Re: OT-Wrong port arthur

From: "Allan Goodall" <awg@sympatico.ca>
> >Well, about 1980 it was revealed that a Japanese torpedo boat tender
> >was known to be operating in the area at the time, with the UK
government's
> >acquiesence if not approval. On the balance of probabilities, there
really
> >was an attack, and the Japanese used the UK fishing fleet for cover.
>
> Alan, do you have a citation for this? Nothing I have, even stuff
written
well
> after 1980, references this.

Don't worry about being diplomatic, though your diplomacy is certainly
appreciated.
Thanks for not just screaming "Horse Puckey!" or the equivalent. I'll
see
what I can do
to convince you (or show my own memory to be faulty).

> To be honest, I'm skeptical. From my studying of history (both in
> post-secondary school and on my own) "balance of probabilities"
doesn't
equate
> to "actually happened", particularly when the reference is to a tender
and
not
> the destroyers themselves.

Torpedo Boats - we're talking 150 tonnes max here, steam launches rather
than ships.

> I'm not saying that it's impossible, or even improbable. I'm not
saying
that
> there was no tender there. But I would like references

I'll see if I can dig em up.

The data was released under the (75?) year rule for cabinet Documents,
and
actually
made the popular press - but no-one gave a tuppeny damn, and the Sir
Humphreys
managed to lay a pretty good smokescreen about "A Torpedo Boat tender
with
its attendent torpedo boats being within 20 miles (or whatever it was)
could
have
been completely coincidental, there's no written evidence in Japanese
archives
that the attempted attack ever got near" etc etc for those few who did.

Considering much of said archives went up in flames in 1945, this was a
trifle misleading.

In looking for some sources on the web, I found
http://www.navy.ru/history/hrn10-e.htm
which has astoundingly little on the epic voyage from the Baltic to the
Pacific.
A good vignette is provided at
http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/1905coaling.html

I'm still looking: the incident happened 1904 21 October.

Lebow, Richard N. Accidents and Crises: The Dogger Bank Affair. Summer
1978:66-75
would be just before the revelation, and that's the best the US Naval
War
College
http://www.nwc.navy.mil/ has on the subject.
http://www.navalhistory.co.uk
is a bust too.

If you have access to the Times archives, there should be something on
it,
round about
1979-1981 if memory serves. Maybe 1984? as I said, it even made the
popular
press
(down here anyway).

Remember the Russians had to pay reparations too, after an International
Tribunal
found that they'd made a huge gaffe. Sleeping Dogs and all that. And
who,
except for
 a few (we happy few.. we band of brothers...) like us are interested in
what happened
nearly a century ago, anyway?

As to why...
"In a letter dated 22 December 1904 (but not received until 26 January)
the
British minister in Tokyo reported  a conversation with the Japanese
Foreign
Minister, Baron Komura, who expressed his hope that "should the war end
successfully for Japan, the present Anglo-Japanese Alliance might be
strengthened and extended" -
SOURCE: British documents on foreign affairs -- reports and papers from
the
Foreign Office Confidential Print,  Frederick, Md.: University
Publications
of America, 1989. Vol. 4, No. 31.
as quoted at http://www.warhorsesim.com/papers/Renewal.htm#_ftn25

I only have the quote above - but I'd say that that series looks like a
prime candidate!

I'll see what I can find in the ADFA library, but as I said, your best
bet
is newspaper archives and
released UK cabinet Documents. They'll be the prime source.