paret, I knew that old man Joe was a crook, and a tyrant in his own family, but didn't know that about Joe Jr. I don't know if both of them changed their minds or what, but there was a mission for some one to fly a suicide mission to bomb some Nazi submarine nests, and Joe Sr. coerced Jr. to fly that mission by telling him that he would either be dead, or President of the U.S.A. Joe Sr. was ambassador to England before the war, and owed FDR for giving him that position. While he was in Britain, he got all of the import rights for scotch whiskey, knowing that FDR would get prohibition repealed. Even before that, he was a whisky smuggler, which enhanced his bank account significantly.
The programs of FDR were not working to cure the great depression, and he was desperate. Every military officer knows to never bring all of your fighting assets together in one place, but by executive order FDR insisted that the entire Pacific Fleet be brought into Pearl Harbor. Had Adm. Bull Halsey not had, questionable, engine trouble in his carrier task force, the Japanese could have invaded California. There would would have been no victory at Midway, and we would have been on the run. |
