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<text> <title> (1940s) Pearl Harbor </title> <history> TIME--The Weekly Newsmagazine--1940s Highlights </history> <link 08171> <link 07834> <link 07837> <link 07840> <link 00078><article> <source>Time Magazine</source> <hdr> Pearl Harbor </hdr> <body> [Relations between the U.S. and Japan had steadily deteriorated. Japan had been pursuing its dream of a Greater East Asia Coprosperity Sphere for the past four years by scything its way inexorably into China (it had occupied Manchuria since 1931). It had coordinated with Vichy France to control Indochina. But in the summer or 1941, the U.S. moved to forestall Japan's ambitions by declaring a trade embargo, cutting the empire off from vital supplies of metals and oil. The Japanese were indignant, but prepared to search for an accommodation.] (September 8, 1941) The bland Pacific air, which for ten years had crackled with Japanese threats, Japanese denunciations, Japanese egomania, grew tensely quiet. In the stillness came a gentle voice from Tokyo. It said plaintively: "Can't we be friends?" One morning last week Japan's Ambassador to Washington, tall, one-eyed Admiral Nomura, called on President Roosevelt at the White House. He carried with him a letter to the President from Premier Prince Konoye. Prince Konoye wanted the President to discuss with Admiral Nomura the "thoroughgoing settlement" of Japan's differences with the U.S. For 45 minutes Admiral Nomura worked his blandishments on the President, while Secretary of State Cordell Hull fingered his pince-nez ribbon. There mere fact that Japan had asked for a meeting was a diplomatic victory for the U.S. Where solemn words and warnings had failed to half Japanese aggression in the Orient, bold acts had prevailed. By strangling Japan's trade with the U.S., Franklin Roosevelt had suggested to the Japanese that it might be a good idea to pause and talk things over. [The U.S. stood firm; Japan would have to pull out China for the U.S. to end the embargo. Japan, adamant itself, selected a new leader to head the Cabinet: former War Minister General Hideki Tojo. The Cabinet sent a mild-appearing special envoy, Saburo Kurusu, to the U.S. to keep the talks going. But as we now know, Japan had already laid her plans for war. The U.S., meantime, had come closer to war with Germany: U.S. warships--on patrol in the Atlantic, to be sure--had been torpedoed by U-boats. Congress had reluctantly, in the teeth of America's die-hard isolationists, repealed the Neutrality Act that had kept the Merchant Marine unarmed, and U.S. ships out of belligerents' ports. The tension, the waiting, became nearly unbearable. Then...] (December 15, 1941) THE MAINLAND Dec. 7, 1941 [Almighty God, who hast given us this good land for our heritage; we humbly beseech thee that we may always prove ourselves a people mindful of thy favour and glad to do thy will. Bless our land with honourable industry, sound learning, and pure manners. Save us from violence, discord, and confusion; from pride and arrogancy, and from every evil way. Defend our liberties, and fashion into one united people the multitudes brought hither out of many kindreds and tongues. Endue with the spirit of wisdom those to whom in thy Name we entrust the authority of government, that there may be justice and peace at home, and that, through obedience to thy law, we may show forth thy praise among the nations of the earth. In the time of prosperity, fill our hearts with thankfulness, and in the day of trouble, suffer not our trust in thee to fail; all which we ask through Jesus Christ our Lord.] As on any other Sunday, this prayer was dutifully recited in many a church throughout the U.S. But it was not any other Sunday: It was Dec. 7, 1941. Within two hours after the congregations had gone home to their Sunday dinners, they heard the news, and knew that the day of trouble had come. What the People Said It was Sunday midday, clear and sunny. Many a citizen was idly listening to the radio when the flash came that the Japanese had attacked Hawaii. In Topeka they were listening to The Spirit of '41 and napping on their sofas after dinner. In San Francisco, where it was not quite noon, they were listening to the news, Philharmonic and Strings in Swingtime. In Portland, Maine, where it was cold but still sunny, they were lining up for the movies. For the first time in its history, the U.S. at war was attacked first. Out on the Pacific and in the islands the great drama of U.S. history was coming to a climax. Over the U.S. and its history there was a great unanswered question: What would the people, the 132,000,000 say in the face of the mightiest event of their time? What they said--tens of thousands of them--was: "Why, the yellow bastards!" Hundreds of thousands of others said the same thing in different ways, with varying degrees of expression. In Norfolk, Va., the first man at the recruiting station said, "I want to beat them Japs with my own bare hands." At the docks in San Diego, as the afternoon wore on, a crowd slowly grew. There were a few people, then more, then a throng, looking intently west across the harbor, beyond Point Loma, out to the Pacific where the enemy was. There was no visible excitement, no hysteria, and no release in words for the emotions behind the grim, determined faces. In Dallas, 2,500 people sat in the Majestic Theater at 1:57 when Sergeant York ended and the news of the Japanese declaration of war was announced. There was a pause, a pin-point of silence, a prolonged sigh, then thundering applause. A steelworker said: "We'll stamp their front teeth in." In every part of the U.S. the tense, inadequate words gave outward and visible signs of the unfinished emotions within. Sometimes they just said, "Well, its' here." Sometimes they had nothing at all to say: Louisiana State University students massed, marched to the President, who came out in his dressing gown with no message except "Study hard." Sometimes they laughed at something someone else had said, like the remark of the Chinese Vice Consul of New Orleans, who announced: "As far as Japan is concerned, their goose is overheated." The statesmen, the spokesmen, the politicians, the leaders, could speak for unity. They did so. Herbert Hoover: "American soil has been treacherously attacked by Japan. We must fight with everything we have." Alfred Landon (to President Roosevelt): "Please command me in any way I can be of service." John Lewis: "When the nation is attacked every American must rally to its support.... All other considerations become insignificant." Charles Lindbergh: "We have been stepping closer to war for many months. Now it has come, and we must meet it as united Americans regardless of our attitude in the past toward the policy our Government has followed. Whether or not that policy has been wise, our country has been attacked by force of arms, and by force of arms we must retaliate. Our own defenses and our own military position have already been neglected too long. We must now turn every effort to building the greatest and most efficient Army, Navy and air force in the world. When American soldiers go to war, it must be with the best equipment that modern skill can design and that modern industry can build." It was evening. Over the U.S. the soldiers and sailors on leave assembled at the stations. There would be a few men with their wives or their girls standing a little apart from the people waiting for the train. The women would cry or, more often, walk away stiffly and silently. Slowly, the enormity of what had happened ended the first, quick, cocksure response. Next morning the recruiting stations, open now 24 hours a day, seven days a week, were jammed too. New York had twice as many naval volunteers as its 1917 record. Thus the U.S. met the first days of war. It met them with incredulity and outrage, with a quick, harsh, nationwide outburst that swelled like the catalogue of some profane Whitman. It met them with a deepening sense of gravity and a slow, mounting anger. But there were still no words to express the emotions pent up in the silent people listening to the radios, reading the papers, taking the trains. But the U.S. knew that its first words were not enough. Still More Incredible Even after the incredible attack on Pearl Harbor, nobody dreamed that the West Coast could be in danger from Japanese coming from 5,500 miles away--any more than any one dreamed that New York could be in danger from the Germans 3,000 miles off. Then right after sunset Monday the incredible happened again. San Francisco had a blackout, and the Army announced that two squadrons of 15 enemy planes each from a carrier off the coast had flown inland over California soil near San Jose. One squadron few south and vanished, the second flew northward past San Francisco and Mare Island. Just after midnight the planes came back and before dawn there was a third alarm. Each time they flew high, dropped no bombs. But California began to know how London felt before the bombing began. Man Without A Cause Out front, in Pittsburgh's Soldier's Hall, 2,500 America Firsters gleefully awaited the U.S. Senate's most rabid isolationist. It was 3 p.m. A reporter went backstage, showed Senator Gerald P. Nye an Associated Press bulletin, stating that his country had been attacked. Snapped Gerald Nye, all wound up for an anti-war speech: "It sounds terribly fishy to me.... Is it sabotage or is it open attack?..." One hour and forty-five minutes and five speakers later, Senator Nye, chest out, wrapped his isolationist toga about him and went through his regular act about the "warmongers" in Washington. He did not mention the fact that the U.S. was at war. The reporter sent up another note, saying that Japan had now declared war. Senator Nye read it and continued his harangue. Eventually the Senator paused and let his audience in on the war news. Said he: "I can't somehow believe this.... There's been many funny things before...." Grim-lipped, red-faced, sweating, he left the hall, muttering that he "must try" to get to Washington. Senator Nye did not go directly to Washington. That night he spoke at Pittsburgh's First Baptist Church. His manner and tone were bitter and defeatist: "...just what Britain had planned for us"; "we have been maneuvered into this by the President." Next day, all the fight gone out of him, Isolationist Nye meekly stood up with 81 fellow Senators and voted for war. THE ISLANDS Tragedy at Honolulu The U.S. Navy was caught with its pants down. Within one tragic hour--before the war had really begun--the U.S. appeared to have suffered greater naval losses than in the whole of World War I. (Between April 6, 1917 and Nov. 11, 1918, the U.S., according to Jane's Fighting Ships for 1918, lost 1 armored cruiser, 2 destroyers, 1 submarine, 3 armed yachts, 1 coast guard cutter and 2 revenue cutters--but not a single capital ship.) Days may pass before the full facts become known, but in the scanty news that came through from Hawaii in the first 36 hours of the war was every indication that the Navy had been taken completely by surprise in the early part of a lazy Sunday morning. Although the Japanese attackers had certainly been approaching for several days, the Navy apparently had no news of either airplane carriers sneaking up or of submarines fanning out around Hawaii. Not till the first bombs began to fall was an alarm given. And when the blow fell the air force at Pearl harbor was apparently not ready to offer effective opposition to the attackers. In fine homes on the heights above the city, in beach shacks near Waikiki, in the congested district around the Punchbowl, assorted Japanese, Chinese, Portuguese, Filipinos, Hawaiians and kamaainas (long-settled whites) were taking their ease. In the shallow waters lapping Fort De Russy, where sentries walked post along a retaining wall, a few Japanese and Hawaiians waded about, looking for fish to spear. In Army posts all over Oahu, soldiers were dawdling into a typical idle Sunday. Aboard the ships of the Fleet at Pearl Harbor, life was going along at a saunter. Downtown nothing stirred save an occasional bus. The clock on the Aloha Tower read 7:55. The Japs came in from the southeast over Diamond Head. They could have been U.S. planes shuttling westward from San Diego. Civilians' estimates of their numbers ranged from 50 to 150. They whined over Waikiki, over the candy-pink bulk of the Royal Hawaiian Hotel. Some were (it was reported) big four-motored jobs, some dive-bombers, some pursuits. All that they met as they came in was a tiny private plane in which Lawyer Ray Buduick was out for a Sunday morning ride. They riddled the lawyer's plane with machine-gun bullets, but the lawyer succeeded in making a safe landing. By the time he did, bombs were thudding all around the city. The first reported casualty was Robert Tyce, operator of a civilian airport near Honolulu, who was machine-gunned as he started to spin the propeller of a plane. Torpedoes launched from bombers tore at the dreadnoughts in Pearl Harbor. Dive-bombers swooped down on the Army's Hickam and Wheeler Fields. Shortly after the attack began, radio warnings were broadcast. But people who heard them were skeptical until explosions wrenched the guts of Honolulu. All the way from Pacific Heights down to the center of town the planes soared, leaving a wake of destruction. With anti-aircraft guns popping and U.S. pursuits headed aloft, pajama-clad citizens piled out of bed to dash downtown or head for the hills where they could get a good view. Few of them were panicky, many were nonchalant. Shouted one man as he dashed past a CBS observer: "The mainland papers will exaggerate this." After the first attack, Governor Poindexter declared an emergency, cleared the streets, ordered out the police and fire department. Farrington High School, the city's biggest, was converted into a hospital. But the Japanese attackers returned. Obvious to onlookers on the Honolulu hills was the fact that Pearl Harbor was being hit hard. From the Navy's plane base on Ford Island (also known as Luke Field), in the middle of the harbor, clouds of smoke ascended. One citizen who was driving past the naval base saw the first bomb fall on Ford Island. Said he: "It must have been a big one. I saw two planes dive over the mountains and down to the water and let loose torpedoes at a naval ship. This warship was attacked again & again. I also saw what looked like dive-bombers coming over in single file." When the first ghastly day was over Honolulu began to reckon up the score. It was one to make the U.S. Navy and Army shudder. Of the 200,000 inhabitants of Oahu, 1,500 were dead, 1,500 others injured. Not all the civilian casualties occurred in Honolulu. The raiders plunged upon the town of Wahiawa, where there is a large island reservoir, sprayed bullets on people in the streets. Behind the Wahiawa courthouse a Japanese plane crashed in flames. Washington called the naval damage "serious," admitted at least one "old" battleship and a destroyer had been sunk, other ships of war damaged at base. Meanwhile Japan took to the radio to boast that the U.S. Navy had suffered an "annihilating blow." Crowed the Japs: "With the two battleships [sunk], and two other capital ships and four large cruisers heavily damaged by Japanese bombing attacks on Hawaii, the U.S. Pacific Fleet has now only two battleships, six 10,000-ton cruisers, and only one aircraft carrier." Perhaps more important than the loss of ships was damage to the naval base, some of whose oil depots may have gone up in flames. Heaviest military toll was at Hickam Field, where hundreds were killed and injured when bombs hit the great barracks and bombs were reported to have destroyed several hangars full of planes. These reports may have been inaccurate--most of them came through in the first excitement of the attack and could not be confirmed. Thereafter virtually the only news about Hawaii came through a few bare communiques from the White House. It was all too likely that there was serious damage which was not reported. But the curtain of censorship settled down. The Fleet units which were fit for action put to sea. The White House said that several Jap airplanes and submarines were downed, but what happened in the next grim stage of the deadly serious battle was hidden for the time being by the curtain. Fort by Fort, Port by Port The first crashing blows were so widespread that it looked as if the Japanese were trying to realize their "Heaven-sent," Hell-patented ambition of dominating the Pacific all at one fell shock. Actually they had no such crazy plan. They had, instead, a pattern of attack for a first move which was brilliant, thorough, audacious, and apparently in its first two days, successfully carried through. Japan's gambit had two essentials: 1) strike at the heart of the main U.S. force and split it from the Allied forces to the East; 2) lay the groundwork for the destruction of the latter. After the assault on Hawaii, Guam, Wake, Midway, the soft little links between Hawaii and the Philippines, were quickly neutralized. Guam was easy. Captain George Johnson McMillin, whom the 22,000 Chamorros call King of Guam, could see from his 300-year- old palace the heavily fortified Japanese island of Rota. His kingdom had only one natural harbor and only one landing field. It was, thanks to the fact that certain U.S. Congressmen had not been able to see farther than the west bank of the Potomac River, unfortified. When the hour came, Japanese warships shelled the island, setting fire to the oil reservoir and all the principal buildings. According to Japanese reports, the flag of the Rising Sun rose over Guam after one day of fighting. On Wake, 1,100 men had recently been working long hours to complete air bases. According to the Japs, their bombers "smashed" Wake in no-time flat. Midway, only 1,300 miles northwest of Hawaii, was treated to a bombing to knock out Pan American Airways and military installations. Two small British islands, Nauru and Ocean, just south of the Japanese-mandated Marshall Islands, were taken. The Philippines. By the time the morning had pushed westward from Hawaii to the Philippines, Lieut. General Douglas MacArthur, Commander in Chief of U.S. Armed Forces in the Far East, had been hauled out of bed and told of the attack. Pilots were rushed to ready stations and Admiral Thomas C. Hart's Asiatic Fleet, which was at sea, prepared for action. The first Japanese blows at the Philippines were struck, not at Manila, but at Davao in the extreme south, where a great part of the Philippines' Japanese population (29,000) lives. The aircraft tender Langley was hit. Up north the Japanese bombed the Army's Fort Stotsenburg, the summer capital Baguio, then dropped leaflets promising the Filipinos that they would be liberated quickly. Manila snapped to attention. General MacArthur said: "The military is on the alert, and every possible defense measure is being undertaken. My message is one of serenity and confidence." One Japanese was arrested for snipping telephone wires, one was caught with an old, much-used set of harbor charts, 13 others were found barricaded in the Nippon Bazaar, a few were caught carrying knapsacks packed with tinned goods; but for the most part the Japanese herded docilely into concentration camps. The capital was spared air attack for a full day, apparently because of the good work of interceptor squadrons which met the Japanese about 40 miles north of Manila. But during the first night the Japanese swept in, set fire to gasoline dumps beside Nichols Field, bombed the fort of Corregidor (but not seriously), socked naval drydocks and repair shops. The Japanese aim was reported to be uncanny: few non-military buildings were hit. This week it was reported that Japanese troops, with the help of fishermen fifth columnists, had landed on Lubang Island right at the mouth of Manila Bay. This suggests that the Japanese might try to invade the Philippines. North China yielded up 183 U.S. marines in small garrisons at Peiping and Tientsin. Shanghai, once the very knob of China's open door, was taken over quickly and finally from U.S.-British hands. In the small of the night, Japanese soldiers poured into the International Settlement and along the famous Bund. A Japanese destroyer eased up to the British river gunboat Peterel, fired three red warning lights, a minute later opened fire and set it burning blackly. Then the destroyer proceeded 100 yards downstream and captured the U.S. gunboat Wake, which had been partially dismantled and was being used merely as a consular wireless station. The flag of the Rising Sun was unfurled from its aftermast. Hong Kong was bombed three times, expected invasion. North Borneo was reported attacked by landing parties. The Netherlands East Indies, so far unattacked, declared war in the knowledge that they would be attacked sooner or later. Said Governor General Jonkheer A.W.L. Tjarda van Starkenborgh Stachouwer: "These attacks almost make one think of insanity." Malaya was the scene of the most important attack in the Indies. Just as the Japanese struck at U.S. vitals at Pearl Harbor, they stabbed at British vitals at Singapore. The first bombing came at 4:10 a.m. and the British were caught with their pants no worse than unbuckled. Tokyo claimed two cruisers were hit. The real effort was a third of the way up the Malay Peninsula. There the wary British spotted five Japanese transports landing troops across monsoon-chopped waters in the moonlit night. The British rushed to meet them and repulsed the first assault. But the first assault was just a diversion. Ten miles to the south ten more Japanese transports were disgorging their eager little beach-climbers. Here the Japanese gained a foothold, then filtered through jungles and swamps toward Kota Bhary, site of an airdrome and junction of railways running south to Singapore and north to Thailand. The R.A.F. went to work on the transports, claimed two. The British also pushed north into Thailand to meet Japanese forces landing there. Thailand was invaded amphibiously at the neck of the Malay Peninsula. Bangkok was bombed. After five and a half hours' resistance, the Siamese gave up. They knew their cause was hopeless, since what little equipment their 100,000 soldiers had was second-rate Japanese stuff. Thailand was perhaps the key to the first phase of Japan's rape of the Pacific. Its conquest put the attackers in a key spot for two moves--south into Malaya or west into Burma, at the root of China's supply line. There were indications that both these operations, and perhaps others directed at Dutch possessions, would develop into the strongest Japanese tries. Most of these indications were in Indo-China. There the Japs had assembled up to 150,000 troops, great piles of rails (many removed from China), huge stocks of cement for airfields, lumber for barracks. But the British and Australians had been prepared too, and it was likely that the Japanese would have no pushover in Malaya. Britain's Far Eastern Commander in Chief Air Chief Marshal Sir Robert Brooke-Popham accomplished some masterly understatement when he said: "We do not forget the years of patience and forbearance with which we have borne with dignity and discipline petty insults inflicted upon us by the Japanese in the Far East." As for the U.S., it now had more than the Maine to remember. ADMIRAL KIMMEL Lifeline Cut Of all the Admirals who have made war on the modern seas, none was ever in the fix of Admiral Husband Edward Kimmel, by title Commander in Chief U.S. Fleet; by specific function: Commander of the U.S. Pacific Fleet. When Japanese bombers whipped over the frowning fastness of Diamond Head last Sunday morning the book of traditional U.S. naval strategy in the Pacific was torn to shreds. When the Japanese bombs had ceased to fall in the defense-crammed area around Pearl Harbor the book was out of print. Japanese tactics, which some called suicide war and others, less hopeful, the typical spring-legged assault of the determined underdog, called for revolutionary strategy. Blue-eyed, broad-shouldered Admiral Kimmel had been struck with war's most effective weapon: surprise. His whole mission had been vitally changed. He needed to re-establish the lifeline between the U.S. mainland and Admiral Thomas C. ("Tommy") Hart's Asiatic Fleet along the line Honolulu-Midway-Wake-Guam-Manila. But for the moment his mission was mainly defensive. It was almost as thoroughly defensive as the mission of Lieut. General Walter C. Short, commander of Honolulu's Army defenses, who also fell victim to surprise, but who could probably blame it on the extraordinary inadequacy of U.S. Naval reconnaissance of the Pacific. Gifted with a preponderance of tonnage and fire power protected by more and better aircraft, the U.S. Navy has thought in terms of assault. Spear & shaft. The spearpoint of U.S. Naval effort in the Pacific is the Asiatic Fleet based on Manila. The shaft of the spear is the line between the Philippines and Honolulu. The fist that wields the spear is Admiral Kimmel's fleet, based among the naval shops and the complicated waterways of Pearl Harbor. As long as the Navy could maintain this base, the spear could strike where it was aimed in the Far East. So strategists, thinking of the shaft in terms of the supply it must carry, called it the lifeline of the Pacific. The lifeline ran through perilous territory. At Guam it passed through the heart of the Japanese Mandated Islands, fortified and fitted with plane-and-light-craft bases beyond the eye of prying U.S. agents. Through its length the lifeline was vulnerable, as Navy men well knew, to harassing attacks from Japan. But the lifeline's anchor, Pearl Harbor, an indispensable adjunct to any fleet operation in the Pacific and the only major base west of the mainland, looked safe from all-out attack even by suicide units. From the Navy's bases on Ford Island, in Pearl Harbor yard, and at Kaneohe Bay, on Oahu's windward side, Navy patrol planes ranged ceaselessly out to sea. Their great circles of reconnaissance lapped each other, lapped the circle of Navy patrols from Alaska's Dutch harbor. Except for the Japanese spies that teemed in Honolulu, the Navy felt safe in its base. How that carefully planned reconnaissance system failed, few civilians could tell when the blow was struck. But the important thing thereafter was that the lifeline had been cut between Pearl Harbor and Manila. It was even possible that its anchor had lost a great part of its effectiveness as a supply-repair base and reserve fortress for the fleet in the Pacific. And if that were true, the loss would be greater than the loss in warships, immeasurably greater in its implications than the wreckage of planes at Hickam Field. Punch & Reel. The enemy had struck its first blow. Only ten months ago Admiral Husband Edward Kimmel was jumped over 46 flag officers to take the senior job afloat in the U.S. Navy. It was a strange commentary on the memories of civilians and Navymen alike that after Port Arthur this blow should have come as a surprise. (Where in 1904 the Japanese assaulted the Russian fleet while their Ambassador danced at the Tsar's ball in St. Petersburg.) Long before Hitler, the Japanese Navy had shown what the swift thrust, before declaration of war, could do. Like a boxer who is slammed before he can get off his stool, the Pacific Fleet had first to get itself up. From that time until the day when it can report its first victories over the Japanese, its role is primarily defensive. Its first victories may or may not come quickly. But until it can drive the Japanese out of the water between Honolulu and the mainland, until it can recover the lifeline islands and secure them from further attack, it cannot exert its full force against the Japanese. If Pearl Harbor got past this week's raids with little damage done to shops, drydocks and fuel storage, the Fleet can still function in force, minus only the striking power of ships and aircraft lost to bombs and torpedoes. But if Pearl Harbor is grievously damaged, the Fleet, or large units of it, may be forced to pull back to the Pacific Coast. Force. Even if it suffered the worst loss yet rumored in the Battle of Pearl Harbor, the U.S. Navy is still far superior to the Japanese Navy in striking force. Latest available data show that it then had 346 warships, the Japanese 262. Their classes: <table> U.S. Japan Battleships . . . . . . . . . . . 17 12 Carriers . . . . . . . . . . . 7 8 Cruisers . . . . . . . . . . . 37 46 Destroyers . . . . . . . . . . . 172 125 Submarines . . . . . . . . . . . 113 71 </table> In aircraft the U.S. also had a substantial edge: 8,000 by conservative estimate, to 3,600 for Japan (both Army and Navy). The actualities of production also favor the U.S. The U.S. can outbuild Japan time & time again in aircraft or ships. But the drain of supplies to other allied countries cuts down this margin. On the side of the U.S. Navy is a well-trained personnel with high morale spurred to desperation by the most humiliating setback in U.S. history. Against these advantages Japan balances a Navy with a high tradition, adept leadership, proved last week. Carrying the initiative with them, armed with secrecy, flaming with the success of their surprise attack, the Japanese have a broad ocean to hide in between blows. Target & Tactics. Japan hit Pearl Harbor in order to reduce the striking power of the U.S. Fleet beyond Manila. Japan wants the rich (oil, tin, rubber, etc.) Netherlands East Indies. But the path to the South China Sea is watched by many policemen. Headed southward, Japan will have to pass Manila, with its complement of bombers. She must risk a full-out attack on the Philippine defenses or bypass them. Japan's bases near the Philippines are open to the kind of amphibious warfare--land, sea and air attack--that the U.S. Navy has long discussed. Flanking her southward march on the right is Hong Kong, a better-equipped base than the Philippines' Cavite. Ahead of her lie Singapore, the stout secondary bases at Surabaya, Darwin and Amboina. This week Japan was pecking at some of these places, but she had not yet apparently risked an all-out attack on any. And before she could hope to grab and hold the Indies, she must reduce Singapore. Japan had taken on a crowd. With astounding success the little man had clipped the big fellow at Pearl Harbor, kicked the shins of a lot of other little fellows like Guam and Wake, stomped toward the rest of the crowd with impassioned, fiery eyes. But the fighters who had been hit were getting up; the rest were waiting with knives out. Japan was going to be busy, perhaps for a long time, certainly in a lot of places. To "Hubby" Kimmel and the Navy, as to 130,000,000 plain U.S. citizens, only one finish was conceivable. THE NEIGHBORS All for One [Any attempt on the part of a non-American State against the integrity or inviolability of...an American State shall be considered as an act of aggression against the States which sign this declaration--Final Act & Convention. Second Meeting of American Foreign Ministers, Havana, July, 1940. (All 21 countries signed.)] This week hemisphere defense switched abruptly from theory to fact. When the U.S. was attacked, 20 neighbor nations, bound by convention and economic necessity, took spontaneous action ranging from expressions of sympathy to declarations of war. There was general agreement that the immediate creation of a solid, unified front transcended all other hemispheric problems, past and present. To that end the U.S. agreed to a consultative conference of the Foreign Ministers of the 21 American Republics, the third in 2 1/2 years. Appropriately enough, the conference (slated for Rio de Janeiro) was proposed by Chile, where the U.S.-Japanese war is assayed in terms of a 2,800-mile Pacific coast line, of a profitable, well-knit shipping industry, and of South Pacific islands that would make ideal Japanese coaling stations. Chile ordered "naval measures" to protect her coast and the Magellan Strait. Brazil recognized the new war as a possible opening wedge for Axis penetration of South America, perhaps from Dakar into Brazil's Natal. Pan American Airways intensified precautions at its airports, most of which dot the Brazilian coast. Uruguay's President Alfredo Baldomir asserted his country is "the enemy of all those who attempt to impose their ideas by force," offered to construct air bases for "our planes and those of all friendly American nations." Most of the Caribbean nations, a weather eye on the Panama Canal, declared war against Japan. Costa Rica led the others (Honduras, Guatemala, El Salvador, Haiti, Nicaragua, and the Dominican Republic), plumping a good 18 hours before the U.S. declaration. Cuba's President Fulgencio Batista, with the backing of his Cabinet, asked the Congress to follow suit. Colombia seized two Italian ships which were tied up at Cartagena. Said Bogota's El Espectador: "Technically Colombia is at war." Nicaragua jailed its entire Japanese population: Gusudi, Yakata and Juan Hissi. War news hit Panama with almost the impact of a Japanese bomb. Full wartime precautions were ordered. Searchlights sweeping the Gulf of Panama (the Canal's Pacific entrance) and lights of Panama City (police required illumination in running down some 300 Japanese) flared impudently in the Canal Zone blackout. Several Japanese barbers were revealed to be engineers, technicians, experts of various types. Thirty-six hours after the first bombing of Hawaii, Panama declared war. Argentina heard of the Japanese attacks during its feverish provincial elections in Buenos Aires. Acting President Ramon S. Castillo said flatly that the country's attitude would be one of "absolute neutrality." Later, however, Foreign Minister Enrique Ruiz Guinazu revealed the neat device whereby Argentina may dodge "the customary declaration of neutrality": the U.S. will be treated as a non-belligerent, may use Argentine ports in the war against Japan. Mexico severed diplomatic relations with Japan, declared solidarity with the U.S., ordered 24-hour special patrols on the Pacific Coast, debated letting the U.S. use its air and naval bases. Peru pledged "an absolute, frank and unflinching solidarity" with the U.S., froze Japanese funds, sent protective troops to Limatambo Airport. Thus the united front neared completion. But the U.S. spotted two glaring chinks: Martinique and French Guiana, New World colonies of Axis-bent Vichy-france. Under the Havana Convention, the U.S., or any other American nation, may seize them whenever it chooses. THE ALLIES The Last Stage Prime Minister Winston Churchill heard the news while he was having a quiet supper with U.S. Ambassador John Gilbert Winant at Chequers, the Prime Minister's country house some 25 miles from Downing Street. Winston Churchill picked up the telephone and called an extraordinary session of Parliament for the next afternoon. Then he and Mr. Winant set out for London. The British public heard the news not many minutes later in a BBC newscast. It was no great surprise, but it left a disturbing question to sleep on. Would the U.S. be able to keep supplies flowing to Britain, now that she was at war herself? There was no formal meeting of the War Cabinet. But all night long Prime Minister Churchill, Ambassador Winant and members of the Cabinet kept informal vigil at No. 10, weighing and discussing each fragment of news as it came in. Again, Winston Churchill used the telephone, this time to call Franklin Roosevelt in Washington. They discussed a synchronized declaration of war on Japan. Their decision was outdated by the rush of history. A few minutes later word came to No. 10 Downing Street that Japan had declared war on both the U.S. and Britain, had attacked Malaya. Unlike the President, the Prime Minister needed to wait for no formalities. At 12:30 on Monday he held a meeting of the War Cabinet. To British Ambassador Sir Leslie Robert Craigie in Tokyo went orders to ask for his passport and to tell Japan that Britain was at war. This was a full nine hours before President Roosevelt signed the U.S. declaration. Churchill had nearly lived up to his November promise to declare war on Japan "within the hour" after an attack on the U.S. In the afternoon the Prime Minister stood before the House of Commons and reported in a short, eloquent speech that Britain had a new enemy. Said the incomparable orator: "In the past our light has flickered. Today it flames. In the future there will be a light that shines over all lands and seas." Less eloquent, but just as typical of Britain's belief in the U.S. as a comrade-in-arms, was a London bobby's remark: "This is the last stage. The war couldn't end until America was in. Now that she is in, the end is in sight." Echo from the West If Chiang Kai-shek was surprised, it was a flash reflex. He knew the Japanese too well for shock. The blast of bombs in Pearl Harbor was the amplified echo of an explosion along a Manchurian railway ten years ago. Since that day Chiang's Government, like some dusty, neglected Cassandra, had warned the Western Powers time & again that some day the Japanese Army would turn on them as it had on China. There was more lasting satisfaction for Chiang Kai-shek than the melancholy knowledge of prediction fulfilled. Although Japan's explosion in the Pacific might well be followed by the most powerful attack on China of the four-year war, Chiang was willing to take the risk. He knew that if Japan lost its war with the U.S., it would never again have the strength to enslave his people. To Hold. Within 24 hours of the attack on Pearl Harbor, Chiang's Government had declared war on Japan, Germany, Italy. Chiang's immediate role in the war was clear: to hold pinioned to China's earth ever larger forces of Imperial Japan. To Win. But Chiang knew that the war in Asia would not be over until, somewhere in China, Chinese troops had blasted Japanese troops from a major field of battle. There is only one way for China to acquire the necessary power to do that: by importing planes, artillery and trucks over the Burma Road. Chiang's first step toward victory was to keep the Burma Road open at all costs. He was preparing to do that. For weeks he had been marching troops into position south of the road. Hundreds of U.S. volunteers were to help him. Last spring they had offered themselves as mechanics and pilots for 100 old, outdated Curtiss P-40s that China had bought for Burma Road defense. Snarled by red tape, distance and misunderstanding, they had spent months establishing themselves. But for weeks now they had been practicing. Last week, their flight name chosen ("Flying Tigers"), spangled with Disney-designed insignia (a ferocious, striped tiger leaping through the point of a victory V), they were ready to begin the Battle of the Burma Road. China has also an ace to offer the U.S. in return for war materials: bases. There are airfields in Chinese territory under Chinese flag almost to the Pacific coast itself. From them some day U.S. bombers may swipe at Japan. THE ENEMY In Mr. Hull's Office Not until war blew the lid off diplomacy did the U.S. learn all the last-minute moves with which President Roosevelt and his Secretary of State tried to prevent war with Japan. Conversations between the President and Japan's envoys, Saburo Kurusu and Admiral Nomura, had reached a stalemate when on Nov. 26 Secretary Hull gave the Japanese a memorandum for a general settlement of the Pacific's problems. The terms it offered were stiff, and high-minded, but to a nation which had not already planned a treacherous attack they might have been tempting: -- Withdrawal of all Japanese troops and naval forces from China and Indo-China. -- Recognition by Japan of Chiang Kai-shek's Chinese National Government. -- Abandonment by Japan and the U.S. (and by other nations, if possible) of all extraterritorial rights in China. -- A new trade agreement between the U.S. and Japan. -- Removal of all restrictions on U.S. funds in Japan, Japanese funds in the U.S. -- An agreement to stabilize the yen with the dollar. -- An invitation to Japan to change sides, join the U.S., Britain, The Netherlands, Russia, Thailand and China in a non- aggressive settlement. While Mr. Hull and the President waited for Japan's reply, ominous reports of Japanese troop movements in French Indo-China began to pour in on Washington. At week's end President Roosevelt dispatched a personal message to Emperor Hirohito. Wrote the President: "Developments are occurring in the Pacific area which threaten to deprive...all humanity of the beneficial influence of the long peace between our two countries.... We have hoped for a termination of the present conflict between Japan and China. We have hoped that a peace of the Pacific could be consummated.... I address myself to Your Majesty...in the fervent hope that Your Majesty may, as I am doing, give thought in this definite emergency to ways of dispelling the dark clouds...." Next day was Sunday. At one o'clock that afternoon (it was 7:30 a.m. in Hawaii) a telephone rang at the State Department. Japan's envoys had a communication for Secretary Hull. Mr. Hull arranged to see them at 1:45. At 2:05 the two impassive envoys stalked in, 20 minutes late. Mr. Hull kept them waiting another 15 minutes for good measure. At the precise moment that Mr. Hull received them, the news was being received at the White House that Japan had attacked Hawaii. Courtly Mr. Hull took the document which Admiral Nomura gave him, adjusted his spectacles, began to read. It was the Japanese answer to Mr. Hull's memorandum. It was a flat rejection of the U.S. proposals. It was also an incredible farrago of self-justification and abuse. Wrote the Japanese: "Ever since the China affair broke out, owing to the failure on the part of China to comprehend Japan's true intentions, the Japanese Government has striven for the restoration of peace.... The Japanese Government has always maintained an attitude of fairness and moderation, and did its best to reach a settlement, for which it made all possible concessions.... On the other hand, the American Government, always holding fast to theories in disregard of realities, and refusing to yield an inch on its impractical principles, caused undue delay in the negotiations.... An attitude such as ignores realities and imposes one's selfish views upon others will scarcely serve the purpose of facilitating the consummation of negotiations.... Therefore...the Japanese Government regrets that it cannot accept the proposal...." Cordell Hull's eyes began to blaze as he read this document. He looked up at Japan's nervous envoys. What Mr. Hull was quoted as saying by the State Department was this: "In all my 50 years of public service I have never seen a document that was more crowded with infamous falsehoods and distortions--infamous falsehoods and distortions on a scale so huge that I never imagined until today that any government on this planet was capable of uttering them." Saburo Kurusu and Admiral Nomura walked out, pale and quiet. Whether they had been cat's paws or knowing agents of Japanese "diplomacy," their job was done. They had played a useful delaying action, helped pave the way for a treacherous attack. Japan Runs Amuck Just ten years ago the Japanese press went wild at a report that Secretary of State Henry L. Stimson had accused the Japanese Army of "running amuck." Stimson had never made the statement--but he had every right to. Here is the record of Japanese aggressions beginning in 1931: Sept. 18, 1931. Japanese troops, without warning, marched into Mukden, went on to conquer the Chinese province of Manchuria, set up the puppet state of Manchukuo. The Japanese Navy bombarded Shanghai; its Army moved in to kill some 100,000 Chinese. March 26, 1933. Japan pulled out of the League of Nations, which still believed in international law. Dec. 31, 1936. Japan refused to continue 5-5-3 naval limitation. July 7, 1937. Japanese troops without warning fired on Chinese sentries at Marco Polo Bridge, proceeded to take Peking. Because Chiang Kai-shek resisted, Japan again attacked Shanghai and entered it after eleven weeks' bloody fighting. Oct. 6, 1937. The League of Nations finally labeled Japan an aggressor. Dec. 12, 1937. Japanese aircraft bombed and sank the U.S.S. Panay in Yangtze River, later said "Very sorry," paid $2,214,000 indemnity. Dec. 13-27, 1937. Japanese troops advanced up the Yangtze, took and looted Nanking, committed some of the most fearful atrocities of modern history--mass murder of civilians and rape of tens of thousands of Chinese women. Nov. 18, 1938. Japan proclaimed her "New Order in Asia." ("Japan...is devoting her energy to the establishment of a new order based on genuine international justice throughout East Asia.") Feb. 11, 1939. Japan's troops seized China's Hainan Island, off the eastern coast of French Indo-China. Explanation: a "military necessity" to cut off war supplies from China. June 19, 1939. Tension at the foreign concession in Tientsin reached a climax after Japan's troops had erected live-wire barricades around the British and French Concessions. Japanese slapped the faces of several British women, stripped others. Next day the British evacuated their women and children to safety. March 30, 1940. Japan set up its Wang Ching-wei puppet Government at Nan-king. Aug. 30, 1940. Japanese troops marched into French Indo-China in a "limited occupation"--by agreement with the Vichy Government of a France already defeated. Sept. 27, 1940. Japan's Ambassador in Berlin, Saburo Kurusu, signed a military alliance--directed against the U.S.--with Germany and Italy. May 25, 1941. Japanese soldiers smashed the doors of two warehouses in Haiphong, seized $10,000,000 worth of U.S. products destined for China. July 30, 1941. Under a new pact with Vichy for "common defense" of the territory, more Japanese troops poured into French Indo-China. Nov. 15, 1941. Saburo Kurusu arrived in Washington as a special Japanese envoy, ostensibly to try to agree on a peaceable settlement with the U.S. STATE OF THE NATION Last Week of Peace In politics and meteorology it was a week of strange, unseasonable weather. Three great masses of warm air were in motion across the country. One swept inland from the Atlantic, bringing rain and fog--fog that covered the land from Maine to Florida, from Sandy Hook to the Mississippi, that grounded planes, made trains run late, and filled New York Harbor with the melancholy blare of foghorns and whistles. Another warm air mass moved from the Southwest bringing hot days to Florida, fog on the Gulf Coast, warm weather in Kansas (temperatures were ten to 15 degrees above normal). Another warm air mass moved inland from the Pacific. The U.S. was covered with warm air and fog like a blanket--a blanket with a hole in it, for there were the usual December snows in the Colorado Rockies. All U.S. weathermen could say was: "If there is any good explanation for such weather at this time of the year, we'd like to have it." The ancients would not have been at such a loss. They would probably have seen in it an omen of world-shaking events. Flowers bloomed and trees budded in New York City's December parks. In four days, 763 flights were canceled at LaGuardia Field--at the airports they said: "Even the birds are walking." Here and there planes, unable to come down at their scheduled stops, carried their passengers to out-of-the-way fields--at South Bend, in a few hours, 15 huge planes landed, like great ungainly birds seeking shelter. Under the fog, under the warmth, the daily life of the U.S. went on--the same old life with its humdrum murders and routine tragedies, its drives in the country and its arguments about Roosevelt, its arrests and hot tempers--inhibited, half-sad and half-contented. Although the whole nation had long had the sense that war was approaching, the country discarded its pre-war preoccupations slowly, regretfully, in the way that travelers across the plains were finally forced to throw away the lovely walnut bureau, the framed motto, the pictures of the graduating class, the heirlooms and excess baggage, when the going got tough. Some of the U.S. preoccupations in the week before war blotted them out: -- In Yreka, Calif., citizens of five counties "seceded" from Oregon and California, elected a Governor, held a torch-light parade, carried signs reading Our Roads Are Not Passable, Hardly Jackassable (their grievance was that neither Oregon nor California built roads to tap their rich minerals). Conceived in the spirit of what-the-hell-is-going-on-here, and dedicated to the proposition that any publicity is good, the State of Jefferson expected no long history, but its citizens hoped to get their roads. -- Solemn Chairman Walter F. George of the Senate Finance Committee, decided that taxes are already as high as they should go. He forecast that the national debt, now about $55 billion, might reach the fantastic height of $150 billion. -- The America First Committee denied that it would form a Peace Party, but declared that it would support any political candidate who opposed Mr. Roosevelt. It announced that it would support Isolationist Joseph B. Harrington who was running in the Massachusetts primary, in the Seventh District, for a Congressional seat which death had left vacant. To his district, heavily populated by French-Canadians, Poles, Germans, Irish, Italians, Syrians, Armenians, Czechs, Candidate Harrington proclaimed: "[The] sole and only issue in the campaign is the America First policies." -- OPM jubilantly announced that only one strike of "primary significance" was delaying the defense program: a walkout of 90 C.I.O autoworkers at the Rausch Nut & Manufacturing Co. (nuts & bolts for airplanes). -- Every war has made profiteers, and many a Washington official is beginning to suspect that World War II will be no exception. The House Naval Affairs Committee planned early hearings on a preliminary report that some shipbuilding companies are earning up to 150% on their investments. The Office of Price Administration, investigating an unnamed defense industry, found that 86 of 88 companies earn 6% or better, half earn 42.6% and up, one earns 112%. Senator David I. Walsh predicted "an awful day of reckoning" when the U.S. public gets the figures. -- Treasury Secretary Henry Morgenthau declared that unless Congress gave him $4,502,554 to collect the $5 "use" tax on automobiles, which U.S. motorists are supposed to pay next year, he would ask Congress to repeal the tax. -- After having held up defense by a week's strike in captive coal mines before he would consent to arbitration, John Lewis this week got what he asked for from the arbitration board. The arbitrators (Lewis, U.S. Steel's Benjamin Fairless, the public's John R. Steelman) voted 2-to-1 that the captive coal mines should sign union-shop contracts. The lone dissenter was Mr. Fairless, who nevertheless repeated his promise that his company would bow to the board's final ruling. The other steel companies involved had also agreed in advance to accept the decision no matter what they thought of it. In any other week, the news would have made big headlines. </body> </article> </text>