The first of November found political and military leaders in Washington exceedingly apprehensive about a rumored Japanese drive against Kunming, with the objective of cutting China’s lifeline, the Burma Road. The Joint Army-Navy Board considered this problem, among other issues, at an important meeting held on November 3. According to Marshall’s information, Japan had not yet determined its course of action but “might be expected to decide upon the national policy by November 5.” This was excellent intelligence because the imperial conference scheduled for November 5 did exactly that.
Ingersoll summarized naval reinforcements to the Asiatic Fleet. These included a “stated number of submarine units en route to the Philippines.”1 Naturally these submarines came out of Kimmel’s hide. But the loss of twelve fine undersea craft did not bring an irate protest from him. With his innate honesty, he believed they could be of more use to the Asiatic Fleet “because they were closer to the Japanese homeland.”2
In Tokyo Grew had allowed two weeks to size up the situation since Tojo took over.3 Now, on November 3, he was ready to send the State Department his opinions. In spite of the inconveniences the economic freeze had caused, Japan had neither collapsed nor changed course. He warned that Japan might adopt “an all out, do or die attempt to render Japan impervious to foreign embargoes, even risking national hara kiri rather than cede to foreign pressure.” He and his staff believed “that such a contingency is not only possible but probable.”4
However, Grew advocated neither appeasement nor surrender of principles. His purpose was to ensure that the United States understood that “Japanese sanity cannot be measured by our own standards of logic.” And he predicted: “Japan’s resort to measures which might make war with the United States inevitable may come with dramatic and dangerous suddenness.”5
The political events of early November coincided with a virulent anti-American outburst in the Japanese press. Ugaki noted these manifestations with approval, entering in his diary on November 4:
By ringing bells and banging drums public opinion should be aroused and the people prepared while we seek reflection and reaction on the part of the United States. If there is still no sign of reflection, our attitude will be modified a great deal so as to pretend that we are ready to give in. Nothing is more important than our political and strategical activities during this coming one week.
That same day the Foreign Ministry sent some most revealing messages to Nomura. Togo certainly did not give the ambassador a true picture of the situation; in fact, he could not afford to do so. After rambling on about Japanese good intentions and American iniquities, the message continued:
. . . This time we are showing the limit of our friendship; this time we are making our last possible bargain, and I hope that we can thus settle all our troubles with the United States peaceably.
. . . lest anything go awry, I want you to follow my instructions to the letter . . . there will be no room for personal interpretation.6
Nomura barely had time to reflect on this ominous communiqué when Togo shot off a four-part message transmitting Proposal A. After outlining its provisions, he went on:
I think . . . the question of evacuation [of China] will be the hardest. . . . Our purpose is to shift the regions of occupation and our officials, thus attempting to dispel their suspicions. . . . I want you in as indecisive yet as pleasant language as possible to euphemize and try to impart to them the effect that unlimited occupation does not mean perpetual occupation. . . .7
As the impact of this remarkable message strikes home, one appreciates why at this particular time Togo sent for experienced diplomat Saburo Kurusu, whom he talked into going to the United States as a special envoy. The Tojo government still needed Nomura as front man in Washington, but it also needed someone a little better at palming aces. One can also understand why the American authorities, reading such messages with their evidence of outright deceit, placed no credence in the Japanese government’s sincerity.
Tokyo followed Proposal A with Proposal B. Nomura was to put forth the latter if there appeared “to be a remarkable difference between the Japanese and American views.” If necessary, he might add stipulations concerning evacuation, the Tripartite Pact, and nondiscrimination, as mentioned in Proposal A.8
The Navy noted on the same day—November 4—a significant phenomenon which it reported to Kimmel, Hart, and certain naval district commandants, including Bloch: Japan appeared to be withdrawing all its merchant vessels from the Western Hemisphere.9 Intelligence expert Captain Ellis M. Zacharias considered the removal of commercial shipping back to Japan one of the “earliest indications of hostilities.” Naval Intelligence “had long realized that. . . .”10
More and more Togo bore down on the harassed Nomura. On November 5 he sent the ambassador an actual deadline: “Because of various circumstances, it is absolutely necessary that all arrangements for the signing of this agreement be completed by the 25th of this month. I realize that this is a difficult order, but under the circumstances it is an unavoidable one. . . .”11 Why the twenty-fifth? On that date (November 26, Japanese time) the task force would sortie from Hitokappu Bay.* To reach an agreement before the First Air Fleet got under way would save the Japanese a considerable investment in time, fuel, and manpower.
No one in authority in Washington was spoiling for a fight with Japan. On the contrary, Marshall and Stark sent Roosevelt on November 5 a joint estimate in which they affirmed bluntly: “At the present time the United States Fleet in the Pacific is inferior to the Japanese Fleet and cannot undertake an unlimited strategic offensive in the Western Pacific.” Stark and Marshall pointed out: “If Japan be defeated and Germany remain undefeated, decision will still have not been reached. . . .” Therefore, “War between the United States and Japan should be avoided while building up defensive forces in the Far East, until such time as Japan attacks or directly threatens territories whose security to the United States is of very great importance.” They recommended “military action against Japan” only in certain contingencies, the first being “A direct act of war by Japanese armed forces against the territory or mandated territory of the United States, the British Commonwealth, or the Netherlands East Indies. . . .”12
Little more than a month of peace remained when Nomura and Wakasugi called on Hull and his assistant Joseph W. Ballantine at 0900 on November 7. Nomura relayed his government’s expressed wish to resume the conversations and handed Hull a document embodying Proposal A. He also asked for an interview with the President, which was later arranged for the tenth.13 As always, the meeting was personally cordial, but Hull could not see that Proposal A contained anything “fundamentally new or offering any real recessions from the position consistently maintained by the Japanese Government.”14
That afternoon Roosevelt summoned his Cabinet. The President started the session by asking Hull if he had anything in mind. Hull had plenty and spoke for some fifteen minutes on “the dangers of the international situation.” He went over the conversations with Japan, emphasizing that in his opinion “relations were extremely critical and that we should be on the lookout for a military attack anywhere by Japan at any time.”15 This was an uncanny prognostication, considering that the Naval General Staff and the Combined Fleet had just issued their operational orders.
This awareness that Japan might break out anywhere at any time did not help Kimmel. That very day, November 7, Stark wrote once more, regretfully turning down Kimmel’s request for more destroyers and the two new battleships North Carolina and Washington. He ended on a worried note: “Things seem to be moving steadily toward a crisis in the Pacific. . . . A month may see, literally, most anything. . . .”16 One month exactly! Few prophecies have ever hit more precisely on the nose.
That deadline pulsed like one of Ugaki’s “banging drums” through the bloodstream of more than one Japanese. It imposed precious little time to integrate the submarines into the Pearl Harbor plan. Around the middle of October Captain Kaku Harada, skipper of the former seaplane tender Chiyoda, which was the home ship of the midget submariners, reduced the trainees’ range of concentration to Singapore and Pearl Harbor. This gave them the first real clue to their mission. “When Captain Harada told us to pay particular attention to Pearl Harbor and Singapore,” recalled Ensign Kazuo Sakamaki, an intelligent young trainee with a pleasant, round face, “we thought that one group would probably be used eventually against Pearl Harbor and another group against Singapore.”
At the end of October they were graduated and received a ten-day leave. According to Sakamaki’s recollection, shortly thereafter and before they transferred to their mother craft, Yamamoto received them all aboard Nagato, then moored at Hashirajima. He told the students that their work was highly important and meant much to the Navy. Dangerous operations such as those they were about to embark upon could have far greater success than regular surface action. They could outshine the older officers. So he urged them to be diligent, courageous, and dutiful.17
About the same time the young men scattered over Japan for their leave, Captain Hanku Sasaki, commander of the First Submarine Division, received orders which puzzled him considerably.18 These instructions directed him to proceed to Kure to receive his submarines, which had been undergoing emergency modifications with a target date of November 10. Not even the Kure Naval Station knew what was in the wind, let alone Sasaki himself. The modifications included air-purifying equipment, protection against antisubmarine nets, and a telephone system. Most puzzling of all to Sasaki were certain changes being built on the stern of the hulls.19
His curiosity finally got the better of him, and he asked Matsumura for an explanation. “This equipment is to enable you to haul midget submarines close enough to Pearl Harbor to attack the U.S. Pacific Fleet,” replied Matsumura. Thus, almost casually, Sasaki learned of his mission. The information nearly dismasted him. The idea of such a strike was enough to disconcert any man, but this waiting until virtually the last minute to give him the word seemed downright irresponsible. Moreover, Sasaki wondered whether the hulls could take the special equipment and weight of the midgets. His big submarines were themselves new and relatively untried. The whole submarine portion of the Pearl Harbor scheme had about it an impromptu air which troubled Sasaki’s orderly mind. “There was too much hurry, hurry, hurry,” he recalled disapprovingly.20
If Sasaki worried about the submarine participation, Fuchida hit the overhead. He heard the story early in November from his Eta Jima classmate Lieutenant Commander Tatsuwaka Shibuya, a submarine expert. The flight commander questioned what possible good the submarines could do. If the air attack succeeded, they would be useless. At best they represented an additional risk in a scheme already fraught with danger.
Fuchida could not help feeling slight disappointment in Yamamoto. It looked as if the Commander in Chief might be risking the entire Pearl Harbor plan to give the conventional forces a share in the glory. Fuchida did not doubt for an instant the bravery and ability for self-sacrifice of the midget submariners, but every one of his airmen, too, faced a more than fifty-fifty chance of dying for the Emperor. Fuchida never became reconciled to the idea of submarine participation and made no secret of his views.21
Shibuya, a stout, flush-faced man with a sunny disposition, had been assigned to the First Air Fleet on November 5. If he wondered what a carrier fleet wanted with a submarine officer, he kept it to himself. Arriving aboard Akagi on November 9, he met Nagumo and other key members of his staff. On that date Oishi informed him of the Pearl Harbor plan. Now his assignment made sense; in such a closely coordinated operation Nagumo needed a staff officer for submarines.22
On November 7 Soryu and Hiryo sailed respectively to Kure and Sasebo, their assigned naval stations. Each vessel had a home port for repairs, maintenance, and supplies, and the men of these stations took great pride in the ships under their care.23 The Japanese were already weaving a cloak of secrecy around Nagumo’s task force. Every day false communications emanated from Kyushu at the same time and on the same wavelength as during the training period. This would give eavesdroppers such as Rochefort’s Combat Intelligence Unit the impression that the First Air Fleet remained in that area for routine training. Moreover, the Navy broadcast daily messages to Nagumo as intended during the cruise to Hawaii. To begin precisely on November 26, the scheduled day of sortie, might tip off the Americans that something unusual had started on that date.24
On November 9 Shokaku and Zuikaku put in at Kure, while on that day and the seventh respectively, Akagi and Kaga proceeded to Sasebo.25 During their stay Rochefort’s listeners identified Akagi correctly as the carrier flagship and located her in the Sasebo area. They also accurately spotted several carriers at Kure and Sasebo on November 10, Hawaii time.26
At these locations workers unloaded all unnecessary items from the carriers. Everything not required for efficiency or safety was ruthlessly pruned away to strip the carriers for action and make room for extra fuel. Oil drums filled every vacant or extra room, any gangway which need not be clear, even all decks except the flight deck. During the next four days Nagumo permitted his sailors to go ashore. Thus, the officers and crewmen not yet in the know believed themselves to be embarking on a routine training cruise.27 Those who did know had become so acutely security-conscious by this time that they literally worried lest they talk in their sleep.28
At Genda’s behest all aircraft had been winterized. Among other measures, the propellers received a thin coating of oil to prevent icing. There was an outside possibility that the task force might encounter an American scouting fleet in the Aleutians area, in which case his airmen had to be prepared to fight in freezing weather. Nagumo issued Striking Force Operations Order No. 1, directing his forces to complete battle preparations by the twentieth and to assemble at Hitokappu Bay. A number of personnel orders also came out, including one designating Murata as a flight commander aboard Akagi, while Goto officially left Ryujo for Akagi.29
No one kept busier than Shimizu. He, too, completed, an operational plan on November 10, covering his far-flung missions. His submarines had to reconnoiter Lahaina Roads, the Aleutians, and strategic points in the South Pacific. While his midgets slipped into Pearl Harbor, his large craft would surround Oahu. After the air strike they would pounce on any vessel that tried to sortie. His outpost submarines would attempt to destroy any United States ships located between the West Coast and Hawaii.30
In one respect Shimizu had the advantage over Nagumo. Even the most barnacle-encrusted of battleship admirals agreed that the submarine had come to stay. Shimizu therefore experienced no such shortages or official reluctance to part with matériel as had plagued the airmen. The best was none too good for the submariners, and he had twenty-five first-class large undersea craft at his disposal besides the five midgets—thirty in all.
Thus, on November 10 Shimizu had a rather full house when he summoned all division, squadron, and individual submarine commanders aboard Katori in Saeki Bay for a conference. They heard Matsumura deliver the first official briefing, informing them that their objective was Pearl Harbor.31 The next day, November 11, the Third Submarine Squadron under Rear Admiral Shigeyoshi Miwa slipped out of Saeki Bay bound for Pearl Harbor via Kwajalein. It sailed at 1111—the eleventh minute after the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month. This squadron of nine submarines left at such an early date because these craft, constructed for a relatively short radius of action, would have to refuel in the Marshalls.32
On the second leg of Miwa’s journey he would leave Kwajalein for Oahu, following a route between Johnston and Palmyra islands. Once in the target area, his I-72 and I-73 had a most important mission. No later than December 6 (Japanese time) they were to reconnoiter Lahaina Roads, reporting all information on the anchorage, the west coast of Maui, and the east coast of Lanai Island, a short distance to the west. This information must be transmitted to the task force at least by December 7, Japanese time (December 6, local time). This would give Nagumo time to shift his attack plan to Lahaina if substantial U.S. forces were at anchor there.
Miwa’s I-74 also had a special mission. On X-Day it would crawl close to Niihau to rescue any fliers who might have been shot down or forced to land at sea. His other subs would attempt to sink any U.S. ship within range after the air strike.33
As Yamamoto moved his Combined Fleet toward the war he dreaded, he presented his usual picture of pleasantly resolute composure. But he let some of his unhappiness spill over in a letter to his friend Rear Admiral Teikichi Hori, written on November 11 as his first submarines moved out: “What a strange position I find myself in—having to pursue with full determination a course of action which is diametrically opposed to my best judgment and firmest conviction. That, too, perhaps, is fate.”34
That morning Yamamoto and his entourage, including Ugaki, left Tokyo by train for Yokosuka, whence they flew to the Iwakuni Air Group, landing shortly after 1330. They immediately repaired to Nagato, which had sailed there to meet them. That day and the next, various ships converged on Iwakuni. The commanders in chief of all fleets except the Southern Expeditionary Fleet, with their chiefs of staff and senior staff officers, arrived by sea and land to participate in a Combined Fleet operational conference. These included Nagumo, Kusaka, and Oishi as well as Shimizu.35
At 0900 on the thirteenth, Yamamoto and Ugaki left Nagato to begin the meetings. After an “especially wonderful” opening message from Yamamoto, Ugaki briefed the conferees on Combined Fleet Operational Order No. 1.36 Some time during this conference Nagumo received the news from the First Air Fleet of the torpedo training breakthrough. Both Yamamoto and Nagumo agreed with Genda’s opinion that this would go far toward ensuring the success of the Pearl Harbor attack.37
At 0930 on November 15 all returned to work out Army-Navy agreements. Once more Yamamoto, representing both services, gave the opening address.38 During this conference Yamamoto reaffirmed that he would call back the forces in case Japanese-American negotiations succeeded before the attack. He warned strictly that in the case of Operation Hawaii, the task force would be recalled even if the planes had already taken off from the carriers.39
Sometime before Yamamoto’s departure for his flagship (about 1300), Shimizu arranged a private, personal discussion with the commander in chief, who was still concerned over the difficulties in rescuing the midget submariners from Pearl Harbor. Yamamoto insisted that Shimizu must feel free to cancel that portion of the operation if he considered it really suicidal. But Shimizu decided to reserve his final decision until he had talked to the midget submarine men themselves.40
On November 14 he went to Kure to see the “tubes” for the first time and to meet their crews. He gave each officer individually a copy of the orders. As they accepted their papers personally from the hand of their admiral, the submariners glowed with pride and exaltation.41
Next, Shimizu explained the role the midget submarines would play. The plan called for their release from the mother submarines on the night of X–1 Day, as close as possible to the main buoy just outside Pearl Harbor. The five “tubes” would enter the channel that night, secure their possition, then settle on the bottom. They must enter the harbor well before the air attack and, regardless of what opportunities presented themselves, absolutely must not start anything until the night of X-Day.42
But Lieutenant Naoji Iwasa, leader of the midget submariners, asked permission to launch his attack immediately after the air strike instead of waiting until dark. To remain submerged for such a long time might prove dangerous. More important, his men might achieve much more effective results during the period of enemy confusion. Shimizu demurred because he believed their chances of survival to be practically nil in the daytime, particularly inasmuch as the air attack would have stirred the Americans to savage retaliation. But Iwasa persisted, and the other minisub pilots enthusiastically backed his argument. Maximum damage to the enemy was what counted—not their own survival.
Heartened by this example of fighting spirit, Shimizu agreed to the change. Looking into these firm young faces, he was sure that their attack would be highly successful and Yamamoto would be very proud of them.43
The Navy now really began to move. On the thirteenth Akagi hoisted anchor and sailed off the coast of Kagoshima, where she picked up her planes and the rest of the flying officers, including Fuchida, Murata, and Masuda. On the afternoon of the fourteenth she slipped into Saeki Bay, there taking on board Nagumo, Kusaka, and Oishi. Zuikaku and Shokaku sailed from Kure to Beppu on November 16 and 17 respectively to collect their planes and men, while Soryu and Hiryu also gathered in their crews.44
The Japanese realized that such a mass evacuation of planes from their bases would attract considerable attention. Inasmuch as secrecy demanded that even the Japanese people remain in ignorance of the task force’s movements, the Navy arranged a cover. Almost before Fuchida’s bombers and fighters left the runways, aircraft of the Twelfth Combined Naval Air Corps landed at the training bases in Kyushu to continue the flight pattern. Throughout Japan shore units granted leaves to as many men as possible, so that the usual thread of blue wove through the tapestry of Japanese life.45
To mask the exodus from sharp enemy ears, the replacement aircraft exchanged dummy messages with the task force ships. They made no attempt to send fake messages for American consumption; this would have been an overelaboration and might defeat its own purpose.46
These precautions worked perfectly. “Carriers remain relatively inactive,” estimated U.S. Combat Intelligence—later more correctly termed Communications Intelligence—on November 13. “The Settsu is still with them and a few may be engaged in target practice near Kure. . . .47 So near and yet so far! Once again American intelligence analysts had walked up to the very gate of truth, only to have it slammed in their faces.