Pearl Harbor: From Infamy To Greatness

by Craig Nelson

  On October 31, the USS Reuben James was sunk by a Nazi U-boat off the shores of Iceland, and only 44 of its crew of 160 were rescued. Roosevelt told his citizens, “America has been attacked [by the] rattlesnakes of the Atlantic” since, in pursuit of “world mastery,” the Nazis were trying to seize “control of the oceans.” As an almost wholly unprepared United States of America was being drawn into fighting wars across two oceans and three continents, the only answer, Roosevelt explained, was a policy of “shoot on sight.”

  CHAPTER FOUR

  * * *

  NOVEMBER

  The new prime minister of Japan, Hideki Tojo, was overseeing the launch of Operation Number One, the titanic series of invasions that would make him the ruler of all of East Asia, until he ran into the wall that was Finance Minister Okinori Kaya, who would not let anybody go to war with anybody else until they first made their budgets. Again and again during cabinet meetings and other conferences across November, Kaya asked, “Could you explain to me in a way that I can understand? My questions are ‘What would happen to the material situation if we go to war? What would happen if we do not go to war and carry on just as we are carrying on right now? What should we do if diplomatic negotiations with the United States fail?’ ”

  The answers to Kaya’s insistent questions would hold the key to Japan’s ultimate downfall. The Imperial Japanese Army had previously tried to address these concerns with data provided by intelligence agent Colonel Shinjo Kenkichi, who had been operating undercover in the United States at the Mitsui import-export firm since March of 1940. Using the services of fifty other Japanese corporations based in America, Kenkichi produced a War Economy Research Office report concluding that America’s industrial might was ten to twenty times that of Japan’s, meaning that in war she would be ten to twenty times as powerful. But Kenkichi’s far-reaching and detailed research seemed to have no impact on Japan’s militarists and their dreams of global conquest. Every senior army officer in the IJA received the brief. It changed no opinions.

  Such numbers, though, were confirmed by Teiichi Suzuki’s Cabinet Planning Board, which coordinated wartime resources. While the Imperial Japanese Army had estimated US industry as twenty times greater than Japan’s, Suzuki’s numbers said it was more like seventy-four times, with such damning details as seven times as much aluminum, nine times as much copper, twelve times as much iron, and five hundred times as much petroleum—key resources for fighting battles. Suzuki later tried to explain why facts couldn’t stop what was happening: “It was as though they had already decided to go to war. My task was basically to provide numbers to fit that decision.”

  Tojo’s new foreign minister, Shigenori Togo, now stood alongside Kaya in insisting that, even if it was humiliating to withdraw from China and Indochina, avoiding a war with the United States was a national priority. He confronted nearly the whole of the government, especially his prime minister, who predicted that submitting to Western capitalists would turn Japan into a third-rate country. “Our economy would survive even if we withdrew,” Togo insisted. “The sooner it is done, the better.”

  Kaya and Togo, the country’s leaders in financial and foreign affairs, were so staunch in their positions that they forced Prime Minister Tojo into the compromise he had always refused to give Prime Minister Konoye. In a new offer for Hull, Japan agreed to withdraw troops from Hainan, northern China, and Inner Mongolia within twenty-five years, and from the rest of the country as well as Indochina within two years of a treaty concluded with the Nationalists under Chiang Kai-shek. Togo doubted that Roosevelt and Hull would agree to such generous amounts of time, but at least it was a concession from the stubborn Tojo.

  Hirohito and Kido’s tiger-cub strategy seemed to be working . . . so well that in the hours before their November 1 liaison conference, Tojo tried to talk the army’s Sugiyama into siding with his new position of continuing diplomatic entreaties and postponing any war, an idea he said “the navy minister, the finance minister, and the director of the Cabinet Planning Board have all agreed to endorse. Since the emperor likes to do things openly and aboveboard, I think he will not hear of carrying on with deception.”

  By deception, Tojo meant what all of Japan’s leaders were doing at that moment—the foreign offfice negotiating peace terms with Washington while the navy planned an attack on Hawaii. A number of the country’s leaders, both civilian and military, began to question this, and a notion of how to remain honorable eventually took hold: What if Ambassador Nomura formally broke off negotiations with Washington exactly thirty minutes before the attack on Oahu began?

  The liaison conference where this quandary was resolved lasted a grueling seventeen hours and became one of the most controversial moments in Japanese political history. The prime minister began by noting Japan had three avenues to consider: war; no war; or both war and diplomatic negotiations simultaneously. Finance Minister Kaya turned to the admirals: “If we went to war right now, would Japan still be able to continue fighting after a few years? Would the United States still be likely to attack Japan after three years if Japan didn’t go to war?” Nagano said that he felt “fifty-fifty” about going to war as “The chances of victory are unclear.” When Kaya more forcefully insisted, “I don’t know if we could manage to win a naval war,” Nagano replied that better “now rather than waiting for three years . . . because the necessary foundation for continuing the war [meaning Dutch East Indies oil] will have been under our control.” Foreign Minister Togo sided with Kaya, pointing out, “I don’t think that the US fleets would come to our shores. It is unnecessary to go to war now. . . . Diplomacy by nature requires many days and nights for its goals to be fulfilled. As foreign minister, I cannot conduct diplomacy without any likelihood of success. I need to be assured that I would be given the time and conditions required to make it a success. War, needless to say, must be avoided.”

  The army’s vice chief of staff, Osamu Tsukada, argued, “We would not want the fickle conditions of diplomacy to dictate and affect our strategic plans, and therefore we demand that November 13 be the final deadline for diplomacy.”

  Foreign Minister Togo erupted, “November 13. That is awful! The navy is saying November 20.”

  After many hours of bickering, November 30 was set as the absolute deadline for Togo and Nomura to arrive at a treaty with Washington and stop the rush to war. When Togo begged for a one-day extension to December 1, Tsukada shouted, “Absolutely not. Anything more than the last day of November is out of the question. Out of the question!”

  Navy Minister Shigetaro Shimada tried for a compromise: “When you say November thirtieth, what time exactly do you mean? Surely, you would give us until the twenty-fourth hour?”

  Tsukada conceded, “Yes, until twelve midnight would be all right.”

  They took a break, during which the hawkish-before-the-generals Nagano turned completely dovish in private conversation with the Foreign Ministry’s American Affairs Bureau chief, saying, “Would the Foreign Ministry take it upon itself to settle this mess through diplomacy? If so, the navy would be glad to entrust everything to the Foreign Ministry. What do you think?” The navy had previously tried pawning off the public humiliation of being against a war on Konoye, and now they were trying again, with the foreign office. A surprised bureau chief restated his ministry’s view that, considering the army’s refusal to withdraw from China, it seemed unlikely that diplomacy would succeed.

  Finally at one thirty in the morning of November 2, the liaison conference concluded with the decision that Foreign Minister Togo and Ambassador Nomura would have until the very last hours of November to negotiate a peace and stop the war. Tojo promised Togo that, if the United States moved forward in any way on either of their two offers—known as Plan A and Plan B—Tojo would do everything he could to compromise to make the negotiations work. The newly accommodating prime minister even told his staff, “Plan B is not a pretext for going to war; I swear to the gods that with this plan, I hope to reach an
accommodation with the United States, whatever it takes.”

  Even so, at five that afternoon, following protocol, Nagano and Sugiyama appeared before Hirohito with a war plan prepared for his approval at an imperial conference to be held in three days’ time, on November 5. This plan was so detailed it even included weather and moonlight predictions for dawn on December 7 in Hawaii. Throughout this meeting, Hirohito kept insisting that a diplomatic solution could be found and kept asking pointed questions about the military’s planning, such as “You have told me that monsoons would impede the landing of our troops. . . . Would you be able to land?” But as the details sank in, it was as if the leader of the nation was helpless before the overwhelming forces of history. He finally conceded, “Perhaps it is unavoidable that we continue preparations for military operations.”

  Many Japanese leaders of this period would later insist that Hirohito was blameless in the drive to war, but not Fumimaro Konoye, who told his chief cabinet secretary, “Of course His Majesty is a pacifist, and there is no doubt he wished to avoid war. When I told him that to initiate war is a mistake, he agreed. But the next day, he would tell me, ‘You were worried about it yesterday, but you do not have to worry so much.’ Thus, gradually, he began to lean toward war. And the next time I met him, he leaned even more toward war. In short, I felt the Emperor was telling me, ‘My prime minister does not understand military matters, I know much more.’ In short, the Emperor had absorbed the views of the army and navy high commands.”

  By this time, the Navy General Staff had set X-day for December 8 (meaning December 7 in the United States, as Tokyo time is fourteen hours ahead of Washington’s eastern standard time, and nineteen hours, thirty minutes, ahead of the military’s then-Hawaiian time). Many factors were involved in this date. Japan’s oil reserves were vanishing. America’s Pacific forces, especially in the Philippines, were rising. The task force’s northern route would be unfeasible by the wintry depths of January or February, while waiting until spring would mean the worst of Southeast Asia’s monsoon season, which the army feared would interfere with Operation Number One’s invasions. Astronomers had predicted a good moon phase for night operations that week, and on Oahu, the spy Yoshikawa had confirmed that the great majority of Kimmel’s fleet regularly came home to berth on Sundays. Finally on November 2, Rear Admiral Matome Ugaki received a message asking for the Combined Fleet’s blessing on the liaison conference’s creation of an “Army and Navy Central Agreement.” Ugaki wrote in his diary, “With this telegram, we can see that they have made up their minds at last.”

  That same day, all of Operation Hawaii’s ships were assembled in Ariake Bay. At 1330 on the afternoon of the third, Admiral Chuichi Nagumo met with his commanders to announce, “Judging from the diplomatic situation, war with the United States seems unavoidable. In that event, we plan to attack the American fleet in Hawaii. Although final details have not been firmed up, commanders Genda and Fuchida have mapped out a general plan. They will explain it to you. If after hearing the explanation, you have any questions, feel free to ask them.”

  The airmen were so excited they could only exult, “I was born a boy at the right time!”

  Tokyo’s government-controlled newspapers began at this time to regularly attack the United States. Nichi-Nichi, for example, explained to its readers that America had the soul of a prostitute.

  On November 3, Togo sent Nomura Plan A, with a cover note explaining that, “This time we are showing the limit of our friendship; this time we are making our last possible bargain, and I hope that we can settle all our troubles with United States peaceably. . . . I want you to follow my instructions to the letter. . . . There will be no room for personal interpretation. . . . I want you, in as indecisive yet as pleasant language as possible, to euphemize and try to impart to them the effect that unlimited occupation [in China] does not mean perpetual occupation.” American officials, reading these instructions through MAGIC, had their opinion of the Japanese as two-faced hypocrites confirmed.

  That same day, Nagano went to the palace to explain in detail to Hirohito what would happen to the Americans on Oahu: “At the very outset of the beginning of hostilities, as nearly as possible coinciding with the first air attacks on the Philippines and Malaya, an air attack will be made on the main enemy force stationed in Hawaii, using an expeditionary force with a nucleus of six aircraft carriers led by the commander in chief of the First Carrier Flotilla. This expeditionary force will set out after replenishing in the Kuriles a number of days before hostilities are to begin. It will approach Hawaii from the north. One or two hours before sunrise some two hundred nautical miles north of the island of Oahu the fully loaded planes—about four hundred—will be launched. The plan is to initiate a surprise attack on the aircraft carriers and battleships at their moorings as well as the aircraft there. . . . It is an extremely daring operation. Its success is dependent from the start on the fortunes of war, which can oscillate greatly. On the day of the surprise attack, depending on the enemy ships present, it will be possible to sink two or three battleships and aircraft carriers each.”

  On that same November 3, Ambassador Grew sent a lengthy telegram to Secretary Hull, based on the research and interpretation of Eugene Dooman, his embassy’s counselor, who had gone to school with many of Japan’s civilian leaders. As before, those closest to the situation were the most prescient: “[American] policy, together with the impact of world political events upon Japan brought the Japanese Government to the point of seeking conciliation with the United States. If these efforts fail, I foresee a probable swing of the pendulum in Japan once more back to the former Japanese position or even farther. This would lead to what I have described as an all-out, do-or-die attempt, actually risking national hara-kiri, to make Japan impervious to economic embargoes abroad rather than to yield to foreign pressure. . . . My purpose is only to ensure against the United States becoming involved in war with Japan because of any possible misconception of Japan’s capacity to rush headlong into a suicidal struggle with the United States. While national sanity dictates against such action, Japanese sanity cannot be measured by American standards of logic. . . . Japan may resort with dangerous and dramatic suddenness to measures which might make inevitable war with the United States.”

  On November 4, US Fleet commanders including Husband Kimmel were cabled that Japanese merchant vessels appeared to be withdrawing from the western hemisphere. Three days later, Stark wrote Kimmel a cable that included, “Things seem to be moving steadily towards a crisis in the Pacific. Just when it will break, no one can tell. The principal reaction I have to it all is what I have written you before; it continually gets ‘worser and worser!’ A month may see, literally, most anything. Two irreconcilable policies cannot go on forever—particularly if one party cannot live with the set-up. It doesn’t look good.” A week later on November 14, Stark sent Kimmel a cable: “The plain fact is that Japanese politics has been ultimately controlled for years by the military. Whether or not a policy of peace or a policy of further military adventuring is pursued is determined by the military based on their estimate as to whether the time is opportune and what they are able to do, not by what cabinet is in power or on diplomatic maneuvering, diplomatic notes or diplomatic treaties.”

  On November 4 in Washington, listening-station code breakers uncovered the creation of Japan’s new military group, which they decoded as 1 no koku kantai—the First Air Fleet—which was at that moment in dress rehearsal for the attack on Pearl Harbor. The first wave of aircraft lifted off at 0700, and the second at 0830. At Fuchida’s signal, the dive-bombers rose to attack level, while the torpedo planes dropped to skimming cruise. Below the strike force, the battlewagons of the Japanese fleet lay in majestic array, just as the planners hoped their counterparts would be in Pearl Harbor. After the first wave hit the enemy, the second group of level bombers and dive-bombers swooped in (no torpedo planes would participate in the second wave because by that time the element of surprise would
have been lost). The high-levels tore into the airfields, while the dive-bombers concentrated on the capital ships.

  By 0930 the maneuver was over, and the next morning, Fuchida and Genda compared notes. They were concerned that it took so long for the initial rendezvous, that both the approach to the target and the general deployment were haphazard, and that only 40 percent of their modified torpedoes had leveled off at the correct depth. But overall, it was a magnificent achievement.

  In Tokyo behind closed doors the next day, the momentum for war was surging. No one raised any qualms over the duplicity of preparing to strike while negotiating for peace. Hideki Tojo was no longer a prime minister with second thoughts, but a devoted warrior who insisted, “If we just stand by with our arms folded and allow our country to revert to the ‘little Japan’ that we once were, we would be tainting its brilliant twenty-six-hundred-year history.” When the conference turned to Nomura’s progress with American diplomacy, Togo admitted that Washington was persecuting Japan with a brutal economic policy, and though his ambassadors had patiently tried to reach an understanding, they had consistently been rebuffed. He concluded, “If things go as they are going now, I regret that the negotiations do not have any prospect of a quick resolution.” Using the language of the Pan-Asianist movement, he also spoke of how Japan’s conquests were saving the continent from predatory Western powers, turning Caucasian-ruled colonial territories into strong colleagues of a resurgent Japan. With such talk, Togo gave moral authority to the war he had been opposing for so long, and one more Japanese leader fell helpless before the course of history.