treespider
Posts: 9796
Joined: 1/30/2005 From: Edgewater, MD Status: offline
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as an addendum to the above... quote:
One of these concerned Roosevelt's December 1, 1941 order to Admiral Hart at Manila, ordering the immediate dispatch of three "small vessels" armed with a machine gun and deck cannon, each commanded by a U.S. Naval officer, and flying the American flag. The three little ships were directed to sail into the path of Japanese Navy convoys that Washington knew were then steaming southward. Had the American ships been attacked by the Japanese, Barnes was now confident that this would have saved Pearl Harbor. "There can be little doubt that the Cockleship plan of December 1st was designed to get the indispensable attack by a method which would precede the Pearl Harbor attack, avert the latter, and save the Pacific Fleet and American lives," he wrote of this aspect of the mystery. A part of the story that had hitherto been largely overlooked, even by many Revisionists, concerned the secret agreements Roosevelt had entered into with the British and Dutch and which led to America technically being at war with Japan four days before Pearl Harbor. As Barnes succinctly explained, in April 1941 the U.S., British, and Dutch agreed to take joint military action against Japan if the Japanese sent armed forces beyond the line 100 East and 10 North or 6 North and the Davao-Waigeo line, or threatened British or Dutch possessions in the southwest Pacific or independent countries in that region. The agreements were known as ABCD. Thereafter, Admiral Stark said that war with Japan was not a matter of if, but rather when and where. Roosevelt gave his approval to the attendant war plans in May and June. On December 3, 1941, the Dutch invoked the ABCD agree ment, after Japanese forces passed the line 100 East and 10 North, and were thought to be headed toward Dutch territory as well as the Kra Peninsula and Thailand. The U.S. military attache in Melbourne, Australia, Colonel Van S. Merle-Smith, was contacted by the Australians, British, and Dutch and informed that the Dutch were expecting the U.S. Navy to offer assistance. Merle-Smith relayed this information to his superiors by coded message. It should have reached Washington in the early evening of December 4.
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Here's a link to: Treespider's Grand Campaign of DBB "It is not the critic who counts, .... The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena..." T. Roosevelt, Paris, 1910
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