Fighting to Lose (37 page)

He went on to warn that the war in Europe threatened to spread to the Far East and, while the Americans were doing their utmost to preserve peace, “should the United States become involved in war with Japan, the British declaration would follow within the hour.”

November 13
: Roosevelt received an “urgent” report from William Donovan, his newly appointed civilian spy chief: the German chargé d’affaires in Washington, Dr. Hans Thomsen, had said that “if Japan goes to war with the United States, Germany will immediately follow suit.” Donovan further quoted Thomsen: “Japan knows that unless the United States agrees to some reasonable terms in the Far East, Japan must face the threat of strangulation…. Japan is therefore forced to strike now.”18

Donovan’s information was crucial. Until that point, war with Japan had not necessarily meant war with Germany. Dr. Thomsen said it now did. The key condition that Roosevelt needed to make losing the Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbor worthwhile had been met. Even if Japan attacked first, Germany would still join in.

November 18
: During talks on the new Japanese proposals with Saburo Kurusu, the special envoy sent out by Tokyo, U.S. Secretary of State Cordell Hull brusquely told him that it was Japan’s alliance with Germany and Italy that was the problem: “If Japan had any different ideas on this point, he could tell them [in Tokyo] that they would not get six inches in a thousand years with the U.S. government, who would not have anything to do with the greatest butcher in history.”19

This was brutal language to use on a foreign diplomat. Hull had read the text of Churchill’s speech. To be so sure that the Germans had committed the crimes they were accused of, he must have seen decrypts of the SS and German police traffic dealing with the atrocities. He was too experienced not to have required hard evidence.

Hull then presented the position to Kurusu that Churchill and Roosevelt had worked out together in August. Japan was to abandon its air bases in Indochina and, Hull continued, “In the second place, Japan must withdraw her troops from China. The United States could not find the basis of a general settlement unless this were done.” There would be no relaxing of the trade sanctions, either.

This put the Japanese envoy “in a great state” — Hull’s words — and he asked that Japan be allowed to retain at least some troops in China, and for the United States to release small quantities of rice and oil exclusively for Japan’s civilian population. In exchange, Japan would withdraw entirely from Indochina, Kurusu said. Hull was taken aback. Japan abandoning its air and naval bases in Indochina took away the principal grounds of conflict between their two countries. Hull said he would think about it, which meant he was taking it to the president.20

Also on this same day, U.S. Naval Operations (Admiral Stark) unaccountably issued the “North Pacific Vacant Sea Order” whereby all Allied ships were ordered to avoid the Pacific north of Hawaii effective November 25. The six aircraft carriers, two battleships, two cruisers, six destroyers, and eight supply vessels of the Japanese attack force would take up a lot of sea room, and under normal circumstances a chance encounter with another vessel was almost inevitable. The Japanese could sink any ships they came in contact with, of course, but before going down they would likely get off a radio distress message. By all accounts, Admiral Stark should have wanted to see the North Pacific busy with shipping to avoid the possibility of a surprise attack.21

November 22:
Tokyo showed signs it was getting desperate. According to MAGIC decrypts that Stark, Marshall, Hull, and Roosevelt are supposed to have been reading, the Japanese wanted to avoid war with the United States, but if the talks did not succeed by November 29, “things [were] automatically going to happen.”

November 24
: Admiral Stark alerted all Pacific commands that the current negotiations with Japan were likely to fail and that a “surprise aggressive movement [could be taken] in any direction including attack on Philippines or Guam.” Admiral Kimmel took this to mean that his chief, with whom he was on a first-name basis, believed that the Japanese navy was looking south, not east.

November 25:
The North Pacific Vacant Sea Order took effect. The Japanese aircraft carriers were just then leaving their home waters for Hawaii. The empty ocean sparkled before them.

Also on this day, Admiral Stark sent a personal note to Admiral Kimmel in Pearl Harbor describing the tense Japanese-American negotiations behind his warning of the day before. He closed it with, “Neither the President nor Mr. Hull would be surprised over a Japanese surprise attack; that from many angles an attack on the Philippines would be the most embarrassing thing that could happen to us….”22

Again he made no mention of Hawaii, even though the evidence is overwhelming that he saw the Pearl Harbor questionnaire either at the Atlantic conference or after Popov delivered it to the FBI, if not by both means. It is also not credible that the chief of naval operations, the top man in the navy and first on the list for MAGIC, did not see the bomb-plot messages targeting the Pacific Fleet.

November 26
: Secretary of State Hull dropped all appearances of being conciliatory and returned to his original requirement that Japan break with the Axis powers and withdraw all its troops from China, adding the wholly unreasonable demand — suggested by Churchill — that the Japanese recognize Chiang Kai-shek as China’s legitimate leader. This amounted to the wholesale surrender of the Japanese to the Chinese after years of bitter war, so it was bound to be rejected. Stimson, the secretary of war, called it “kicking the whole thing over.”23

November 27:
Admiral Stark issued a formal “war warning,” saying that “for all practical purposes” negotiations had broken off and an aggressive move by Japan was expected. “The number and equipment of Japanese troops and the organization of task forces indicates an amphibious expedition against either the Philippines, Thai or Kra peninsula or possibly Borneo.” This confirmed Admiral Kimmel’s impression that the navy leadership in Washington thought Japan was focused south, not east.24

Meanwhile, General MacArthur and Admiral Hart in the Philippines, who were still receiving and reading the Japanese diplomatic decrypts denied Kimmel and Short, were aware that the Japanese had a current, fully developed plan of attack against Hawaii.25

Admiral Stark asked Admiral Kimmel to use one of his two aircraft carriers to transfer twenty-five fighter aircraft to the naval bases at Midway and Wake Islands. As this denuded Pearl Harbor’s air defence by nearly half, Admiral Kimmel concluded that Admiral Stark — who he understood was in receipt of all intelligence — did not think Hawaii was in any imminent danger. That same day the War Department (Marshall) proposed to replace the marines on Wake and Midway Island with army troops, a lengthy and complicated process that would require Kimmel’s other aircraft carrier. Kimmel presumed this was further indication Pearl Harbor was safe for the time being.26

With great confidence, he sent both carriers on these routine missions.

Even the Canadians now knew war with Japan was imminent. The work of the little cipher-breaking unit in Ottawa — the Examination Unit — had expanded into low-grade Japanese diplomatic traffic that fall, and it became obvious from the decrypts that the Japanese consulate in Ottawa was primarily interested in military topics, and was especially concerned about the troops Canada was sending to Hong Kong. The British were also providing the Canadian government with daily bulletins on Hull’s negotiations with the Japanese, which Canada’s prime minister, Mackenzie King, described as being of a “most unyielding character.”27