Interesting Outlook on WWII from an old man

[ultimatebob]

I was talking to my 95 year old grandfather a few months ago about World War II, and he had an interesting outlook on it.

The way he sees it, he believes that FDR purposely got the US involved in World War II so US manufacturers could profit off of it by selling war supplies to the allies. In his mind, FDR was less worried about the Axis taking over, and more interested in stimulating US manufacturing to get us out of the Great Depression.

Anyway, I was curious what people here think about this topic. I'd also be curious what the tin foil hat conspiracy theorists think about of this, as some of them seem to think that we knew that Pearl Harbor was coming and didn't do anything about it on purpose. Yep... even back then we had "truthers"

 

[LegendKiller]

No disrespect to your grandfather, but I don't buy it at all. He didn't kill 418k people to get us out of the great depression. That's just silly.

People want to assign nefarious purposes to what FDR did. The logic is plain and simple - it was obvious that without US involvement the UK and Russia could not defeat Germany alone. Sure, Russia was doing OK, but that was only with massive US aid. Had they not had US factories pumping out war material they would have folded. Further, neither had the naval strength to beat Japan.

That's it.

 

[MasterOfUsers]

I was talking to my 95 year old grandfather a few months ago about World War II, and he had an interesting outlook on it.

The way he sees it, he believes that FDR purposely got the US involved in World War II so US manufacturers could profit off of it by selling war supplies to the allies. In his mind, FDR was less worried about the Axis taking over, and more interested in stimulating US manufacturing to get us out of the Great Depression.

Anyway, I was curious what people here think about this topic. I'd also be curious what the tin foil hat conspiracy theorists think about of this, as some of them seem to think that we knew that Pearl Harbor was coming and didn't do anything about it on purpose. Yep... even back then we had "truthers"

Pearl Harbour and the German declaration of war was a false flag operation? Well this is new and exciting, haven't heard this 1300 times before from crazy CT'ers.

 

[ultimatebob]

My grandfather is from Pennsylvania, not Connecticut

And he didn't say anything about Pearl Harbor being a False Flag operation. That seems like something that would be hard to fake, don't ya think?

 

[Zaap]

The way he sees it, he believes that FDR purposely got the US involved in World War II so US manufacturers could profit off of it by selling war supplies to the allies.

Doesn't make much sense, since we were already supplying our allies with war materials before entering the conflict ourselves. From this standpoint, it would make more sense to continue to stay out of it, let everyone else fight it out, and just continue to supply others with war materials.

 

[MongGrel]

FDR stuck his neck out and danced around a lot of things just to help Britain out at the time as many in the US wanted to stay out of the war prior to Pearl Harbor.

 

[Jaskalas]

I hear, in today's dollars, that stimulus would be ~$4trillion.

Difference is, today we'd be paying China to manufacture.

 

[Cozarkian]

I haven't read it myself, but the book Day of Deceit apparently makes an interesting case, based on review of freedom of information act materials, that FDR provoked Japan into the attack on Pearl Harbor and knew the attack was coming. The former seems plausible, but I'd find it strange that he knew the attack was coming and didn't try to set up an ambush or at least give a warning.

Even if he did allow Pearl Harbor to happen, I doubt it was an economic decision. FDR was chummy with Churchill and I think he wanted in the war to help Europe, but couldn't get a declaration from Congress.

 

[JEDIYoda]

I was talking to my 95 year old grandfather a few months ago about World War II, and he had an interesting outlook on it.

The way he sees it, he believes that FDR purposely got the US involved in World War II so US manufacturers could profit off of it by selling war supplies to the allies. In his mind, FDR was less worried about the Axis taking over, and more interested in stimulating US manufacturing to get us out of the Great Depression.

Anyway, I was curious what people here think about this topic. I'd also be curious what the tin foil hat conspiracy theorists think about of this, as some of them seem to think that we knew that Pearl Harbor was coming and didn't do anything about it on purpose. Yep... even back then we had "truthers"

So you finally found a way to blame your idiotic thoughts on somebody else....

My grandfather said your grandfather is an idiot!!

 

[cuafpr]

I've heard a theory that they "let" pearl harbor happen to bring us into the war.. but i don't buy it at all.

 

[Ventanni]

Yes, war was absolutely inevitable. Yes, the war stimulated the American economy to an unbelievable degree. But we also have to remember that one of the main contributing reasons for American dominance over the last 70 years is due to the fact that everyone else's stuff was destroyed. It took decades to rebuild that infrastructure.

Anyone else noticing that the world political and military landscape of today is awfully similar to that of the early 1900's? The wounds of WW2 are largely healed, and now countries are flexing their biceps again.

 

[NoCreativity]

I haven't read it myself, but the book Day of Deceit apparently makes an interesting case, based on review of freedom of information act materials, that FDR provoked Japan into the attack on Pearl Harbor and knew the attack was coming. The former seems plausible, but I'd find it strange that he knew the attack was coming and didn't try to set up an ambush or at least give a warning.

Even if he did allow Pearl Harbor to happen, I doubt it was an economic decision. FDR was chummy with Churchill and I think he wanted in the war to help Europe, but couldn't get a declaration from Congress.

I read a book co-authored by rear admiral Layton ('And I was there -Pearl Harbor and Midway—Breaking the Secrets') about how Pearl Harbor happened. It detailed out the various agencies involved and the different pieces of intelligence that were held by those agencies. When put together they may have been able to figure out about the attack. But this is government and anybody who knows how government works knows that inter-agency communication is nearly non-existent. Heck, inter-departmental communication within each agency is terrible. So the pieces of intelligence that gave the whole picture didn't get put together until it was too late.

TLDR; even if FDR wanted a PH like event to happen the intelligence wasn't available to let him make that decision.

 

[Genx87]

I haven't read it myself, but the book Day of Deceit apparently makes an interesting case, based on review of freedom of information act materials, that FDR provoked Japan into the attack on Pearl Harbor and knew the attack was coming. The former seems plausible, but I'd find it strange that he knew the attack was coming and didn't try to set up an ambush or at least give a warning.

Even if he did allow Pearl Harbor to happen, I doubt it was an economic decision. FDR was chummy with Churchill and I think he wanted in the war to help Europe, but couldn't get a declaration from Congress.

He was provoking Japan by cutting off oil supply. His provoking was an attempt to get the Japanese to stop their genocide on mainland China. I think they had an idea an attack was coming. But they didn't know when and where. Talks were breaking down in the Fall of 41. But to believe FDR and the Navy knew it was coming and didnt do anything is far fetched conspiracy BS. We could had accomplished something much similar without having our Pacific fleet decimated.

 

[Newell Steamer]

Thanks for letting us know that "truthers" existed well before Obama and the moon landings.

I also think it's great how there is a group of people who seem to know so much,.. yet can't do anything with it. It's pretty interesting how the people who know the truth and are so smart in figuring it all out, don't amount to anything as grand as what they claim to know.

I mean, to have the evidence, over something so grand, and to be able to topple countries over with it,.. but, not actually do anything with it,.. is pretty suspect.

Because, think about it;
- the Illuminati (or whomever) is all powerful and controlling
- the Truthers (or, again, whomever) is smart enough to figure it all out
- the Truthers can't do anything about it, because the Illuminati is just too damn powerful and manipulative,..
- ,... yet, not powerful and manipulative enough to silence or stop the Truthers from figuring out the truth

It all wraps up into a nice package,.. pretty convenient.

 

[brandonb]

I talked to my grandpa in the 90's about his service in WW2. He wouldn't talk about it. He just said he was an anti aircraft gunner stationed in the pacific, but wasn't part of the navy, and was in the army...

I wish I could have got more out of him prior to him passing away.

 

[kia75]

Yep... even back then we had "truthers"

This is true, and sometimes when we look back at history we only see the history book tellings, not the dirty and crazy shennanigans.

JFK is very similar to Obama in that there were lots of conspiracy theories going on around him, people said that he planned to turn the USA over to the pope(First Catholic President), Kennedy wasn't a "Real" American"(Irish couldn't be real Americans), he was part of the Mafia etc etc etc. Read any Obama Conspiracy website, and you'll find that something similar was said about Kennedy. Funny thing is that for all the conspiracy theories that were running around at the time, the only true "conspiracy" (he was unfaithful to his wife a lot) wasn't part of any conspiracy pamphlet being handed out during the time.

The first assassination attempt of a president was done because of a "Conspiracy". An insane house painter (probably driven insane by the varnish for the houses he painted before such things were regulated) thought that Andrew Jackson opposed a central bank for the USA because Jackson didn't want pay the housepainter millions of dollars because Jackson didn't want the houspainter to become the King of England. Yes, it makes no sense, as conspiracies often do. With the firm belief that if Jackson was dead, this insane housepainter would become king of England, the Housepainter shot Jackson as Jackson returned from a funeral. The gun mis-fired, so the would-be king\housepainter shot him with a 2nd gun, that also mis-fired. Jackson, not one to take assassination lying down, took out his cane and started beating the would-be assassin, and Davey Crocket (and other members of congress) had to physically pull President Jackson off the man. Eventually the house-painter with dreams of being king was found not guilty be reason of insanity and spent the rest of his live in various asylums.

 

[cabri]

I talked to my grandpa in the 90's about his service in WW2. He wouldn't talk about it. He just said he was an anti aircraft gunner stationed in the pacific, but wasn't part of the navy, and was in the army...

I wish I could have got more out of him prior to him passing away.

I had the same problem with my Dad.
Battle of Bulge with 101, escaped POW.

That is all I was every able to find out.

 

[BurnItDwn]

The US being neutral and selling supplies to both sides did a lot to help getting the US out of the great depression. Getting into the fight happened after our economic problems were resolved.... We got into the fight because FDR finally was able to convince congress after the Japs bombed us. If it was up to him, I believe we would have been involved much sooner (some time during the battle of Britain IMO, after Churchill proved that he had the huge brass balls needed to withstand Hitler.)

 

[piasabird]

It wasn't just Pear Harbor the German U-boats were also sinking commercial vessels. The biggest mistake we made we made after WWII, during the Korean Conflict. We had the nuclear bomb but did not attack China when they started invading Korea from the North. We should have leveled Bejing overnight with a Nuclear Bomb. Instead we let Americans by the thousands and other NATO forces get killed by the Communist Chinese.

 

[Jaskalas]

Yes, Korea was our time to strike.

Didn't Russians have the bomb by then? Perhaps we simply feared their paranoia if we took out China and won a war on Russia's back door. Losing Korea may have been a calculated retreat in order to preserve world stability at the time.

 

[OutHouse]

I talked to my grandpa in the 90's about his service in WW2. He wouldn't talk about it. He just said he was an anti aircraft gunner stationed in the pacific, but wasn't part of the navy, and was in the army...

I wish I could have got more out of him prior to him passing away.

im the same with my uncle. he was in D-day, 2nd or third wave and i heard him talk about it with my dad once when i was around 14 or 15. He got wounded and my dumbass asked where, meaning where in europe but he thought i meant where on him, he said "i just got wounded and never talked about it again"

I think he got wounded in battle of the bulge and i know he retired as a First Sergeant.

 

[Genx87]

It wasn't just Pear Harbor the German U-boats were also sinking commercial vessels. The biggest mistake we made we made after WWII, during the Korean Conflict. We had the nuclear bomb but did not attack China when they started invading Korea from the North. We should have leveled Bejing overnight with a Nuclear Bomb. Instead we let Americans by the thousands and other NATO forces get killed by the Communist Chinese.

Ok there MacArthur. I'm sure that wouldn't had any dire consequences.

 

[werepossum]

No disrespect to your grandfather, but I don't buy it at all. He didn't kill 418k people to get us out of the great depression. That's just silly.

People want to assign nefarious purposes to what FDR did. The logic is plain and simple - it was obvious that without US involvement the UK and Russia could not defeat Germany alone. Sure, Russia was doing OK, but that was only with massive US aid. Had they not had US factories pumping out war material they would have folded. Further, neither had the naval strength to beat Japan.

That's it.

Well said. Not much else to say.

 

[mizzou]

We would have profited more from the war by NOT getting involved.

We were already busily selling shit to germany and britain

 

[zinfamous]

The first assassination attempt of a president was done because of a "Conspiracy". An insane house painter (probably driven insane by the varnish for the houses he painted before such things were regulated) thought that Andrew Jackson opposed a central bank for the USA because Jackson didn't want pay the housepainter millions of dollars because Jackson didn't want the houspainter to become the King of England. Yes, it makes no sense, as conspiracies often do. With the firm belief that if Jackson was dead, this insane housepainter would become king of England, the Housepainter shot Jackson as Jackson returned from a funeral. The gun mis-fired, so the would-be king\housepainter shot him with a 2nd gun, that also mis-fired. Jackson, not one to take assassination lying down, took out his cane and started beating the would-be assassin, and Davey Crocket (and other members of congress) had to physically pull President Jackson off the man. Eventually the house-painter with dreams of being king was found not guilty be reason of insanity and spent the rest of his live in various asylums.

lol, great story. Surprised I haven't read that before.