He paused to look over at Knox.
“Sir, months back we had every reason to believe that Japanese agents were monitoring our forces on the island and reporting in. They are most likely still doing it.”
“What do you suggest?” FDR asked directly.
“Place under incarceration every Japanese resident on the island at least until this crisis of the moment is resolved.”
The President said nothing, leaning back, closing his eyes.
“Is that practical? Hawaii has a very high proportion of citizens of Japanese descent. I doubt if the islands could function if we did this. Do you really believe the sabotage threat is that great?”
“We do,” Stimson replied.
“Sir, I would be cautious,” Marshall interjected, and FDR turned to him.
“Go on.”
“The resources needed to round up tens of thousands on short notice would be daunting. Then where to put them on an island that small at such short notice, then feed and house them? And frankly, sir, given the passions of the moment out there, it could turn very ugly.”
“How so?”
“Sir, as you know, we have had racial antagonisms that have flared into riots, lynchings, and mob behavior. We have to be very careful about getting people emotionally enraged against each other.”
Franklin sighed, saying nothing. He could well imagine facing Eleanor if he made such a decision now.
“Security around facilities that have survived is undoubtedly in place,” Marshall continued. “I think the suggestion, now, is locking the barn door after the horses have run. Whatever sabotage was planned has most likely been done. And if anything, it seems we overreacted to the threat of sabotage in the way we positioned our planes and ships prior to the attack. If any more attempts are made, then there will be more direct cause. But for the moment I suggest keeping the status quo. If there are enemy agents, let them play their hands, and we will get them then. But I am willing to bet, sir, that the vast majority of Japanese out there, who—remember—left Japan of their own free will years ago, are loyal to America. If we incarcerate them, and the Japanese then do invade, we’ll have created a massive fifth column that might go over to their side rather than stay on our side. I think now is the moment to act with trust.”
“I’ll postpone this one for the moment,” the President finally announced. “Once communications are back up and we can get a better picture of what really happened, I’ll decide then.”
Marshall smiled and nodded his head.
“And the fourth point, sir. What about MacArthur?” Knox now interjected, and Franklin could see that here was interservice rivalry playing out. Word had come in that most of MacArthur’s air force had been annihilated in a Japanese air attack hours after Pearl Harbor had been hit. The disaster was inexcusable.
“Sir, frankly I think he should be dismissed now,” Stark announced, “and Wainright put in his place.”
Franklin looked to Stimson and Marshall. He knew that in Marshall’s case, in particular, there was no love lost between them.
The fact that MacArthur’s air force was all but wiped out already, caught on the ground by a Japanese air strike long hours after Pearl Harbor was hit, was inexcusable. And yet, to change horses now? If there was one man who had any kind of feel for the troublesome Philippines, it was Douglas, like him or not. His father had been military governor there during the insurrection of forty years ago, and the Philippines had been young Douglas’s first posting after he graduated from West Point.
His position was technically a unique one. Though still a member of the United States armed forces, he was, as well, “Field Marshal” of the Philippine Defense Force, the only “field marshal” in the history of the United States military. It was quipped by more than a few of his detractors that he took the position just so he could have more gold “spaghetti” on his hat.
He stood unique, a man who could display incredible genius, but also moments that were incredible lapses of judgment, such as his brutal handling of the “Bonus Squatters,” so many of the men in that improvised encampment comrades from the last war, and now this.
But to change command now, at this moment? What message would it give? Furthermore, the Filipino government trusted him and looked to him for military leadership. Their confidence must have been severely shaken by Pearl Harbor and the loss of aircraft on the ground in the Philippines. Would relieving America’s most senior general in the earliest days of the war simply collapse any possibility of cooperation between Americans and Filipinos?
Roosevelt shifted uncomfortably in his chair. Though the steel braces were off his legs, spasms of pain were streaking up his back. Constant pain was part of life for him; he had barely slept or lain down since yesterday afternoon.
“Given the current situation around Hawaii,” he finally replied, “realistically, what does that mean for the Rainbow plans?”
Marshall sighed, looking over at Stark. Again, he could sense the interservice rivalry.
The new Rainbow plans, hammered out over the last few years as addendums to the old Plan Black, war with Germany, and Plan Orange, war with Japan, had been postulated upon a number of points, and a key one was an intact Pacific fleet on the first day of war with either potential enemy.
It had always been assumed, since the first Plan Orange evolved out of American occupation of the Philippines and the Japanese victory against Russia in 1905, that if conflict ever erupted between the two nations, it would most likely ignite along the coast of Asia.
It was, therefore, postulated that the Japanese would make a thrust to seize the Philippines, rich with resources and one of the finest harbors in the world, Manila, and then her battle fleet would lie in wait, as they had for the Russians prior to their great victory at Tsushima. An American relief force would sortie from Pearl, have to fight its way through the Japanese-controlled waters of the Marshalls and Marianas, and somewhere in the Philippine Sea meet and defeat the Japanese fleet, thereby ending the war with a clear naval victory. It was to be a fulfillment of the doctrine of the legendary turn-of-the-century naval theorist Alfred Mahan, that once an enemy’s primary fleet had been destroyed, victory was a foregone conclusion.
It had been generally assumed that the Japanese counterplans envisioned the exact same scenario as well, except, of course, that they would assume they would win the great battleship-to-battleship encounter. Their assault on the Philippines would be the bait to draw us out.
MacArthur had been sent to the Philippines to create a viable defense force that could stand against a Japanese invasion, built around a backbone of ten to twenty thousand American troops and a modern air force that could resist and perhaps even throw back the first Japanese attack. Then even if the Japanese did seize some of the islands, this force would pin them down until the Navy, with all its might, steamed in to finish it with a climactic battle that would end the war with our victory.
The Navy all along had absolutely refused to forward-position any of their heavy ships in Philippine waters, claiming there was no proper logistical support and, as well, that it would leave them completely open to a successful first strike, in the same way the Japanese had launched their first move against the Russians at Port Arthur in 1904, crippling the Russian Pacific fleet by surprise on a Sunday morning.
No one, absolutely no one had ever taken seriously the prospect that there would not be a first blow on the Philippines, or even British-held Singapore, but Hawaii instead.
And now the bulk of our Pacific fleet rested in the mud of Pearl Harbor, one of our carriers might already be sunk, or at least knocked out of action, and the other was about to face a battle at desperate odds—and the first line of defense in the Philippines, the Army Air Force of B-17s, was only flaming wreckage.
The Orange and Rainbow plans had always had two wildly different assumptions. The Army plan postulated that a defensive force in the Philippines could hold out for at least 120 days or more, until such time as the Navy came
to the rescue. The Navy plan had always said it would take two years to mobilize the fleet and fight across the Pacific to the Philippines. Because there was no joint planning system, the two services had simply built their plans on their own assumptions. Now it was obvious the Navy could not reach MacArthur in the time he was prepared to hold out. The Army plan had been unrealistic in the planning stages throughout the last ten years, and given the destruction at Pearl Harbor and the news of the near-total annihilation of MacArthur’s air forces as well, it was impossible.
It seemed almost moot now, but only five days ago, someone had leaked to the press the entire Rainbow plan. The Chicago Tribune and other papers that were decidedly anti-intervention had without regard for national security splashed the entire plan across their front pages, giving to the Germans and Japanese secret information, the worst of it being the admission within the plan that it would take up to eighteen months to achieve full mobilization and offensive capability, especially if the U.S. was caught in a two-ocean war.
The absolutely reckless release of that as front-page news by the press had triggered a fire storm that had raged across the nation, until radio stations started to interrupt their regular broadcasts on Sunday with news of a place few had heard of before: Pearl Harbor.
It had been the major news item in the papers and on the radio until the bombs began to fall at Pearl. It was all moot because a major component of that plan, the battleships burning at Pearl Harbor, were out of the lineup; their purpose—either to buy time or, if possible, to relieve the Philippines—was now gone.
He looked from Marshall to Admiral Stark.
“Do we have the assets available to realistically bring relief to MacArthur?” Franklin finally asked.
Stark shifted his gaze back to Marshall.
“If MacArthur had responded properly and immediately dispersed his air force, he would still have a first line of defense that could have repelled any Japanese landing attempt. Then yes, I would say that once our Pacific Fleet was properly reinforced with a transfer of ships from the Atlantic, we might have tried to get some resources to him. It is impossible to implement the Rainbow plan in this setting. Given our immediate losses, we may have to wait for the preparedness plan to deliver the new ships in 1943 before we can risk a major battle around the Philippines. We are going to be reduced to skirmishing with the Japanese along the periphery until we bring into being a new fleet. Thank God for your foresight and Congressman Vinson’s leadership in passing the legislation for that fleet during peacetime. If not for that, we would be talking today about 1945 or worse before we could be ready to fully take them on.”
“But we don’t have those assets today,” Marshall shot back coldly. “So the President’s question still goes unanswered. Can MacArthur be supported if the Japanese invade the Philippines? The answer is no, and the sooner we face it the better off we will be.”
“We both know,” Stark replied sharply, “that inspection reports indicate a less than adequate level of preparation and training. The general himself said they were woefully underfunded, supplies were short, and it would take at least another year even to have a remote hope of a proper national defense force for the islands.”
“Then the answer is no,” the President interjected decisively, seeing that the normally unflappable Marshall was beginning to bristle.
This was not the time for an interservice fight to explode. He needed them working together. The issue in the days to come might not even be the Philippines at all; it could very well be Hawaii itself, or even the prospect of a Japanese carrier raid striking the West Coast.
Marshall looked back at the President.
“If the Lexington can cripple the bulk of their carriers later today or tomorrow, and if there is an immediate transfer of all carriers in the Atlantic to the Pacific, with proper mobilization of a marine expeditionary force, backed up by infantry and heavy armor and artillery from the West Coast, yes, it could still be possible to reinforce MacArthur, but not to provide strategic relief. He is going to have to hold out for a year or more to have that happen.”
“But that is not possible now,” Stark interjected heatedly. “MacArthur had more than enough time to prepare not just to withstand a hundred and twenty days, but six months or a year if need be. He has not, and with the catastrophic failure to protect his aircraft he lost his first line of defense on the first day. Frankly, Mr. President, I think we will lose the Philippines and must consider them to be a writeoff. To try and venture a sortie with what resources we still have left would be to invite a debacle.”
“My God,” Secretary Stimson said. “No American military force of such size has surrendered since the end of the Civil War, and that was American to American. What will the nation say?”
“It is war,” the President said coldly. “That is what it must face now. It is war. The Russians lost three quarters of a million men in the Ukraine in August and still they are fighting. The British tens of thousands at Dunkirk, Greece, Crete, and North Africa. Gentlemen, we are going to have setbacks, terrible heartbreaking setbacks, in the months, perhaps even years, to come.”
He paused for a moment.
“Especially if Germany, as I suspect they will, declares war on us as well. We must see this through and”—he paused, scanning the room—“we must work together, without blame or recriminations for the past. I, too, must shoulder responsibility for what happened yesterday. It was not just the Army or the Navy that dropped the ball yesterday, it was all of us.
“Do I make myself clear?”
The four in the room stiffened.
“So let me conclude,” and he made a point of looking at his wristwatch. “I am scheduled for a call shortly to Churchill and have to attend to that.
“There can be no directives to our remaining forces in the Pacific at this moment without a complete sense of security regarding those transmissions, so we must leave control of the battle in that region to those on the scene.
“Second, and it must stay in this room at this moment and go no further. If the Japanese attack the Philippines, which they almost assuredly will do in the days to come, our forces there will be expected to put up a valiant stand, but there is little if any hope that they will see relief. We have to look to blockade runners, submarines, longdistance aircraft transportation, and other devices to get moral support to General MacArthur and his forces, but the fact is that we will be engaged in morale-building operations of help, not in a serious effort of relief. However, the American people will require us to do everything possible to help our young men and women who are now trapped in the Philippines. We cannot simply abandon them. We must use every creative opportunity to sustain their morale and get them help even if it is limited in quantity. Both our duty and our national will require this effort.
“Third, and most important, remember that Germany is the much more dangerous threat. Despite everything the Japanese have achieved in the last two days, they are a much weaker nation than Germany. The Prime Minister and I have agreed that we need a focus on Europe, and that defeating Germany has to be our first priority.”
He paused. Not even here would he voice the deepest of concerns, triggered in part by a letter from the famed physicist Albert Einstein. The briefings on what that letter had triggered, a secret known only to a few, were terrifying when contemplated against the backdrop of a Germany that had conquered the rich resources of Russia and perhaps the Middle East as well.
“Despite the legitimate rage the American people are currently focusing on Japan, we must not allow our emotions to cloud our reasoned judgment. We will do what we have to to contain the Japanese while we focus on defeating Germany first.
“Take the risks we have to with Hawaii, but remember we are now in a global war, and we cannot allow the immediate and urgent to drive out the permanent and important. Make your plans and allocate your resources accordingly,” Roosevelt concluded in a commander’s tone. Clearly, he was now truly speaking as commander-in-chief.
His subordinates nodded yes.
“We’ll meet again tomorrow when the picture becomes clearer as to the fate of Enterprise and Lexington.”
He rolled his wheelchair back to the door and knocked once. A Secret Service agent stepped in and guided the President out of the room.
Marshall and Stark sat back down, gazing at each other.
“If we tell Douglas he is a writeoff,” Marshall said, “it will be ugly. He doesn’t trust any of us on a good day, and this is certainly not a good day.”
“We don’t tell him,” Stimson replied sharply. “That issue is closed and, as the President said, stays here.”
Clark Army Air Force Base
Luzon, Philippines
December 9, 1941
08:00 hrs local time
DOUGLAS MACARTHUR WALKED alone through the flaming wreckage strewn across the field, .30-caliber ammunition still lighting off from a burning P-40, at the edge of the tarmac.
His escorting guards, armed with Thompsons, walked just behind him, weapons cocked and poised.
Fire crews raced past him, most not even noticing the presence of the general, snaking out hoses in futile efforts to save what was left—and there was damn little left.
Inwardly he was now allowing a moment of self-doubt to settle in.
Intelligence reports had indicated that it was all but impossible for the Japanese to launch a heavy strike from Formosa. The range was simply too great; only their heavier two-engine bombers or his own B-17s could have leapt the distance. But they had indeed done so, swarms of their planes striking just before dusk of the evening before, all but destroying his ability to repulse an invasion.
General Wainwright, his second in command, walking by his side, had the good sense not to say a word, as silent as MacArthur was as he took in the scene of devastation.
Beyond everything else, they were cut off. The cable links via Pearl Harbor and Hong Kong had been severed, and given the severity of the onslaught, they could not trust any radio communications.
Days of Infamy Page 18