Do I doubt that FDR and Churchill were conspiring to go to war?
Absolutely not.
Still there is no logical reason to imagine that FDR needed a crushing defeat at Pearl Harbor to go to war. All they needed was an attack on Pearl, not the destruction of most of the Pacific fleet.
And it also stretches my conspiracy elasticity somewhat to think that the entire chain of command was in on plot to ALLOW the Japanese this stunning victory on that bloody Sunday morning.
You don't seem to understand how a chain of command works. Everyone does not have to know what the goals are.
Case in point .. here's something I read about 20 years ago .. testimony from Major General Sherman Miles
Monday, Dec. 10, 1945
They Called It Intelligence
The Pearl Harbor Committee turned from diplomatic to military witnesses. Two facts were quickly established: 1) the Japs—sometimes through carelessness, sometimes through code messages—gave the U.S. much more advance notice of the Pearl Harbor attack than has been generally realized; 2) thanks to stupidity in Washington and in the field, the U.S. took the least possible advantage of the warnings.
To the stand went balding, bumbling Major General Sherman Miles, wearer of four rows of ribbons, Assistant Chief of Staff for Military Intelligence in the crucial days of 1941. Into the record went a long series of Japanese code messages intercepted before Dec. 7. Most significant: instructions sent by Tokyo on Sept. 24, ordering a spy in Honolulu to divide Pearl Harbor into five sectors, report on the ships at anchor in each.
Asked a committee counsel: "Isn't that type of message of a special significance?"
Answered onetime G-2 Miles: "The message . . . was not taken alone. It was one of a number ... to all points of the world, to follow the movement of our vessels."
Q. It looks like a bombing plan for Pearl Harbor?
A. That's exactly what it looks like, now that we know Pearl Harbor was bombed.
Q. Wasn't this message quite different from the others? . . . Have you found any others like this?
A. I have not found any similar.
Q. One of the functions of a properly functioning G-2 would have been to single this out and attempt to evaluate its significance, wouldn't it?
A. Yes, sir. But we did not see the significance at that time that we now see in the light of subsequent events.
Opportunity Keeps Knocking. On Nov. 15, the Jap spy was instructed to send reports twice a week on ships in Pearl Harbor; on Nov. 29 he was asked for Pearl Harbor reports "even when there are no movements." Both messages were decoded well in advance of the attack. General Miles conceded that they gave "added significance to the first message." But Intelligence paid no particular heed, said nothing about them to Lieut. General Walter C. Short, the Army commander in Hawaii.
Other intercepted messages, sent between Nov. 24 and Dec. 6, were even more revealing. Tokyo was asking for detailed information on ship movements and schedules, for any reports of barrage balloons over the harbor. The Honolulu spy was reporting that there appeared to be no aerial reconnaissance, that "opportunity is still left for a surprise attack."
But these messages were not decoded in time. The Signal Corps's "Magic" project, which held the secret of the Jap code, was short of men and facilities. General Miles "assured" himself that the work was being done as fast as possible under the circumstances, decided that there his responsibility ended.
Other facts disclosed by Miles:
¶ Jap messages decoded by "Magic" were seen by only a few top brass hats, were not always shown to the President, were not sent to commanders in the field at all. (The Army & Navy were afraid the Japs might learn their secret.)
NOTE: He makes my point about chain of command.
¶ Neither Army nor Navy Intelligence placed any credence in a report from Tokyo by Ambassador Grew, in January 1941, that the Peruvian Minister had learned "from many sources, including a Japanese source" that the Japs planned to open the war with a sneak attack on Pearl Harbor. (Intelligence officers somehow figured out that no Jap in a position to know would be so stupid as to say.)
¶ The Navy high command warned Admiral Husband E. Kimmel on Dec. 3 that Jap diplomats and consuls all over the world were destroying their papers and codes. General Miles did not ask the Navy to pass this message along to General Short at Honolulu. Said he: "That was not considered necessary. ... I believed that the Navy messages were being transmitted to the Army in Hawaii and vice versa."
They Called It Intelligence - TIME
Miles makes the incompetent disconnected argument .. but he wasn't privy to anything other then what he was given .. although he conclusively proves that the attack on Pearl Harbor should not have been any surprise.
Later, in 1948, he had this to say ..
"Wherever or whenever Washington may have thought the Japanese cat would probably jump, Hawaii's primary mission was to meet it there if it came. Yet both the Army and Navy commands there acted as if there were no chance of a Japanese overseas attack on them. What they actually did and did not do, simply spelled 'It can't happen here.'"
"Had Japan not attacked us when the Washington conference failed, there were but two courses of action that could have resulted in our interference with her policy of conquest. The President might have persuaded Congress to declare war, or he might have interposed U.S. forces in the path of the Japanese advance. The Administration's difficulties would have been great and its success problematical in either case. And how the isolationist elements in the country—the "Hearst-McCormick-Patterson Axis," "America First," and others—would have howled!"
"Our fleet and fortress together constituted what probably was, at that time, the most formidable strong point in the world. The fortress, with its garrison reinforced, had great firepower and a not inconsiderable air force. "'The presence of the fleet," General Marshall had told the President, "reduces the threat of a major attack." Had the fleet been held together and deployed in adjacent waters, it could have retained sea supremacy. Six months later, at Midway, weaker forces, supported by far fewer land-based planes, decisively defeated a Japanese fleet much superior to the hit-and-runners that bombed Pearl Harbor."
NOTE: Conclusively puts to bed the notion that Pearl wasn't defensible and there would have been nothing we could have done had we known.
It is true that most of our air strength was not on the alert or otherwise available when the attack came; but the Japanese had to assume it would be, as of course it might have been. Our radar detection stations closed down after 7.00 A.M., but that again the Japanese could hardly have known. Though we could not have matched the Japanese carrier-borne air force, plane for plane, we had the great potential advantage of near-by land bases for much of our force. Hostile planes had also to count on facing well-equipped and presumably well-prepared antiaircraft batteries, both afloat and ashore. Consideration of high policy aside, a Japanese attack on such a place-of-arms,
under alert commands, was, on the face of it, improbable.
Our reasoning was correct. The flaw lay in that phrase "under alert commands."
The Hawaiian fortress and naval base were built with but one potential enemy in view, Japan. Studies concerning the Japanese bore on their military characteristics. It was well known that they were given to treachery and surprise. The President himself, less than a fortnight before Pearl Harbor, remarked that "the Japs are notorious for making an attack without warning."
The strategic importance of Hawaii, coupled with the possibility of surprise on the part of its sole potential enemy, was with us always, whatever might be the probabilities of other Japanese action in any given situation and at any given time. The answer could only lie in Hawaiian readiness to meet an attack, whenever and however made. That had been Army teaching for many years—coupled with the devout hope that we might get some warning of war.
The type of attack actually made—the how of it—had by no means been overlooked by the military. Many years before 1941 our fleet had made, in maneuvers, an attack on Pearl Harbor very similar to the actual one. In the early and middle 1930's the possibility of such an attack had been seriously discussed. General Drum, when in command in Hawaii, had had a long correspondence with the War Department on the subject. Even the "vacant sea," that area between the great Pacific traffic lanes through which an attacking force could approach Hawaii undetected, had been marked down in our defense studies.
In January, 1941, the Secretary of the Navy listed the first three Hawaiian dangers "in order of importance and probability... (1) air bombing attack, (2) air torpedo plane attack, (3) sabotage." The Secretary of War concurred. Generals Marshall and Short corresponded on the subject that spring, and the former pointed out that the first six hours of hostilities would probably be decisive in Hawaii. In March the two senior air officers there, General Martin and Admiral Bellinger, made a defense study in which they practically called the turn on what later happened. And in May General Short wrote the Chief of Staff describing joint maneuvers he had held with the fleet, the theme of which was the defense of Hawaii from a carrier-borne air attack.
Question: Please tell me how the attack was a "surprise" when they had been training for it?
I have said that the War and Navy Departments' dispatches contained clear warnings of possible hostilities. I think the record will bear me out. Let's look at it.
As early as July 25, when we froze Japanese assets, the Pacific commands, including Hawaii, were informed of it by the War and Navy Departments "in order that you may take appropriate precautionary measures against any possible eventualities." On November 24, a joint Army and Navy dispatch pointed out the possibility of Japanese "surprise aggressive movements in any direction." On November 27 the Navy Department sent another dispatch beginning: "This is to be considered a war warning"—not much doubt about that. On the same day the War Department sent another one, over General Marshall's signature, and Military Intelligence followed it up with a message to G-2's.
The Marshall dispatch read in part: "Japanese future action unpredictable but hostile action possible at any moment. If hostilities cannot, repeat cannot, be avoided the United States desires that Japan commit the first overt act. This policy should not, repeat not, be construed as restricting you to a course of action that might jeopardize your defense. Prior to hostile Japanese action you are directed to undertake such reconnaissance and other measures as you deem necessary but these measures should be carried out so as not, repeat not, to alarm civil population or disclose intent. Report measures taken."
This dispatch has since been criticized as a "do-don't" order. In its drafting, Military Intelligence had no part, and I have no personal concern with the "do-don't" controversy. But aside from a certain obscurity about not disclosing intent, the "don'ts" were nothing to get excited about—don't start a war; don't alarm civilians. Those were old Army policies. The importance of the message lies in what it was meant to convey and what it did convey—to others.
NOTE: My point to you excatly .. even with his position of authority, he had no clue of the why of orders he recieved to carry out.
It was drafted under the personal supervision of the Secretary of War, who had in mind that "defense against an attack by Japan was the first consideration." General Marshall later defined the dispatch tersely as "a command directive for alert against a state of war." It is indeed difficult to miss a clear war warning in the phrases of the message itself. The Philippines, Panama, and the West Coast received the same or a very similar dispatch, had no doubts about its intent, and acted accordingly. Only Hawaii, the vital pivot in a Japanese war, thought that such a warning had but slight local application.
.. the War Department had actually cut into the seed corn of air power to strengthen Hawaiian defense. What could be spared only at great detriment to other commands, in planes, in antiaircraft-artillery, and in radar equipment, went to Hawaii. The Philippines were left, for that period, practically helpless, and even the vital artery through Panama was neglected—until Hawaii was given what could be had. Then, and only then, about August, did Washington begin to build up Panama and the Philippines. Even so, when Pearl Harbor came, Hawaii was much better equipped for defense than either of the other two great outposts or our own West Coast itself.
But Hawaii had lowered its guard to "alert against sabotage" on land and "condition 3" afloat. On this point, General Marshall testified: "I never could grasp what had happened between the period when so much was said [in Hawaii] about air attack, the necessity for antiaircraft, the necessity for planes for reconnaissance, the necessity for attack planes for defense and the other requirements which anticipated very definitely and affirmatively an air attack—I could never understand why suddenly it became a side issue."
NOTE He makes my point again.
---
The War Department has been pilloried for failure to tell Hawaii that its alert did not meet either the situation or the intent of General Marshall's order. That order had required a report of action taken. The Hawaiian command reported: "Alerted to prevent sabotage. Liaison with Navy"—nothing more. The War Department did not reply. Admittedly, this was a serious oversight, for which senior officers have assumed responsibility. But to what extent does the War Department's failure to reply justify the retention of Hawaii's inadequate alert up to the time of the attack? [color]On that matter I must again speak as an outsider, since it was not a function of Military Intelligence to check the readiness or any other disposition of United States forces, nor did I, or anyone else in Military Intelligence, see General Short's cryptic report.[/color]
NOTE: And again
When war came, our "magic"—the breaking of Japanese codes—paid enormous dividends. It materially aided us in concentrating those slender means by which we won the Battle of Midway, the turning point in the Pacific war. It has always seemed to me that we were extremely lucky in keeping the vital secret of "magic" within an already fairly large group in Washington, and wise in rigidly limiting it to that group and the Philippine commands until we were actually at war. I well remember a day when a copy of one of the "magic" messages was missing. The Secretary himself got into that fracas, and I finally ran down the message in the possession of a person unauthorized to have it—in the White House!
After the war, "magic" supplied what appeared to many as definite indications of what the Japanese had been planning at Pearl Harbor. We had those indications before the attack. Why, then, didn't we foresee it? The question hinges on selection, guided by hindsight. If one reads first the end of a good detective story, and then starts in at the beginning and reads through, it is easy to pick out the real clues from those which would have led to other deductions. It is not so easy if one takes the clues, true and false, as they come.
The "magic" intercepted and translated by us in the six months before Pearl Harbor, if printed in book form and type, would make several normal volumes. There was no lack of clues—a broad field from which to select, after the event, those which seem to point to that event and to that only.
NOTE: " .. that event and that event only"
There were many "magic" messages showing Japanese interest in conditions existing in Hawaii, largely requests for information of military value. Some concerned the location of anchorages of our warships in Pearl Harbor, by limited sections of that area, their arrival and departure, and so forth. These messages were primarily of naval interest, and the Navy apparently took them to mean two things: first, that Japanese spies there were looking down our throats—a deplorable condition which the Army and Navy had known for thirty years or more; and second, that the Japanese were planning an attack on our fleet, by air or submarines or both.
But since the fleet might eventually be a deterrent to them, it would have been strange indeed had they not made plans to attack it if they could. We ourselves had plans for contingencies far less obvious than that. It is difficult to believe that any senior Army or Navy officer in Hawaii would have found it news had he been told by Washington that the fleet was under close Japanese espionage and the subject of aggressive planning. Indeed, a naval officer would have replied that the fleet had no intention of meeting a major attack at their moorings in Pearl Harbor!
The Hawaiian commands later complained that this "magic" information was not transmitted to them ..
NOTE: Confirming what Churchill said.
The plain fact is that the war warnings sent out by the highest military authorities nine days and more before Pearl Harbor were far more authoritative and more definitive of what the Hawaiian commands might expect, and what was expected of them, than any information or interpretations from "magic" that Military or Naval Intelligence could possibly have sent.
Complete reliance was placed on the effect those warnings should have had—and did have everywhere except in Hawaii.
In any event, the Muse who had so consistently worked up the tragedy saw to it that the message was delivered to all addressees, except Hawaii. She was taking no chances; but it was a busy morning for her.
She had to see to it that operations against a Japanese submarine just off Pearl Harbor, beginning almost four hours before the attack, caused no general alert. She was almost caught out by a couple of gadget-happy soldiers who stayed overtime on their radar and actually saw and reported the approaching Japanese planes. But she promptly trumped that trick by producing a lieutenant who said, "Forget it." How the Greeks would have appreciated that final touch of inexorable fate!
NOTE: Here comes the punch line
It remains to be seen whether the recent merger of the forces—land, sea, and air—guided by the lessons of a global war, can be made effective, or whether pre-Pearl Harbor conditions are inherent in a democracy before the shooting starts. They had better not be, for the next surprise attack will be quite another story.
Can you say 9/11 .. "A New Pearl Harbor"
Pearl Harbor in Retrospect
The Atlantic | July 1948 | Pearl Harbor in Retrospect | Miles
Should Miles also be discredited?
Hopefully I've made my point about chain of command .. rather, Miles makes it for me.
