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PEARL HARBOR - THE UNITED STATES GOES TO WAR


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WWII* Chapter 13

If Hitler's assault on Russia had, in mid 1941, taken the Second World War beyond its European boundaries, then it was the infamous attack by Japan upon the US naval base at Pearl Harbour, on Oahu in the Hawaiian Islands, that finally made the war global in scale. For the devastating Japanese raid was the first roll of the dice in a mighty strategy which encompassed the whole of South-East Asia, and which almost succeeded.
The background to Japan's assault upon Pearl Harbour and the Pacific stretched back into the Thirties to the beginning of her protracted war with China. In that conflict, her troops had gained experience, her pilots had seen active service, her aircraft had gained in reliability. As Germany launched the Second World War in Europe, with a not dissimilar background of experience in the Spanish Civil War behind her, Japan saw clearly the triumphs that could be won by sheer brute force and military skill allied with audacity, surprise and speed. The lesson of Blitzkrieg was not lost on the subjects of Hirohito. Suddenly the world of the East seemed open to Japan, and she resolved to take her opportunity, and the wealth it could bring. Only the United States of America stood in the way, for America was neutral, and, unlike Britain, was not already irrevocably locked in European combat. Even Russia did not count as a threat for, although Russia had the manpower to fight on several fronts, Japan and Russia had signed a mutual non-aggression pact which, uncharacteristically, both Japan and Russia honoured until the very last days of the war.
The plan was first to destroy the American Fleet, then, while the USA was unable to put to sea with its armies, to overrun the whole of South-East Asia at a pace reminiscent of German Blitzrieg , seizing in concurrent assaults Thailand, Burma, Malaya and Singapore, plus the Philippines and Dutch East Indies archipelagoes. Once the Pacific and Indian Ocean nations between Burma in the West, New Guinea in the South, and the Aleutians and the Gilbert Islands in the North and East were under the Rising Sun, Japan planned to throw a defensive perimeter around the newly-won territories, and exploit the mineral, natural and human resources of a vast area of the earth upon which the rest of the world had until then relied heavily. This ambitious programme was ratified by the Japanese government at a Supreme War Council held on September 6th 1941, not eleven months after the near-murder of Prime Minister Prince Funimaro Konoye, who had urged restraint and compromise with the USA. Konoye resigned on 16th October 1941, and was replaced by the warlike General Hideki Tojo, who was bent on war as a means for Japanese expansion.
In April 1941, five months before the Japanese made their irrevocable decision to wage war, an allied plan known as ABC-1 for the defence of South-East Asia had been agreed between the British and the Americans in Washington. Believing that the recently appointed Far East Commander, General Douglas MacArthur, would be able to retain control of the Philippines in the event of an attack by the Japanese, the planners agreed on a concentration of force against Germany, and a relatively low-key holding operation against Japan. Despite the fact that, as early as January 1941, US Ambassador Joseph Grew had reported from Tokyo the belief that the Japanese might attempt a surprise attack on Pearl Harbor, no allowance was made in the plan for an attack on the US Navy in the Hawaiian Islands. As late as November 1941, American aircraft were still parked undispersed and wing to wing on Hawaiian airfields, a perfect target for bombers.
The detailed plan for the attack from the air that was to give the world its first truly global war was worked out by a naval staff under the gifted Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto, Commander in Chief of the Japanese Navy. He had six aircraft carriers, with a strong force of 14 protective surface ships and three submarines, plus a total of 432 bombers, torpedo bombers and fighter aircraft with which to carry out the surprise assault. In November, Yamamoto announced the plan to his assembled officers on board the old 30,000 ton battleship Nagato . He told them not to underestimate the American armed services, and assured them that Japan needed a great victory if she was to be seen as a great power. Soon after, on November 25th, the task force under Vice-Admiral Nagumo left the Kurile Islands, and on December 2nd the signal `Climb Mount Niitaka' gave the fleet the irreversible order to proceed with the attack; Operational Order No.1 was to be put into effect.
Incredible as it seems to us now with the benefit of hindsight, Admiral Kimmel and General Short, the US commanders at Hawaii, were warned of the likelihood of imminent war on November 27th, but did virtually nothing to improve the security of the fleet, most of which was at anchor in Pearl Harbour, nor to protect the aircraft parked undispersed on the ground. There was a total failure to accept or recognise the possibility that an attack might be directed against Hawaii. Maybe it just seemed too nice a place.
When, at just before eight o'clock on the morning on December 7th, the 214 aircraft of the first of two waves came speeding in from the Pacific to the attack, the entire establishment was enjoying a typical peacetime Sunday. The formation of aircraft had been spotted at 7.15am on radar, but the young Air Force officer to whom it was reported did nothing with the report because he was expecting a formation of B17 Flying Fortresses at the same time and place. If he had raised the alarm, the eight battleships and the other 86 vessels around them in Pearl Harbour would have had half an hour to recover their crews from their weekend ashore. As it was, they had only their watches on board. The aircraft were not armed. Even the anti-aircraft guns were not fully manned; their ammunition boxes were locked; the crews did not have the keys.........................................