Crucible of a Generation
Page 23
Waldorf Astoria, the Houston Chronicle offered the story of the man who lived
138 “Day of Infamy”: Sunday, December 7, 1941
on $2.00 a week and “likes it.” On a few leased acres, M. L. Wilson lived with
his five-and-a-half-year-old grandson, his mule, his cow, and his chickens. The
house, the barn, and the mule stable were valued at $1,000 but, said Mr. Wilson,
“I wouldn’t trade it for the State Capitol.” He cultivated most of his own food, a
rain barrel under the eaves provided water and “what campin’ and cookin’” uten-
sils he had were more than sufficient. Mr. Wilson was, he said, a “foot-washin’
Baptist” (not to be confused with the “hard shell Baptists”) who had been called
to the Lord in 1919 and had been preaching and reading his Bible ever since. He
had no patience with the “money preachers” who couldn’t understand why he
never took up a collection when he preached. “You gotta be a scrapper to do it
and you’ve gotta have that ‘old timey’ spirit to succeed,” were sentiments which
many of his fellow Texans would warmly endorse. 25
*
Harking back to an older if not “old-timey” era was the obituary of Philemon
Tecumseh Sherman, age seventy-four, the last surviving child of General Wil-
liam Tecumseh Sherman, commander of the Army of the Tennessee and leader
of the famous March to the Sea. Mr. Sherman had graduated from Yale Col-
lege and the Columbia University Law School. He had served as the New York
State Commissioner of Labor, becoming an acknowledged expert in the field of
workmen’s compensation and unemployment insurance. He had also served on
the New York City Board of Aldermen. His death brought back memories of
the triumvirate of victorious Civil War generals, Grant, Sherman, and Sheridan,
and with it the appreciation of how close in time the country was to its darkest
and bloodiest years. 26
America’s Role: A Charge of Treason
On this Sunday, December 7, under the headline “ THE STINGING TRUTH ,”
the Chicago Tribune ardently pursued the story of the alleged war plans it had broken in the preceding week. Henry Stimson, it said, “perhaps on the advice of his
money-making crew,” had refused to answer any questions from reporters. Mr.
Stimson was characterized as “an old, not to say senile lawyer” whose defense
was to smear his opponents by intimating that it was unpatriotic and disloyal to
publish the government’s alleged plans. The Tribune denied that publication of
its story had had any adverse impact upon the defense program; nor was there
anything to give aid and comfort to any enemy, actual or potential. “We have
known,” it announced, “for a long time that the war party was betraying the
American people.” “Now,” it said triumphantly, “we have proved it.” 27
The charge was treason, as the bombs were falling on Pearl Harbor.
Notes
1.
New York Times , December 7, 1941, 1
2.
New York Times , December 7, 1941, 1
3.
Atlanta Constitution , December 7, 1941, 1
A Quiet Morning in America 139
4.
Denver Post , December 7, 1941, 1
5.
Washington Post , December 7, 1941, 1
6.
Washington Post , December 7, 1941, 1
7.
Houston Chronicle , December 7, 1941, 10B
8.
Washington Post , December 7, 1941, 1
9.
Washington Post , December 7, 1941, 1
10. Houston Chronicle , December 7, 1941, 10
11. Denver Post , December 7, 1941, 3/1
12. Chicago Tribune , December 7, 1941, 11
13. New York Times , December 7, 1941, 15
14. Washington Post , December 7, 1941, B3
15. Chicago Tribune , December 7, 1941, 1/15
16. New York Times , December 7, 1941, SM5
17. New York Times , December 7, 1941, RW8
18. Chicago Tribune , December 7, 1941, 1/18
19. Washington Post , December 7, 1941, 11
20. New York Times , December 7, 1941, SM5
21. New York Times , December 7, 1941, R7
22. Los Angeles Times , December 7, 1941, 1/6
23. New York Times , December 7, 1941, SM1
24. New York Times , December 7, 1941, SM18
25. Houston Chronicle , December 7, 1941, 10B
26. New York Times , December 7, 1941, 79
27. Chicago Tribune , December 7, 1941, 1/18
12
WHAT AMERICA KNEW
JAPANESE PLAN AND TROOP DISPOSITION
140º
160º
November 1941
Defensive Perimeter Plan
0
1600
Miles at the Equator
100º
120º
U S S R
KWANTUNG ARMY
MONGOLIA
MANCHURIA
GENERAL
N
40º
DEFENSE
40º
CHINA
KOREAN
A
COMMANDO
EXPEDITIONARY
K
ARMY OREA
P
ARMY (CEA)
A
PACIFIC OCEAN
TIBET
CHINA
J
BHUTAN
INDIA
PART OF CEA
SOUTHERN ARMY
BURMA
Hong Kong
14th Army - to Philippines
20º
20º
15th Army - to Thailand
16th Army - to East Indies
THAILAND
PHILIPPINES
25th Army - to Malaya
FRENCH
INDOCHINA
Marshall
MALAYA
Caroline Islands
Islands
Sumatr
Gilbert
0º
Singapore
Islands
0º
a
Borneo
New
NETHERLANDS
INDIES
Guinea
Java
Solomon Islands
INDIAN OCEAN
AUSTRALIA
20º
20º
100º
120º
140º
160º
FIGURE 12.1 Japanese plan and troop disposition, November 1941.
What America Knew 141
What indeed did Americans, or at least those Americans who followed the affairs
of their country at home and abroad, know on that quiet noon hour of Sunday,
December 7, 1941, about the position of their country and the risks to which it
was exposed in a war-torn world?
They knew, if they cared to know, that Japan had defied the League of Nations
in its 1931 takeover of Manchuria, which then became the puppet state of Man-
chukuo. They were aware of the 1937 outbreak of hostilities at Shanghai and the
long and continuing invasion of a China to which America, through a complex
history of business, cultural and religious ties, had accorded a keen interest and
a sympathy based on sincere and mutual expressions of friendship. They knew
that American embargos of scrap metal and steel and later a freeze on Japanese
assets in the United States had had a severe and adverse impact on the Japanese
economy. They knew of Japan’s expansioni
st claims to a New Order in Asia,
indeed a Japanese-dominated Co-Prosperity Sphere, which was clearly a euphe-
mism for Japanese military and economic conquest. Opposed to these, they knew,
were those American principles enunciated by its Secretary of State based upon
the long-neglected Nine-Power Treaty, demanding Japanese military withdrawal
from China and the celebrated Open Door to the China trade.
They knew that Japan was a party to a Tripartite Pact with the dictator-
aggressors Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini. They saw preparations for war on
every hand, not only by Japan in its threatening movements of troops, planes, and
ships, but also in defensive preparations by the Philippines, by Singapore and the
Malay States, by the Netherlands East Indies and by Australia. Moreover, their
own country was engaged in a vast defense program that included never-before-
seen production of naval and merchant vessels, aircraft, tanks, a vastly expanded
army, and huge housing developments to accommodate the workers who would
produce all these implements of war. Most of these goods were to be shipped to
Britain and to the Soviet Union, engaged in an immense military struggle with
Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy, both readily identified as enemies of the United
States. Those goods would sail under the protection of the U.S. Navy; and not
only the Navy but American merchant vessels had been exposed to actual warfare
on the convoy routes of the Atlantic.
There was nothing secret, nothing covert about all this. Indeed, in all this
America was far from being an innocent bystander or even a disinterested party.
At Cavite in the Philippines, where the American Asiatic Fleet was based, General
Douglas MacArthur commanded a joint U.S.–Philippine force recently reinforced
by bomber squadrons that were thought capable of a wide radius of action, includ-
ing Japan.
More than that, the American people had been told point blank—not once,
but again and again, and especially in New York the week that ended Sunday,
December 7—by the reporters, by the analysts, by the pundits, by the experts, by
the editorial writers, and by their own government that the United States was on
the brink of war with Japan; that indeed the choice of war or peace lay in the
hands of the Son of Heaven, the Emperor Hirohito, to whom President Roosevelt
had on December 6 addressed a last and desperate plea to continue discussions
142 “Day of Infamy”: Sunday, December 7, 1941
and step back from the brink. The Emperor’s reply might hang in the balance;
but should Americans have been surprised to find themselves at war on that day?
*
What would America’s response have been had Japan only invaded Thailand,
posing direct threats to Burma and to the British-dominated Malay Peninsula
with its great fortress and naval base at Singapore? Would it have been consid-
ered in America to be simply another phase of Japanese expansion in an exotic
country halfway across the world? And what if Japan had attacked Hong Kong,
Singapore, and Malaya, carefully avoiding direct contact with the United States?
Winston Churchill had famously declared that if America went to war with
Japan Britain’s declaration of war against Japan would follow in the hour. Would
America have done the same for a Britain attacked by Japan? What were Ameri-
ca’s obligations, especially those arising out of joint defense discussions held with
the ABCD powers?
*
Whatever the answers may have been to these intriguing inquiries, there was
little or no basis for believing that the Japanese would retire quietly from
their China adventure, or indeed from all of their other large ambitions, leav-
ing behind an Open Door. Nor was it plausible that the direct confrontation
between two great powers, proceeding on diametrically opposite principles and
policies, would simply fade away in the peaceful extension of a status quo satis-
factory to none. Yes, America was on the absolute brink of war with Japan, and
the American people, if they cared to think about it, surely knew it.
13
WHAT AMERICA DIDN’T KNOW
However much Americans may have known about Japan’s ambitions, aggres-
sions, and threats to their nation, and however closely they had followed the
continuing negotiations with the Japanese envoys Nomura and Kurusu, it was
what Americans did not know that would determine the country’s fate.
FIGURE 13.1 Aboard a Japanese carrier before Pearl Harbor attack.
Captured photo. Courtesy of National Archives, photo 520599, NWDNS 80-G-30549; Department of Defense.
144 “Day of Infamy”: Sunday, December 7, 1941
Crucial Japanese Decisions
What Americans didn’t know, and couldn’t have seen reported in its press, were
the decisions arrived at during the Japanese conference held on July 2, 1941, in
the Imperial Presence and attended by the Prime Minister, the Foreign Minis-
ter, the War Minister, the President of the Privy Council, and the heads of the
Army and Navy. It was there resolved that the Imperial Government would seek
the establishment of the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere and, curiously
enough, world peace, “no matter what international developments take place.” It
would seek to settle the China incident and to establish a solid basis for the secu-
rity and preservation of the nation, including an advance to the southern region.
Ominously, the Imperial Government would carry out the above program no
matter what obstacles might be encountered. 1
*
Nor did America know that at the Imperial Conference of September 6, 1941,
Japan had laid down its minimum negotiating position vis-à-vis America (and
England and the Netherlands). Failing diplomatic success in the pursuit of its
goals and “in order to secure our national existence,” Japan would proceed with
war preparations to be completed by the end of October.
And what were Japan’s demands; what was its final negotiating position? Its
terms: the United States, China, and Britain were to close the Burma Road and
terminate any aid to the Chiang Kai-shek regime, leaving Japan with the right
to station troops in various areas of China. Neither the United States nor Britain
would establish any bases in the region or increase Far Eastern forces. Trade rela-
tions would be restored looking to the supply of raw materials to Japan from the
Southwest Pacific. For its part, Japan would promise not to use Indo-China as a
base of operations and to observe its neutrality pact with the Soviet Union. Japan’s
reasoning was thus expressed: “If it did not fight soon for what it wanted, it would
not be able to fight with a fair chance of victory, for the defense of its enemies
would become too strong and its oil too short.”
Having arrived at these policy decisions, the Emperor pulled from his pocket a
piece of paper and read the following poem written by the Emperor Meiji:
Since all men are brothers in this world,
Why is there such constant turmoil? 2
*
Americans who read the papers were well aware of the resignation on October 16,
1941, of Prime Minister Konoye and his repl
acement the following day by hard-
line General Tojo. But they did not know that Japan was proceeding with further
preparations for war in deep secrecy. The Liaison Conference of October 23, 1941,
determined not only that the decision for peace or war must be made quickly but
also identified Pearl Harbor as the principal target of the proposed attack. 3
*
What America Didn’t Know 145
At the Cabinet meeting held on November 1 there were those who wished
to defer any decision until the United States had entered the European war.
But the Army and Navy wanted no such delay. The cabinet concluded that if
Japan moved quickly, it could win; if it delayed it would lose. So Tojo prevailed:
“rather than await extinction, it was better to face death by breaking through the
encircling ring to find a way of existence.” 4
Once again, on November 2, 1941, the Liaison Conference determined to put
Japan’s final proposals to the United States. If they were rejected, Japan would
go to war. 5 The Imperial Conference met again on November 5 and confirmed the decision of the Liaison Conference. It adopted a final proposal including
economic equality in China and Asia, which in practice meant Japanese access to
needed resources; the Japanese army to remain in China for “a necessary period,”
estimated to be about twenty-five years; Japanese withdrawal from Indo-China
when matters were settled in China; and a redefinition of Japanese obligations
under the Tripartite Pact. 6 A further iteration of these terms followed on November 20.
These were not terms Secretary of State Hull was likely to find congenial. The
significance of the decision taken at the Imperial Conference was enhanced when
on November 30 Admiral Yamamoto sent to the fleet Secret Order No. 1 naming
Xday. A message to Nomura informed him that this was Japan’s final offer. “In
fact, we gambled the fate of our land on this throw of the die.” 7
Japan had made its final offers. Secretary Hull responded to Nomura on
November 26. He called for adherence to American principles, a nonaggression
pact in the Far East and a Japanese withdrawal from China and Indo-China.
This was followed on November 27 by an American ten-point statement of U.S.
principles.
*
The Japanese reaction to Secretary Hull’s proposals was prompt. They were
deemed “humiliating,” to be met by a decision for war. The November 27, 1941,
decision of the Liaison Conference was confirmed by the Imperial Conference