The Mantle of Command

by Nigel Hamilton

  117. MacArthur later removed his copy of the cable—MacArthur to Adjutant-General, War Department, Washington, #285, February 15, 1942—but a copy was kept by President Roosevelt in his “Safe” and Confidential Files.

  118. Rogers, The Good Years, 166.

  8. Singapore

  1. “Bring Gen MacArthur Home,” Speech by Wendell Willkie at the Lincoln birthday dinner of the Middlesex Club in Boston, February 12, 1942, Vital Speeches of the Day, vol. 10, no. 4. 297–99.

  2. Ibid.

  3. Stimson Diary, Henry L. Stimson Papers, Yale University Library, New Haven, CT, entry of February 12, 1942.

  4. Ibid., entry of February 13, 1942.

  5. Eight Hundred and Sixth Press Conference, February 17, 1942, The Public Papers and Addresses of Franklin D. Roosevelt, vol. 11, Humanity on the Defensive (New York: Russell and Russell, 1969), 103.

  6. Article 7 of the “Preliminary Agreement Between the United States and the United Kingdom” called for the “elimination of all forms of discriminatory treatment in international commerce, and to the reduction of tariffs and other trade barriers; and, in general, to the attainment of all the economic objectives set forth in the Joint Declaration made on August 14, 1941, by the President of the United States of America and the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.”

  7. Cable C-25, February 7, 1942, Warren F. Kimball, ed., Churchill & Roosevelt: The Complete Correspondence, vol. 1, Alliance Emerging, October 1933–November 1942 (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1984), 351.

  8. Correlli Barnett, The Collapse of British Power (London: Eyre Methuen, 1972), 107.

  9. Winston S. Churchill, The Second World War, vol. 4, The Hinge of Fate (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1950), 88.

  10. Cable C-141x, Kimball, Churchill & Roosevelt, vol. 1, 287.

  11. Cable C-145x, “Part II—The Pacific Front,” Kimball, Churchill & Roosevelt, vol. 1, 299.

  12. Cable C-25, Kimball, Churchill & Roosevelt, vol. 1, 349.

  13. Alan Brooke, War Diaries 1939–1945: Field Marshal Lord Alanbrooke, ed. Alex Danchev and Daniel Todman (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2001), 225.

  14. Ibid., entry of February 2, 1942, 226.

  15. Ibid., entry of February 3, 1942, 226.

  16. Ibid., annotation by Lord Alanbrooke, 226.

  17. Martin Gilbert, Winston S. Churchill, vol. 7, Road to Victory: 1941–1945 (London: Heinemann, 1986), 47.

  18. Entry of February 9, 1942, Brooke, War Diaries, 228.

  19. Ibid.

  20. Ibid., entry of February 11, 1942, 228–29.

  21. Ibid., entry of February 13, 1942, 229.

  22. Alexander Cadogan, The Diaries of Sir Alexander Cadogan, ed. David Dilks (London: Cassell, 1971), 433.

  23. Ibid., entry of February 12, 1942.

  24. Entry of February 13, 1942, Brooke, War Diaries, 229.

  25. Clifford Kinvig, Scapegoat: General Percival of Singapore (London: Brassey’s, 1996), 208.

  26. Sugata Bose, His Majesty’s Opponent: Subhas Chandra Bose and India’s Struggle Against Empire (Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2011), 242. There had already been a mutiny in 1940 by Sikh artillerymen tasked with defending Hong Kong: Lawrence James, The Rise and Fall of the British Empire (London: Little, Brown, 1994), 492.

  27. Cable C-25, Kimball, Churchill & Roosevelt, vol. 1, 355.

  28. “On the State of the War” (British Library of Information title), or “Through the Storm: A Broadcast Survey of the War Situation,” February 15, 1942, in War Speeches by the Right Hon. Winston S. Churchill, C.H., M.P., comp. Charles Eade, vol. 3, The End of the Beginning (London: Cassell, 1942), 201–7.

  29. Ibid.

  30. Ibid.

  31. Ibid.

  32. Robert Sherwood, Roosevelt and Hopkins: An Intimate History (New York: Harper, 1948), 501.

  33. “On the State of the War” (British Library of Information title) or “Through the Storm: A Broadcast Survey of the War Situation,” February 15, 1942, The War Speeches of Winston S. Churchill, vol. 2, 204.

  34. In the Sook Ching, General Yamashita’s order to “clean up” anti-Japanese Chinese captured in Singapore, military cordons were erected around Chinese residential areas to stop Chinese males aged between twelve and fifty from escaping. “The Japanese admitted to responsibility for 6,000 deaths. The figure most commonly quoted by the Chinese community was 40,000”: Peter Thompson, The Battle for Singapore: The True Story of Britain’s Greatest Military Disaster (London: Portrait, 2005), 375. Another source claimed 100,000 deaths, a figure Thompson, comparing it with other Japanese massacres, found “quite credible.” “Chinese were beheaded or shot,” wrote Brian Farrell in his 2005 account of the fall of Singapore. “The Japanese later admitted to killing at least 6,000. Singapore Chinese claims after the war ranged up to 50,000. An accurate figure might be near the 25,000 [Colonel] Sugita [Head of Intelligence, Japanese Twenty-fifth Army] supposedly admitted to a Japanese reporter”: Brian P. Farrell, The Defence and Fall of Singapore, 1940–1942 (Stroud, Gloucestershire, UK: Tempus, 2005), 385.

  35. “Reliable Information from Manila shows American and British civilians subjected to concentration. All have been removed from their homes and families have been separated. All women and children confined in one place and men in another. Living conditions severe. MacArthur”: Headquarters, SAFFE to AGWAR, Washington, January 18, 1942, RG 4, MMA. “All reports confirm my previous statements as to the extremely harsh and rigid measures taken against American and English in occupied areas in the Philippines. Such steps are not only unnecessary but are unquestionably dictated by the idea of abuse and special humiliation. I earnestly recommend that steps be taken through the State Department to have these conditions alleviated. The negligible restrictions apparently applied in the United States to the many thousands of Japanese nationals there can easily serve as the lever under the threat of reciprocal retaliatory measures to force decent treatment for these interned men and women. The only language the Japanese understands [sic] is force and it should be applied mercilessly to his nationals if necessary . . . I urge this matter be handled immediately and aggressively through the proper diplomatic channels MacArthur”: Cable 179 to AGWAR, Washington, February 1, 1942, RG 4, MMA. General John Dewitt, commander of U.S. Army forces on the West Coast, pressed the secretary of war for evacuation of all Japanese from the vulnerable California defense-industry areas on February 3, and after several weeks of discussion and legal consultation, the evacuation and internment of some 110,000 Japanese Americans from California was ordered under Executive Order 9066 on February 19, 1942.

  36. See “1981 Report of the Presidential Commission on the Wartime Location and Internment of Civilians,” which concluded that a “grave injustice was done to American citizens who, without individual review or any probative evidence against them, were excluded, removed and detained by the United States during World War II”: Roger Daniels, Prisoners Without Trial: Japanese Americans in World War II (New York: Hill and Wang, 1993), 3–4.

  37. Memorandum of February 16, 1942, in Sherwood, Roosevelt and Hopkins, 502–3.

  38. “At the Atlantic meeting,” Churchill stated before Parliament in London on September 9, 1941, “we had in mind, primarily, the restoration of the sovereignty, self-government, and national life of the [white] States and nations of Europe now under the Nazi yoke . . . So that is a quite separate problem from the progressive evolution of self-governing institutions in the regions and peoples which owe allegiance to the British crown”: Richard Toye, Churchill’s Empire: The World That Made Him and the World He Made (New York: Henry Holt, 2010), 214.

  9. The Mockery of the World

  1. Entry of 14.2.1942, Joseph Goebbels, Die Tagebücher von Joseph Goebbels [The diaries of Joseph Goebbels], ed. Elke Fröhlich (Munich: K. G. Saur, 1995), Teil II, Band 3, 308. Quotes from this source have been translated by the author.

  2. Entry of 15.2.1942, Goebbels, Die Tagebücher, Teil II, Band 3, 321.
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  3. Ibid., 314.

  4. Ambassador Winant to Roosevelt, February 17, 1942, “Safe” and Confidential Files, in Warren F. Kimball, ed., Churchill & Roosevelt: The Complete Correspondence, vol. 1, Alliance Emerging, October 1933–November 1942 (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1984), 362.

  5. See Carlo D’Este, Warlord: A Life of Winston Churchill at War, 1874–1945 (New York: Harper, 2008), inter alia.

  6. In Harold Nicolson, Diaries and Letters 1939–1945 (London: Collins, 1967), 211.

  7. Ibid., 211.

  8. Entry of February 9, 1942, Alexander Cadogan, The Diaries of Sir Alexander Cadogan, O.M., 1938–1945, ed. David Dilks (London: Cassell, 1971), 433.

  9. Ibid., entry of February 15, 1942, 434.

  10. Entry of February 27, 1942, Nicolson, Diaries and Letters, 214.

  11. Entry of 16.2.1942, Goebbels, Die Tagebücher, Teil II, Band 3, 326.

  12. Ibid., 326, 325.

  13. Ibid.

  14. Ibid., entry of 19.2.1942, 340.

  15. Cable R-106, February 18, 1942, in Kimball, Churchill & Roosevelt, vol. 1, 362–63.

  16. Ibid., Cable C-30, February 20, 1942, 364.

  17. Entry of 16.1.1942, Goebbels, Die Tagebücher, Teil II, Band 3, 120.

  18. Secret File, 2-3-42, RG 2, MacArthur Memorial Archives, in Paul P. Rogers, The Good Years: MacArthur and Sutherland (New York: Praeger, 1990), 183.

  19. See Douglas Lockwood, Australia’s Pearl Harbour: Darwin, 1942 (Melbourne: Cassell Australia, 1966).

  20. W. Averell Harriman and Elie Abel, Special Envoy to Churchill and Stalin, 1941–1946 (New York: Random House, 1975), 126.

  10. The Battleground for Civilization

  1. Samuel I. Rosenman, Working with Roosevelt (New York: Harper, 1952), 1–2.

  2. Ibid., 4.

  3. Ibid., 330.

  4. Ibid., 5.

  5. Ibid., 329.

  6. Ibid., 5.

  7. Ibid., 6.

  8. Ibid., 7.

  9. Washington’s Birthday was on February 22, but since the 22nd fell on a Sunday, the talk was given on February 23, 1942.

  10. The Japanese submarine, I-17, under command of Nishino Kozo, shelled oil installations ten miles north of Santa Barbara, California, as well as aimlessly firing shells inland. The attack lasted only fifteen minutes. No one was killed or injured.

  11. “We Must Keep On Striking Our Enemies Wherever and Whenever We Can Meet Them”—Fireside Chat on Progress of the War, February 23, 1942, in Franklin D. Roosevelt, The Public Papers and Addresses of Franklin D. Roosevelt, comp. Samuel I. Rosenman, vol. 11, Humanity on the Defensive (New York: Russell and Russell, 1969), 105–17.

  12. Kenneth S. Davis, FDR: The War President, 1940–1943 (New York: Random House, 2000), 435.

  13. Entry of February 24, 1942, Galeazzo Ciano, Diary 1937–1943 (New York: Enigma Books, 2002), 497.

  14. Ibid.

  15. Ibid.

  11. No Hand on the Wheel

  1. “Safe” and Confidential Files, DC 740.0011, Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library, Hyde Park, NY. See also “India” annotation in Warren F. Kimball, ed., Churchill & Roosevelt: The Complete Correspondence, vol. 1, Alliance Emerging, October 1933–November 1942 (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1984), 373.

  2. Ibid.

  3. Alexander Cadogan, The Diaries of Sir Alexander Cadogan, O.M., 1938–1945, ed. David Dilks (London: Cassell, 1971), 438.

  4. Ibid.

  5. Cable C-34, March 4, 1942, in Kimball, Churchill & Roosevelt, vol. 1, 374.

  6. Entry of March 5, 1942, The Cadogan Diaries, 440.

  7. W. Averell Harriman and Elie Abel, Special Envoy to Churchill and Stalin, 1941–1946 (New York: Random House, 1975), 126–27.

  8. Ibid.

  9. Letter of March 18, 1942, in Richard Toye, Churchill’s Empire: The World That Made Him and the World He Made (New York: Henry Holt, 2010), 223.

  12. Lessons from the Pacific

  1. Entry of January 2, 1942, McCrea Diary, Papers of Captain John McCrea, Box 2, Library of Congress. McCrea had been assistant to Admiral Stark in 1941, and was then appointed naval secretary for the Joint Chiefs of Staff conversations with the British in January 1942, meeting Churchill and President Roosevelt for the first time on January 4, 1942.

  2. Ibid., entry of January 16, 1942. McCrea relieved Captain Beardall, who had been made commandant of the U.S. Naval Academy.

  3. Ibid., entry of January 18, 1942.

  4. Ibid., entry of March 31, 1942.

  5. Entry of February 6, 1942, Hart Diary, Papers of Admiral Thomas Hart, Operational Archives Branch, Naval Historical Center, Washington, DC.

  6. Ibid.

  7. The Battle of the Java Sea took place between February 27 and March 1, 1942. The Combined (Dutch, British, and U.S.) Striking Force, under Rear Admiral Doorman, was ordered into combat by Admiral Helfrich without air cover and with minimal intership communication; in suicidal combat it was annihilated, suffering the loss of ten warships, including no fewer than five Allied cruisers sunk, while the Japanese Navy did not lose a single warship, or delay its invasion of Java by a single day. Admiral Ernest King called it “a magnificent display of very bad strategy”: Samuel Eliot Morison, History of United States Naval Operations in World War II, vol. 3, The Rising Sun in the Pacific, 1931–April 1942 (Boston: Little, Brown, 1948), 132. See Samuel Eliot Morison, The Two-Ocean War: A Short History of the United States Navy in the Second World War (Boston: Little, Brown, 1963), 88–98; Ian W. Toll, Pacific Crucible: War at Sea in the Pacific, 1941–1942 (New York: Norton, 2012), 255–63.

  8. Entry of March 10, 1942, Hart Diary.

  9. Ibid.

  10. Ibid., entries of February 18–19, 1942.

  11. Ibid.

  12. Ibid.

  13. Ibid., entries of March 8 and 9, 1942.

  14. “The Secretary, clearly having my appearance before his weekly press conference very much on his mind, sent for me even before I had finished my screed, and I read it to him. He said ’fine’ . . . He obviously was much relieved. So I became then and there very decidedly committed to a line as regards participation in publicity”—in print, on radio, and in filmed interviews. Ibid., entry of March 11 et seq.

  13. Churchill Threatens to Resign

  1. Entry for March 9, 1942, in Breckinridge Long, The War Diary of Breckinridge Long: Selections from the Years 1939–1944, ed. Fred L. Israel (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1966), 253.

  2. United States Department of State, Foreign Relations of the United States, Diplomatic Papers 1942 [hereafter FRUS 1942], vol. 1, General, The British Commonwealth, The Far East (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1942), 606.

  3. Ibid.

  4. Ibid.

  5. Christopher Thorne, Allies of a Kind: The United States, Britain, and the War Against Japan, 1941–1945 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1978), 235.

  6. Memorandum of a Conversation by Mr. Calvin H. Oakes of the Division of Near Eastern Affairs, May 26, 1942, FRUS 1942, vol. 1, 660. The American ambassador to China in Chungking, after a visit to India, reported the same to the U.S. State Department, recording that “there is bitterness against the Churchill Government for having sabotaged the Cripps Mission”—thus confirming “reports from other sources that there was sabotaging”: M. S. Venkataramani and B. K. Shrivastava, Quit India: The American Response to the 1942 Struggle (New Delhi: Vikas, 1979), 143.

  7. Cable R-116, Warren Kimball, ed., Churchill & Roosevelt: The Complete Correspondence, vol. 1, Alliance Emerging, October 1933–November 1942 (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1984), 403–4.

  8. Sir Ian Jacob, unpublished autobiography, 73a and 73b, Churchill College Archives, Cambridge.

  9. Alexander Cadogan, The Diaries of Sir Alexander Cadogan, O.M., 1938–1945, ed. David Dilks (London: Cassell, 1971), 437.

  10. “Churchill and Amery had disavowed the possibility of a Cabinet convention. They had reacted against the term ’National Governmen
t,’ . . . They recoiled from the full Indianization of the Executive . . . Finally they denied Cripps the status of a negotiator”: R. J. Moore, Endgames of Empire: Studies of Britain’s Indian Problem (New York: Oxford University Press, 1988), 97. See also Sarvepalli Gopal, Jawaharlal Nehru: A Biography (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1976), vol. 1, 279–84; M. S. Venkataramani and B. K. Shrivastava, Roosevelt, Gandhi, Churchill: America and the Last Phase of India’s Freedom Struggle (New Delhi: Radiant, 1983), 26–28. Most British historians blamed Churchill. “A Viceroy bitterly distrustful of the Congress leadership and lacking political finesse joined forces with a Prime Minister who had no wish to see Indian independence, and for whom the mission was primarily a device to deflect American criticism”: Judith M. Brown, Nehru: A Political Life (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2003), 148.