Pearl Harbor Betrayed (35 page)

*   *   *

After bucketing through riled-up seas and thick weather, the Striking Force found calmer conditions as, in the early-morning hours of the sixth, it reached its next rendezvous position D, at 31 degrees north, 157 degrees west. It was a noteworthy feat of seamanship that the fleet navigator, prevented by the leaden overcast from taking sun and star sights, hit his mark by dead reckoning. There at 1130, the attack force began a final refueling before action. When completed, the 1st Supply Train, consisting of oilers
Kyokuto Maru, Kenyo Maru, Kokuyo Maru,
and
Shinkoku Maru,
together with the escort destroyer
Kasumi,
was dispatched from the main body to sail for home waters.
34
Admiral Nagumo ordered up twenty-four knots, course due south on 180 degrees, for
Kido Butai
's daring daylight dash (until twilight at 0508) over the remaining distance to Point E, 230 nautical miles north of Oahu, where the first wave of aircraft would be launched into flight. The
Akagi
broke out a “DG” signal flag on the masthead to signify the same message to ships that Admiral Togo Heihachiro had signaled from the flagship
Mikasa
thirty-six years earlier at the Battle of Tsushima Strait:
THE FATE OF OUR NATION DEPENDS ON THIS BATTLE
—
ALL HANDS WILL EXERT THEMSELVES TO THEIR UTMOST
.
35
Cheering resounded on every deck. Then the crews prepared themselves for battle by prayer and by bathing for the first time since departing Tankan Bay; that is, all but the crews aboard
Soryu
and
Hiryu,
where on each carrier 550 tons of fuel oil were deck-loaded in 200-liter drums and bucket brigades were kept busy emptying their contents into the main fuel bunkers.

Chief ordnance officer Chigusa aboard the destroyer
Akigumo
observed in his diary that the dash south was favored by fair winds: “The wind fortunately changed from the northwest to the north. It was now just a fair breeze of about 10 m [twenty knots]. I should feel that even God was now with us. But strong swells still remain on the surface.”
36
Three submarines scouted 100 nautical miles ahead. And
Akagi
's communications officer reported that normal programming on Honolulu commercial radio stations KGMB and KGU indicated that there was no sign of alarm or tension on Oahu. American patrol planes were flying, but radio bearings taken on their chatter showed that they were south of Oahu.
37
From Combined Fleet intelligence came a mix of good and bad news:

Vessels now at anchor in Pearl Harbor consist of eight battleships and two heavy cruisers.
38

… No balloons, no torpedo-defense nets deployed around battleships. No indications observed from enemy radio activity that ocean patrol flights are being made in Hawaiian area.
Lexington
left harbor yesterday and recovered planes.
Enterprise
is also thought to be operating at sea with her planes on board.
39

The Honolulu consulate agent missed picking up on the PBY dawn patrol flown each day out of Kaneohe over the operating areas to the south, as well as the 400-miles-out PBY flights to the north and northwestward of Oahu on the first, second, third, and fourth. But it was true that no patrols were being flown this Saturday over
Kido Butai
's line of advance. The bad news was that neither of the Pacific Fleet's carriers was in harbor. “It is most regrettable,” commented air operations officer Genda, “that no carriers are in.”
40
Other bad news came from submarine
I-72:
“American Fleet is not in Lahaina Anchorage.”
41
In the planning for this attack it had always been a distant hope that the Pacific Fleet would not be in Pearl Harbor, after all, but in the deep, open anchorage off Maui, where twenty-nine fathoms of water ensured that vessels sunk there would never be refloated. The near hope was realized, however: the battleships were in Pearl. As Nagumo's chief of staff Kusaka concluded, “We may take it for granted that all eight battleships will be in the harbor tomorrow. We can't do anything about carriers that are not there. I think we should attack Pearl Harbor tomorrow.”
42
That became Nagumo's decision.

*   *   *

Saturday the sixth was a hectic day for cryptanalists and translators at the War and Navy Departments. Traffic volume was heavy and all circuits were overloaded. At 0720 the Navy station on Bainbridge Island in Puget Sound intercepted a message from the Japanese Foreign Ministry to its Washington negotiators Nomura and Kurusu. Translated by the Army, it announced the coming, at last, of Japan's formal answer to Secretary Hull's uncompromising Ten-Point note of 26 November. The text, later to become known in Pearl Harbor lore as the “pilot message,” called attention to the forthcoming transmission of another “very long” memorandum, in fourteen parts:

The situation is extremely delicate, and when you receive it I want you to please keep it secret for the time being.

Concerning the time of presenting this memorandum to the United States, I will wire you in a separate message. However, I want you in the meantime to put it in nicely drafted form and make every preparation to present it to the Americans just as soon as you receive instructions.
43

During that day the first thirteen parts of message No. 902 came tapping over the teletype from Puget Sound in nonsequential order: parts 4, 1, 2, and 3 by 1149, parts 9 and 10, 5, 6, 7, 8, 11, 12, 13 by 1451. After decryption they required no translation since the text was in English. The content of all thirteen parts was familiar to Commander Kramer, who assembled the decrypts, since it was no more than a rehearsal of previously stated Japanese positions. Much of the language was an attempt at justifying “the China Affair.”
44
What was different about it was a harsh tone in which the United States was both blamed for the failure of negotiations and imputed to have base motives. Part fourteen had not yet arrived when Kramer, with Wilkinson's permission, personally undertook the Magic distribution. Stopping first at the White House at about 2130, he left the locked pouch with assistant naval aide Lt. Lester R. Schulz, who, accompanied by an usher, immediately carried it to President Roosevelt, who was in his second floor study with adviser and confidant Harry Hopkins.

Just before dinner that evening, the President had dictated a radiogram to his secretary, Grace Tully. Addressed to Emperor Hirohito, one head of state to another, the message read in part: “I am confidant that both of us, for the sake of the peoples not only of our own great countries but for the sake of humanity in neighboring territories, have a sacred duty to restore traditional amity and prevent further death and destruction in the world.” As a practical matter Roosevelt offered to discuss the neutralization of Indo-China. He sent it by way of his ambassador, who had the right of audience. “Shoot this to Grew. I think can go in gray code—saves time—I don't mind if it gets picked up.” It reached the hands of the Emperor about twenty minutes before the first bombs dropped on Pearl Harbor.
45

While Schulz stood by, Roosevelt read slowly through the somewhat turgid prose of the thirteen parts, and, after reflecting on the next-to-last paragraph with its reference to Hull's Ten Points—“Therefore, viewed in its entirety, the Japanese government regrets that it cannot accept the proposal as a basis of negotiation”—he handed the message to Hopkins. When Hopkins finished reading the text, Roosevelt turned toward him and said, famously: “This means war.”
46

On 15 February 1946, then Commander Schulz testified about this incident before the JCC. He recalled that Hopkins, concerned that the Japanese would attack when it was convenient for them, expressed the view that “it was too bad that we could not strike the first blow and prevent any sort of surprise.” Roosevelt nodded, but said, “No, we can't do that. We are a democracy and a peaceful people.” Then he raised his voice and added, “But we have a good record.” Schulz went on to testify about other things that were said or not said by the two men:

During this discussion there was no mention of Pearl Harbor.… The time at which war might begin was not discussed, but from the manner of the discussion there was no indication that tomorrow was necessarily the day. I carried that impression away because it contributed to my personal surprise when the news did come.…

There was no mention made of sending any further warning or alert. However, having concluded this discussion about the war going to begin at the Japanese convenience, then the President said that he believed he would talk to Admiral Stark. He started to get Admiral Stark on the telephone … but I believe the White House operator told the President that Admiral Stark could be reached at the National Theater.… The President went on to state, in substance, that he would reach the admiral later, that he did not want to cause public alarm … if he [Stark] had left [the theater] suddenly.

When questioned if anything was said about telephoning anybody else besides Stark, Schulz answered, “No, sir; there was not.”
47
Stark's biographer says that, later that night, Stark and Roosevelt discussed the Japanese message “on the private telephone line from Stark's quarters to the White House.”
48

Kramer's next stop on his courier run was Secretary Knox's apartment in the Wardman Park Hotel. While Kramer waited, Knox studied the document, intermittently talking to Kramer and making telephone calls, at least one to Secretary Hull.
49
Kramer's final stop was at Wilkinson's home in Arlington, Virginia, where the DNI was entertaining his Army opposite number, General Miles, and the President's naval aide, Capt. John R. Beardall. All three read the message and commented on its significance as a sign that negotiations were shut off, but they apparently saw in it nothing of a military nature. About the other Magic-reading principals on the Navy side there is some confusion in the record. Kramer had not been able to locate Stark, but the CNO would have learned the basics of the Japanese message from Roosevelt, if indeed they spoke by telephone that night. He may also have been called by Wilkinson. Ingersoll and Turner both stated later that they had read the thirteen-part message on the evening of the sixth; but Kramer testified that he did not reach them that night and, instead, returned to the Navy Department about 0030 where he placed the Magic pouch in a safe.
50

On the Army side there is much conflicting (in one case altered) testimony about who saw what and when they saw it.
51
It will suffice to say simply that Colonel Bratton, who was in charge of Army distribution of the Magic pouch, apparently made only one delivery that evening, to the duty staff officer at the State Department, before heading home at about 2230. It is believed that Hull, and Stimson, too, did not see their copies until the following morning. Generals Marshall and Gerow both stated in testimony that they had not received the thirteen parts on the evening or night of the sixth. Only Miles acknowledged that he saw them, at Wilkerson's home, but did not inform Marshall by telephone or other means. Marshall stated before the JCC that he could not account for his movements that Saturday evening; he did not recall where he was, though he thought that he was in his quarters at Fort Myer.
52
If he had read the back files of the
Washington Times Herald
for 7 December 1941, he would have learned that he spent the evening of the sixth at a reunion of World War I veterans at the capital's University Club on 16th Street. (Stark, too, would have trouble later remembering that he, his wife, and his aide were in the audience for
The Student Prince
that evening.)

*   *   *

Meanwhile, at Hamilton Field in California, General “Hap” Arnold was readying another ferry flight of B-17s to a staging stop at Hickam Field, Hawaii. The Air Corps chief told his bomber pilots that they might fly into a war on this journey, which was no comfort to crews who knew that their guns, still covered in Cosmoline, had no ammunition. Furthermore, there were no gunners aboard to use the weapons even if they could have been fired. The fourteen Fortresses were going to go with five-man skeleton crews in order to save weight, hence fuel, for the long hops before them. Arnold was right about their meeting up with a war. He just did not guess how soon. This flight would arrive over Hickam in the middle of the Japanese attack.
53

In Hawaii, on that last evening of tropical peace, General Short and Lieutenant Colonel Fielder, with their wives, dined in the Officers' Club at Schofield Barracks, their conversation still fixed on the Mori call. Admiral Kimmel, too, dined out, at the Halekulani Hotel on Waikiki Beach, among about a dozen other guests of Rear Admiral H. Fairfax Leary, Commander Cruisers, Battle Force. Under the circumstances, their conviviality could not have evaded entirely the adumbrations of war, despite the attending strains of “Sweet Leilani” and “Lovely Hula Hands.” Following dinner, and his usual single drink, Kimmel retired to his quarters in Makalapa Heights at about 2200, and immediately turned in. Below his bedroom window lay the long, gray Battleship Row, with gun crews aboard each of the seven moored dreadnoughts (and
Pennsylvania,
which was in drydock) standing by antiaircraft weapons through the night. To the south, two minesweepers, USS
Condor
and
Crossbill,
swept the waters in and the approaches to the entrance channel, while a destroyer, USS
Ward,
trolled for submarines in the navigable waters between bearings 100 degrees to 250 degrees (true) from entrance buoy No. 1 to a distance of two miles. As he drifted off into his last unburdened sleep, Kimmel could take comfort from the fact that, as he thought, General Short's Army defense force was on full alert. He was not aware that, at the same time, Short was under the impression that, since 27 November, Patrol Wings 1 and 2 had been flying 360-degree distant reconnaissance; as similarly he was unaware that, back home, Main Navy assumed that his entire Battle Force was out to sea.
54