Atlantis and Other Places (11 page)

December 8, 1941—
Chicago Tribune

December 9, 1941—
New York Times
editorial

Plainly, President Franklin D. Roosevelt has brought this war on himself and on the United States. On July 25 of this year, he froze Japanese assets in the United States. On the following day, he ordered the military forces of the Philippine Islands incorporated into our own—a clear act of aggression. And on August 1, he embargoed export of high-octane gasoline and crude oil to Japan, a nation with limited energy resources of its own. Is it any wonder that a proud people might be expected to respond with force to these outrageous provocations? Are we not in large measure to blame for what has happened to us?

Further proof of Mr. Roosevelt’s intentions, if such be needed, is offered by the August 12 extension of the Selective Service Act allowing peacetime conscription. Pulling out all political stops and shamelessly exploiting his party’s Congressional majorities, the President rammed the measure through by a single vote in the House, a vote some Representatives certainly now regret. . . .

December 11, 1941—
Boston Traveler

December 12, 1941—
Los Angeles Times
editorial

Having suffered a stinging setback in the Pacific, we now suddenly find ourselves called upon to fight two European enemies as well. FDR’s inept foreign-policy team has much to answer for. Mothers whose sons are drafted may well wonder whether the fight is worthwhile and whether the government that orders them into battle has any idea what it is doing. . . .

December 22, 1941—
The New Yorker

War Department officials privately concede that U.S. preparations to defend Hawaii and the Philippines weren’t up to snuff. “It’s almost criminal, how badly we fouled up,” said one prominent officer, speaking on condition of anonymity. “The administration really didn’t know what the devil it was doing out there.”

He and other sources sketch a picture of incompetence on both the strategic and tactical levels. Ships from the Pacific Fleet were brought into port at Pearl Harbor every Saturday and Sunday, offering the Japanese a perfect chance to schedule their attacks. U.S. patterns became predictable as early as this past February, said a source in the Navy Department who is in a position to know.

Further, U.S. search patterns the morning of the attack were utterly inadequate. Airplanes searched a diamond extending as far as 200 miles west of Pearl Harbor and a long, narrow rectangle reaching as far as 100 miles south of the ravaged base,
and that was all
. There was no search coverage north of the island of Oahu, the direction from which the Japanese launched their devastating attack.

It has also been learned that a highly secret electronic warning system actually detected the incoming Japanese planes half an hour before they struck Pearl Harbor. When an operator at this base in the northern part of Oahu spotted these aircraft, he suggested calling in a warning to Pearl Harbor. His superior told him he was crazy.

The junior enlisted man persisted. He finally persuaded his superior to call the Information Center near Fort Shafter. The man reported “that we had an unusually large flight—in fact, the largest I had ever seen on the equipment—coming in from almost due north at 130-some miles.”

“Well, don’t worry about it,” said the officer in charge there, believing the planes to be B-17s from the U.S. mainland.

A private asked the officer, “What do you think it is?”

“It’s nothing,” the officer replied. About twenty minutes later, bombs began falling.

In the White House, a tense meeting of Cabinet and Congressional leaders ensued. “The principal defense of the whole country and the whole West Coast of the Americas has been very seriously damaged today,” Roosevelt admitted.

Senator Tom Connally angrily questioned Navy Secretary Knox: “Didn’t you say last month that we could lick the Japs in two weeks? Didn’t you say that our Navy was so well prepared and located that the Japanese couldn’t hope to hurt us at all?”

According to those present, Knox had trouble coming up with any answer.

Connally pressed him further: “Why did you have all the ships at Pearl Harbor crowded in the way you did? You weren’t thinking of an air attack?”

“No,” was all Knox said. Roosevelt offered no further comment, either.

“Well, they were supposed to be on the alert,” Connally thundered. “I am amazed by the attack by Japan, but I am still more astounded at what happened to our Navy. They were all asleep. Where were our patrols?”

Again, the Secretary of the Navy did not reply.

In the Philippines, the picture of U.S. ineptitude is no better. It may be worse. Another of these secret, specialized electronic range-finding stations was in place in the northern regions of the island of Luzon. It detected Japanese planes approaching from Formosa, but failed to communicate with airfields there to warn them. Some sources blame radio interference. Others point to downed land lines. Whatever the reason, the warning never went through.

And U.S. bombers and fighters were caught on the ground. Although General MacArthur knew Hawaii had been attacked, our planes were caught on the ground. They suffered catastrophic losses from Japanese bombing and strafing attacks. With a third of our fighters and more than half of our heavy bombers—again, the B-17, the apparently misnamed Flying Fortress—lost, any hope for air defense of the Philippines has also been destroyed. Reinforcement also appears improbable. Our forces there, then, are plainly doomed to defeat. . . .

December 23, 1941—
Washington Post

President Roosevelt used a so-called fireside chat last night to condemn the publication in
The New Yorker
and elsewhere of information about U.S. military failings. “We are in a war now,” he said, “so the rules change. We have to be careful about balancing the people’s need to know against the damage these stories can cause our Army and Navy.”

He particularly cited the electronic rangefinder mentioned in the
New Yorker
article. Roosevelt claims the Japanese were ignorant of this device and its potential. (The
Post
has learned that the apparatus is commonly called
radar
—an acronym for RAdio Detecting And Ranging.)

A Republican spokesman was quick to challenge the President. “I yield to no one in my support of our troops,” he said. “But this administration’s record of incompetence in military preparation and in the conduct of the war to date must be exposed. The American people are entitled to the facts—
all
the facts—from which, and from which alone, they can make a proper judgment.”

December 29, 1941—
The New Yorker

More fumbling by officials in Honolulu and Washington led to the surrender of Wake Island to the Japanese last Tuesday. Wake, west of the Hawaiian chain, was an important position. Even disgraced Admiral Husband E. Kimmel, who so recently mismanaged the defense of Hawaii, could see this. In a letter dated this past April which a Navy Department source has made available to me, Kimmel wrote:

He was right about that—he could be right about some things. He also recommended that Wake be fortified. But work there did not begin until August 19, more than three months after his letter. Guns were not emplaced until mid-October. Obsolescent aircraft were flown in to try to help defend the island.