Wow, I knew about the rubber trees, as the US was either after them or had them already, iirc.

But the quinine thing I had not heard. I know it was a key resource throughout the war.

Few people today are even aware of it's existence, much less how integral it was to any military operation in a tropical climate.

I know this was three days ago but wanted to say thank you as I always enjoy learning more about history and appreciate your input.

Interesting, I know this was forever ago but do you know why the Japanese decided not to re-arm and attack the fuel depots?

I know the Japanese initially thought an invasion of Pearl was much too risky and didn't want to send so much of their force so far away. General Nagumo ended up having to threaten his resignation if they didn't approve his plan to surprise attack Pearl. He was considered so integral to their Navy's success that they relented and allowed it to happen.

That being said, I am surprised they would not land and send another attack on Pearl given how much of the Pacific Fleet they knocked out. I don't remember off the top of my head what the US was able to get together to respond to the Japanese Navy's attack but I can't think that it was much.

On the other hand, I guess it only takes one dive bomber to ruin your day on an aircraft carrier with a wooden deck soaked in JetA, so maybe Nagumo had a good reason after all.

"In early 1945, a thirty-year-old historian, William L. Neumann, published a brochure, The Genesis of Pearl Harbor. He reviewed the diplomatic background to the outbreak of the war and pointed out how the Roosevelt Administration had launched an economic war against Japan in the summer and fall of 1941. Neumann concluded that both sides were responsible, but that Washington could not have been surprised by the attack at Pearl Harbor, given FDR's diplomatic activities in the months and days preceding December 7th."

There were several requests to not keep the fleet in Pearl Harbor as two prior war games in 1932 and 1936 showed it was vulnerable to attack, which were overruled by Roosevelt. The base there was denied access to a code breaker which would allow them access to most Japanese communications including those used for highest level of secrecy.

After the war there was an investigation into Pearl Harbor to assign blame for not being prepared for the attack. Lt. General George Grunert chaired the Army Pearl Harbor Board, which met from July 20-October 20, 1944. Evidence from 151 witnesses was collected in Washington, D.C., San Francisco, and Hawaii. While the Board was critical of General Short, for the first time attention was directed toward General George Marshall and the War Department. Marshall was censured for failing to keep Short fully apprised of the deteriorating state of U.S.-Japanese relations; of failing to correct Short's "sabotage alert" preparations at Pearl Harbor (U.S. aircraft were bunched wing-tip to wing-tip on December 7th, because Washington had told Short to guard against sabotage. Had he been alerted to a possible air attack, the planes would have been scattered and sheltered in revetments to guard against bomb blast); of failing to send critical information to Short on the evening of December 6th and the morning of December 7th; of failing to determine if the state of readiness at Pearl Harbor was commensurate with the potential threats to the base's security. General Leonard Gerow, the Chief of the Army's War Plans Division, was also reproved, He had failed, the Board concluded, to keep the Hawaiian command informed about Japanese moves that were known in Washington; of failing to make the November 27th warning clear and concise; and of failing to see that joint Army-Navy plans were properly effected.

Needless to say, Secretary of War Henry Stimson and Navy Secretary James Forrestal were alarmed that blame for the success of the Japanese attack had been shifted from the local commanders to their superiors in Washington. To supplement the report of the Army Pearl Harbor Board, Major Henry Clausen was selected to head a one-man investigation. But no public report was issued. Forrestal had Admiral W. Kent Hewitt continue to investigate Pearl Harbor. No separate report was issued, but on August 29, 1945, Forrestal announced that, on the basis of Hewitt's inquiries, "Admiral Husband E. Kimmel and Admiral Harold R. Stark, particularly during the period 27 November to 7 December, 1941, failed to demonstrate the superior judgment necessary to exercising command commensurate with their rank and assigned duties."

The Army and Navy Reports provided fresh ammunition to the redoubtable John T. Flynn, who, in September 1945, issued a fifteen-page report entitled The Final Secret of Pearl Harbor. Flynn's findings were not limited to review by a small circle of interested friends, but were given wide circulation thanks to the Chicago Tribune, which highlighted his work. Flynn concluded that Franklin Roosevelt was to blame for diplomatic mismanagement; for keeping the Pacific fleet stationed at the insecure Pearl Harbor base; and for stripping Pearl Harbor of needed defensive equipment.

Reviewing the diplomatic prelude to the attack, Flynn explained that FDR undermined the position of Japanese moderates and so orchestrated events that General Tojo and the "War Agitators" took power in Tokyo. Despite provocations, it became clear that Germany was not going to declare war against the United States. It was at this point, said Flynn, that Roosevelt turned the screws on the Japanese.

Flynn went on to note the "Gift from the Gods" that the cracking of the Japanese diplomatic codes represented. Flynn was under the impression that the British had first broken the Japanese code and supplied Washington with copies of messages between Tokyo and foreign representatives. He underscored the significance of the fact that Washington was aware that Japan had given its diplomats a November 25th deadline to reach an understanding with the U.S.

In a section, "The Fog at Pearl Harbor," Flynn emphasized that the commanders at Pearl Harbor were told "literally nothing" about the intercepted Japanese messages and the rapidly deteriorating state of affairs. Short was ordered to guard against sabotage and internal disorder from the large Japanese population in Hawaii, and warned that Japanese military operations could be expected soon, but against such targets as the Kra Peninsula, Guam, Singapore, and Malay. And Flynn re-emphasized a point that is still too often obscured in discussions of the attack, namely, "that Kimmel's fleet was not there to protect Pearl Harbor. The harbor was there merely as a fuel and supply base for it. The fleet had a task assigned to it in case of war. The protection of the base would be the duty of the Army and the base naval installations."

Rep. Frank Keefe submitted his own "Additional Views" after having, with Republican Rep. Gearhart (who was in a tough re-election campaign), signed the "Majority Report." Keefe admitted that the "concept of an 'incident' as a factor which would unify public opinion behind an all-out war effort either in the Atlantic or Pacific had influenced the thinking of officials in Washington for a long time." As early as October 1940, Roosevelt had considered blockading Japan. Keefe also found it significant that just days before the attack on Pearl Harbor Roosevelt personally ordered the Navy to dispatch three small vessels from the Philippines into the path of Japanese warships then steaming towards Southeast Asia. The Congressman felt that this singular action was intended to provoke an "overt" Japanese attack on American ships that could serve as the incident needed to bring the United States officially into the war.

Rear Admiral Robert A. Theobald was commander of the Pacific Fleet's destroyers at the time of the attack and was at Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. Later he was commander of the Northern Pacific Force. At the time of his retirement from active duty he was Commandant of the First Naval District.

Theobald assisted Kimmel in his testimony before the Roberts Commission. After his retirement, he devoted years to studying the attack and its aftermath. The results of his research were first published in March 1954, when Devin Adair released The Final Secret of Pearl Harbor: The Washington Contribution to the Japanese Attack.

It was Admiral Theobald's finding that from the fall of France, in June 1940, Roosevelt was convinced that the U.S. must fight on Britain's side and that the primary objective remained the defeat of Germany. On September 27, 1940, Germany, Italy, and Japan entered into the Tripartite Pact, which provided that each would declare war on any third party that went to war against one of the three (this did not affect Germany and Japan's relations with the U.S.S.R.). From this date, then, war with Japan meant war with Germany and Italy, and this came to play an increasingly important role in Roosevelt's maneuvers.

In an effort to circumvent the American public's reluctance to enter the war, Roosevelt took a number of steps that Theobald went into considerable detail explaining. In brief, they were:

Introduced a massive arms buildup; Repeatedly provoked Germany through an undeclared naval war in the Atlantic; Applied increasing economic and diplomatic pressure on Japan, reaching a climax in late July, 1941, when the U.S., Britain, and the Netherlands froze Japanese assets. Japan lost 75 per cent of its foreign trade and 90 per cent of its oil supply; In August 1941 met with Churchill at Newfoundland, where FDR promised that any Japanese attack on British or Dutch possessions would bring the United States into the war; Had Secretary of State Hull delivered an insulting diplomatic ultimatum to the Japanese government on November 26, 1941, "which gave Japan no choice but surrender or war"; He "retained a weak Pacific fleet in Hawaiian waters, despite contrary naval advice, where it served only one diplomatic purpose, an invitation to a Japanese surprise attack"; "Furthered that surprise by causing the Hawaiian Commanders to be denied invaluable information from decoded Japanese dispatches concerning the rapid approach to the war and the strong probability that the attack would be directed at Pearl Harbor." Theobald, in his review of the MAGIC diplomatic decrypts that were available in Washington, emphasized that this vital material was not passed along, that there had been an "almost complete denial of information, during the three months preceding the Pearl Harbor attack." Then he posed a series of questions that Roosevelt's defenders have yet to answer satisfactorily: "Why was such irrefutable evidence of the coming attack so withheld? Why did Washington contribute so completely to the surprise feature of that attack?" Theobald reasoned, "There can be only one answer -- because President Roosevelt wanted it that way!"

The Final Secret of Pearl Harbor also reviews the findings of the various post-attack investigations, including a point-by point refutation of the Majority Conclusion of the Joint Congressional Committee, which he dismissed as "the last act in the attempt to preserve the Pearl Harbor Secret."

The American moves leading up to the Japanese attack are summarized in his final chapter, in which he re-emphasizes that:

... the recurrent fact of the true Pearl Harbor story has been the repeated withholding of information from Admiral Kimmel and General Short ... The denial to the Hawaiian Commanders of all knowledge of Magic was vital to the plan for enticing Japan to deliver a surprise attack upon the Fleet ... because as late as Saturday, December 6, Admiral Kimmel could have caused that attack to be canceled by taking his fleet to sea and disappearing beyond land- based human ken.

Evidence placed on the record indicated to Theobald that:

Everything that happened in Washington on Saturday and Sunday, December 6 and 7, supports the belief that President Roosevelt had directed that no message be sent to the Hawaiian Commanders before noon on Sunday, Washington time ... Never before in recorded history had a field commander been denied information that his country would be at war in a matter of hours, and that everything pointed to a surprise attack upon his forces shortly after sunrise.

Much of the above is excerpts of writing by Charles Lutton.