As soon as Roosevelt heard about the fall of the Konoye government, he canceled a scheduled meeting with his own Cabinet. Instead, he conferred for two hours, beginning at 1400 on October 16, with Hull, Stimson, Knox, Marshall, Stark, and the inevitable Harry Hopkins. They all feared that the incoming Japanese Cabinet would be “much more anti-American” than the outgoing. “The Japanese Navy is beginning to talk almost as radically as the Japanese Army, and so we face the delicate question of the diplomatic fencing to be done so as to make sure that Japan was put into the wrong and made the first bad move—overt move,” wrote Stimson in his diary.1
In years to come the revisionist school of historians eagerly seized upon such unfortunate phraseology as evidence that Roosevelt deliberately maneuvered the Japanese into starting the Pacific war and specifically into attacking Pearl Harbor.2 Actually the secretary of war had merely expressed one of those basic truths which everyone knows but seldom—at least at executive branch level—says out loud: that no government wishes to appear before its people and posterity in a bad light.
Later Stimson set forth his view ably: “If war did come, it was important . . . that we should not be placed in the position of firing the first shot, if this could be done without sacrificing our safety, but that Japan should appear in her true role as the real aggressor.”3 The evidence of history clearly indicates that the Roosevelt administration would have preferred to avoid war with Japan so that it might concentrate all of America’s strength against Hitler.
The crisis in Tokyo “created very much of a stir” in the Navy Department. According to Stark’s aide, “Everyone sensed the war was not far off.”4 Turner drafted a dispatch for Stark to send to Kimmel, King, and Hart, which the CNO “tempered . . . considerably” before speeding it on its way.5 Even so, it contained a strong warning that Japan might go on the war path:
The resignation of the Japanese cabinet has created a grave situation. If a new cabinet is formed it will probably be strongly nationalistic and anti-American. If the Konoye cabinet remains . . . it will operate under a new mandate which will not include rapprochement with the US. In either case hostilities between Japan and Russia are a strong possibility. Since the US and Britain are held responsible by Japan for her present desperate situation there is also a possibility that Japan may attack these two powers. In view of these possibilities you will take due precautions, including such preparatory deployments as will not disclose strategic intention nor constitute provocative actions against Japan. . . .
The message also asked that Kimmel notify the appropriate Army authorities and his naval district.6
By Japan’s “desperate situation,” Turner meant principally “her economic condition.” He believed that there would be no possibility of war “for at least a month” between Japan and the Americans, British, and Dutch. Yet the situation differed “with respect to the Russians” because the Japanese “already had an army in Manchuria, deployed or not, we did not know.” Japan also had “a great part of the Navy in her home waters, so that action against Russia could have been taken at an earlier date possibly.”7
Turner was far from alone in estimating Japanese action in terms of the titanic battles thundering across the Soviet Union. Indeed, America had Russia on the brain—another red herring to confuse the trail of Japanese intentions. Miles thought it highly probable that the next Japanese Cabinet would be pro-Axis with the Army in the saddle. And it would quickly “take advantage of any weakening of the Siberian Army brought about by Russian reverses in Europe.” This he pointed out to Marshall in a memorandum dated October 16.8
Bicknell of Short’s G-2 also had the Soviet Union on his mind when his office prepared an estimate of the Japanese situation as of 1200 on October 17: “. . . it is fairly certain that Japan’s basic policy . . . will remain unchanged; and it is expected that Japan will shortly announce her decision to challenge militarily any nation or combination of nations which might oppose the execution of said policies. . . .”9 Bicknell listed as Japan’s most likely moves:
1. Attack Russia from the east.
2. Pressure French Indo-China and Thailand for concessions in the way of military, naval, and air bases, and guarantees of economic cooperation.
3. Attack British possessions in the Far East.
4. Defend against an American attack in support of the British.
5. Attack simultaneously the ABCD block at whichever points might promise her greatest tactical, strategic, and economic advantages.10
He believed the last possibility—Japan’s actual intention—to be the least likely because it would violate the Axis principle of “defeating one opponent at a time.” Yet he could not rule it out because if Japan considered “war with the United States to be inevitable as a result of her actions against Russia, it is reasonable to believe that she may decide to strike before our naval program is completed.” The obvious corollary followed: “An attack on the United States could not be undertaken without almost certain involvement of the entire ABCD block, hence there remains the possibility that Japan may strike at the most opportune time, and at whatever points might gain for her the most strategic, tactical, or economic advantages over her opponents.”11 Bicknell’s estimate did not speculate, however, on what or where such points might be.
Stark, too, had in mind that the Japanese might play “the same game that Hitler did, that is, one at a time.”12 But to be on the safe side, he warned all merchant ships of “a possibility of hostile action by Japan against U.S. shipping.”13
No one in Washington hit the panic button. Those in authority had long realized that Konoye’s “moderation” was highly relative. Captain Pinky Schuirmann, Navy liaison officer with the State Department, sent Stark on October 17 a sensible, realistic summation:
Present reports are that the new cabinet to be formed will be no better and no worse than the one which has just fallen. Japan may attack Russia, or may move southward, but in the final analysis this will be determined by the military on the basis of opportunity, and what they can get away with, not by what cabinet is in power.
Stark saw “very much eye to eye” with Schuirmann,14 but he continued to take precautions. On October 17 he sent a directive to Hart, with an information copy to Kimmel, among others. Stark ordered Hart to route “all trans-Pacific U.S. flag shipping” to and from Far Eastern areas “plus Shanghai and India and East India area as defined in WPL 46 thru sic Torres Straits keeping to the southward and well clear of Orange mandates. . . .” Torres Strait lies between southern New Guinea and Cape York in northern Australia. Stark sent instructions to Kimmel the same day: “Because of the great importance of continuing to reenforce the Philippines with long range Army bombers you are requested to take all practicable precautions for the safety of the airfields at Wake and Midway.”15
Kimmel acted promptly on Stark’s directives. He alerted six submarines “to depart for Japan at short notice,”16 directed the two undersea craft at Midway to assume a war patrol at a 10-mile radius, and dispatched two submarines to Wake for a 15-mile scouting circle. He ordered Bellinger to dispatch a squadron of twelve reconnaissance planes to Midway for daily patrol within 100 miles of the island. He further instructed Bellinger to prepare to send six of these aircraft to Wake and replace them from Pearl Harbor. And he directed both air and submarine commanders to “take offensive action only if attacked or if ordered to do so by CinCPAC.”17
Kimmel also reinforced Johnston and Wake with “additional marines, ammunition and stores”; ordered more marines to Palmyra; placed Pye, who was with a contingent of ships on a routine training cruise to the Pacific coast, on twelve-hour notice to become effective October 20; and stepped up “security measures in effect in the operating areas outside Pearl Harbor.” He also delayed until November 17 the sailing of West Virginia, the mock-up of which at that very moment was the target of Japanese bombing practice. The battleship was due for overhaul at Puget Sound. Moreover, Kimmel directed Bloch to alert the outlying islands.18 Bloch immediately passed the order to Midway, Johnston, Palmyra, and the Marine detachment at Wake.19
Thus, within a few days of receipt of Stark’s messages, Kimmel had his forces on the alert to spot any Japanese ship, submarine, or aircraft which might venture into the central Pacific. But they would not and could not shoot on sight. As the Navy Court of Inquiry’s report observed, “Having in mind Japan’s traditional tendency to distort legitimate actions of a powerful nation into deliberate threats to her own security and prestige, the War and Navy Departments were compelled to take every precaution to avoid offending her supersensitive sensibilities.”20
As happened rather frequently, after sending quite a sharp alert, the Navy promptly smoothed it over. Apparently Stark did not swallow whole all of Turner’s estimates. In addition to toning down the dispatch of October 16, he followed it with a personal letter to Kimmel dated October 17 which “very much astonished” Turner when he saw it later:21
Personally I do not believe the Japs are going to sail into us and the message I sent you merely stated the “possibility.” . . . In any case after long pow-wows in the White House it was felt we should be on guard, at least until something indicates the trend. . . .
I think we could settle with Nomura in five minutes but the Japanese Army is the stumbling block. Incidentally, the Chinese also think that they will lick Japan before they get through and are all for keeping going rather than giving way anywhere. . . .
Then Stark added his usual postscript:
Marshall just called up and was anxious that we make some sort of a reconnaissance so that he could feel assured that on arrival at Wake, a Japanese raider attack may not be in order on his bombers. I told him that we could not assure against any such contingency, but that I felt it extremely improbable and that, while we kept track of Japanese ships so far as we can, a carefully planned raid on any of these Island carriers in the Pacific might be difficult to detect. . . .
Stark could not know how wisely he wrote. But he obviously regarded the letter as at least semiofficial, for he sent a copy to Hart and asked Kimmel to show it to Bloch, as was his custom.22
Coincidentally, on October 17, Bloch reminded Washington of previous correspondence concerning local defense and security. All he had received worth mentioning was the old gunboat Sacramento, which had “no batteries, to speak of, with which the vessel can fight, and no speed with which she can run.” The only aircraft available for antisubmarine patrol were Army planes not suitable for that purpose. He had only four destroyers—one of them without listening gear—and three Coast Guard cutters for submarine tracking. These would be needed also “for escort and security patrol in a very extensive front.” He urged the assignment of “a number of small, fast craft . . . equipped with listening gear and depth charges,” plus at least two squadrons of reconnaissance planes. He ended acidly: “Nearly all of the failures of the British have been caused by what may be expressed in the cliché ‘Too little and too late.’ It is hoped that we may profit from their errors.”23
Kimmel endorsed Bloch’s memorandum on the same date, October 17, proclaiming yet again his gospel of the tactical offensive:
. . . There is a possibility that the reluctance or inability of the Department to furnish the Commandant, 14th Naval District, with forces adequate to his needs may be predicated upon a conception that, in an emergency, vessels of the United States Pacific Fleet may always be diverted for these purposes. If such be the case, the premise is so false as to hardly warrant refutation. A fleet, tied to its base by diversion to other purpose, of light forces necessary for the security at sea, is, in a real sense no fleet at all. Moreover, this fleet has been assigned, in the event of war, certain definite tasks, the vigorous prosecution of which requires not only all the units now assigned, but as many more as can possibly be made available.24
At Kimmel’s headquarters many discussions took place on “General Tojo, what sort of a policy he would follow, and also regarding the character, general background, of the leading Japanese naval officers. . . .”25 With this subject Layton came into his own when he briefed Kimmel daily at 0815.26
Layton knew Yamamoto personally. He considered Kimmel’s opposite number a “very capable, a very thoroughly grounded and trained officer . . . he possessed more brains than any other Japanese in the High Command.” He illustrated Yamamoto’s character to Kimmel by saying that “he could win at poker among good poker players, and could play better bridge than most good bridge players, and . . . was a champion . . . of the Japanese chess game, ‘Go.’” Layton cited these abilities to demonstrate that Yamamoto’s mind was “keen, alert, and that also from my personal observation and from general Japanese service reputation, he was an outstanding officer.”27
Naturally the subject of Japanese carriers also came up in the general discussion. Layton declared that Japan could not afford “to gamble too much wherein she might lose the war in the first battle when she had larger stakes, more vital stakes, at hand.”28 He sounded much like the opponents of Yamamoto’s plan in the Naval General Staff and Combined Fleet.
By October 20 the first flush of excitement had begun to die down, and the War Department could inform Short: “Tension between United States and Japan remains strained but no repeat no abrupt change in Japanese foreign policy appears imminent.”29
On October 22 Kimmel reported to Stark the dispositions he had made in accordance with instructions. Predictably he seized the opportunity to plead for more patrol craft and “at least two more squadrons of destroyers.” He put in another pitch for North Carolina and Washington. “We have indications that one new battleship has been commissioned by the Japanese and rumors that an additional one will soon be placed in commission,” he advised Stark. “Such a contingency will further disturb the balance of power in the Pacific.”30 Had he known the exact size of Yamato and Musashi, the new Japanese battleships—over 60,000 tons with nine 18.1-inch guns apiece—he would have been appalled. They were larger, faster, and more powerful by far than anything the United States had afloat.
Kimmel next begged for “all the long-range submarines that you can send us. They can be most effective in keeping destroyers and other patrol craft occupied near the Japanese bases, homeland and trade routes.”31 Far from giving Kimmel more submarines, Washington would soon transfer some of his best undersea craft to Hart’s Asiatic Fleet as a further buildup against the Japanese threat in Southeast Asia.*
Kimmel wanted cruisers, too, to counteract anticipated “Jap raider activities. . . . Then, too, our own planned offensive operations require cruisers and more cruisers. The least you can do for us is to leave us with the cruisers we have. . . .” Next, the CinCUS turned his attention to his air arm. “The type of operations we have planned in the early stages of the war puts a premium on aircraft operations from carriers.” Because the Pacific Fleet had only three—Enterprise, Lexington, and Saratoga—he asked that a merchant ship be “converted to a carrier for training purposes at San Diego.”
Kimmel reported favorably on training, although gunnery radar on Honolulu-class cruisers had proved “a bitter disappointment” inasmuch as it was “apparently useless for the detection of aircraft.” He also had prepared and forwarded to Stark “an exhaustive study on the installations and defenses of Wake, Midway, Johnston and Palmyra.” He approved “investigation of an alternative land plane route” east of the Marshalls to Australia for the B-17s but pointed out that “there are not enough ships now available to handle our own island developments. Without greatly augmented shipping facilities we cannot possibly assume the additional burden for the Army.”32
No one was more concerned with those Flying Fortresses than Stimson, who on October 21 dispatched an eloquent letter to Roosevelt in an attempt to convince him of the error of his ways in asking for these planes for the British:
. . . A strategic opportunity of the utmost importance has suddenly arisen in the southwestern Pacific. . . . From being impotent to influence events in that area, we suddenly find ourselves vested with the possibility of great effective power. . . . We are rushing planes and other preparations to the Philippines from a base in the United States which has not yet in existence the number of planes necessary for our immediate minimum requirements in that southwestern Pacific theatre. This is the result of our deferments to the British of last year. . . . Yet even this imperfect threat, if not promptly called by the Japanese, bids fair to stop Japan’s march to the south and secure the safety of Singapore. . . . As you well know, however, the final success of the operation lies on the knees of the gods and we cannot tell what explosion may momentarily come from Japan. . . .33
Stimson was optimistic about the capability of the B-17. And by sending every available Flying Fortress to the Philippines to build up MacArthur’s forces, Washington reduced Oahu to the level of a way station. This vitiated Marshall’s original concept of protecting Hawaii by means of the B-17.
Stimson replied with a resounding “NO”—his own capitals—when Hull asked him on October 28 whether he favored “immediate declaration of war against Japan.” He explained that he wanted to take advantage of “this wonderful opportunity of strengthening our position in the Philippines by air and to use it as a means of strengthening his diplomatic arm in forcing the Japanese to keep away from Singapore and perhaps, if we are in good luck, to shake the Japanese out of the Axis. . . .”34
At this crucial time the War and Navy departments fumbled an opportunity for the sort of integrated effort which might have helped immeasurably in evaluating information. A joint intelligence committee had been in the making since July 1 within the Joint Army-Navy Board. Stimson had approved its establishment on September 29; Knox, on October 1. But the committee did not meet until October 11 and did not get together again until after the war started. According to Miles, “there were still discussions and difficulties going on between the War and Navy Departments as to just what the functions of that committee would be, where it would sit, what rooms it would have, what secretary it would be allowed, et cetera.”35
Left to themselves, G-2 and ONI might have worked out matters to their satisfaction, for Miles was a very old friend of both Wilkinson and his predecessor, Kirk.36 At secretarial level, too, cooperation was the order of the day. Stimson’s interest in Intelligence is obvious from his diary, and Knox “took a very strong personal interest” in his Intelligence division.37
But a controversy arose between Gerow of War Plans and his opposite, Turner, on the scope of the committee’s functions. It was the old story. Gerow “wished the committee to collate, analyze and interpret information with its implications, to estimate hostile capabilities and probably sic intentions. Admiral Turner wished to limit it to presentation of such factual evidence as might be available, but to make no estimate or other form of prediction . . . Admiral Turner won.”38 Miles later testified that “Admiral Turner was practically Naval Operations through a large part of that time. Neither Gerow nor . . . myself sic could get very far with him.”39
Washington kept an eye on the explosive possibilities in the Pacific, however. On October 23 Stark advised Kimmel and Hart, among others: “Until further orders all army and navy transpacific troop transports, ammunition ships and such others with sufficiently important military cargo will be escorted both ways between Honolulu and Manila. . . .”40
Little wonder that Kimmel seized the opportunity to have luncheon on October 29 with Hallet Abend. The correspondent had just completed a tour through Singapore, Manila, the Dutch East Indies, Australia, and New Zealand for the Reader’s Digest. He gave Kimmel some interesting data, the “most vital” being that if the Japanese attacked the Soviets, the British Empire would declare war on Japan. Abend also stated that the Netherlands East Indies would follow suit. Kimmel gathered from the journalist that “the most probable direction for Japanese adventures is to the Northward”—that is, into Soviet territory. Naturally enough, after his talk with Abend, Kimmel asked Stark, “If they do embark on such an adventure and Britain and the Dutch East Indies declare war on Japan, what will we do?”41
It is most unlikely that Stark or his superiors, for that matter, were prepared to give Kimmel a definitive answer to this question. What is certain is that the State Department, in the person of Sumner Welles, knew “that both the Army and Navy were doing their utmost to persuade the President and the State Department that any break should be avoided, if possible; that negotiations should be continued for as long as possible.”42