As the cold dusk of December 6 closed over Washington, the men of Safford’s shop were duly thankful that Togo’s long opus arrived in English, so they did not have to translate it or worry about phraseology, but correcting a mistake in the key took some time. At around 1630 Safford said, “There is nothing I can do but get in your way and make you nervous. I am going home.” By about 1900 they had finished decoding the thirteen parts so far received. Then they spent some two hours making the requisite copies, with help from their Army opposites.1
Kramer telephoned Wilkinson at about 2100 and received authority to make the necessary rounds. He also called the usual recipients to see if they would be in. He had no luck in raising Stark, who had gone to the National Theater to see The Student Prince. After finishing his calls, Kramer telephoned his wife, Mary, to commandeer her as chauffeur.2
When he scrambled into the car, his wife sensed “an air of tenseness about him.”3 They first stopped at the White House office building, where Kramer left Roosevelt’s copy in the customary locked pouch with Lieutenant Schulz in the latter’s cubbyhole in the mailroom.4 Schulz carried the locked pouch to the main White House. “Someone from the usher’s office” accompanied him to the President’s study and announced him. He saw Roosevelt seated at his desk, with Harry Hopkins “pacing back and forth slowly, not more than 10 feet away.”
Roosevelt’s big hand grasped the sheaf of about fifteen typewritten pages, and he read carefully for about ten minutes. Then he passed the material to Hopkins, who also read it and handed it back, whereupon the President turned to him and said, “This means war.” Schulz was “not sure of the exact words” but had no doubt about the meaning.
Hopkins agreed, and for about five minutes they discussed the deployment of the Japanese forces. Hopkins volunteered “that since war was undoubtedly going to come at the convenience of the Japanese, it was too bad that we could not strike the first blow and prevent any sort of surprise.” Roosevelt nodded and answered, so far as Schulz could recall, “No, we can’t do that. We are a democracy and a peaceful people.” Then the President “raised his voice,” and Schulz remembered his words definitely: “But we have a good record.” No one mentioned Pearl Harbor, and nothing in the discussion indicated that “tomorrow was necessarily the day.”
Roosevelt thought he should talk with Stark but, learning that he was at the theater, decided to wait until later. If the President paged the admiral or if Stark “left suddenly . . . undue alarm might be caused.” He gave the papers back to Schulz, who left the study.5
The President appears to have reached Stark at his home by phone about 2330. The admiral later assumed that Roosevelt mentioned the Japanese note, but if so, it did not impress Stark as “anything that required action.” Stark’s attitude and his failure to recall the conversation suggest that Roosevelt had said nothing to indicate that war had drawn nearer. Indeed, Stark testified that they had already concluded that Japan was “likely to attack at any time in any direction,” so the message was “a confirmation, if anything.”6
Meanwhile, the Kramers proceeded from the White House to the Hotel Wardman Park to deliver the thirteen-part message to Knox. Kramer was rather silent, but his wife kept up a soothing murmur “about the children” and her hope that next day he “could sleep round the clock.”7 Knox took some twenty minutes to read the document. Because his wife and a friend were present, Knox, who was “very security-minded,” had nothing to say about the contents. However, he instructed Kramer to be at 1000 the next morning at the State Department, where he—and presumably Stimson—would meet with Hull.8
It was now a few minutes before 2200, and Mrs. Kramer drove her husband to Wilkinson’s home in Arlington. She had waited a few minutes when Wilkinson came out and brought her into the drawing room. He was having a small dinner party, his guests including Miles, Beardall, and two French officers. Feeling somewhat ludicrous in her old sweater and skirt, Mrs. Kramer sipped coffee and drinks with the others, while Wilkinson, Miles, Beardall, and Kramer went into the library.9 There they read the message but made only general comments “to the effect that it certainly looked as though the Japanese were terminating negotiations.”10
Whether Ingersoll and Turner received the thirteen parts that night is unclear. Both recalled reading the dispatch late on December 6, but Kramer declared that he did not call that night upon either of these admirals and knew of no other possible delivery. The clocks had reached half past midnight when Kramer clambered back into his car and his wife drove him to his office, where he returned the copies in his possession to the safe. Upon learning from the watch officer that the anticipated fourteenth part had not come in, he called it a day, and the Kramers drove home.11
The Army picture is more difficult to piece together because of conflicting testimony. Bratton’s evidence before the joint congressional committee seems to place events in context. He remembered the thirteen parts as ready between 2100 and 2200. He called SIS and found there was “very little likelihood” of the fourteenth installment’s reaching them that night.
Bratton locked the material in a pouch and delivered it personally to the State Department duty officer sometime after 2200 with instructions that this was “a highly important message as far as the Secretary of State was concerned” and should be sent to his quarters. The duty officer assured him that he would do so, and after securing a receipt, Bratton returned to his quarters at around 2300. He called Miles’s home, leaving a request that his chief return the call. Coincidentally, Miles phoned Bratton from Wilkinson’s home. Having determined that the thirteen parts “had little military significance,” he wanted only to assure himself that the full reply would be disseminated in the morning and that both officers would be in their offices at that time.
In Bratton’s view, so far the message was not a declaration of war, nor was it a severance of diplomatic relations. And the fourteenth part “might have contained another proposal from the Japanese Government.”12 Thus, the Army took the sensible attitude that the message was primarily State’s business and would keep overnight without spoiling. So the Marshalls enjoyed an undisturbed evening at their home in Arlington, where the Chief of Staff and his wife were “leading a rather monastic life.”13
About the time Kramer completed his deliveries, Hap Arnold addressed the crews of the Thirty-eighth and Eighty-eighth Reconnaissance Squadrons, about to fly in B-17s to Clark Field in the Philippines, with their first stop at Hickam Field. “War is imminent,” he told them. “You may run into a war during your flight.”
“If we are going into a war, why don’t we have machine guns?” asked Major Truman H. Landon.14 A good question! But these bombers would fly unarmed because the Air Force was “trying to get every gallon of gas they could in the plane and they did not anticipate fighting . . . on that long hop from California to Hawaii.”15 Even so, the bombers would be perilously low on gas by the time they reached Hickam Field. Not only did the planes lack ammunition, but their machine guns were in Cosmoline and had not been boresighted. A skeleton crew of pilot, copilot, navigator, engineer, and radio operator manned each bomber, so they could scarcely have operated the guns even if they had been loaded and ready to shoot.16
Grew received Roosevelt’s message for the Emperor at 2230 December 7, Japan time. Inasmuch as the dispatch had left Washington around 2100 (Eastern Standard Time) on the sixth and it showed that the Japanese post office had received it at noon Tokyo time on the seventh, this meant that the Japanese had held it up ten and a half hours17—another incident revealing that Japanese officialdom was not exactly eager for prompt communication with Washington on this particular day.
It so happened that on November 29 Lieutenant Colonel Morio Tomura of the Communications Section of the Army General Staff had asked Tateki Shirao, chief of the Censorship Office of the Ministry of Communications, to delay by five hours the delivery of all incoming and outgoing cables except those of the Japanese government. Then, on December 6, the holdup schedule was changed to five hours one day, ten the next. Thus, December 7 was a ten-hour day, which is why the Japanese sat on the President’s message to the Emperor such a long time.18
Granted that high-handedness at relatively low levels characterized Japanese official life in this period, it is still quite incredible that these two individuals—a lieutenant colonel and a civilian—should have dared take such drastic action without at least tacit approval from above.
Grew took the decoded message to Togo at about a quarter past midnight and asked for an audience with the Emperor so that he might present it in person since he “did not want any doubt as to getting it in his hands.” After some quibbling Togo agreed to present Grew’s request to Hirohito. With that Grew left the Foreign Ministry. It was then about 0030 on December 8, Japan time (1030 December 7 in Washington, 0500 in Hawaii)—less than three hours before Fuchida’s first wave would strike.19
At approximately 1400 on Saturday the FBI’s Japanese translator in Honolulu completed the English transcript of a lengthy telephone conversation which had taken place on December 3 between a Japanese newspaperman in Tokyo and Mrs. Motokazu Mori, wife of a Honolulu dentist. The initiator of the call in Japan remarked, “I received your telegram and was able to grasp the essential points. I would like to have your impressions on the conditions you are observing at present. Are airplanes flying daily?”
“Yes,” answered Mrs. Mori, “lots of them fly around.” After some chitchat about the number of sailors in the Islands—not so many as at the beginning of the year—and Japanese-American relations on the Island—they were “getting along harmoniously”—the inquirer turned to the subject of the U.S. Pacific Fleet. But Mrs. Mori had little to say in that regard because “we try to avoid talking about such matters. . . .” Next, the voice from Tokyo asked, “What kind of flowers are in bloom in Hawaii at present?”
“Presently, the flowers in bloom are fewest out of the whole year. However, the hibiscus and the poinsettia are in bloom now,” replied Mrs. Mori.20
The closer Shivers examined the transcript, the stronger aroma of fish it wafted to his experienced nostrils.21 Dr. Mori was already on the FBI’s list of suspects and had been ever since such a list existed.22 Convinced that the conversation had some “military significance,” Shivers telephoned Mayfield and Bicknell. This time he stood on firm legal ground because the attorney general had authorized him to tap overseas telephones.23
Mayfield was not in his office, so Shivers gave the gist of the message to Lieutenant Denzel Carr, a Japanese expert in ONI, asking him to get in touch with Mayfield. When Mayfield received the word, “he was sure there was some hidden message which would be of value if they could only decode it, but that there was nothing in the message in line with previous information indicating Japanese movements.”24 At about 1800 Mayfield telephoned Layton to stop by his office the next morning. That was the last Layton heard on the subject until the Navy Court of Inquiry in 1944.25
Shivers reached Bicknell at his home at about 1700 and told him that “he had something of high importance” which he should see immediately. Bicknell rushed downtown and within twenty minutes was poring over the transcript with his colleague. Shivers remarked that “this thing looked very significant to him, that something was going to happen.”26 Bicknell’s “G-2 sense” told him “there was something very significant about this.”27 He immediately telephoned Fielder that he had some “extremely important” information that should be given immediately to the department commander. Fielder replied that he and Short were going out to dinner but for Bicknell “to be at Fort Shafter within the next ten minutes” and they would wait for him.28
Once more Bicknell jumped into his car and at about 1900 pulled up at Fielder’s residence. The G-2 looked the document over, then said that they had better see Short, who lived next door. The three men sat down on Short’s porch and mulled over the transcript. They considered it “very suspicious, very fishy,” but “couldn’t make heads nor sic tails of it.”29
Short pointed out “that the message was a very true picture of what was going on in Hawaii at that time,” That, Bicknell thought to himself, “was just the trouble with it; it was too accurate a picture.” He had a frustrating feeling that the very things he “considered most suspicious seemed to be everyday affairs in their minds.”30 By this time the men had talked a good forty-five minutes and gotten nowhere. Short and Fielder gave Bicknell the impression that he was “rather perhaps too ‘intelligence conscious,’ and that this message was quite, quite in order, that it did describe the situation in Hawaii as it was, and that possibly there was nothing very much to get excited about. . . .”31
Disgruntled, Bicknell took back the document and examined it for about an hour at his office. Then he locked it in the safe and returned home.32 Short and Fielder, already an hour late for their dinner engagement, joined their wives, who had been waiting for them in the car. Bicknell might have felt better had he known that his superiors discussed the Mori call all the way to Schofield Barracks and all the way home again. But they still “were unable to attach any military significance to it.”33
No direct evidence has come to light thus far to indicate whether or not the Mori call actually contained coded information of military significance. However, Japanese Naval Intelligence had checked the international telephone system between Tokyo and Honolulu consistently since the September war games. It believed that this service would be discontinued if the United States established a state of emergency in Honolulu. So it is possible that the conversation which so upset Shivers and Bicknell was one of these trial balloons. Ironically, Ogawa tells us that such a check was made around 1500 on December 7, Tokyo time. This would be roughly 1900 December 6 in Oahu—just about the time Bicknell drove up to Fielder’s home. Ogawa personally advised Nagano and Ito within the hour that everything was normal in Honolulu. “Both Nagano and Ito were pleased and greatly relieved,” said Ogawa. He understood that a message would go to Nagumo’s task force on the basis of this information.34
Tachibana also stated that Tokyo utilized the radiotelephone system between Honolulu and Tokyo:
The conversations through this channel were exchanged completely in a commercial business form; key word conversations were only seldom used. By use of this channel we learned on 5 December the condition of U.S. warships in Pearl Harbor and on 7 December that Hawaii was quiet as usual with usual shore leave of sailors and no blackout at all.35
A message from Tomioka’s Operation Section, which the task force received at 0150 Sunday, December 7, contained, among other items of interest, these words: “Telephone contacts made with Japanese and civilian indicate Oahu Island was very calm with no blackout.”36 Mrs. Mori had stressed this calm in her conversation, and of course, the message does tie in with the testimony of Ogawa and Tachibana.
About 1500 Yoshikawa set out for his last check on the Fleet. His taxi took him to Aiea, then swung off the highway to the Pearl City pier. Then he returned to his office to prepare his report. Once more Kita looked over his draft and pronounced it good. After processing it, Yoshikawa went to the commercial telegraph office to dispatch this, his last message,37 at 1801. Its final sentence read: “It appears that no air reconnaissance is being conducted by the fleet air arm.”38
As each of Kita’s last messages reached the Foreign Office in Tokyo, they were passed to the Naval General Staff, where they wound up a few hours apart in Tomioka’s Operations Section. He and his associates studied them briefly but carefully. The news from Hawaii was good: no barrage balloons over Pearl Harbor; no torpedo nets around the ships; no long-range air patrol; the bulk of the Fleet snugly in the great base. Of course, the carriers and a number of heavy cruisers had slipped through Japan’s fingers and might spell trouble, but one could not expect to have everything one’s own way. Tomioka set his encoders to work on each dispatch and sent off the first one at 1700 Japanese time, followed by the second an hour later. “As we sent these final, crucial messages,” Tomioka recalled, “I prayed fervently to our ancestral gods that all would go well.”39
The task force received a disappointing report at 1903 from the submarine I-72: “The enemy is not in Lahaina anchorage.”40 With that message went almost all of Genda and Fuchida’s hopes of sinking the U.S. Pacific Fleet in Lahaina’s depths. Although the last-minute check by aerial reconnaissance remained scheduled for the next morning, Genda decided to forget about Lahaina. “I made up my mind to strike nowhere but Pearl Harbor and concentrated all my attention on it,” he recalled. He knew, too, that the time was rapidly approaching for the five midget submarines to enter Pearl Harbor. “The account of this most risking enterprise of the midget subs gave an enormous impression to the crews of the planes, encouraging them to the fullest extent.”41
Genda napped in the Operations Room between 2000 and 2200. Then he arose and went on deck. There mechanics were tuning up the first-wave aircraft. Genda paused, listening to the engines roar and watching blue-white flames shooting from the exhaust pipes. His eyes still on the planes, he mounted the ladder to the bridge. Suddenly he “felt very refreshed, as if all the uncertainties were cleared away.” Whatever lay ahead was in the laps of the gods. Worries about possible mistakes and doubts of success vanished like mist at dawn. In that transcendent moment he experienced “a sort of self-renunciation.” His mind seemed “as bright and clean as a stainless mirror.” He was ready for whatever might come, and he was not afraid.42
Neither was Fuchida, who paused at last to shed his flying suit and went to the wardroom for a final chat with Murata, Itaya, and a number of his fellow fliers. He advised them to retire early and get a good night’s rest. “Hurry to bed,” he charged them with a smile as he left the room. He himself retired at about 2200. “I slept soundly,” he recalled. “I had set up the whole machinery of attack, and it was ready to go. There was no use to worry now.”43
It would not be long before the mother submarines began to release their midgets. Aboard I-24 Sakamaki peered through the periscope at the green and red lights blinking from Pearl Harbor and turned to confer with the submarine’s skipper, Lieutenant Commander Hiroshi Hanabusa. His midget’s one gyrocompass had been out of order and defied all efforts to fix it. “What are you going to do?” asked Hanabusa anxiously.
Sakamaki knew that it would be practically impossible to navigate his tiny craft thus handicapped, but he was much too excited and determined to think of pulling out. So was his crewman, Kiyoshi Inagaki. “We will go,” Sakamaki declared firmly, whereupon Hanabusa, fired by the young man’s enthusiasm, shouted with him, “On to Pearl Harbor!”44
After dinner that evening Bicknell still felt “pretty well frustrated.” A telephone call around 2000 from Lieutenant Colonel Clay Hoppaugh, the signal officer of the Hawaiian Air Force, did nothing to improve his temper. “We have a flight of B-17s coming in from the mainland,” Hoppaugh announced. “Will you put Station KGMB on the air all night so planes can home in on the signal?”
Bicknell exploded, “Why don’t you have KGMB on the air every night and not just on the night we have airplanes flying? You folks have the money to do it.”
“We’ll talk that over some other time,” Hoppaugh replied. For the time being, they had not much choice. So Bicknell called KGMB and asked it to stay on all night. The station did not know why, but the Air Force paid when it asked for this service. Actually it was a matter of common knowledge that whenever KGMB played music all night, aircraft flew in the next morning.45
Bloch spent his evening at home. He had played golf in the afternoon, read for a while, and then, very tired, went to bed about 2030.46 Bellinger had an even less eventful evening. He had been laid up with the flu since Tuesday, and Sunday would be his first day up.47
When Young and Hesser left their morning conference aboard Arizona, they secured Vestal for the day and granted the crew 50 percent liberty. That night Young dined in his cabin, while Hesser joined the other officers in the wardroom. They talked about the current international situation and danger of war with Japan. Ensign Fred Hall, the assistant communications officer, prophesied that the Japanese would hit Pearl Harbor. “They will attack right here,” he declared. Hall did not say when and why the Japanese would attack, and nobody asked him. It was just one of those statements that pop up in a friendly bull session. But Hesser never forgot it. And since Hall happened to be officer of the deck for the 0400-0800 watch Sunday morning, no doubt he never forgot it either.48
Short, Fielder, Phillips, and Major General Durward S. Wilson of the Twenty-fourth Infantry Division were among those who attended “Ann Etzler’s Cabaret”—an annual charity dinner-dance which “one of the very talented young ladies had worked up” at the Schofield Barracks Officers’ Club. Before going to the club, a large group, including General and Mrs. Short, gathered at the home of Lieutenant Colonel and Mrs. Emil Leard for cocktails. After the party at the club some of the guests returned to the Leard residence for nightcaps. But the Shorts left the club with the Fielders somewhere between 2230 and 2300 and went straight home.49 They drove past Pearl Harbor, a magnificent sight with all its lights blazing. Short remarked to his G-2, “What a target that would make!”50 He had no idea that his words would come true the next morning. He was looking forward to his usual fortnightly golf game with Kimmel.
Some of the Air Force officers, including Martin, attended a dinner party at the Hickam Field Officers’ Club.51 Mollison was at a similar function in the home of Lieutenant Colonel William C. “Cush” Farnum. While there, he received notice, at about 2230, of a long-distance call from San Francisco, saying that twelve B-17s would arrive in Oahu from the mainland at 0800 the next morning. Mollison called the duty officer to give him the estimated time of arrival. Because Mollison wanted to be sure he would be at the tower when they came in, he left the party immediately and went straight home.52
Colonel Robert H. Dunlop, Short’s adjutant general, heard about the incoming B-17s when he dropped in on the officer of the day on his way to a movie with his wife and son. Dunlop tried to reach Phillips but could not until about 2300, when Phillips had returned from the party at Schofield. After Dunlop gave him the word, Phillips asked, “Bob, is there anything else you want to tell me?” Dunlop replied, “Tige, there isn’t another thing.” Everything was so normal, so calm. As Dunlop said, “There was absolutely no indication that anything was going to break the next day.”53
Kimmel, Pye, and Draemel were among those who attended a small dinner party of about a dozen close friends given by Admiral and Mrs. Leary at the Halekulani Hotel. Kimmel mentioned to Draemel that he had an invitation to drop by the Japanese consulate—without an aide—to drink champagne. Distrusting the Japanese, Draemel urged the admiral not to go, and Kimmel assured him that he would not.54 Kimmel was to be spared little enough in the days to come; at least the fates did not deal him this particular joker—sipping champagne with Kita on the eve of “Bloody Sunday.”
This little gathering of a few old friends was much more to his liking, and he enjoyed himself in his rather stately fashion, chatting and nursing his usual single drink. True to form, he left early. At about 2130 he took his leave, reached his quarters around 2200, and turned in immediately.55
At midnight dancing stopped at the Royal Hawaiian Hotel, and the orchestra struck up “The Star-Spangled Banner.” As Layton snapped to attention beside his wife, a wild urge seized him to shout, “Wake up, America!” and to grab his big, easygoing country by the scuff of the neck and shake it out of its enchanted sleep.56