The Mantle of Command

by Nigel Hamilton

  Churchill himself was devastated, since it was he who had sent the two latest battleships out to Singapore without their accompanying aircraft carrier, HMS Illustrious, which had put in for repairs at Ceylon. Field Marshal Smuts, the former South African premier, had warned Churchill on November 18, 1941, that the ships would be vulnerable to concentrated Japanese attack, in the case of war—“If Japanese are really nippy there is here an opening for a first-class disaster.” The night before the ships were sunk Churchill had finally discussed with his advisers whether the battleships should “go to sea and vanish among the innumerable islands” or even seek safety in Hawaii.19 No decision had been made, however, and when Churchill answered the phone next morning, Admiral Pound, the First Sea Lord, was on the line. “His voice sounded odd,” Churchill later wrote. “He gave a sort of cough and gulp, and at first I could not hear quite clearly. ‘Prime Minister, I have to report to you that the Prince of Wales and the Repulse have both been sunk by the Japanese—we think by aircraft. [Fleet Admiral] Tom Phillips is drowned.’ . . .

  “I was thankful to be alone,” Churchill recalled. “In all the war I never received a more direct shock. . . . As I turned over and twisted in bed the full horror of the news sank in upon me. There were no British or American capital ships in the Indian Ocean or the Pacific except the American survivors of Pearl Harbor, who were hastening back to California. Over all this vast expanse of waters Japan was supreme, and we everywhere were weak and naked.”20

  The President’s heart went out to Churchill and the British, who now had no hope of defending their British territories and Dominions in the Far East from invasion without American help—help that, thanks to America’s own disaster at Pearl Harbor, could not be given.

  It is possible the two men spoke by scrambler telephone; at any event the Prime Minister signaled the President at 6:00 P.M., December 10, London time, that he wasn’t worried about his own security in making the voyage to America. There was, however, “great danger in our not having a full discussion on the highest level about the extreme gravity of the naval position”—and he offered again to meet the President either in Bermuda, or to fly on to Washington from Bermuda. It was no longer a matter of whether or not Germany would declare war. It was a question of whether British territories in the Far East—including Australia—could be defended, now that Churchill’s fleet was sunk. “I feel it would be disastrous to wait for another month before we settled common action in face of new adverse situation particularly in Pacific.” He admitted he’d “hoped to start tomorrow night,” even without having been invited, “but will postpone my sailing till I have received rendezvous from you.”21

  Given the magnitude of Britain’s new naval disaster, on top of Pearl Harbor, there was little the President could say, other than to repeat that there was still no way he himself could leave Washington before his State of the Union address to Congress, set for January 5, 1942. Once again he therefore sought to postpone Churchill’s visit.

  “I wholly agree about the gravity of naval position especially in Pacific,” he allowed in his second draft reply, attempting to be courteous. “We are both of us reduced to defensive fighting in Pacific Islands and Malaya. At this moment you cannot help us there and we cannot help you except with very small naval forces now retiring southward from Philippines. Only small reinforcements on both sides can be sent to that area immediately. My first impression,” the President stated, getting to the point, “is that full discussion would be more useful in a few weeks hence than immediately.”22

  Even this wording the President thought too negative, though, at a time of such fresh disaster for the British—and in a surge of compassion and goodwill, he assured Churchill that, were the Prime Minister to venture across the Atlantic, he would be “Overjoyed to have you here at the White House,” adding, “If you come, give consideration to Canadian route, Bermuda route with plane from there, or sea route all the way.”23 Having decided that this signal, too, was too longwinded, he simply sent word: “Delighted to have you here at White House.”24

  Sheikh Churchill, his pasha-like mood crushed by the loss of Britain’s two latest battleships and the death of so many brave sailors, gratefully accepted. Moreover, his instinct was right. The next day, December 11, 1941, before the Prime Minister set off from the River Clyde to see the President, the Führer made the second greatest blunder of his life—a mistake that would, in due course, end his odious life.

  The Nazi leader had read translations of President Roosevelt’s previous speeches, provided to him by his minister of propaganda, Dr. Joseph Goebbels. Whether Hitler read a transcript of President Roosevelt’s first wartime Fireside Chat, broadcast from the White House at 10:00 P.M. on December 9, 1941, is unclear, but doubtful. Had he done so, though, it would have caused him to question his own assumption—for the Führer had become convinced that the President was going to have his hands full dealing with war in the Pacific and Southeast Asia, now, and would be forced to withdraw his naval forces from the Atlantic. In this case, Hitler convinced himself, Germany had nothing to fear from declaring war on America.

  Roosevelt’s broadcast from the White House, recorded in the Diplomatic Reception Room next to a fake fireplace, had made it abundantly clear, however, that as president he saw Nazi Germany, not Japan, as the number one threat to civilization.

  “In 1931, ten years ago,” the President began, “Japan invaded Manchukuo—without warning. In 1935, Italy invaded Ethiopia—without warning. In 1938, Hitler invaded Austria—without warning. In 1939, Hitler invaded Czechoslovakia—without warning. Later in ’39, Hitler invaded Poland—without warning. In 1940, Hitler invaded Norway, Denmark, the Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg—without warning. In 1940, Italy attacked France and later Greece—without warning. And this year, in 1941, the Axis Powers attacked Yugoslavia and Greece and they dominated the Balkans—without warning. In 1941, also, Hitler invaded Russia—without warning. And now Japan has attacked Malaya and Thailand—and the United States—without warning.”

  It was a pattern of deceit that illustrated the difference between democracy and totalitarian government; between good and evil. “I can say with utmost confidence that no Americans today or a thousand years hence, need feel anything but pride in our patience and in our efforts through all the years towards achieving a peace in the Pacific which would be fair and honorable to every nation, large or small. And no honest person, today or a thousand years hence, will be able to suppress a sense of indignation and horror at the treachery committed by the military dictators of Japan, under the very shadow of the flag of peace borne by their special envoys in our midst.”

  “We are now in this war,” the President concluded. “We are all in it—all the way. Every single man, woman and child is a partner in the most tremendous undertaking in our American history. We must share together the bad news and the good news, the defeats and the victories—the changing fortunes of war.

  “So far, the news has been all bad. We have suffered a serious setback in Hawaii. Our forces in the Philippines, which include the brave people of that Commonwealth, are taking punishment, but are defending themselves vigorously. The reports from Guam and Wake and Midway Islands are still confused, but we must be prepared for the announcement that all these three outposts have been seized . . .”

  The President’s honesty was as shocking as was his familial, homey tone, which was warm, even intimate. He warned against “rumors” and “ugly little hints of complete disaster” that “fly thick and fast in wartime.” News would necessarily be delayed, lest it give valuable information to the enemy, but it would in time be released, and would not be doctored, he promised. He quoted, for example, a statement made on the night of Pearl Harbor that “a Japanese carrier had been located and sunk off the [Panama] Canal Zone,” attributed to “an authoritative source.” As the President pointed out, “you can be reasonably sure from now on that under these war circumstances the ‘authoritative source’ is not any person in
authority.”

  If the news from the Pacific was bad, his prognosis for the war was somewhat better, the President maintained. “Precious months were gained by sending vast quantities of our war material to the nations of the world still able to resist Axis aggression. Our policy rested on the fundamental truth that the defense of any country resisting Hitler or Japan was in the long run the defense of our own country. That policy has been justified,” he claimed. “It has given us time, invaluable time, to build our American assembly lines of production.”

  Those “assembly lines are now in operation,” he stated. “Others are being rushed to completion. A steady stream of tanks and planes, of guns and ships and shells and equipment—that is what these eighteen months have given us. . . .

  “It will not only be a long war,” the President had warned, however, “it will be a hard war. That is the basis on which we now lay all our plans. That is the yardstick by which we measure what we shall need and demand; money, materials, doubled and quadrupled production—ever-increasing. The production must be not only for our own Army and Navy and air forces fighting the Nazis and the war lords of Japan throughout the Americas and throughout the world. I have been working today on the subject of production,” he said, explaining his agenda: “to speed up all existing production by working on a seven-day-week basis in every war industry, including the production of essential raw materials,” and the building of “more new plants, by adding to old plants, and by using the many smaller plants for war needs.” The days of labor strife, “obstacles and difficulties, divisions and disputes, indifference and callousness” were “now all past—and, I am sure, forgotten.”

  The President had one final thing to add, however, which presaged not only American determination to avenge Pearl Harbor, but a far more historic resolve. “In my message to the Congress yesterday I said that we ‘will make very certain that this form of treachery shall never endanger us again.’ In order to achieve that certainty, we must begin the great task that is before us by abandoning once and for all the illusion that we can ever again isolate ourselves from the rest of humanity.

  “In these past few years—and most violently, in the past three days—we have learned a terrible lesson.

  “It is our obligation to our dead—it is our sacred obligation to their children and to our children—that we must never forget what we have learned.

  “And what we have learned is this,” he continued. “There is no such thing as security for any nation—or any individual—in a world ruled by the principles of gangsterism. . . . We have learned that our ocean-girt hemisphere is not immune from severe attack—that we cannot measure our safety in terms of miles on any map any more. We may acknowledge that our enemies have performed a brilliant feat of deception, perfectly timed and executed with great skill. It was a thoroughly dishonorable deed, but we must face the fact that modern warfare as conducted in the Nazi manner is a dirty business. We don’t like it—we didn’t want to get in it—but we are in it and we’re going to fight it with everything we’ve got.” He pointed again to the connection between the aggressions of Hitler’s Third Reich and Hirohito’s Japanese Empire, codified in the Tripartite Pact of September 1940, by whose terms the world would be divided between Axis and Japanese spoils of conquest and subjugation. It was a global strategy of evil that the United States could no longer tolerate. “I repeat that the United States can accept no result save victory, final and complete. Not only must the shame of Japanese treachery be wiped out, but the sources of international brutality, wherever they exist, must be absolutely and finally broken.”

  “The true goal we seek is far above and beyond the ugly field of battle,” the President emphasized. “When we resort to force, as now we must, we are determined that this force shall be directed toward ultimate good as against immediate evil. We Americans are not destroyers—we are builders. We are now in the midst of a war, not for conquest, not for vengeance, but for a world in which this nation, and all that this nation represents, will be safe for our children.” The United States was economically the most powerful nation on earth—and the time had come for America to exert that power, for good. “We expect to eliminate the danger from Japan, but it would serve us ill if we accomplished that and found that the rest of the world was dominated by Hitler and Mussolini.”

  “So we are going to win the war,” the President declared—his broadcast heard by an estimated 92.4 percent of American families25—“and we are going to win the peace that follows.”

  The President’s words were those of a new leader on the world stage: one whose rhetoric was backed by a vast military potential that was being unlocked, and could be unleashed against Nazi Germany, not just Japan, unless the Führer was careful not to provoke war with the United States. Without a German declaration of war, the President could give all the Fireside Chats he wished; the Constitution still forbade him to wage war against any nation without the assent of the Capitol.

  Why did Hitler then court war with such an opponent, when only Congress could declare war—and would in all likelihood not do so against Germany, given the public fury that was currently directed against Japan? Certainly Germany was not obliged to go to war with the United States, according to the Tripartite Pact of 1940, any more than Japan was obliged to go to war with Russia.

  Neither then nor later could observers and historians of World War II quite explain Hitler’s fatal decision. Aware in advance of Japanese intentions with respect to the United States—though not informed of the specific target or the date the Japanese military had decided upon—the Führer had been delighted by the prospect of a sneak attack. He had therefore telephoned from the Wolfsschanze, or Wolf’s Lair, his field headquarters near Rastenburg, in East Prussia, to the Reichskanzlei in Berlin several days before Pearl Harbor, instructing his foreign minister, Joachim Ribbentrop, to begin redrafting the existing Tripartite Pact with Italy and Japan. On December 3, 1941, Count Ciano, the Italian foreign minister, had thus noted with alarm in his diary how Ribbentrop was demanding not only that Italy “sign a pact with Japan agreeing not to make a separate peace,” but “that Italy declare war on the United States as soon as the conflict begins.”26

  Declare war on the United States? The interpreter who was taking down these requests, in Rome, was “shaking like a leaf,” Ciano had recorded, as the poor man translated Ribbentrop’s “requests.” The Duce claimed to welcome the looming global struggle—“So now we come to the war between continents, which I have predicted since 1939,” Mussolini boasted—but Count Ciano, despite being Mussolini’s son-in-law, was less convinced of its outcome. “Who will have the most stamina?” he’d asked himself—a question he wished the Duce and others would address before declaring war, rather than preening themselves over their current prowess in battle.27

  Days later, when news of the Pearl Harbor attack came through, Ciano’s heart had sunk. “One thing is now certain: America will enter the conflict, and the conflict itself will last long enough to allow all her potential strength to come into play,” he’d noted—a prediction even the king of Italy, when Ciano discussed it with him that day, admitted “could be right.”28

  Hitler, however, had had other concerns. As leader of a Third Reich bogged down in a winter war with the Soviet Union that it had not envisaged, he saw the Japanese coup de main quite differently from the Italians. The latest attempt by the Wehrmacht to reach Moscow had gotten within a few miles of the city, causing the Russian capital to be largely evacuated. Winter temperatures had then plummeted, however—and the much-vaunted Wehrmacht, which was meant to have swept over Russia “like a hailstorm,”29 had failed, in the end, to reach its spectacular goal.

  Worse still was what had followed. The Russians not only held the German armies before Moscow, but on December 5, 1941, a hundred Russian divisions suddenly appeared out of seeming nowhere, and launched a counteroffensive to throw the enemy back.

  Hitler had been stunned as messages had flooded into his headquart
ers in East Prussia, begging permission to allow the German Army Group Center to retreat to more defensible lines—requests the Führer denied, eventually firing General Guderian, his top panzer commander.30

  Japan’s miraculous achievement in sinking the vaunted U.S. fleet at Pearl Harbor in a single morning, two days after the start of the massive Russian counteroffensive, had therefore given the embattled Führer new hope that, acting in concert with the Japanese, he might yet realize his dream. According to his staff, the Führer “slapped his thighs with delight as news of the report was brought to him. It was as if a heavy burden had been lifted, as with the greatest excitement he explained the new world situation to everyone around him.”31 His change of mood infected his whole headquarters at Rastenburg, which was “caught up in an ecstasy of rejoicing.”32 “We simply can’t lose the war now,” Hitler declared—“We have a partner who has never been beaten in three thousand years!”33 Ribbentrop, calling Ciano from Berlin, was “jumping with joy about the Japanese attack on the United States,” Ciano noted in Rome. “He is so happy that I can only congratulate him, even though I am not so sure about the advantage.”34

  Hitler was, however. He left the Wolfsschanze on December 8, 1941, and flew back to Berlin, where for several weeks he had been planning to give his own version of a State of the Union address: a speech he would deliver to the assembled deputies of the Reichstag on the progress of his war.

  Meeting with Ribbentrop, the Führer there learned that the Japanese—exulting over their successful attack on Pearl Harbor—were pressing that the Third Reich, too, should declare war on the United States, as per Hitler’s recent assurances and the gist, if not the letter, of the existing Tripartite Act.