From Mahan to Pearl Harbor

THE JAPANESE NAVY AND THE TRIPARTITE PACT

The Yonai-Yamamoto-lnoue Triumvirate

Yonai Mitsumasa was chosen navy minister in February 1937 because he was regarded as the best qualified to restore control and order within the navy, which had been allowed to all but disintegrate during the terms of Ōsumi and Nagano. Yonai and his vice minister Yamamoto Isoroku had been particularly critical of the blatantly political activities of Katō Kanji and Suetsugu concerning parity as jeopardizing the navy’s service discipline. In fact, back in 1934, when Yonai was commander of the Sasebo Naval District, he had harshly upbraided Katō, two years his senior, for having “instigated” younger officers to the 15 May 1932 assassination of Prime Minister Inukai.¹

Yonai had built his career in the fleets, in naval districts, and as an instructor of gunnery schools, and he had served briefly as commander in chief of the Combined Fleet before he became navy minister. He had no previous experience in the navy ministry, but he proved a powerful leader. Particularly mindful of controlling younger malcontents, he forbade subordinates to meddle in politics and was determined to assume full responsibility for handling the question of an alliance with Nazi Germany. He would strictly adhere to Katō Tomosaburō’s legacy of cooperation with the Anglo-American powers. He had the full support of Yamamoto and Inoue Shigeyoshi, Head of the Naval Affairs Bureau. For Yamamoto, whose political shrewdness made him Yonai’s right-hand man, here was an opportunity to rebuild the navy along orthodox lines. Yonai and Yamamoto were prepared to dismiss followers of Katō Kanji and Suetsugu if they stood in their way. They maintained that without discipline and control, the navy would “degenerate into an armed mob.”² They adopted a strict top-down system of policy making. “Orders must naturally come,” Yamamoto said, “from the top to the bureau chiefs [and through them to the section chiefs] and the subordinates are to devise merely means of implementing these policies.”³

Yonai and Yamamoto were ably assisted by Inoue, a brilliant man of iron will who styled himself a “radical liberalist”—a rare bird in the navy. A rationalist through and through, he refused to yield on matters of principle. One critical subordinate later commented, “Inoue was a great man but was not good at persuading those who opposed his view. Perhaps he would have succeeded as a philosopher.”⁶ Enomoto Jōji, who as a senior councilor of the navy ministry (with the rank of vice admiral) had his office between Yonai’s and Yamamoto’s, knew them well and described them in a nutshell: “Yonai was a man of few words but resolute action. Yamamoto was a man of hidden passion, and Inoue was a man of sharp intellect.” In the words of Rear Admiral Takagi Sōkichi, this trio had “miraculously” survived the Ōsumi purge because they were not involved in naval limitation.⁷

In August 1938 the navy took up the question of a military alliance with Germany proposed by Joachim von Ribbentrop, the Nazi Party’s foreign minister. Germany’s objective was to use the Japanese navy to deter American intervention in the European war against Germany. Any German alliance would be an ill-fated match between sea power and land power, and no faithful disciples of Mahan would condone such a marriage of convenience. Yonai, Yamamoto, and Inoue opposed the alliance because of the risk of alienating, even fighting, the United States.

Wenneker was active among middle-echelon officers. On 1 June 1939, Ambassador Eugen Ott reported that Japan’s “middle-ranking officers are increasingly taking our side.” He tried to use the influence of Admiral Richard Foerster, former Commander in Chief of the German fleet, who was visiting Japan, “to undermine their assessment of the Anglo-American fleet.” Ott reported to the foreign ministry, “Admiral Foerster has applied himself with great skill and obvious success to the task of strengthening the self-confidence of the leaders of the Japanese Navy in their attitude toward the British and American fleets.”¹⁰ Foreign Minister Arita Hachirō told Harada Kumao, secretary to Prince Saionji, that “a careful watch must be kept on Wenneker because there are considerable pro-German elements in Japan.” Yonai was also concerned about Wenneker’s effort to wean Japanese officers from “overestimation of the Anglo-American naval position.”¹¹ Neither American Ambassador Grew nor his naval attaché cultivated special relations with pro-American officers, singly or as a group.

The navy’s middle-echelon officials had assumed that Navy Minister Yonai approved of a pact against not only the Soviet Union but also Britain and France. Support for a German alliance drew strength from anti-British feelings permeating naval circles, especially among middle-rank officers. An idea of the hostility felt toward Britain can be gleaned from a memorandum drafted by the Naval General Staff in September 1938. This memorandum revived the image of Britain as a haughty, selfish ingrate that had exploited Japan during World War I but then had abandoned the Anglo-Japanese Alliance and joined the United States in imposing the 60 percent ratio on Japan at the Washington Conference.¹⁴ In another memorandum, Captain Oka asserted that the China war had resolved itself into “diplomatic warfare” with Britain in which Japan’s hand would be strengthened by alliance with Germany. The anti-British feelings of middle-echelon officials were based on a sense of international isolation that expressed itself in the charge that Britain had been mobilizing other nations to “form an encirclement of Japan.”¹⁵ An alliance with Germany, they felt, would go far to end Japan’s isolation as well as terminate the China War successfully.

Oka was certain that America would never align itself with Britain. Leaders in Washington, he asserted, had learned from World War I, which cost the United States $25 billion, only to result in bickering over payment of Allied war debts. “It is only by maintaining its neutrality,” he declared, “that the United States can hold the ‘casting vote’ in the world and fish in troubled waters.”¹⁶ Oka revealed the navy’s inner motive for an anti-British alliance when he argued that if the pact was against the Soviet Union, it could not be “used for the pursuit of national policy (expanding into the South Seas, etc.).”¹⁷ An anti-Russian alliance would concede the army’s priority in armaments, whereas a broader pact against Britain would accord with the navy’s policy of southern advance and help win priority for preparations against the Anglo-American powers. Bureaucratic politics constituted a factor in the navy’s stand. Advocacy of a German alliance found a candid, if inverted, expression in a memorandum that Captain Takagi Sōkichi, Chief of the Research Section of the ministry, presented to Harada Kumao, Prince Saionji’s secretary, on 25 January 1939:

In mid-December 1938 the navy’s middle-echelon officers found themselves in an awkward position against their counterparts in the army when they learned that Navy Minister Yonai had all along opposed an alliance against Britain, France, and the United States.¹⁹ Yonai’s objection was straightforward. An alliance against Britain would “most likely cause the United States to join hands with Britain and together they would apply crushing economic pressures, and Japan would be dragged into war with the Anglo-American powers.”²⁰ Japan’s military obligations in such a war would have to be shored up by the navy alone. At the Five Ministers Conference of 8 August 1939, Yonai flatly declared, “There would be absolutely no chance of Japan’s winning a war of this nature—the Japanese navy is simply not made to fight against the United States and Britain, to begin with. As for the German and Italian navies, they would be of no help at all.”²¹

Earlier, at the Five Ministers Conference of 7 May, Yonai had warned that even if not engaging in hostilities with the United States, by joining camp with Germany, Japan would face an absolute stoppage of trade with the United States. Yonai had taken seriously the “moral embargo” of July 1938 whereby the U.S. government persuaded aircraft manufacturers not to sell planes to Japan—a harbinger of increasing economic pressure. On 21 August, Yonai told Army Minister Itagaki Seishirō that if the army desired an alliance against Britain, he was prepared to block it, even by risking his position.²²

Yamamoto’s reasons for opposing an Axis alliance were clear-cut: “To side with Germany, which is aiming at a new world order, will inevitably embroil Japan in a war to overthrow the old Anglo-American order, but given the existing state of naval armaments, especially in naval aviation, there is no chance of winning a war with the United States for some time to come.” To fight the United States, he said, one must be prepared to fight the whole world. As Yamamoto and Yonai told Harada on 1 July 1939, “The problem of the Tripartite Pact is one over which our national fate is at stake.”²⁴

In similar vein Inoue cautioned that the economy was almost entirely dependent on the Anglo-American powers, and the navy needed steel and oil from America. War with Britain would mean war with the United States. From Germany, Japan could expect virtually no military aid, except perhaps a few U-boats.²⁵ When Hitler invited the pro-German Admiral Ōsumi Mineo to attend the Nazi Party rally in July 1939, Inoue warned, “You must realize that there is a great danger that a German alliance might turn the United States and Britain into Japan’s enemies, so please don’t be taken in by Hitler’s offer of any such alliance.” In a speech at Yūshūkai, the association of naval officers, he stated that “a Tripartite Pact would spell national ruin for Japan.”²⁶

Faithful to Katō Tomosaburō’s legacy, Yonai, Yamamoto, and Inoue held to the naval orthodoxy: the Japanese fleet was an instrument of deterrence, not of war with the United States. Their efforts not to provoke the United States had been apparent during the crisis over the Panay in December 1937, when a U.S. gunboat on the Yangtze near Nanking was sunk by Japanese naval aircraft. Yamamoto hastened to the U.S. Embassy—some said in tears—to offer not only sincere regrets but also unusually detailed explanations and a large indemnity of $2.2 million (equivalent to the cost of two hundred fighter planes). He was moved by a desire to continue commercial relations with the United States. President Roosevelt, who had even considered the possibility of naval action or economic sanctions, abandoned such measures for fear of war. After Japan had apologized and offered to pay for damages, he closed the case.²⁷

Yonai’s view of national defense was in the tradition of Katō Tomosaburō: “National defense was not the monopoly of the military.” Considering the limit of Japan’s national strength and the international situation, Japan’s armaments must be held to the minimum necessary. The nation would be ruined if all its might was concentrated in armaments and other matters are neglected. Yonai opposed a military alliance that would play havoc with a rational armament plan.²⁹

In the course of seventy-eight sessions of the Five Ministers Conference, Yonai fought with Army Minister Itagaki Seishirō. Yamamoto supported Yonai at the risk of assassination, while Inoue took the brunt of the dissident subordinates’ contentions. But their efforts were destined to be no more than a holding action. They had never managed to persuade their subordinates and, by ignoring the convictions of middle-echelon officers, alienated them. Captain Takagi feared that “if a clash should ever occur between the higher and lower echelons, discontent within the navy will cause such an explosion that it will have wide ramifications.”³⁰

The Yonai-Yamamoto-Inoue leadership was highly personal, resting on force of character. Therein lay its weakness. Control over pro-German elements began to falter as soon as the leaders left their posts after the cabinet of Hiranuma Kiichirō fell in the bewildering aftermath of the Nazi-Soviet Pact on 23 August 1939. Yonai left active duty and was appointed prime minister; Yamamoto was appointed commander of the Combined Fleet; and Inoue became chief of staff of the China-Area Fleet. The leadership of this celebrated trio was similar to that of Katō Tomosaburō in that both used a highly personal style that ignored subordinates’ opposition and both collapsed with the departure of the leaders from policy-making positions.

The navy needed forceful leaders who could be counted on to continue the policy of Yonai, Yamamoto, and Inoue. The succeeding minister, Yoshida, who had the trust of Yonai and Yamamoto, was an able administrator, moderate in his views, and opposed to a Tripartite Pact and armed southern expansion. Like Yonai, he held that Japan as a maritime nation heavily depended economically on the Anglo-American powers, which Japan was incapable of fighting. But as Admiral Inoue remarked, Yoshida “was not cut out to be a great leader, for he was conscientious to a fault about petty details and too modest about boldly asserting leadership.” He would have difficulty controlling his subordinates.³² Wenneker observed in his diary, “It appears that as a result of a dearth of outstanding figures in the navy, no one more suitable could be found.”³³ Vice Minister Sumiyama, a graduate of Gakushūin (Peers’ School), was so gentle he was dubbed “the principal of the Gakushūin Girls School.” He was not suited to be vice minister and could not support Yoshida. Could it be that Yamamoto had been overconfident about the navy’s tradition and control that were being challenged?

Later, when Yonai learned of the conclusion of the Tripartite Pact, he remarked, “Our opposition to the alliance was like desperately paddling against the rapids only a few hundred yards upstream from Niagara Falls.” Asked whether he would have opposed the pact had he remained in office, he replied, “Of course, but we would have been assassinated.”³⁴ Yonai had Yamamoto appointed Combined Fleet commander because Yonai feared for Yamamoto’s life if he remained in Tokyo.

The contest over a Tripartite Pact entered a new level with outbreak of the war in Europe in September 1939. That had immediate repercussions on the navy’s attitude toward Britain and the United States. On 22 October, middle-echelon officers presented to the new Navy Minister, Yoshida Zengo, a paper titled “Outline of Policy toward America,” indicating that their attitude was hardening. In view of the inseparable connection between Britain and the United States, the paper stated, “A program of preparedness must be stepped up to guard against a sudden unpredictable turn in American policy.”35 This stiffening of attitude had been prompted when Washington gave notice to terminate the 1911 Japanese-American Treaty of Commerce and Navigation, to take effect in six months.

In May–June 1940, the German conquest of Denmark, Norway, the Netherlands, Belgium, and France so dazzled naval officials that they clamored for a so-called southward advance. Britain’s ability to defend the empire and indeed its existence seemed in doubt. “Don’t miss the bus” became the catchphrase. Few asked whether the bus was a safe one or where it was going. Hitler’s rapid Blitzkrieg intensified Japanese admiration for Germany and disdain for the Anglo-American powers. Those who urged a cautious policy toward the United States were branded cowards or weaklings. The fervor for an alliance with Germany and an advance southward was revived. Navy Minister Yoshida resisted, seeing that this course was fraught with danger of war with the United States.

Middle-echelon officers tended to believe that Germany would soon invade the British Isles. Among them were Captain Ōno Takeji (war guidance officer), Commander Kami (Operations Division), and Commander Shiba (Naval Affairs Bureau). Yoshida saw that Britain retained command of the sea and that German air superiority was not sufficient to defeat England. Nor did Germany possess enough submarines to blockade the British Isles. He estimated that the European war was bound to be protracted, in which case the United States would sooner or later intervene, forcing German defeat. Japan must not be misled by the tide of war that favored Germany. Opposed to a war with the United States, Yoshida resisted a German military alliance.³⁶

German naval attaché Wenneker noted in his diary, “Junior staff officers had no sympathy for his [Yoshida’s] lukewarm leadership.”³⁷ Pro-German forces, no longer limited to middle-rank officers, came out into the open, working with army supporters of the pact. To keep a close watch over subordinates, Yoshida with his usual meticulousness personally checked all important policy papers, even those bearing the signatures of the vice minister and bureau chiefs. But he had no support from his vice minister Sumiyama nor the new head of the Naval Affairs Bureau, Abe Katsuo; the latter had visited Berlin and returned pro-German. In the Naval General Staff, Prince Fushimi, an old Germanophile, threw his weight to the side of the German alliance, and Vice Chief Kondō, who had studied in Germany, was also pro-German.

On 30 July 1940 middle-echelon naval officials adopted a policy paper that stated, “The Empire must in principle consent if Germany and Italy propose an anti-British military cooperation.” A week later these officials approved a document drafted by Foreign Minister Matsuoka that stated, “If Germany and Italy propose military cooperation against Britain, the Empire will in principle be ready to consent.” And they redoubled their effort for a military alliance directed against Britain and the United States.³⁹

On 19 July 1940, three days before Konoe Fumimaro’s new cabinet was formed, he called Yoshida, General Tōjō Hideki, and Matsuoka (who would become navy, army, and foreign ministers) to a conference at Konoe’s villa in the Tokyo suburb of Ogikubo. Among the policies to be pursued by the new cabinet, they discussed (1) “the strengthening of the Japanese-German-Italian axis”; (2) “positive measures to include the British, French, Dutch, and Portuguese colonies in the New Order of East Asia”; and (3) “the question of a Tripartite Pact.” The meeting reached an agreement: “While Japan will try to avoid unnecessary clash with the United States, Japan is firmly resolved to resist any armed intervention by that power in our establishment of the New Order in East Asia.” This agreement again made it clear that the Tripartite Pact was treated as inseparable from southward advance. However, the 27 July meeting of the Liaison Conference could agree only on “strengthening political ties with Germany and Italy.” Yoshida persisted in resisting a military alliance.⁴⁰

At the meeting of naval leaders held in early August at his official residence, Yoshida again cautioned against being blinded by Germany’s victory, reiterating that an alliance with Germany would bring war with the United States. That meeting concluded that in the event of war, the Japanese navy would be able to hold its own for only a year, but the U.S. Navy would resort to a protracted war. Yoshida was absolutely opposed to risking such a war by concluding a German alliance. Because of his opposition, the Tripartite Pact made no headway. On 12 August a disgruntled army staff officer scrawled in the Confidential War Journal, “I hear the matter is still under consideration by the navy minister. Ugh!”41

Pressure mounted when Matsuoka placed the United States next to Britain as a target of alliance. His plan stated, “In the event of either contracting party entering into a state of war with the United States, the other contracting party will assist that power by all possible means.” The background of Matsuoka’s hardening posture toward the United States was America’s mounting economic pressure on Japan. On 25 July, Washington announced that it would include scrap iron and oil among items under federal license. On 31 July, it placed an embargo on aviation gasoline. Washington had warned Tokyo not to move troops into northern Indochina. In response, Matsuoka redrafted the alliance proposal, strengthening its anti-American provisions. While Matsuoka and the army talked about a military alliance, Yoshida persevered in strengthening merely a political alliance.⁴²

Isolated and overtaxed beyond endurance, Yoshida had been confiding to his wife, “There is nobody reliable to assist me, yet the situation is momentous, and if we make one false step, it can very well lead to war.”⁴³ He continued to resist pressure from naval subordinates as well as from the foreign and army ministers. As late as 27 August he reaffirmed his position at a conference of naval leaders.

In holding out against the pact, Yoshida was indeed the “Last Fortress,” to borrow the title of a biography of Yoshida by Captain Sanematsu Yuzuru. On 30 August Yoshida remarked, “As things stand, Japan will be facing national ruin.”⁴⁴ On 3 September, Captain Ishikawa went to see Yoshida and demanded that he make up his mind on the Tripartite Pact, warning him that he could not refuse the pact without fighting the army. The harassed Yoshida murmured, “But we are not prepared for war with the United States.” Ishikawa pressed hard for an answer, saying it was entirely up to Yoshida. For a mere section chief to put direct pressure on a navy minister on a matter of high policy was highly irregular.⁴⁵ That night the navy minister suffered a physical and nervous collapse; hospitalized, he submitted his resignation. This was followed by a reshuffling of the navy ministry, causing a vacuum in the navy’s top leadership.

Prince Fushimi recommended Oikawa Koshirō as succeeding navy minister and Toyoda Teijir ō as vice minister. Oikawa was chosen for his ability to work with the army. These appointments tipped the balance in favor of the Tripartite Pact. Oikawa, reputedly a great authority on Sinology, was by nature a man of few words who expressed opinions rather than conviction and avoided infighting. After the war Admiral Inoue criticized the appointment of the “unprincipled and incompetent” Oikawa.46 All too anxious to avoid fighting with the army, he put up little resistance to pressures for the Tripartite Pact. The emperor, who had known Oikawa since his military assistant days (1915–22), worried about his appointment, wondering whether he could be a strong leader. Vice Minister Toyoda Teijirō, who was said to be a slick operator and “political schemer” (in Oikawa’s words), to a large extent took over the negotiations of the Tripartite Pact.

On 7 September, Matsuoka began secret negotiations with the recently arrived Heinrich Stahmer, personal emissary of German Foreign Minister Ribbentrop. The resulting Tripartite Pact, signed in Berlin on 27 September 1940, recognized Japan’s sphere of influence in Asia in return for recognition of German and Italian interests in Europe. Each party pledged to assist the other if attacked by “a power at present not involved in the European War or in the Chinese-Japanese War.”⁴⁷ At the navy’s insistence Oikawa demanded and obtained a secret protocol stating that Japan retained the right to determine the time and circumstances for fulfilling its obligation to go to war. With this as the sole condition, which relieved Japan from any obligation of automatically going to war, Oikawa consented to the pact. Speaking for the navy at the Liaison Conference of 14 September, he demanded that “the government, particularly the army, give special consideration to the completion of the navy’s preparations.” He thus coupled his consent to the pact with a request for additional naval armaments. At the same Liaison Conference, Vice Chief of the Naval General Staff Kondō discussed the strategic outlook of a Japanese-American war: “The navy has not yet completed its war preparations vis-à-vis the United States. They will be complete next April and Japan will stand a fair chance of winning on the basis of ‘quick encounter, quick showdown.’ But if the United States should turn the war into a protracted struggle, it will become very difficult for Japan. On the other hand, the United States is rapidly building ships and, in the future, discrepancies in the naval ratios will widen and Japan will not be able to catch up. In this sense, today is the most advantageous moment for starting a war.”⁴⁸

At the Imperial Conference of 19 September, it was not Navy Minister Oikawa but Prince Fushimi, Chief of the Naval General Staff, who stated that the navy consented to the Tripartite Pact. Nobody present questioned whether it was proper for the chief of the Naval General Staff to speak out for the conclusion of an alliance treaty. Prince Fushimi reiterated that as a war with the United States would be a protracted one, it was important for the navy to obtain more war matériel, especially oil.⁴⁹

Because war with the United States would be first and foremost the navy’s war, Oikawa’s duty as navy minister was to advise political leaders about the navy’s capability. If he had had the courage to say, as Yonai did in 1939, that the navy could not fight the United States, in all likelihood the Tripartite Pact would have been aborted.

Equally important were pressures from subordinates. The majority of naval opinion from the bureau and division chiefs had tilted toward the Tripartite Pact. Oikawa, a yes-man, was by temperament susceptible to pressure from below.⁵¹ He avoided the categorical statement that the navy could not fight the United States, because he feared that such a confession of weakness would jeopardize the navy’s morale and call into question its raison d’être. Oikawa also said he recalled how harshly Fleet Admiral Tōgō had reprimanded Chief of the Naval General Staff Taniguchi for having said at the time of the Manchurian Incident that the navy could not fight the United States.⁵²

Years later Toyoda corroborated this statement: “The navy accepted the Tripartite Pact, but it desired so far as possible to avoid war with the United States and to reserve Japan’s freedom of action should hostilities break out between Germany and the United States. As regards the United States, however, we had to be adequately prepared to meet the worst contingency. We therefore demanded completion of naval armaments.”⁵⁵ This ambivalence, dictated by bureaucratic considerations—a desire to avoid war coupled with a demand for war matériel—proved to be the undoing of the Japanese navy, as we shall see. The emperor was much worried about the Tripartite Pact. After the interim cabinet meeting of 16 September, Hirohito, with a grievous tone of voice, asked, “Will the navy be able to hold its own in a war with the United States?”

Yamamoto Isoroku, Combined Fleet Commander, was enraged by the Tripartite Pact, which he was sure would bring war with the United States. On 15 September, he attended a conference of high-level leaders convened by Navy Minister Oikawa to obtain approval of the pact. Yamamoto attacked it, stressing the serious shortage of war matériel in the event of war. He recalled that when he was navy vice minister a year before, 80 percent of matériel was supplied from areas under the control of America and Britain. Signing the Tripartite Pact would mean losing those supplies. “I want you to tell us quite clearly what changes have been made in the materials mobilization program in order to make up for the deficiencies.”⁵⁶

Yamamoto had come to the meeting with charts depicting the strength of Japan and the United States—ships and strategic matériel (oil, coal, aluminum, copper). To his chagrin, Oikawa silenced him, turning to Admiral Ōsumi Mineo, the most senior and pro-German member of the Supreme Military Council, to close the meeting by stating that those present were in complete agreement with the navy minister. Upon his return to the fleet, Yamamoto unburdened himself to his chief of staff, Rear Admiral Fukudome Shigeru: “A year ago the navy authorities did not consent to the conclusion of the Tripartite Pact because this alliance was bound to lead to war with the United States and in that event there was no chance of victory, given the existing state of naval armaments. . . . The only chance of success lies in the augmentation of our air power, but it takes years. It is only a year since that time and it is hardly likely that sufficient armaments for war with America have been built.”57 If Yamamoto had stayed in Tokyo as navy minister or vice minister, there is no doubt that he would have risked his position, even his life, to oppose the Tripartite Pact. He reluctantly accepted the pact because he respected the naval tradition that the navy minister was the sole authority to participate in politics, a tradition he himself had attempted to rebuild as vice minister.

On 14 October, Yamamoto told Harada that the Tripartite Pact spelled war with the United States. No doubt he would die aboard his flagship, Nagato, and Konoe would be “torn into pieces by the revengeful Japanese people.”⁵⁸ The emperor was worried about the Tripartite Pact. On 20 September he told Konoe, “I understand under the present circumstances the Japanese-German military pact cannot be helped. But what about the navy when it comes to fighting a war with America? I heard that in war games held at the Naval Staff College, Japan is always the loser in any war with America.” He continued, “I am extremely worried about the present situation. If Japan should lose the war, what would be the consequences? In the worst case, will you, prime minister, share my travails with you?” In these plaintive words, the emperor made clear his opposition to any course leading to war with the United States. Hearing these words, Konoe was moved to tears.⁵⁹

How did the navy anticipate the American reaction to the Tripartite Pact? The Japanese navy saw its impact in terms of America’s stepped-up economic “oppression” and further aggravation of relations with the United States. The purpose of these oppressions would be to stifle Japan’s activities.⁶⁰ On 28 September 1940, the Intelligence Division estimated that the United States would be “greatly shocked” by the conclusion of the Tripartite Pact and would tighten its economic “oppression.” (On 26 September, President Roosevelt had placed the export of all grades of scrap iron under government control.) Another report prepared by the Intelligence Division warned that American “oppression” would force Japan to launch a southward advance, thus causing war. “Under the banner of defending democracy,” the United States would conclude an Anglo-American agreement to defend Britain’s Pacific possessions and the Dutch East Indies, and would reinforce bases in the Philippines and Guam. “It is all-important to complete Japan’s naval preparations in order to contain American activities in the Pacific and the Far East.” Japan also had to cope with a defense agreement among the United States, Australia, New Zealand, and Canada.61

The navy’s decision to conclude the Tripartite Pact was based on faulty intelligence on the military situation in Europe. From early summer into the fall of 1940, naval planners, especially in the Naval General Staff, tended to draw an optimistic picture of German victory, believing that German air strength ensured the outcome of a cross-channel operation. The report submitted on 7 September 1940 by the Intelligence Division, headed by Captain Oka, stated that the Battle of Britain was shaking the morale of the English people; “There is every indication that Germany will stage an invasion of Britain.”⁶² On the basis of such an estimate, the navy came to look on the pact as an instrument to restrain the United States from going to war with Germany and interfering with Japan’s southward advance at least until the end of 1940, by which time Britain would have been disposed of and the war in Europe concluded. Of course, Hitler had issued an order on 14 September 1940 indefinitely postponing the invasion.

The navy did not entirely lack realistic estimates. In September 1940 Commander Ōi Atsushi, a member of the Research Section of the Navy Ministry, cautioned his superiors that even if German forces invaded the British Isles, Britain would not easily surrender. And Lieutenant Commander Genda Minoru, who returned to Tokyo in October 1940 after a tour as assistant attaché in London, reported that despite German air strength, the Battle of Britain was developing in Britain’s favor. Genda did not think that John Bull would easily succumb.⁶³

In retrospect, the navy obviously misconceived the Tripartite Pact from the beginning. The Americans were surprised and shocked but not cowed; on the contrary, the pact provoked them as nothing else could. However, military advisers to President Roosevelt opposed drastic retaliation, which was likely to provoke an unwanted conflict in the Far East. Admiral Harold R. Stark, Chief of Naval Operations, recognized that the United States was not yet prepared for hostilities in the Pacific. Secretary of State Hull also dissuaded the president from declaring an oil embargo for fear that it would drive Japan to the East Indies. Hull cautioned the president that the alliance meant that Germany and Japan might quickly make a move that would force the United States into war.⁶⁴

This official policy of nonconfrontation and nonprovocation of Japan did not hide the fact that Roosevelt, Hull, and the members of the cabinet “burned with resentment at Japanese attempts to intimidate the United States.” On 5 October Secretary of the Navy Frank Knox in an address stated that the pact was aimed directly at the United States and the American way of life was threatened as never before.65 On 12 October Roosevelt made a ringing declaration that “no combination of dictator countries of Europe and Asia will stop the help we are giving to almost the last free people now fighting to hold them at bay.” In his Fireside Chat a week later, the president said that the so-called new order in Europe and Asia was nothing but an “unholy alliance” that would enslave mankind.

As the Japanese anticipated, Washington, in response to the Tripartite Pact, began to retaliate by curtailing trade with Japan and by the end of 1940 cut off all exports—iron ore, pig iron, steel, main articles made of steel—except oil. Already the United States was secretly engaged in joint strategic studies with Britain and other nations to form a common front against the Japan-Germany-Italy combination.

This sense of global crisis began to grip the United States. In Tokyo, Grew wrote, “It became evident that the Far Eastern problem had ceased to be even practically a separate question but had become an integral part of the world crisis created by Adolf Hitler’s bid for world domination.” Grew, once sympathetic to Japan, wrote, “Japan has associated herself with a team or system of predatory Powers. . . . It will be the better part of wisdom to regard her no longer as an individual nation, with whom our friendship has been traditional, but as part and parcel of that system which, if allowed to develop unchecked, will assuredly destroy everything that America stands for.”⁶⁶ President Roosevelt cabled Grew that Japan was “openly and unashamedly one of the predatory nations and part of a system which aims to wreck about everything the United States stands for.”⁶⁷ As Hull put it, “Germany and Japan ... were returning the world to the Dark Ages.” The American leaders were convinced that “the signing of the [Tripartite] agreement left no doubt that the world [was] confronted not with merely regional or local wars but with an organized and ruthless movement of conquest.”⁶⁸ The Tripartite Pact meant that the U.S. Navy no longer had the luxury of thinking about a war on only one front.

Japanese naval leaders failed to realize that the Tripartite Pact had combined the European war with the Far Eastern conflict, creating a world crisis for the United States. On 21 January 1941, President Roosevelt cabled Grew, “We must recognize that our interests are menaced both in Europe and in the Far East. . . . Our strategy of self-defense must be a global strategy.”⁶⁹ Admiral Pratt had warned his friend Admiral Nomura that Japan must never underestimate the power of ideology in American foreign policy. The Japanese navy failed to understand that the Americans were already in an undeclared war to save the Western “democracies” from the “totalitarian” Axis.⁷⁰ Preoccupied with the strategy of southward advance and anxious to obtain budgetary precedence over the army, the Japanese navy did not realize that the pact had quickened the pace of American foreign policy in a manner previously inconceivable.

The Intelligence Division reported on an increasing tendency for the United States to become “united” with Britain. “As Britain recedes, the United States will take its place, and this will bring about a serious situation that cannot be overlooked. It would threaten our national policy of establishing the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere.”⁷²

The Japanese navy’s realization that with the conclusion of the Tripartite Pact, Japanese-American relations had entered a new critical stage was reflected in an important organizational reshuffle that took place in late 1940, which resulted in the creation of the First Committee and the Second Section of the Naval Affairs Bureau. They were aimed at “establishing [a] national policy of countering Britain and the United States that resulted from the Tripartite Pact.” Their purpose was to “reinforce the navy’s national policy in accord with the new policy set by the Tripartite Pact.” The navy would take the lead the nation as “a maritime self defense state.” (See p. 235-36.) Lieutenant Commander Fujii Shigeru, an associate member of the First Committee, recorded that with the conclusion of the Tripartite Pact, Japan had embarked on the policy of “commencing hostile actions against the United States.” He added, “The grave problem was how to persuade the government to provide armaments and matériel for the acceleration of the navy’s war preparations.”⁷³ The Tripartite Pact had thus become a bureaucratic weapon in the hands of the navy to obtain budget and materials to cope with the United States.⁷⁴