Pearl Harbor: From Infamy To Greatness

by Craig Nelson

  When on that same day Nagano commanded Yamamoto to prepare the fleet for a war with Britain and America, to begin in thirty days, Yamamoto replied that he would be ready, but that “we must not start a war with so little a chance of success,” and couldn’t the Tripartite Pact be abrogated and Japanese troops be pulled from China to avoid conflict with America? Perhaps Hirohito could intervene with a “sacred decision”? Yamamoto called a US-Japanese war “a major calamity for the world” and wrote a friend, “I find my present position extremely odd, [as I’m] obliged to make up my mind and pursue unswervingly a course that is precisely the opposite of my personal views.”

  On November 2, 4, 5, 6, 11, 13, 15, 19, 24, 25, and 26, Togo sent the beleaguered Nomura a series of cables demanding that he bring negotiations with the Americans to a final conclusion and set a new absolute deadline of November 29. If the ambassador failed, he was warned, it would render the situation in Asia “on the brink of chaos.”

  As scheduled by Togo, on November 7 Nomura presented Secretary Hull with Plan A, repeating Togo’s dire predictions to emphasize how crucial these negotiations had become. They were a “last effort” in a situation that was “very grave” for a friendship that had “reached the edge,” with the Japanese giving their all “on the throw of this die . . . showing the limits of our friendship . . . making our last possible bargain.” But the Americans had already read all of this through MAGIC and did not respond with any sense of urgency, as the two countries’ points of view were now utterly out of sync. Alone among American leaders, Royal Eason Ingersoll, vice chief of naval operations under CNO Stark, intuited that the only way Plan A made any sense was if Japan was planning attacks on ABCD territories in Asia, i.e., on the Philippines, Malaya, the Dutch East Indies, Hong Kong, and Singapore. Nearly everyone else in the Departments of State and War and at the Oval Office thought such a level of warfare was far beyond the capabilities of “little Japan” and discounted Ingersoll’s exceedingly accurate prediction. At a Joint Board meeting on November 3, a frustrated Ingersoll insisted that “the present moment is not the opportune time to get brash” and that the State Department was wrong in its “impression that Japan could be defeated in military action in a few weeks.”

  At that day’s White House cabinet meeting, Secretary Hull went over the most recent deadlocked talks with Japan and concluded that “relations had become extremely critical and that we should be on the outlook for an attack by Japan at any time.” “Do not let the talks deteriorate,” Roosevelt practically begged his secretary of state. “Let us make no more of ill will. Let us do nothing to precipitate a crisis.” He had gotten disturbing news two days before, when Marshall and Stark had sent the president a memo finally admitting that things were not so rosy in Hawaii: “At the present time the United States Fleet in the Pacific is inferior to the Japanese fleet and cannot undertake unlimited strategic offensive in the Western Pacific. . . . War between the United States and Japan should be avoided while building up defensive forces in the Far East.” Hull and Acheson were convinced, however, that if Washington took a tough stance, Tokyo would back down, so while Acheson continued his full petroleum embargo, Hull ignored the president’s worries and told the Japanese that they would have to withdraw entirely from the whole of China and Indochina to receive any American imports.

  That night, Nagano called a meeting with his highest-level Navy General Staff officers and warned, “There must be no behavior such as to invite reproach from future generations.”

  On the tenth, Nomura and Hull met with Roosevelt at the White House, where the president took a new approach, saying the two countries should come to a “modus vivendi,” a way of peaceably living together with competing aims, “not merely an expedient and temporary agreement, but also one which takes into account actual human existence.” This heartened Nomura, who saw it as an American softening, a path to compromise.

  Captain Hankyu Sasaki, commander of the First Submarine Division, was ordered to proceed to Kure Naval Station near Hiroshima to receive his ships, which had been undergoing emergency modifications, such as the installation of air-purifying equipment, antisubmarine-net protection, and telephone systems. Sasaki was disturbed by this, as these ships were new and untested, and now they were being modified without trial runs? He asked his superiors about it and was told, “This equipment is to enable you to haul midget submarines close enough to Pearl Harbor to attack the US Pacific Fleet.”

  On November 10, ten sailors were selected to crew the midget subs of the Special Attack Force. When crewman Kichiji Dewa first saw his I-16 submersible, he thought it looked “tiny, like a bean. . . . On October 31, 1941, I saw a map of Pearl Harbor and learned about its geography. And then I knew that we were training for Pearl Harbor. We knew that the harbor was protected by antisubmarine nets. So the midgets were to be underwater and follow American ships into the harbor. Each midget sub also had a wire cutter on its nose to cut the nets.” Yamamoto himself had met with these trainees aboard Nagato. He told them that a dangerous operation such as theirs held the promise of great glory. They could outshine the older officers if they were diligent, courageous, and dutiful.

  The five midgets essentially acted as manned torpedoes. They had limited range, and once they were inside the harbor, the chances of the crew’s surviving were little to none. Special Attack Group leader Naoji Iwasa asked for permission to attack immediately after the airstrike, instead of waiting until dark, since to remain submerged for such a long time might be dangerous, and they could inflict more carnage on a confused enemy in daylight. Besides, maximum damage to the enemy was what counted, not their meager lives. Yamamoto was one of the few Japanese officers opposed to tactical suicide, and he had repeatedly rejected the plan over the previous months, but the young officers who’d developed it insisted on going forward. Finally, the admiral gave in.

  On November 11, nine vessels of the Third Submarine Group slipped from harbor near the southern end of the main island of Honshu precisely at 1111 . . . the eleventh minute of the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month. On December 5, Hawaii time, the Third would reconnoiter at the sheltered anchorage between Maui and Lanai known as Lahaina Roads, from where they would cable reports on naval traffic with a deadline for information of December 6. This would give Minoru Genda time to shift his attack to Lahaina if substantial American forces were anchored there. Meanwhile, Hankyu Sasaki and his First Submarine Division would release their midgets as close as possible to the main buoy just outside the entrance to Pearl Harbor on the night before X-day. The five little subs would enter the channel that night, secure their positions, and settle to the bottom.

  Between November 11 and 13, Lieutenant Commander Shigeharu Murata’s torpedo bombers experimented with two techniques to improve their 66 percent strike rate. Pilot Haruo Yoshino: “We were told the altitude would have to be ten meters [thirty-three feet] or under. We never used altimeters. We flew totally by the seat of our pants. You could tell if you were flying too low if the spray from the dropped torpedo could splash up and hit your wings. We really did not have much fear.” The results from both techniques were so thrilling they were telegrammed to Nagumo: “Achieved 82% hits.”

  In mid-November, CNO Stark’s office sent Curtis Munson from Washington to Hawaii to gather information on the state of the American military in the Pacific. One of Munson’s interviewees was onetime intelligence officer Captain Ellis Zacharias, now commanding cruiser Salt Lake City. Zacharias told Munson that local Hawaiians weren’t a worry, as army intelligence and the local FBI were insisting. Instead, war with Japan “would begin with an air attack on our fleet, and for that reason it would have to be conducted with the greatest secrecy, and therefore no Japanese . . . in the United States or in Hawaii would be aware of the fact that such an attack was coming. . . . The attack would conform to [Japan’s] historical procedure, that of hitting before war was declared.”

  At 1300 on November 15 in Tokyo, army and navy leaders gat
hered in the headquarters room of the Imperial Palace to explain to His Majesty the “Draft Proposal for Hastening the End of the War against the United States, Great Britain, the Netherlands, and Chiang.” Among the nation’s goals were winning the great all-out battle—the Kantai Kessen—with the US Navy; defeating both Great Britain and China; bringing the Soviet Union within the Axis camp; and destroying the will of the American people.

  As December 7 loomed, the cable traffic between Yoshikawa and Tokyo became more and more frantic. On November 15, Tokyo told their Hawaii spy, “As relations between Japan and the United States are most critical, make your ‘ships in harbor report’ irregular, but at a rate of twice a week. Although you already are no doubt aware, please take extra care to maintain secrecy.” On the twenty-ninth: “We have been receiving reports from you on ship movements, but in future will you also report even when there are no movements?” On December 2, the agent was told to continue with both his daily reports and “whether or not there are any observation balloons above Pearl Harbor or if there are any indications that they will be sent out. Also advice [sic] whether . . . the warships are provided with antisubmarine nets.”

  MAGIC decoded and translated all of these messages between Yoshikawa and Tokyo. But they were judged low priority by the grossly overworked MAGIC decoders and translators, who were paying attention to the Japanese consulate traffic coming through Washington, not Honolulu.

  • • •

  On November 15 in Washington, General George Marshall held an off-the-record press conference with the three wire services, the New York Times, the New York Herald Tribune, Time, and Newsweek, to “prepare them for the shock of war.” He explained that by spring, the Army Air Corps would have so many bombers based in the Philippines they could annihilate the Japanese home islands: “Our aim is to blanket the whole area with airpower. Our own fleet, meanwhile, will remain out of range of Japanese airpower, at Hawaii. . . . The last thing the US wants is a war with Japan which would divide our strength. . . . The danger period is the first ten days of December.”

  Taking reporters’ questions, Marshall insisted, “We’ll fight mercilessly. Flying Fortresses will be dispatched immediately to set the paper cities of Japan on fire [with] no hesitation about bombing civilians.” He was hoping that news of this aggressive stance would leak “directly to Japanese officials” so that they might reconsider their belligerent stance. But since the Philippines was not yet ready to defend herself from a Japanese attack, Marshall warned, “Nothing that I am telling you today is publishable, even in hinted form.” After a correspondent pointed out that the range of the B-24 meant it could not reach Japan from the Philippines and then make it back home, the New York Times’ Hanson Baldwin published his report “This Is a War We Could Lose.”

  Marshall told his senior staff the next day that Roosevelt and Hull “anticipate a possible assault on the Philippines” by Japan, but the general had a different opinion “because the hazards would be too great for the Japanese.” War Plans Division chief Leonard Gerow assumed Thailand would be a target and didn’t think Tokyo would attack anything that could stir up a fight with Washington. Like so many other American military officials, their thinking was too logical in the face of an enemy who had left logic far behind.

  On November 17 in Japan, Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto appeared on Akagi’s deck to address the men of his First Air Fleet, perhaps for the last time. He sent them into history with a speech that included, “The American commander [Kimmel] is no ordinary or average man. Such a relatively junior admiral would not have been given the important position of CINCPAC unless he were able, gallant, and brave. We can expect him to put up a courageous fight. Moreover, he is said to be farsighted and cautious, so it is quite possible that he has instituted very close measures to cope with any emergency. Therefore, you must take into careful consideration the possibility that the attack may not be a surprise after all. You may have to fight your way in to the target. . . . It is the custom of Bushido to select an equal or stronger opponent. On this score, you have nothing to complain about—the American navy is a good match for the Japanese navy. . . . Japan has faced many worthy opponents in her glorious history—Mongols, Chinese, Russians. But in this operation we will meet the strongest opponent of all. I expect this operation to be a success.”

  Admiral Chuichi Nagumo added his own words of encouragement: “The Empire is now going to war with an arrogant and predestined enemy [and we are] hoping to destroy the United States fleet once and for all. However difficult the situation you may face, don’t lose your confidence in victory. Cope with it with calmness and composure. . . . Is there anything, no matter how difficult it may be, that cannot be done by an intrepid spirit and a burning loyalty?”

  Key officers, including Genda and Fuchida, then joined their commanders in a ritual dinner of surume (dried cuttlefish) and kachiguri (walnuts), symbolizing happiness and victory. At onboard portable Shinto shrines, they toasted “Banzai!” while throwing back sake in honor of their emperor. They planned for failure—unanimously, all the pilots of Operation Hawaii assumed they would never again see Japan—but expected victory. Bomber pilot Zenji Abe held a common Japanese opinion: “We knew that the American people were made up of many races and assumed the American people had no united loyalty to their country and no desire to fight for it.”

  After dinner, Yamamoto returned to Nagato. From the deck, he watched his great fleet depart for a battle that would sear his name into history, as well as launch a global war he never wanted to fight. On that same day, Joseph Grew warned Cordell Hull, “In emphasizing the need for guarding against sudden military or naval actions by Japan in areas not at present involved in the China conflict, I’m taking into account as a possibility that the Japanese would exploit all available tactical advantages including that of initiative and surprise. It is important, however, that our government not (repeat not) place upon us, including the military and naval attachés, major responsibility for giving prior warning. . . . Our field of military and naval observation is almost literally restricted to what can be seen with our own eyes, which is negligible.”

  Also on that day, Hull, Roosevelt, Nomura, and a new Japanese representative, a man who was the very picture of modern urban sophistication, met at the White House for the first time. “In this dangerous emergency, one could not afford to discharge [Nomura] or to be too hesitant,” Togo recalled, so he decided to supplement him with another negotiator, Saburo Kurusu, who had arrived in the United States a mere two days before his meeting with the president of the United States. Joseph Grew: “[Togo] said he had picked Mr. Kurusu to come to Washington to help Admiral Nomura, as he had the best command of English in the Japanese service. . . . Togo asked if I would arrange to get Kurusu to Washington as soon as possible on a Clipper, as it was important to carry on the conversations to a successful conclusion as soon as possible. I said I would do so.

  “I had known [Kurusu] about ten years in Japan. He spoke English almost perfectly, he had an American wife, and I negotiated with him, and I had seen him in a personal way in many respects. I always regarded him as decidedly pro-American in his outlook and sentiments, and the fact that he happened to be the Japanese ambassador in Berlin at the time of the signing of the Axis agreement did not change my opinion of him very much, because after all an ambassador, when he is at a post, takes the instructions of his government and carries them out whether he approves of that particular document or not.”

  After reading the cables sent between Tokyo and Washington and meeting informally with Foreign Ministry colleagues, Kurusu concluded that things had been progressing moderately well between the two countries until July, when Japan invaded Indochina. He met with Hideki Tojo just before leaving and told the prime minister that “the chance of success in the negotiations with the United States is thirty percent.” “Be sure to give it your best effort and come to an agreement,” Tojo said, which Kurusu found encouraging. Then the prime minister continued, “But J
apan could not possibly concede on the point of troop withdrawal,” since that would be a dishonor to the great souls who’d died in service to the nation. Once again, Japan’s leader executed a volte-face, in what was an especially troubling moment for Nomura and Kurusu, since their current offer to the Americans, Plan A, included staged withdrawals from China, while backup Plan B would offer a speedy remove from southern Indochina and a gradual exit from the rest of both countries.

  As with Konoye, however, Kurusu had a public relations problem in Washington. Americans knew him from when he’d worked under Matsuoka as ambassador to Berlin, where he was photographed with Hitler and signed the Tripartite Pact. Kurusu was in fact opposed to Japan’s joining the Axis and keen to negotiate a peace with Washington. He was known in Japan as so pro-American that some army officials openly said it would be a good thing if, before getting to Washington, his plane crashed and he was killed.

  Nomura and Kurusu had been instructed to strictly adhere to Togo’s detailed and convoluted strategy, which involved four different steps of offering various forms of Plan A and then Plan B. Kurusu, however, was able to make plain to Roosevelt that he had been sent not to pressure officials in Washington, but as an additional effort to find a peaceful solution. He asked the president if he could understand the Japanese frame of mind, and FDR brilliantly replied, “There is no last word between friends.” This was a phrase from thirty years before, said by Secretary of State William Jennings Bryan to Japan’s then ambassador during a period when the two countries’ relationship was similarly fraught—California had passed a yellow-peril act; yet, Japan planted cherry trees on the banks of Washington’s Potomac. To Japanese with any knowledge of their country’s history with the West, “There is no last word between friends” held deep emotional resonance, and the two Japanese ambassadors were moved by the American president’s allusion.