Plan to strike Japan first

Kyt · Dec 10, 2008

Author tells of plan to strike Japan first | lee.shearer@onlineathens.com

The Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor dragged the United States into World War II on Dec. 7, 1941 - 67 years ago today.

But the infamous attack that killed 2,350 and sank four U.S. battleships might never have happened if the U.S. government had followed through on a secret plan to send a fleet of twin-engine bombers flying over Japan for a pre-emptive strike, according to author Alan Armstrong.

Three people hatched the plan to bomb Japan from Chinese bases in December 1940 - Nationalist Chinese leader Chiang Kai-shek; Lauchlin Currie, an adviser to President Franklin Roosevelt; and Claire Chennault, founder and leader of the legendary flying group the Flying Tigers, according to documents Armstrong unearthed in U.S. government archives.

Armstrong used the documents as the basis for his book "Preemptive Strike: The Secret Plan That Would Have Prevented the Attack on Pearl Harbor."

Forced to retire from the Army after a bitter dispute over the future use of fighter aircraft in war, Chennault had become a sort of mercenary in China, training Chinese pilots and recruiting American volunteers to fly fighter planes against Japanese invaders.

The bombing plan called for the United States to sell American-made Lockheed Hudson bombers to the Nationalist Chinese military, which was battling a Japanese invasion force in the years before Pearl Harbor plunged the United States into World War II.

Chinese and American pilots would then fly the bombers to Japan, a scant 700 miles away, to firebomb Japanese industrial cities.

The plan's authors figured the bombing raids would loosen Japanese control of occupied Chinese ports and force the Japanese to focus more military resources on protecting their home islands from future air raids from China - and away from Pearl Harbor, Armstrong explained.

"It was meant to be sobering for the Japanese, to show them we are fully capable of annihilating you," Armstrong said in an interview last week.

An Atlanta aviation lawyer and pilot, Armstrong owns and flies a replica of a Nakajima 97 torpedo bomber - one of the planes Japanese pilots used to bomb the U.S. fleet in the surprise attack at Pearl Harbor.

Documents Armstrong obtained from U.S. government archives show that Roosevelt eventually approved the plan to bomb Japan from China, but the air raid never came off.

George Marshall, Roosevelt's chief of staff, opposed the plan because he thought it was too dangerous.

The bombers penciled in for China instead went to England, where the British virtually alone were fighting Nazi Germany, Japan's ally in World War II.

Marshall changed his mind and endorsed the plan, but the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor before the U.S. could organize the bomber sale, Armstrong said.

Historians have known some of the details of the plan to bomb Japan since the 1990s.

But Armstrong uncovered evidence that the Japanese knew about the plan - and that knowledge could have sparked the Pearl Harbor raid, Armstrong said.

A Japanese agent had infiltrated Chiang Kai-shek's Kuomintang government, learned about the plan and tipped off the Japanese, he said. The United States knew that Japan knew, as well - U.S. cryptographers intercepted and decoded a Japanese message six months before Pearl Harbor that revealed the Japanese knowledge, according to Armstrong.

"It certainly is a factor in the Japanese decision to attack Pearl Harbor," he said.

Armstrong believes a preemptive strike on Japan could have changed the course of the war.

"I think if it had happened, there would have been no Pearl Harbor. I think the war becomes more localized. I can't think that Japan, having nightly bomb raids, is going to sail 3,000 miles away to launch an attack," he said.
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Amazon.com: Preemptive Strike: The Secret Plan That Would Have Prevented the Attack on Pearl Harbor: Alan Armstrong, Walter J. Boyne: Books

Antipodean Andy · Dec 10, 2008

Ambitious to say the least.

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Plan to strike Japan first

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