A Fine Set Of Bastards

© MMVII v 1.0.6

Notes from WW II:

It was Admiral Richardson who refused to go along with the plan. FDR fired Richardson and promoted King. (The most senior naval officer was Admiral Leahy. He was the first 5 star Admiral as well as FDR's confidant and Chief of Staff.) Kimmel and Short were fall guys. They were promoted over more senior officers and put in charge of the Pacific fleet that had been stationed in Hawaii under Japan's nose. One day, Kimmel suspected the Japanese might be up to something. He sent out a squadron to look for them. His superiors ordered him to get those ships back into harbour and sit tight until further notice. When the Japanese destroyed the Pacific fleet (except the aircraft carriers that had been sent out on manoeuvres by someone other than Kimmel), Admiral Kimmel and General Short were court marshalled for dereliction of duty. FDR wouldn't have learned anything from Stalin about being a manipulative, ruthless bastard. Of course we don't usually think FRD was a mass murderer, do we?

Admiral King was a bastard too. (Admiral King was more senior than General George Marshall in the Pentagon's pecking order.)

The Indianapolis was the heavy cruiser that delivered the first atom bomb, "Little Boy". The Indianapolis was sunk in the Philippine Sea after the bomb had been delivered. (Too bad it hadn't been sunk earlier.) The survivors were left in the water for days because of a bungled rescue operation. "Although 700 ships of the U.S. Navy were lost in combat in World War II, [Captain] McVay was the only captain to be court-martialed." Now hear this: Admiral King had served under Captain McVay's father when King had been a junior officer years before. King held a grudge over some discipline he had received and he took it out on the son decades later. Though reinstated by Admiral Nimitz, Captain McVay eventually committed suicide.

Admiral King hated the British and he especially hated the Royal Navy. Admiral King was in charge of the US Atlantic fleet at the beginning of the war. Admiral King is directly responsible for doing nothing about the German U-boats that were having a field day off the U.S. Atlantic seaboard. The U.S. Navy only started to attack the German submarines after one blew up a ship just off a Florida beach one fine summer evening. Hundreds of seaside vacationers were horrified. A newspaper demanded to know what was going on. British intelligence that was being sent daily to FDR — month after month — was finally acted on. Admiral King and Admiral Leahy were descendants of Scots and Irish. Perhaps they were Fenians. I don't know what was FDR's excuse. The official story is that the isolationists had tied FDR's hands. The Americans are no friends of their allies — as Henry Kissinger once observed.

Was FDR — and Wilson before him — directed by bankers in the City of London? Some think they were. But they believe in "conspiracies". Of course we don't, do we?