the roadway,
not just puny 18-wheelers <G> 

Fortunately we've never had to use them for military traffic - yet. 

Ron D'Eau Claire 

-----Original Message-----
From: grovenet-bounces at rdrop.com [mailto:grovenet-bounces at rdrop.com] On
Behalf Of allnutt
Sent: Friday, October 06, 2006 10:17 PM
To: Forest Grove local interests list
Subject: Re: [Grovenet] Peace in Iraq/WWII plans

And if my memory serves me after we learned of Japan's intentions, the 
interstate hiway system was justified primarily on the belief that we needed

a way to quickly move troops and munitions around the country in case any 
other country tried to invade the US. The economic benefits that might come 
along with it the improved infrastructure were secondary when the roads were

contemplated.  Of course the economic boom  of easier transportation was 
bigger than expected. Of course everybody then tried to rewrite history and 
claim that the knew all along what the economic benefit was going to be and 
that was the purpose all along. (Everybody tries to rewrite history to make 
themselves look smarter.)

Katie

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Ron D'Eau Claire" <rondec at easystreet.com>
To: "'Forest Grove local interests list'" <grovenet at rdrop.com>
Sent: Friday, October 06, 2006 9:45 PM
Subject: Re: [Grovenet] Peace in Iraq

> Yes, the stories I've read said that some of then landed in Oregon. 
> One wounded or killed some folks on a picnic who discovered the device 
> where it had landed but incendiaries failed to go off - until they 
> picked it up. I've
> seen pictures of bits of others found in trees.
>
> Also, a Japanese submarine shelled an oil refinery near Santa Barbara 
> with some spectacular results when shells set some hillside tanks 
> ablaze. Didn't do a lot of damage, but the night-time fire was visible 
> for many miles and made for spectacular front-page photos in the 
> papers.
>
> The Japanese had a firm plan to invade North America as part of their 
> own version of what we'd call "Shock and Awe" today. We studied it 
> when I was in the Army tactical college. The Japanese had done a lot 
> of homework and their
> experts, like Yamamoto who had attended University here, understood that
> most Americans were very ambivalent about being involved in the "far 
> east".
> Only those in D.C. doing long term planning felt the far east was of
> critical importance to the USA. So the Japanese formulated plan to cause 
> the
> American people to demand their government withdraw from any involvement
> there.
>
> They knew we had absolutely no defenses on the west coast. If memory
> serves
> me there were less than 2,000 soldiers on the coast between the Canadian 
> and
> Mexican borders, and, literally, only a handful of them had guns or
> ammunition. There were no reserves, artillery or air force. The USA was a
> pacifist nation who didn't want to deal with war ever again. Calls for
> impeachment of FDR were being heard over his lend-lease of arms to 
> Britain.
> The rearming of America had begun at the highest levels but not yet at the
> level of recruiting and preparing men to fight, or the public for the
> possibility of any significant combat involving Americans.
>
> Huge sections of our coastline were virtually uninhabited, much less 
> have any armed presence. Also Los Angeles and San Francisco were 
> totally dependent upon the slender lifelines of the railroads and 
> power lines that crossed huge expanses of virtually uninhabited 
> territory in Nevada and the Southern California deserts.
>
> The Japanese plan was simple. Come ashore with moderate invasion 
> forces in two places, one north of San Diego and one in Northern 
> California or southern Oregon and drive eastward across the almost 
> uninhabited countryside with fast armor, joining up in Nevada where 
> they would have cut power and rail to Los Angeles and San Francisco. 
> That whole effort could be accomplished in less than a month. They 
> anticipated that not only would California be in a total panic, the 
> entire nation would be in shock. Then they'd offer to withdraw. The 
> conditions for leaving the USA would be that we get out of their 'back 
> yard' in the far east.
>
> According to the classes I attended, our experts think it would have
> worked.
> The American people, in a panic over Germany's threat and having little or
> no concern with whatever was happening in far-off Asia, would demand
> Washington withdraw from the far east. The Japanese had already 
> 'snookered'
> Hitler into agreeing to declare war on the USA if hostilities began 
> between
> Japan and the USA for any reason. They felt that a declaration of war on 
> the
> USA by Hitler would fix America's attention on Europe and the threat in 
> the
> Atlantic and not on something going on half a world away in the far east.
>
> To work it required two things happen correctly:
>
> 1) The Empire of Japan declare war on the USA as provided by 
> international conventions. At that point we'd be on high alert, 
> expecting an attack against our bases in the Philippines.
>
> 2) Japan successfully strike Hawaii and take out the US Carriers - the
> only
> naval force the Japanese considered a serious threat to an invasion force.
>
> Neither one happened. Due to the diplomatic screwups the declaration 
> of
> war
> was delayed until the attack had already occurred. By sheer chance, no
> aircraft carriers were at Pearl Harbor as expected.
>
> It was a total disaster as far as the Japanese strategic plans were 
> concerned although the tactical operations were amazingly successful. 
> Of course, it was later that they discovered that the complete 
> surprise was because the USA didn't know we were at war with Japan in 
> advance as planned.
>
>
> As a result, any subsequent plans for attacks against the US itself 
> were called off.
>
> Of course, hindsight is wonderful. It's unlikely we'd have discovered 
> the Japanese Pearl Harbor fleet for days, had it stuck around. We had 
> only a couple of ships who could search for them and no aircraft. The 
> ships were, at best, a heavy cruiser or two - absolutely no match for 
> the Japanese force.  If they had stuck around, they'd not only have 
> done far more damage to Pearl than they did already, they'd likely 
> have found the carriers as they returned. Even the third air strike 
> that had been planned for December
> 7 would have done far more damage to our long-term use of the base than 
> the
> first two had done. The third strike was supposed to take out the fuel
> installations on Ford Island and the drydock and maintenance facilities 
> what
> were essential to repairing any of the damaged ships. But the conservative
> Japanese Admiral cancelled it.
>
> What if - if only - all those things are part of life.
>
> Ron D'Eau Claire
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: grovenet-bounces at rdrop.com [mailto:grovenet-bounces at rdrop.com] 
> On Behalf Of Meredith Bliss
> Sent: Friday, October 06, 2006 8:46 PM
> To: Forest Grove local interests list
> Subject: Re: [Grovenet] Peace in Iraq
>
>
> On Thursday 05 October 2006 21:51, Ron D'Eau Claire wrote: ...
>> At least in WWII they had the very real specter of foreign armies 
>> invading our homeland. And it turned out that both the Japanese and 
>> Germans had plans to attack the contiguous 48 directly if not 
>> actually invade and occupy sections of our country.
>
> Not just plans, the Japanese launched incendiary devices, by balloon 
> if memory serves, to light our forests on fire. Not very successfully, 
> but they did give it a try. One of them landed around Bandon, as I 
> recall.
>
> ----------------------------------------
> Just happy to be here, but speaking
> only for myself!
> Meredith Bliss --- www.rdrop.com/~mbliss
> ----------------------------------------
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