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Originally Posted by August
I wouldn't take that as a true picture of what the high brass thought before the war. After all it's not like Stark would tell Nomura "Boy I hope you guys don't attack us as we're way unprepared for war". You don't tell a prospective enemy your true feelings, you present a confident front.
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It's exactly what the brass thought—and how we prosecuted the war. It's not a surprise that the PTO played 2d fiddle to the ETO, it did because they were confident of winning the PTO. That made the first year even harder on the guys at the sharp end as they were forced to wage a shoestring war.
Note that the ship building program which pointed to our inevitable victory (even to the japs, who required the war be over before that point—it was supposed to be a short war with a negotiated peace before their 2 years of oil reserves ran out) would start having ships off the ways in 1943.
I'm not downgrading the PTO, it's my favorite theater, but the outcome was a foregone conclusion.