Pearl Harbour.

My daughter is taking a summer school on world history.  The teacher
today put forward a premise that England knew that Japan was going to
attack Pearl Harbor but did not inform the US because they wanted the
US to be involved in the war.

Is this fact or fiction?

I realize that this is subjective.

Hello youngnonna-ga,

At the outset, I should note that it is quite plausible that the
British government -- in particular, Prime Minister Winston Churchill
-- could have known that Japan was going to attack Pearl Harbor, but
did not inform the U.S. because it wanted the U.S. to be involved in
the war.  Certainly, Churchill was not unhappy about the natural
consequence of the Pearl Harbor attack.  As he later wrote:

"... at this very moment I knew the United States was in the war up to
the neck and in to the death.  So we had won after all. ... We should
not be wiped out.  Our history would not come to an end.  We might not
even have to die as individuals.  Hitler's fate was sealed. 
Mussolini's fate was sealed.  As for the Japanese, they would be
ground to powder."

"Provoked by Pearl Harbor - B. Churchill: His faith in America’s
fighting spirit"
The White House Historical Association
http://www.whitehousehistory.org/02_learning/subs_docs/images_photos/1941_excerpts_b.html

So, regardless of whether there is evidence that Churchill's
government knew about the attack and failed to tell the U.S., there is
always a possibility that this is what really happened.

However, I believe that, at least at the present time, the story is
fiction, rather than established fact.  The claims that Churchill knew
about the attack in advance are often based on Betrayal at Pearl
Harbor, a book by James Rusbridger and Eric Nave.  However, the
critics generally find little in this book to convince them.

"White Noise", by James Rusbridger, reply by Ian Buruma (April 9,
1992)
The New York Review of Books
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/2965

"Rus" [third item, on Betrayal at Pearl Harbor]
The Literature of Intelligence: A Bibliography of Materials,
with Essays, Reviews, and Comments, by J. Ransom Clark, Vice President
for Administration, Muskingum College
http://intellit.muskingum.edu/alpha_folder/R_folder/rus.html

"Why Weren't We Warned?", by David Kahn, World War II Magazine (May
2001) [page 3 of article]
About.com - 20th Century History
http://history1900s.about.com/library/prm/blwarned3.htm

"Who Lost Pearl Harbor?", by David Greenberg (December 7, 2000)
[second bullet point near the bottom of the article]
Slate
http://slate.msn.com/id/94663/

Maybe someday someone will uncover new evidence that will show that
the Churchill government knew of the impending attack.  But it seems
that it is currently only a believable fiction.

- justaskscott-ga


Search terms used on Google:

"churchill knew" "pearl harbor"
"betrayal at pearl harbor"
churchill "so we had won"

---

Clarification of Answer by justaskscott-ga on 23 Jun 2003 22:00 PDT

I should note that another historian, popular on the far right but not
elsewhere, who believes that the British knew in advance is David
Irving (most famous for denying that the Nazis killed six million Jews
in the Holocaust).  This suggests to me that this belief is a
conspiracy theory, even if a plausible-sounding one.

"The Banality of Irving", by Mark Greif [fourth paragraph from the
bottom]
The American Prospect
http://www.prospect.org/print/V11/11/greif-m.html

Thank you for your answer.  It was interesting that my daughter, age
15, came home from her summer school class and professed that
Churchill knew of the attack.  I doubted it at first - but, decided to
give her the benefit of the doubt.  After reading all of the data that
you referenced, I have reached the conclusion that he did not know. 
For Churchill to know that thousands of Americans would be killed and
our Pacific fleet would be decimated goes against all of my reasoning.
 This, like the Oswald conspiracies, is one minor thought in the
overwhelming thought process that projects it as being wrong.

Hi Youngnonna-ga. As far back as the 1930`s, the Japanese were
planning to take control of the oil rich area of the so called " Far
East" which includes Indonesia and the Phillipines. The militaristic
Japanese Government wanted to forge ahead with technology and to this
end they needed a source of energy supply. There is a very good
anchorage on the West coast of Western Australia called Jurien Bay,
That was thoroughly surveyed by Japanese shipping and seagoing fishing
boats, with the express purpose of an invasion of the Australian
mainland. Oil and gas reserves have been found and sealed in this
exact area. Western Australia was going to be "sacrificed" to protect
the Eastern states. But of course then the Australian government did
not know about the oil, gas, irpon ore and diamonds, not to mention
nickel and extra gold. Even Admiral Yamamoto knew that the moment
Japan attacked America, they had lost the war....Churchill also knew
that the war was won on December 6th. 1941.  The Americans industrial
might could not be destroyed, being protected by its geographical
position. If Churchill knew of the attack, he is responsible for the
loss of those 2,000 plus people at Pearl Harbour.

The U.S. and Britain were for the most part coorperating on
intelligence matters. It should be noted that information was not
always being efficiently circulated, even amongst the various
departments and posts of the U.S. military. This is one of the lessons
learned from Pearl Harbor.

An example of this is the "Winds Message", which was designed as a
coded message sent from Japan over regular broadcast radio as a
weather forecast. The content of the forecast would detail the state
of current diplomatic relations with the U.S., Britain, or Russia.
According to testimony provided by naval intelligence officer, capt.
L.F. Safford, "We received a tip-off from the British in Singapore in
late November, 1941, which was immediately forwarded to the Navy
Department by the Commander-in-Chief, U. S. Asiatic Fleet, with an
information copy to the Commander-in-Chief, Pacific Fleet."

http://www.corregidor.org/../chs_crypto1/ctn_safford.htm