Fateful Choices: Ten Decisions That Changed the World, 1940-1941

by Ian Kershaw

  13. Quoted in Morley, The Final Confrontation, p. 179.

  14. Yoshitake Oka, Konoe Fumimaro. A Political Biography, Tokyo, 1983, pp. 139–40.

  15. John Toland, The Rising Sun. The Decline and Fall of the Japanese Empire, 1936–1945, New York, 1970, Modern Library edn., 2003, p. 100; Ike, p. 151 and n. 35; Feis, p. 282.

  16. Bix, pp. 403–4; Morley, The Final Confrontation, p. 181.

  17. Morley, The Final Confrontation, pp. 180–81.

  18. Konoe Memoirs, fols. 30–31; Oka, p. 139; Robert J. C. Butow, Tojo and the Coming of the War, Princeton, 1961, pp. 243–4; Roger D. Spotswood, ‘Japan’s Southward Advance as an Issue in Japanese-American Relations, 1940–1941’, unpublished Ph.D. thesis, University of Washington, 1974, pp. 398–401.

  19. Quotations in Morley, The Final Confrontation, p. 180.

  20. Iriye, Origins, p. 157; Morley, The Final Confrontation, p. 181. For Nomura’s appearance and character, Cordell Hull, The Memoirs of Cordell Hull, New York, 1948, vol. 2, p. 987; Toland, The Rising Sun, p. 67; Gordon W. Prange, At Dawn We Slept. The Untold Story of Pearl Harbor, London, 1982, p. 6.

  21. Foreign Relations of the United States. Diplomatic Papers 1941, vol. 4: The Far East, Washington, 1956 [= FRUS, 1941], p. 359; also quoted in Carr, pp. 154–5. Hull, vol. 2, pp. 1014–15, indicates the Secretary of State’s conviction, following the invasion of southern Indochina, that war between Japan and the United States was now a likely eventuality.

  22. Morley, The Final Confrontation, p. 182.

  23. Iriye, Origins, p. 156.

  24. Toland, The Rising Sun, p. 91. For the different emphases in strategy towards Japan between Churchill and Roosevelt, see Waldo H. Heinrichs, Jr., Threshold of War. Franklin D. Roosevelt and American Entry into World War II, New York/Oxford, 1988, pp. 152–5; and Feis, pp. 256–7.

  25. Konoe Memoirs, fol. 33; The ‘MAGIC’ Background of Pearl Harbor, vol. 3, Washington, 1977, appendix, pp. A38–9; Hull, vol. 2, pp. 1019–20; Morley, The Final Confrontation, pp. 183–4; Reynolds, Anglo-American Alliance, p. 239 (for the shift in Roosevelt’s position on return from Placentia Bay, on the advice of the State Department).

  26. Japan II, p. 565; also quoted in Toland, The Rising Sun, p. 93; Grew’s subsequent dispatch is in FRUS, 1941, vol. 4, pp. 382–3. See also Joseph C. Grew, Ten Years in Japan, New York, 1944, pp. 416–21; Hull, vol. 2, p. 1025; Waldo H. Heinrichs, Jr., American Ambassador. Joseph C. Grew and the Development of the United States Diplomatic Tradition, Boston, 1966, pp. 309–12, 337–43; and Morley, The Final Confrontation, pp. 186–7.

  27. Ike, pp. 124–5.

  28. Konoe Memoirs, fol. 35.

  29. William L. Langer and S. Everett Gleason, The Undeclared War, 1940–1941, New York, 1953, pp. 700–701; Oka, p. 141; Morley, The Final Confrontation, p. 185.

  30. Hull, vol. 2, p. 1024; Langer and Gleason, The Undeclared War, p. 701; Morley, The Final Confrontation, pp. 185–8; Oka, pp. 141–2.

  31. Morley, The Final Confrontation, pp. 165, 169, 364–6 (appendix 6); Ike, pp. 135–6; Iriye, Origins, p. 159.

  32. Morley, The Final Confrontation, p. 365.

  33. Morley, The Final Confrontation, p. 366.

  34. Morley, The Final Confrontation, p. 169.

  35. Ike, pp. 129–33; Morley, The Final Confrontation, pp. 267–74.

  36. Bix, p. 410.

  37. Sheffield University Library, Wolfson Microfilm 431, Diary of Marquis Kido Koichi, doc. no. 1632W (67), 5.9.41; Oka, pp. 145–6.

  38. Bix, pp. 412–13; Morley, The Final Confrontation, p. 174; Konoe Memoirs, fols. 40–41.

  39. Bix, p. 410. Bix argues that the Emperor faced ‘the most important decision of his entire life’, that he ‘clearly had options at this moment’, that a withdrawal from Indochina and loss of the chance of seizing the Dutch East Indies would have met with the approval of at least some of the navy’s top leadership, and that, consequently, Hirohito freely and willingly chose the route to war.

  40. Kido Diary, doc. no. 1632W (68), 6.9.41; Bix, p. 413; Toland, The Rising Sun, p. 98.

  41. The following (except where otherwise referenced) all from Ike, pp. 138–51.

  42. Morley, The Final Confrontation, p. 172.

  43. Kido Diary, doc. no. 1632W (68), 6.9.41; Konoe Memoirs, fol. 41; Bix, p. 414; Morley, The Final Confrontation, p. 176; Toland, The Rising Sun, p. 99; Oka, pp. 146–7.

  44. Quoted Morley, The Final Confrontation, pp. 170–71.

  45. Toland, The Rising Sun, p. 103.

  46. Konoe Memoirs, fol. 42; Japan II, pp. 604–6; Grew, pp. 425–8 (6.9.41); Oka, pp. 148–9; Toland, The Rising Sun, pp. 100–102 (partly on the basis of an interview with Konoe’s (unnamed) mistress); Hull, vol. 2, pp. 1028–31; Heinrichs, American Ambassador, p. 346; Langer and Gleason, The Undeclared War, p. 716; Heinrichs, Threshold of War, pp. 185–6. David Bergamini, Japan’s Imperial Conspiracy, New York, 1971, vol. 2, p. 1019, has Baron Ito’s daughter serving the food and drink. Feis, p. 271, refers to the ‘daughter of the house’. Konoe recalled the talk lasting one and a half hours; Grew (p. 425) notes that ‘the conversation lasted for three hours’. Hull was anxious that Grew maintained caution in his dealings with Japanese leaders. He cabled the ambassador on 9 September: ‘While the [State] Department perceives no objections to your carrying on conversations paralleling those here with a view to obtaining further elucidation of the intent of the Japanese Government, it is felt that, as the subject is a matter in which the President has a close and active interest, any definitive discussions concerned with the reaching of an agreement on principle should continue to be conducted here’ (FRUS, 1941, p. 434). For the ‘Four Principles’, see Hull, vol. 2, pp. 994–5.

  47. Konoe Memoirs, fol. 36; Langer and Gleason, The Undeclared War, pp. 704–5; Morley, The Final Confrontation, pp. 189, 194; Carr, p. 156.

  48. The ‘MAGIC’ Background of Pearl Harbor, vol. 3, appendix, pp. A88–90; Iriye, Origins, p. 163; Ike, p. 169.

  49. Ike, pp. 170–71. Grew expressed his pessimism when he met Toyoda on 22 September (Grew, pp. 432–4).

  50. Iriye, Origins, p. 163.

  51. See Ike, pp. 155–6. The timing had been laid down in the ‘Reference Materials for Answering Questions at the Imperial Conference on September 6 Regarding "The Essentials for Carrying Out the Empire’s Policies”’, prepared after consultation between the government and the Supreme Command (Ike, pp. 152–63).

  52. Kido Diary, doc. no. 1632W (71), 26.9.41; Oka, pp. 150–1; Ike, pp. 176–8; Toland, The Rising Sun, p. 105; Morley, The Final Confrontation, p. 209.

  53. FRUS, 1941, pp. 494–7; Japan II, pp. 656–61; Hull, vol. 2, p. 1033; Konoe Memoirs, fol. 47; Heinrichs, American Ambassador, p. 350.

  54. Ike, pp. 179–80.

  55. Morley, The Final Confrontation, p. 210.

  56. Quoted in Morley, The Final Confrontation, p. 213.

  57. Morley, The Final Confrontation, pp. 213–17; Iriye, Origins, pp. 164–5.

  58. Konoe Memoirs, fols. 49–50; Morley, The Final Confrontation, pp. 222–5; Toland, The Rising Sun, pp. 109–11; Oka, pp. 154–6. And see Tojo’s postwar testimony at the International Military Tribunal for the Far East on the meeting (differing in some detail): Political Strategy Prior to the Outbreak of War (Part III), Japanese Monographs, 147, Office of the Chief of Military History, Department of the Army, appendix 6 (http://www.ibiblio.org/pha/monos/147/147app06.html).

  59. Konoe Memoirs, fols. 50–51; Toland, The Rising Sun, pp. 111–12; Oka, pp. 155–6.

  60. Quoted in Morley, The Final Confrontation, p. 227; Bix, p. 417; Oka, p. 156; Toland, The Rising Sun, pp. 112–13.

  61. Iriye, Origins, pp. 165–6.

  62. Oka, pp. 156–7.

  63. Konoe Memoirs, fols. 85–6.

  64. Konoe Memoirs, fols. 52–3; Kido Diary, doc. no. 1632W (79–82, quotation 80); Morley, The Final Confrontation, pp. 230–45; Butow, pp. 285–301, 308; Toland, The Rising Sun, pp. 113–18; Bix, pp. 418–19; Oka, pp. 157–9; Feis, pp. 285–6.
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br />   65. Takashi Ito, Tadamitsu Hirohashi and Norio Katashima (eds.), The Secret Documents of Prime Minister Tojo. Records of the Words and Deeds of General Hideki Tojo [in Japanese], Tokyo, n.d., p. 478.

  66. Morley, The Final Confrontation, p. 239.

  67. Kido Diary, doc. no. 1632W (81), 17.10.41; Butow, pp. 301–2; Feis, pp. 286–7; Morley, The Final Confrontation, pp. 241, 243–4; Toland, The Rising Sun, p. 118.

  68. Butow, pp. 302–5; Morley, The Final Confrontation, pp. 246–7.

  69. Iriye, Origins, pp. 168–70.

  70. Langer and Gleason, The Undeclared War, pp. 842–3; Carr, p. 161; Robert Dallek, Franklin D. Roosevelt and American Foreign Policy, 1932–1945, New York, 1979, pp. 304–5.

  71. Hull, vol. 2, p. 1054. Ambassador Grew in Tokyo, on the other hand, was initially not unduly pessimistic. He was persuaded that Tojo could control the army and make it accept a settlement (Grew, p. 460 (20.10.41); Heinrichs, American Ambassador, p. 354). Nor was the State Department’s estimate of the Tojo Cabinet, written on 18 October 1941 by Maxwell M. Hamilton, Chief of the Division of Far Eastern Affairs, totally negative. ‘It is not believed’, Hamilton wrote, ‘that the new cabinet will reject a negotiated solution of Japan’s international relations, but at the same time will take every measure possible to insure that, if such negotiated solutions are not forthcoming or are not successful, the opportunity for a solution by force will not be lost through lack of preparation or deployment of forces’ (FRUS, 1941, pp. 522–3). This was similar to the view which Grew came to advance (Grew, pp. 469–70 (3–4.11.41)), that Japan was obviously preparing ‘to implement an alternative program in the event the peace program fails’.

  72. Langer and Gleason, The Undeclared War, pp. 845–6 (memorandum of the Joint Board of the Army and Navy, 5.11.41). See also Carr, p. 161.

  73. Morley, The Final Confrontation, p. 249.

  74. Quoted in Morley, The Final Confrontation, p. 247.

  75. Morley, The Final Confrontation, pp. 248–9.

  76. Quoted in Morley, The Final Confrontation, p. 249.

  77. Quoted in Morley, The Final Confrontation, p. 252.

  78. Quoted in Morley, The Final Confrontation, p. 250.

  79. Ike, p. 195.

  80. Ike, p. 188.

  81. Ike, p. 191. This was prescient. The flaws in Japanese planning and the increasing gaps as the war lengthened between estimated and real availability of matériel and shipping are exposed in Morley, The Final Confrontation, pp. 267–303.

  82. Ike, pp. 191–2, 195. Tojo testified after the war that it would have taken between four and seven years to produce the minimal requirement of synthetic oil. During this time, Japan would have had to rely upon her stock supplies, which could not have lasted for such a period (Political Strategy Prior to the Outbreak of War (Part III), Japanese Monographs, 147, appendix 7 (http://www.ibiblio.org/pha/monos/147/147app07.html)).

  83. Ike, p. 198.

  84. Ike, pp. 197–8.

  85. Ike, pp. 198–9.

  86. All the quotations from contributions to the Conference that follow, unless otherwise referenced, are from the text in Ike, pp. 199–207.

  87. Morley, The Final Confrontation, pp. 255–8; Toland, The Rising Sun, p. 124.

  88. Text in Morley, The Final Confrontation, pp. 368–9 (appendix 9).

  89. Text in Morley, The Final Confrontation, p. 370 (appendix 9); and Langer and Gleason, The Undeclared War, p. 878.

  90. Quoted in Morley, The Final Confrontation, pp. 263–4.

  91. Morley, The Final Confrontation, pp. 264–5. Looking back from 1945, Togo–defending his actions, but with some justice–pointed to the impossible odds with which he had to contend in attempting at this late juncture to avoid war (Sheffield University Library, Translation of Japanese Documents [prepared for the Tokyo War Crimes Trial], Wolfson Microfilm 306, Togo Memoirs, April–August 1945, fol. 1).

  92. Bix, p. 424.

  93. Morley, The Final Confrontation, p. 266; Toland, The Rising Sun, p. 130.

  94. All the above quotations from contributions to the Conference, unless otherwise referenced, are from Ike, pp. 208–39.

  95. Iriye, Origins, pp. 177–8.

  96. Grew, pp. 468–9 (his report to Washington, 3.11.41; almost identical wording in his diary entry, 4.11.41); Japan II, pp. 703–4.

  97. Toland, The Rising Sun, pp. 129, 136.

  98. Hull, vol. 2, p. 1062.

  99. Toland, The Rising Sun, pp. 129–30.

  100. Morley, The Final Confrontation, p. 285; and see Bergamini, vol. 2, pp. 1020–22. Yamamoto–ironically, an opponent of war against the United States–had, in fact, conceived his brilliant plan of attack as early as November 1940 and had brought it to the attention of the Emperor, who was interested in it. In January 1941 Hirohito had ordered research on the plan to be undertaken, which concluded ‘that the attack would be extremely hazardous but would have a reasonable chance of success’ (Bergamini, vol. 2, pp. 954–5 and n. 1). Word must have leaked out (see Prange, p. 31), since Grew reported to Washington already on 27 January 1941: ‘There is a lot of talk around town to the effect that the Japanese, in case of a break with the United States, are planning to go all out in a surprise attack on Pearl Harbor’ (Grew, p. 368). See also Hull, vol. 2, p. 984; FRUS, 1941, p. 17. For a pen-picture of Yamamoto, see Mark Weston, Giants of Japan. The Lives of Japan’s Greatest Men and Women, New York/Tokyo/London, 1999, pp. 190–200.

  101. Iriye, Origins, pp. 170–71.

  102. Quoted in Feis, p. 296; and (with slightly varied translation) Bergamini, vol. 2, p. 1041.

  103. Bix, p. 423; Morley, The Final Confrontation, p. 265.

  104. Bix, pp. 421–2.

  105. Examples in Toland, The Rising Sun, pp. 132–5. The note to p. 133 indicates that there is no evidence of intentional mistranslation. See also Butow, p. 335 and n. 38, which indicates ‘that the distortions did not essentially do violence to the reality of Japan’s intentions’.

  106. Hull, vol. 2, pp. 1056–7, 1060.

  107. See Grew, pp. 468–9 (3.11.41) for the difference in tone from that of the State Department in Washington; and Morley, The Final Confrontation, pp. 310–11.

  108. Langer and Gleason, The Undeclared War, pp. 855–66; Japan II, pp. 729–37; Hull, vol. 2, pp. 1058–62; Feis, pp. 303–5.

  109. Feis, pp. 307–8; Langer and Gleason, The Undeclared War, pp. 863–4; Ike, p. 251 (Togo’s report to the Liaison Conference of 20.11.41); Hull, vol. 2, pp. 1063–4; Morley, The Final Confrontation, pp. 301–5.

  110. Hull, vol. 2, pp. 1069–71 (quotation p. 1070); and Butow, pp. 336–8. Langer and Gleason, The Undeclared War, p. 880, are critical of ‘the depth of Mr. Hull’s indignation over Japanese-sponsored suggestions which in many respects resembled ideas current in the State Department itself’. Spotswood (pp. 450–51) defends Hull’s judgement, particularly in the light of the rapid growth of the numbers of Japanese troops in Indochina.

  111. FRUS, 1941, pp. 635–6 (final draft pp. 661–4); Langer and Gleason, The Undeclared War, pp. 881–2.

  112. Langer and Gleason, The Undeclared War, p. 872.

  113. Hull, vol. 2, pp. 1072–3.

  114. FRUS, 1941, pp. 640, 650–51, 655–6, 659–61, 666; Heinrichs, Threshold of War, pp. 209–11.

  115. The ‘MAGIC’ Background of Pearl Harbor, vol. 4, Washington, 1978, appendix, p. A89. The President told his close advisers on 25 November that ‘we were likely to be attacked perhaps next Monday [1 December], for the Japanese are notorious for making an attack without warning, and the question was what we should do’. A difficult issue, he felt, was ‘how we should manoeuver them into the position of firing the first shot without allowing too much danger to ourselves’ (Yale University Library, Henry L. Stimson Diaries 1909–1945, Reel 7, entry for 25.11.41).

  116. FRUS, 1941, pp. 660–61; Stimson Diaries, Reel 7, entry for 26.11.41.

  117. FRUS, 1941, p. 665.

  118. Hull, vol. 2, p. 1081.

  119. Hull, vol. 2,
pp. 1074–6, 1082; Toland, The Rising Sun, pp. 140–3; Morley, The Final Confrontation, pp. 305–7, 309; Carr, p. 163; Heinrichs, Threshold of War, pp. 208–12; Stimson Diaries, Reel 7, entry for 27.11.41.

  120. Japan II, pp. 766–70; text also in Langer and Gleason, The Undeclared War, pp. 896–7; and Political Strategy Prior to the Outbreak of War (Part III), Japanese Monographs, 147, appendix 9 (http://www.ibiblio.org/pha/monos/147/147app09.html). They were far tougher than the proposals advanced six months earlier, on 21 June (see Japan II, pp. 483–5)–themselves described as ‘an uncompromising restatement of the principles of international relations so frequently enunciated by Secretary Hull’ (Langer and Gleason, The Undeclared War, p. 632).

  121. Morley, The Final Confrontation, pp. 313–15, 317–18; Langer and Gleason, The Undeclared War, pp. 893, 898; Hull, vol. 2, pp. 1081–4; Carr, pp. 163–4; Bix, p. 428.

  122. Quoted in Toland, The Rising Sun, p. 143.

  123. Quoted in Morley, The Final Confrontation, p. 313.

  124. See Tojo’s postwar testimony to the International Military Tribunal for the Far East, where he stated the view at the time that the United States’ proposal was an ultimatum, and that ‘all were dumbfounded at the severity’ of the demands (Political Strategy Prior to the Outbreak of War (Part IV), Japanese Monographs, 150, appendix 3 (http://www.ibiblio.org/pha/monos/150/150app03.html)). Togo, in a cable to Nomura and Kurusu on 28 November, spoke of ‘this humiliating proposal’, which had been ‘quite unexpected and extremely regrettable’ (The ‘MAGIC’ Background of Pearl Harbor, vol. 4, pp. 84–6 and appendix, pp. A118). Nomura had, two days earlier, stated that he and Kurusu were ‘dumbfounded’ when Hull confronted them with the Ten Points (vol. 4, appendix, p. A102–3).

  125. Toland, The Rising Sun, p. 145.

  126. Morley, The Final Confrontation, pp. 315–17; Ike, pp. 256–7.

  127. Quoted in Morley, The Final Confrontation, p. 320.

  128. Bix, p. 430; Toland, The Rising Sun, pp. 176–9; Morley, The Final Confrontation, pp. 324–6.