The Last Lion

by William Manchester

  At Argentia, in August, Roosevelt had told Churchill that he, Roosevelt, could fight a war without declaring war. Such words of defiance (defiance of the U.S. Congress at any rate) offered hope to Churchill, but Roosevelt could not defy Congress, and Churchill knew it. Roosevelt had challenged Hitler by putting American troops into Iceland; he had embargoed the Japanese, and he had overseen the virtual nullification of the Neutrality Acts. The president had irritated many within his military by sending to Churchill America’s newest tanks, on the grounds that Britain was fighting a war while America was not. Roosevelt’s carefully trod path to war led him even to defy the American labor movement, the very heart of his constituency. Congress in the autumn had threatened to scuttle his quest to arm merchant ships unless he told John L. Lewis and his United Mine Workers that a contemplated coal strike would be considered virtually treasonous, for without coal, there could be no steel, and without steel, no tanks for Britain, or Buicks and Fords for Americans. Roosevelt strongly advised Lewis to back off; he did. Roosevelt had talked a big game for months, but of America, Field Marshal Dill wrote, “Never have I seen a country so utterly unprepared for war and so soft.”9

  Churchill’s luncheon guests on the seventh were Lady Alexandra Mary Cadogan, Duchess of Marlborough, and her teenage son, John George Vanderbilt Henry Spencer Churchill, Marquess of Blandford, grandson of Consuelo Vanderbilt, and the future 11th Duke of Marlborough. Young Lord Blandford was one-quarter American (Churchill, of course, one-half), yet the Vanderbilts and Spencer-Churchills embodied moneyed aristocracy of the sort America Firsters railed against. Fortunately for Britain, the fourth lunch guest, Gil Winant, believed with Churchill that the war was about liberty, not privilege. While making his way to the dining room, Winant encountered Churchill, pacing the hall. He asked Winant if he thought there was going to be war with Japan. “Yes,” Winant replied. Then, “with unusual vehemence” Churchill asked if America would declare war on Japan if Japan declared war on Britain. Winant explained that only the American Congress could declare war. Churchill remained silent for a moment, and Winant in that instant grasped the source of his bleak demeanor. If Japan attacked British interests but not American, Churchill might find himself fighting a second war, alone. The fate of Britain, Winant realized, “might be hanging on one turn of pitch and toss.”10

  The evening of December 7 found a somber Churchill taking his dinner at Chequers in the company of Winant and Harriman. Churchill’s naval assistant Tommy Thompson and his senior private secretary, John Martin, were also present at the table.* To Harriman, Churchill appeared tired and depressed. “The hunt for the Japanese fleets had turned up nothing. He sat for long moments with his head in his hands.” Harriman had learned what the Churchill family long knew: depending on the events of the day—a favorite swan consumed by a badger, news of an old friend’s ill health—Churchill at the start of the evening meal regularly sat in curmudgeonly silence while his family sat and waited until the somber moment passed, as it inevitably did, often after the first or second glass of champagne, when Churchill began quoting Macaulay or recalled some glorious deed performed by himself long ago and painted the scene in words for those around the table.11

  This night proved a singular occasion. Shortly after nine, he rose and switched on a small flip-top wireless. A spate of headlines narrated by the BBC’s Alvar Liddell rolled in on the static. Something was said of a Japanese attack on British ships in the Dutch East Indies, and on American ships at some other location. Churchill and his guests, having missed the first words of the broadcast, sat in confused silence. The butler appeared from the kitchen and announced, “The Japanese have attacked the Americans.” Commander Thompson chimed in, claiming he thought he had heard the announcer say the Americans had been attacked “at Pearl River.” That would have put the Japanese at the mouth of China’s third-largest river, about 150 miles from Hong Kong. Yet what manner of American shipping would be navigating in those waters? Liddell then repeated his leading headline: American shipping in Hawaii had been attacked. Yet what sort of shipping? And how large an attack? Churchill and his dining companions sat for a moment in silence.12

  Churchill then leapt to his feet and started for the hall, announcing his intent to make good his pledge to declare war on Japan within the hour if Japan attacked the United States. “Good God,” Winant exclaimed, “you can’t declare war on a radio announcement.” Churchill stopped, looked at Winant quizzically, and asked, “What shall I do?” Churchill then turned to John Martin and barked, “Get me the president on the phone at once.” Winant spoke first to Roosevelt, who confirmed the attack but omitted any details as to the extent of the damage, not only because he didn’t know the extent, but because the phone line was a regular, unsecured wire, a source of constant worry to Martin because Churchill used it often. Churchill took the phone. “Mr. President, what’s this about Japan?” “It’s quite true,” replied Roosevelt, “They have attacked us at Pearl Harbor. We are all in the same boat now.”13

  Though Churchill did not know exactly where in the broad expanse of the Pacific the Japanese main battle fleet was, he now knew with terrible certainty where it had been hours earlier. He had not yet learned that the Japanese had bombed Hong Kong. And Singapore. And had landed troops near Hong Kong and, an hour before attacking Pearl Harbor, that Lieutenant General Tomoyuki Yamashita had put troops ashore at Kota Bharu, four hundred miles north of Singapore. Japanese bombers were at that moment winging their way from Formosa to Manila. In Washington, with the catastrophic news of hundreds, perhaps thousands, of deaths in Hawaii, with the apparent loss of most—perhaps all—of his Pacific battleships, Franklin Roosevelt’s need for political subtlety came to an end, and so, too, did his, and America’s, long and dreamlike journey to war. The isolationist cause died on the spot. And with the death of almost 2,500 young American sailors, Marines, and soldiers—their war had lasted about as long as it takes to smoke a Lucky Strike or kiss a pretty girl good-bye—Winston Churchill had finally gained his Western ally. Yet only against a new enemy, and in a new war.

  Churchill, in his memoirs, titles the chapter devoted to December 1941 “Pearl Harbor!” His use of an exclamation point is not meant to underscore the shock to America of the devastating Japanese attack on its naval base, but to underscore his profound relief. He wrote that late on the seventh, a thought took shape: “So we had won after all.” Indeed, he took to his bed happy that night, and “slept the sleep of the saved and thankful.” Brooke’s diary entry of the seventh stands as a clear measure of the differences between him—a dedicated staff officer—and Churchill, a statesman whose perspective included events and their consequences over the entire globe: “All our work of last 48 hours wasted! The Japs themselves have now assured that the USA are now in the war.”14

  Such was Churchill’s joy over the news from Pearl Harbor that he, curiously, chose to share it first with Eamon de Valera. During the early hours of the eighth, Churchill composed a telegram to the Irish prime minister, an odd choice of correspondent, given the twenty-year history of antipathy, if not outright loathing, between the two. To the Irish prime minister, Churchill wrote, “Now is your chance. Now or never. ‘A nation once again.’ Am very ready to meet you at any time.” Yet there was method in Churchill’s apparent madness. He had told Roosevelt the previous year that he was prepared to consider a united Ireland if de Valera granted use of three Irish ports to the Royal Navy or, better yet, came in on the Allied side. “A Nation Once Again” happened to be the marching song of Irish republicans two decades earlier. Churchill was offering de Valera a roadmap to Irish unity.15

  Churchill had long considered Ireland to be the wayward daughter of the Empire for whom a candle always burned in his window. De Valera did not share Churchill’s enthusiasm for a family reunion; he never responded to the overture. Rather, he invited both the Japanese consul and German minister to maintain their staffs and embassies in Dublin. Churchill got the message. Though he dispatched subordi
nates to woo the Irish government into the Allied ranks (without success), and regularly mulled over the option of taking the three Irish ports by force, he made scant official reference to de Valera for almost three years, until late in 1944, when he cabled Roosevelt concerning the need “to do something for Poland” and the necessity “to do something to de Valera.” Many sons of Ireland volunteered for the RAF, Royal Navy, and British army, but the Irish daughter never returned home. Yet, as Churchill sifted the implications of the news from Oahu—victory had in an instant become only a question of time, unheard-of sums of money, and unfathomable casualties—he looked beyond the war and beheld there an opportunity to preserve and strengthen the entire British Empire, even those parts, like Ireland, long lost to London.

  By the morning of December 8, events in Asia overshadowed Churchill’s quixotic Irish initiative. He had gone to bed with a clear view of the far horizon but failed to see the chasm immediately in front of him. North of Hong Kong, 25,000 Japanese troops had overnight crossed the Sham Chum River into the British leased territories, where fewer than 2,000 Indian and Scottish troops were strung out along lines that were too lengthy and too weak. Forced to retreat four miles to the island of Hong Kong, they joined three battalions of Indians and two of Canadians, the Winnipeg Grenadiers and the Royal Rifles, sent in late October to reinforce the garrison despite Churchill’s warning months earlier that Hong Kong would fall, reinforced or not. The Canadians in Hong Kong knew that the Japanese encamped on the mainland were not there to lay siege to the city but to take it, a result now ordained, for no reinforcements could be gotten to the outnumbered defenders.

  On the Malay Peninsula, the Japanese force under Lieutenant General Yamashita that had landed to stiff but futile opposition far north of Singapore had by the time Churchill awoke blasted the small RAF contingent and secured a foothold. Within a day, Japanese infantry and light tanks crossed the forty-mile-wide Kra Isthmus and reached the Andaman Sea—that is, the Japanese had reached the Bay of Bengal and the Indian Ocean. British forces on the isthmus consisted mostly of two undersize divisions of Indian troops, supported by fewer than 160 older planes, and no tanks. They were all that stood between the Japanese army and an easy march down the peninsula to Singapore. Seaward, a few destroyers plus Prince of Wales and the battle cruiser Repulse, recently arrived on station in the Strait of Johore, were all that stood between the Japanese navy and Singapore, where Duff Cooper, newly appointed resident minister, was awakened by sirens and AA guns and exploding Japanese bombs. He could do nothing but try to compose himself to sleep again.16

  Yet another Japanese force made its presence known in the Philippines when, about four hours after the raid on Pearl Harbor, carrier-based Japanese fighters and bombers struck Mindanao, six hundred miles south of Manila. From that attack it could be deduced with certainty that further air attacks, and landings, were likely on the Philippines’ most vital island, Luzon. General Douglas MacArthur, asleep in his penthouse apartment at the Manila Hotel, was awakened and apprised of the Oahu attack moments after it took place. Events over the next few hours showed that MacArthur, though forewarned by the attack on Pearl Harbor and with full knowledge that the Philippines—the strategic gateway to Malaya—were the real Japanese objective, had been caught napping, disastrously and inexcusably so.17

  A complete breakdown had occurred between MacArthur, his chief of staff Richard K. Sutherland, and his chief of air operations Lewis Brereton, with the result that virtually the entire U.S. air arm in the Far East was sitting on the ground at Clark Field when more than nine hours after Pearl Harbor, two hundred Japanese bombers and fighters based on Formosa swept in and within the hour destroyed the airfield and everything on it—planes, fuel, and hangars. The New York Times reported later in the week that MacArthur claimed little damage had been done. In fact, MacArthur had lost his aerial umbrella. The next day, Japanese bombers obliterated the Cavite Navy Yard, eight miles from Manila. Five hundred American and Filipino men were killed. Admiral Tommy Hart, commander of the anemic U.S. Asiatic Fleet, watched from Manila as his anchorage disappeared under hellish clouds of black smoke. He decided on the spot to take what remained of his little navy, less his submarines, to the Dutch East Indies. On December 10, the Japanese made their first landings on Luzon. MacArthur could oppose them neither by sea nor air. MacArthur’s army of 30,000 Americans and three times as many ill-trained Filipinos was effectively surrounded and cut off from reinforcement.18

  A few days after the attacks on Pearl Harbor and Manila, U.S. Army chief of staff General George Marshall summoned Dwight Eisenhower, recently promoted to brevet brigadier general, to Washington. Eisenhower’s first assignment was to come up with a plan to solve MacArthur’s supply problem. The new deputy, who displayed a knack for logistics, pondered the challenge for about an hour before concluding that his mission was hopeless. The army had nothing to send MacArthur, and the navy lacked both the ships and the fighting spirit to ferry men or supplies to the Philippines. Eisenhower could do nothing other than recommend that bases be put in Australia from which future forays might originate. No reinforcements would reach MacArthur’s stranded army, ever.19

  On the morning of the eighth, Roosevelt followed up his conversation with Churchill with a cable in which he again offered that they were now in the same boat, adding, “it is a ship which will not and can not be sunk,” an ironic choice of words given that the Japanese visitations to Honolulu and Manila had left neither the British nor the Americans enough in the way of ships to harass, let alone destroy, the Japanese navy. Hours later, when Congress declared war by a vote of 382–1, it did so only upon Japan. When Roosevelt spoke to the Congress, he made no mention of Churchill, or Hitler. Japan had plunged America into war but not against Hitler.20

  Churchill made his way to the House early in the afternoon on the eighth, wielding a rolled-up mass of the morning papers as a battering ram to clear a path through the crowd gathered outside for himself, Clementine, and Pamela. Nicolson, to his diary: “Winston enters the chamber with bowed shoulders and an expression of grim determination on his face.” The prime minister told MPs that the War Cabinet had met earlier and had declared war on Japan. He spoke of facing new dangers, pledging, “When we think of the insane ambition and insatiable appetite which have caused this vast and melancholy extension of the war, we can only feel that Hitler’s madness has infected the Japanese mind, and that the root of the evil and its branch must be extirpated together.” He reminded the House that “some of the finest ships in the Royal Navy have reached their stations in the Far East at a very convenient moment.” That was meant for American ears, for with the loss of the fleet at Pearl Harbor, Prince of Wales and Repulse now formed the Allied naval presence in the western Pacific, perhaps the entire Pacific. The ships signaled to Washington Churchill’s intent to contribute to the Far East war. In Tokyo the ships were seen for what they were—targets.21

  That morning, Churchill sent a personal letter to the Japanese ambassador in which, very politely, he announced that a state of war existed between their two countries. Some of his colleagues thought the note too proper. “But after all,” Churchill later wrote, “when you have to kill a man it costs nothing to be polite.” He told King George later in the day that he hoped to leave for Washington “without delay, provided such a course is agreeable to President Roosevelt, as I have no doubt it will be,” and added that he would defer proposing a visit until the situation with Germany and Italy (neither had yet declared war on America) became “more clear.” Then, too impatient to defer, he cabled Washington with a request to meet with Roosevelt in order to “review the whole war plan.” Roosevelt did not reply directly; instead, he told Halifax that perhaps sometime around January 7 might work for everybody. For Churchill, that would simply not do. But it would have to. The next move was Roosevelt’s alone to make.22

  Eden, about to depart Scapa Flow for Moscow, thought it unwise that both he and Churchill should leave the country at such a
critical time. He also believed that Stalin, who trusted no one, would conclude that Churchill and Roosevelt were up to something. He telephoned his concerns to John Winant, who replied that as far as he knew, no meeting had been arranged. Eden’s parliamentary secretary Oliver Harvey told his diary: “Really, the PM is a lunatic; he gets in such a state of excitement that the wildest schemes seem reasonable.” Eden set sail later in the day somewhat secure in the belief that the King, Winant, and the War Cabinet would prevail upon Churchill to stay at home. Churchill intended otherwise. Yet, still no invitation had arrived from Roosevelt. And, still, Hitler remained silent.23

  It was time for Churchill to roll out long-ignored charts of Pacific islands and archipelagos, many of which were unfamiliar even to high-ranking British leaders, including the prime minister. Churchill loved maps, as much for their utility as for their ability to stoke his imagination. Maps and naval charts lifted him away to far-off places and conjured images of heroic adventures long past. This caused problems when he—regularly—meddled with his military planners. Antony Head, a decorated Dunkirk survivor and a junior staff officer in War Plans, recalled Churchill stabbing a finger at a chart of the Philippines while offering that a particular island—which Churchill claimed was actually part of the Dutch East Indies—was “inhabited by dragons.” Clementine had supplied much of his knowledge (or lack thereof) of the region in her letters home during a four-month cruise to the East Indies seven years earlier.