December 1941

by Craig Shirley

  Nomura and Kurusu glumly watched the blaze from inside the legation. All reports said they were truly shocked over the attack on Pearl Harbor. “If several sources of information can be believed, they knew nothing of what their army and navy were preparing while they were conducting diplomatic negotiations.”143

  Embassy Row was a hubbub of activity with all the tourists, cars, reporters, police, Secret Service, and a few actual residents of the palatial buildings that lined the northwest end of Massachusetts Avenue. Lord Halifax was working in his library at the British embassy when he learned of the attack. He immediately called Churchill by radio-telephone, and this was how the British learned of the attack on them by the Japanese.144 The British prime minister had already given a stirring speech to the Parliament. Prior, he and FDR spoke by transatlantic phone. “They discussed a synchronized declaration of war on Japan.”145

  The FBI straightaway arrested a Japanese national, the first of many, Kiyoshi K. Kawakami, at his home on 3729 Morrison Street NW. “Officials later declined to reveal what had become of him.” The provost marshal general of the West Coast, Alaska, the Canal Zone, and Hawaii, Allen Gullion, ordered “a general roundup of all ‘previously known suspicious aliens.’”146 But this was only the start.

  In Baltimore, a group of boys hung “an effigy of a Japanese bearing the sign, ‘This Jap Tried to Invade the U.S.”147 Sometime during Sunday, a Clipper plane coming in from San Francisco with twenty-eight passengers and eleven crew members landed safely “at an unnamed airport in the Hawaiian Islands.” Still unknown was the status of a Japanese ocean liner in the middle of the Pacific with many Americans on board.148

  No one expected war like this. On December 7, Gen. H. H. “Hap” Arnold, chief of the Air Corps, was quail hunting in California, accompanied by Donald Douglas, president of Douglas Aircraft. The pair was so remote that a local sheriff had planes drop notes on the two men, alerting them to the new war.149

  If Arnold was caught unawares, so was the beautiful city of Honolulu. “Honolulu isn’t built for war,” wrote Elizabeth Henney in the Washington Post. “White, gleaming, tropical buildings in the heart of the city (perfect targets) give an impression that joy and beauty are important, even more so than business.” Sure, the harbor was right there, but the locals also celebrated “Boat Day,” and when employers were informed that someone was coming in via a liner or a Clipper plane, Henney said, “One is given time off to meet them and welcome them with fresh flowers leis. Friendship is that important. There are no ragged beggars on the streets of Honolulu, but there are flower venders, selling leis, gardenia ones with two dozen or more blossoms for a quarter. And now, when the great black drops hurtle from the sky, ripping the gay red and blue tiles from the buildings, stilling songs and laughter, blasting soft bodies to shreds, what is the answer to Honolulu’s question: ‘Why this to us?’ We have welcomed the Japanese race with the others that came. Our creed has been that of friendship.”150

  The Japanese attacked the Philippines. They attacked Wake Island. They attacked Thailand. They attacked Hong Kong. They attacked Malaya and British troops in Singapore. They attacked U.S. Marines stationed in China. They attacked Guam. They attacked Midway Island. They attacked Shanghai. They attacked Pearl Harbor.

  “The purpose of the Japanese in striking at Pearl Harbor is obvious. The vast area of the naval base, 1,735 acres, with 250 buildings and 15,000 linear feet of berthing space, is a natural target, as it is the most complete naval base owned by this country, the center of Pacific Fleet operations, and possesses many vulnerable features which are well and easily recognized.”151 It was all so obvious as the day closed. But no one saw it coming the day before.

  A White House memo had been quickly prepared for FDR telling him what he already knew about the attack, but this memo had some with inaccuracies. “At least two aircraft were known to have a swastika sign on them.”152 On balance, though, the memorandum was pretty accurate. Another fascinating memo was a transcription of a conversation at 6:40 p.m. between the president and Henry Morganthau. Morganthau routinely had all his phone conversations transcribed, and though FDR had prohibited him from doing so with their phone calls, he did record on this day, memorialized for history. The secretary of the treasury informed Roosevelt that he’d frozen all Japanese funds, had secured the border, and had doubled the guard at the White House while closing off adjoining streets. “We are not going to let any Japanese leave the country or to carry out any communications,” Morganthau said and FDR only said, “I see” to that.153 FDR got a bit heated about making the White House look like an armed camp.

  As Admiral Kimmel watched from a window in his office which overlooked the harbor, the horrific butchery of the men and ships of the navy, a round of ammunition came crashing through the window and exhausted itself after tearing a hole in his white dress uniform.

  Kimmel muttered, “It would have been merciful had it killed me.”154

  CHAPTER 8

  THE EIGHTH OF DECEMBER

  “U.S. Declares War on Japan”

  Birmingham News

  “Japan Wars on U.S. and Britain;

  Makes Sudden Attack on Hawaii;

  Heavy Fighting at Sea Reported”

  New York Times

  “Japanese Aliens’ Roundup Starts”

  Los Angeles Times

  On the morning of December 7, isolationist America was at peace, desperately trying to stay out of the conflict. By the morning of December 8, internationalist America was at war and became forever an altered country.

  From coast to coast and beyond, army and navy forces went on a “wartime footing.”1 That was just the beginning. “Censorship was established on all messages leaving the United States by cable and radio.”2 Christmas leaves were canceled for the military. Borders closed. Roadblocks erected. Armed guards posted everywhere. Blackouts ordered. Japanese nationals rounded up. All radio communication from and to Hawaii was suspended indefinitely. The Coast Guard stepped up guarding, well, the coast. And governors were “asked” to call up the Home Guard.

  America was about to formally enter its Second World War, and yet as of the 8th, no one was actually referring to the new conflagration as such. “Tonight the war becomes a World War in grim earnest,” opined the Los Angeles Times.3 The Sun of Baltimore got closer, writing, “Japan’s declaration . . . puts the United States into this second and most terrible war of the nations.”4

  In the moments after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, some Americans, mindful of the Orson Welles nationally broadcasted ruse of 1938, when he turned H. G. Wells’s book War of the Worlds into a seemingly real-life invasion by Martians, thought this was another hoax. “That was the reaction of civilians and military men alike as the news of Japan’s attack . . . became public. It was a study in human refusal to believe harsh truth.”5

  On the front page of the Los Angeles Times on the morning of December 8 was a box notice from Brigadier Gen. William O. Ryan, commander of the Fourth Interceptor Command. “Air Guards Attention! To chief observers: All observation posts: A.W.S. (Aircraft Warning System). You are directed to activate your observation posts immediately and to see that the post is fully manned at all times.”6 The West Coast of the United States was over 2,500 miles from Hawaii and thousands more from Japan, but with so little hard information coming out of the Pacific, the military wasn’t leaving anything to chance. On the morning of December 7, the American military was asleep, rhetorically and behaviorally. Twenty-four hours later, everybody was at or headed for their battle stations.

  Initial news reports of the massive and unprovoked attacks by the Japanese throughout the Pacific were all over the place, and many news stories, short on accuracy or facts, were full of speculation, half-truths, and outright guesses. Others only scratched the surface. An observer said publicly it was nuts to have lined up airplanes wingtip to wingtip. But then criticism of the U.S. Army stopped.7

  One thing was for sure, though: the Japanese had been planning
and practicing precision bombing for months, the evidence being the carnage they’d inflicted all over the Pacific and especially Pearl Harbor. They knew their targets cold. In those few Japanese planes shot down in Hawaii was detailed information on the location of the various ships, armaments, crew complements, and other important specifics.8 “The Japanese radio reported that Nipponese warships had surrounded Guam and said all big buildings on the island were ablaze.”9 It also claimed the Pan Am Airways base on the island had been destroyed, its gasoline stores aflame.10

  “Japanese bombers, following up earlier successes in the two-day Battle of the Pacific, raided Manila in the darkness of night, dispatches from the Philippine Capital disclosed this afternoon. The heavy attack opened shortly after midnight Tuesday, Manila time (11:00 a.m., Washington time). Dispatches telling of the raid followed acknowledgment earlier in the day at the White House that the Japanese raid on Pearl Harbor yesterday had resulted in the sinking of ‘one old battleship’ and serious damage to other war craft. There were casualties of 3,000 on the Island of Oahu, the White House said, and nearly half are dead.”11

  This story in the December 8 afternoon edition of the Evening Star in Washington did not even touch on the real story of the bloodbath wreaked by the empire of Japan; at Pearl Harbor, Hickam Field, Ford Island, various other locations on the island of Oahu, and a half-dozen additional strategic locations in the Pacific. Hickam had cost $22 million to build.12 Although the report did near accuracy in saying, “Blood was spilled heavily in a war which Tokyo did not declare until three hours after Japanese raiders struck soon after dawn yesterday.”13 General Tojo went on the radio and blamed the Americans for provoking the Japanese into attacking the Americans. Audaciously, he said, “Japan has done her utmost to prevent this war.”14

  Fully twenty-four hours after the attack, White House press aide Stephen Early understatedly told reporters, “The damage caused to our forces in Oahu in yesterday’s attack appears more serious than at first believed.”15 Early was the first White House official called by FDR,16 after the president had been told by Secretary of the Navy Frank Knox of the attack at 1:40 p.m.17 Eleanor Roosevelt had been hosting a private luncheon, and FDR was in his Oval Study having lunch with friend and confident, Harry Hopkins,18 who was living for a time in the private residence of the White House along with his motherless daughter.19 Hopkins doubted the initial report. FDR did not.20 The appalling message via radio to Knox from Rear Adm. Patrick Bellinger was “Air Raid Pearl Harbor. This is no drill.”21

  Along about the same time, Ed Chlapowski, only in the navy a year, stationed at Pearl, also sent a message. “This is no drill. Pearl Harbor is being attacked by the Japanese. This is no drill.”22

  Congress had passed a law in 1798 that was later amended and called the Espionage Act of 1918. “All information relative to strength, location, designation, composition and movement of United States troops or Army transports outside the continental limits of the United States are designated by the War Department as secret and will be so considered under the law.”23 The U.S. government announced that violations of the Espionage Act carried the death penalty.24

  The War Department issued an order to all three military branches to institute strict censorship in the Canal Zone and Hawaii, as well as the Southern Pacific coastal region covering Southern California.25 Additionally, all outgoing mail and other communication by men in uniform would be heavily checked so as to not reveal any sensitive information to people outside the military. The American media were asked “to cooperate in observing the restrictions against publication of secret information.”26

  Roads were cleared in California by the State Police to allow antiaircraft guns to get to their destinations. On the West Coast, “special patrols [were] set up in Japanese sections.” The military police were ordered to “arrest all persons ‘previously designated’ as suspicious characters.”27 The president’s personal bodyguard, Tom Qualters, tracked down and found the Japanese correspondents for Domei and took away their White House Correspondents Association press passes.28

  Another order was issued from the government ordering all companies engaged in manufacturing munitions to go on a twenty-four hour production schedule.29 Round-the-clock armed military guards were posted all over government and war manufacturing facilities. In Washington, police leaves and vacations were canceled.30

  America was at war with Japan, although a formal declaration had not yet been offered to Congress by the president of the United States, who was scheduled to address the members at precisely 12:30 eastern standard time at their invitation.31 The president had not formally told Congress he would ask for such, but few doubted he would and some speculated that a declaration should also be made against Italy and the Third Reich.

  Roosevelt awoke at first light, “examined latest war dispatches, conferred with military and naval leaders, completed his draft of the message to Congress . . . conferred with Mayor La Guardia on civilian defense on the Pacific Coast.”32 FDR, as a political payoff had appointed Fiorello La Guardia as head of Washington’s Office of Civilian Defense.33

  Winston Churchill beat FDR to the punch; the British government declared war on Japan several hours before America did, as they, too, had been underhandedly attacked. Churchill and Roosevelt had spoken by transatlantic phone Sunday night. The next morning the prime minister went before Parliament, war was declared, and by 7:00 a.m. Washington time, “a note was handed to the Japanese Charge d’ Affaires . . . [in London] ‘stating that in view of Japan’s wanton acts of unprovoked aggression the British government informed . . . that a state of war existed between the two countries.’”34 The prime minister had pledged to declare war on Japan “within the hour” if the empire attacked the United States, and he was off by only a few.35

  Costa Rica and the Netherlands Indies also declared war on Japan before the United States. In Costa Rica, the government began arresting Japanese workers laboring in cotton and rice fields and “seized on suspicion of espionage” a Japanese fishing boat.36 China also declared war on Japan but threw in Italy and Germany for good measure.37 Australia also declared war on Japan before the United States did.38 Nicaragua’s president general Anastasio Somoza announced his country would also declare hostilities on Japan.39 Canada threw in with America’s lot.40 Local Number 1,442 of the United Brotherhood of Carpenters, located in Chattanooga, Tennessee, issued a statement that they, too, were declaring war on Japan.41 The secretary of the union, Roy E. Hayes, said, “With the power vested in my office . . . a state of war does exist between this union, 1,442, and the present Japanese government.”42

  Because of the news blackout clamped on Hawaii, the extent of the devastation was still not generally known, nor did anyone know where the Japanese might strike next; this only added to the surreal sense and abject fear. Nothing was getting out of the Pacific by the afternoon of December 7. Some in America were openly speculating that the Japanese might capture one or more of the Hawaiian Islands, including Hilo, which according to sources had no defenses whatsoever.

  Twenty-four hours earlier, no one thought it possible that a massive Japanese convoy featuring six of their first line aircraft carriers could cross an ocean—stopping to be refueled along the way—traveling thousands of miles, undetected, to Hawaii. Now everybody was contemplating the prospect that Japan could and would strike the West Coast of the United States. The distance from Tokyo to Honolulu was 3,860 miles, but from Hawaii to San Francisco, it was only 2,397 miles.

  Unsubstantiated stories and rumors were rampant, including that the Japanese had attempted to also invade British Borneo,43 that the battleship West Virginia had been sunk, that the Oklahoma was ablaze and subsequently sunk, that a civilian ship, the President Harrison, had been seized by the Japanese while in Chinese waters, that a U.S. transport, the General Hugh Scott, had been sunk, and that another transport carrying lumber was sunk just a little over a thousand miles off of San Francisco.44 A different report said the Japanese we
re parachuting into Hawaii and that saboteurs were running amuck there.45

  Roosevelt received yet another memo from the ubiquitous John Franklin Carter clearly generated several days before the attack going into great detail about the racial composition on Hawaii, the number of Japanese, and where their loyalties lay. “There will be, undoubtedly, planted Japanese and agents who are there for the purpose of sabotage. The danger of espionage is considerable. This is especially the case as many Navy wives are over-garrulous with regard to their husbands’ departures and where they are going.” A reference was made speculating about “the Japanese fleet appear[ing] off the Hawaiian Islands.”46

  The Washington Post reported that the attacking planes had been “land-and-sea-based” and that the planes had taken off from the Marshall and Caroline Islands, which had been turned over to the Japanese by the Germans at the conclusion of the last war.47 The Associated Press also reported that four engine bombers had been used in the attack, but this was no idle mistake.48 If the Japanese already had long-range bombing capabilities, they could—at least theoretically—reach the West Coast of the United States. The Post, going for the same three cents as every other paper in the country cost, had a banner at the top of the fold that said, “Keep It Flying! The Post’s suggestion: Let the Stars and Stripes fly from every building in Washington today, the symbol of America united!”49

  Additional stories reported that the U.S. military had downed “many Jap planes” in the battle over Hawaii.50 Others said the Japanese had parachuted into Manila and they’d used mustard gas in their invasion of Malaya.51 Hundreds of rumors went out over the airwaves, including one that said Germany had participated in the attack on Hawaii.52 Another said on NBC radio out of Manila that “Germany soon will follow Japan in a declaration of war on the United States.”53