Threshold of War

by Heinrichs, Waldo;

  Leading the charge for moving a major portion, say a half, of the Pacific Fleet to the Atlantic was Secretary Stimson. Impatient that spring with what he regarded as the dilatory and dissembling methods of the president, and increasingly apprehensive over British defeats and losses, the secretary of war believed the United States must intervene and soon. The American people in his judgment were waiting to be led. Bold, straightforward action moving a big part of the fleet against Germany would serve as a catalyst for American opinion. Sharing these views were former Rough Rider Frank Knox, who insisted the navy could clean up the Atlantic in thirty days if let loose, and General Marshall, who claimed the army air force could protect Hawaii if the fleet were withdrawn. Admiral Stark wanted a transfer but would limit it to the vessels already planned.

  Stubbornly opposed was Secretary Hull, who saw the transfer not only as an encouragement to Japanese militarists but also as a weakening of his hand in the talks with Ambassador Nomura. Aligned with Hull was the president, who argued against Stimson that the fleet at Hawaii had always served as a potential striking force which “by its mere presence there” protected the southwest Pacific and Southeast Asia. Shifting it to the Atlantic would convert it to a defensive force. Stimson responded that Japan was more likely to be deterred by demonstrated American resoluteness on the Atlantic than by the current passivity on the Pacific.33

  With Hull earnestly seeking delay, at least until the Japanese response to the diplomatic initiative of April 14–16 arrived, Roosevelt procrastinated. He asked the navy to find out British views on how much of the Pacific Fleet to shift. Should the United States, the British were asked, transfer three battleships, four light cruisers, and two destroyer squadrons as originally planned or more? If Axis pressure forced the British fleet out of the Mediterranean, where would it go? If it retired eastward to the Indian Ocean or Singapore, would it be desirable to fill the gap by American transfers from the Pacific? Knox and Stimson sounded out the British on their own, Knox suggesting, as London understood him, the transfer of all three Pacific carriers.34

  The British response was heavily conditioned. Transfer in the original number planned was a good idea, and more too, if its Mediterranean fleet retired to the Indian Ocean, but not if Suez were blocked and it came into the Atlantic. Deterrence of Japan required either two fleets of six battleships each at Singapore and Pearl Harbor or one of nine. However, Britain could not transfer ships to Singapore unless the United States assumed belligerency in the Atlantic, so for the time being the deterrent function must be performed by the Americans and the Pearl Harbor fleet could be reduced only by the amount of the planned transfer, that is from twelve to nine battleships.35

  The American admirals were more impressed with this exercise in classical naval logic than Stimson, who persevered for a larger shift, and than Churchill, who was horrified that the Royal Navy had discouraged sending more of the Pacific Fleet. So in this curious transnational dialogue these two Atlantic interventionists agreed upon a maximum transfer, the two navies on a minimum transfer, and the two foreign offices (at least their Far Eastern experts) on none at all, fearing encouragement of Japan. Churchill took the matter to the War Cabinet on May 1 and after consultation with New Zealand and Australia advised Washington on May 8 that “any marked advance by the United States Navy in or into the Atlantic” was more likely to deter Japan than maintenance of “the present very large” fleet at Hawaii, but nevertheless that the “force left behind” must include carriers and “impose the most effective possible deterrent upon Japan.” The American problem, the British government concluded with a most thoughtfully considered blend of encouragement and reserve, “is so nicely to judge the degree of transfer that while still retaining the deterrent effect of a strong … {fleet} in the Pacific, there will also be the deterrent effect of an increased … {fleet} in the Atlantic.”36

  In early May a consensus was emerging to move the planned portion of the Pacific Fleet, but Hull resisted. Stimson went after the ever cautious secretary of state. He had what he considered the most serious talk ever with Hull; he had General Marshall make the case for a shift to Norman Davis, veteran Democratic foreign policy adviser, who could mediate with Hull; he worked on Dean Acheson, assistant secretary of state, who arranged for Stimson to meet Hull again at the State Department. By May 9, Hull seemed more amenable but still anxious to postpone the transfer until he received a response from the Japanese to the proposal he had wafted toward them on April 14.37

  A Japanese response was slow in coming because Hull’s opposite number in Tokyo, Foreign Minister Matsuoka, opposed the draft agreement and was making every effort to sink it. Returning to Tokyo on April 22 from his giddy tour of European capitals, he was unpleasantly surprised to learn that official discussions he had not authorized had already begun. He eluded a liaison conference on the subject by going to the palace to pay his respects to the emperor and then sulked at home pleading illness. Matsuoka’s original idea had been to work from a position of strength in the Axis alliance, accommodating the Soviets, toward a settlement with the United States that recognized Japan’s leadership in East Asia. Ambassador Steinhardt and Roy Howard, head of Associated Press, had given him reason to believe he would be welcomed in Washington. Thus he would cap a stage of forceful maneuver with a tour de force of peace-making. At least this is what he seems to have dreamed. Reality now fell short. For Matsuoka the project forwarded by Nomura was ill-timed and only weakened the Axis. Success in dealing with America, he was convinced, depended on firmness. An adjustment of relations with the United States would be quite useless, he said, in fast-changing circumstances which might require an attack on Singapore or on Siberia—unnerving scenarios which led cabinet ministers to question his sanity.38

  Though some like Matsuoka were suspicious, most Japanese officials believed Nomura had transmitted a proposal approved by the American government and were surprised at how favorable the terms were. The Japanese army and navy each viewed the matter in its own way. The army’s great aims were to end the debilitating China war and to secure resources in Southeast Asia required for sustaining and protecting an autonomous empire in East Asia. It should be possible to seize British and Dutch possessions without involving the United States as long as the Americans were preoccupied on the Atlantic. To the Japanese army the draft agreement seemed to promise an acceptable resolution of the China imbroglio without destroying the Axis alliance. The navy, convinced now of Anglo-American solidarity, was more skeptical, suspecting, as one historian puts it, “that the crafty Yankees sought to delay a clash with Japan until the naval balance favored them.”39

  Since both services needed time to prepare for the southern advance, however, and gather in American oil and other strategic goods, they agreed on the need to take up the opportunity for discussions. On May 3, Matsuoka, aware of his isolation and the need for some response, agreed to offer the Americans a neutrality pact, which on May 7 Hull brushed aside. Matsuoka also instructed Nomura to present a statement warning that American intervention in the European war would only prolong world suffering, since Germany and Japan were winning. This an embarrassed Nomura quickly displayed and withdrew.40 At the same time Matsuoka raised a more serious impediment to the discussions by informing the German and Italian ambassadors of the supposed American initiative.

  The pressure on Hull for movement in the discussions he passed on to Nomura, who conveyed it to Tokyo. American public interest in escort of convoy was rising; the press speculated that the president would announce a move in that direction in a speech scheduled for Wednesday, May 14. On May 7, Hull told Nomura that all his colleagues were urging him to hasten discussions because the United States must act immediately to stop Hitler. Nomura had never seen Hull so fervent. The ambassador warned his government that in case of war with Germany and Japan, the Americans planned to bide their time in the Pacific until their “vast” navy and air force was complete and then launch a “death struggle.” Those close to the preside
nt regarded an improvement in relations with Japan as desirable but not vital. Nomura urged Tokyo therefore not to miss this favorable opportunity.

  Still no cable came back from Tokyo. Postmaster General Walker told Nomura that he had asked Hull if diplomacy could have a little more time, despite what Walker described as the decision of an “urgently called secret cabinet meeting” on May 8. When Nomura asked Hull if the president’s speech would include any reference to the draft understanding, Hull “glowered” at him “fixedly.” Nomura warned Tokyo of an “ever-stiffening” trend reflected in bellicose speeches against Germany by Stimson, Knox, and Willkie. He must have instructions at the very latest by May 9. The next day Hull extended the deadline one day. Walker passed word on May 10 that the president might change his Wednesday speech if discussions started first. Meanwhile Tokyo finally responded, and Nomura saw Hull at his apartment in the evening of Sunday, May 11.41

  Hull’s difficulty in eliciting a Japanese response was compounded by a ragged Japanese diplomatic performance. He could not always understand what Nomura was saying and, in spite of speaking “very clearly and slowly,” he could never be sure that Nomura fully understood him. Furthermore, as was apparent from intercepts, the ambassador was neither reporting fully Hull’s own statements nor conveying all of Matsuoka’s. Translation from Japanese added to the difficulty: those done by the embassy in Washington differed from those done by the foreign ministry in Tokyo, necessitating substitutions. Tokyo followed its redraft of the understanding with a stream of revisions.42 Nevertheless, by Monday, May 12, Hull and his advisers had a clear picture of the Japanese position, and it was very stiff.

  The May 12 document was more rigorous in regard to American participation in the European war. In the original draft understanding Japan’s Axis obligation would come into force only if the United States “aggressively attacked” Germany; the May 12 draft permitted no such distinction. The earlier draft obliged the United States to refrain from alliance with Britain, the later one precluded even “aggressive measures” of assistance (such as Lend-Lease). The April draft set harsh terms for ending the war in China: coalescence of the Nationalist government and the Nanking puppet regime, recognition of Manchukuo, joint defense against communism (meaning the stationing of Japanese troops in China), and withholding of American assistance to China if Chiang rejected negotiation. The May draft was even more sweeping: it pledged the United States to seek peace in China according to Japan’s own publicly stated terms. The Japanese draft discarded a stipulation in the April draft that the two nations would avoid menacing deployments of their naval and air forces and weakened a Japanese pledge of peaceful intent in the southwest Pacific area. As Matsuoka explained to Nomura, and as the Americans learned through MAGIC May 13, much as Japan wished for peaceful settlements, Prince Konoe and he found it necessary at times to resort to force.43 These were not encouraging signs.

  By Tuesday, May 13, President Roosevelt was in a position to decide whether to move the fleet and how much of it to move. The Japanese by responding to the April diplomatic initiative had indicated an interest in discussions which could be encouraged so as to postpone a military move southward; yet Japan’s terms were so severe that no agreement was in sight. In these circumstances removal of a portion of the fleet from Pearl Harbor was less likely to precipitate a Japanese advance or influence bargaining. The East Asian constraints on a transfer thus slackened. At the same time, deterrence of Japan would be weakened if the United States moved too many battleships while the British were unable to form their own fleet at Singapore. Moving three battleships seemed fairly safe; six would be too risky. On the other hand some transfer seemed imperative, given German menace generally and current pressure on Vichy and particularly indications Vichy was bowing. On May 13, Roosevelt ordered the transfer of three battleships, four light cruisers, and thirteen more destroyers.44

  The transferred battleships Idaho, New Mexico, and Mississippi departed secretly, simply disappearing over the horizon during maneuvers, and they passed through the Panama Canal at night. Japanese agents in Panama noted the transit of some of the ships, and Tokyo was bound to learn of the absence of the rest in time. Nevertheless the secrecy of the withdrawal suggests how concerned the Americans were to maintain deterrence. Hull vetoed any mention of the transfer in the forthcoming presidential speech.45

  For the next month and more, Stimson agitated for moving another quarter of the fleet but without success. The British were of two minds about further transfers. In Churchill’s view any and all movement by the Americans into the Atlantic was welcome, but the Royal Navy was dubious. American battleships operating under the constraints of neutrality in the Atlantic were no substitute for American battleships deterring Japan in the Pacific. Damage to three British battleships in the attack on Crete at the end of May made it impossible to contemplate an Eastern fleet before August. The Admiralty even encouraged the assignment of the two new battleships Washington and North Carolina, just then commissioning at New York and Philadelphia, to the Pacific. An American navy raised on the Mahanite doctrine of fleet concentration would not lightly consider further reduction of the main fleet at Pearl Harbor. As it was, the only sixteen-inch-gun battleships in that fleet—the Colorado, Maryland, and West Virginia—were to be withdrawn one at a time for reconditioning, leaving only eight battleships at Pearl Harbor. At the White House on June 9 a worried Admiral Husband Kimmel, commander of the Pacific Fleet, gained the clear impression that Roosevelt would transfer no more ships. The location of the pair of new battleships would be decided when they were ready.46

  More active employment of the fleet had been considered. In April, Roosevelt suggested a display of force in the North Pacific to impress on the Japanese the vulnerability of their home islands to air attack, and Admiral Stark developed a plan for dispatching a carrier, four heavy cruisers, and a destroyer squadron to the Aleutians for maneuvers, possibly with a goodwill visit by the cruisers to Petropavlovsk as an added warning. But Japanese policy appeared unsettled, so it was unclear whether a show of strength would accelerate a recession or reinforce an expansion.47 Admiral Kimmel felt he had all he could do just to train new recruits, most easily done in the Hawaiian area. Stark urged Kimmel to plan raids on the mandated islands in case of war, but recognized the fleet must adhere to the strategic defensive. No reinforcement was planned for the Philippine garrison nor augmentation of the Asiatic Fleet. The United States was prepared to cooperate in developing defense plans for the southwest Pacific but not to provide the British or Dutch with guarantees. Lacking such a commitment, the British could make no promises to the Dutch. “We are dead set against any commitments in the area,” Colonel Joseph T. McNarney of the Army Air Corps wrote on April 7.48

  The United States had very little to show in the place of burly warships as evidence of strength and determination in the Pacific. When the three battleships departed, twenty-one B-17 bombers arrived as partial replacement.49 On April 14 the president licensed export of all kinds of machinery and vegetable fibers, leaving only oil unrestricted, but an oil embargo against Japan was still considered too risky. The next day he authorized military pilots to resign from their services to fly for China in a combat group that became known as the Flying Tigers. He extended Lend-Lease to China on May 6, hoping to dispel the gloom in Chungking cast by the Soviet-Japanese Pact. He was considering the appointment of Owen Lattimore as his personal representative to Chiang. It was hoped this China expert could strengthen the united front with the communists and heighten resistance to Japan.50 Measures taken to check Japan were incremental and suggestive rather than definitive.

  In these straitened circumstances a continuation of the Hull-Nomura talks was better than an impasse or break. They offered no real hope of success (Hull estimated one chance in ten) but little disadvantage. The talks might delay a Japanese advance and provide time for a weakening of Matsuoka and a reconstellation of Japanese internal forces. Meanwhile by way of MAGIC they provided insight
into Japanese intentions. Above all, they offered a way to drive a wedge between Japan and its Axis partners. In pursuing this last objective Hull enjoyed some success. American pressure forced Nomura to deliver Japan’s response on May 11 before Germany had an opportunity, promised by Matsuoka, to comment on the project. On this point Ribbentrop expressed intense displeasure. The United States needed a “brutally frank demonstration,” Berlin warned, that if it intervened in the war Japan would join in. If Japan could not avoid negotiations, at least an American pledge not to enter the European war and a clear Japanese reaffirmation of Axis alliance obligations must be the core of any agreement. No small measure of such German dissatisfaction came to American attention through intercepts.51 Matsuoka, while stiffening the provisions, was not prepared to show the Germans either the April draft or his response, so Berlin was left in a stew.

  The opposite side of the coin was considerable embarrassment to Anglo-American relations when the British got wind of the Hull-Nomura talks. They probably learned of them from MAGIC, which is how Stimson himself found out. Army intelligence was passing on these decrypted and translated messages to the British by an arrangement made the previous winter and approved by the president. A “rumpus” ensued when State discovered the arrangement. In any case, word of a private initiative to adjust Japanese-American relations appeared in the American press. The Canadian government, acting on a report from its legation in Tokyo, inquired about the talks on April 30.52 So the State Department should not have been surprised when British Ambassador Lord Halifax raised the matter with Welles on May 23 and complained to Hull the next day.