Regarding the following article, I made a Facebook post which I am now expanding for more detail.
Facebook post:
The point this article is making is one that seems natural to me. I've actually been told, once or twice, that people are surprised to find that I am so willing to acknowledge facts and change my stance on an important issue if sufficient evidence has been offered to demonstrate that I've been wrong. To me it just seems an obvious necessity.
If you insist that you are invariably and unalterably correct then it follows that you will often be wrong. We are none of us perfect and intellectual flexibility is required.
In other words, if you want to be right, you must be willing to admit that you're wrong.
I want to continue this so I will make it into a blog post with more detail if anyone's interested.
Addenda:
I have known for quite some time a very commonly referred to fact about the attacks on Pearl Harbor in World War II. It's not just that I believed it, many historians have reported it as factual as well. It is so commonly accepted as a truth that you hear it in almost any analysis of the surprise attack on Pearl Harbor.
The story is that there were three waves of attacks planned on Pearl Harbor. The first two waves were conducted as planned and we all know how successful they were. Of course, the difficulty with the whole operation was that the American aircraft carriers were not in harbor but out on maneuvers. The report goes that
Admiral Nagumo (in charge of the Pearl Harbor attacks) canceled the third strike which was to destroy the logistical facilities including the fuel supplies because he did not know where the American aircraft carriers were and felt it was more important to protect the precious assets of Japanese aircraft carriers than to conduct this third wave.
The show I was watching stated that this was a myth and that no third wave was ever planned. When I heard that my immediate response was, "What!?! Make your case!"
And the historian being interviewed promptly proceeded to do so. And he convinced me. No third wave was ever planned.
There were three critical points in making this clear.
The first was that all Japanese naval reports regarded the mission as a complete success with the exception of the American aircraft carriers not being in harbor. That's a pretty clear statement.
The second part is that Japanese naval doctrine throughout the entire war had a list of targets which were to be struck in order of importance. At the very last place on the list was logistical facilities, including fuel supplies. In other words, if there had been a third wave it would have attacked all the ships that had not yet been sunk and ignored the supposed goal of such a wave.
Finally, the third point is that the belief that there was to be a third wave was based entirely on an interview with Captain Fushida, who was the tactical commander of the airstrikes. He reported that he was stunned by the canceling of the third wave. But it should be noted that he said this some 20 to 25 years after the attack and after listening for all those years to Americans wondering why the Japanese were so foolish as to not strike at those precious supplies which would have crippled the American fleet, including the aircraft carriers, for much longer.
It is extremely significant to note that when interviewed immediately after the war, Fushida reported that the attacks on Pearl Harbor were conducted as planned and were completely effective with the exception of the absence of the American carriers. In other words there's no report of any third wave being planned until well after the events and only in the light of harsh American criticism of such a wave not being intended.
It seems clear that Fushida was remembering things the way he wanted them to have been long after the attacks and after the conclusion of the war.
So, while I based my statements on widely accepted facts as reported by historians, the historians had it wrong and therefore so did I.
