The US itself was still reeling from the aftershocks of the Wall Street Crash in 1929, which had condemned millions to the bleakness of the Great Depression<\/a> in the subsequent decade.<\/p>\n As the international situation grew increasingly fractious, Congress passed legislation to enshrine US neutrality. These laws effectively proscribed any American involvement with combatant nations and imposed certain stipulations on the trade of items such as arms, moneylending and more.<\/p>\n Within months of Nazi Germany\u2019s invasion of Poland<\/a>, much of Europe, save for its ally, Fascist Italy, Francisco Franco<\/a>\u2019s Spain, and friendly authoritarian regimes in Central Europe, had succumbed to Hitler\u2019s rapid militarism. Only the United Kingdom held out against the Nazi onslaught, joined in June 1941 by the Soviet Union following Germany\u2019s invasion. On the other side of the world, Germany\u2019s ally Japan had made an incursion into China.<\/p>\n In August 1941, the US embargoed the oil exports on which Japan was so dependent. Negotiations between the two nations followed, while Tokyo drew up plans to take the oil-rich Dutch East Indies and British Malaya by force.<\/p>\n The Japanese anticipated that this latest move would incur a declaration of war by the United States. Therefore, they resolved to wipe out the threat of immediate American retaliation by launching a pre-emptive strike at the heart of US military power in the Pacific. Japanese strategists believed the US would sue for peace rather than commit to fighting thousands of miles away in East Asia and thus enable Tokyo to consolidate its gains there.<\/p>\n At 7.48am on 7 December 1941, 177 Japanese warplanes appeared in the skies over the Hawaiian island of Oahu, home to the US Pacific Fleet\u2019s headquarters at Pearl Harbor<\/a>.<\/p>\n Two hours later, the base was a scene of devastation, with over 20 warships sunk or damaged, nearly 200 airplanes obliterated and the loss of 2,403 US personnel.<\/p>\n Roosevelt would describe the bombing as a \u201cdate which will live in infamy\u201d before a joint session of Congress the following day. A formal declaration of hostilities with Japan passed almost unanimously, and so the United States joined the Second World War<\/a>.<\/p>\n Member exclusive<\/strong> | Was the moon landing faked? Did Shakespeare actually write his plays? Were the pyramids built by aliens? Expert historians offer their perspectives on history\u2019s biggest conspiracy theories.<\/p>\n Listen to all episodes now<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n <\/p><\/div> According to conspiracy theorists, Roosevelt\u2019s primary objective was to keep the British in the fight against Nazi Germany. The fall of France in June 1940<\/a> made this even more pressing.<\/p>\n The theory takes its cue from the fact that despite its official policy of neutrality, the US was in fact flouting its own laws by aiding Britain with supplies, weapons and even escorts for British convoys evading German warships in the Atlantic prior to 7 December 1941.<\/p>\n Foreknowledge of a \u2018surprise\u2019 Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor provided the president with a \u2018backdoor\u2019 route to join the Second World War and thus to lend full, transparent assistance to Britain.<\/p>\n As international relations deteriorated during the 1930s, governments invested a great deal in espionage and codebreaking.<\/p>\n Pertinent to the idea that the US government was not only aware that a massive Japanese attack was forthcoming but in fact welcomed it, hinges on the breaking of the \u2018Purple\u2019 cipher.<\/p>\n This was a secret diplomatic code Tokyo used to communicate with its embassies around the world. Purple was cracked in September 1940 by 27-year-old mathematician, Genevieve Grotjan, and this enabled the US to construct a machine to decrypt secret Japanese communications.<\/p>\n Journalist and author Steve Twomey explains: \u201cIt wasn\u2019t a case of reading them weeks later, they were reading them within 24 or 48 hours. Those codes clearly indicated that something big was going to happen.\u201d<\/p>\n Another source cited as evidence of a plot for entering the conflict comes from the diary of Henry L Stimson, the US Secretary of War, in an entry dated 25 November 1941.<\/p>\n While recalling Roosevelt\u2019s view that Japan was likely to spring an attack any day, Stimson wrote: \u201cThe question was how we should maneuver [sic] them into the position of firing the first shot without allowing too much danger to ourselves.\u201d<\/p>\n Member exclusive |<\/strong> Browse and listen to all episodes in our podcast series on the December 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor<\/p>\n <\/p><\/div> The Japanese ambush at Pearl Harbor came as a profound and inexplicable shock to Americans.<\/p>\n \u201cThere were a group of New York elites, having Sunday dinner at a house in the suburbs of New York City,\u201d says Twomey. \u201cThe telephone rang, and the person who answered it came back and told the assembled smart people that Japan had just attacked Pearl Harbor. And one of the savviest members of that group told the others: \u2018don\u2019t worry about it, it\u2019s a hoax\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n The public had been repeatedly told that Pearl Harbor was a nigh impregnable fortress. \u201cIt was called the \u2018Gibraltar of the Pacific\u2019, says Twomey.\u201d Even a column on the frontpage of The New York Times<\/em>\u2019 edition for 7 December 1941 (which went to press hours before the attack) was headed by a quote from Frank Knox, Secretary of the Navy, extoling the American fleet as \u201csuperior to any.\u201d<\/p>\n For some, the reality was so incomprehensible that it defied acceptance.<\/p>\n It was widely assumed that such a significant and strategic military base \u2013 particularly with tensions rising in the Pacific \u2013 must have been conducting routine aerial reconnaissance and would have raised the alarm about the proximity of a foreign power\u2019s fleet long before any attack could take place.<\/p>\n It later came to light that the commander of the US Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbor, Admiral Husband E Kimmel, had neglected to take appropriate precautions \u2013 notably air searches upon receipt of a communiqu\u00e9 issued from Washington on 27 November to its command posts throughout the Pacific, warning about the prospect of an imminent Japanese strike.<\/p>\n Another factor behind this rude awakening was the perception of the enemy. \u201cThe Japanese had been repeatedly described to the American public as an inferior military power. That their planes were second rate; that their aircraft carriers were not like America\u2019s,\u201d says Twomey.<\/p>\n This propaganda was often imbued with crude tropes, as Twomey explains, it was assumed that the Japanese people \u201csuffered \u2013 in one astounding allegation \u2013 from limited eyesight and a bad sense of balance because they had been carried on the backs of their mothers as children [which had] upset their inner ear\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cSuddenly here were these supposedly inferior people surprising the best navy in the world at Pearl Harbor. How could that have taken place?\u201d The answer, says Twomey, is people ratonalised there must be a conspiracy.<\/p>\n The Pacific had become a powder keg by 1941 and a Japanese attack was widely anticipated by the United States. But what did come as a surprise to most was the eventual target. Pearl Harbor, located approximately 4,000 miles southeast of Tokyo, was considered too distant for any major military operation.<\/p>\n \u201cEveryone in the United States government from the president down expected war in the Pacific to break out at any minute,\u201d says Twomey. \u201cMany knew that a large Japanese invasion force had set sail and was bound for the southwest Pacific toward Malaya, Singapore, Indochina, Indonesia, and, most importantly, toward what was an American colony at that time, the Philippines.\u201d<\/p>\n For Twomey, the notion that Roosevelt was hoping the Japanese would give him a reason to declare war, let alone that Pearl Harbor would be willingly sacrificed to achieve that end, simply doesn\u2019t bear out.<\/p>\n Yes, the likelihood of an attack in the weeks leading up to 7 December was being discussed at the top of the US government \u2013 as Stimson\u2019s diary entry shows. However, it was believed that this would be directed against America\u2019s colonies in southeast Asia.<\/p>\n The notion that war with Japan would then free up the US to throw itself unequivocally behind assisting Britain in the Atlantic is also dubious. \u201cWar in the Pacific was absolutely not what [Roosevelt] wanted \u2026 starting a war in the Pacific [meant] the US now had to be wary on two fronts,\u201d says Twomey.<\/p>\n Another component to this theory suggests that British prime minister Winston Churchill knew Pearl Harbor was going to be attacked and kept silent. With the US finally in the war, a beleaguered Britain would be saved by the might of America\u2019s military machine.<\/p>\n Nevertheless, Twomey points out that the incident \u201chardly helped the British\u201d because \u201cwithin hours and days of the attack, the US began shifting warships from the Atlantic to the Pacific\u201d and thus the protection to British shipping that had existed prior to 7 December 1941 became depleted.<\/p>\n This wasn\u2019t the only blow for Britain: on 8 December 1941, the Japanese launched an invasion of Britain\u2019s colonies in Malaya and Hong Kong, with Singapore surrendering in February 1942. Britain\u2019s supply lines from Australia and New Zealand were suddenly in danger.<\/p>\n Although a formal declaration of war had not been made prior to 7 December 1941, Twomey believes that by this stage in the war the US had \u201cadvanced far beyond the laws of neutrality in its efforts to help Great Britain\u201d and was de facto at war with Germany.<\/p>\n But the most convincing argument against a conspiracy, says Twomey, is \u201cthe deliberate sacrifice of thousands of sailors and many warships just to get the United States into the war when there were so many other ways to do it\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cThere were far simpler and more productive ways \u2026 than by allowing your principal fighting force in the Pacific to be crippled.\u201d<\/p>\n Explore more conspiracies from history<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p><\/div> <\/section> Steve Twomey is a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist. He was speaking to Rob Attar for this episode of the HistoryExtra<\/em> podcast<\/a>, part of our Conspiracy<\/em> podcast series<\/a> On 7 December 1941, the Japanese inflicted a devastating aerial attack on the US naval base at Pearl Harbor. The next day, the United States declared war on Japan. But did the American president, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, know about the intended target and secretly welcome the assault? In the second season of our Conspiracy podcast series, Rob Attar speaks to Steve Twomey about why some believe the deadly ambush was a matter of expediency for a president bent on joining WW2 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":33530,"template":"","categories":[1],"acf":{"readingTimeMinutes":"9"},"uagb_featured_image_src":{"full":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/46\/2024\/02\/did-the-us-know-that-pearl-harbor-would-be-attacked-the-real-history-that-debunks-the-conspiracy.jpg",620,413,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/46\/2024\/02\/did-the-us-know-that-pearl-harbor-would-be-attacked-the-real-history-that-debunks-the-conspiracy-150x150.jpg",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/46\/2024\/02\/did-the-us-know-that-pearl-harbor-would-be-attacked-the-real-history-that-debunks-the-conspiracy-300x200.jpg",300,200,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/46\/2024\/02\/did-the-us-know-that-pearl-harbor-would-be-attacked-the-real-history-that-debunks-the-conspiracy.jpg",620,413,false],"large":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/46\/2024\/02\/did-the-us-know-that-pearl-harbor-would-be-attacked-the-real-history-that-debunks-the-conspiracy.jpg",620,413,false],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/46\/2024\/02\/did-the-us-know-that-pearl-harbor-would-be-attacked-the-real-history-that-debunks-the-conspiracy.jpg",620,413,false],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/46\/2024\/02\/did-the-us-know-that-pearl-harbor-would-be-attacked-the-real-history-that-debunks-the-conspiracy.jpg",620,413,false]},"uagb_author_info":{"display_name":"importmanagerhub@sprylab.com","author_link":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbchistory\/author\/importmanagerhubsprylab-com\/"},"uagb_comment_info":0,"uagb_excerpt":"On 7 December 1941, the Japanese inflicted a devastating aerial attack on the US naval base at Pearl Harbor. The next day, the United States declared war on Japan. But did the American president, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, know about the intended target and secretly welcome the assault? In the second season of our Conspiracy podcast…","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbchistory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rss_feed\/33529"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbchistory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rss_feed"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbchistory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/rss_feed"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbchistory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/24"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbchistory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/33530"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbchistory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33529"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbchistory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33529"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Conspiracy: A HistoryExtra<\/em> podcast series<\/h4>\n
![\"Conspiracy](\"https:\/\/images.immediate.co.uk\/production\/volatile\/sites\/7\/2023\/01\/Conspiracy-900x250-655d486.png?quality=45&resize=556,556\" "\\"Conspiracy")
<\/div> <\/div> <\/div> <\/section> The conspiracy theory: Roosevelt knew the attack was coming and let it happen<\/h2>\n
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What is the source of the theory?<\/h2>\n
Pearl Harbor podcast series<\/h4>\n
Listen to all episodes now<\/a><\/h4>\n
![\"Pod](\"https:\/\/images.immediate.co.uk\/production\/volatile\/sites\/7\/2021\/12\/Pod-Pearl-Harbor-FB-2460cb7.jpg?quality=45&resize=556,556\" "\\"Pod")
<\/div> <\/div> <\/div> <\/section> The reasons why the theory took hold<\/h2>\n
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The evidence that debunks the theory<\/h2>\n
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More from us
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