by James Johns
Friday, December 5, Admiral Sir Tom Phillips arrived in Manila by plane. Having the complete confidence of Winston Churchill, Phillips had previously served as naval advisor to King George VI, and in 1940, Churchill appointed Phillips to acting vice-admiral. In late 1941, Phillips was then appointed commander in chief of the China Station, departing Britain aboard his flagship, the Prince of Wales, and accompanied by the Repulse and four destroyers. What Phillips did not have with him was any air cover, which would, in the not-too-distant future, seal his fate.
He was desperate to confer with Admiral Hart because the aircraft carrier he had been promised had not materialized. The carrier HMS Ark Royal had been sunk in the Mediterranean, and its replacement, the HMS Indomitable, had run aground in the West Indies; in addition, two of Phillips’s four battleships were overdue. Hart was sympathetic but had nothing to offer other than the careful loan of four destroyers currently in the Dutch East Indies. They could be in Singapore in fortyeight hours and would increase the number of Phillips’s destroyers to eight. Hart made the loan carefully because he had no authority to turn American warships over to the command of a nation at war with Germany and Italy. On the other hand, FDR had been doing this for some time in the Atlantic in the name of Lend-Lease.
During the two-day discussion, Hart invited MacArthur and his chief of staff Sutherland to join in. Phillips had been concerned that there were too few airfields in the Philippines and commented that the defense of Luzon depended on the ability of fighters to operate from any location. In response, MacArthur made the statement, one he would have to live with, that “the inability of an enemy to launch his air attack on these islands is our greatest security,”32 and that it left him “with a sense of complete security,”33 similar to his response to Washington when he received the November 27 war warning.
The American sighting of some Japanese ships that could be headed for Malaya hastened Phillips’s departure on Saturday. In just a couple of days, Hart had done more for the ABCD powers than anyone in Washington had thought to do.
As commander in chief of the British Far East, Sir Robert Brooke-Popham was responsible for the defense of Singapore, Hong Kong, Burma, and Malaya. He had served with the Royal Air Force since its inception in 1918 in numerous roles, including commander in chief of the RAF Middle East. Retiring from the RAF in 1937, he was posted to the governorship of Kenya, but by 1939, he was recalled to the RAF, and in November 1940, he took over the British Far East command.
Brooke-Popham faced the same challenges that Kimmel and Short dealt with on Hawaii. With Britain’s focus on the European theater, he lacked sufficient forces and aircraft to defend the colonies, and had little success in getting the needed reinforcements. From a command standpoint, both the naval units and the civil servants all reported to London. Considering the disparity between the responsibility he was given and the actual authority he had, as well as the limited resources, he had been placed in an untenable situation. And in spite of other career successes, he would always be associated with the fall of Singapore in February 1942.
That night, Admiral Hart received the shock of his life when he received a message from Captain John M. Creighton, the official navy observer in Singapore. Creighton told Hart that Air Marshal Brooke-Popham had just received word from the British War Office in London that under certain eventualities, Britain could expect help from the United States to defend British interests in the Far East. Specifically, the message read: “We have now received assurance of American armed support in cases as follows: (A) We are obliged to execute our plans to forestall Japs landing on Isthmus of Kra or counteract invasion elsewhere in Siam. (B) Defend against attack of Dutch Indies. (C) If Japs attack U.S. put plan into action without reference to London if you have good info. If Dutch are attacked put into action plans agreed on by Dutch and British.”34 That Hart, in the absence of a formal plan, would be expected to start the shooting war was news to him.
This message has long been considered proof that FDR and Churchill had agreed on conditions to get the United States into the war without being directly fired upon. Neither the British documents nor the president’s personal papers, however, are available to public scrutiny. Hart immediately sent off a request for confirmation to Washington that, on his deathbed, he still had not received. It is difficult to consider the transmission of a message from London to Singapore, with such repercussions, that could not be confirmed by the initiating authority.
The Japanese ships at anchor in Camranh Bay four days prior suddenly reappeared on Saturday and were spotted by one of Hart’s PBYs, which prompted Phillips to return to Singapore. Still in Camranh Bay, the count was thirty transports and one cruiser. Hart forwarded the information to Washington and Pearl Harbor which, again, would leave the impression in Hawaii that the only known action would be in the western Pacific.
Still later the same day, a British patrol aircraft identified another Japanese convoy of about thirty-five transports escorted by cruisers and destroyers. The only question was the destination.
Late Wednesday night, December 3, Ralph Briggs, a Japanese language expert and senior radio operator, reported for duty at Station M, the navy’s east coast Japanese radio monitoring station at Cheltenham, Maryland. Briggs, who had worked with naval intelligence for four years, reported to Chief Petty Officer Daryl Wigle. Upon reporting for duty, he was briefed to listen closely to the Japanese weather reports. It was early Thursday morning when suddenly was broadcast “higashi no kazeame,” known as the winds execute. The message would be timed to the eve of war. On receipt, the embassies were to destroy codes and secret documents and expect a termination of international communications.
The message was repeated a second time, then a third. Briggs logged it in, along with the date, time, and frequency. Then he teletyped the winds execute to the Washington office of Captain Laurence Safford, head of OP-20-G, the cryptanalysis section of Office of Naval Communications.
Safford was a firm believer in collaborating with the army whenever possible. So when he received the winds execute from Briggs, he passed it on to his opposite in the army, Colonel Otis Sadtler, head of U.S. Army Signal Intelligence, who was responsible for the distribution of Magic decrypts for the Army. Safford also passed the message on to the director of naval communications, Admiral Leigh Noyes, where it was again passed up to Admiral Theodore Wilkinson, the chief of naval intelligence, who passed it to the White House, where, for all practical purposes, it disappeared off the face of the earth.
Briggs had had the weekend of December 7 off, and when, along with the rest of America, he heard of the attack, he assumed, based on the winds execute he had passed on, that the Japanese had taken a beating. Upon returning to work, he was told that it was the other way around. He immediately checked the file for the duplicate copy. It was missing. Upon inquiring with his supervisor, Chief Petty Officer Wigle, Wigle told him that he did not know what was going on, just that nobody was talking. Captain Safford had also made copies, seven of them, and they, too, eventually vanished. That same day, two more messages arrived in Washington from Batavia and Bandoeng that the Dutch had intercepted the winds execute. Again, they disappeared. Safford would later testify at the joint congressional investigation that he had last seen the winds execute when he was gathering documentation for the Roberts Commission in December of 1941.
The Dutch, too, had been working to break Japanese codes. When U.S. Brigadier General Elliot Thorpe, serving as a military attaché on Java, was informed by a Dutch general in early December that Hawaii, the Philippines, and Thailand would soon be attacked by the Japanese, he cabled Washington right away. The “east wind rain” message had been intercepted by the Dutch on Japanese radio. Thorpe just assumed he wasn’t getting a confirmation of receipt because of atmospheric conditions. But after sending four messages, with the final message going to General Miles of G-2, he received an order from the War Department: “Send no more on this subject.”35
The last referen
ce to the winds execute was when it was passed on to the Roberts Commission, after which time its existence would be denied forever, at least by many of those who had seen it. And during the congressional hearings on Pearl Harbor in 1945–46, Briggs was not asked to sign anything. Nor was he asked to testify. He had been ordered by his commanding officer, Captain John Harper, not to appear in the interest of saving his navy career.
With the Japanese order to destroy codes, ciphers, and papers, it was now imperative that the Americans do the same. Instructions were sent to the army and navy military attaches in Tokyo, including the alert that “early rupture of diplomatic relations with Japan has been indicated.”36 Attaches in the threatened areas of Shanghai, Peiping, and Bangkok would all receive the additional instruction to send the word “jabberwock” when completed.
The naval message sent to Guam was more imperative: “Be prepared to destroy instantly all classified matter you retain in event of emergency.”37 Admirals Kimmel and Bloch received the same message, but being in the backwaters of the Pacific, they assumed that it was for informational purposes only. It should be recalled that the Hawaiian commanders had no knowledge of events in their own backyard. The so-called bomb plot messages requesting U.S. ship berthing positions and sailing activity had not even made an impression in Washington, nor were they passed on to Hawaii.
On Friday morning, the Japanese ambassadors presented themselves at the State Department with Togo’s answer to FDR’s question about the southerly movement of Japanese troops:
As Chinese troops have recently shown signs of movements along the northern frontier of French Indo-China bordering on China, Japanese troops, with the object of mainly taking precautionary measures, have been reinforced to a certain extent in the northern part of French Indo-China. As a natural sequence of this step, certain movements have been made among the troops stationed in the southern part of the said territory. It seems that an exaggerated report has been made of these movements. It should be added that no measure has been taken on the part of the Japanese Government that may transgress the stipulations of the Protocol of Joint Defense between Japan and France.38
Thanks to Magic, U.S. intelligence had already read it. Secretary Hull’s reaction was that it was news to him that the Japanese were on the defensive in Indochina. Hadn’t it been the other way around? If they themselves were in danger of attack, the easiest move would be to get out of Indochina altogether. The ambassadors had little to say in defense. Meanwhile, at the Japanese foreign office, the deception continued that Japan’s viewpoint was being misinterpreted by the Americans, and that despite the cessation of negotiations, Japan hoped they could continue negotiations with the impression of sincerity.
The change in Japanese call signs for the second time in a month, the inability to track much of their fleet, and the order to their embassies to destroy codes and secret papers finally prompted a meeting of Admiral Turner and Admiral Ingersoll. They considered what more they needed to do. Perhaps send more warnings. Turner, who put his personality conflict with Kimmel ahead of common sense, was adamant. No more warnings. Kimmel had received sufficient alert.
They also consulted with Admiral Stark, who was swayed that sufficient warning had been sent. They would later admit that all were under the assumption that Kimmel had more information and intelligence than he actually had received.
There had been friction in the Navy Department since early 1941, when Admiral Turner convinced Admiral Stark that all intelligence from Office of Naval Intelligence should not be deciphered or forecast by it, but should instead be forwarded to War Plans. There, Turner would interpret it using his own analysis, but he made some incorrect estimates of the direction that the Japanese would move. All along, he was not entirely convinced that Japan would attack the United States, but would only use scare tactics. Up until November 26, Turner’s War Plans directives indicated that Japan would most likely attack Siberia.
An earlier explanation of the Vacant Sea Order, or an order to activate the Joint Coastal Frontier Defense Plan from those in Washington, would have meant more to the Pearl Harbor commanders than all of the precautionary advice they actually received.
On Friday, December 5, Magic decoded two more messages sent earlier by Tokyo to Honolulu. One was three weeks old and gathering dust before it was finally decoded. It was specific on requesting reports on “Area N., Pearl Harbor” ship anchorages. By comparison, the second one was fresh, dated just November 29: “We have been receiving reports from you on ship movements, but in the future will you also report even when there are no movements?”39 Top U.S. military intelligence in Washington apparently weren’t even curious enough to wonder why Japan would want specific information on ships that did not move. They were busy accumulating the request by the president to make an estimate of Japanese strength in Indochina, which seemed more pressing. The high estimate was one hundred twenty-five thousand troops and four hundred fifty aircraft, as well as forty thousand troops and four hundred planes on Formosa. The strength for Hainan Island, located off the southern coast of China, was estimated at fifty thousand troops and two hundred planes.40
And that same night, the order went out to U.S. embassies and consulates in Tokyo, Hong Kong, Chungking, Bangkok, Saigon, and Hanoi to destroy secret papers and to deal with the emergency when it arose.
Meanwhile, as reported by one of the Lexington’s TBD pilots, the two American task forces were actually within reconnaissance distance of each other with the twelve PBYs at Midway watching for their approach. The other twelve PBYs from Wake were returning to Pearl Harbor to increase Admiral Bellinger’s patrol aircraft number to sixty-nine, which would be shared between Ford Island and the Kaneohe Naval Air Base just north of Bellows. A dozen were down for maintenance with no spare parts, but he would also have the other twelve PBYs due in from Midway. For Kimmel, his dilemma was how best to utilize the PBYs. With his fighters gone, they were all he had. During the week, they would patrol out as far as four hundred miles and be down for maintenance on the weekends. He preferred not to squander their long-range capability on defense. Admiral Kimmel would later be charged with failure to conduct sufficient air reconnaissance, but the limitations of his resources must be considered.
A PBY could cruise at 100 knots. Search aircraft flew no further than twenty miles apart. At sunset, Saturday night, December 6, the Kido Butai was about five hundred fifty miles out. Considering the fourteen-hour range of the PBY, seven out and seven back, eleven of those hours would have been spent out of the search area. At twenty miles apart in the search area at maximum distance, it would have required forty-five aircraft to cover just one hundred eighty degrees or half a circle from Oahu. The numbers speak for themselves. How long would it be before all the PBYs were down for one-hundred-hour inspections or complete overhaul, with no spare parts, to say nothing of the wear and tear on the crews?
Considering downtime for the aircraft, as well as those that were being used only to supply spare parts, Kimmel had fewer than seventy PBYs to work with. To provide the necessary, continuous reconnaissance, he would have needed two hundred fifty aircraft to do the job. All along, he had been requesting Washington to send more, and Washington had promised he would get them. But instead, two hundred fifty PBYs were sent to Britain at the direction of Harry Hopkins, a man who had absolutely no naval or military experience whatsoever. But he had Roosevelt’s approval.
General Martin had the six B-17s being used for crew training, and the obsolete B-18 bombers at Hickam; the old P-26s and P36s at Wheeler; and a number of noncombat aircraft of the Eighty-Sixth Observation Squadron based at Bellows. So his main fighting strength was in his ninety-nine P-40s at Wheeler Field bordering Schofield Barracks in the middle of the island, of which sixty-six would be in commission the morning of December 7.41 In response to the sabotage warnings from Washington, the island was at Alert No. 1. The aircraft were parked wingtip to wingtip, and with the fuel tanks mostly empty, the estimate was four hours to get them
all gassed, armed, and into the air. The only dispersion of P-40s consisted of a few at Bellows used for target practice and a few at Haleiwa on the north shore used for takeoff and landing training.
The Consolidated PBY patrol bomber that was in such short supply.
Boeing P-26s (left) and Douglas B-18s at Hickam Field, 1940.
The first of the two B-24s to be used in the photoreconnaissance mission to the Marshall Islands arrived at Hickam on Friday. It, too, would be caught on the ground on Sunday.
Along with consulates around the world, the Japanese in Honolulu were following suit and burning or destroying anything that could be of value to the Americans. Admiral Bloch’s Fourteenth Naval District received word of this activity on Friday. If there was anything ominous involved, Washington would surely have advised. Both he and Kimmel agreed that Washington should be notified, or perhaps they had the answer. Bloch sent this off on Saturday: “Believe local consul has destroyed all but one system although presumably not included in your eighteen double five of third [although the Honolulu consulate was presumably not included in the Japanese orders, which had been conveyed to Kimmel in the message referred to].”42
For some time Roosevelt had been considering a direct appeal to the emperor, and the time had come. Against the advice of the State Department (Hull and Stimson), but with their reluctant help, a borderline plea was composed by the president on Saturday. With time running out, it would be very similar to the request that Prince Konoye had sent to him in August that FDR had rejected, while there had still been time to save the situation. This one would be void of the demands that he had made of Konoye. By about 8:00 p.m., the pilot message went off to Ambassador Grew in Tokyo to expect the communiqué that he would have to deliver: “An important telegram is now being encoded to you containing … text of message from the President to the emperor.”43 Within the hour, the message itself was on the way: