Threshold of War

by Heinrichs, Waldo;

  5. C. Vann Woodward, “The Comparability of American History,” Woodward, ed., The Comparative Approach to American History (New York, 1968), 4–5.

  6. James C. Fahey, The Ships and Aircraft of the United States Fleet: Victory Edition (New York, 1945). Actual building did not begin until later, in some cases several years later, as dockyard space became available. Not all were completed; seven battleships were scrapped, for example.

  7. Lauchlin Currie memo for president (cited as FDR), 16 July 1940, President’s Secretary’s File (cited as PSF): Currie, Franklin D. Roosevelt Library (cited as FDRL), Hyde Park, NY.

  Chapter 1. March 1941: The Aura of German Power

  1. Minister in Bulgaria to Secretary of State (cited as SecState), 6 March 1941, 740.0011 European War 1939 (cited as 740.0011 EW)/8861, central files of the Department of State, Record Group (cited as RG) 59, National Archives (cited as NA), Washington; New York Times, 2 March 1941.

  2. On German plans for 1941: Larry H. Addington, The Blitzkrieg Era and the German General Staff, 1865–1941 (New Brunswick, 1971), 178–90; Barry Leach, German Strategy Against Russia, 1939–1941 (Oxford, 1973), chaps. 3–5; Martin Van Creveld, Hitler’s Strategy: The Balkan Clue, 1940–1941 (London, 1973).

  3. Adolf A. Berle, Jr., diary, 9, 14, 24 Feb. 1941, Adolf A. Berle, Jr., papers, FDRL; Henry L. Stimson diary (microfilm), 8, 11, 17–21 March 1941, Henry L. Stimson papers, Yale University Library, New Haven; Washington Post, 17, 18 March 1941.

  4. This is a necessarily impressionistic account of internal problems in early 1941, though Stimson’s diary and the President’s Secretary’s File at Hyde Park are informative, and Dallek, Roosevelt Foreign Policy, is helpful, especially p. 267. The definitive work on isolationism is Wayne S. Cole, Roosevelt and the Isolationists, 1932–45 (Lincoln, NE, 1983). The literature on prewar mobilization is scanty. I am indebted to comments by Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., on this score, but I do not mean here to represent his views. On the economy I used Time and Fortune magazines.

  5. Waldo Heinrichs, “President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s Intervention in the Battle of the Atlantic, 1941,” Diplomatic History (Fall 1986), 10:316; Frank Freidel, Franklin D. Roosevelt: Launching the New Deal (Boston, 1973), 269. Information here and subsequently on whom the president saw is from: president’s appointment diaries, 1939–1944, President’s Personal File (cited as PPF) 1–0(1), FDRL; White House usher’s diary, 1941, White House: Office of the Chief of Social Entertainments, box 320, ibid.

  6. Stimson diary, 7 Nov., 17 Dec. 1940, 21 Jan, 17 Sept. 1941.

  7. David Reynolds, The Creation of the Anglo-American Alliance 1937–41: A Study in Competitive Cooperation (Chapel Hill, 1981), 182.

  8. Roberta Wohlstetter, Pearl Harbor: Warning and Decision (Stanford, 1962), 180.

  9. Richard Dunlop, Donovan, America’s Master Spy (Chicago, 1982), 283–84. A sampling of boxes in RG 226, records of the Office of Strategic Services, NA, suggests that the office of the Coordinator of Information (predecessor to OSS) began receiving reports from other agencies in Oct. 1941. Berle diary, 7 March 1941; Stimson diary, 17 April 1941 (Miles).

  10. An example of Roosevelt’s interest in figures is: FDR memo for Hull and Welles, 8 April 1941 enclosing Anthony Drexel Biddle, Jr., to FDR, 26 March 1941, PSF:State Dept., FDRL. Henri L. Claudel to FDR, 10 Feb. 1941, enclosing excerpt of letter from Paul Claudel, 12 Jan. 1941, author’s translation, President’s Personal File (cited as PPF):5847, FDRL; transcript of oral history of Vice Admiral Walter S. Anderson (Oral History Research Office, Columbia University, 1966), 230. Between March and November 1941 for the army and May and November for the navy, Roosevelt was denied MAGIC documents because of lax security at the White House, but briefings from the intercepts continued: Ruth R. Harris, “The ‘Magic’ Leak of 1941 and Japanese-American Relations,” Pacific Historical Review (Feb. 1981), 50:77,93; “Dissemination to the White House,” A.D. Kramer memo, 12 Nov. 1941, U.S. Congress, Hearings of Joint Committee on the Investigation of the Pearl Harbor Attack, 79th Cong., 1st sess. (39 parts; Washington, 1946) (cited as PHA), 11:547576.

  11. Respondek was the anonymous German friend of Woods referred to by Hull in his memoirs: Cordell Hull, The Memoirs of Cordell Hull (2 vols.; New York, 1948), 2:967–68. His reports, Hull asserted, provided “excellent reason to believe Hitler would attack Russia” and served as a basis for an American warning to the Soviet Union of such an attack (see Chapter 2 below). William L. Langer and S. Everett Gleason considered the report which Hull claimed to have received in January “of truly staggering import” for it “transmitted what was obviously a copy of Hitler’s directive for the attack on Soviet Russia.…”: The Undeclared War, 1940–1941 (New York, 1953), 336–37.

  New evidence has come to light which requires modification of these conclusions. A memorandum by Woods, written after World War II, detailing his relationship with the German source but not naming him, has been found in the Hull papers: “Memorandum for Honorable Cordell Hull,” “Undated” folder, box 56, microfilm reel 27, frame 569ff, papers of Cordell Hull, Manuscripts Division, Library of Congress (cited as LC), Washington. From the language and details of his memoirs it is clear Hull used the Woods memo as the basis for his own account. Woods, who by this time had only his recollections of the reports to base his account on, accurately described the BARBAROSSA plan but not the 3 Jan. 1941 report. The latter was buried in Military Intelligence Division files: military attaché Berlin, report of 17 Jan. 1941, No. 17875, 2016–1326/7, Military Intelligence Division files (cited as MID 2016-1326/7), entry 65, records of War Department General and Special Staffs, 1920–1941, RG 165, NA. The Fuehrer directive for BARBAROSSA, however, was available to Woods in 1946: Fuehrer Directive No. 21, 18 Dec. 1941, Doc. 446-PS, U.S. Department of State, Office of Chief of Counsel for Prosecution of Axis Criminality, Nazi Conspiracy and Aggression (8 vols.; Washington, 1946), 3:407–9. Langer and Gleason, not having seen the 3 Jan. report, probably concluded from Hull’s (Woods’) account that Woods’ source had secured and transmitted the BARBAROSSA directive itself, but he had not.

  The first to identify Woods’ source as Respondek was Professor William E. Griffith of Massachusetts Institute of Technology: Barton Whaley, Codeword BARBAROSSA (Cambridge, MA, 1973), 38, 277, fn 48. Griffith guesses, though he cannot be certain, that Respondek was the one: Griffith to author, 4 Nov. 1985. He says, however, that in 1945 or 1946 he did meet Respondek, who said he had given Woods a German occupation bank note printed in advance. Woods’ memo notes that “Ralph” (the cover name of his source) gave him a 1000-ruble note. Furthermore, Respondek’s curriculum vitae in a directory of Reichstag members, fits with the description of the source in Woods’ memo and in the American military attaché’s introduction to the 3 Jan. report: Verzeichnis die Mitglieder des Reichstags (Berlin, 1932), 180. Barton Whaley pointed to Respondek as an informant of Woods but described Hans Herwarth von Bittenfeld, a career diplomat then serving in the army, as a more important one: Codeword BARBAROSSA, 38. Herwarth strongly denied this in a letter to the author, 8 Nov. 1985, a denial also made in his memoirs: Hans von Herwarth with S. Frederick Starr, Against Two Evils (New York, 1981), 177–73. He had met Woods but his “reports” were only conversations. Professor Harold C. Deutsch of the U.S. Army War College has stated that he was told by Charles A. Bohlen, a friend of Herwarth, that Woods’ informant was Erwin Respondek: copy of Deutsch letter, “To Whom It May Concern”, 6 Dec. 1982, enclosed in Herwarth to author, 8 Nov. 1985.

  The 3 Jan. report, as stated, and several other reports of May 1941 from the same source have been located in Military Intelligence Division files: MID 2016–1326/7, 20, 23, RG 165. The bulk of the reports, however, together with material relating to their verification, have been found in the papers of Breckinridge Long: “Bonsal, Steven—Translations—Complete Set” folder, box 258, Long papers, LC. See also Breckinridge Long diary, 21 Feb., 11 March, 4 April 1941, ibid, and Fred L. Israel, ed. The War Diary of Breckinridge Long; Selections fro
m the Years 1939–1944 (Lincoln, NE, 1966), 182–84, 188–89. Several of the State Department reports refer to the 3 Jan. report in the MID files.

  On German general staff planning in the period July-Dec. 1940: Leach, German Strategy, 70–123.

  12. Berle diary, 9, 24 Feb., 5 March 1941.

  13. Steinhardt to SecState, 26 Feb., 24 March, 1941, U.S. Department of State, Foreign Relations of the United States, 1941 (cited as FR) (7 vols.; Washington, 1956–63), 1:702–3, 133–34. See also 740.0011 EW/8769, 9288, 9589, RG 59.

  14. Gunther to SecState, 25 Feb. 1941, FR 1941, 1:290 and 18 March 1941, 740.0011 EW/9137, RG 59; FR 1941, 1:129–31, 274–76, 280–81, 285–87, 291–92; military attaché Bucharest, report of 17 Feb. 1941, MID 183–316, RG 165.

  15. Van Creveld, Hitler’s Strategy, 135, 138; Winston Chruchill, The Grand Alliance (Boston, 1950), 356–57; F. H. Hinsley, British Intelligence in the Second World War: Its Influence on Strategy and Operations (3 vols.; New York, 1979–84), 1:370–71, 451–52; Earle (Sofia) to SecState, 27 March 1941, 740.0011 EW/9368, RG 59.

  16. Military attaché Bern, Switzerland, reports of 20 Feb,–3 April 1941, MID 2074–151/34–38, RG 165; Leahy to SecState, 14, 22 March 1941, 740.0011 EW/9047, 9262, RG 59. See also naval attaché Berlin, reports of 26 March, 5 April, 1941, #194, #211, Probability of War reports, vol. 1, PSF:subject files, FDRL.

  17. MID 2074–151/38, 2657–230/16–22, 2016–1297, 2016–1326, RG 165; 740.0011 EW/8604; Office of Naval Information, Fuehrer Conferences on Matters Dealing with the German Navy, 1941 (2 vols.; Washington, 1947), l:entry for 2 Feb. 1941.

  18. Military attaché Berlin, reports of 24 Feb., 21 March 1941, MID 2657–230/18, 2016–1077/171, RG 165; Military Intelligence Daily Summary, 21 March 1941, MID 2657–234, ibid.

  19. U.S. Department of State, Foreign Service List, January 1941 (Washington, 1941).

  20. Henderson to Laurence Steinhardt, 31 March 1941, box 33, papers of Laurence A. Steinhardt, LC; memo by Wallace Murray, 8 March 1941, 740.0011 EW/8769, RG 59.

  21. Foreign Office Record Group (cited as FO) 371/26518, C2222/19/18, C2317/19/18, C2919/19/18, Public Record Office (cited as PRO), Kew, London.

  22. SRDJ 8811, 9405, 9544, 9749, 9842, 9987, 10179, 10455, 10766, copies of Japanese diplomatic messages intercepted, decrypted, and translated, RG 457, NA.

  23. On German deception operations for BARBAROSSA and rumors: Whaley, Codeword BARBAROSSA, chap. 7.

  24. Charles B. Burdick, Germany’s Military Strategy and Spain in World War II (Syracuse, 1968), 117–23; Langer and Gleason, Undeclared War, 76–85, 360–65.

  25. 740.0011 EW/8575, 8629, 8655, 8898, 8910, 8927, 9045, 9099, 9179, 9238, 9241A, 9258, 9320, 9346, 9361, 10750, RG 59; Berle diary, 14 Feb. 1941; Sherman Miles memo for Chief of Staff (cited as COS), 10 March 1941, box 5, PSF:safe file (cited as safe), FDRL; William L. Langer, Our Vichy Gamble (Hamden, CT, 1965), 135–41.

  26. Stimson diary, 20 March 1941.

  27. Air Bulletin: Air Operations 1 Nov. 1940–15 Jan. 1941, 740.0011 EW/8616, RG 59.

  28. Military attaché Berlin, reports of 18 Jan.-24 April 1941, MID 1833–316, RG 165; Fuehrer Directive of 28 Feb. 1941, as quoted in J.M.A. Gwyer and J.R.M. Butler, Grand Strategy (London, 1964), 3 (Part 1):10; New York Times, 14 March 1941; (London) Times, 15–22 March 1941. On the “night blitz”: “Air Operations, 1 Nov. 1940–15 Jan. 1941, 740.0011 EW/8616, RG 59; Hinsley, British Intelligence, 1:315, 318, 329–30; Churchill, Grand Alliance, 42–44; Basil Collier, Defense of the United Kingdom (London, 1957), chaps. 17, 18; Angus Calder, The People’s War: Britain, 1939–1945 (New York, 1969), 210–21; W. K. Hancock and M. M. Cowing, British War Economy (London, 1949), 240–80; Captain S. W. Roskill, The War at Sea, 1939–1945 (3 vols.; London, 1954–61), 1:610 (Appendix O).

  29. Calder, People’s War, 214; Washington Post, 24 March 1941.

  30. Military attaché London, report of 17 March 1941, 740.0011 EW/9296, RG 59, report of 20 March 1941, MID 2060–1236/6, RG 165; military attaché Berlin, report of 12 March 1941, MID 183–316, ibid.; Stimson diary, 25 March 1941; Washington Post, 20, 24 March 1941; Gwyer and Butler, Grand Strategy, 3 (Part 1):9; H. H. Arnold Global Mission (New York, 1949), 218–19.

  31. Military attaché London, report of 1 April 1941, MID 2062–1236/7, RG 165; Calder, People’s War, 212–13.

  32. Roskill, War at Sea, 1: chap. 16, 349–50.

  33. On U-boat warfare in early 1941: ibid., 343–65, 451–64; Fuehrer Conferences, 1:entry for 20 April 1941; Churchill to FDR, 4 April 1941, C-77x, Warren F. Kimball, ed., Churchill and Roosevelt: The Complete Correspondence (3 vols.; Princeton, 1984), 1:161–62; “Convoys: Abstract of Admiralty History of Atlantic Convoys As Communicated to S. E. Morison July 13, 1942, by Commander W. B. Rowbotham,” box 11, office files of Rear Admiral S. E. Morison, 1911–1969, Naval Operational Archives (cited as NOA), Navy Yard, Washington.

  34. L. E. Denfeld to Chief of Naval Operations (cited as CNO), 22 April 1941, EA-EZ folder, box 96, Strategic Plans Division records (cited as SPDR), NOA; American naval attaché London (cited as ALUSNA) to Naval Operations Office (cited as OPNAV), 24 March 1941, series 1, records of Commander Naval Forces Europe (cited as COMNAVFOREUR), NOA. On the former American destroyers: ALUSNA to OPNAV, 8 Jan. 1941, ibid.; Heinrichs, “Roosevelt’s Intervention,” 317.

  35. Cajus Bekker, The German Navy, 1939–1945 (London, 1972), 16, 19, 33, 57; Roskill, War at Sea, 1:367–87.

  36. Estimating losses for any given period is difficult because the data cover different periods for different kinds of losses. These estimates are based on Roskill, ibid., 362–64, 371–76, 379, 616. See also: Office of Naval Intelligence (cited as ONI) memo for Secretary of Navy, 27 March 1941, A4–3/CV-EF53 folder, box 220, secret correspondence of the office of Chief of Naval Operations (cited as CNO secret), RG 80, NA; Hancock and Gowing, British War Economy, 349–67; Gwyer and Butler, Grand Strategy, 3 (part 1):9–10.

  37. ALUSNA to OPNAV, 17 March 1941, series 1, COMNAVFOREUR records, NOA; Winant to SecState (Churchill for Hopkins), 28 March 1941, 740.0011 EW/9415, RG 59; New York Times, 11, 13, 18 March 1941; Washington Post, 19 March 1941; Roskill, War at Sea, 1:609 (Appendix O).

  38. Samuel I. Rosenman, comp., The Public Papers and Addresses of Franklin D. Roosevelt: 1941 (13 vols.; New York, 1950), 10:63; Washington Post, 16 March 1941; New York Times, 16, 19 March 1941; Robert E. Sherwood, Roosevelt and Hopkins; An Intimate History (New York, 1948), 267.

  39. Director of War Plans to CNO, 12 March 1941, A16–3/FF, box 91, SPDR, NOA; CNO to directors of divisions, OPNAV, 18 March 1941, ibid.; U.S.S. Benson to Commander Destroyer Squadron (cited as COMDESRON) 7, box 1, Commander-in-Chief Atlantic Fleet (cited as CINCLANT), World War II message files, Naval History Operational Branch (cited as NHOB), Federal Record Center, Suit-land, MD (cited as FRS); King to Stark, 16 March 1941, A14–5/FF13, box 232, CNO secret, RG 80; Historical Section, Office of Commander-in-Chief Atlantic Fleet (cited as CINCLANT), “U.S. Naval Administration in World War II: Commander-in-Chief, U.S. Atlantic Fleet,” 128, microfiche, U.S. Navy Historical Center (cited as NHC), Navy Yard, Washington; New York Times, 15 March 1941.

  40. Harold Ickes, The Secret Diary of Harold L. Ickes (3 vols.; New York, 1955), 3:469.

  Chapter 2. April: Balancing Risks

  1. Hosoya Chihiro, “The Japanese-Soviet Neutrality Pact,” in James William Morley, ed., Japan’s Road to the Pacific War: The Fateful Choice, Japan’s Advance into Southeast Asia, 1939–1941. Selected Translations from Taiheiyō sensō e no michi: kaisen gaikō shi (New York, 1980), 71. On the Matsuoka trip: ibid, 64–85.

  2. The following works have been helpful in arriving at this description of Japanese decision-making, though the author takes full responsibility for it and it may differ substantially from any one of them: Barnhart, Japan Prepares for Total War; James B. Crowley, Japan’s Quest for Autonomy; National Security and Foreign Policy, 1930–1938 (Princeton, 1966); Crowley, “Japan’s Military Foreign Policies,” in James William M
orley, ed., Japan’s Foreign Policy, 1868–1941: A Research Guide (New York, 1974), 3–117; Morley, ed., Fateful Choice; Usui Katsumi, “The Role of the Foreign Ministry,” and Asada Sadao, “The Japanese Navy and the United States,” in Dorothy Borg and Shumpei Okamoto, eds., Pearl Harbor as History: Japanese-American Relations, 1931–1941 (New York, 1973), 127–48, 225–59; Shumpei Okamoto, The Japanese Oligarchy and the Russo-Japanese War (New York, 1970), 230–32.

  3. Irvine H. Anderson, Jr., The Standard-Vacuum Oil Company and United States East Asian Policy, 1933–1941 (Princeton, 1975), 146–57.

  4. Waldo H. Heinrichs, Jr., American Ambassador: Joseph C. Grew and the Development of the United States Diplomatic Tradition (Boston, 1966), 325–28.

  5. Tokyo to Singapore, 20 March 1941, SRDJ 10589, Taihoku to Batavia, 4 Feb. 1941, SRDJ 10660, Berlin to Tokyo, 26 March 1941, SRDJ 10684, RG 457.

  6. SecState to Grew, 5 April 1941, FR 1941, 4:931; naval attaché Tokyo, report of March {n.d.} 1941, box 122, SPDR, NOA; Captain R. E. Schuirmann, Central Division, OPNAV, to State Department, 18 Feb. 1941, 740.0011 EW/8675, RG 59.

  7. Freidel, Launching the New Deal, 121–23.

  8. Ernest R. May, “Foreword,” May and James C. Thomson Jr., eds., American-East Asian Relations: A Survey (Cambridge, MA, 1972), xiv.

  9. Waldo H. Heinrichs, Jr., “The Role of the U.S. Navy,” Borg and Okamoto, eds., Pearl Harbor as History, 220, 223.

  10. Dorothy Borg, The United States and the Far Eastern Crisis of 1933–1938: From the Manchurian Incident Through the Initial Stage of the Sino-Japanese War (Cambridge, MA, 1964), 522–25.

  11. As quoted in Heinrichs, “Role of the U.S. Navy,” 212–13.

  12. Stark to Admiral Husband Kimmel, Commander-in-Chief, Pacific Fleet (cited as CINCPAC), 10 Feb. and 25 Feb. 1941, enclosing Stark memo for FDR, 11 Feb. 1941, PHA, 16:2147–49; Stark to Admiral Thomas Hart, Commander-in-Chief, Asiatic Fleet (cited as CINCAF), 16 Oct. 1940, A16–3(15), CNO secret, RG 80; CINCPAC to CNO, 28 March 1941, A16(R-3), ibid.; Capt. Tracy B. Kittredge, “United States-British Naval Cooperation, 1940–1945,” microfilm NRS 11–226, chap. 13, 308–22, chap. 13 notes, 267–70, 294–96.