The Charlotte News

Monday, January 26, 1942

FOUR EDITORIALS

Site Ed. Note: The front page and its continuation page tell of the worsening war news. The only bright spot for the Allies continued to be the Russian front, where Hitler was now forced to remove his headquarters from Smolensk further back west to Minsk, the first city taken in the German offensive, 430 miles west of Moscow. These positions were being re-taken all along the former Nazi front, down to the Black Sea.

But in Libya, the source of good news for the British for months, suddenly there was a sea change. Rommel's forces began pushing hard from the eastern terminus to which it had been swept east and south by the British, at Agheila, back north toward Bengasi. Rommel was now just 70 miles southeast of the city once again. He would push 350 miles in just 17 days in the latter part of January, and eventually re-capture Tobruk in May, and from there moved on toward Alexandria, being finally stopped at El Alamein by the forces of British General Bernard Montgomery in October for want of supplies, cut off by relentless RAF bombing of supply ships through the Mediterranean.

DeWitt MacKenzie, on the continuation page, provides the probable explanation for the British reversal: transfer of planes from the Libyan-Egyptian front to the presently more critical theater of Singapore and Rangoon, the former now appearing ready to fall, with Japanese forces within 60 miles of the key port city, as Batu Pahat was surrendered by the British; the latter being threatened by the forces entering Moulmein in Burma. For the nonce, the Nazis had been pushed back a sufficient distance from the key to the Suez Canal, Alexandria, with a significant enough casualty rate and loss of equipment that it was thought forces could be transferred to the Far East without immediately endangering key positions in North Africa and the Middle East.

It was reported that in a four-day naval battle in the Macassar Strait, a narrow 30-mile passage between Celibes and Borneo, Admiral Hart's Asiatic Fleet had sunk ten Japanese ships and damaged 21 others. These reports proved exaggerated: the actual toll was only four transports sunk. Nevertheless, the news was fresh air to the American public, grown accustomed to daily reports of beleaguered forces in the region, on the verge of annihilation and defeat. The respite from bad news would not last long; eventually the Japanese would be victorious in this battle and sink 30 Allied ships, including the oldest aircraft carrier in the world, the Langley, and the cruiser Houston.

Meanwhile, sounding a bit like a segregationist governor in the American South, Australia's Prime Minister, John Curtin, as Japanese forces landed in New Guinea, made the unfortunate statement: "Australia is for Australians. It is a white Australia. With God's blessing we shall keep it so." There was really no need to adopt Hitler's methods to exhort troops to deliver the shot to troops encouraged by Hitler to fight in the first instance.

On the Atlantic front, Northern Ireland received American troops of an undesignated number to supplant the British defenders and relieve political tension for having the large presence of British troops there. Eire, despite U.S. and British political pressure recently to the contrary, remained neutral.

Closer to home, yet another merchant ship, the Venore, this one an unarmed ore carrier, was sunk off the North Carolina coast by a German U-boat, killing 22 of its crew. Paul Mallon remarks on the editorial page of the illegality of this action, that, under the 1936 Treaty of London, unarmed merchantmen were protected from such attack unless all on board were first given safe haven. The only exception to the rule was when the ship was haled and refused to stop for search. No such indication accompanied the report of the sinking of the Venore.

Everyone, of course, should have stood shocked, shocked to learn that Nazi Germany would sink to violation of a treaty it had signed in relatively recent time. There is a first time for everything.

Speaking of which, it is reported also that Congressman Hamilton Fish of New York, a former vocal isolationist, wished General MacArthur a happy birthday, issuing high praise for the continued effort in the Philippines. We feel confident that General MacArthur was buoyed by this news from Mr. Fish and sent the Congressman a nice big piece of his birthday cake, with a personally autographed note of thanks for the memories. The engraving, we understand read, "It's yer birthday, too."

"Happy Birthday" reminds of the heavy losses being incurred on both sides in the Battle of the Philippines, with 70,000 estimated dead among the Japanese insurgents and an unreported number of "heavy losses" among the American-Filipino forces of General MacArthur. To put those losses in perspective, more Japanese lay dead on Luzon in forty-five days of fighting than all of the American dead through eight years of war in Vietnam, 58,000. Life was now cheap in a world where war dominated the news and had for the previous two and a half years. Everything as to success and failure in attack was expressed in relative terms. "Only a hundred dead", then "only a thousand", until the figures no longer meant anything but numbers cast in ink, as Ernie Pyle, from percipient observation of the reality at the front, eloquently recorded the matter in his last story, before taking a bullet himself, in the Pacific on Ie Shima, April 18, 1945.

"Jap Scrap" tells of the shortage of scrap metal in the country, an irony, as scrap iron had been sold to Japan by the shipload until July, 1941. Now, Japanese ships and planes were inflicting serious damage and loss of life in the Philippines, in Malaya against the British and Australians, in Burma, in the Dutch East Indies, and now even extending into New Guinea and Australian territory, all while the country struggled to find enough iron with which to forge steel, enough aluminum to make fighter planes and bombers. But, the paradox was that had the country cut off the trade prior to the precipitant event of the occupation of Indochina, then undoubtedly the war would have come that much sooner, at a time when the United States was even far less prepared for the fight than by latter 1941, after seven months since the President had declared the national emergency, May 27.

No sooner than Raymond Clapper informed in the Friday edition anent the idea of the British plan of assigning each person the task best fitting their skills, than we now get from one J. L. Benvenisti, a British economist and writer, the story of his conversion to metal lathe work, a task which he had never before performed, but which he found far more satisfying than the alternative to which he was assigned one day as diversion from his lathe, observing a grinding stylus move across a piece of metal for 45 minutes at a sweep, during which observation time he learned to ward off insanity by committing to memory couplets of Shakespearian Sonnnets.

So am I as the rich, whose blessed key
Can Bring him to his sweet up-locked treasure,
The which he will not every hour survey,
For blunting the fine point of seldom pleasure.

He also tells of the Orientalist, trained at the Sorbonne and Oxford, who was now pre-supposed best fit to train as an oxy-acetylene welder.

We thus suppose from these facts that there was no longer need to study the Orient, only to weld together the machines of war either in aid of it, insofar as the Chinese were concerned, or opposed to it, insofar as the Japanese empire quest; that, likewise, the economy, being now completely on a war footing by czarist commandeering of the organs of production in Great Britain, strikes and work stoppages being made illegal for the duration, was seen to glide sufficiently by itself without the need any longer of economists to guide it.

An Orientalist welding and an economist scraping brass on a turning lathe--

Somehow, as the Allies won the war, there may have been great wisdom in these apparently counter-intuitive fitments: that over-analysis and undue scrutiny of any subject, especially foreign cultures and the economy, may so whet the knives of incisiveness that nothing useful comes of it save overly sharp aphorisms, useless metaphors based on outmoded or non-existent paradigms, outmoded by each day's events as the paradigms were based on that of a rational, semi-sane operative at work--more questions finally than answers, serving only to confuse rather than clarify, all more easily and efficiently achieved by simply reading Shakespeare's Sonnets?

Incidentally, amid the war news was the heartening report from Malaya, on the continuation page, that a Sikh battalion, in addition to inflicting 400 Japanese casualties on the front 50 miles north of Singapore, had also managed to knock down 200 Japanese "cyclists", whether motorized or not being not told, killing fully 50 of them.

Remember that next time you wish to take a ride, with ultra-violence in mind, into someone else's country.

"Sad Awakening" summarizes the findings on the U.S. Navy and Army lack of preparedness prior to the attack at Pearl Harbor, as just released on Friday by the Roberts Commission, headed by Supreme Court Justice Owen Roberts. The editorial, however, does not make mention of the fact, which became clearer in more extensive investigations conducted by Congress in 1944-46, that the reason the preparations of the Navy were primarily aimed at submarine attack and those of the Army and Army Air Corps, at sabotage, and for the de-emphasis on air attack, was that the communiqués, the November 27 "war warning" to Admiral Kimmel, the same day's "hostile action" message to Lt.-General Short, emphasized just those forms of attack, not mentioning any possibility of air attack. These messages tended to confirm that which the commanders already believed were the primary concerns all along, the threat of sabotage, a fear the realization of which was heightened by the presence on Oahu of some 100,000 Japanese, most of whom provided the cheap labor base for the sugar plantations: thus, the order not to alarm the locals with unduly public preparations for attack in the anti-sabotage efforts. Moreover, there could be no thought of internment or curfew, as such drastic measures would harm the plantation owners and their domino sugar shacks.

(Intermission: Go have some coffee and relax.)

Air attack was simply thought too remote to be a realistic concern on which to expend already limited personnel and equipment in making more than the most limited preparation--the putting in place of new and unreliable air warning systems and the ongoing training of men to operate them being the primary precaution, and that undertaken only during daylight hours and from 4:00 to 7:00 a.m., the time thought most likely for an air attack.

Significantly, the report points out: "On November 27, 1941, there was sufficient partially trained personnel available to operate the aircraft warning system throughout 24 hours of the day, as installed in its temporary locations. An arc of nearly 360° around Oahu could have been covered. Admiral Kimmel, on and prior to December 7,1941, assumed that the aircraft warning system was being fully operated by the Army, but made no inquiry after reading any of the messages of October and November from the War and Navy Departments as to what the fact was with respect to its operation."

The editorial also is not aware, as apparently the report itself was not, that submarines had been plying the waters around the mouth of Pearl Harbor intermittently for weeks prior to the attack, gathering information.

The piece makes note of the incident involving the Ward and Antares, the earlier spotting at 3:42 a.m. on December 7 by the Condor of a periscope and reporting it to the Ward, but confuses the facts: the submarine thought to be earlier spotted was then depth-charged by the Ward at around 6:30-6:45 a.m., over an hour before the 7:55 attack, not at 7:45 as the editorial asserts; the submarine which slipped into the harbor came in through the open nets, the Roberts report assumes, at around 7:00 and was sighted first at 7:45, ten minutes before the attack. This submarine, however, was different from the one attacked by the Ward and believed to be sunk an hour earlier, the latter having been finally depth-charged, rammed, and sunk in the harbor at between 8:35 and 8:43, nearly an hour after the attack began, after it fired a torpedo harmlessly into a dock. Thus, the situation was actually was worse in terms missing an opportunity to apprise of the attack than the editorial assumes. Over an hour of advance warning might have been achieved, or at least some 40 minutes from the time of the report of the sinking had not Admiral Kimmel dismissed the report as being based on insufficient evidence of an actual submarine sinking, such reports of sightings and sinkings being fairly common in the months preceding the attack.

Moreover, the report itself notes that had the message informing of the imminence of war with Japan and final cessation of negotiations been received as planned, by 7:00 a.m. in Hawaii, rather than several hours after the attack, the additional time would have been too slight to afford significant preparation, this by way of exonerating the brass in Washington and the Cabinet Secretaries from responsibility in not communicating the message earlier. Indeed, as the report does not indicate, the first thirteen parts of the fourteen-part message was in the hands of ONI and G-2 the night before, and indeed, the President and Cordell Hull knew by that point that all efforts at negotiations were final and that war was likely and soon. What they did not understand, as no one did, was that the war would come by way of attack on Hawaii the next morning rather than an attack in Malaya, the Philippines, or N.E.I. in the ensuing days. Thus, based on the Roberts Commission report, the Ward incident, even if reported promptly and taken seriously, would have afforded no significant advantage to counter the attack more effectively, the ultimate problem having been found by the Commission to be the types and levels of preparations, adequate to meet sabotage, but not air attack.

As indicated previously, as far as local air reconnaissance is concerned, there were simply insufficient planes available to General Short to perform more than a search of areas to the south and southeast of Oahu, leaving the northern end of the island vulnerable to approach. The report asserts: "On the morning of December 7, 1941, prior to the attack, the following searches of sea areas were being made. Six patrol planes were searching south and southeastwardly from Midway. These patrol planes were in the air engaged in a joint exercise with submarines south of Oahu. Eighteen scouting planes from Task Force 8 had been dispatched to scout in advance of the force which was on its way to Oahu."

Interestingly, the report indicates that sometime after noon on December 7, over four hours after the 7:55 attack had begun, "[t]wo utility planes searched northward of Oahu to a distance of 300 miles, and 9 planes which had arrived from carriers and refueled searched some 200 miles to the northward. No contacts were made with enemy aircraft or carriers, except that 1 Navy airplane was attacked by a Japanese airplane some 300 miles north of Oahu." That is remarkable because Nagumo's Fleet was still present in that vicinity to the north, not yet by that time high-tailing it back through the northern curly-wurly, the drop of oil off the spout of the oil pump, before turning west on its zig-zag track, the bottom lines of the oil pump, back to Hiroshima. For the last of the planes did not return to the carriers until the first wave commander Fuchida himself landed at around 1:30, the planes having been returning sporadically since 10:30. And the Task Force had moved to within 190 miles of Oahu by that time.

So the fact that the Fleet and returning planes were not spotted is testimony to the imposing vastness of the sea itself and the likelihood that even pre-attack patrolling to the north by as many as eleven planes would not necessarily have picked up either Nagumo's Task Force or the inbound planes. Why would pilots on some routine patrol mission prior to the attack have been more likely to spot something amiss than these pilots who knew of the attack and expected to find something in that area after the attack?

The piece's mention of the radar operations does not point out the fact that the equipment was new and considered quite unreliable; nor is it aware that the reason for the mistaken belief on the part of the young operator, as transmitted to him from command headquarters, that inbound blips he spotted were friendly, was the result of the fact that a flight of 12 B-17's were expected from California, with projected arrival time charted for 8:00 a.m. (Incidentally, whether the Japanese spy intelligence was enough sophisticated to have known this fact and used it in the planning of the attack, is nowhere indicated and doubtful. It is likely that it was simply hapless fortuity. Regardless, the alternative assumption was that the planes belonged to the returning Fleet of Admiral Halsey, having delivered planes at Wake Island, and were engaged in a customary Sunday drill.)

Overall, however, the editorial understands the problem: they didn't believe it could happen, neither Secretary Hull and the State Department, Secretary Stimson and the War Department, Secretary Knox and Admiral Stark at the Navy, nor the field commanders in Hawaii. They thought that the 3,500 to 4,000 miles of ocean, depending on the route, simply extended across too vast a distance for a whole fleet of carriers and support tankers and destroyers to traverse in secret with any practicable opportunity for success. Nevertheless, the concomitants of the route chosen through the "vacant sea", favorable weather conditions, aided by the time of year chosen, the strict maintenance of radio silence throughout the voyage, plus the planning of the attack for a Sunday morning when emergent senses were at an ebb after the usual Saturday night carousing, all combined to enable the thing which couldn't happen. Said the report: "On the night of December 6 numerous officers of the Army and Navy attended social functions at various points on the island of Oahu, principally the usual Saturday functions at the various posts and naval establishments. The commanding general, Hawaiian Department, and the commander in chief of the Pacific Fleet were both guests at dinners away from their posts of command on that evening, but returned to their quarters at an early hour." All places of social amusement, however, were under general orders to close at midnight.

In answer to a lot of speculation among the public, including letters to the editor at The News, as to whether intoxication of soldiers played any role in lack of preparedness, the report added:

Intoxicating liquor is sold on the island of Oahu, and men on pass or on liberty have the opportunity to buy and consume it. Following the established procedure, at home and abroad, the Army exercises disciplinary control of men on pass through its military police, and the Navy of men on liberty by the use of shore patrols. These organizations take into custody any person showing evidence of intoxication. On the night of December 7, 1941, from 6 p. m. to 6 a. m., arrests of soldiers by the military police, for intoxication, were 38, and arrests of sailors by the Navy shore patrol, for intoxication, were 4. By comparison the arrests of civilians for drunkenness on that night were 39. Thorough inquiry disclosed there is no evidence of excessive drinking by any officer of either service on that night. The evidence shows that as respects the use of intoxicating liquor and intoxication, the conditions amongst the men of the Army and of the Navy on the night of December 6 compare closely with similar conditions for the several preceding months. On Saturday, December 6, 1941, the usual percentage of enlisted strength entitled to passes or liberty took advantage of such privilege to spend the afternoon or evening in the city of Honolulu. Application of this ratio to total numbers of all the services then on the island of Oahu and in Pearl Harbor, amounting to about 75,000 men indicates that no less than 11,000 soldiers, sailors, and marines visited Honolulu that afternoon and evening.

In normal times more enlisted men of both services are absent from duty by permission on Saturday nights than on other nights; and on Saturday nights more officers are customarily absent than on weekday nights.

On the morning of Sunday, December 7, Army posts and naval vessels and stations were adequately manned, for the readiness and alert then in effect, by men fit for duty.

As we have stated, added to the idea of impracticability was the notion that nobody thought the Japanese so criminal to plan such a thing, unprovoked, against a nation which was ostensibly neutral. It is true that the United States had cut off oil and scrap iron and other vital materials to Japan when it ceased trade and froze Japanese assets in late July when Japan occupied Indochina; it is true that the United States had been sending aid to China and diplomatically supporting China, as well as patrolling and protecting the vital supply route of the Yangtze River since the start of the Sino-Japanese War in 1937; it is true that Japan had a history of surprise attacks, notably as recently as 1907 against Russia. But, by the same token, the United States had been aiding Japan with the trade of oil and scrap iron for silk during the same period; by the same token, Japan appeared earnest in ongoing talks with the President and Secretary Hull since April, 1941, the details of which were being gathered by Kimmel and Short only through the newspapers, even if by November 27 the newspapers were reporting the apparent breakdown of the talks, that war with Japan appeared imminent. Nevertheless, all direction finders alerted war in the region of the Philippines, Malaya, and the Dutch East Indies. No one, not the press, not officialdom in Washington, spoke of possible air attack on Hawaii; no one spoke of a missing Fleet possibly plodding its way across the main of the "vacant sea".

There was no excuse on the part of the Japanese. Nor were they excused by the notion of ridding the Pacific of American and European interests, a racist, xenophobic prejudice akin to some idiot wishing the United States to invade Cuba, Haiti, and the Dominican Republic to rid Spanish and French influence there, to take Bermuda on the antiquated belief in Perfidious Albion. In short, some idiot like Robert Rice Reynolds.

The piratical trespass was absurd and a product of lunatics, the other side of the coin to that of Hitler's Aryan purity lunacy--Oriental purity lunacy.

As we have suggested before, once Hitler had completely dominated Europe and subjugated Africa, the Middle East and India, the plan no doubt was then to meet the other primary Axis member, Japan, to divvy up the world in the final "peace". Yet, given his relationship to the world, that of megalomaniacal desire unbounded, always paranoiacally viewing the glass partially empty rather than mostly full, the product in large part of a mind unconstrained in its wild imaginings by the check of a sound education, it would not have been long until Hitler's goal of world rule would have led him to war with Japan, just as the same complex led him to attack Russia, his former partner--especially after he acquired and utilized the uranium from the Belgian Congo to fuel the atom bomb on which German scientists, according to Einstein in his letter to Roosevelt of August 2, 1939, were hard at work in developing, that to go with the rockets in production at Peenemunde. While it would not have come by August, 1945, had the Japanese ever finally won the war of the Pacific, in all likelihood, the entire island would have been obliterated from the face of the earth by Hitler, should he have also been successful in Russia and North Africa, and then successfully invaded England per the plan laid out long before in Mein Kampf, that culled from Karl Haushofer's theory of geopolitics. Not merely two atomic bombs but two dozen would have likely fallen on Japan; not merely 120,000 people killed, but 90 million, should Hitler have been able to effect it. For his entire policy of war, his entire policy of life, was to "wage war without pity". And Japan, so worn down in the Pacific by their bloody struggle for empire, had by war's end, obviously, absolutely no counter-defense to such a doomsday weapon.

Significantly, the report found that a letter from Frank Knox to Henry Stimson on January 24, 1941 advised:

"The dangers [to Pearl Harbor] envisaged in their order of importance and probability are considered to be: (1) Air bombing attack, (2) air torpedo plane attack, (3) sabotage, (4) submarine attack, (5) mining, (6) bombardment by gunfire."

The report went on:

"[The letter] stated the defenses against all but the first two were then satisfactory, described the probable character of an air attack and urgent consideration by the Army of dispositions to discover and meet such attack and provision of additional equipment therefor. It concluded with recommendations for the revision of joint defense plans with special emphasis on the coordination of Army and Navy operations against surprise aircraft raids. It also urged the conduct of joint exercises to train the forces to meet such raids."

The letter was then passed on to Admiral Kimmel and Lt.-General Short. Plans were then put into effect in preparation for an air attack; it was considered that the most likely time of day for such an attack was at dawn.

Yet, as indicated, by late November, with numerous false alarms of supposed attacks occurring in the interim, the chances of air attack had been considered and dismissed, so much false-alarm poppycock, a consequent waste of men and supplies for undue caution with regard to it, especially as all eyes were misdirected in concentration to the South Pacific--the Philippines, Malya, and N.E.I., one message from the Admiral Stark to Admiral Kimmel on November 29 specifically mentioning the expectation of imminent hostilities by attack on the Kra Peninsula, the Thai middle portion of the Malay Peninsula, some 7,500 miles from Hawaii. This focus relaxed stress in Hawaii for any measures other than general preparedness to transport the Fleet, and the continuing wariness of both limited submarine attack and sabotage.

Moreover, General Short was aware that there were three carrier task forces at sea, each with a 600-mile range of reconnaissance. He was not aware that they were essentially plying the same track toward Midway and Wake, not running parallel, that consequent long-range reconnaissance was limited. As the report found: "General Short assumed that the Navy was conducting distant reconnaissance, but after seeing the warning messages of October and November from the War and Navy Departments he made no inquiry with respect to the distant reconnaissance, if any, being conducted by the Navy." Typically, only one task force was sent forth each week. The report states: "On December 7 Naval Task Force 8 was about 200 miles west of Oahu, proceeding toward Oahu. Another was about 700 miles west of Oahu. A third, Task Force 11, was in the vicinity of Johnston Island, about 700 miles southwest of Oahu. These task forces were engaged in operations connected with strengthening the defenses of the outlying islands."

These views were reinforced by both the receipt on December 4 of news that the Japanese had ordered destruction of all diplomatic codes and on December 1 of the following from the Director of Naval Intelligence:

"Deployment of naval forces to the southward has indicated clearly that extensive preparations are under way for hostilities. At the same time troop transports and freighters are pouring continually down from Japan and northern China coast ports headed south, apparently for French Indochina and Formosan ports. Present movements to the south appear to be carried out by all individual units, but the organization of an extensive task force, now definitely indicated, will probably take sharper form in the next few days. To date this task force, under the command of the commander in chief, Second Fleet, appears to be subdivided into two major task groups, one gradually concentrating off the southeast Asiatic coast, the other in the Mandates. Each constitutes a strong striking force of heavy and light cruisers, units of the combined air force, destroyer and submarine squadrons. Although one division battleships also may be assigned, the major capital ship strength remains in home waters, as well as the greatest portion of the carriers."

The precautionary measures continued to be directed to sabotage and possible submarine attack, not direct air attack. No one mentioned that Vice-Admiral Nagumo's First Air Fleet, that headed for Hawaii, had fallen off the screen at some point in late November. Instead, it was believed still to be in home waters.

As to subversive activities in Hawaii, it was known that Japanese consular officials were involved in espionage. The FBI had primary surveillance responsibility. The report stated: "Efforts were made by the Bureau to uncover espionage activities in Hawaii. The United States being at peace with Japan, restrictions imposed prevented resort to certain methods of obtaining the content of messages transmitted by telephone or radio telegraph over the commercial lines operating between Oahu and Japan. The Bureau and the local intelligence staffs were unable prior to December 7, to obtain and make available significant information respecting Japanese plans and fleet movements in the direction of Hawaii." Two hundred unregistered agents of the consul were operating by summer, 1941 and a question was raised by Naval Intelligence as to whether they should be arrested; Short objected, that it would hinder efforts of the Army to instill friendly relations with the Japanese, to lessen the chance of sabotage.

The report continued:

"It is now apparent that through their intelligence service the Japanese had complete information. They evidently knew that no task force of the United States Navy was anywhere in the sector northeast, north, and northwest of the Hawaiian Islands. They evidently knew that no distant airplane reconnaissance was maintained in any sector. They evidently knew that up to December 6 no inshore airplane patrol was being maintained around the periphery of Oahu. They knew, from maps which they had obtained, the exact location of vital air fields, hangars, and other structures. They also knew accurately where certain important naval vessels would be berthed. Their flyers had the most detailed maps, courses, and bearings, so that each could attack a given vessel or field. Each seems to have been given in a specified mission."

The report erroneously concluded that only three or four Japanese carriers participated in the convoy to Pearl Harbor. In fact, there were six. The report also assumes only between 150 and 200 Japanese planes participated in the two waves of the attack, apparently failing to understand that each wave contained this many planes. In fact, there were 350 planes in both waves, leaving behind about 100 to protect the Fleet, parked 220 miles north of Oahu.

It also assumes that some 30 Japanese planes were downed by the few airmen on Oahu able to reach planes, those not already destroyed by their having been clustered in preparation for sabotage, and that "several" other Japanese planes were lost at sea. In fact, only 29 Japanese planes in all, twenty of which were in the second wave, were lost. That number includes those which did not make it back to the carriers for mechanical difficulties or want of fuel. Just how many of those were in fact shot down by American pilots is not clear. In all, 55 Japanese pilots and crew died, compared to the 2,390 they murdered on Oahu.

The Roberts Commission report concluded with a "Summary". It exonerated all of the brass in Washington, plus the civilian chain of command, the President, Secretary of State, the Secretaries of War and of the Navy, and laid responsibilities for the attack entirely on Short and Kimmel, that they committed "errors of judgment", "dereliction of duty" in not consulting with each other to coordinate operations for security and defense of Pearl Harbor, and demonstrated a "lack of appreciation of [their] responsibilities" in not seeing to it that the adequate contingency plans for defense were in fact deployed effectively.

Were these conclusions fair? As we have argued extensively in our notes accompanying the pieces of the days immediately preceding and after the attack, we think not. The proper scapegoat was the unique means of attack and the particular ruthlessness with which it was put into action, utilizing the dual deception of the southward moving task forces and the pretense of good faith negotiations with Washington to delude and confuse. Had the two countries already been at war, one might consider it a brilliant war strategy. As it was, it was an act of sneak-thievery and heinous criminality never seen before or since in warfare between two sovereign nations.

In truth, no one did predict it; no one could have predicted it. Thus, it was either the fault of everyone in the United States--for the press and public knew nearly as much regarding the likelihood of war and the movement of ships in the Pacific as did the brass and government officials in the days preceding the attack--, or it was no one's fault. Given the type of attack, we lean toward the latter.

The essential summary findings were as follow:

10. The order for alert No. 1 [defense against sabotage and uprisings, not from attacks from without] of the Army command in Hawaii was not adequate to meet the emergency envisaged in the warning messages [of November 27 and thereafter].

11. The state of readiness of the naval forces on the morning of December 7 was not such as was required to meet the emergency envisaged in the warning messages.

12. Had orders issued by the Chief of Staff and the Chief of Naval Operations November 27, 1941, been complied with, the aircraft warning system of the Army should have been operating: the distant reconnaissance of the Navy, and the inshore air patrol of the Army, should have been maintained; the antiaircraft batteries of the Army and similar shore batteries of the Navy, as well as additional antiaircraft artillery located on vessels of the fleet in Pearl Harbor, should have been manned and supplied with ammunition: and a high state of readiness of aircraft should have been in effect. None of these conditions was in fact inaugurated or maintained for the reason that the responsible commanders failed to consult and cooperate as to necessary action based upon the warnings and to adopt measures enjoined by the orders given them by the chiefs of the Army and Navy commands in Washington.

13. There were deficiencies in personnel, weapons, equipment, and facilities to maintain all the defenses on a war footing for extended periods of time. But these deficiencies should not have affected the decision of the responsible commanders as to the state of readiness to be prescribed.

14. The warning message of December 7, intended to reach both commanders in the field at about 7 a.m. Hawaiian time, December 7, 1941, was but an added precaution, in view of the warnings and orders previously issued. If the message had reached its destination at the time intended, it would still have been too late to be of substantial use. In view of the fact that the commanders had failed to take measures and make dispositions prior to the time of its anticipated receipt which would have been effective to warn of the attack or to meet it.

15. The failure of the officers in the War Department to observe that General Short, neither in his reply of November 27 to the Chief of Staff's message of that date, nor otherwise, had reported the measures taken by him, and the transmission of two messages concerned chiefly with sabotage which warned him not to resort to illegal methods against sabotage or espionage, and not to take measures which would alarm the civil population, and the failure to reply to his message of November 29 outlining in full all the actions he had taken against sabotage only, and referring to nothing else, tended to lead General Short to believe that what he had done met the requirements of the warnings and orders received by him.

16. The failure of the commanding general, Hawaiian Department, and the commander in chief, Pacific Fleet, to confer and cooperate with respect to the meaning of the warnings received and the measures necessary to comply with the orders given them under date of November 27, 1941, resulted largely from a sense of security due to the opinion prevalent in diplomatic, military, and naval circles, and in the public press, that any immediate attack by Japan would be in the Far East. The existence of such a view, however prevalent, did not relieve the commanders of the responsibility for the security of the Pacific Fleet and our most important outpost.

17. In the light of the warnings and directions to take appropriate action, transmitted to both commanders between November 27 and December 7, and the obligation under the system of coordination then in effect for joint cooperative action on their part, it was a dereliction of duty on the part of each of them not to consult and confer with the other respecting the meaning and intent of the warnings, and the appropriate measures of defense required by the imminence of hostilities. The attitude of each, that he was not required to inform himself of, and his lack of interest in, the measures undertaken by the other to carry out the responsibility assigned to such other under the provisions of the plans then in effect, demonstrated on the part of each a lack of appreciation of the responsibilities vested in them and inherent in their positions as commander in chief, Pacific Fleet, and commanding general, Hawaiian Department. [Emphasis added.]

18. The Japanese attack was a complete surprise to the commanders and they failed to make suitable dispositions to meet such an attack. Each failed properly to evaluate the seriousness of the situation. These errors of judgment were the effective causes for the success of the attack. [Emphasis added.]

19. Causes contributory to the success of the Japanese attack were: Disregard of international law and custom relating to declaration of war by the Japanese and the adherence by the United States to such laws and customs. Restrictions which prevented effective counter-espionage. Emphasis in the warning messages on the probability of aggressive Japanese action in the Ear East, and on anti-sabotage measures. Failure of the War Department to reply to the message relating to the anti-sabotage measures instituted by the commanding general, Hawaiian Department. Non-receipt by the interested parties, prior to the attack, of the warning message of December 7, 1941.

20. When the attack developed on the morning of December 7, 1941, the officers and enlisted men of both services were present in sufficient number and were in fit condition to perform any duty. Except for a negligible number, the use of intoxicating liquor on the preceding evening did not affect their efficiency.

21. Subordinate commanders executed their superiors' orders without question. They were not responsible for the state of readiness prescribed.

And to complete this day's editorial page, somehow summarizing the entirety of this sad time in world history, the Winston-Salem Journal remarks in a re-printed piece that the Tom Jimison series of reports on the outrageous conditions extant at the mental facility in Morganton was, based on independent accounts, worthy of credit, not diminished by either Mr. Jimison's having been a patient at the facility or his reputation for past sensational reporting. In short, it was difficult not to be leaned to beg the questions, both from Mr. Jimison's reports and from the news at large in the world, just who any longer, if anyone, was running the asylum and whether the inmates were not among the most sagacious of the lot of them putatively in charge.

Not unlike, in other words, many of the days we have experienced since September 11, 2001.

Let us hope it does indeed change. We have confidence that it will.

Like as the waves make towards the pebbled shore,
So do the minutes hasten to their end;
Each changing place with that which goes before,
In sequent toil all forwards do contend.

Here is a map of the Japanese operations to date since Pearl Harbor, with the lines radiating from a mythical point, not any specific headquarters of operation. The page also contains the Merry-Go-Round of the day, indicating the efforts of the President to combine party fundraising into one dinner, to show a unified home front politically. The Republicans balked, and business went on as usual with two separate dinners. Of course, nowadays, they don't bother with special Lincoln or Jackson day dinners. Everyday is a blueplate special dinner for fundraising somewhere by somebody, replete with gold and platinum filigree along the edges of the plates many times. We get the government for which we clamor and which we ultimately deserve.

The new Administration has promised daylight again, not kowtowing to special interests, but, pledging openness, full inclusivity. We believe and trust that it will be so.

And, we remember Ms. Walters saying to the new President just after the 1976 election, "Be gentle with us." We are not even going to go there again. For wethinks that turned into Saturday Night Fever. Never mind...

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